Our First Ever Real Vacation, Mexican Riviera Cruise June 1-8, 2008 - Page 5 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Our presenter was Agneszka from Poland. She was a very sweet, pretty girl and very entertaining!
She's the one that did the martini tasting on our last cruise! She was the bartender in Sessions and always made Sulley's Ketl One martini perfectly and taught him how to make the Moneypenny off the menu so he could make them for me at home!! Did she tell the story about her shaker? We really enjoyed her presentation! I hope she's on board when we get there in August!
I have LOVED reading about your trip! We are on the cruise in August and wondered if you could offer any guidance on what to wear...I'm having trouble understanding the distinction between 'formal' and 'semi-formal' - both sound pretty dressy to me!
I want us to be dressed appropriately, but don't want to invest in a whole new wardrobe!!
I have LOVED reading about your trip! We are on the cruise in August and wondered if you could offer any guidance on what to wear...I'm having trouble understanding the distinction between 'formal' and 'semi-formal' - both sound pretty dressy to me!
I want us to be dressed appropriately, but don't want to invest in a whole new wardrobe!!
I'm glad you are enjoying the report.
There was quite a range of dress on both nights. Theo wore a tux on formal and a suit on semi-formal (he likes to dress up). I wore a skirt on formal and nice slacks and top on semi-formal (I don't like to dress up). The main difference I noticed was that the range on formal night was from tuxedos and evening gowns to nice slacks (or at least clean dockers) and a dress shirt. On semi-formal night the range was from suits and dresses to hawaiian shirts and decent slacks. I would feel comfortable dressing anywhere in those ranges. Dress was even more flexible with kids, anything in good condition other than t-shirts or bathing suits.
I forgot to mention that during the previous night I lost my watch. I had it on the nightstand next to the bed so that I could check the time whenever I woke up. At one point during the night I reached for the watch to check the time and it fell off. Since it was way too dark to look for it and I didn't want to wake Theo, I just left it for morning. I looked all over for it in the morning and couldn't find it. I pulled out the nightstand and lifted up the bed, but it was nowhere to be found. Mind you, I wasn't too worried. It was just a $19.99 sport watch from Target. But it was the principle of the thing. I just couldn't figure out where it had gone. It was like the Twilight Zone. After a while I got tired of searching and decided to try again later.
After dinner we headed for shutters and found our welcome aboard photos and opted to purchase a photo plan. The way this works is they give you a little card printed with the number of photos you have pre-purchased. Then whenever you want to buy a photo, you take it up to the counter and they mark off one of the numbers on the card. I know some people like to stack all their pictures and then look through them and decide at the end, but I found it easier to just buy what I wanted each day. I'm glad I did because the last day not only was it very busy at shutters all day, but also I was very busy all day too.
We brought the photos back to the room and checked the Navigator for what we wanted to do that evening. Theo wanted to watch the Basketball Eastern Conference Finals and try the Wii Bowling Challenge in Diversions. The girls and I opted for the Golden Mickeys. But first I remembered to take pictures of our doors dressed up for formal night:
We went early to get good seats and watch the red carpet arrivals. Once the interviews began on the red carpet Chloe ran off to get in line. The rest of us sat and watched. Sure enough a few minutes later there was Chloe being interviewed on the big screen. That was so cool and I kicked myself that I didn't remember to bring my camera. We LOVED the show. I think it was Daphne's favorite show of the week. I thought that being only 5 she might fall asleep, but she was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed for the whole thing.
After the show we got in line for a picture with Mickey before heading to the “Golden Mickeys After Party” in Studio Sea.
Daphne and Chloe wanted to stay, but Lucy and Cecilia were turning back into pumpkins. So I left Daphne momentarily in Chloe's care and ran Lucy and Cecilia down to the room. Theo was already back from Diversions and volunteered to go back up to the party with the reds and I was grateful to stay behind. I took the opportunity to gather and pack the laundry from first two days. After thirty minutes or so they came back too, and it was off to bed for all of us. The towel animals Benny made for us tonight were a giraffe and a swan.
