20th Anniversary Baja Cruise and Disneyland Visit - October 2017

MarbleBob

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 20, 2003
20th Anniversary Baja Cruise and Disneyland Visit - October 2017

Hello everyone! We just returned from a fabulous 4-Night Baja Cruise on the Disney Wonder and a visit to Disneyland. We had so much fun, and we got to experience so many amazing things. I can't wait to share our trip with you!!!

In summary, this was a parents only trip, celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. The cruise departed from San Diego on Sunday, October 1, stopped in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and returned on Thursday morning, October 5. Then we explored the SoCal coast for a day as we drove up to Anaheim from San Diego. And ultimately spent a few days in Disneyland before coming home on Sunday, October 8.

There are a ton of highlights from the trip, but some of my most favorite experiences include:
  • seeing the various changes on the reimagined Disney Wonder
  • A private glass bottom boat tour of Cabo San Lucas
  • Viewing the Rolly Crump exhibit at the Oceanside Museum of Art
  • Visiting the Kevin and Jody exhibit at Pop Comics
  • Spending a morning in Disneyland with Bob Penfield and seeing his window off Main Street. (Bob was the last cast member to retire who actually worked on Disneyland's opening day!)



About Us:

Stephanie and I are pretty big Disney fans, and have been so most of our lives. We grew up watching the classic Disney movies and cartoons. Our families had various Disney books, records, VHS Tapes, etc. We both went on family vacations to Walt Disney World (she had gone four times and I had been twice). And so on... When we were first dating in college, Stephanie mentioned that as a little girl, she dreamed of going to WDW on her honeymoon. Needless to say, we didn't consider any other honeymoon destinations when we got married!!!

We tied the knot on December 27, 1997 and headed to WDW about a week later. We had an incredible trip with so many awesome experiences and magical memories. We caught the bug on that trip, and we've been visiting Disney parks and resorts ever since!

Here are a few photos from our honeymoon trip, nearly 20 years ago:



Over the years, we've become bigger and bigger fans of pretty much all things Disney. The majority of our vacations have been Disney-centric. And at home, we love reading about Disney history, watching documentaries, listening to podcasts, watching vlogs, etc. It seems that whatever stress and hardships we've encountered in our 20 years of marriage, that thinking about Disney (and our happy places) always seems to help us be more optimistic and cheerful. (Stephanie is a breast cancer survivor and I've had some career ups and downs.) And then when times have been good (which has been more often than not), being a Disney fan makes life even that much more fun!!!

Here are a few photos of our family enjoying the parks and resorts through the years.



Trip Background:

We don't go on very many trips without our kids, and we typically don't do much for our anniversaries. However, we decided to celebrate this milestone with a parents only vacation! We considered various options, including non-Disney stuff like Yosemite, Las Vegas, snow skiing in Colorado, etc.… but we pretty quickly said to ourselves, "Who are we fooling? It's got to be something Disney related! We started off our marriage with a Disney trip, why not celebrate it with another one?!?!?"

We thought about re-doing our honeymoon trip to WDW, going on a Disney Cruise in the Caribbean, another trip to Disneyland, etc. Those were all great ideas, but they just didn't feel right. We've done all that before… how can we make this even more special? The idea of going on a DCL cruise out of San Diego sounded pretty awesome. (We've been on two Disney cruises in the Caribbean before, so the idea of cruising somewhere new was appealing. And we've never cruised without kids before!)

We waffled back and forth on different itineraries out of San Diego, but we eventually settled on this 4-night cruise to Cabo San Lucas. Thinking that we could take a shorter cruise and then use the extra nights to travel up to Disneyland for a couple days. We thought about it off and on for a while, and the longer we thought about it, the more we liked the idea… even if it meant celebrating a couple months early.



Anyway, that's the story… We booked within a day or two of the cruise becoming available, and we waited patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) ever since!
 
