jenseib

We said Good Bye to Chip and Dale. We spotted Donald and he was giving us a little performance of his own. We separated from the rest. I think Gail wanted to get Abby to bed. Claire and I went off on our own and roamed around freely. I think we checked out the stores a bit and then we HAD to get a picture of her in the Golden Mickey dress with the Golden Mickey. Another bathroom stop, and I just had to take a few more pictures. More exploring. I just love how colorful the deck of the Dream is. The Magic was pretty, but this is better. A stop for a drink. And we headed back towards the room for a minute. I don’t remember why for sure, but I probably wanted to drop something off, change my clothes or pick something up. Claire’s bed all turned down. We did whatever it was we headed to the room to do and then went back out again. We ran into Pluto and stopped for a picture. The handler there noticed Claire’s dress and complimented it and said “You guys have sailed Disney before, haven’t you”. Yes we have! We then headed up a flight of stairs and got in line for Captain Mickey. I need to get in the habit of carrying my big flash with me on the ship. I really think my pictures would come out better if I did. We wandered a bit more, going through the art gallery. And then we went into D Lounge to see what was going on there. There was a game that was getting close to the end and we sat down to watch it a bit. I really was getting tired now. It was close to 11 and I swear I was nodding off as I sat there. I mentioned to Claire that we needed to leave, but she had seen Donald lingering out in the hall and wanted to see him come in first. Donald was teaching Salsa Dancing. He then went out on the dance floor with the kids. I tried to get Claire to go out, but she was too shy. She preferred to watch. I couldn’t last any longer, so we headed back to the room. Before I went in the room, I decided to get a picture of our door. I went the whole time on our previous Dream cruise and never once took a picture of out decorated room door. And that was pretty much it for the night. We got dressed in our PJs and turned the TV on for a few minutes and laid our head down on the 4th pillow of the trip. Oh the Places We Go! We also met some new friends! Oh the People We See!

After we all finished up with dinner, I took a few more pictures around the dining room. This is when we found that Rasheeta was extra slow. Our drinks did take quite a while to arrive with our meals, and those who had ordered specialty drinks had to wait for the bill. Many nights she just would tell us she would give it to us the next night as it wasn’t ready, and many nights the bills never showed up. Gail ended up going over hers with a fine tooth comb one night from the ship account and found several that were charged to her that she didn’t actually get. We tried to get a picture of the girls in front of the fountain. Claire of course never looks at the camera. We needed to get Abby in there. Abby has a different idea on how to pose! She was lifting her dress up for all the world to see that she wears undies! Gail quickly ran over and told her she can’t do that here. One more try. We gave up. 3 squirmy kids does not make for a nice picture. After dinner, we headed out to get the kids their bands for the kids club. We had to go to the Fantasy Convention room to do so. And boy the line was LONG! We finally got up there and the computers kept going down so it even took longer, but we did get them all officially signed and ready for the clubs. A quick stop off in the bathrooms and it was time to head to the show. I just love the different bathrooms on the Dream. This is one area where they are better than the Magic. Each area seems to have a different theme. Golden Mickeys was the show tonight. This one is my favorite I think of all the shows I have seen so far. As you can see, Claire’s dress was themed for this night’s show. It was Gail and I and our girls. Mom and Dad mentioned that they would be coming and we did see them walk in with Geoff, but they were on the other side and made their way to different seats. The show was great. The girls did have a few moments of being scared, but they did fine. I had tears in my eyes at the end when Abby just gasped. It was so precious. After the show, we headed out and found Donald. Mom, Dad and Geoff met up with us as well. Abby was not scared one bit. She also did not want to leave. We walked around a bit and spotted Chip and Dale. Abby took a seat to watch them while we waited in line. The line was kind of long, so Geoff and Gail took Abby and headed up to see Mickey while we waited. While I waited, I took a picture of the light fixture. You can never have too many of those! Geoff took a couple of us while we were waiting. We were getting close and they were done, so we waved to them to hurry so Abby could be in with the 2 older girls. She made it just in time. Chip had walked off with the family in front of us. It was the girl’s birthday and I think he was giving her some extra attention, so for a while we only had Dale. See the pen in Abby’s hand. Well that was my pen. For some reason she wanted a blue pen. Blue is her favorite color. Gail had given her a pen with blue ink and she threw a fit. We realized that she saw our blue colored pen so I handed it off to her. We had an extra pen or two and no need to fight that battle right now. UH OH!!! We have a rebel passing the characters and trying to go up the stairs. Not allowed during character meets! BUSTED! Chips back, but no one seems to notice. Since He was going unnoticed, I guess he decided to eat Claire. Once again, Abby didn’t want to leave.

We are doing Bush Gardens one day. I know my Mom and sister want to shop, but thats not a big thing for me. I need to get us tickets soon. I have my Bush tickets, but Mom told me to order hers for my sister and her too. And they still aren't sure what they want to do at Williamsburg. If they want al lthe sites, or just Williamsburg, so I am hold off on that for now.

Ok. If I write one, I will post it. I do know I won't be writing it till my other TR is done though. I'll need to take good notes this time, so I don't forget things.

We found a spot up top. I was amazed at how busy the top area was already and people were squeezing right in. I kept my eye out for family members, but never did see any of them during the whole party. As we stood there waiting for the party, I thought how different this day was compared to the day I boarded the Magic. On that day I had toured so much of the ship in the few hours before we sailed away. Today I ate and hung at the pool! LOL Both were fun though. We stood on the lookout for family members, but never saw any. This is a picture from that time period that Geoff took of Alexis and Abby. This was taken after the muster drill I believe. From what I gathered later on, Gail’s family did come up on deck to watch the sail away, but Geoff, Mary, Pete, Vicki, Mom and Dad all headed towards Geoff and Mary’s room and drank some champagne. I am not sure what Katie’s family did. Anyways, Geoff took a few atrium pictures on his way to back to the room. Claire and I on the other hand were waiting on a PARTY! I didn’t even think about it earlier, but I should’ve changed lenses on my camera. I had a shorter one on and the rest were back in the room. Oh well, I did the best I could. The party has started!!!! I noticed that the big screen must be on a delay because they it is slightly off one what the dancers on stage were doing. I spotted some people from the podcast group. It was a fun party and we were ready to cruise!! Our vacation was officially underway. Claire and I then moved over to the side to watch us pull out. In the words of Bugs Bunny ….Bon Voyageeeee! And with a blare of the Disney horn it makes it all the more exciting. After waving to everyone, we decided to head down to our room and wave from our balcony. Also with early dinner, we needed to already start getting ready. I never did find Gail and her family but she said she did see us walking down the stairs as we were heading to our room. As we walked through Cabanas I made a quick stop for the mural …and then as I am clicking the picture I got a little photobomber! Meanwhile …while Claire and I were boogying our booties off up top, the “older” crowd were taking it easy in their rooms. Geoff took pictures of their experience. They all look excited to be on our way! Geoff played with some settings on his camera and got some neat sun pictures. Claire and I made it back to our room and we took some pictures from the balcony. Evidently Geoff and I have the same likes, because many of our pictures are very similar. The sky was just gorgeous! Before we knew it, it was time to get ready for dinner. I will tell up right now, I do NOT like early dinner. I much prefer to go to the show first and then eat. We often eat late at home too, so I am used to eating later. Another disadvantage with early dinner is that they do not offer dine and play. If that had been offered for this meal, I think I wouldn’t have minded it so much. But our kids got a little jumpy before we all finished. They brought the kids food out fast and then they were bored waiting on us. Some nights, some got a little more feisty than other nights. So Claire and I made our way to the dining room. We had the same rotation as we did last cruise. Our first night was Enchanted Garden, which I think is such a pretty restaurant. They had the table set up, but they had all the kids at one end. This doesn’t work well for our family, and probably most others. Kids like to be by each other, but we do need an adult in the mix to help them out. And in the case of little ones like Abby and Jude, you just have to have an adult near them. I took these before I sat down. Soon the family all arrived and we settled into our spots and looked over the menu. Rolls were brought out right away. And we met our servers! Benjamin was our server and Rasheeta was our assistant. Of the 3 DCL cruises I have taken, they were my least favorite servers. They weren’t horrid, just not as good. And Rasheeta was SLOW. She was REALLY nice, but she was not very fast with anything. She seemed to take a liking to me right away and I felt bad because she was just so nice, but service wise, this did not seem to be her calling. Our Menu for this evening. Cheers Geoff! We made our orders and soon the appetizers arrived. It was funny, because Pete was just impressed that you could order more than one thing if you wanted to. Rob was all for this as well. I took several pictures of the foods brought out tonight. As the cruise went on, I usually only took mostly my food, and sometimes another picture of something else here and there. I had the North Atlantic Lobster Ravioli with roasted garlic and sweet basil in a light tomato broth. I have no clue what this is, but I think Pete ordered it. I believe this is mine and I think it’s the Thyme and Garlic Brioche filled with chanterelle, hedgehog and black trumpet mushrooms and leek stew in a light buttermilk cream. I am not sure who ordered this, probably Pete, as he sat across from me and let me take pictures of his food. Romaine Wedge; Fresh crisp romaine topped with a creamy Romano dressing and homemade spiced croutons. And these are all from family members around me as well. The menus online don’t appear to have all the same items, so I am thinking the menu has changed slightly since the last time it was updated online. The kid’s meals came out right away. This is nice if you have late dining and the kids can leave for the kids clubs after they eat. For early dining, it just makes for a lot of extra time the kids have to wait for the parents to finish up. Claire went with her trusty chicken strips. Jude was adventurous tonight. Katie asked him what he wanted and he said fish. She said he never eats fish and wasn’t sure if he knew what it even was, but he was insistent that he wanted fish. I ordered 2 entrees this evening. First was the Caramelized Sea Scallops with roasted asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, and pearl pasta, garnished with caramelized leeks and veal jus reduction. I don’t care for the pearl pasta at all, but I like the scallops. I think both Rob and I had the Grilled NY Strip Steak; Thyme roasted vegetables, double-baked potato topped with handmade herb butter. I took pictures of both. Mine being the one that is rarer. Dessert time!!!! Most of the kids got Mickey bars! I believe I got strawberry cheesecake. A few of the other desserts ordered tonight. Katie’s birthday was on Halloween and I had it noted to celebrate it on her reservation. She was totally shocked they knew. They brought out a cake for her and though she seemed happy, I think she was a bit embarrassed too, more because she didn’t know. Jude was VERY happy with his choice of the Mickey bar.

Thanks! Right now the only official trip I have planned is Colonial Williamsburg in April with my Mom, one of my sisters and Claire. I don't know if I'll do a Trip report, but if I do, it won't be till after i get my Dream TR done from last Nov. It's too hard writing more than one at a time.

