Eat Your Salad! Our WONDERful double dip June '10 UPDATE 10/14

[heatherlynn444]

Hello everyone! Welcome to my first cruise TR! Some of you may remember my way old TR's (I haven't done one in awhile!) We took our first DCL cruise on the June 13th double dip, on the Wonder, and had a fabulous time! I wanted to share our trip with you all!

Cast:

Me: almost 25 year old Disney lover, been married 3.5 years, teacher, off for the summer (woo hoo!) have been planning this trip obsessively since last September.

Bobby: My husband, 27, tolerates Disney for the food and because I need to do "research" now as a Disney TA, loves the water, grew up on boats, does not like to sit still.

Mom: Kathy (kathy04 on the boards) just turned 29 again! 2nd cruise, first Caribbean/bahamas cruise, loves Disney, very go with the flow.

Dad: Randy. No one knows how old he is. Methusela? haha!
First cruise EVER, does not like to sit still (hence why him and DH get along well!) likes to annoy me and make up his own words to Disney songs. Says he doesn't love Disney but deep down, we know it's true!

Ok, so here is what our plan was: Driveto my parents Friday, leave at 3:30 AM Saturday, drive (all 4 of us) to Orlando, spend night at POR. Sunday, board ship till Friday, get off ship, drive to Wilderness Lodge, stay club level for two nights, drive BACK to New Orleans Sunday, spend the night, drive back home to MS Monday. WHEW! confused yet? k good!

I had never left my puppies for 10 days, but my good friend was staying at the house with them so I didn't feel too bad once she got there!

**btw, you will unederstand the meaning of the title by the second night of the cruise report!

Here goes!

Friday, June 11th we were supposed to go down to my parents. Well, the day before Bobby got a new client he had to do some work for, so Bobby told me on our way out of town he needed to stop by his office. Well, we ended up being there two hours. I was trying to be patient but I was so excited and ready to go, and feeling total guilt about leaving my dogs at home. We had tried to trick them when they thought they were going too, but throwing them a treat and running out the door...yeah it didn't work. My best friend from college Lindy was coming over to stay with them for 9 days, I was so thankful! we FINALLY left about 2:30 and were on our way for vacation! About halfway to NOLA Lindy told me she made it to the house and the dogs were fine. I felt much better!
We got to the house, unloaded the car, etc. Packing was such a challenge b/c we had decided we were going to only bring one suitcase each into POR for the one night, so we had to make sure we had everything we needed for that one day, toilitries, clothes for the day going to the port, in one of our suitcases. (we each had 2 big suitcases and a carry on bag plus I had my baggalini, it all barely fit in the truck!)
Bobbys birthday had been that Monday, so I had my mom pick up a surprise cake for him, so we ate dinner in the dining room then brought out the cake.




We went to bed early b/c we were getting up at 3 AM and I selpt AWFUL. I was too excited to sleep )

We loaded up at 3 and were on the road by 3:30. I tried to sleep but couldn't and I just got more and more frustrated. It seems to happen every time!Finally I slept fo like 30 minutes, and we stopped in Pensacola for breakfast at McDonalds. I got a hashbrown and a frappe. YUM.

We stoppad at Chic fil a in Gainesville just like we did on the way down in January, but this time it was a Saturday. OH MY GOSH it was crazy. We wasted thirty minutes in there! When we told them the name for the order we said "Randy" and SOMEHOW the little high school girl behind the counter heard Brandon....so they kept calling out an order for a Brandon and finally after waiting 10 minutes it clicked that it may be ours. Hello!!!

Finally back on the road, and we are getting into the Orlando area, yay! Ok, this is where one of the funny moments of the trip happened. We get up to a toll booth, an it was a dollar 25 cents. we get in the "exact coins" lane, and are confused b/c although it said "exact coins" it also said "no BILLS larger than 20" so we pull up and its this funnel you throw the money in. Well, we have no change! just a dollar bill and a quarter. I am in the front seat and my dad is driving and he goes "WHAT DO I DO?" and I said "THROW THE DOLLAR IN!" so he throws a dollar bill into the shoot and turns and looks and me and realizes how stupid that was and has to get out of the car and get it b/c its not going in! meanwhile we are fishing around to find change and we finally found some and he threw it in. It was HILARIOUS. we joked about it the rest of the trip and my dad said I was an idiot for sugesting that and I said he was an idiot for doing it!!!! We laughed until our faces hurt, it was good times.
ok so we finally make it to Disney's back entrance as I like to call it. yyaayyy


We find Port Orleans Riverside and pull into the check in parking lot area and went into the lobby.




check in was easy, we were in Oak Manor, and the guy told us how to drive around to get there.
I had requested the mansions so I was happy to see we got it!
We pull up right in front...I swear the building wasn't een 1/4th full! We unloaded our one bag each and went up to the 3rd floor.



