Oh the places We Go, The People We see

[jenseib]

Wow Jen. You've got me tired reading through this update!

It is fun vacationing with family and friends but can be stressful at times with so many moving parts. Glad Alexis & Claire were able to get some pool time, and some alone time for yourself.

Can't wait to hear about the cruise.

It sure can be stressful at times. My Dad can be a big baby about things and it started out a bit rough, but he did get better, or we just left him.

Mercy! What a chaotic time! They kept trying to get Lacey & Jesse insurance on their rental car. She finally had to get rough with them. Hopefully, your aunt gets her money back. It sounds like she should.

I'm happy that you all finally got settled in for the evening and that the kids got to go swim for a while. I'd be willing to bet that you're up before the crack of dawn the next morning.

yes,I think you remember my Dad from 2011, he had a few issues at times. He becomes like a 2 year old at times.
The whole car rental was kind of stressful, but I had my witch face on...and the guy didn't back off. If Skip was there he would've warned him to back off. LOL But Skip would've bought the insurance too.
I did have a rough night. And yep, I was up EARLY!!!!!!!

Nope...never. Just ask my father-in-law...he told me the first day I met him that I was perfect!

I agree! You are!

Great update, Jen, although very exhausting and chaotic. I remember from a past TR that your father can be difficult.

Glad you are settled and can't wait to hear about the drive to the ship.

Yes, there was the whole bathroom and flashlight incident. We did joke a few times about getting Dad a flashlight just in case the lights went out and he needed to go to the bathroom!

Finally caught up! Work has been so busy it is hard to catch up....I guess that is what happens when you go away right before/during month end close.....Love the updates! The photos at AKL are so nice. So much fun to just walk around and see all the animals! Your friends hotel room I am fairly positive is bigger than my house!

Sounds like your families arrival date was a little chaotic! I am impressed how smoothly it went given you had four vans worth of people there! Burger King is slow at night here too. I try and avoid it at all costs.

That room was huge! I am super behind on a lot of TR's right now too and I didn't go anywhere. Just not enough time in the day.
We also have a bit of dram when traveling with the family, but for the most part we did fine and kept on going.
This Burger King was so bad. I had planned to complain when I got back home, but I was busy and basically forgot to. I did keep the receipt with the complaint number on it though.

Oh man, all those dum-dum-dum have me worried for what's coming later.

yes! We have a few "issues" the next day. Let's just say we are lucky all of us are alive after that. I think a murder was close at one point!

 

[jenseib]

Goodness, you must have been utterly exhausted. I am glad the girls got their swim, but what a shame about the Shuttle mess up.

Corinna

Yes at first I was kind of ticked off about the shuttle but I quickly thought it over and sure didn't want to ruin my trip or anyone else's over something so dumb and everyone seemed to be Ok with it. it actually worked out much better in the end.
The girls had a great time swimming. I guess Alexis grabbed her suite and snuck off to our room to change so Abby didn't see her.

 

[JKSWonder]

OK Jen, you're making me nervous with the talk of suitcases and the ominous dum dum dum.

Your Dad sounds a lot like my grandfather. He's was always right, he's was never wrong and even when he was wrong, he was right. Plus, even when I was 35 and a mother of one with one on the way, he still treated me like a 5 year old at times. I loved him like crazy.

 

[jenseib]

OK Jen, you're making me nervous with the talk of suitcases and the ominous dum dum dum.

Your Dad sounds a lot like my grandfather. He's was always right, he's was never wrong and even when he was wrong, he was right. Plus, even when I was 35 and a mother of one with one on the way, he still treated me like a 5 year old at times. I loved him like crazy.

Yes, there will be a "moment" that could've turned out much worse than it did. It wasn't good at all!

Yep, Dad is such a spoiled kid at times. He even pouts.

 

[Lovemy3babes]

Oh what a stressful night. I bet you were so relieved when it was finally over! I'm glad the girls talked grandma into swimming.

 

[tinkerbellandeeyor]

Wow what a great report can't wait to read more about your family

 

[petals]

Luvin the update. Sounds like a busy day

 

[jenseib]

Oh what a stressful night. I bet you were so relieved when it was finally over! I'm glad the girls talked grandma into swimming.

Yes, I was ready for bed ....but I only slept a short time.

Wow what a great report can't wait to read more about your family

Thanks. You might not want to read much about them.

Luvin the update. Sounds like a busy day

Thanks. Yes it was lazy and busy

 

[tinkerbellandeeyor]

Jun I am sure everyone feel the same way

 

[Caretames1]

Claire needed Kadence there to swim with though!