We decided to head down to breakfast. HOLY COW! It was a mad house. The first seating was still in there and the ship still wasn’t letting people off. I think at one point they did start to let those off who had their bags, but our bags weren’t clearing customs yet, so the atrium was packed with people trying to get off the ship and others trying to get in line for Lumieres. We were told we had to use the side entrance because the atrium was too full. We squeezed down the hall and had to ask people if they were there for breakfast line or leaving the ship. Luckily the breakfast line was shorter. Somewhere along the line we did run into the other girls as well. We stood for quite a while, shoulder to shoulder with our fellow shipmates. Finally we were allowed in. And guess who shows up? Chris! She said they still were not letting her off the ship, so she might as well sit down and have breakfast while she waited. It was nice to see her one last time. Breakfast is VERY basic on this last morning. They want you to get off the ship as fast as you can, well normally they do. This day was not the norm. I didn’t take food pictures. I was just done with it at that point and my point and shoot doesn’t do a very good job. Brook however took a photo of all of us. And then I took one of her so she wasn’t left out. You can see in the picture that people are still out in the atrium waiting to get off the ship. I do believe that someone said they only wanted bacon on this morning and the guys brought out like 2 HUGE plates full. LOL. So bacon was passed around for all. At some point during the meal, we noticed the people moving and announcements were made as well. Chris finished up and said good bye and headed out. Once we finished, we said our good byes to the waiters. These guys were just fabulous and really worked well together. I would recommend this pair to anyone. They were fun, prompt, and good! I took a quick blurry shot of the mural in the room. Time to head out. We wasted as much time as we could in the restaurant, but it was now clearing out. Sadly though, there was still a wait to get off the ship. None of us wanted to leave, just wasting time standing there, so we headed to deck 4 to waste some time. We took turns using the bathrooms and then an announcement was made that the ship was fueling and no smoking was allowed on the ship. Well we had to see this. A look at a very empty deck 4. A few more shots. As you can see, this day matched our moods, grey and yucky. It was now time to go. I had stated a few times when planning this trip that I wasn’t getting off the ship till I was kicked off and I would be kicking and screaming the whole time. Well I was partially right. We heard an announcement that all remaining passengers HAD to get off now. What a bummer! We gathered our things and headed out. The plan was that we would use a porter. Typically using a porter means a getting through customs easier and not messing with your bags. I think it’s worth the $10 or so dollars I would tip him to do this. Amazingly the line for porter users was extremely long. Like to the steps off the ship long. I was shocked. And we decided to head straight to baggage claim on our own. I doubled checked with Lisa as she was already pulling one of my carryon bags, and she was fine with it. I took this quick picture, though technically I don’t think you are supposed to. As you can see, almost all the bags are gone. It was VERY easy to find ours in the middle of nothing. We got in line for customs, using the passport line. That one also moved much faster. We spotted Peter, our cruise director in civilian clothes getting off the ship. He must’ve been going to spend some time in port on his own for a bit. We got through customs easily. I am often nervous about going through, though I have no reason to be. It’s just a nerve racking kind of procedure. After customs we lost Brook, Carolyn, Susan and Shelly. Brook was riding back with them as her flight was later than ours and they planned to stop for food and then drop Brook off at our airport before going off to theirs. So with that in mind, we didn’t look for them, but it would’ve been nice to say good bye one last time. Outside it was a mess. It was raining and a ton of people lined the sidewalk. I told Lisa that I would fetch the car and come back and pick up the bags. BUT I couldn’t find the stinking shuttle. I asked on cast member and they directed me out in the middle and of course it was raining. I asked someone else; who said no this was for Disney buses and pointed me further down. I asked another person and he said no that wasn’t the parking lot shuttle either. Finally I found it on my own and it was not anywhere near where they pointed me. How could these people not know where the parking lot shuttle was located? I was a bit ticked off. Then I had to wait a while, thankfully under shelter. Most people were bringing their luggage right on the shuttle which took more time to load and less room for people. I did make it on the 2nd shuttle though. I was let off very close to the car and got in. But now the task was to find my way out. They waved me in a different direction than where we came in at, so I went the other way. Only to get in a line and once I got to the booth they told me this was the line for people arriving. UGH. That can only happen to me. She directed me on how to get out, but again I had guys telling me I was going the wrong way. I had to stop and roll down the window a couple of times and tell them I was leaving. They all seemed puzzled by this. I know I wasn’t the only person leaving, but yet I was getting the runaround. Believe me; I would’ve loved nothing better than to stay on that ship! FINALLY I got out and on the road and made my way to the terminal. There was quite the back up, but I finally inched my way up there and of course the person in front of me parked way back, even though they could’ve inched up about 6 more feet. I just left the back end of the car hanging out and Lisa started rolling the bags over. We jammed them in the car, waited for the slowpokes in front of us and then pulled out once again. Lisa said she never saw the rest of the girls and wasn’t sure where they went. And about 2 seconds later we saw them standing along the other side of the terminal and Lisa rolled the window down and shouted goodbye and no one heard us! LOL I gave Lisa my camera and told her to shoot a few last pictures as we drove off. We weren’t exactly sure how to get back to the airport. We did have some google maps and sort of remembered our way in …but we had done so much weaving, going wrong ways on one way streets that we weren’t exactly sure. But we found our way to the main road easier than the map had told us and looked for highway signs. Off we went in the pouring rain. That drive pretty much sucked. I don’t like driving an unfamiliar car in pouring rain, but we did OK. Along the way we needed a bite to eat, so we stopped off at a Burger King I think, or some sort of Fast Food place. We made a potty stop and ordered some food and kept going. As we got closer we made a stop to fill up the car before returning it. The rain had stopped now pretty much. I filled it up and Lisa paid, saying that she never would’ve gone on a trip like this if I hadn’t invited her. That was nice. By the way, gas was much cheaper here than at home. We got back to the Enterprise office and turned the car in and then headed on the shuttle bus over to the airport. We were dropped off near the SW counter and we checked in. We checked all 4 bags in and were happy to be rid of them for a while. I texted Brook and she said they had stopped off for a bite, but were already heading to the airport. I was surprised how close behind us they were. Inside we waited in quite a line for security. When we had walked by it on our arrival, no one was there, today was much different. Very busy! Once we got through we headed to our gate and sat down for our wait. Not too much later I got a text from Brook. She was at the airport and her gate was near ours, so she came over and we chatted for a bit longer. She checked about getting on our flight, as we both were stopping at Midway, and she could, but nothing earlier for her to get back to NYC, so she decided to keep her flight as is and just explore the airport after we left. Brook had the CUTEST pair of shoes on. I asked her where she got them and she said on the ship. How had I missed these? So cute! Sadly I looked at them while I sailed on the Dream in Nov and I needed an 11 to fit comfortably and they only went up to size 10. I crammed my feet in a few times hoping something would change, but they still hurt. At WDW I looked at World of Disney and found a Men’s pair, but it only had a tiny Mickey on them and was not nearly as cute. Total Bummer! It was our time to board and we said one last good bye to Brook and headed out. Our flight was a normal flight. I took a few pictures out the window on our first leg. I always find these kind of shots with the engine kind of creepy. And after about 1 ½ - 2 hours we were landing in Chicago. I don’t think our layover was too long. I think we had time to take a potty break and get settled in for a bit and once again time to board. This is where I ran into a lady who clearly had a late boarding number and went right up in front of most people. I had to laugh, but oh well, if it’s that important to her, then let her go. Most of this flight was dark and luckily this flight was only about an hour. We landed and headed to find our bags. The airport was so empty at this hour. I texted my Aunt and Uncle who were picking us up (as Amanda, my sister was out of town for the weekend), and let her know we had our bags and we found them right away. Her husband is from Poland, and he can be hysterical at times. He just pulls in and parks right in the middle of the road there. LOL. People honk and he doesn’t even care. We quickly loaded and jumped in the car. Aunt Laura was worried about us making the drive home that night. She kept saying we could spend the night, but both of us just wanted to get home. We got back to her house and loaded my car and she gave us directions to some fast food in the area and then how to get back to the highway. We got our food and headed down the spookiest road ever. I can’t remember if it was raining, or just really dark, or both, but this was a hilly curvy road with trees lining both sides and darn scary. Finally we found civilization and made our way to the highway. The drive was LONG! We did have to make one stop for gas and once again Lisa paid. I told her she didn’t have to, but she insisted. She asked how much it would take, and I said I had no clue, and she said, well you are getting $27 worth because that is what I have handy. And the funny thing is, it took like $26 and some change and I think we forced the last bit in to make 27. I must say the last half hour was brutal. My back was hurting, I was tired and getting uncomfortable from sitting all day. I had to open the window a bit and roll my shoulders to keep awake. I vowed then that for my Nov trip coming up, I would be spending the night in Columbus, since once again we had an evening arrival. This was just too hard. We made it to Lisa’s house around 11 PM and we got her bags out and fished through mine to find the stuff she had packed in there as well and said a goodbye and on to the 6 minute drive to my house! I arrived home with Skip asleep and Claire laying on my side of the bed wide awake and waiting for me. She was a very happy girl to see her Momma home. I gave her something small (don’t remember what) and told her that her other prizes would have to wait till the next day. We hugged a bit more and then I put her to bed and hit the hay myself. Yes, Skip was happy to see me too and we chatted a bit, but I finally told him I just needed to sleep. But I could tell he missed me, which was nice. I gave Claire her prizes the next day and she enjoyed them. (We also had my niece’s b-day party that day too). And in only 5 weeks we would be off on a family adventure at WDW and on the Disney Dream! Thanks for sticking with me and helping me relive this wonderful vacation with my friends. There is talks of another future trip as well. Hopefully it will all work out for all of us!

Sept. 29, 2012, Sat. ~ Day 9 This is the worse day for most cruisers. Time to go home, or at least get off the ship. And sadly, the whole atmosphere is so different this day. It even feels like the crew, who you have come to love and know, now want you to get the heck off this ship. LOL I woke up EXTREMELY early. We didn’t have early breakfast, but we did have to get our things together, plus I wanted to see us pull into port. I actually didn’t sleep well. One of those nights where you think you might miss getting up on time, so you get up all the time to check the clock. About 5 AM I gave up and went out to the verandah to take a look. We were now making our way to the port. I quickly grabbed my camera. It was so dark. I took a ton of pictures and the all pretty much look the same. Pitch black with a few lights in the distance. I decided to head up to the top and take some pictures from there, and not disturb Lisa. I had never seen this before, so a quick shot was needed. As we got close to port, it was just beautiful and peaceful. Again, not many people were out and about. Also, the weather was a bit chillier today and it had the feel of rain. Pictures don’t do justice to the beautiful lights all around. The docking was amazing. We pulled into the port and then we had to make a 180 turn to park the ship so it was facing to leave. It was dark and my pictures are not great, but I can’t tell you how amazing this was. I swear it looked like we barely made clearance in the narrow channel. I was running from front to back and watching. It really was a neat thing to experience. Again, I can’t even stress how amazing it was to see this happen. I was so happy I was up early and got to see it. I took a couple of more shots on the deck before I headed back to the room. A few pictures of the pool and slide rules. And then I put my good camera away for good. The rest of the trip my pictures are taken on my point and shoot. And sadly that means a lot of blurry pictures. I went back to the room and we both got ready and made sure everything was packed. We checked and double checked. We packed my carry on and my extra duffle with our things and decided we would check both of those in at the airport, so I packed my big Dooney purse and backpack and Lisa’s small duffle and her purse with everything we would need for the flights. This is one reason I love South West. The 2 free bags per person was really a great thing to have. We still had time before breakfast and before we had to be out of the room, so we took a look out on the balcony. Here comes that Carnival ship we had been sailing along most of the way back. I wondered why it came in so much later than we did, but maybe they only allow one through the channel at a time. And yes Boys and Girls, that IS the Carnival Triumph. Who knew in just a few short months she would have so many problems. I suddenly felt the need to take more pictures of our room I took many more, but they are all extremely blurry, and you have seen pictures of it already. We were ready and Lisa wanted to be sure to vacate on time so Rodrigo would be able to come and clean and get our home ready for the next round of guests, so we headed out. Many people were in the atrium waiting to disembark. Chris, one of Mary’s friends, had kept her luggage with her the night before as she wanted to get off the ship early. Her daughter was coming to pick her up and she needed to be to work by 11. She said she knew it would be cutting it close, but if she could get right off first thing, then it would be ok. That didn’t work though. We had a slow up with customs. I think the thought was they would be off around 7:30 or so. It was already 8 and many people were getting restless. Then we heard this announcement. This was not true. There was still something holding them back and they couldn’t get off. We ran into Chris who was not so patiently waiting in a VERY long line on the other side of the elevators. And someone had dropped a bottle of booze and it really reeked in the area. We said goodbye to her and found a spot to sit. Why I took this picture of myself, I have no clue. While waiting we headed outside to watch the Triumph makes its 180 turn. I talk in this video, but I swear it doesn’t sound like me. Maybe I was horse that day. Dolphin! (kind of like Squirrel! on Up!, as soon as you see one you lose concentration on everything around you) Again, this was very interesting to watch. Our ship was better though! They already were starting to work on the ship.

