Disney, Disney, and More Disney!

But not the Disney you think!  Ok so I'll admit aside from one small comment on storage, this has NOTHING to do with RVing, but we spent 3 weeks traveling doing this so I figured I'd update the blog so you don't get too bored ;-).

We just took the Panama Canal/repositioning cruise for the Disney Wonder.  This ship has its summer season in Alaska and then spends the winter in the Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean (not that it had a summer season this year due to COVID...but it was still on the west coast).  It traveled from San Diego, California to Galveston, Texas.  Since we were flying across the country anyway, we decided to tack on a stay in Anaheim, California to visit Disneyland for the first time before the cruise.

So, first things first...the flights.  Aaron and I both flew regularly for work and pleasure before leaving our day jobs, and for the most part we had no significant problems.  I don't know whether it's COVID and related staffing and supply shortages or just bad luck, but both of our flights were canceled!  We knew a few weeks ahead of time that our midday Southwest flight from Galveston to Jacksonville was canceled and we were rescheduled on a flight that got back at 11pm (not so great for my brother-in-law, who was due to pick us up).  But then our American Airlines flight from Jacksonville to Anaheim was canceled less than 24 hours before scheduled takeoff!  They rescheduled us for the following day, but given that we already had park reservations in Anaheim that would be wasted if we arrived a day late, Aaron scrambled to get us on a flight from Jacksonville to Los Angeles that got in late at night.  This lost us a half day in Anaheim and added an expensive Lyft drive from Los Angeles to Anaheim.  Overall we decided that it's just not the right time right now to fly anywhere, and we plan to avoid it if at all possible until all these COVID repercussions have passed.

Aside from the flights, our trip was awesome.  We stayed at the DoubleTree Suites within walking distance of Disneyland...well, *I* think it was walking distance, Aaron was a little grumbly about it.  To be fair, after a day walking around the park, walking another mile back to the hotel was a little rough.  We bought a 3-day park pass to Disneyland, with two days at Disneyland itself and one day at Disney California Adventure.  We think this schedule worked great!  Neither park is huge, and we ended up arriving at park opening and leaving by 2-3pm each day (the nighttime fireworks weren't going while we were there), and this let us see everything we wanted to see without burning out.  Lines overall were pretty short, particularly before noon, and significantly shorter than Disney World.  A huge difference we noticed between Disneyland and Disney World was that most of the Disneyland queues are outside - an indication of milder/less rainy weather in Anaheim?

I felt that Disneyland was a slightly altered version of Magic Kingdom at Disney World (or more accurately, vice versa, since Disneyland came first).  Unsurprisingly there were a lot of duplicate rides, though most (aside from Rise of the Resistance) were noticeably different between the two parks.  By and large we thought the Disneyland rides were better than their Disney World counterparts, which was cool.  My favorite different thing at Disneyland was Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes, in which you and 20 of your closest friends actually paddle yourself around the lagoon!!  It reminded me of a similar canoe ride we did in Montreal along the fur trade route (not in an amusement park).  Another different ride I particularly enjoyed was the Storybook Land Canal Boat - though this is definitely presented as a little kids' ride, I really enjoyed seeing all the miniature versions of buildings from various Disney stories - this one reminded me some of Madurodam in the Netherlands.  

Outside the entrance to Disneyland

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Getting ready for our canoe ride

Agrabah from Aladdin on the Storybook Land Canal

My favorite of the two parks was definitely Disney's California Adventure.  Certain aspects were reminiscent of areas of Epcot and Hollywood Studios in Disney World, but overall it really just felt different and definitely had a lot of different rides, including my favorite of the whole trip - Guardians of the Galaxy- Mission: Breakout.  This was their replacement for Tower of Terror, but it wasn't just a new face on the same ride - they seriously changed the sequence of the drops such that we were completely surprised from the first.  The decorations for the ride were incredible.  While there we also enjoyed the other ride and many shows in Avengers Campus and I particularly enjoyed some of the rides on the Coney Island-feeling Pixar Pier.  We lunched at Pym Test Kitchen in Avengers Campus, and everything there was comically over-or-undersized (in keeping with the theme of Pym particles from Ant-Man).