Dressing the doors for formal night... an interesting concept. I'll have to pass that one on to DW. She has ideas of changing door decorations each day. The formal pictures are very nice , and thanks for explaining how Shutters works and the formal attire possibilities. That clears up some gray areas for me.
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
When we woke up at around 9:00am on day three, we were already anchored in Cabo San Lucas.
On the agenda today: the Dolphin Kids excursion at 1:30 pm for Daphne and the Dolphin Swim excursion at 2:30 for Theo and the other kids. We got the kids bathed and dressed (which went fairly quickly with two split bathrooms) and managed to make our way up to the breakfast buffet in Parrot Cay by 10:00 am. They were serving the usual breakfast buffet fare and it was all good.
After breakfast the kids went to their clubs. Since the older kids were doing Wacky Relays on the Wide World of Sport Deck, Cecilia (with her broken arm) opted to accompany Daphne to her club for Nemo's Challenge of the Sea. The counselors said she was welcome to join them but that we should pick her up when the little ones headed up to Topsiders for lunch. She could do activities with them, but not transition with them or eat with them. Good to know. Theo and I went back to the cabin to get things ready for the dolphin excursions. On a dolphin swim they ask you not to wear any lotions, perfumes or sunscreen. Since all my girls are very fair skinned, I wanted to make sure I had all the swim suits laid out with sun UV resistant swim shirts and hats.
I also took the opportunity to get our door dressed up for Mexico.
I forgot to mention yesterday that at some point during the day the dry mouth side effects off the transderm patch I was wearing became unbearable. My mouth was so dry that even with sipping water constantly my throat was sore and my voice was becoming hoarse. So I took it off and just used Bonine and ginger pills. These worked great. I took them every day and never got seasick, not even on the last night when the boat was really rocking.
After a while I went up to check on the kids to see what they wanted to do for lunch. I figured Daphne would be ready to be checked out, but I was wrong. She had made a friend and wanted to go with the club to Topsiders for Lunch! The rest of us were feeling really lazy so we went back to the room and ordered room service. The lunch arrived very quickly and it was great! Theo had a BLT and fries, I had a Tuna Sandwich and Fiesta Salad, Chloe had Lasagna, Cecilia had Chicken Noodle Soup and the All Hands on Deck cheese and cracker plate, and Lucy had the Chicken Noodle and a grilled cheese sandwich. We all had chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I can definitely recommend room service for lunch. It was good and very relaxing.
After lunch it was time to get Daphne and get ready for the "Dolphin Kids" excursion. The ticket said to meet on the dock at 1:30. The information said to leave at least 15 minutes early but having a young child with me, and not knowing how exactly how long it would take to get to get there, I decided to give myself 30 minutes. At 1:00 Daphne and I headed down to the tender dock on Deck 1. We waited only two or three minutes for a tender boat and climbed aboard.
The forward tender dock on the Magic taken from the tender boat.
I asked the lady in front of us to take a picture of Daphne and me.
The tender docks on the Magic:
The water was a little choppy but the ride over was scenic and pleasant. Cabo is a small town at the southern tip of Baja California. From the boat we had a great view of Los Arcos natural rock formations and "Lover's Beach" (only accessible by boat) at Land's End.
We could also see people out enjoying their excursions.
Beautiful resorts and coastline.
The most amazing thing to me was all the pelicans. Where I live in Southern California we see pelicans at the shore every once and a while, but here they were all over the place and apparently very used to people because they would sit quite contentedly only three or four feet away.
They were even swimming right next to the soldiers with big guns:
We climed onto the dock and found our meeting place very quickly.
I looked at my watch and the time was only 1:10pm. I had left way too early! Fortunately there was plenty to look at in the meantime and plenty of shade. The weather was really lovely. It was about 90 F with a strong cool breeze. In the sun it was too hot, but in the shade it was quite nice.
At around 1:40 or so we began our walk to the Cabo Dolphin Center. Described on the DCL website as a “scenic-five minute walk,” it was indeed scenic and not even five minutes. You could see the center from where we were standing on the dock and the walk couldn't have been more than three minutes.