They would have had a ball!

That's funny, because Kadence just wanted to know what Claire was doing, was she swimming? Where were they going? Now I can show her exactly what was going on!


We saw that same thing(sky writer) that day! We were in DTD and it said the same thing, probably was the same one.

Kadence was do happy we spent more time by the pool this trip too. She asked if we can do a resort day again. We'll see as I go against my " gotta be in a park" tendencies. LOL

Isn't it all the little things that irritate you on a trip, reading the fine print, desk people that don't listen, wrong info. At least the kids were being good, because that really could have added to the stress!

Dum dum dum...... I sense a disturbance in the force.

 

[pooksma]

What a day!

Funny how once kids get swimming in their heads, it doesn't matter how tired they are, there is no stopping them.

 

[jenseib]

Jun I am sure everyone feel the same way

I just started working on my next installment and you will see a bit of drama there. And why it can be stressful at time.

They would have had a ball!

That's funny, because Kadence just wanted to know what Claire was doing, was she swimming? Where were they going? Now I can show her exactly what was going on!


We saw that same thing(sky writer) that day! We were in DTD and it said the same thing, probably was the same one.

Kadence was do happy we spent more time by the pool this trip too. She asked if we can do a resort day again. We'll see as I go against my " gotta be in a park" tendencies. LOL

Isn't it all the little things that irritate you on a trip, reading the fine print, desk people that don't listen, wrong info. At least the kids were being good, because that really could have added to the stress!

Dum dum dum...... I sense a disturbance in the force.

Claire asked those questions CONSTANTLY! I think if i sad lets go meet them she would've gave up the pool in a milli-second.
I have that gotta be in the parks thing going on too. It was nice that because we didn't have a ticket for this day, we were forced to have resort time. And we enjoyed it a lot.
The whole Dollar thing was super annoying. I hear from others really good things, but Wow, they were awful to deal with.
The kids were all pretty good and far enough away that if they weren't we didn't hear. LOL

I just started writing about the disturbance in the force and hope to get it up later today. Let's just say, I almost witnessed a murder of a family member.

What a day!

Funny how once kids get swimming in their heads, it doesn't matter how tired they are, there is no stopping them.

Yes, swimming is such a big hit with kids and Alexis was already jealous that Claire got to swim so much and she hadn't yet.

 

[Wicket's Mom]

Jen, don't leave us hanging! A possible murder is pretty agitating! It sounds like when my whole family traveled or got together for anything. There wasmsuremtonbe a big blow up, with Mom being the instigater.

 

[jenseib]

Jen, don't leave us hanging! A possible murder is pretty agitating! It sounds like when my whole family traveled or got together for anything. There wasmsuremtonbe a big blow up, with Mom being the instigater.

I finally got it written up. I was so busy today and wasn't going to, then I decided I needed som me time.
It's a lot of writing this time around ...stay tuned!

 

[jenseib]

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 nights 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 didnt 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 didnt mind. He was from Montreal and he love astronomy. I didnt 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 wouldnt 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 hadnt 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 didnt 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 dont 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 doesnt 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 doesnt 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. Its 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 elses name on it and they were from Montreal. OH NO!!!!!

Talk about panic! This suitcase had all my moms clothes in it and it was GONE! She was in a tizzy and I dont blame her. I just kept saying be calm and well 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. Its 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 didnt 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 Robs 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 wouldve 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 Gails 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 wasnt 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 didnt 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 Robs 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 didnt 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 Gails room then and the girls were dressed. Alexi 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 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.

 

[jenseib]

I am sorry for the bad punctuation. Dis is taking out apostrophes and quotation marks. It's so annoying and I am too lazy to go back in and try to re-edit the whole posts. It has been doing this off and on for days. And did you know when you type several periods in a row it now turns into the & sign? Stupid, I do try and take those out when the pop up, but I am getting tired of doing that too. So if you see my post look wierd and badly punctuated, ot's the Dis's fault for the most part.

 

[jenseib]

Continued from the previous page .......

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 out 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.

 

[Wicket's Mom]

Glad the lost luggage made its way back to your mother! I can't trust my DH to get our bags off the luggage carousel, he never remembers what our luggage looks like. I would be close to killing my DH, feel for your mother, she must be a saint!

 

[tinkerbellandeeyor]

Wow I am glad the boys got back in time with the suitcases

 

[ronnmel]

What a crazy busy hectic morning! You must have been so glad to get on that bus.