Day 15: Going Home
If you would like to start this trip report from the beginning, click here.
Note: I do not feel right posting pictures of fellow cruisers who have not given me permission to use them on the blog, so I will blur out the faces of people in the background of my photos. I’m sorry if it looks funny, but I want to respect their privacy.
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On the final night on the cruise the seas were very rough. They were the roughest I have encountered in 8 cruises. Walking around the room was tricky, and the closet doors were sliding closed and open, over and over. There was a lot of creaking noises in our room, and I had to take all of the empty hangers and place them on the closet floor because they were banging together. Thankfully, none of us get seasick so that wasn’t an issue.
I set my alarm for 6:00 am so that we wouldn’t be rushed getting ready. We weren’t docked in San Diego yet, and I could tell it was rainy outside.
This worried me a bit because I had heard stories about cruisers standing in the rain in a very long taxi line at the San Diego port. Oh well, what could we do? Fingers crossed.
We all got up and got dressed, and then my husband went to Cabanas to get some food and bring it back to us. We skipped our scheduled 7:00 am breakfast in the MDR and had let our servers know the night before that we wouldn’t be there. At 7:30 we left the room, with all of our luggage, and went to the atrium to wait for them to announce that express walk-off had begun. I expected to hear the announcement about 7:45 and we wanted to be some of the first ones off the ship because we had an 11:40 flight. This was 5 minutes earlier than DCL recommends, but it was the only flight we could find that would get us to the east coast before midnight. I know that our bodies would have thought it was 3 hours earlier due to the time change, but my sister was kind enough to pick us up from the airport and I didn’t want her to have to pick us up after midnight.
We got to the atrium and this was the scene:
We found a spot out of the way and made ourselves comfortable while we waited. Our server Levy was stationed at the entrance to Triton’s so we got to wave at him one last time.
While we waited, my husband took my camera and went up to deck 10 to get some pictures of the port area. I was glad to hear that the rain had cleared out.
Another thing I did while we waited was go to guest services and get a copy of our onboard account statement. We had been told that everyone would have one delivered to their room by 7:30, but our portion of deck 6 didn’t get them. They quickly printed me a copy at guest services. They also had a box right there to drop off satisfaction surveys, so I put ours in the box.
We were all so sad that this day had finally arrived…..
About 8:00, I was getting antsy that they hadn’t begun express walk-off yet. We soon found out why when a ship-wide announcement was made telling all non-US citizens to report to Azure immediately. I knew what this meant because of a conversation I had with a British woman in the laundry room a few days prior. All non-US citizens had been given written instructions to report to Azure on the final morning at 5:45 am to take care of customs and immigration matters, and customs authorities would not clear the ship until everyone had been processed. Then, at 8:15, another announcement was made that called 2 people out by name. I guess that these 2 people had ignored the specific instructions and were now delaying everyone from leaving the ship. By the way, San Diego is the only port I know about that does it this way.
Anyway, these 2 people must have complied pretty quickly because at 8:20 am, we were allowed to leave the ship. We got off as fast as we could as I had heard horror stories about hour+ long waits for a taxi here, so I wanted to be some of the first people to the taxis. While we waited for an elevator we had a great view of luggage being unloaded from the ship. This machine was exactly what had fallen against the ship in Puerto Vallarta, so I guess it is more of a fork lift than a cherry picker. Captain Robert called it a cherry picker though.
We breezed through customs with no wait and bolted to the taxi line. This was the taxi area:
And looking back towards the ship:
Even though the rain had stopped, I appreciated that they had some tents up just in case. It was chilly and windy. I was so glad that I had brought each girl one long sleeve shirt and one pair of pants. They definitely needed them this morning.
We were some of the very first people to get to the taxi area, so we hopped right into a minivan and we were off to the airport. The airport is very close to the cruise terminal. It only took 5-10 minutes to get there, and that included stopping at several red lights. I took this photo as we were almost to the airport. You can see just how close the airport is:
Our taxi driver dropped us off at the Delta curb and we went inside. We got in line at the Delta counter and it was 8:52. It took us 32 minutes to get off the ship and inside the airport. Not bad! For some reason we were not able to use a kiosk to get our luggage checked and print our boarding passes and we had to wait in line for about 10 minutes. Then it was off to security. The line was long but moved at a steady pace. It took us about 30 minutes. We were at our gate at 9:30 am. I read online that shortly after we went through security, a computer glitch in security caused major delays and people began to miss flights. It seemed like we got through just in the nick of time.
We had an hour and a half and we used this time to get some food and get reconnected to the outside world by checking emails and texts. Our first flight was to Detroit, where we had an hour layover until our flight home. Everything went smoothly. On our second flight, we were treated to some beautiful clouds and a pretty sunset.