I continued to walk around and try to get pictures of the characters at the Till We Meet Again party. Lisa gave up shortly after the show started and found a seat. I watched Cinderella for a while. She basically had no line so I went up for a picture. It was just crazy in the Atrium though. Lots of people packed in a small area. I spotted Jazzy up a level with her friend. Soon the meet and greet portion was over and the characters returned to the stairs for a little bit more of a show. It really was hard to get a decent picture with the poor lighting and so many people around. I don’t know why Cinderella and Belle have such funny looks on their faces. I guess they were sad the cruise was ending too. Goofy was so funny! As he walked up the stairs he totally fell and of course everyone had a good laugh. Slowly each character started to say goodbye and head up the stairs. Bye Mickey!!!!! Lots of confetti fell and I picked up a few pieces for Claire. And looked around and had a really good laugh. Not only were the kids crawling around on the floor getting confetti, but adults were! Women in dresses were all over the place fighting over confetti. Seriously, do you need confetti that badly? And they weren’t standing up till every scrap was picked up. I guess that makes cleanup for the cast members easier. I find Lisa sitting on a couch and talking to a guy. His wife was one of the confetti picker uppers. LOL! But she wasn’t as bad as some. She collected just enough to give the kids some and was happy with it. I started talking to him and then his wife and small world …..she was on our cruise facebook group. We chatted a little bit and then headed up to the top of the ship once again. We decided we would have one last drink together for fun. It was very quiet up there tonight. I got a strawberry daiquiri. I have no clue what Lisa ended up getting. We just sat around and sipped our drinks and talked for a bit. We had had such a fun vacation. Lisa was so glad to have come, and I was so glad she came with me. She also said having the other girls along made it even more fun. They all seemed to get a long great, just like we were all friends for years. After our drinks, we headed back to the room for our last night of sleep. Lisa said she has sleeping issues at home and the ship was wonderful. She wasn’t sure if it was the rocking motion or the daily dose of bonine, but something was making her sleep like a rock!

We were heading to Cabanas after finally getting to the aft of the ship, ….even though all did not agree with this move, …..and up to Cabanas. We did not see the rest of the family at all and I just chose a couple of tables out on the back deck. I took a few pictures just like Geoff’s! I took Claire and Alexis to get some food and then sat them down at the table. Soon Gail and Rob had found us. They said they waited at the elevator for a short time, but knew we would find our way and left. We took turns going to get food and sat down for a feast. YUM! I did make more than one trip. At some point Rob showed up with a tropical drink in his hand. He told Gail he bought it for her, but he had done a pretty good job at drinking himself. LOL I took a few more pictures off the back of the ship. Someone had finally found the rest of the family inside eating. We were now going to head to our staterooms as it was just about time. We headed down, but actually had to wait a couple of minutes for them to drop the ropes. Actually the other side got dropped but our side was still up for a minute longer. I almost panicked that they had forgotten us! We entered our room and soon saw our Castaway Club Member gift! But wait! There is also something else on my bed as well. It was from Gail! It contained a frame, a flash drive and a picture album. It was so nice of her! She said it was a thank you for arranging all the details of the trip. We scoped out the room then. We had to take a look inside our bag. Our room connected to Mom and Dads and we opened the doors and checked their room out as well. Pretty much identical to ours only facing the other way. Mom and Dad also got a gift from Gail. I can’t remember what it was though. I know part of it was onboard credit. We found out Mary and Geoff also got a gift, including champagne, from Gail too. Mom and Aunt Mary had inherited some money after their Uncle had died and they paid a big portion of our cruise with that. Our bags were already in our room, all except Moms. Last time we cruise, Mom’s bag was the last to make, so I reassured her it was still on its way. She mentioned that she wondered if it had been delayed because she packed an iron! WHAT!!!!!!! She knew irons were not allowed. I had told her the time before and we used the laundry room to iron when needed. I had also told Geoff and Mary this as well because Geoff likes everything perfect and wanted to bring one. I told him it was a big no-no, and he asked about a steamer and I told him that was frowned upon as well. Well Mom said her and Geoff decided they were going to each bring one anyways. UGH! We got Claire’s swimsuit out and I took a few pictures from our balcony. I would love to try a Royal Caribbean cruise out some day too. I don’t think I mentioned this before but I have become a verandah snob. LOL! Once you sail with one, it is so addicting. The view is amazing and just sitting there and relaxing is wonderful. When I had met with Rinky earlier this day she had told me that they had a verandah this time, while last time they had an inside room. She said I was so right about the verandahs. She doesn’t know how she could ever go back to an inside room! After we had our suits on, we headed down to Gail and Robs room. Rob, Alexis, Claire and I were on a mission to go on the Aqua Duck. Their room was connected to Aunt Mary and Geoffs, so we headed in through the connecting door. We didn’t want Abby to see what we were doing. This is the view from their room. This is the hot tub above them. Geoff and Mary and Gail and Rob, Katie and Thad, and Vicki and Pete were a bit down the hall from us and had bigger rooms. I was kind of jealous. It wasn’t a lot more room, but still it was nice. Mary and Geoff’s room had a murphy bed in it, but it was never needed or used. We snuck out of the room and headed up through Cabanas. We found a lounger and set our stuff down and headed to the Aqua Duck. The line was about 20 minutes, not too bad. The girls were measured and they got a wrist band saying that they could only ride with an adult. Rob and Alexis went first and then it was our turn! It was super fun once again. The cold water does go up your back, but it still is really a fun thing to do. I just wish there was a graceful way to get off the thing. I am sure if you videoed me getting off my raft, it would be a winner on Americas Funniest Home Videos. HA! We then hopped in the pool a bit. It was packed. Pure people soup! The girls were bummed that they couldn’t actually swim, but I told them cruise pools just aren’t made for real swimming. The girls decided then to go on the slide. I went up to the top deck and watched. Rob went off to find something to drink. I had to laugh a little later when I saw him carrying a bucket of beer. I had thought he meant he was getting something from the drink station like I had. I sat up top and kind of watched the girls from there. Rob handed me a beer. I took it, but I couldn’t get it opened. I had to get a cast member to open it for me. I then sat with my feet in the water drinking my beer. Well that’s a no-no! I was soon tapped by a CM and told I had to take my drink away from the pool. No problem. While standing off to the side I took a quick shot of the area and Aqua Duck. I turned around and look who I found! Vicki, Mom and Geoff starting off the cruise with special drink. The girls wanted a snack at this point and ice-cream was calling to them. I took them to get a cone and they were happy. Gail is a little strict with the amount of junk that the girls have, so you have to sneak it in when you can. LOL! Actually Gail let them eat quite a bit on this trip, much to Alexis’ delight! Before you knew it, it was time to head to our muster stations. I guess I took this on the way. LOL!! I think we made a stop in the room first and then off to the muster drill. This was the first Disney cruise where I had an outside muster station. It was pretty warm out there and they really cram us together. I kept a look out for my parents, but never saw them. I would’ve assumed we had the same spot since we had connecting rooms, but they must’ve been further down or something, because I did not see them at all. I know I asked if they went, and they did, but I don’t remember where they said they were. I got to talking a guy and his wife standing next to us. They were part of the pod cast group onboard. They were fun to talk to and the guy was very passionate about Disney. My kind of person! I think this was their 5th cruise, if I remember right. I love finding people who are geeked up about Disney like I am. After we went through the drill and directions we were released and it was a mad house. They had us using crew stairs as well as the public ones. Claire and I made our way up to the top of the ship to find a spot to watch the sail away show. This was exciting. Last time we sailed the Dream, our embarkation day was rainy …I mean pouring buckets rain, and our sail away party was in the atrium. We now were going to get to see it outdoors on the Dream for the first time!

Then Luis and Raphael posed for us. Luis was always being so funny. This was the look we got often from Luis. He had the funniest eye expressions. Brook asked if they would take a picture with Crush. She had been taking pictures through the trip with him for her son Henry. They decided to hold Crush for ransom. They totally were cracking themselves up. Dessert then came out after all the goofing around. I think both Lisa and I got the Till We Meet Again Sweet Temptations - A trio of Celebration Cake, Chocolate Decadence, and Cappuccino Mousse. I kind of wished I had gotten the Baked Alaskan as well, but I didn’t because I was too full …and too fat. We all were joking how our clothes were fitting pretty tight this evening. I was smart and saved my roomiest dress for this evening! Julie, who is a tiny little thing said she had very little that she could fit into and wasn’t sure what she would wear home. LOL! She said her cruise consisted mostly of lying around or drinking or eating. Sounds like a fun vacation to me! After dinner was over, I think we roamed around a bit then came back to the Atrium for the till we meet again fairwell party. This party was CROWDED! They were playing a few Disney tunes to get us in the mood. Soon Peter came out and the characters came not far behind. I took a TON of pictures and about 70% of them are completely blurry. I don’t know what the deal was, but I couldn’t take a good picture to save my life. And with it being so crowded, it was hard to get them as well. The other 30% weren’t all that great either. After the characters come out, they have a little bit of time set aside for some last meet and greets. I went around and tried to get pictures of some of the characters. This girl was Lisa’s favorite. She noticed her at the 2nd show. Her arms are so muscular. Probably too muscular, but I should could take lessons from her.

