On the third day of our long-awaited Panama Canal cruise onboard the beautiful Disney Magic, I woke up a few minutes before 7:00am, just as the sun started to peek through the curtains into our stateroom. I immediately walked straight out onto our verandah and it was a beautiful morning with blue skies and only a few clouds to be seen, which was a very welcome change from the grey skies we had been experiencing since we arrived in Galveston before the cruise.

We had another lazy morning ahead of us as we were not due to dock into Cozumel until 11:30am so after I ran up to the drink station on Deck 9 to get us both a cup of tea to start the day, we sat in bed for the next hour or so and watched the Good Morning Disney Magic show on the television. We could also see the Mexican coastline and the city of Cancun off in the distance and were even able to pick up a data signal so we could catch up with everything as we had been offline since leaving Texas.

On our way to breakfast just before 9:30am, we took a little walk around Deck 10 and it was already noticeable that it had started to turn hotter as well as a lot more humid, which was only a small preview of what we were going to experience for the rest of the week as the Disney Magic headed down towards Colombia and then onto Panama. We also watched as the Mariner of the Seas sailed past us after leaving Cozumel early that morning.

As much as I had enjoyed my Disney Cruise Line hashbrowns for breakfast the previous morning, I knew that there was no way I could eat them or anything else fried every day for two weeks, which is something I learnt the hard way on a previous cruise. So I had also brought a jar of Marmite onboard with me (you either love it or hate it and I absolutely LOVE it and eat it for breakfast most days at home) that I ate along with a toasted bagel with butter which tasted amazing before indulging once again with another raspberry Danish or two as well as a glass of POG (Passion Fruit, Orange and Guava) juice to drink.

After we finished our breakfast, we walked down to O’Gills Pub where Disney Parks Trivia: Level 2 was due to start at 10:00am. We both wanted to give it a try and it was definitely our lucky day, as the vast majority of the questions were about Disneyland Paris, Shanghai Disneyland, Tokyo Disney Resort and my ultimate specialist subject, Hong Kong Disneyland – if there had been more questions about Walt Disney World or Disneyland, we would not have done nearly as well. We ended up scoring 18/20 and won our first trivia of the cruise and received a Mickey medal as our prize which was truly a perfect way to start the day.

After winning trivia, we dropped our medals off in our stateroom and headed up to Deck 10 to watch the Disney Magic arrive in Cozumel just after 10:30am. For the past year, the official port website had been showing that we would be docking at the further away Puerta Maya pier that day instead of the usual spot at Punta Langosta, which is located right by Downtown Cozumel. I was actually really looking forward to this change, and since we had never explored that other area of Cozumel before, I had even marked several places on Google Maps that we could walk to whilst we were in port that day. However, the calendar on the website updated at the last minute that morning and we ended up docking back at Punta Langosta once again.

However, the one downside to docking at Punta Langosta that morning was the sight of Scarlet Lady that was already alongside the pier. To put it mildly, I have zero time for Virgin Voyages and have absolutely nothing nice to say about them at all. Two years ago, we were due to sail with them but they decided to unceremoniously cancel our cruise to use the ship for another – in their mind – far more important sailing and we then spent months fighting to get our money back, even though they were the ones who cancelled the cruise. They were incompetent, dishonest and truly appalling in every way to deal with at every turn and now, I would never even want to step onboard one of their ships or give them another penny of my hard earned money ever again.

The only nice thing I will say about Scarlet Lady was that I loved seeing the reflection of the Disney Magic on her. That morning, it was almost as if the classic and beautiful Magic was trying to bring some life and colour to a ship that, with its drab battleship grey hull, looks as uninspiring as they come. It was such a beautiful sight and easily the best thing that Virgin Voyages has ever done for me.

As all of our plans in Cozumel had been based around docking at the Puerta Maya pier, we were now in no immediate hurry to get off the ship that day. If you are reading this blog wanting an in depth Cozumel travel guide, this sadly will not be it. However, last year when we docked at the Punta Langosta pier on the Disney Treasure, we did our own free walking tour of the downtown Cozumel area which you can read all about here.

As we were already feeling hungry, we decided to grab an early lunch. The speciality at Cabanas that day was “Middle Eastern Corner”, which meant there were plenty of vegetarian options including falafel, spiced roasted butternut squash and carrots, roasted cauliflower as well as an assortment of dips like houmous and labneh. To finish, I had my favourite mango crème pot for dessert which is one of the best desserts onboard.

Cabanas was very busy with everyone quickly grabbing food before heading off the ship, so we took our plates outside to eat. Because it was such a hot day and the sun was so strong, we needed a table in the shade and typically the only one left gave us a direct view of the exact stateroom we had booked on Virgin Voyages, which was yet another annoying reminder of that whole experience.

After finishing our food, we walked down to our stateroom to sort out our bags before taking the elevator down to Deck 1 Aft, where we set foot onto dry land just after 12:15pm. There were a lot of people on the pier as both ships were disembarking at the same time, and I even heard some guests from the Scarlet Lady – which is an adult-only cruise – walking near us and talking about how many kids there would be on that Disney ship. The irony being that this particular sailing on the Disney Magic was almost entirely adult-only as well, given how few children there were onboard for such a long sailing.