Day 1 - Saturday, 9/30/17 - Arriving in San Diego

Yahoo, after a busy week at work and lots of last minute packing, the day was finally here!!!! We had a leisurely morning, said our goodbyes, and then headed off to the airport around 11am to catch a 2pm flight. (And if you are wondering about the kids… the plan was for my parents to come spend the first half of the week with them, and then Stephanie's parents would come spend the second half with them. )



We stopped at the Chick-Fil-A drive through on the way to the airport. We arrived, parked our car, and made it through security all without any issues. The flight was smooth and relaxing, and before we knew it, we were descending into San Diego…



So yeah, the cruise was departing Sunday afternoon, and we arrived around 4:15 PM the day before. This left the remainder of the day for us to explore San Diego a bit. (Neither of us had been here before.) We reserved a room at the Marina Inn & Suites for $80.14 total for one night. It's about a 10 minute walk to cruise ship. We thought about other, fancier hotels close to the port (like the Wyndham across the street from the dock), but they were running at least $175 at the time we booked (and actually a bit more than that, if I recall correctly.) I found this place on Yelp and it seemed to have really good reviews with respect to the price/value. And we didn't plan on spending much time in the room anyway, so we decided to put that $100 savings towards our evening in town!

The other thing… how are we going to get to the hotel? (Well, motel actually.) They didn't have a shuttle. We thought about Uber, a taxi, and taking the good ole' bus. But we looked on Google maps, and it was only about two miles from the airport to the hotel, mostly walking along the waterfront. Neither of us had been to San Diego before and we liked the idea of seeing as much as possible…. Plus the weather was absolutely gorgeous. So we committed to walking it!



We didn't regret it in the least! The landscaping and pathways along the water were well maintained and very nice. Not like a traditional straight "city" sidewalk. And the views were amazing!









About half way there, we started hearing a thumping bass noise off in the distance. At first, I thought it was a generator or something. And then I thought it was someone's yacht or something out in the water. But it got significantly louder and louder, until we realized that there must be a concert going on the waterfront down by the port. How cool!

As we came closer and closer, we realized this not just a simple concert, but a fairly large music festival with multiple stages… all along the waterfront. Hipsters everywhere! (I Googled it, and it was the CRSSD Music Festival. A pretty big deal, I guess. http://crssdfest.com/talent/)

Turns out our room was literally across the street from the main stage. Ha! Luckily for us, the music was winding down for the night when we were ready to go to sleep, so it wasn't a nuisance or anything.

(The following photo was taken the next morning. The music stage is behind the light post in the right 1/3 of the photo. You can also see one of the Disney Wonder's red smoke stacks in the middle left 1/3 of the photo.)



We had no issues checking into our room. We pretty much dropped off our bags, snapped a few photos, and were on our way!







Considering the room was $80 and change (taxes included), we really weren't expecting much. But it was actually quite nice all things considered. I wouldn't want to spend a whole week there, but for a night or two, I wouldn't hesitate to stay there again.

OK. Let's get a move on. How about some dinner? (It was about 7pm on our internal clocks.)

We had Yelped around for places to eat before we arrived. We were on the edge of the Little Italy neighborhood and narrowed it down to a couple Italian restaurants. We ultimately settled on Napizza, which was a few blocks away. http://www.na-pizza.com/ It had some fantastic reviews/photos and sounded pretty good at the time.



The Yelpers were right. This place is a winner!!! I wouldn't hesitate to eat here again for an instant. Great selection of pizza. Great taste and fantastic crust. Great prices/value. Great/fun service. And amazing location. Really, what more can you ask for in a pizza joint? Haha!



It's more of a counter service restaurant. The pizzas are partially baked, and then your slice is finished off to order. They had some great specials too. Anyway, you picked out your pizza slices (they had salads and stuff too), ordered your drinks, paid at the counter, and then took a seat while you waited for them to bring it out. Ultimately, it was like $16 for three large slices, a root beer, and a cup of water. Great value!