We headed back inside to finish up the tour. And what do you know? Another character sighting! He was happy that we were all gushing over him. We finished up with Andy, and he told us something about this pole, but I can’t remember once again what the importance of them are. And if you look directly up, guess what you see? A hidden Mickey! The tour pretty much ended and a few people stuck around and asked a few questions and some of us took some more pictures as well. And we all headed back towards our rooms. Some of the girls stopped to talk to the DVC guys. The shorter one in the blue shirt pointing, we had met him earlier and he was from Toledo, OH. I live 30 minutes from there and when we talked to him we found he was really from Maumee, which is where my sister lives. Small world. You could tell we were getting closer to Texas. The Oil Rigs were all over once again. Once back in the room I got ready for the show of the night, Remember the Magic. Lisa and I headed off to the show and met up with the other girls. We found a seat together and really enjoyed this show. We all had tears, even Lisa. She told me that she is now a convert! She really enjoyed sailing with Disney. I also want to say that Lisa thanked me over and over for inviting her on the cruise. Now she paid her own way, but she said she never would’ve done this if I hadn’t asked. I was really happy that she had enjoyed herself. It made me really glad I had invited her as well. After the show, we headed back to the room for a short while before dinner. Our favorite stateroom host, Rodrigo had come through for us! He left us some extra lotions. The sky was beautiful, so I attempted to take a few pictures. That speck of light out there is the Carnival Triumph. Before we knew it, it was time to head to our last dinner of the cruise. Boo hoo! Lumiere’s was our spot tonight. We settled in and chit chatted and took a look at the “Till We Meet Again” menu. Out came the rolls. I think Chris said something about keeping the ice tea coming and they brought her out several! LOL Lisa mentioned that we didn’t have many pictures of the 2 of us together, so Brook took one for us. As for our appetizers, I have lovely pictures, but no clue what they are. I have looked at menus and not one seems to have a description that fits either one of them. So here they are. If anyone knows what either of these is, I would love to know. LOL I believe for the soup I had the Crawfish and Lobster Bisque served with roasted corn-chili relish. And Lisa had the Potato Leek Soup garnished with sour cream, chives and caviar. For our main courses, again I am not seeing a good match on the online menus. I have no clue what this is, but it looks like an alligator head on veggies. LOL! This was Lisa’s. I am guessing some kind of fish or chicken. This was mine, which I think was some sort of beef tenderloin. Dinner was good once again, even if I can’t remember what I actually ate. I did however take a picture of the inside of the dessert menu. And then the servers paraded around with the Baked Alaska. High Fives for all!

After chatting with the girls by the pool, I made my way back towards the room. We were going to meet a little later and go on the Art of the Theme Show Ship tour. As I was walking I took a few pictures once again. This totally cracked me up. This little girl was getting her hair braided and was sound asleep. Toy Story was playing on the big screen. I headed back to the room and freshened up. I believe Lisa came back for a bit too. She wasn’t in the mood for a tour, so she was just going to go off and do her own thing. The tour was to meet outside of Palo. I was one of the first to arrive. And while you wait, you take pictures ….right? Brook and the others arrived. Brook took this picture. I have the stupidest look on my face. LOL This was our guide. I believe his name is Andy. One of the last to come in for the tour was Jazzy! Remember her, the lady who can dance. We are such dorks, but we acted like we had a celebrity joining us. Andy started up. He was really good. He was fun and informative. We learned about the book Palo has. Everyone who dines there is supposed to sign it. Something we did not know, and I had planned to go back later and sign it but I never did. He also told us about the glass in Palo, and for the life of me I don’t remember its importance anymore. We also learned about the guy that watched the ship being built and made this mask as a gift. We moved on making stops here and there and learning different things like the carpets and how some have different meanings and the different signs on the ship. Many of it you notice, but not really, more subliminal. Andy made a joke about the wave phones. He said he had been with Disney since Feb (it was now Sept) and he still couldn’t figure out how to use the dang things. Which was pretty funny as they are horrid. I can’t figure them out to save my life. While standing here Lisa comes walking down the hall. We tried to get her to join us, but she left shortly after. It was kind of funny as Andy had said something about Fluffy. I can’t even remember what, but I looked up and saw Lisa, and Fluffy is her nickname. Back in our bar days she always had a ton of fluffy hair and people just started calling her that. We made a stop near the nursery. I didn’t know this, but originally the ship was not built with one. This was an extra kitchen area. After a few months of sailing they realized this was a must for Disney and they gutted it and converted it. The Wonder was built the same way and on her transatlantic crossing she was gutted and redone into a nursery as well. Also I did not know the glass was on one way mirror so parents can come and look in, but the kids don’t see them. We next made our way towards the atrium. See the lady with the yellow tank top? That’s Jazzy! Something I did not know was that the chandelier is made of plastic and not glass, as glass was too heavy. And look who we spot! It’s always fun to see a character out. I LOVE you Goopy!!!!!! (Claire used to always call him that and he was her favorite when she was about 2) We checked out these pictures with facts about the ship. If you ever get a chance take a look at them. They are really interesting. Another character sighting! The Big Cheese himself! If you remember way back earlier in this report I mentioned that Walt was missing something in this picture. It was his cigarette! I am not sure if the original ship mural had it or if it was made this way from the start. I have heard from some that it was there, but Andy made it sound like it wasn’t. Moving on. It was kind of funny as when we would stop at times, a few other people would stop for a bit and listen in. I am sure not everyone realized they had “free” ship tours. I am really glad I read about it and took it. It was very interesting. We started to head outside and guess what? It was raining! But Andy said he had something he wanted to show us and we had a roof over us, so we would be fine. The ships belly button! This is where the 2 halves were brought together and welded. The Wonder also has a belly button, but was made as a whole rather than halves, but they felt she needed a belly button to so they just put one on her. I don’t think the Dream and Fantasy have them though. Trying to get artsy while Andy talked. The sun was trying to peek through. Andy then told us the story about the ships color. Monica Blue. I have heard this story before and it is always similar, but not always the exact same. Basically the story is that they were trying to come up with a color. They wanted black like the old ocean liners had, but yet that was drab, and they wanted blue, but there was some issue with that. Monica, who was a secretary or something along those lines was wearing a very dark blue skirt, dress, or pants, depending on who tells it and they said I want that color and they had the color made specially going off her clothing. So it is now called Monica blue. And she still works for the company, and if I remember right is quite high up now. And then a freaky thing happened. Look at the sky. It cleared up in a matter of seconds. Andy looks back and gives this funny look and says “well that is a bit creepy”. LOL We finished up talking a bit outside and headed back in for the final bit of the tour.

A few more pictures around the Atrium. The port excursion desk was empty now that we were heading back to Galveston. And walking down the hallway. I decided I needed more pictures of the Promenade Lounge. The Lounge had a ton of these mirrors all over and I tried to get pictures of most of them. There is also an internet café located here. I made my way out and took more pictures along the way. I headed out towards the pool. I think I found Lisa on the top deck catching some rays. And look who else I found. I went down and sat along the edge and chatted with them. I took a couple of pictures while sitting there too.

Sept. 28,2012 Day 8 Navigators of the day. I believe I actually tried to sleep in a bit today. Which might mean I slept till 7. I think by 7:30 this was the view from our balcony. That Carnival Ship was still out in the distance We still had a full sea day left, but it was kind of sad that we were heading home. Lisa and I got some breakfast. Rumor is that when the Magic goes in dry dock they are going to take this aft seating out or at least make it smaller. That saddens me. This was our favorite spot to eat every day. It was just beautiful and peaceful. After we ate we headed to the adult pool area and just sat around and watched the guys work. We decided to head to the guest service desk and check our accounts. We both paid ours off with cash. I wasn’t sure if I would add anything more to my account, but it was nice not to have it all go on my credit card. Then of course we headed to the shops. Lisa was looking for something here, but I don’t remember what or if she found it. We browsed around and I had been looking at a sweatshirt. It was on sale. Not screaming Disney, but did say Disney cruise line on it. I decided to get one for myself. I don’t have pictures of it. At least not that I remember taking. It’s blue and pretty basic with an Anchor on it, but I liked it and the price was good. I also found one in Claire’s size, also on clearance and grabbed it. Then I thought ….hmm , my niece Abby just had her b-day and her family party was going to be the day after I got home (Sunday). I hadn’t gotten anything yet for her besides a small purse in Cozumel, so I got one for her as well. And I also had been looking at the frame. I bought a few prints last year on the Dream and some were on odd size and I have yet to find a frame to fit them. So I took the plunge and bought one that would fit the picture. I immediately framed it when I got home. I also debated on getting Abby a Disney gift card. They had the cutest one with a DCL theme on it. But I only wanted it for $10. Just a filler gift. The minimum had to be $25, so I passed on it. I got some candy and a few other small things for Claire and her cousins and added right back to the account I had just paid off. We then headed back to the room and put away our purchases and went to the pool. I sat under my favorite spot, the waterfall for a bit. The other gals were out there again too. The water was a bit cooler today, but still nice and not as high either. We bobbed around in the pool again for an hour or 2 and chatted away. This is the life. I am not a swimmer, but I don’t mind bobbing around and talking on a hot day. After a while we got hungry so we headed off to Topsiders. It was a seafood buffet today and also a BBQ on the back deck. We headed back to our favorite spot and found a table. MMMMMM! Crab legs! We enjoyed our meal and as you know, when eating crab legs, it takes a bit to crack them, but it is so worth it. These weren’t the best I ever had, but they were still good. We never got anything off the BBQ grill, but I did take a couple of pictures. We then headed back to our room. I got changed. I wanted to go to a towel animal class. No one else had seemed interested, which was OK by me. I think Lisa went back to the pool. I found a seat quickly. I seemed to have a good view from what I could tell. We were given some towels and a sheet with some directions. While I was waiting for it to start, a Mom came in with her 2 sons. They sat down in the row in front of me, but luckily they were not blocking my view. But I found them kind of annoying. Mostly because the Mom was a loud bragger talker. You know the kind, they talk really loud so you can’t help but hear every word they say and then it’s about things they are sort of bragging about and then you see them kind of look around to see if others heard and wanting a reaction. I really can’t stand those kinds of people. I can take them in small doses, but she just kept going on and on and on about things. Things that had nothing to do with the class. So she bragged away and I played around with my camera and then all of a sudden the Dad of the family surprised them and walked in. Well she got even louder then. She was so excited that Dad chose to come to the class, and blah blah blah, but we ALL heard about it. And of course he sat right in front of me and his head was totally blocking my view, so I ended up moving my chair so I could see better. Soon our host arrived and he brought up another helper who just kept making towels for show. He told the kids to go out on the floor where you would have more room and loud talking Mom went out as well, but she still never shut up. We were instructed on a few towels. I thought it was fun. My elephant. My dog. Working on a monkey. I had the most trouble with the monkey, but I am sure with practice I could master him. After we were done, I went and took some pictures of some of the sample animals. After the class I just went around and took more pictures on the ship. I was trying to get Mickey from every angle.

