Our Wonderful "Another B-E-A-U-tiful Day" EBPC & Halloween Cruise ~ October 2018 ~ Completed!

Wow I’m late to the party but loving your report! Great mix of activities, ship shots and yummy yummy food! Thanks for sharing your trip!
 
Joining in halfway to say that I am really enjoying your TR! Great pics! It looks like you had a wonderful time. I hope to get to sail through the PC some day.

Can you tell me which hotel you stayed at in San Diego? I'm planning to take a cruise from there next year. TIA!
 
Joining in halfway to say that I am really enjoying your TR! Great pics! It looks like you had a wonderful time. I hope to get to sail through the PC some day.

Can you tell me which hotel you stayed at in San Diego? I'm planning to take a cruise from there next year. TIA!

Thanks for reading! Sure, we stayed at the Marriott SpringHill Suites San Diego Downtown/Bayfront. It was a very nice hotel. If you want to see the ship come in, make sure you get a bay or partial bay view. We were on the Northside of the property.
 


Day 9

Friday, October 26, 2018

Sea Day 6













I got up shortly before 8:00 AM and grabbed some laundry to take to the laundry room. I first tried deck 6, but no washing machines were available. The laundry screen told me that 3 machines were available on Deck 7, so I and another woman went up there and got them.

After returning to my room, I took some photos from the verandah. It was raining again.







We went to breakfast at Cabanas and then I went back to take care of moving the wash to the dryer.

The Photo Adventure today was to find pictures hung all over the ship and determine what was missing.



Some of the photos were hard. However, after walking up and down the staircases and halls of the ship for the last week, we pretty much knew where to find the photos.

At 9:35 AM, we walked by Mickey’s Mainsail to see that they had put out some new Panama Canal t-shirts. Not all sizes were available, but I found one in my size and bought it. We were told that they would be out on deck 9 at 6:00 AM the next morning with more. Then we headed back to take care of the laundry.

Capt. Puckett was giving his talk in the WD Theater today at 11:00 AM. He was talking about actually going through the canal. We were all very excited to go through. The most interesting thing that I found out was about the Panama Canal charges ships to go through. They are a privately owned company. Basically, they can charge whatever and however they want and there’s not one thing you can do about it, except not use the canal and add weeks to your transit by going around South America. Needless to say, most shipping companies pay the fee and go through. However, unless you pay a 10% privilege fee, you are not guaranteed a time to go through the canal and you could wait days to weeks before you can go through. The canal has what Capt. Puckett called the Ebay slot. Basically, the canal has 2 slots each day that a shipping company could bid on. Highest bidders got the slots. He broke down how DCL could be charged, by passenger, which would be about $148 per person and another approx.. $113 for each bunk not filled, or weight. The canal authority chose to charge DCL by weight. These are Capt. Puckett’s thoughts on what DCL was charged for this crossing. He doesn’t know what the actual amount was.







As a Material/Logistics Management graduate, I found the way they figured fees fascinating.

After his talk, we headed up to Cabanas for lunch. DNC ran into Dustin outside Cabanas and asked him what he was doing. He said he was hosting the CruisingSolo luncheon. DNC told him that if nobody showed up, he could join us “singles.” We ended up having a very nice lunch with Dustin.

The skies were clearing and it was shaping up to be a very nice day. For the first time in days, we actually saw land as we approached the coast of Panama.











At 1:45 PM, we made our way to the Promenade Lounge to play Pixar Trivia. We were second place. We also enjoyed the Drink of the Day, a High Tide. It was delicious.



To be continued. . .

 
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Day 9 (Continued)

As we approached Panama, we saw more and more ships anchored in Panama Bay awaiting their time to go through the Canal.











I was amazed at how large Panama City actually was and the number of skyscrapers it had!



You could barely see the Bridge of the Americas that we would go under tomorrow morning.



We also noticed the mud churned up when the Wonder dropped anchor.



We went to the front of the ship and saw a crew member hoisting the colors, as it were.





We went to our stateroom to start getting ready for dinner and the fueling operations commenced with the fuel ship literally under our balcony. It would take about 8 hours to fuel the ship.





We walked by the The Brace Boys on our way to Dinner at Tritons.









I had the Empanada for an appetizer and the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup.





I ordered the Chicken Breast Kiev for my entrée.