We arrived home on time and began the countdown to Alaska, which as of the date I posted this is 338 days (for a variety of reasons, we switched our reservation to the May 21, 2018 sailing after we got home).
A huge thank you to everyone who followed along on our adventures! I know it was a long one! In summary, I can’t recommend this cruise enough. It was absolutely incredible and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would love to do this cruise every year, but that would mean that we didn’t take other vacations and that doesn’t make much sense to me since there are so many new places that I want to see and experience. Maybe we’ll do this one again in a few years though.
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Thanks so much for sharing your trip with us!
You’re welcome Rhonda!
Thank you so much for sharing your adventure and your family with us.
I enjoyed it so much.
You’re welcome and I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Yay, I enjoyed reading your report and as my daughter is just a year younger than your oldest It’s nice to get another tween parent perspective. I look forward to reading about Alaska in 2018! (we head to the Bahamas on the Dream later that week)
Thanks Beth! So glad you enjoyed it!
I am sad this trip is over. I loved reading about it. but I look forward to your next adventure.
I’m sad too because I loved writing about it 🙁 Thanks for following along!
It looks amazing!! We are looking at an Eastern Caribbean one now.
Loved your report! We have just booked the Eastbound PC cruise for Halloween 2018 so it has been fabulous to have such a detailed trip report to follow. Our kids will be 12, 10 and 7 so it was really helpful hearing about your children’s experiences. This will be only our second cruise so your tips have been invaluable! Thanks so much for sharing.
I’m so glad you found it helpful! Your family is going to LOVE the cruise and I’m jealous I won’t be there with you!!!
I have immensely enjoyed reading your trip report. I have recently found your website and find it to be a treasure trove of information. We leave May 21, 2018 for our first Disney Cruise going to the Bahamas, so I was so excited to read that is your next trip as well. I can’t wait to read about Alaska as that is a destination I am eyeing for the future!!!
Thank you Brandi! So glad you’re enjoying it!
You’re going to love the Alaska trip in May. I think it’s the best time to go, it can be chilly in Skagway but we enjoyed that. I’ve been twice to Alaska on the first trip of the season and had good weather at each stop. Try to make time in Skagway to visit the National Park headquarters at 2nd and Broadway to check out their free tours you can also go on line to reserve the free tour tickets. Don’t miss Mendenhall glacier and Glacier garden tour through Disney in Juneau. In Ketchikan take advantage of the free downtown shuttle bus (has brightly colored fish art work on sides) to the Totem Hertiage Center. A 5 dollar fee to see and learn about totems. We enjoyed our trip so much this May we used the “hold my place” deposit and discounts to go again in 2018 on the 9 night trip.
I’m so glad to hear that about the weather. We had first booked August and then switched to May for several reasons, but I was worried that the weather might not be as great. I’m so glad to hear you had great weather twice! And thanks so much for all of the tips, I have written them down for future reference!
Like to share too! Remember layers for Alaska – t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, hoodie and water resistant coat if needed and cap. Some days in 70s others in 50s. But pools and hot tub great. Ironic looking at snow on mountains and in the pool. Nothing like it. Oh yea deck 4 better than 10 or 9 to view for wildlife, closer to water. Don’t forget the binoculars. And remember room service can also deliver on deck if you have a specific location, like a life boat station. Try it on your next cruise learn this one from a platinum member
Great ideas! Thank you!!!
Thanks for creating such excellent trip reports – I love the amount of detail and all the pictures. We’re taking this cruise later this year and I’m even more excited after reading your trip report. Have fun in Alaska!
Thank you Gloria, I’m so glad you enjoyed it! You are going to LOVE the Panama Canal cruise!!!
Oh I enjoyed this report so very much!!! Panama Canal is on our bucket list! This year we are doing Alaska 🙂
San Diego is a cluster when it comes to disembarking due to the way they process customs for non-US citizens. When we took the Wonder from Vancouver to San Diego we had to report for customs in the Walt Disney theatre for 6:30am. They tried to stagger people so that it would go smoothly. It did NOT. First off, people who had to arrive earlier decided ‘to heck with it’ and showed up whenever they felt like it (which resulted in names being announced just after 8am exactly like what happened on your cruise) and the other thing that happened was that customs were supposed to board at 5:45am and they didn’t board til nearly 6:15am. Ugh that was an awful morning. We were in that theatre for nearly 90 minutes!!! No food, no drink. We barely made it to our breakfast in Tritons (we were second seating). San Diego REALLY needs to address this issue. I’m assuming it’s because the terminal is not big enough to handle customs?? Really, I’m not sure.