Our breadsticks arrive next at our dinner at Palo Freshly Baked Bread on Our Pizza Oven. (Grissin Sticks, Olive and Ciabatta Rolls, and Focaccia Bread) Our server! I can’t remember his name, but it was something hard to say and only Susan could master it right away. And then the Palo's Cold Antipasti Specialties presented from our Antipast Cartello; Prosciutto, Bresaola, Parmesan-Reggiano, Marinated Olives, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes served with Palo's Famous Dips and Olive Oil. I tried some and I have to say, it’s all pretty foreign to me and not something I really cared for. I was trying to get a picture of the roses, but I just wasn’t getting it right. For an appetizer I ordered the Mozzarella and Plum Tomatoes with Balsamic Dressing. Lisa got the Frito di Calamari, Lightly-crusted calamari I believe. And Shelly got the Sicilian Pesto Marinated Grilled Shrimp I believe. I am looking things up on menus online and they don’t all sound right. I think everyone else got some variation of those 3 as well. For the next course, both Lisa and I got the Lobster and Mascarpone Ravioli with a light truffle burro Bianco. I thought it was good, Lisa thought it was disgusting. She didn’t like the texture and she was expecting something more like regular ravioli and more of a red sauce I think. I would say, I would prefer that too. This was good, but not fabulous. And then I believe we were served a palette cleanser. For our main courses ….this is where I messed up. I was the one who suggested this night for Palo and it turned out to be Lobster night on the ship. I am one who loves to get Lobster whenever served. We were told we could still get it in Palo, but I really should’ve tried something that I couldn’t get in the main dining room. I didn’t. I got the Lobster. It was good, but I kind felt like I was wasting money getting something here I could’ve gotten in the dining room. It was served beautifully though. Many of us got the Lobster. A couple also got the Beef Tenderloin "Palo" served with Palo signature Barolo red wine sauce or Gorgonzola Sauce. The food was good, but it didn’t WOW me at all. I think I came in with too high of expectations. To me nothing we had so far would make me think it was better than the dining rooms. Dessert time! Of course we all had to try the Chocolate Soufflé with Vanilla Bean and Chocolate Sauce. This again was good, but it did NOT WOW me at all. I thought the vanilla one served in Tritons was just as good. Actually maybe even more to my liking. I have this picture, and for the life of me I can’t remember what it is, and I am sure someone can remind me. I think it was some kind of after dinner thing for digestion? We all kind of agreed that the food was good, but not something we would rush back for. It was the first Palo dinner for all of us. Brook has done the brunch and she said it was MUCH better than the dinner. I have now sailed the Dream since then and I did do the brunch on it. It was 100 times better than the dinner. I will most likely never do dinner again, but I will try the brunch out again. We were running late for the show now and we had asked our server for our bill. He was kind of slow to get it and he was a bit mixed up with everyone asking for their own. I think with an extra tip and drink my bill was $30-$35. To me, it was NOT worth the price at all, but I am glad I tried it. We rushed off to the show and it had already begun and we quickly found seats. We enjoyed this show too. After the show I think we might’ve headed back to the room for a bit and then we were all going to meet up at the John Charles adult show in Rockin’ Bar D. When Lisa and I arrived it was pretty busy already. They were finishing up another show, if I remember right. We just found some seats and sat. We later spotted Brook, Carolyn, Shelly and Susan across the way. It was too crowded to go over and try to squeeze in with them. We enjoyed his show once again. I think the first time we saw him was better, but this one was good too. After it was over, Lisa said she was dead tired and left. I moved over near the other girls and sat down. One hit Wonders was next and we sat and watched that a bit. Remember the lady we called Jazzy on the first day. The older lady who could DANCE! We had seen her several times throughout the cruise and she was here tonight. We watched her dance a bit to some of the songs. Soon we all started getting tired and one by one left. I decided to take a walk up on deck before heading back to the room It was close to midnight now and I headed back to the room and went to sleep. Another long, but very fun day!!!!

Soon Mom and Dad were at the check in desk. They could use the castaway club check in line since Mom has sailed Disney before. I kept eyeing the ears doorway. I was so ready to make the mad dash there and get on the ship! While waiting, I took a picture of my cards. Claire is patiently waiting. Gail’s family was the last to get checked in and once she arrived we made our way to the ship. Abby was not so happy about this. She still wanted to see Mickey MOOWSE! I started to laugh and say how cruel we were. After all we had prepared her for this for a year and got her excited about meeting characters and then the first one she sees we say she can’t. We made our way on the gangway towards the ship. I was so excited. This was my 2nd time sailing the Dream, but my 3rd time being on her. I was lucky enough to take a ship tour of her in Aug. of 2011. And we stopped for a group picture, which surprisingly went well for as many people as we had. They took like 3 or 4, but only one actually showed up on the CD my sister bought. Notice our matching shirts. This was actually my Mom’s idea. When we sailed in March 2011 I had bought us matching shirts for our boarding day. Mom said she would wear it, but didn’t seem overly excited about it. I guess she liked it, as she was excited to have us all wear them on this day. She then bought the girls their matching outfits to wear and I had the headbands made (which Abby refused to wear). Some of our family members who did not sail with us and were still back home were mortified that we were doing such a thing. LOL! Time to board the ship! Come on you slow poke family! Let’s get a move on! Needless to say, Claire and I were the first ones to board. Next came Gail’s family. And Vicki and Pete were behind them. Mary and Geoff and Mom and Dad were slowly making their way on as well. And finally Katie’s family made their way on as well. This one cracks me up with this lady looking right at my camera. We oohed and ahhed over the atrium. It is just gorgeous! I believe they suggested we head to Enchanted Garden to eat. I said I wanted to go to Cabanas, and Mom did too. We spotted Donald doing a meet and greet a floor up and Abby got anxious again. We decided we would head up there and see him and the rest of the family was going to make their way towards Cabanas. The line wasn’t long at all. Mom sat off to the side with our carry ons. And then it was announced that Donald had to take a break! I could see Gail’s eyes panic. But they announced someone else would be out shortly! Thanks goodness. We HAD to get Abby to a character or there could be a meltdown. The girls are waiting patiently. And I took a few shots while we waited. And then we saw him! Pluto was coming!!!! The wait for Pluto was not bad at all and soon Gail’s girls were meeting him. I have given both girls autograph books last Christmas. Gail says she had no clue where she put them and search and searched, so at this point they didn’t have any. They planned to buy one when the shops opened. Abby was not scared at all. Then it was our turn. I handed my camera to Gail and went up towards Pluto. No I am not telling Gail she is a loser, though I am sure growing up I might’ve made that sign once or twice ….. but she couldn’t figure out how to use my camera and I was telling her to look through the view finder. And then we headed off. I got about here when I realized I had left my carryon over by the couch where Mom had been sitting. I ran back and got it and we headed towards the elevator. Gail, Rob and Abby made it on one and took off and we waited and waited and waited. We were a floor above the main atrium and there was just no way we were going to get an elevator that wasn’t full already. I told Mom that we should go to the aft of the ship and take those up as they go right to Cabanas. OK, that sounded good. Dad immediately said NO! (Dad says this often and it annoys the heck out of us. Usually he has no clue what he is talking about when he says it and just says no for no reason) What? Why? We can’t go that way. Oh yes we can! No, I am not taking the stairs. I snapped a bit then. I told him that we all had been on the ship before and knew exactly where we were going. The aft elevators would lead us right to where we were going and that if we couldn’t get an elevator, we could take stairs as another option. He said Gail and Rob would be waiting for us at the top near the elevator. I told him that they would soon give up if they were when they didn’t see us arrive. And then we left him standing at the elevator. WE slowly made our way down the hall and I took a couple of shots of the girls that would not turn out no matter how hard I tried. I even tried a flash to counteract the sun coming in, but it bounced off the glass and made it 10 times worse. Since we were going so slowly, we eventually saw that Dad was making his way behind us. We got to the elevators but still had a little wait. Though it wasn’t as bad as the midship ones. In the meantime, the rest of the family had made it to Cabanas and Geoff took a couple of shots off the back of the ship. My Grandfather was a tugboat Captain, so this is such a nice shot.

After a bit of walking around and fooling around we headed back inside. The girls loved this water feature. We then headed off to our room for a bit. I believe Gail met us here and we fooled around a bit more. Gail was worried as Abby was pulling at her ear. This is a telltale sign that she has an ear infection. Abby gets them ALL the time. Gail was worried. We would be heading out to sea for 4 days, it could get ugly. She asked about Dr.’s on the boat and I told her yes, but they are very pricey. Then it dawned on me. Katie is a pediatrician! Gail said Katie and Geoff had made a run to a nearby store, so she quickly called Geoff and let him know the situation. Katie said she would write a script and pick it up. Wonderful! We kind of just chilled a bit and went in and out of the room for a while. I ran back to the room at one point to use the bathroom and realized I had left my phone on the counter. I picked it up and had 2 missed calls and a couple of texts. With all the excitement happening this morning I had forgotten about a Dis meet. Rinky Tinky Tink (she has asked me not to use their names) was getting off the Dream this morning and she said they would stop off at the hotel to meet up. I quickly called her (Or maybe I texted) and she was on her way. I ran back to the lobby and soon they arrived. She probably thought I was a complete nutcase. With all the stuff going on, I was an utter scatter brain. We talked a bit and they had a gift for Claire. UGH! I had a gift for Rinky Jr (her daughter who is Claire’s age), but it was left in my room. Luckily our room was the first one around the corner, so I quickly ran back and got it. We talked about their cruise. They were so much fun. Mr. Rinky was so funny. Claire and Rinky Jr. pretty much just eyed each other up and down though. They were NOT about to get friendly in the short time we had. They told me about the damage from Sandy at Castaway Cay, which wasn’t too bad at all in their opinion. They said a few excursions had been canceled, one being the stingray one. We had that booked and it was all Claire wanted to do and she totally shut down after that. She was fighting tears. I let her know we would check once we got on, as I had called prior to going and it was still scheduled, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Mr. Rinky also told us they did the jet ski excursion and how awesome it was. They all seemed to love it though Rinky Tinky said it was a bit too fast, Mr. Rinky said it wasn’t fast enough. They suggested us looking into it, and it did sound like a lot of fun. Some family members had walked by and I introduced everyone. Rinky got a whole family meet with me! LOL It came time where they had to leave as they were driving home and I wanted to get a picture. Shoot! My camera was in the room. So once again I ran back and got that. I think Claire took our picture. She REFUSED to be in it and so did Rinky Jr. We talked a bit more and guess who walked in! Dad and Rob! Holy Cow that was fast! It was only an hour and a half since they left!!!!! I introduced them to Rinky’s family and they walked on. I think Rob and Dad went off for a bite to eat. We said our good byes and they left for home after having a wonderful vacation at Disney World and ending it with the Dream and we were just starting ours. We joined the family who was eating outside and we got a bit to snack on as well. We sat there for a while and chatted. Rob told us how he made the 2 hour plus drive in 1 ½ hours. He said NO ONE EVER passed him on the road. LOL! He said he pulled up and told Dad to stay in the van and watch it while he ran in to make the switch. He said it was waiting right where it was supposed to be and YES, the bags were almost identical. He said the only difference was that the one had a silver zipper and the other had a gold one. I sure hope those poor people got their bag back too. Some of us girls headed off for another walk. Katie joined us this time as well as Gail, if I remember right. Mom stayed back to chat with everyone else. We spotted a turtle in a little pond nearby. We watched him a bit and headed off again. Jude was a wild thing! Katie said that when he is lacking in sleep, he gets pretty jumpy and wild. He was like a crazed little man running all over, but having a great time! We tried to get the kids together for a group picture. That wasn’t so easy. I guess Jude is feeling the music….though there wasn’t any playing! Another attempt! Abby does not want a boy in the picture. Ok, this one isn’t so bad! We all chatted some more and then headed back to our rooms to be sure everything was packed. Rob talked to the bus driver and found out that she could take us over then as there weren’t many Carnival passengers riding. Sadly we couldn’t all get out there before it was time for her to leave, but she would be back shortly for us. We all just hung out and waited. After a bit we moved our stuff outside as a few more guests had gathered in the lobby as well. Abby and Jude sat down on a suitcase together and it was the cutest thing. I was behind a bunch of suitcases and couldn’t get out to get a good shot. I decided to climb out and get them. Finally the bus arrived. This was a BIG bus, just like the Disney buses. We left our luggage for the girl to load. All the guys insisted on helping her, but she said she had a system and wanted to do it herself. Claire and I once again got the front seats! Everyone else piled in behind us. And soon we were on our way to the port. Our bus driver was very friendly. The ride is very short over to the port and she announced where to go and how to find our shuttle once we got back. And soon enough we were all gasping at our view! She’s just so beautiful and when you pull in and see her you can just see how HUGE she is. Parking lot shot. Soon enough we were stopped and getting off the bus and waiting for the luggage to unload. A shot of the terminal. And finally we were off to get in line. We had to stop here and show ID’s. Aunt Mary and Geoff were right behind Claire and I. Claire and I made it through and then started walking. After a bit we noticed that Aunt Mary and Geoff and the rest of the gang was still held up. Claire and I kept going, figuring they would catch up with us shortly. We looked back again before entering the building and they were coming, but as they reached a set of stairs they turned and went up them. I guess this is another entrance and the CM had directed them to go that way. Claire was a little worried we wouldn’t find them again, but I assured her we would all end up in the same place. We went through security and made our way towards check in. It was very fast and easy. We got boarding pass number 6 and they were already boarding! You don’t know how bad I just wanted to leave the family behind in the dust and run onto the ship! But we still had to wait for the rest of the family who still had not shown up. I think at one point I texted Geoff who said they were just going through security. When they did arrive, Mom scolded me for going off on our own ahead of everyone. While they all got in line, I took a few pictures. Abby had spotted Mickey and Gail had prepared her for so long about this trip and she just kept saying “I want to see Mickey MOOOOOWSE!”