I never noticed Sebastian holding the wall sconce before.



Dessert.







I ordered the Canadian Ice Cream Sundae. Yum!!



Dinner finished about 7:00 so DH and I headed down to the Crown & Fin for Movie Tune Trivia to grab a table. The place was empty, but soon filled up to capacity. Tara was supposed to join us, but she never came. DNC, DNJ and DNM went to a workshop with JunNk in Azure. In the meantime, 2 ladies asked to join us. We found out they were from Arizona as well. They played with us, but we were all bad and hardly knew any of the movies they played. Oh well, can’t win them all.

After Trivia, I walked by the JunNk workshop that was ending. Somebody in the audience suggested that All That (who was in the audience) go up and dance with them. JunNk thought it was great and they could be called “All That JunNk” Then somebody said they could include the jump ropers so they became “All That JunNk Rope.” While JunNk played the jump ropers jumped and then the guys clogged. It was amazing.


We then headed to the WD Theater. Natalie in her usual pre-show address informed us that we would be going under the bridge and entering the canal zone between 5:45 and 6:00 AM tomorrow morning. I guess we were getting up early! We would start going through the first lock at about 7:00 AM.

I was really looking forward to tonight’s show at the WD Theater. Evidently, the cast was given free rein to come up with their own show. They chose to sing music with a “Halloween” theme. They worked with the technicians and came up with ‘An Evening of Spooktacular Music.” I am here to tell you that it was phenomenal.

They started with a song from ‘Little Shop of Horrors” and went to a cast member singing “Witchcraft.” Then 2 cast members came out and blew “Defying Gravity” from Wicked out of the park, it was so amazing. The cast also sang a song from Sweeny Todd, two cast members sang “Sound of Silence,” 3 cast members each sang “Be Prepared”, “Mother Knows Best” and “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” A couple of cast members sang “Phantom of the Opera” and the girl belted out those high notes spectacularly. They also sang ‘Superstition”, a selection from Hocus Pocus and ended with the entire cast doing Michael Jackson’s Thriller. OMG, the cast was absolutely amazing and so talented. I wish we could have seen more from the cast, but they only did 3 shows the entire cruise. I’ll explain why later.

Anyway, after that incredible show, we went to catch JunNk’s adult only show.





The guys were hilarious and had some fun with the members of the audience. But the best thing was when the guys encouraged Jo to participate in a dance off with the guy who taps and break dances. Anyway, the guy would do moves, flips and spins that Jo copied exactly. Even the guys from JunNk were surprised. The best part, however, was when Jo told us that Natalie’s mother was on the cruise and she had brought Natalie’s old tap shoes. Well, she also matched the JunNk guy step for step while tapping.


It was awesome! Needless to say, they ran a little over their time. Fortunately, Jo did a quick version of the game Pops. I stayed for the game, but did not stay for the 2nd JunNK show. DNC said that it was a lot shorter than the first.

It was time for bed.



Next: Through the Canal we go!
 
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I’m enjoying your TR. We did the WBPC in April and had a good cruise. I see some familiar faces in your photos of the staff. Great memories!
 


Great report! We did the west bound in April and am reliving our trip through your report, amazing how many of the cast members are the same! My daughter is in love with Mitch, or mitch-ee-moo as all the kids called him.
 
I’m enjoying your TR. We did the WBPC in April and had a good cruise. I see some familiar faces in your photos of the staff. Great memories!

Thaks for reading! We're hoping to see some of these guys on our Alaskan cruise in July.

Great report! We did the west bound in April and am reliving our trip through your report, amazing how many of the cast members are the same! My daughter is in love with Mitch, or mitch-ee-moo as all the kids called him.

We loved Mitch, in fact DNM wants to marry him!
 
A couple of new things I noticed on this cruise was the addition of a heat resistant pad I found in the drawer with the hair dryer. It was great being able to put my curling iron on it while it warmed and then cooled after I used it. Lon would also come in and wrap the cord with the a little velcro strap when he set up the room in the morning.

 
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Speaking of those Velcro strips, they used those to wrap all my charger cords, even the HDMI cable I attached to the TV for viewing from my iPad.
 
