14 day Panama questions

[DCW]

Hello,
Looking at booking wb Panama 2019. We have never sailed for more than 7 days.

On a longer cruise do the menus and entertainment options repeat or is it different each day?

 

[lorimay]

Hello,
Looking at booking wb Panama 2019. We have never sailed for more than 7 days.

On a longer cruise do the menus and entertainment options repeat or is it different each day?

Menus do change, there are no repeats.
Disney brings in new entertainment throughout the cruise.
I love the longer cruises, they are so many extra fun things offered.
We got to take a tour of the Walt Disney Theater and it was so cool to see, we loved it.
I have heard people say they offer ballroom dancing lesson, hoping we can do this on our Panama Canal cruise in 2019.

 

[Geomom]

Check out the personal navigators on disneycruiselineblog to see what they have offered in the past:
Here's the one from last April:
http://disneycruiselineblog.com/201...ma-canal-cruise-port-canaveral-april-23-2017/

 

[darnheather]

Also there are several very good trip reports here in the Dis and online elsewhere. I've been having a lot of fun reading them while I wait for my booking window. It looks like there are far more casual opportunities to meet characters, classes like dancing, karaoke, and educational talks about the canal.

 

[MinnesotaMouseketeers]

Menus do change, there are no repeats.
Disney brings in new entertainment throughout the cruise.
I love the longer cruises, they are so many extra fun things offered.
We got to take a tour of the Walt Disney Theater and it was so cool to see, we loved it.
I have heard people say they offer ballroom dancing lesson, hoping we can do this on our Panama Canal cruise in 2019.

What lorimay said.

But I also want to add that Disney will have a retired Panama Canal pilot on-board and he/she will give presentations leading up to and going through the canal. Besides giving you the history of the PC; ours had some very good and entertaining stories about what it is like to be a pilot on the PC. Wife and I were on the WB cruise back in 2011.

Can anyone that has taken the cruise recently, tell me how clean is the water? Because of all the work going during our cruise to allow the bigger ships to navigate the canal; the water was a brown color from all the dirt and silt flowing into the water. Someone asked about that and the pilot on-board told us that the water use to be some of the cleanest, clear water. Have the hillsides healed enough so no more dirt and silt is running into the canal from the rainfalls? My wife and I would love to take this cruise again but we wanted to wait until traces of the work that took place are gone. And looking forward to seeing/navigating through the new locks.

 

[JRV]

We did the 2015 westbound Panama Canal cruise and loved it so much we are going to do it again in 2019. As said above the dinner menus were rotated and additional entertainment was brought on board. They did offer ballroom dancing lessons on sea days. They had a cover group that would perform as The Beach Boys out by the pool during the day and the Beatles at night in the theater, they were excellent. When we cruised the ship was about 2/3 full and some restaurants did not even have a second dinner seating. Our rotation did not have a second seating and it was great the waiters would hang around and talk with us as they were getting the restaurant ready for breakfast in the morning. There were also not many children on board as school is in session and its 2 weeks long. We were a group of 10 people ranging from 87 years old to 6 years old, everyone said it was the best vacation that they had done (most in the group had done previous Disney cruises)

 

[darnheather]

@JRV I would love to see the ship only 2/3 full! However, this cruise in 2019 is looking to be very popular. It's a long time off though so maybe some will change their minds.

 

[*pixie*]

We did the 2015 westbound Panama Canal cruise and loved it so much we are going to do it again in 2019. As said above the dinner menus were rotated and additional entertainment was brought on board. They did offer ballroom dancing lessons on sea days. They had a cover group that would perform as The Beach Boys out by the pool during the day and the Beatles at night in the theater, they were excellent. When we cruised the ship was about 2/3 full and some restaurants did not even have a second dinner seating. Our rotation did not have a second seating and it was great the waiters would hang around and talk with us as they were getting the restaurant ready for breakfast in the morning. There were also not many children on board as school is in session and its 2 weeks long. We were a group of 10 people ranging from 87 years old to 6 years old, everyone said it was the best vacation that they had done (most in the group had done previous Disney cruises)

We were on this cruise with our then 17 and 14-year-olds. One of our best vacations ever. We are planning on going again in 2020, but will probably just be DH and I, as both kids will be out of high school and most likely won't be able to make it work with their schedules. I will never regret pulling them out of school for those 16 days!!

 

[lorimay]

We were on this cruise with our then 17 and 14-year-olds. One of our best vacations ever. We are planning on going again in 2020, but will probably just be DH and I, as both kids will be out of high school and most likely won't be able to make it work with their schedules. I will never regret pulling them out of school for those 16 days!!

A little off topic but, I agree sometimes taking the kids out of school for a family vacation is ok. We did it once a year when our kids were growing up.
My daughter took her kids out for 5 days last month for a cruise on the Fantasy for their daddy's 30th birthday, we all had a great time.
A week after we get back, she received a letter from the school that she had to go to a meeting to explain the absences. The letter even said that the state attorney could subpoena the kids attendance records because of the absences. We were shocked. She called and handled on the phone but really, they are their kids.