Before I go on I want to add something that I forgot from the previous day. While Claire was swimming I pulled out the new journal that was from Carey and Janet. I opened it to start writing and taped inside was a $25 gift card to Disney. They said thanks for all the help, but honestly there was NO need to give me such a wonderful thing. I texted them both and thanked them. I used it towards a new watch purchase later in the trip! On to……. Nov.4, 2013, Sunday ~ Day 4 I had really hoped for a good night’s sleep, but sadly it wasn’t meant to be. The time also changed during this night, so we were falling back and getting an extra hour. I think I slept about 3-4 solid hours and then I woke up and tossed and turned for a bit. I finally just gave up and got up and dressed and went for a walk. I knew laying there with my head full of activity would do me no good, so maybe if I moved around, I would tire myself out. I believe it was now 4:30 AM in the new time. (5:30 old time) As I was walking around, I did see an older guy walking as well. I really tried to stay towards the front and on the sidewalk. I surely didn’t want any freaks attacking me. After a bit, he was walking towards his car and he said hello and I said hi back. He then said he would like to point out some stuff in the sky to me if I didn’t mind. He was from Montreal and he love astronomy. I didn’t get any closer to him, just to be safe. I am sure he was perfectly nice, but crazy maniacs appear nice too. So he pointed out Jupiter and Mars if I remember right and actually told me some interesting info. We talked a few minutes and then he had to be on his way for a convention or something. I walked around the front some more and over near the Burger King parking lot I saw something fairly big move. It was either a HUGE rat, which wouldn’t surprise me one bit, or an armadillo. I am guessing armadillo since we are in FL. But it had that rat like tail. CREEPY. I quickly moved towards the hotel entrance then. I was thinking about heading in, when I had an afterthought, maybe I should stay out here and see if I can see the Dream pull in, if it hadn’t yet already. So I looked that way and guess what! She was pulling in, but I only saw the tail end of her before she went out of sight. That of course made my excitement level higher! I decided to head back in and take some pictures inside. Last year I didn’t get a lot and this was the perfect time to get the lobby area fairly empty. This is some of the tables to eat breakfast at. A few things for sale. Computer station. I actually ended up using this later that morning. I had 2 folders full of paperwork and plans, etc. And I for the life of me could not find my inline check in form. I was getting annoyed, so I just went to this station and reprinted it. I don’t think we ever even looked much at this area last year. It was a nice seating area and over flow from breakfast would sit in here as well. I took a seat for a while then and played a bit with my phone. I think I even went back to the room, which was right around the corner from the front desk, and got my kindle and I read up on a few emails and I think I even caught up reading on a Trip Report or 2. While sitting there a lady came in. She was the lady who put out the breakfast, so she must arrive early to set up and cook. She was kind of funny talking to a few guys and complaining about the time change and it messing her up. I then took off towards the bathroom. There was a door outside right by the bathrooms, so I went out through that and it led near the pool and pool bar, which is on the left in the picture, but all shut down. The front desk I headed back to the room for a bit and charged my kindle while I read some more. I just sat in the living room area. I think around 6:15 or so I went and took a shower and got that out of the way. After I did that my Mom and Dad also got up and took their showers. Claire slept through it all pretty much. I think she woke up around 7:30ish and we got her dressed. Dad started looking for his new tennis shoes and of course Mom yelled at him for asking over and over and she told them they were in HER suitcase and she would get them for him. So she pulled her suitcase out and went to a side pocket and it had a lock on it. My Mom was TICKED off. Why would security at the airport lock these after checking it? She doesn’t have a key. I suggested that if we needed to get in the pocket we may have to see if someone else had a key to fit or cut it open. She then went to open the main suitcase to see if the keys were inside and it was LOCKED! My mom doesn’t cuss much EVER, but a few words slipped out at that point in time. We then looked the bag over and that when I asked if it was her bag. It’s orange and honestly I have never seen another like it, but you never know. We looked at the bag tag and compared it to her retrieval tags and it was NOT a match! We searched and found a tag and it had someone else’s name on it and they were from Montreal. OH NO!!!!! Talk about panic! This suitcase had all my mom’s clothes in it and it was GONE! She was in a tizzy and I don’t blame her. I just kept saying be calm and we’ll work something out, even if she had to go shopping for new clothing. I frantically searched on my kindle for Deltas lost bag phone number. It kept glitching and taking me to another page, but finally it came up and I called. Guess what, they are closed on Sundays. Seriously? You would think this would be open 24 hours a day, EVERY day. In the meantime, Mom is trying the number for the Montreal people and it just talks in French and from what she could gather, they were out of area to get the call. As I am looking on the kindle for other options, my Moms cell phone rings. She answers it annoyed, but soon perks up. It’s Delta. They have her bag! Mom lets them know that she has someone elses as well. Mom handed the phone to me because she was in such a panic and took down the directions on how to retrieve it. The guy was great and said not to worry as the ship didn’t leave till later in the afternoon and we also had an extra hour to play with today. I told Mom I would run down to Gail and Rob’s room and ask if Rob would drive Dad to airport to make the switch. No one was going to trust Dad to do this on his own and he drives like a snail. If I went, I probably would’ve killed him somewhere along the roadside. Side note ….my suggestion to you when packing. Pack by day and not by person. Which is something I have started doing the last few years. Just in case a suitcase does get lost, at least you have a couple of days’ worth of clothes in one bag for everyone! Claire and I ran down the hall to Gail’s room. We knocked and heard Alexis ask who it was. She opened the door and we asked if her Dad was up. Abby piped up, “I go get him”. So she went into the bedroom and jumped on Rob to wake him up. Gail and Rob had a 2 bedroom suite, not sure how they lucked out on that ….. and Gail came out of the other bedroom and asked what was up and I told her and she knew the horror of what must be going on in our room. Rob got right up and dressed and I headed off back to our room to let Dad know to be ready when he got there. Dad turned on his cell phone then (this is a sore subject with Mom as he keeps it off all the time and thinks he only needs to turn it on every so often to check messages and save his battery. He wasn’t even going to bring his charger along for the whole trip and Mom insisted he did) and low and behold there was a message from Delta the night before letting us know they had our bags. Yeah, it was a tense moment in the room then. I thought I might witness my Mother killing my Father and I would have to defend her. After all he was the one who pulled the wrong bag off the carrousel and didn’t turn his phone on. The thing I wondered though was how did they get his number? We put everything under my Moms number. My only guess is she had both numbers on her luggage tag. Dad was ready and I walked him down to Rob’s room. They took off and we let them know if they were late for the shuttle to just drive over to the port and park the van. Rob wanted to get back for a shower too before they went to the port and though we had plenty of time till we needed to head over (thank God for the time change), it did take an hour each way to get to and from the airport. They were off and Gail made the comment that Rob had said “I am sure glad I am not in ‘that’ room this morning. I can only imagine what is going on.” LOL! Yeah, I didn’t want to be there either. We met back up with mom and headed to get a bite to eat to calm our nerves. We headed back to Gail’s room then and the girls were dressed. Alexis answered the door showing off her lanyard. She asked if Claire had one and Claire panicked a minute. I let her know that we would be getting ones when we checked in for the ship, so we would have them later that day. Collecting pins became a very fun hobby for the 2 girls. Abby was NOT happy about the headband and was trying to take it off. We decided to head off for a walk. I think we left Gail in the room to finish getting ready.

Thanks. It takes me a while to write them ,but I enjoy really enjoy reliving them as I write.

