Day 10: Acapulco

Acapulco... a city with a mysterious name. Supposedly the Pacific coast resort town became famous because Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton came here for their honeymoon, and the rest is history. Something like that. It was a big, interesting, busy place.

We pulled into the harbor later in the morning, around 10:30-11am. My family had a city tour bus ride with the famous Acapulco cliff divers. It was pretty cool. I've been trying to work on a neat slideshow, frame by frame of the cliff divers diving off the cliff, but it is going to take waaaay too long to finish. Maybe another blog entry!

The city tour took us down the main drag and through Acapulco's three districts. I don't remember what they are, diamond, gold, and silver? Something like that.

We went down and drove by a really expensive area, armed guards at entrances and we couldn't really go anywhere. I got a few good shots from the bus tho.




This is a really nice looking area that we didn't get to go see. I looked very scenic, a beautiful little cove with a wonderful beach:

We drove past this nice hotel, it was Mayan-inspired, can't you tell??

For my good friends Jeremy and Amanda, Mexican gelato (with Internet access):

We did see the cliff divers. If I find the inspiration, I'll make a cool animation of them jumping from the cliff. Or you can just take my word that they did it and save me the trouble!

My grandparents ended up on a different bus somehow, I personally don't think that Jewish Mexican tour buses scare me, but I guess there's always exceptions!

Dinner the night of Acapulco was the Mexican Riviera night, complete with Minnie's Mexican Party (or something like that) later that evening:

I met Suzi (on the left) in the cafe one evening, and we chatted for a bit. I saw her later at the Minnie party serving drinks and posing for someone else, so I decided to snap a shot myself! I found out later, Suzi had her wisdom teeth pulled when we stopped in Cabo San Lucas. Ouch!

We pulled out of port about 10:00pm local time, waving goodbye to the city of Acapulco.

One interesting shot, taken on deck 10 aft, on the right is Palo (mmmmmm), with the ship's stacks and the bright moon in the distance.

That's it for now! Our next night would feature two special guests, who all children of the early 90s will recognize. Check back soon for our special guest, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas and Los Angeles at http://mynameisnotjonas.blogspot.com!

Day 8-9: En Route to Acapulco

Off we go!

We had a couple of sea days. One of these featured another guest speaker, Don "Ducky" Williams. Don had a dream when he was a kid of working for Disney. In fact, when he was 10, he sent a letter to Walt himself asking if there was any openings and to keep him in mind. He actually received a polite reply from Walt explaining that they had no openings for aspiring 10 year old artists, but to keep them in mind later. Don explained that of all his collection, this was his most prized possession.

Don went into the banking business, as a teller, then a bank manager. He loved to doodle. Every Christmas, he'd put up some of his drawings in his office. This caught the attention of a local news reporter, one of his clients, who did a feature story on him.

Many people convinced him to send his work to Disney, and after much prodding, he finally did. They sat on somebody's desk for months, untouched. His contact liked his work, and asked him to send more. Every week, Don would create 100-150 works, and mail them down to Walt Disney World. He'd work his 40 hours in the banking business, then come home and draw.

Eventually, he decided he would need to move to Florida in order to work at Disney. He said he would get any job he could at the Walt Disney Company, and maybe he could work his way in. He got a job waiting tables at a nearby hotel, visiting the Disney HR group daily to ask about jobs. Finally, he found something, and it turned out to be a park caricature artist! He took the position. Instead of mailing the 100-150 works of art each week, he could hand deliver them to his contact. Finally they eliminated the caricature artists. He was looking for something else when a position opened for an artist.

The guy who he was to interview with was in the office right next to the contact he had been sending all his art to! So when they wanted to see some samples, they had about 10,000 works to check out.

Don began working on a 30-day trial position, and just kinda stayed around. He did artworks of Mickey, Donald (his favorite), Goofy, Minnie, and all the other characters. In addition, he learned how to draw portraits of Walt, and other real-type pictures. He has now been with the Walt Disney Company for over 30 years.