It was such a pleasant evening, that we couldn't resist finding a table outside.



And a couple happy campers waiting for dinner!



We spent a good while enjoying our pizza and relaxing after all the walking.

…….

Oh, and stepping back a bit…. Here's some background on the next thing on our itinerary. Stephanie and I visited Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar at Disneyland for the first time in 2013. And we absolutely fell in love with tiki drinks. We've started making tiki drinks at home, collecting tiki mugs, listening to lounge music, visiting other tiki bar's, etc. We've learned enough to know that Martin Cate is one of the biggest tiki cocktail experts, and when we found out that he co-owned a new "hidden" tiki bar in San Diego, we had to give it a try! So, I made reservations for False Idol about a month earlier. We picked 7:30 PM, a little early, but that's 9:30 PM back home and we didn't want to stay up too on the night before our cruise departure.

.....

OK, with that out of the way, we had a little over an hour before our False Idol reservation. We decided to walk down to the waterfront and explore a bit more. What a lovely evening!



We decided to walk around Waterfront Park, where the festival was going on. It was fun seeing all the concert goers and hear all the thumping base rhythms off in the distance. Eventually we made it back to the waterfront and spent a while looking out into the bay and admiring the various ships/boats.







As we worked our way down, I did notice that the Broods were playing on the main stage. They are the only band that I was already familiar with. (A brother-sister duo from Australia.) You could just barely make them out on the stage, but you could hear them pretty well.



So we checked them out for a few songs before it was time to start making our way over to False Idol Tiki Bar. Oh, and the sun was just starting to set.. Casting a nice glow on the city skyline.



But yeah, False Idol is a "hidden" tiki bar inside a the Craft and Commerce restaurant.



Until this summer, you entered the bar from a secret old fashioned freezer door inside the Craft and Commerce restaurant. Turns out that the fire marshal made them take that out a couple months ago. So you enter through a curtain now. Sort of a bummer to lose that ambiance, but I'm sure if there is ever a fire, people will be happy about it!

We made our way to our table and it was nice to relax after all the walking we had done since we arrived at the airport! The bar is super well themed. One of the best!







My only complaint, is that most of our experiences in tiki bars have been when they are mostly full of other tiki enthusiast, making for good energy/atmosphere. This bar had too many drunk festival goers when we arrived. It was pretty loud and chaotic. It settled down a bit after a while, and I was happy about that!

The drinks? Some were awesome, some were good, and one I didn't like. Probably speaks more to my taste buds than to quality of the drink itself. We tried the Pearl Diver (good), Sidewinder's Fang (awesome), Thee Dots and a Dash (OK), Mai Sha Roa Na (excellent), and the 151 Swizzle (didn't care for it.)









I ended up getting one of their souvenir mugs too!



A little bit after 9:00 PM, we decided to start making our way back to the room. After several drinks, we needed to pit stop at the restrooms. As we walked down the hall, we couldn't help but chuckle when we turned the corner to see the Koolaid Man… busting through the wall, just like on the TV commercials when we were kids. Except, I don't think he had cocktails in his hand back then…. Hahahah!!!!



I think we got back to our room around 9:30 PM and were asleep by 10pm (midnight at home.)

Goodnight moon. And what a great start to our vacation!!!

I hope you're enjoying the TR so far. Stay tuned to our first day on the Disney Wonder. It's going to be picture heavy!
 


Thanks for sharing. Excited to see your report and as always love the first installment. We are headed to SD in the spring ourselves. My youngest is turning 17 and actually gets her birthday off this year. It was a weird fluke but we figured we had to take advantage. My oldest's birthday is on New Year's Eve and so her's is a holiday every year. We have been able to go on vacay many times during her birthday because it falls over the holidays. With my youngest however being the end of April it is usually too close to school getting out. We splurged and let her miss a day of school this past year and took her to Disneyland for her 16th and then go figure this year it is a day off so this year she wanted to go to SD. We are headed down to spend a day at the waterfront and Balboa park, a day at the zoo and then heading up North to do the Reagan Museum in Simi Valley, dinner at the Smokehouse and a college tour of Cal Arts in Valencia. That is her dream school as she wants to be an imagineer and they just started a new major in theme park design!!