Good Bye Animal Kingdom Lodge! We really enjoyed you! So much so that I think I took over 300 pictures there! Probably close to 350. On our way to MCO! Claire kept saying how it wasn’t said being on the bus like it was for others because we still had a long trip ahead of us, and she was right. It wasn’t the Magical Depress this time around. If course we had to make a few stops along the way to pick up more guests. I think our first stop was CBR, but I didn’t take pictures if it was. Next up was Art of Animation. And then Pop Century. And off to MCO. I actually was starting to think we may be a little late, but we weren’t. And this is where the whole trip was really supposed to start. Originally this was just going to be a 4 day cruise for the whole family, with flying in 1 day prior to sailing. Cousin Vicki was the one who wanted to sail as a group. Mom, Claire and I had sailed the Dream on March 31, 2011, shortly after she was inaugurated, and Mom had raved about the trip. Vicki thought it would be fun to do a family trip. When Mom first told me about it, I really never thought it would come to anything. Too many people to coordinate and settle on dates, etc. Also I didn’t think some members would actually ever cruise. We met for a lunch one day in Sept. 2011 and it all started to come together and in Oct we had settled on dates that everyone agreed on and it was booked. I immediately began thinking that Claire and I would stay 3 days after and do the Christmas party and Hollywood Studios one day to see the Osborne lights. That eventually became almost 7 days. And of course we then added a day on to the beginning as well. Then of course the family started thinking that if they were down there, they might as well hit some parks too, so this short vacation became a weeklong event for everyone. We soon arrived at the Delta drop off and we collected our bags. This is probably the one and only picture of Claire with her new sunglasses. I got one of those rental carts. There was no way I was lugging that entire luggage around by hand. I took note of the price, and of course now I don’t remember. I want to say it was $7. WELL worth the price, whatever it was. I do think it might’ve had a refund of like 50 cents or something like that when you returned it. After we loaded the cart, I texted a few family members to see if they had landed. At first there was no response. Then Geoff responded and said they had just landed and he and Aunt Mary were to be some of the first off as they had upgraded to bigger seats towards the front. Claire and I just hung outside for a bit. And then moved our way inside and took turns using the restroom. We then realized we needed to go up a floor to be near the luggage claim, so we headed towards and elevator and then waited …and waited…and waited. Geoff let us know the number to be at, so we waited some more. But then we noticed that actually it was the one next to it that was for their flight, so we planted ourselves near that one. It really did seem to take a long time for them to arrive. I had to keep reminding myself that they probably all made a bathroom stop and then had to take the fake monorail over. I texted back and forth a few times with Geoff and then suddenly I saw some family! There is Rob! ….. with Alexis behind him. I also see Mom, Dad and Geoff! Everyone made it and they were in good spirits. The big worry was how the little ones would do on the plane. Katie’s boys were just fine …and I have to admit, they are both angels at all times. She is so lucky. Even wild 3 year old Abby did well. They said they just gave her snacks and kept movies playing for her and she was perfectly happy. The luggage soon started and they started pulling off all the bags. Someone flagged a porter down and he had this huge cart and he just kept piling and piling the bags on. I am not sure what everyone is looking at in this shot. We took a few turns going to the bathroom and then made sure we had our bags loaded. Count your bags! Make sure you didn’t leave any ……dum dum dum …….make sure you read the name tags as well …..dum dum dum……. Abby and Gail waiting for everyone to be ready. Off to the Dollar Rental counters. The porter led the way. This guy was excellent. Very friendly and we kind of felt bad monopolizing his time, but then again, we are probably not the only people who use a porter and need to stop off at the rental counter. We left my cart, and a few people, and kids, and porter off to the side and we got in line for the cars. Our car was in Moms name, but she wanted me to drive, so I was going to have to put it in my name and on my credit card. She said she would pay me later, which was fine (and she did). Now let me tell you about our experience with Dollar. I will tell you, I would rent again, because they often have great deals …BUT you have to read EVERYTHING you sign or check agree too. And the counter staff was AWFUL! We all lined up at the counter, each with a different dollar representative. We could hear what was going on with the others at the counter as well. They REALLY pushed insurance. I let them no in no terms did we want any. He kept insisting that I needed it and I kept insisting that I didn’t. I told him my SIL works for a car rental company and she has told me how it works, and I know my own insurance covers the car. He tried to tell me that I was wrong and my SIL probably didn’t know what she was talking about. I let him know she was higher up in the company and knew EXACTLY what she was talking about. I could hear this pressure going on for each family member down the line and I heard each and every one of them tell the clerk no. I will refer to my guy as Mr. Sauvo, because that is the best way to describe him …with his slicked back hair and Latin looks. Also this was pretty much how each and every guy looked right down the counter line. Listen buddy, you can smooth talk me and smile your charming smile, but I am NOT getting insurance. So it came time to hit the agree screen. They have a long list of pages and he told me to hit agree to everything. I repeated it back to him and he said, well you should probably read it so you don’t agree do anything you don’t want. So I did, as he continued to talk to me. Yeah, that makes it hard to read when you have someone still talking. BUT I caught it! There was something about adding so much a day for some kind of security. I hit I do NOT agree. When the print out came out, it had higher charges on it. I questioned this with 2 different people. I pointed out the amount I was to pay and asked what the others was. I was assured I was paying the right amount. I do know often rental companies have these strange charges on the list, but don’t charge you unless you agree to them, and normally I wouldn’t worry, but with Mr. Sauvo, anything could happen. I will now skip ahead several days later. When Aunt Mary got home she found that they were indeed charged insurance. And it appeared my sister Gail had been too, but hers was a lesser charge for some odd reason. Everyone else has checked their CC statements and we all were charged the right amount. My guess is that some of us caught that part in the “I agree” list and checked no, while some just hit I agree to everything like the guys said to do. I need to check with Aunt Mary, but she was disputing it. She wrote a ton of letters and even found out that Dollar has a class action suit against them in a few states for adding this hidden insurance fee. Back to our story…… We left Mr. Sauvo and all his Sauvo co-workers and out to the parking garage. We were directed to the vans. Of course most of us had shoved the paperwork in a bag and had to retrieve it once again to show the attendants out there. Our Porter pretty much knew the area and led the way again. We picked out a few vans (we had 4 total). The vans had 3 rows and we folded down the 3rd row in each van and started loading. It was a bit chaotic, I will admit. The porter just started throwing bags in our van and helped with mine, which were still on my trusty cart as well. But then the family wanted their own bags in their own car and the porter said it really didn’t matter since we were all going to the same destination. But it did matter for most, so we tried to sort some of them out. In the end, Katie came over to our van and asked if we had any extras, and sure enough we had 2 of her bags. I needed to return our cart, but the Porter said he would take it. Great. I was happy not to have to walk back. he was tipped a decent sum too. I think the family gave him somewhere around $50 -$60. Not bad for an hours work. I had made folders for everyone with lots of info. Most everyone was a newbie to DCL and a few were WDW newbies as well. I had directions to our hotel, but Rob led the way and asked at the counter and they gave him a slightly better way to get to the highway. Off we went! It took about an hour to get to Cape Canaveral. The plan was to check in and go eat at Fish Lips. As we drove, it was dark and we pretty much kept losing sight of each other. At one point we were cursing Rob out for going so darn fast. I could barely keep up. OOOPS! It wasn’t Rob. And the next toll both Gail had called us and they mentioned being not too far behind us in the next row. LOL. Poor Rob was getting blamed for nothing. Gail did inform us that Abby needed food soon. We wondered what was happening in their car. Abby can be a fireball when not happy. We also had our issues in our car. I don’t remember the details, I probably blocked them out, but my Dad can be cranky at times. He has to be right about things, even if he has no clue what he is talking about and is super stubborn. (it’s so scary how much Skip is like him…..EEEK!) I just remember having a headache and being glad to be at the hotel and able to get out. I think some of the problem was food. He wanted to eat at Fish Lips and Mom said we were going to just probably hit Burger King. I think his shoes were hurting his feet as well and he was grumbling quite a bit about that. Mom assured him he had new tennis shoes in one of the suitcases and he could wear those tomorrow …….dum dum dum……. Finally we arrived and I was happy to get away for a few minutes. We started checking in and we took this shot of the kids. By the time it was our turn to check in, part of our plan was not right. I had called this hotel, the Residence Inn, twice in the past 2 years to ask about the port shuttle. I was told their cost, or you could reserve a room with the park and cruise option and it included 2 tickets to the shuttle. It was an additional $6 per person. I was also told that you could not schedule the shuttle till you arrived. I had asked about getting the first one of the morning and again, was told that when we check in we could schedule what was available. OK then. I gave this info to the whole family. The plan was that the men would drive us and our bags to the port in the morning and then come back with the cars, park them and then take the shuttle over. We were informed at check in that there is ONLY 1 shuttle per cruise line. It left at 11 (I believe), so that wouldn’t work out for us at all as that was the same time the port opened. At first this really irked me. I hated being wrong for one and telling everyone this wrong bit of info. I questioned it and the girl and guy there seemed to have been with that hotel since it had opened and said that was always their policy and not sure who had given me the info. My guess is that I probably had some housekeeper or something answer the phone and just made it up. LOL. Anyways, they apologized, we got our shuttle tickets and purchased the ones we needed and I let go of it. It was a long day and we were tired and stressed, and there was no reason for me to be so irked. I kind of felt bad for the desk people as we are sometimes a bit chaotic and we probably had them flustered. At this point in time we didn’t even unload our bags. Abby was hungry and so were many of us. We drove over to Burger King which is right next door. Actually only Claire and I, Mom and Dad, and Gail’s family went there. This was a HUGE mistake. They had 3 people working (on a Sat. night) and they were SLOW! I swear they were cooking each thing as it was ordered. And every so often the cook and the counter girl would scream back and forth at each other. Mostly about working on a night off, or something like that. The poor drive thru girl was running around too, and couldn’t take time to help the other 2. She looked like she had it together, but was so busy, she just kept shoving food out the window. We made our orders and waited and waited and waited. Oh and it was filthy in there. Gail took out some baby wipes and went to town wiping off tables. The food came out one by one and it wasn’t even that good. I think they ran out of happy meal toys and it just was a big mess. By the end of the night, we were loudly making comments about how poor the service and food was, as we just didn’t care anymore and it was like living a big joke. In the meantime, Geoff called and said Katie needed her bags. I think he drove over to get them. If I remember right we had an issue with getting the back door open, but eventually we got it. Alexis had been asking me about going swimming since pretty much the first moment we saw her at the airport and Claire had bragged about all the swimming she had done. I told her several times that I wasn’t sure if the pool would still be open and whether or not I had the energy to take them. She never let up on it either. Not did Claire for that matter. We headed back to the hotel and met up with family once again and most of them were now heading out to Fish Lips. We got settled in our room (Claire and I were sharing with Mom and Dad), and I went to move the van to the parking lot. When I got back, Mom was off taking the girls swimming. Those buggers had talked her into it. But they had a great time. Every kid has to master the handstand. I sat with them a bit and took a few pictures. When it was pool closing time, mom took the girls back. She gave Claire a shower, which she desperately needed and I went off and walked around a bit to have some quiet time. At one point I ran into Rob who was just sitting down at the pool bar. I decided a beer sounded really good and ordered one. I believe it was $5.75 for a bud light. HOLY COW!!!!! We chatted a bit and talked to the bar tender, asking about Hurricane Sandy that had gone through only a week or so prior and about busy seasons, etc. Rob asked me some cruise questions. He has cruised before, but not on Disney and he wanted to know some of the differences, etc. We both headed back to our rooms and got ready for bed. Claire was on a super high from all the excitement. We finally got her settled down. I think my Dad stayed out in the living room and fell asleep on the couch for several hours and then came to bed. I laid my head down on the 3rd pillow of the trip. Oh the places we go! I met a few more great Disers today. Oh the People we meet! Sadly, this was not a restful night. If you have read my other reports, you know that I don’t always sleep well on vacation. I have anxieties that I am missing something or just too excited, or whatever the reason, and tonight ended up being one of those kind of nights.

Alot fo the ports are pretty poor in areas. They usually survive from our tourism.