We had absolutely no plans in Cozumel and nowhere that we needed to be, so after a quick stop at the giant Cozumel letters at the Punta Langosta Mall, we visited Starbucks before walking over to the large Mega Soriana hypermarket, which is located just a few minutes walk from the Punta Langosta pier.

If you forget to pack something or realise you need an item while on your cruise, you can easily pick it up at Mega as they seem to sell anything you could ever want. They accept credit cards and also offer easy to use self service checkouts that include an English language option. I was able to grab a cheap keyring because I urgently needed a new split ring to reattach the wrist strap to my camera, as the original had broken the previous day and I had to fix it before we reached Cartagena where we were planning to explore.

Once we got back to the pier, we took a few minutes to grab some photos from the small observation deck at the cruise terminal before walking back along the pier towards the Disney Magic where we were back onboard just before 2:00pm.

As it was so hot that afternoon, our first stop back onboard was for a much-needed cold drink to rehydrate after our walk. As we still had a couple of hours before our all-aboard time of 6:00pm, my boyfriend headed to our verandah to sit in the shade and sort through the photos he had taken so far, while I headed up to the Quiet Cove to sit by the pool for some “Me Time” as I was on a mission to finally try and even out the awkward flip-flop suntan lines on my feet that had been annoying me since our visit to Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point during our Disney Fantasy cruise back in February.

On such a long cruise, it’s important to remember that it is perfectly okay to do your own thing and have some time to yourself, no matter how long or short that time may be, just as you would do at home as you do not need to be doing the exact same thing during every minute of every day.

After a few hours relaxing at the Quiet Cove pool, I decided it would be fun to go back inside and meet some characters. I walked down to a very empty Decks 4 and 5 of the Lobby Atrium where Mickey was out at 4:45pm, Chip and Dale at 5:00pm, Donald at 5:15pm before finishing with Max and Goofy at 5:30pm who tried to teach me the Powerline dance from A Goofy Movie but without much success due to me having two left feet.

The Disney Magic slowly left the dock in Cozumel at 6:10pm to the sound of the “When You Wish Upon a Star” ship horn, and we decided to watch the sailaway from Deck 10 as we slowly began our journey toward our next port of Cartagena in Colombia where we were due to arrive two days later.

It was such a perfect evening, so we stayed out on Deck 10 to watch a beautiful sunset before heading to the Wide World of Sports deck for a game of basketball which is a tradition we used to love but had not done in a very long time – I am so grateful that on the Magic and the Wonder, the deck remains open 24 hours a day, unlike the much more limited hours on the newer ships. In a complete shock move, I won for the first time ever, which meant my boyfriend was officially on the hook to get out of bed and go and get us both a cup of tea the following morning!

Daisy was out on Deck 5 at 7:45pm, so of course we had to go and meet her and I also noticed that there were plenty of characters just roaming about that evening – Goofy was even showing off his Irish dancing skills to anyone who would watch.

Our dinner that evening was at Animator’s Palate and it was one of my favourite nights onboard as not only does it have some of my favourite foods on the ship but it was also the night for the “Drawn to Magic” show that I love which is only available on the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder and it was so good to see it once again.

To start my dinner, I naturally had to order the incredible Black Truffle Pasta Purseittes, the Creamy Butternut Squash Soup (which tasted normal and nothing like the overly sweet version we had been served on our recent Disney Fantasy cruise), followed by the Grilled Tuna Steak along with my other favourite Lemon Icebox Pie for dessert, which is (or now rather was) the absolute best.

Once again I am so happy that I got to order the Lemon Icebox Pie one final time as I know that it has sadly been removed completely from the menu since this cruise. Even the Grilled Tuna Steak has been changed and yet the awful Black Bean Chipotle Cakes – one of the vegetarian options onboard that needs to change the most – somehow sadly still lives on after all these years even though it is not a good dish at all.

During the “Drawn to Magic” dinner, all of the screens around the restaurant show various Disney characters being drawn, coloured in and finally animated. Towards the end of the meal, an incredible montage of Disney animation plays before Sorcerer Mickey himself arrives in Animator’s Palate as the music from Fantasmic plays and the entire restaurant is filled with colour as the serving teams parade through the restaurant to take a bow alongside Mickey to celebrate the end of the show. It is one of my favourite Disney Cruise Line moments, so I just sat back and enjoyed the moment rather than take any photos.

There were only three more character appearances scheduled that evening, so naturally we had to go to them once we left dinner. We walked straight up to Deck 5 to meet Donald at 9:45pm followed by Minnie at 10:00pm and finally Mickey at 10:15pm.

Once we had finished meeting characters for the day, we grabbed a camomile tea from Deck 9 to take back to our stateroom, where a towel elephant was sitting on the bed waiting for us to arrive back. It had been yet another long day, and even though I was tired, I was also not completely exhausted either which I was very grateful for. We now had two glorious days at sea to look forward to on our way towards South America before we reached our next port of Cartagena, and I could not wait to see what they would bring.

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