Please let me take a nap..UPD 10/13/13- TR w/DH(folded in)

[Toria]

Folded in TR with DH starts on page 3.

Hello everyone! I am back with a brand new spanking TR. Here is a link from my first TR http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2741959

I am Toria this was my 3rd cruise with disney and the 2nd one for DS(12) and DD (8). In July DH and I took one without the kids. I did not do a TR on that one, however I wanted to share the experience that I had with the kids on this trip. DH did not come with us because he said he needed a break from Disney

The title of this TR will be explained later in the TR. I am at work starting this so there are no pics at the moment.

This trip came about because I put a deposit on a dummy date back in July while on the ship. I received a message from DCL on Facebook about the Florida resident deal. I went online and priced out a couple of dates and found a really amazing deal that COULD NOT BE BEAT! I called DH to see if he wanted to come he said no(alrighty then BYE, me and the kids are outta here), then I called work and was cleared to take those days. I happily called and changed my sail date to 13 Dec 2012. I had plenty of time to plan and prepare for this trip. Well that is what I thought anyway. It turns out that I spent the next couple of months stressing over the Thanksgiving holiday. I had 30 family members coming in for 5 days that I had to play host to at a beach house. If there was a reality show about family vacations we would have had stellar ratings I promise. Thanksgiving passed, then I had to prepare for 3 Christmas parties in the same weeekend. No rest for the weary! After the last party on that Sunday, I had 2 days to get ready for this cruise. I tried to leave work at a decent time, but the Emergency Room was quite busy this night. I ended up getting home at midnight still having to pack a few things and loading the car. I fell asleep around 1am and I planned to be up at 5am
Did I make it? To be cont'd with pics...

 

[dumb4disney]

whooo hooooo Im on board lets go!!!! Cant wait to read this TR, the last one was great!!!!

 

[Brynnie]

Yaaaay!! I loved your last TR! Looking forward to reading this! Did you sail on the Dream again?? It's so funny, DH and I took our first cruise ever on the Dream in May....we were hooked! We sailed the Dream again in Sept, now we are booked on the 5 night Wonder out of Miami in Jan. 3 Cruises in less than a year and I am already looking at another one lol!!! Can't wait to read more!

 

[Toria]

whooo hooooo Im on board lets go!!!! Cant wait to read this TR, the last one was great!!!!

Thanks for joining in!

 

[Toria]

Yaaaay!! I loved your last TR! Looking forward to reading this! Did you sail on the Dream again?? It's so funny, DH and I took our first cruise ever on the Dream in May....we were hooked! We sailed the Dream again in Sept, now we are booked on the 5 night Wonder out of Miami in Jan. 3 Cruises in less than a year and I am already looking at another one lol!!! Can't wait to read more!

Yes we have done all 3 cruises on the Dream. I am looking to do the next one on the Fantasy. I think one cruise a year is in our future(little does my DH knows, lol). We enjoyed sailing without the lil ones. Gotta have that alone time to reconnect.

 

[Toria]

It would have been nice to sleep to 5am, but my body decided to wake up at 3:12 am( what in the H*&@). I laid there and tried to fall back to sleep for an hour which did not work. I dragged myself out of bed at 4:00 am and started to get ready for my long day ahead. I packed last minute items, got dressed and had some breakfast in peace before I woke the kids. Speaking of the kids they thought it was going to be a regular school day. The day before I went to the Disney outlet and brought them a Disney shirt. When my daughter awoke and noticed the shirt she was extremely happy to get out of bed at 5am. My son on the other hand did not even bother to look at the shirt, so he went about dragging his hind parts around the house. DD had to break to the news that they were headed to Disney and not to school. That made him perk up just a little(ungrateful lil fellow). DH was now dragging out of bed because he was taking a trip to Virginia to see his family. Around this time he stated that he should have been going with us( Naw too much Disney remember. You just go ahead and make that 12 hour drive). I laughed loudly on the inside of course. DH was off the previous day, but he chose this morning that he needed to drive to base to fill up his truck with gas and stop by Wal-mart to pick up some wiper blades for his truck. This Wal-mart stop has been an issue with every trip that we take. I was boiling on the inside, but I stayed in my happy place as to not cause am argument before we left. I wanted to be on I-10 at 5:30, but instead I ended up leaving an hour later than I wanted. We said our goodbyes and the kids and I took off


Our drive was uneventful and we only made 1 stop in 6 hours of driving. We made it to Art of Animation around 1:30pm.