Claire wasn’t as into the animals today as I was. She wanted to swim. She did however find a hidden Mickey. I made her stay a little longer though. I just really enjoyed looking at the animals out there. She did too, but she had enough and was worried about how much time she would have for swimming before we had to leave. Finally I relented and we headed back towards the pool area. A door we passed. I loved the theming here. Down the elevator. And we went over to the pool area bathroom to change. We usually used this shower stall for changing. It was bigger than the other 2. It also had a stool in there to set our bags on. I noticed the other 2 didn’t and I don’t think they had hooks either, if I remember right. I thought that was dumb, as the floor was wet and there wasn’t a way to keep your things dry if you showered. The shower had a changing area then stall with curtain, but you really needed a stool to keep things dry. The bigger one also seemed to be dryer since it was bigger. Isn’t this a cute hamper? Back out, we headed towards the hot tub. We spotted a little critter. Claire enjoyed the hot tub for a while. We then headed over to the pool again and I sat in the same spot as the day before and Claire swam and swam and swam. I put the camera away for a bit and tried to facebook with my kindle and phone. I say try, because facebook kept telling me my posts couldn’t be made. I have this issue off and on. It’s so annoying. Also the wifi was spotty and every so often I had to relog back in. Tim (Dis That’s Nice) was over at the Coronado and he was posting how he still hadn’t made it to a park yet and he was going nuts. His daughter was swimming too. We chatted a bit via facebook, along with a few others, some who were going to be coming to WDW in the next few days as well. I was half tempted to gather up Claire and go over and visit Tim. But I knew the ride over would be long and Claire wouldn’t like getting pulled out of the pool. And Tim and I had planned to meet up later in the trip. I had a family sitting in the loungers in front of me and they were so fun to listen to. After talking to them a bit, I found out that some of the members lived not too far from me. Small World! After a while we heard a plane and saw some sky writing. It actually took quite a while to get the whole message up and the first word was pretty much faded before the next one even started. In fact for the last one, the plane left and came back. God Loves You. A nice message, but seriously, why do would you have a sky writer do this? The family in front of me was laughing that someone would pay that much money to have that written. And it was kind of funny because the plane left and came back before writing “U”. Like he had to refuel and come back just for that letter. LOL Meanwhile, Claire was having a ball swimming and watching others. The pool games had started and she sat right up there and watched, but she wouldn’t join in. I think if she had a friend with her, she would have. I think she was just too shy. She told me she did do a few things, but I don’t think she was officially playing. The games were a huge highlight for her though. She would ask me every so often if people ever just come to Disney to just stay at the hotel and swim. I told her that I am sure a few do, but most people who come this far do want to go the parks too. I think she really liked this relaxed resort day approach we had taken. While she swam I took a few pictures of the area from my chair. This one came out bad. I was supposed to be focusing on the light. Not sure why I got the background instead. Before too long it was time to get out and get dressed. She wasn’t too thrilled about this, but I reminded her we had a bus to catch and we had several more days of fun ahead of us. We walked around and took a few more pictures. And then back towards the bathroom to change. I noticed these lockers. That’s a pretty good deal ($1). Claire was pretty hungry after all that swimming so we stopped off and got a light late lunch. It was around 4 now and I knew we wouldn’t be eating again till much later after meeting up with the family. I think we also called Skip once again while we were there and updated him and said our hellos. Claire didn’t finish it all so I asked for a container to carry the rest. It was kind of a pain and I think we ended up throwing most of what was left (the crustable sandwich) away later on. We walked around a little bit more. We talked of walking down to Kidani and checking it out, but Claire said it would be too far. Not like she really had a clue. We ended up going in the gift shop and Claire bought some sunglasses. We forgot to bring her a pair (really she doesn’t wear them all that often) and just looked around for a while. Sadly the glasses got lost at some point. She wanted them for the cruise, but she left them in the rental van and they were forgotten till we needed them on the ship. We saw them once when we got back and never again. I have no clue where they went, except that maybe they were left in the van somewhere. Around 4:30 we went to retrieve our luggage and get a voucher for the Magical Express. First they sent us outside and then inside, then back outside. The girl at the outside desk knew what to do, but I thought it was strange that the guys handling the luggage didn’t know I could get a voucher there. It wasn’t too long and our bus arrived and Claire and I were the first on again, and we took our favorite first row seat. I took a shot of the seatbelts that are now on the new buses.

We finished up our meal at Boma. We really enjoyed it. The juice is pretty darn good too! I paid the bill and we gathered our belongings and headed out. Once again, we no longer had a room, so we had to carry with us what we needed for the day till it was time to leave. We made a stop to take a couple of pictures of Claire. And a stop off at the bathroom. MEANWHILE! ………… My family was preparing to head to the airport. My Mom had arranged for a bus to take 10 of them to the airport in Detroit. That left Katie, Thad and their boys to go up there on their own. Mom said they came across a bad accident on the way up and quickly called Katie to tell her to avoid it. They arrived at the airport and settled in till it was time to board the plane. They were flying Delta. Abby is always happy if she has a good snack. Mom said they boarded on time, but Katie and family were practically running to the plane. I guess they had run into the accident after all and were running extremely late. I do think the flight time actually might’ve been changed to a bit later of a time. I had made the arrangements for everyone and I had it all written down in my planner so I knew when to get to the airport to meet them, but they ended up landing about 10 minutes later than I had written down. Mom said it was all “on time” and she wasn’t sure if the time changed or not. LOL So Claire and I had just finished a nice brunch. We headed outside a bit. I think we checked out the hot tub and took a look at the Flamingoes again. We then decided to go over and look at the Savanna, so back through the resort we went. A few peeks out the windows. A picture of my little sweetheart. We went and admired the animals. There were a ton of giraffes out today.

Nov. 3, 2013 ~ Day 3 A new day! I think I woke up somewhere around 6:30 and 7. Claire was out like a light though. I checked my email and facebook then I showered and got ready for the day. I took a look out on the balcony and WOW! We had a bunch of animals out there this morning. The views were just gorgeous! This guy was pacing all over and squawking so loudly. I think he wanted to be on the other side of the fence. I fooled around a bit and took a few pictures of Flat Ben for my fellow Diser Dee. And I got this one that was so cute. Claire never saw it till we got home and she was surprised to see it. I decided that maybe I would try to do laundry. I know that staying on DVC points you get free laundry services. I headed out for a bit too look. Just so you know, Claire knows that if she wakes up and I am not there she is NOT to leave the room or answer the door. I only leave for a few minutes at a time and come back to check on her frequently if I walk out. So I went in search and found a room not too far away. Now we didn’t have much laundry dirty, but I thought it would be nice to stay ahead of things. Well this was not for DVC members as you had to pay to use it. I went back to the room and looked at the resort map and still couldn’t find it. I wasn’t going to pay to do a few pieces of clothing, but I would do it for free. LOL I think I snuck out a couple of times and never could find it. In the meantime, while out searching, I was texting my Dis/Cruise Critic friend Ellen (podsnel). She had arrived yesterday as well and was staying in some fancy shmancy suite at AKL. She invited me to her room , but they were going to be leaving soon. I told her I was going to run and get Claire dressed and we would be right over. I got Claire up and she was a little slow, well VERY slow. I put her dress on and told her we would skip brushing the rats nest and her teeth and just head over so we didn’t miss them. She could do those things when we got back. She grumbled a bit, but was a little curious to see the room. We headed out and I realized that Ellen’s room was about as far down the hall as ours was, but on the other wing. I believe this is when, as we were walking a lady came out of her room and started walking as well and then asked me if I posted on the Disboards. I told her yes and she said she read my reports. We said hellos and she told me her name …Jedijill! It was so nice to meet her! We continued on our long journey to Ellen’s room with the clock ticking. We arrived and knocked and she answered. It was a bit chaotic in her room too, as they were getting ready to leave and some of the family was walking out the door. This was such an awesome fun meet though. I have been following Ellen’s reports for about a year now. She is married to Pods and has 3 boys, Sean, Tyler and Timmy. I believe her brother in-laws family was staying with them too. I got to meet them all! It was so unreal to be saying hi to Timmy and Tyler. They were just as she writes about them. Super cute boys, btw! I bet they are breaking hearts all over. After saying hi, all of them left except for Ellen and Sean, who was sleeping on the couch. Sean is Autistic and so is my nephew. After reading some of Ellen’s reports, it’s so funny how similar they are. I give Ellen a lot of credit, because I do know how hard it can be to raise a child like that. My nephew is wonderful too, but stubborn at times. I believe Ellen once had to take one of Sean’s favorite books ransom in order for him to get on a plane to fly to Florida one year. These are things my SIL has to do at times too. We left Sean sleeping and Ellen gave us a tour of the place. I am going to say I was really bad and not on my game as I mostly gawked at the beauty of this place rather than taking pictures. I think it had like 4 bedrooms and a pool table room, a living room and kitchen too, if I remember right and several bathrooms. Ellen was beaming. She said it was the best place she had ever stayed at. Here are the few pictures I did take. This is the master bathroom. Isn’t this just so cool! I think this was the shower tiles in there. They had a walk in closet that was the size of some people’s bedrooms. It was massive! We headed out to see her view. They had 3 huge balconies! It was just amazing. We settled in for a bit and chatted. She was telling me how they had to cancel their annual girls cruise, as one of the girls now had to work. That was a bummer, as I love reading their reports about them. They really have a good time. She also started talking about a Diser who lived in her town and was a school teacher, but also did side work in the same industry as I. I asked her the name and she told me. Well what a small world …that girl is my co-worker Nikki! Soon we needed to wrap things up. WE needed to check out of our room yet and have our bags taken and go to our morning ADR and she needed to get Sean going and off to meet the rest of the family. Claire was a tiny bit bored too. (love the wild hair) We had Claire take pictures of us. She brightened up when we asked her to do that. And this was the one she took with Ellen’s camera. As we headed out, Ellen showed me one other bathroom we had missed. Then we said good byes. She was going to be here for several more days too and we talked about possibly meeting up later in the trip, but I was so busy, as I am sure she was too, that it never happened. We rushed back the long journey to our room. Claire brushed her teeth and I made a call to bell services to pick up our bags. I then had the task of brushing rat city out of Claire’s hair. And guess what, the darn brush broke in it! UGH! I got it kind of put back together to finish the task and then I called my mother. They were on their way to my sisters, (where most of the family was meeting to go to the airport) and her and my Dad were stopping off at the pharmacy first. PERFECT! I asked if she would buy a new hairbrush for Claire and bring it down and she said no problem. Thinking back, I am sure the gift shop probably had something, but I was in a small panic mode thinking that I wouldn’t have a brush for the rest of the trip. Soon we had a knock on our door and a lady was there to take our bags. She was so nice and so funny. She asked if I normally stay at Grand Floridian, and I told her no, (I wish) and she said there is a lady who had my same hair that stays there all the time and she always recognizes her by the unusual hair. So there you have it folks. I am NOT the only one who has this crazy color, as my Mom would say. I told her I never got a voucher for Magical Express on my door and she told me just to go to Bell services later and they will be able to write one for me. Claire and I were using Magical Express today to get back to the airport where we would meet up with the rest of the family and then rent cars to head over to Port Canaveral. I had called a few days prior, as told by ME and had it arranged and given a time to leave. Since we weren’t catching a flight, we only had to leave about an hour before their flight arrived. Well there was no time to take a breath and relax. We had an ADR to get to …..Boma! We headed down and checked right in. We only had to wait for a few minutes. We were led to a table for 2 next to a window. I will state right now, that almost all my pictures are fuzzy or blurry. I guess I didn’t have my “game” on this morning. We headed up and got Claire a plate of fruit. I got a little more than fruit. LOL Not sure why she is making such a weird face. We both headed back up a couple of times. Claire really liked the sausage and the ham from the carving station.