Don explains his story over a 60 minute session, and while telling his story draws some characters on a sketch pad. His sketches are raffled off (for free) at the end of the session. During the session, he sketched out 26 characters. I was one number away from getting one! There are some on ebay... but I don't need one that bad. :o)

Dinner was the Prince and Princess menu. The signature dessert was the glass slipper. The evening show was "Twice Charmed" which I've seen before, and I skipped.

Day 9 was so eventful that I only have pictures of the dinner menu! Looking back, I don't think I even did anything this day. Must have been nice. :o) Dinner was the Master Chef menu:

The show was new, it was called "The Art of the Story." It was really neat. I managed to snap some pictures later on deck 10. The picture on the right is the adults only area, with pool, two hot tubs, bar, and coffee shop in the back.

Thanks for stopping by at http://mynameisnotjonas.blogspot.com! I'll have more pictures and trip report from Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo San Lucas before the final leg to Los Angeles!

Day 7: The Panama Canal

Yikes! It's been a week. I could provide all sorts of excuses as to why, but I won't, so here we go! This is the day a lot (ok like 3) people have asked me about. I apologize up front for the long post, because it will be long.

The night before our canal crossing, we pulled into the harbor at Colon. I happened to be above deck and saw the beautiful parade of ships in the harbor, all waiting for their clearance to travel the same route we would. We also got a treat of a night view of Colon. (I'll refrain from any jokes, especially considering the other end of the canal is a place called "la boca", the only word in spanish my dad knows, and it means "the mouth".)

Here's the Indiana Jones GPS track! Click on it for the full Google Maps interactive map!

We got up early that morning, we picked up the pilot about 6a-6:30a and the entourage did some sort of an inspection of the ship. The ship pays toll before going through the canal, and the toll is based upon some formula of cargo area, passenger area, etc on the ship. How much do you think the toll was for our ship? Keep reading for the answer. :o)

Around 7a-7:30a we said goodbye to Colon, and started our trip through the canal. What exactly is the Panama Canal? Well I never much paid attention before now.

Canals are either sea level canals, or lock canals. Sea level canals means the level of the canal is the same from end to end. A lock canal is where a vessel is raised and lowered from end to end. The Panama Canal is made up of 3 locks at Gatun (ga-TOON), the 85ft high Gatun Lake, 1 lock at Pedro Miguel, the 54ft high Miraflores Lake, and 2 locks at Miraflores down into the Pacific Ocean near Panama City.

The French tried to first build a sea level canal in Panama in 1880, but failed. The rock was too difficult to blast, and disease made conditions extremely difficult to work with. As a result, they gave up. The US Army worked in the 1910s to help eradicate mosquitoes (and malaria) from the canal zone, which allowed them to dig the canal. Also, the army decided to build a few dams, creating two man-made lakes. This, along with the locks, would allow cargo ships to pass across the isthmus of Panama from one ocean to the other.

Here is a picture entering the Gatun Locks. You can make out the 3 steps which will raise the ship 85 feet. You can also see the 4 locomotives which steady the ship in the lock.

Through a compromise, the locks were built with a width of 33 meters, or about 108 feet wide. The Disney Magic has a beam (width) of 104 feet, which would leave just 2 feet of room on either side of the ship. Incredible!! To keep the ship steady, electric locomotives or "mules" are used on either side. Our large ship required 8 total, 4 on each side. The locomotives loosen or tighten their lines which keeps the ship in the lock. The locomotives do not pull the ship forward, as they only have about 13 horsepower engines pulling the lines. Captain Puckett said one locomotive actually tightened too far and was yanked off it's track and into the lock. Oops!

It took 7 years of rainwater to fill the man-made lakes, Gatun Lake and Miraflores Lake. If a lock malfunctioned and the lakes emptied, it would take approximately 7 years to refill. Additionally, each vessel requires 52 million gallons of water for each passage, 26 million going up, and 26 million going back down.