Sorry to go off on a rant like that lol
I heard the same grumblings on fb about it being a cluster on ours as well with no food, no drinks and getting started late. I am really surprised that DCL didn’t improve this the first time it happened. They have carts with food & drinks rolling around deck 9 on canal day, so why couldn’t they do that for these people as well? This is so unlike them. I understand that they can’t control when customs boards and people who don’t show, but they could at least feed them.
Loved reading your trip reports! On waiting in the TSA line for 30 minutes, have you all considered TSA PreCheck? It is my one goto recommendation for flying!
I have considered it but am still on the fence. We only fly as a family once or twice a year and I’m still trying to decide if it’s worth the time and money to get it for all 5 of us. What do you think?
It really helps going through the airports, especially with kids in tow. You don’t have to remove shoes, take anything out of your bag, etc. And the lines are typically much shorter. I don’t think we’ve stood in a security line for more than 5 minutes since we signed up. If you are doing overseas trips, then consider Global Entry. It is supposed to speed you through customs as well (and gives you TSA PreCheck).
Such a blessing to experience the Disney Cruise eyes of your family. Our 2 girls are 8 and 9 and though we have done Disney World 2-4 times a year for more than 15 yrs we are just up to number 4 on the cruise. It is amazing and we are hooked! I am certainly going to do this 14 day excursion. We are thankful for the time it took for you to share your experience! Thank you and happy sailing!
Thank you Jennifer, so glad you enjoyed it!!!
Thank you so much for this trip report. My family (my husband and I and 2 kids ages 12 and 8) will be doing the WBPC in April 2018 and you have given us so much great information. This will be our first Disney cruise (have cruised many times on another line). I have really enjoyed all of your tips and ideas and will be coming back to your site many times before next year I am sure!
I’m glad you enjoyed the trip report! You are going to LOVE your cruise! I wish I was going to be there with you!!!
Such a great report- thanks for sharing! I used your updates to help get me through report card writing. Everytime I finished one subject I could read another day on your report!!! So wish our Canadian dollar would improve, so we could afford to go on the PC cruise or the Alaska!
So glad you enjoyed it Tracey, and that it made report card writing more bearable!!!
This was a fantastic report (along with the locking bag and camera reviews)! I am glad that I found you, as we are planning a Panama Canal cruise for 2019.
Also, we will be on your Alaska cruise (our daughter will be 13 when we travel). Perhaps we will see you around!
That would be awesome! Be sure and look for me! My daughter will also be 13 so it would be great to introduce them.
S isn’t sold on the clubs (at all) but is super excited about cruising. We have been to WDW many times, but won’t board our first DCL ship until this November (Merrytime Bahamas). And then, Alaska!
Have your joined the FB group for the 5/21/18 cruise?
Yes, I joined the fb page. My daughter doesn’t like the clubs either, never has….maybe if we introduce them they will be willing to give the Edge (tween club) a try.
I have loved reading this trip report. We are going on the EBPC cruise in October and I have found this report very informative expecially all the wonderful port information. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it and found it helpful! You are going to LOVE your cruise!!!
Great posts!! Thanks for sharing all of this. I am going to be on the WBPC cruise next April with my 2 kids… very excited for this trip!!! I was able to add a lot to my plans with this 🙂 Thank you!
You’re welcome Kristy! Have a great cruise, I wish I was going to be on that sailing with you!!!
This is great! We leave a week from today for the reverse trip. Even though this is our 3rd DCL cruise, it’s nice reading about the specifics of this itinerary. Thanks for taking time to provide such a detailed report. You will love Alaska. It was our first ever cruise and it was fantastic!
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this report. I really enjoyed the thorough level of detail. I loved when you broke a port day into two posts so that you could give so many details. It was so fun to read! I’m so sad this report is over, and I’m so excited to read your Alaska report!!! Also, I bet it is so fun having this long trip scrapbook for your family to look back on! ?
Hi Elizabeth! I do love having these trip reports to go back and re-live our trips. They’re a great momento!
Thank you for the great trip report. Read one chapter every day and kind of sad I’ve finished. We are doing this cruise Feb 2019 (cruise # 7 for us). We plan on spending a little time at DL at the end.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! You are going to love the PC cruise, it is incredible and I predict will always be our favorite!
Excellent trip report! Just read through its entirety in 2 days. 🙂 We are doing the WBPC on the Wonder in 2020 with our (then) 9 and 5 year old girls. I’ve added so many things to our list of “must-dos” thanks to you. And I’ve probably gained 5 lbs just LOOKING at your food pictures!
Hope you enjoyed Alaska (I’ll find that TR and read it another night).
Hi Joy! I’m so glad you enjoyed the trip report. You are going to LOVE the PC cruise – it’s my favorite one to date and I would love to do it again!
Hi Joy, we are also going on the 2020 cruise! My kids will be 12, 8, and 5! Glad there will be other kids on our cruise, LOL