I was third in line and it only took 5 minutes to get checked in. Our room was ready so we hiked over to the Little Mermaid buildings. We were in building number 7 which was Ursula.

We checked out the room a little longer, then my lil birdies started chirping for food. Of course they wanted to eat at the onsite restaurant, so that was our next stop. DS ordered a bacon cheeseburger while DD just had a side of fries. I chose to have a pulled pork sandwhich that was just yummy. We sat and ate for about 20 minutes, then the next stop was the gift shop and arcade. I really wanted to take a nap, but my lil people was not having it at that time. After we visited those 2 places the next order of funness(not a real word I know) was the huge pool. It was overcast and it would drizzle every now and then. That did not stop my 2 from wanting to get in the pool. So swim clothes on we headed to the pool for awhile. The pool was rather warm so that made me feel good that no one would develop a ruuny nose, cough or fever before the cruise. On that note my sinuses started draining and I lost most of my voice before the cruise. It made trying to talk to the CM's rather funny and a challenge. My kids were probably happy because I could not yell at them as much, LOL!

 

[pooksma]

Lurked through your first report and am happy to join in for this one!

 

[Toria]

Lurked through your first report and am happy to join in for this one!

Thanks for joining in! I see from your ticker that this will be your first cruise. You are going to love it. I am now hooked on cruising, LOL.

 

[Cheryl726]

Looking forward to your TR, I have read your first one! Love the Dream!

 

[Toria]

Looking forward to your TR, I have read your first one! Love the Dream!

Thanks for coming along! I hope to keep everyone entertained.

 

[Toria]

I let the kids stay in the pool for about an hour before I dragged them out kicking and screaming.

I just could not keep my eyes open any longer. The 2 hours of sleep had caught up with me. The kids showered when we got back to the room and finally I was able to take my 1st nap. I slept for about an hour, then it was time to hit up Downtown Disney. Before we headed to DTD the kids wanted to see the rest of the resort. We walked around and took a couple of pics.

I was going to drive but the kids begged to ride the bus over. We waited about 10 minutes before a bus pulled up. The ride over took about 15 minutes, the driver was taking all kinds of back roads. When we arrived the kids wanted to take a couple of pics(no really that was all me).

 

[Toria]

The kids and I arrived at DTD and they had one agenda SHOP. We stopped in about 3 shops and of course my daughter wanted something in every store. She finally decided to get a stuffed animal from World of Disney. I absolutely love that store but I could not bring myself to purchase anything while I was there. The next stop was the Lego store. DS walked around in there for about 15 minutes before he got the point that I was not spending $40 on some Legos that he was going to loose within the next 2 days. He ended up getting a Vinylmation that took another 10 minutes for him to decide on. After that it was time to eat before we headed back to the resort. I had been hearing so much about the Earl of Sandwhich, so that is where I chose to go. DS had a Turkey Club , DD had PB@J and I had the holiday sandwhich. This sandwhich came with Turkey, stuffing, Cranberry Sauce, some type of Mayo and something spicy that I left off. The line in there was really long and we waited maybe 10 minutes for our food. We took the food to go and headed back to the resort. We waited about 20 minutes for a bus back to AOA. We watched so many other buses come and go for the other resorts. That really needs to change and I was afraid that our food would be cold by the time we got back to the room. Let me tell you what the kids and I enjoyed those sandwhiches. It really lived up to the comments on these boards. With our bellies full and all cleaned up we finally all headed off to sleep. We had no trouble at all falling asleep since it had been such a long day. Up next ... Wal-Mart again really?