There were people at every port offering to let you hold their iguana for a dollar.
The Cabo Dolphins center. The cacti lining the lawn is the blue agave which tequilla is made from.
At the center we checked in and received wrist bands.
We then had another long, although not entirely unpleasant wait in a courtyard on some benches under umbrellas, but Daphne was getting really bored. The concrete wall of the dolphin tank right next to the courtyard was about 25 feet high with stairs leading up to the top. We couldn't see anything at the top but we could hear splashing and cheering. After a while the group before us finished and came down. A while after that the trainers came down and began bringing groups up.
On top there was an area with tables and umbrella where the parents of the Dolphin Kids could watch and wait. Looking around I was impressed with the Cabo Dolphin facility. It looked new, and was large and very clean. The pool was shaped like half of a giant oval about 50 ft. across and 75 ft. long. Although most of it was deep, there was a 10 – 15 ft wide lip or shelf around the edge where the water was only about 6 inches deep. The trainer/guide took the ten kids in our group over to an area at the far edge of the pool where he fitted them with life vests and stored their shoes. He brought them back to the area of the pool right in front of our tables and sat them down on the edge of the pool. There were five other groups spread out around the edge of the pool, each had its own dolphin, trainer, and photographer taking hundreds of pictures (we weren't allowed to take any).
The trainer was good with kids and was able to coax even the most shy ones to participate. They took turns, petting, feeding, and hugging the dolphin. Finally they each got a little mini-ride. The trainer had the dolphin turn over on it's back. With a child resting on its belly holding on to its flippers, the dolphin swam a small, slow semi-circle. It was really cute and the kids loved it.
Next the dolphin “sang” for the kids, gently splashed them and did some cool jumping tricks. Lastly the dolphin came up onto the lip area where the kids gathered around in a group and got to pet him for a long time. I was really impressed with this facility and with how friendly and well-trained the dolphins were and would definitely recommend this excursion.
When it was over the kids went back to the life jacket area where staff helped them take off the life jackets, find their shoes, and rinse off. I can't remember whether we brought a towel from the ship or if they were given a towel to dry off, but I do remember her having a towel and drying off. The trainers then led us down the stairs where we saw Theo and the big girls waiting for their dolphin swim. We chatted with them for a bit before going to a computer kiosk area to view the professional photos. The photos were really good (the photographer did a good job), but gosh were they expensive! Of course being familiar with park photographs, I expected them to be expensive, but they were even more expensive than that! The options were $25 for one 6x8, $99 for 8 on a CD-ROM, or $249 for all of the photos taken at that session on a disk! And of course you have to buy one! You've just paid out the nose for your darling child to play with dolphins and weren't allowed to take any pictures! So here is my $25 Daphne with dolphin photo.
On the way out Daphne saw a really cute Cabo Dolphins t-shirt that she wanted for a souvenir. Fortunately that was a much more reasonable $11.
Next: Photo Shoot and Dolphin Swim
__________________
Sue • PassPorter Street Team Volunteer
Last edited by sueh818; 07-02-2008 at 12:37 PM..
Reason: typos
Love the photo! Sounds like a lovely excursion! We went to Discovery Cove and at least there you could take photos, but well back from what was going on in the water!
It sounds like you are having a wonderful cruise! can't wait to hear more!
I'm glad you wrote about the Dolphin Kids - we are considering that for our West. Car. cruise in Cozumel. I'm pretty sure it'll be about the same (parents can't take pictures, $$$, etc). Thanks for the experiences!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
]
the show. I think it was Daphne's favorite show of the week. I thought that being only 5 she might fall asleep, but she was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed for the whole thing.
PassPorter Guide Author
I'll have to pass that one on to DW. She has ideas of changing door decorations each day. The formal pictures are very nice 
, and thanks 
for explaining how Shutters works and the formal attire possibilities. That clears up some gray areas for me.
Can't wait to hear more
More please 
Linear Mode