Bobby kept joking the whole time clinging to my dad and yelling "hey dad! we get to spend 9 days together!!"




up next: the pool and DTD
PS. photobucket is driving me nuts right now not wanting to load the page so I will post pics of the room in the next post

[moet7]

Hi Heather!

My family was on this cruise also. Had a WONDERful time. Looking forward to reading along.

[ArmandXG]

Great start (except for some missing photos)! Subscribing so I can find out who does or doesn't eat their salad!!!

[heatherlynn444]

Originally Posted by moet7

Hi Heather!

My family was on this cruise also. Had a WONDERful time. Looking forward to reading along.

We had a great time too! thanks for reading!

Originally Posted by ArmandXG

Great start (except for some missing photos)! Subscribing so I can find out who does or doesn't eat their salad!!!

haha it's a fun story!
Yeah I will be working on those missing pics, I had the photos ina default album, put them here then moved them into a different album and the lnks broke


Sorry for the delay everyone, my father in law passed away yesterday morning so things are a little crazy here, but I will resume my report as soon as I can, thanks for your patience and understanding!

[2littlegirls]

Heatherlynn,
so sorry for your loss.

[moet7]

so sorry to hear about your father in law

take your time with the trip report..........none of us are going anywhere!

[hlrababy]

Hey girl!! I can't believe I haven't found this TR yet!! Ugh!! But, I am here now!! lol

[heatherlynn444]

Originally Posted by hlrababy

Hey girl!! I can't believe I haven't found this TR yet!! Ugh!! But, I am here now!! lol

hey glad you found it!

more coming up

[heatherlynn444]

we got to the MK and it was really really hot outside!


you can see the sweat on my poor dad's shirt

It was also kinda crowded. We rode a couple of ride, haunted mansion, pirates, maybe a couple others, and got some lunch at Cosmic Rays which was packed! We were eating, and we were so tired form the cruise we decided to go back to the hotel.
look at this giant dark cloud that came up!


we knew a big summer storm was coming up by the looks of the radar on my iphone, a bad one, with a lot of red on the radar! We decided it was time to ehad to the boat. We go to get in line and there are a million people in line! Then it started to pour, so we couldn't go to the busses, we were stuck waiting for the boat!
There was a ton of lightning and wind, it was pretty scary!
we finally get on the boat and bobby is against the side and I am next to him with someone next to me. well, I picked a bad row because we were right where the dip in the roof of the boat/fabic is and the water was POURING in on us. At first it was just plain miserable but then it was just so awful it was comical and we were laughing hysterically and everyone on the boat was laughing at us! my cheeks were hurting so bad we were laughing so hard!
don't know if you can tell but we are soaked!


we finally turned and it wasn't as bad but damage was done, we were soaked. We got back to WL and then had to run all the way back to the building in the rain. We grabbed some towels from the pool and went in a side door
HAHAHA


up next....one more day at WL

[Cheryl726]

We stayed at WL for our first family trip in '04-loved it! Nice continuation of your TR and great pics!

[heatherlynn444]

Originally Posted by Cheryl726

We stayed at WL for our first family trip in '04-loved it! Nice continuation of your TR and great pics!

ism't it nice? thanks for reading!

[iloverags2]

Ah! Wilderness Lodge...you can't beat it! (We call it our second home!) Love that your rooms were ready so early...and connecting at that! Did you do online check-in so they would be prepared for your early arrival?

[heatherlynn444]

Originally Posted by iloverags2

Ah! Wilderness Lodge...you can't beat it! (We call it our second home!) Love that your rooms were ready so early...and connecting at that! Did you do online check-in so they would be prepared for your early arrival?

no, we didn't online check in but the concierge staff did ask what time we would be ariving. Surprisingly, the concierge floor and lounge were basically deserted the two nights we were there!

[heatherlynn444]

I am pretty sure we took a nap after this, as we had gotten up so early, and we were exhausted from the cruise.
at 5 we went to the concierge lounge and we just decided to snack on that food as our dinner because we were so full from a week of eating non stop!


my dad and I in our "mine" shirts







after we ate we decided to take a ride over to the Grand Floridian and visit with some CM's we know and listen to the music in the lobby. We took the boat over.



As soon as we walk in guess who we see:
Joe!

we hung out and talked to him for a little while, then went back to the hotel for desserts in the lounge.



we really enjoyed just hanging at the hotel a lot that day in the lounge and just relaxing and talking...so we decided to do it againt eh next day! instead of usiang another base ticket for bobby b/c we knew we wouldn't stay in a park long b/c it was hot and we were already tired, we decided to stay at the hotel, hang out by the pool, and do some exploring the next day!

up next: last full day of the trip. (

[pamcarey]

Sounds like a nice relaxing day! Concierge lounge offerings look yummy!