Anywho loved the first installment and anxious for the next one!!
 
I kind of been away from the Disboards for awhile but your trip report came up on my alerts and was happy to follow along. I occasionally post a photo in the camera section as well. Like you, our family has been going to WDW or DL for many years in a row but this past summer was our last family vacation to a Disney park as the kids are now into adulthood and my oldest will soon be moving out. Oh how the years fly by.
 
Tuning in for what looks like a great trip report! We visit pacific beach every summer so definitely excited to read about a sailing from San Diego!
 


Looking forward to reading more - we leave for the 3nt Baja cruise followed by the 5nt California Coast cruise from San Diego next May, so looking forward to reading about your time in SD and on the Wonder.
 
Tuning in! I'm putting the tiki bar on my list of places to go...its looks amazing!

Jill in CO
 
Happy Anniversary:cool1:


Great deal!







:rotfl::rotfl:Wonder how many under 45 will get this?


Can't wait to hear about the trip!

Thanks, and yeah, that's funny about that play on the Mai Tai name...


Thanks for sharing. Excited to see your report and as always love the first installment. We are headed to SD in the spring ourselves. My youngest is turning 17 and actually gets her birthday off this year. It was a weird fluke but we figured we had to take advantage. My oldest's birthday is on New Year's Eve and so her's is a holiday every year. We have been able to go on vacay many times during her birthday because it falls over the holidays. With my youngest however being the end of April it is usually too close to school getting out. We splurged and let her miss a day of school this past year and took her to Disneyland for her 16th and then go figure this year it is a day off so this year she wanted to go to SD. We are headed down to spend a day at the waterfront and Balboa park, a day at the zoo and then heading up North to do the Reagan Museum in Simi Valley, dinner at the Smokehouse and a college tour of Cal Arts in Valencia. That is her dream school as she wants to be an imagineer and they just started a new major in theme park design!!

Anywho loved the first installment and anxious for the next one!!

Thanks! Your plans for SD sound fun. I definitely want to return some day and see some of those things too. We really loved SD, way more that we expected!

I kind of been away from the Disboards for awhile but your trip report came up on my alerts and was happy to follow along. I occasionally post a photo in the camera section as well. Like you, our family has been going to WDW or DL for many years in a row but this past summer was our last family vacation to a Disney park as the kids are now into adulthood and my oldest will soon be moving out. Oh how the years fly by.

I've been away from the Disboards for a while too, it's always fun to come back! No joke on the years flying by!! Our kids aren't as far along as yours, but I can't believe our oldest turns 18 in a few months!

Tuning in for what looks like a great trip report! We visit pacific beach every summer so definitely excited to read about a sailing from San Diego!

Cool! Thanks for joining in!

Looking forward to reading more - we leave for the 3nt Baja cruise followed by the 5nt California Coast cruise from San Diego next May, so looking forward to reading about your time in SD and on the Wonder.

Awesome! You're going to love it!!!

joining in!

Thanks! Happy to have you read along :-)

Tuning in! I'm putting the tiki bar on my list of places to go...its looks amazing!

Jill in CO

Hi Jill! Yeah, False Idol tiki bar was fantastic. Definitely worthy of your list. I hope to go back some day!!!
 
We tied the knot on December 27, 1997 and headed to WDW about a week later.

Here are a few photos from our honeymoon trip, nearly 20 years ago:


These pictures are awesome! DH & I took our first WDW trip in early January 1998 ... I automatically smile every time I see pink castle pictures.