 

[ahain]

A little off topic but, I agree sometimes taking the kids out of school for a family vacation is ok. We did it once a year when our kids were growing up.
My daughter took her kids out for 5 days last month for a cruise on the Fantasy for their daddy's 30th birthday, we all had a great time.
A week after we get back, she received a letter from the school that she had to go to a meeting to explain the absences. The letter even said that the state attorney could subpoena the kids attendance records because of the absences. We were shocked. She called and handled on the phone but really, they are their kids.

We took our DD out of school twice for cruises, but both times we provided the school and all of her teacher with written notification of our trip MONTHS in advance and asked them to provide her with homework assignments that she would complete prior to the trip if possible. We had absolutely no issues with the school either time.

Just curious if your daughter advised the school in advance? Your post makes it sound like they just didn't show up for school for a week?

 

[lorimay]

We took our DD out of school twice for cruises, but both times we provided the school and all of her teacher with written notification of our trip MONTHS in advance and asked them to provide her with homework assignments that she would complete prior to the trip if possible. We had absolutely no issues with the school either time.

Just curious if your daughter advised the school in advance? Your post makes it sound like they just didn't show up for school for a week?

She did and we thought that MAYBE after she made the call to the office something happened and it was never marked. Its a big school with 1200 students, those office ladies are so busy. It was right after being off a week for Irma too, so that didn't help the situation. The timing of course was perfect

 

[*pixie*]

We went in and spoke with administration before we even booked the cruise. We were fortunate that both admin and teachers encouraged us to go and everyone felt the experience would far exceed any lost classroom time. As our kids are getting older, we are so thankful we did several 10+ day vacations with them. Our family vacations are probably going to have to change to more long weekend type vacations once both of them are out of college and getting settled in their careers.

 

[jdb in AZ]

There were some teens on our Panama Canal cruise a few years ago. We saw them studying up on deck, and taking notes during the Canal Pilot's lecture. I assume they also studied in their staterooms.

 

[GPaLarry]

We only had about 200 kids on our WBTA a year ago. Most of them were pre-school and the clubs on ship were nearly deserted.

 

[BartmanLA]

ON this year's 2017 WBPC cruise they said there were 1875 total passengers on board, out of a possible 2700, the crew commented that were "short" about 1000 kids, the total amount of kids on board (of age for the kids clubs) was about 350. Plenty of opportunity for the CM to interact with the kids in nearly a 1 to 1 situation, in fact one parent told me that a Cast Member called to find out if their daughter would be coming to the Oceaneer's Lab because they had some other children that wants some other kids to play with! It was glorious and wonderful for them they had a fantastic time and there wasn't any problems with Meet & Greet's or photo sessions, (well maybe from some of the adults! hehe) We just booked for the 2019 WBPC again, we can't wait!

 

[darnheather]

Just booked for the 2019 WBPC. @AquaDame looks like we got your former stateroom 6583! My girls will be 13 and 17 at sail time. I homeschool. We will only take three days for Christmas break in order to not have to study during the trip. In the two months before we cruise they will study the canal, the ports, and the countries we'll visit. On the ship I'll expect them to go to the lectures or watch them in the stateroom.

 

[MinnesotaMouseketeers]

ON this year's 2017 WBPC cruise they said there were 1875 total passengers on board, out of a possible 2700, the crew commented that were "short" about 1000 kids, the total amount of kids on board (of age for the kids clubs) was about 350. Plenty of opportunity for the CM to interact with the kids in nearly a 1 to 1 situation, in fact one parent told me that a Cast Member called to find out if their daughter would be coming to the Oceaneer's Lab because they had some other children that wants some other kids to play with! It was glorious and wonderful for them they had a fantastic time and there wasn't any problems with Meet & Greet's or photo sessions, (well maybe from some of the adults! hehe) We just booked for the 2019 WBPC again, we can't wait!

This was the same thing on our WBPC cruise in 2011. Very strange having so few kids on board. We were seated with two other couples during our dining rotation and one of the women made mention that it was strange that we were the young crowd in the restaurants. I think most of the people dining were retirement age.

 

[JRV]

Just booked our 2019 westbound Panama Canal Cruise. Today was first day for silver members. It took over 5 hours to get through to Disney and book our trip (we went through Costco travel)!!!!
It’s going to be a long 16 months!

 

[Mr. EPCOT]

Hoping to book this real soon! Always wanted to see the Panama Canal, and two weeks on a ship sounds like heaven. That's a long enough cruise that I might even finally want to take advantage of the movie theater, haha

 

[darnheather]

Is anyone else excited to start a meet and great thread? I feel like there will be more than enough time to do tastings, trivia, or have lunch together as a group. On our first cruise I felt like the time I spent with my meet and great group just made me stressed out because there were so many things I wanted to see and do. I skipped all of them this last cruise and I kind of regretted it. Since I cruise as single parent I really want to meet some other adults next time even if it's just to sit by the pool with a drink and chat.