As a ship enters a lock, the door behind it closes, and 26 million gallons of water are pumped into the chamber. This raises the ship to the same level as the next lock chamber or lake level, allowing the ship to travel on through. The process of filling the lock with water takes about 8 minutes for each lock.

About 9:30am we passed through the Gatun Locks, and started the 20-mile or so trek through Gatun Lake. I headed back to the stateroom to copy off my pictures and grab some food. There were several ships anchored in Gatun Lake, waiting for clearance to complete their trip through the canal. The trip usually takes about 8-9 hours, but can take up to 3-4 days depending on traffic. The larger toll you pay, the higher priority you have to pass through. As we had an itinerary to keep, we had to make sure to get through as quick as possible!

My break was over as we passed through "the cut." Literally, the workers who created the Panama Canal had to cut down through the rock and even the continental divide in order to extend to the Pacific. You can tell there isn't a whole lot of clearance for a cruise ship and large container ship to pass each other!

It seemed we were rock stars. The whole trip. It was kinda weird at first, then kinda cool. People would pull out their cameras and take pictures of us! The red pickup truck drove along the canal road in the cut for several miles, honking, waving, taking pictures of us. It was all pretty neat.

The Panama Canal is filled with some really cool lighthouses! Here are a few I spotted. In the third picture, you can also make out the Panama Canal Railroad. The railroad transports containers from Colon to Panama City, in lieu of the ship actually making the voyage through the canal. They do this either because the ship is too large to fit (or post-panamax), or too expensive.

Part of the cut includes the continental divide, which is the watershed line of where rainwater empties. Here is a look at where that crosses the canal. If you click on the link and look closely, you can see there is actually a road on the side of this mound.

Not long after the continental divide, we crossed under the Centennial Bridge, built recently in 2004. It's quite a sight to see!

Our next event was passing through the Pedro Miguel lock. You can see a container ship following us in the background, along with the Centennial Bridge. I won't hotlink someone else's photo, but I want to include a link of a US Submarine that was in front of us. No idea what ship it was or anything. I didn't take the photo, I was on the back of the ship pretty much the whole day. http://flickr.com/photos/disneynut/2571923756/sizes/l/. In their photo, the submarine is passing through the Pedro Miguel lock as we approach it.

Only a mile after the Pedro Miguel lock is the Miraflores locks and the Panama Canal Visitors Center. The visitors center was packed with people! The ship blew the 'When You Wish Upon A Star' horn sound, Captain Mickey apparently made an appearance on deck, and the people went wild!

It's a long drop. Don't look down!

At last we lowered into the Pacific Ocean, sailing a few miles underneath the Bridge of the Americas, the first roadway link between North and South America. Cool! The photo on the right is part of the skyline of Panama City. Lots and lots of skyscrapers!

Whew! At last... the smell of the Pacific Ocean air. And by my watch time for another shower! Not only was it hot, it was steamy. Interestingly enough, the whole day through the canal, the sun appeared north of the ship. Being on the back of the ship, I was in the sun the whole day. Crazy!

Dinner this night was very special. We got to take out menus home with us. They were beautiful!! Also it was another lobster night. Each one of us ordered lobster, and Mario brought us an extra tail! Yes.... I ate that one too. Mmmm but it was so worth it!

My parents. Happy 30th Anniversary!

My grandpa ended up with some larger mouse ears. :o)

Moi.

We ended the evening with the premier of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, with an appearance by the prince himself. This photo was taken the previous night, they had a nice display announcing the movie!

Wow you actually read this far down the page! I'll keep my promise. Captain Thorn said our toll/tariff for crossing through the canal was $410,000. I heard a previous figure of around $200,000, but it had to be somewhere in there. Very very expensive!! I'm sure Mickey has a few "Disney Dollars" in his pocket to kick in. ;o)

If you're interested in more photos, I have a few more posted on my photo website, http://photos.linuxwebguy.com. Stay tuned to the next few posts where we visit the exciting Mexican Riviera with stops in Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas, and Los Angeles at http://mynameisjonas.blogspot.com!