I got an alert for this report based on my commenting on your CA road trip report ... very clever way to inform your TR followers! I look forward to reading about this adventure. :)
 
Can't wait to read about the trip. BTW, my friend did the work/design on Pagan Idol..he also did Smuggler's Cove & Whitechapel in SF. He definitely has an eye for design.
 
Happy Anniversary! Congratulations on 20 years of marriage! What better way to celebrate than with a Disney cruise. I absolutely love all of your Disney pictures through the years. You are a Disney family for sure. :thumbsup2

The Tiki Bar looks like lots of fun. I haven't been to Trader Sam's yet but I hope to on our next trip.

Looking forward to hearing all about the fabulous trip.
 
Joining in for another report! I like that tiki bar. I got into making a few tropical cocktails at home over the summer. Nothing too crazy, but a little hobby I enjoyed.
 
These pictures are awesome! DH & I took our first WDW trip in early January 1998 ... I automatically smile every time I see pink castle pictures.

I got an alert for this report based on my commenting on your CA road trip report ... very clever way to inform your TR followers! I look forward to reading about this adventure. :)

Thanks for the feedback. We were there during the first week of January 1998. We may have passed you on Main Street. Haha! But yeah, at the time I was like, "what the heck happened to the castle? That's weird!". But now, I look back at the birthday cake castle with fondness too!

Can't wait to read as well. Followed your Aulani report.

Awesome! I'm still stoked on that Hawaii trip and really hoping to get back to Aulani some day!!! Thanks for joining :-)

Thanks for writing a new trip report, I always enjoy them!

Thanks. Super glad to have you here again!!!

Can't wait to read about the trip. BTW, my friend did the work/design on Pagan Idol..he also did Smuggler's Cove & Whitechapel in SF. He definitely has an eye for design.

OK, we can agree right now.... that your friend must be pretty freaking awesome!!! Him having an eye for design has to be an understatement, because the themeing in False Idol is amazing!

Happy Anniversary! Congratulations on 20 years of marriage! What better way to celebrate than with a Disney cruise. I absolutely love all of your Disney pictures through the years. You are a Disney family for sure. :thumbsup2

The Tiki Bar looks like lots of fun. I haven't been to Trader Sam's yet but I hope to on our next trip.

Looking forward to hearing all about the fabulous trip.

Thanks! You MUST visit Trader Sam's on your next trip. You'll love it!!!!

Joining in for another report! I like that tiki bar. I got into making a few tropical cocktails at home over the summer. Nothing too crazy, but a little hobby I enjoyed.

Awesome. I've been making tiki cocktails a bit at home too. I've been learning about rum over the last couple years and picked up five more bottles on our cruise in the Caribbean this summer. Haha! I'm becoming addicted addicted to tiki mugs and swizzle sticks too. We picked up three more mugs on this trip. :hippie:
 
Day 2 - Sunday, 10/1/17 - A morning in Little Italy

All right… the big day had finally arrived. How exciting! The previous day of travelling, walking, and tiki drinking made it pretty easy to sleep, otherwise I would have been too giddy to rest!!!

We woke up fairly early and relaxed in bed for a while. Around 7am, I looked out our window… and sure enough the Wonder had arrived a little earlier! Cool!



Our boarding time for the ship wasn't until around 1pm, so our plan was to find some breakfast and explore in Little Italy, leisurely walk down to the ship, check our luggage, and then explore along the waterfront a bit longer before boarding the cruise ship.

We Yelped for breakfast foods. There were plenty of options within walking distance, but nothing was really calling to us. The idea of donuts didn't sound amazing, but nothing else did either…

But there was this interesting looking donut shop, Devils Dozen, just a block or two from our room, so we decided to give it a try. This was a good good call!



As we approached the window, I started drooling…





I have no idea how I'm going to limit myself to just one or two of these things! Stephanie honed in on the Chocolate Coffee Crunch pretty quickly, and after a few minutes, I decided on the Nutella Hazelnut. We both had the Blood Orange donuts on our radar too, so we got one of those to share as well.

