Okay, the waves seemed as if they were almost to roll the ship over, and I felt very under the weather. In fact, I wasn't even sure if I would be able to get ready for our DVC meeting at 10:00. (Just kidding! I would have gone to that throwing up if I had to!
) Even Brianna was feeling sick from the waves. I asked my husband to turn on the t.v. to see how big the waves were, and I was fully expecting to see something like 25 to 30 feet, but it said they were 8 to 13 feet (I think they lie) and that conditions were rough. I could hardly even take a shower because the ship was rocking and about to knock me over!
Eventually, the movement of the ship finally calmed down, and both Brianna and I started to feel a bit better. In the meantime, I had been casually discussing DVC with my husband. I don't want to go into details of our conversation because I'm afraid it might come across as me being the begging type, which I'm not.
Anyhow, I told him about all of the white hat people I had talked to and how we tend to almost always vacation with Disney involved in one way or another. Of course, we are going to Hawaii next spring break and already have that booked, so he had to throw in my face how that was just a big waste of money because if we were thinking of doing DVC, we should have just stayed at Aulani. I quickly reminded him that it would be very unlikely that we could get Aulani this close (I really didn't know that but he didn't know I didn't know that) and besides, Aulani is on Oahu, and we wanted to go to Maui. I didn't press it too much, but I made darn sure I pointed out the positives. He showed just a slight bit of interest, and that's when I really started playing my A game.
So, long story short, we go to the fancy inside stateroom office of our DVC representative, and we bought in to DVC!
Because we bought in on the cruise, we also got a $500 onboard credit, and since we'd been traveling like rock stars, we could use that! We set up a meeting for 4:30 to close on the deal. My husband immediately put on his "white hat".
I continued to stalk all of the white hat cruisers. I'm not at all afraid to talk to complete strangers. Trust me. My family thinks there is something wrong with me. I tell them I'm just nice like that.
Brianna went to play bingo with Toni, my friend that was traveling with us, and Brandon went to a free throw contest. I headed back to the room to start the whole dreaded packing process. I must say though that having a sea day on the last day of the cruise was quite nice. In past experience, I'm just a straight you know what because I'm so stressed about getting those darn suitcases out by 10:30 p.m. For this cruise, I was as happy as a lark on the last day, which I'm sure my family totally appreciated.
We headed up to Beach Blanket Buffet to get some lunch and found out they were doing a BBQ outside of Beach Blanket. It was yummy! They had chicken, steaks, and disgusting fish (remember--the smell of seafood makes us almost vomit). They also had stir fry on the buffet, and it was scrumptious!
Since we were rock stars and were feeling lucky on this cruise, we headed to the Walt Disney Theater at 3:30 for a final round of bingo. Turns out, the final day of bingo is NUTS! They didn't start on time, and we ended up having to ask for our money back because we had to go sign the papers to spend thousands on DVC.
They were fine with refunding our money, so it was no big deal.
We headed to the fancy DVC reps office again and closed the deal. He presented us with a few goodies from DVC and reminded us we'd be getting the $500 OBC. It was as easy as that. So now, part of the reason I've been slow at getting my report done is because I've been on a whole new section of the DIS for me--DVC!!!!!
After we finished closing on the DVC contract, we headed to Diversions to watch the Stanley Cup game between the Canucks and the Bruins. They were serving yummy chicken wings and chips and salsa. It was nice. This was the 6th game (the Canucks lost
), and we decided we really wanted to watch the entire game, so we skipped Disney Dreams. We've seen it many times though, so no big deal. Forgot to mention, that the Rock Star lifestyle came out a bit more--I scheduled a hair appointment for Brianna at 5:30. They did a great job though!
We went back to the room before dinner to set out our suitcases, got our tip envelopes ready, and met our tablemates for one last dinner at Triton's. We told everyone we wouldn't be at breakfast because we had to meet in the Walt Disney Theater by 7:45 to get off of the ship early due to our 12:15 flight time. I should also say that for the first time ever, we gave our head server in the dining room extra money in his tip envelope. In all of our
DCL cruises, we hardly ever see the head server and aren't sure what he does. For this cruise, our head server was awesome! He came and talked to us every single night, and he made his presence known. We gave extra money to everyone we tipped, but I felt really good about giving it to the head server this time!
We said our goodbyes and this ended our fabulous Alaska vacation.
I'm not going to do a separate post for the day we got off of the ship, but I will say that it went smoothly. We took a bus to the airport, had a layover in Minneapolis, and made it back to Kansas City safe and sound. I will add though that I was separated from my family on the flight due to the seat assignments, and I got to sit with two people that were DVC! My family couldn't believe it! They said we never shut up the entire flight!
Seriously, I've already emailed the lady and we've talked DVC a couple of times since I got back. They were just great people and so excited about DVC and said it was one of the best things they've ever purchased. Of course, I made sure my husband heard that!
Thank you all for reading! I hope I've been able to help out at least a few cruisers with some tips and advice, and I hope you all have happy sailings in the future. As for me, I gotta get off here. I'm meeting my sister in Kansas City for lunch today, and I think the Coach store is calling my name. What? You didn't think I would give up the Rock Star lifestyle that easily, did you? This will be it though. Today is the end. NO MORE ROCK STAR SPENDING AFTER TODAY. Well, maybe after tomorrow, but we'll see.......Just don't tell my husband!
Besides, we won $407 in bingo and got a $500 OBC, and it should all be mine. I'm the one that plans these darn things!
Susan