Disney California Adventure (the entrance is very similar to Hollywood Studios)

Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT!

3D Tile Image at the Ancient Sanctum at 
Avengers Campus

Lunch at Pym Test Kitchen - note the
oversized chicken/undersized bun

At the end of the week, we took a train down to San Diego and walked two blocks to the cruise terminal.  Unfortunately either Disney or the port or both just really weren't ready for the added complexities of COVID testing before a cruise.  We had to wait a half hour (or more?) after our designated boarding window in harsh sun before we were able to go inside and take our COVID test, then another 45 minutes to get the results of the test before we could board.  However, that was the end of our troubles!  The cruise was AMAZING, the best we've ever taken.  We stopped at 4 ports and had a massive 10 days at sea - just what you want on the entertainment-centric Disney Cruise Line.  

We had a lot of firsts - the first passenger ship through the Panama Canal since COVID, the longest cruise by a large cruise ship since COVID, the first fireworks at sea since COVID (not clear if this was for the ship or for the industry).  The crew had been on the ship just two months before our cruise started - one month of training and a month of sailing - and I think as a result we all formed closer relationships than we would have otherwise.  Our waiter and assistant waiter were AMAZING and made all of our food experiences better.  

Because it was such a long cruise, there were long series of things like "Anyone Can Cook" - where the onboard chefs show you how to prepare dishes you've had in the dining rooms - and the dining team's series of noon presentations on things like cheese, oil and vinegar, origami, napkin folding, and table setting.  Each sea day held these things and a ton of origami, 3D crafts, drawing classes, scavenger hunts, and random things like knot tying and a virtual bridge tour with two bridge officers.  Of course the transit through the Panama Canal was a great bucket list experience!  It was particularly neat to observe after my research for my PhD on the much much smaller canals in Britain - the operational details were very different of course!!  The thing that surprised me most about the canal was just how close you get to cargo ships traveling the opposite direction in the lake in the middle of the canal.  This was also our first trip on the Mexican Riviera, and thus our first time at Cabo San Lucas and Puerta Vallarta.  We visited Cartagena for the first time on the Atlantic side of the canal, and headed back to Cozumel, which we have visited several times.

Technically this was a Very Merrytime 
cruise, and the ship was all decked out
for Christmas!

Formal night with Daisy and Donald!

Los Arcos at Cabo San Lucas

We toured a glassblowing factory - apparently this is a 
Mexican turtle because it has a sombrero and is drinking a 
bottle of tequila

Tasting at a tequila factory in Puerto Vallarta

Pirate night!

A winning day!  I won 'chip it golf' (golf with a velcro-wrapped
ping pong ball against a felt 'green') and we won 
brainteasers trivia together

Entrance to the Panama Canal - the Cocoli Locks

On deck with Captain Mickey and Captain Minnie

We ate brunch at Palo during the Panama crossing - they finished
the meal with a 'Welcome Back' message in chocolate - here
as we saw earlier on Carnival, all the staff were SO happy to have
passengers and a job again!

Exiting the canal at the Agua Clara locks

At the largest fort in the Americas in Cartagena

Our boat for the boat building competition - 
it had to hold a can of soda and still float

On the beach in Cozumel

This is a pretty decent photo of the whole ship

All of our crafts and prizes from the cruise!  We were busy!

Our awesome dining team!!  Wika on 
the left and Blake on the right.

We have so many more awesome photos and stories from the cruise but I'm trying to exercise restraint on an already very long post!  It really was absolutely amazing to spend so many days on the ship and have the opportunity to get to know the crew a little better than we normally can.

And finally...back to the RV...overall it survived quite well for three weeks in storage, with one exception....we had an unwelcome guest!

A comfy mouse nest!

A mouse had run all over the RV leaving trails of feces, and built its nest underneath our bed.  All of the remaining food in the RV was in secure cabinets, so it didn't get into any food, but it chewed a silicone pastry brush that doubtless smelled of food and pulled batting from Aaron's comforter to make its nest.  We set traps but still haven't caught it, so I think it was away from the RV (perhaps scared by the engine under its bed) when we left.