They only had outdoor seating... on the rooftop. So up we went! Oh my gosh… How cool! And what a view!!!



How fun to be sitting outside, enjoying the morning with coffee and donuts… with the Disney Wonder off in the distance. Hey Stephanie, is this for real? Pinch me!!!



And the donuts!





Nutella Hazelnut…



Chocolate Coffee Crunch…



Blood Orange…



So how are Devil's Dozen donuts? Well, they are good. Dare I say, "Damned Good!"? Heck yes!!!

All kidding aside, these were easily some of the best donuts we've ever tasted. Simply amazing. I'd say the Coffee one was the best. The Nutella one was excellent, but not quite as memorable. And the Blood Orange was amazing, but a bit on the sweet/sugary side. If we are ever in San Diego again, I'd definitely go out of my way to come back here and try some other flavors. They were that good!

OK. Enough gushing about the donuts. Time to move on...

We had about an hour and a half before our 11am checkout time at the Marina Inn & Suites. So we decided to explore Little Italy some more.







We zig zagged around the neighborhood going up and down city blocks as things looked interesting. I love how this area feels like a bustling downtown with big buildings and stuff, but it's also very relaxed and full of people out walking their dogs and mingling as they moved about. Very comfortable and welcoming for an urban setting. Nice!

Eventually, we made our way to the room, grabbed our bags, and headed to the Disney Wonder…
 
Day 2 - Sunday, 10/1/17 - The Disney Wonder!!!!

So yeah, we walked along the waterfront to the port. Snapping a few photos on the way…







And before we knew it, we were within striking distance!





I love the yellow scroll work painting on the front of the ship. We took a few minutes to admire it… It's really cool how Mickey is on the front… and then you have Goofy, Donald, and the nephews off to the right. And then Daisey and Minnie off to the left. We watched the guy polishing the bell up there for a while too!

Oh, and the energy in the air was amazing too. Lots of families and people like us strolling up and admiring the ship, totally excited about their upcoming cruise. Not that there's anything wrong with Port Canaveral in Florida, but the port in San Diego is way better!



It was now about 11am. We had about 3 hours before our time to board. So we checked our luggage first, and then decided to explore a bit more.

It was super easy to drop off our bags! The following photo shows the luggage checking area, but that was a Holland America (or similar) ship in the background. The Disney Wonder was directly behind me when I took the picture.



The USS Midway Museum was just behind that "Holland America" ship, so we headed down to get a better look at it.





How cool!

We kept walking and saw some memorial sites down the way.



There was a giant "kissing statue" from the iconic photo taken of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square as they celebrated the end of World War II. Fun!



For some reason, I didn't end up with a photo of it, but they had a cool set of statues with an audio loop of Bob Hope performing in front of a set of sailors. It was really cool.

Around 12:30 or so, we were making our way to the ship…



We made it through the security screening area in five or ten minutes, and were happy to see that the line to check in was basically non-existent. It only took a minute or two before they were ready for us. The lady was super friendly and super efficient. Again, a very different from our previous Port Canaveral experiences.





I'll comment on this later, but we hadn't yet realized how awesome it is to sail on a smaller ship like the Wonder. Smaller ship, means fewer people, and therefore smaller crowds! We underestimated the impact of smaller crowds repeatedly, and were always pleasantly surprised. (Our last cruise was on the Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Sea's which seriously dwarfed the Wonder, and then the Disney Dream before that. We're now big fans of this smaller ship!)

And then Mickey was there waiting to greet us!!! Oh, and I just realized. This was Epcot's 35th birthday... so I wore an Epcot shirt to celebrate in spirit. :-)



They had a few other photo opportunities in the waiting area.





We timed it pretty well. About five minutes later, they called our boarding group, number 18, I think…

And then we started making out way onto the ship. How exciting!!



I guess that's it for the day. Sorry to leave you on a cliffhanger... :rotfl2:
 
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