 

[Toria]

I could not believe that I actually slept in until 8:30. The kids were still sound asleep, so I took my time getting dressed. I truly value being able to get some time in that is not filled with a ton a questions from my detectives. After I was all dressed I woke the kids at 9:00 and they still did not want to wake up. I had to tell them about 3 times before they slowly started to move(they get that from DH). We were out of the hotel by 9:30 and check out was a breeze. The next stop was Wal-Mart for us. My skin is so easily angered, so using the resort soaps gave me a scare. I did not want to spend my vacation itching like crazy. I picked up my go to soap and a few other things. I was also able to get some much needed one dollar bills from customer service. It took them about 10 minutes to make this happen, but I didn't mind. With all that in hand we were now headed toward the ship. Oh we did not eat breakfast at the resort. Even though the kids wanted too. I told them to hold their stomachs until we get on the ship. They had a lil snack though(not that heartless). The drive over worried me, because it was cloudy and raining in spots. All I could think about was the sail away party being inside. I don't think that it would feel the same if that was the case. Other than the weather the travel time was 45 minutes. I just love coming over that hill and seeing the Dream sitting there welcoming you. We arrived around 1045 and I pulled right up to the curb and handed over the luggage. I went straight up to the 3rd level and parked. We walked over the breezeway and up to security. We were the only ones there and we were through in 2 minutes flat. After that we preceeded to the Castaway line that had no waiting at all. We were done with check-in in less than 5 minutes. After that we headed over to the kids club line. This line was crazy and after 5 minutes of waiting I gave up. I knew that we could check in at the kids club, so we would wait. While we waited I had the kids start on some school work. We sat there maybe 15 minutes before our number 8 was called(they were happy for that). We easily made our way through the small crowd(not as bad as the last 2 times). We had our picture taken that I did not buy and next thing we knew they were annoucing the Young Family. I did not get any pic as it all went fast and besides that I have pics from the other cruises. Up next Cabanas and why is my luggage there......

 

[dumb4disney]

More please

 

[flamestarrdust]

Joining in! Loving your TR so far!

 

[MomToPrincePhillip]

Joining in too! Love your TR so far, I'm looking forward to more.

 

[Toria]

Joining in! Loving your TR so far!

Thanks for joining in!

 

[Toria]

More please

I am working on it! I know you are curious about the luggage.

Joining in too! Love your TR so far, I'm looking forward to more.

Thanks for joining and speaking.

 

[Toria]

We last left off where we had entered the ship. Myself and the little ones were hungary so we headed off to Cabanas. I don't think that I will every eat at Enchanted Garden when first getting on the ship. Cabanas just has so much to offer and we like getting a window seat. No food pics either, because we always go for the same thing. Shrimp, mussels, macaroni and cheese and crab legs. We stayed there about 45 minutes, then it was off to the pool.

They were so excited that they could actually swim the pool since it was only 3 of them in there at the time. The pool was heated to 82 degrees and that was the only way that I was going to let them in.

I sat on the edge for a bit while they played. I then decided to grab some towels and cover up, since it was breezy and cool. DS tried to ride the Aquaduck, however at the time they were only doing double riders. He begged DD to ride with him and they were all smiles when they passed by. He wanted to go again but DD said that water was too cold. So his lil balloon was deflated. After 2 hours of waiting it was time to head to Stateroom 10045, which was an inside room. While standing on the stairs the kids and I were debating rather to go left or go right to find our room. That little voice inside my head said go right. I am glad that I did because half way to the room I notice that someone has the same luggage as me or that we pixie dusted to a verandah room I said to self check that bag and make sure that it is not yours. Well guess what it was my bag, so where are the other bags? I grabbed my luggage and went to our inside room where the other luggage was. Welp so much for pixie dust. We really wanted an inside room, so I was still happy about the snafu. Could have been a nuclear meltdown

UP NEXT... DID DD GROW UP AND NOT HAVE A MELTDOWN AT THE LIFE BOAT DRILL????

 

[dumb4disney]

Did you ask about the mix up with the luggage?