Water Filter Problems at Bulow

We just spent week at Bulow RV Resort, the closest Thousand Trails resort to St. Augustine.  Aside from the multiple 90 degree angles in the road to get into the park, Bulow RV resort was lovely - well maintained, a lot of decent sized sites (including ours), friendly staff, and nice amenities if you want them.

Campsite at Bulow RV Resort - note the odd pull-in style!

Now, the first few days we were there we were singing a different tune, because the water pressure when we arrived was low and continually dropped throughout our stay until eventually we had no water at all.  Before calling the office to complain, I had Aaron run out and double check all our connections just to make sure it wasn't something on our end...good thing he checked!  Turns out our water filter was COMPLETELY clogged.  I suppose this is something you would expect to happen over time, but we'd only replaced this filter a month or so ago, so we weren't expecting it yet!  We used to use a CAMCO water filter that lasted indefinitely as far as we could tell, but we changed it every 6 months-ish for good measure.  Aaron had seen a Clear2O filter at WalMart and wanted to try it out, and this is the one that clogged in no time flat.  Now, the obvious reason for this is that the Clear2O filter has a 1 micron filter, whereas the CAMCO has a 20 micron filter...but we're thinking this is much more filtration than we need, as most of the time we're camping with nicely treated city water!!  So, back to CAMCO for us, and a warning to everyone else out there: if your water pressure steadily declines and stops, check the water filter before assuming something else has gone wrong!

An alligator on the opposite bank of 
the creek from our campground

We explored a few nearby sites while at Bulow.  First we went to Bulow Creek State Park to see the Fairchild Oak, a live oak somewhere between 300-500 years old.  It was very impressive, we think there were some branches that had been covered by the ground but then reemerged at other points...but it was kind of hard to trace those.  The sign suggested that happened.

The Fairchild Oak - I am standing in an orange shirt under the
tree, believe it or not!

Next we drove up to Fort Matanzas, a National Park Service National Monument near the site of the massacre of Frenchmen from Fort Caroline that we learned about earlier.  Getting to Fort Matanzas was fun because you had to board a ferry at the visitor center to cross a very narrow inlet to the fort's island.  We showed up at park opening (9am) and got the last two tickets on the first ferry at 9:30am!  This was in the middle of the week...so be warned, you have to show up early for those free ferry tickets!  We had a couple of park ranger guides who told us about the fort, which was established to guard the southern water passage to Castillo de San Marcos.  Apparently it was extremely successful and rebuffed all potential attackers.  It was a tiny fort manned with 6 soldiers and 1 officer - it didn't take much to fire cannons at the narrow inlet to deter offenders.

Atop Fort Matanzas

There was a very narrow space with a ladder to get to the top of the fort!

Looking at the inlet that the fort protected - 
back in the day it was a bit closer

On the way back from Fort Matanzas we stopped at a curious little place near our campground - the Flagler RAMS airfield.  This was a club and their airfield for radio controlled model aircraft enthusiasts.  They welcome spectators, though you have to be a member to fly your plane.  We sat for almost an hour watching about 5 different model aircraft - the aircraft were all very different and the pilots did lots of fun tricks.

At the airfield

A crazy powerful gas-powered aircraft (the only gas-powered
one we saw)

This one kept flying upside down!

Our final outing was to the Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park, immediately next to our RV resort.  Here we learned that all these 'Bulow's in the area were named after the owner of this plantation, who grew sugar cane.  The park was VERY well done, especially considering it was unmanned!  They had blind-friendly descriptive displays all around the sugar mill ruins and a nice interpretive center kind of reversed from normal - all the items were inside a glass building and you walked around the outside to view the displays.  There weren't any ruins to speak of of the plantation house itself or the slave cabins, but the sugar mill, made from coquina, was still somewhat intact.  We learned a lot about sugar cane production and a little about sugar cane plantation operation.  It's a small park with really just the mill to see, so I wouldn't go way out of your way to see it, but if you're passing by on I-95 it's definitely worth a stop.

The sugar mill ruins

Looking out over Bulow Creek near the original plantation house site

We had a delightful and relaxing stay...after we figured out our water problem ;-).  At the end of the week we went to my sister's place to trick or treat with our nephews and niece!

With my sister's family at their house in St. Augustine