Speaking of those Velcro strips, they used those to wrap all my charger cords, even the HDMI cable I attached to the TV for viewing from my iPad.
After the first night, Von would unplug our phone charger and wrap it with a velcro strip. I just wanted to keep my charger plugged in, so we just started putting our cords in the drawer, so he would't wrap it up anymore.
 
On the Fantasy last month I found the cooling mat (what an awesome idea) and our room host started wrapping our cables together etc with the little velcro strips. I thought he was a genius :rotfl2: Guess it's the norm now :thumbsup2 (though he really WAS an excellent room host, I don't want to take any credit away from him!)
 
Enjoying your trip report. My DS has one more year of high school then I will finally be able to do the PC! lol. We are on the Alaska cruise with you next year- can't wait to go back to Alaska with some new ports.
 
Enjoying your trip report. My DS has one more year of high school then I will finally be able to do the PC! lol. We are on the Alaska cruise with you next year- can't wait to go back to Alaska with some new ports.
Believe me, it was worth the wait. We're looking forward to going back to Alaska too, especially since we had to cancel our Alaska cruise last year.
 
I loved the heat mat too, good addition and I'm sure it will save some scorch marks. The velcro strips were new to us too, but handy and it kept all the cords much more tidy.

Fun day in the books and the main event coming up!! Looking forward to hearing all about your day.
 
Day 10

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Panama Canal





I set my alarm for 5:30 AM to be up on deck to go under the bridge. I woke up at 5:20 AM feeling the ship moving. We had been anchored overnight. I quickly woke DH up and we got dressed to head up on deck. We were on the move.









Due to the way Panama City is situated, it is the only place in the world where the sun actually rises over the Pacific Ocean. The sunrise was glorious.





We approached the bridge. The deck was already very crowded and there was no room at the front of the ship. Crew members were serving coffee and Danish at the front of the ship on Deck 10 and with carts on deck 10. You could even get a Bloody Mary. I found a place at the rail on the starboard side. Our neighbors joined me shortly.







On the other side.





One of the many tug boats that would assist throughout the day.



Approaching the first Cocoli Locks,





The Panama flag is raised on the mast. See anything wrong?




Before we started going through the locks, I ran down to deck 9 to see what they had for special souvenirs. They didn’t have anything new except more shirts. Unfortunately they didn’t have DNJ’s size.

At about 6:30 AM, we are waiting outside the locks to go through.



To be continued. . .
 
Day 10 (Continued)

At about 6:43 AM, the first gate opens and we start entering the lock.







A good look at the double gates.





The water reservoir system that fills the locks. Only rain water is used and recycled. The filling of the locks works solely with gravity.



Tying us up in the first lock.



Don’t have to worry about the ship scraping the sides in these locks.



The Panama flag on the mast. Did anybody guess what was wrong with the Panama flag?



Yep, it was upside down! But as soon as it was pointed out to an officer, they were on their phones getting it fixed pronto.

This flag denotes that a pilot is onboard.



Water in the lock is rising.





The gate opens for us to move into the 2nd lock.



Moving in the 2nd lock.



Once we were in the 2nd lock, DNC, DNJ, DNM and I ran down to Deck 4 to get a closer look. It had started to rain just a little. CMs started handing out free ponchos on the upper decks.



DCL had photographers on the locks. They would wave their hands to get people to move together on the ship and then take their picture. As we were going to the next lock, they photographers would get in a van and drive to the next lock.



Passing the observation tower.







To be continued. . .
 
Day 10 (Continued)

More flags were added.



At about 8:04 AM, were going in to the 3rd lock. It was so cool to watch the water rise.















As we were about to leave the last lock, I got the photographers attention and waived for them to get together and took their photo!



At 8:25 AM, we started heading out of the third lock into the approach channel.



At 8:30 AM, the tugs pulled away.

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The last gates.



Heading in to the channel.



You can see the old Miraflores Locks.



A ship going in to the Pedro Miguel locks.



At about 9:00 AM, I made my way to the front of the ship too see us approach the Centennial Bridge.




Another ship going through the Pedro Miguel locks.





The concierge level seemed pretty empty. I can certainly see why they need so much premium space on the ship, but I’m not bitter or anything. :rolleyes:



At 9:07 AM, we’re getting closer to the bridge





At 9:13 AM, we were out of the approach channel.



At 9:18 AM we were heading under the bridge.





To be continued. . .
 

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