A little less "Copa" and a little more "Cabana" Halloween on the Fantasy!

[tow-mater-1]

As if you won't be in the bar with us

No kidding eh!

 

[runskyhy]

Hehehe... yes we definitely need some suggestions for karaoke songs! I'm so excited!

Internet search located this article that recommended 10 songs, offering sing-along factors, vocal difficulty ratings, & even song length. The short list...

The B-52's 'Love Shack'
Tone Loc's 'Wild Thing'
The Proclaimers' 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)'
The Ramones' 'I Wanna Be Sedated'
Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation"
Van Halen's "Jump"
Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction"
Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive"
The Kinks' "Lola"
Madonna's "Like a Virgin"

Also found that Copacabana was ranked 367 out of the top-500 karaoke songs... No surprise, but I guess that means there were 133 worse songs we could have chosen??

Be very careful Cassie, you could get roped in to join the group this year

No worries, Cassie. It's not like it would be recorded and posted to facebook... oh wait....

Thank goodness for the mute button.

 

[tow-mater-1]

Internet search located this article that recommended 10 songs, offering sing-along factors, vocal difficulty ratings, & even song length. The short list...

The B-52's 'Love Shack'
Tone Loc's 'Wild Thing'
The Proclaimers' 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)'
The Ramones' 'I Wanna Be Sedated'
Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation"
Van Halen's "Jump"
Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction"
Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive"
The Kinks' "Lola"
Madonna's "Like a Virgin"

Oooo... I LIKE the suggestions! Especially Love Shack The Dead or Alive suggestion made me think of You spin me round... which could also be good

Also found that Copacabana was ranked 367 out of the top-500 karaoke songs... No surprise, but I guess that means there were 133 worse songs we could have chosen??

REALLY! I'd sure like to see THAT list

No worries, Cassie. It's not like it would be recorded and posted to facebook... oh wait....

Thank goodness for the mute button.

Or that handy little X that says "hide from profile"!
Although it doesn't work so well when it's on a group site!!!

 

[tow-mater-1]

Carnival Valor 2012

In January of 2012 Nate and I had considered doing a last minute cruise and crashing his DS and DBIL’s cruise on the NCL’s Epic out of Miami but all the hotels in Miami were a fortune… as in over $300 on Hot Wire! We just couldn’t pay more for our hotel than what we usually pay for flights to go to MCO AND flights were already way more expensive to Miami or Fort Lauderdale. So we decided against knowing that we would be cruising in October with friends. This one would be again with no kids! Our cruise was leaving Miami as well, so when our friends said they had a great deal on a hotel and they were going for 2 nights before our cruise it didn’t take too much convincing to do the extra day. Well… there was a good reason for that awesome price. When we pulled up to the hotel I broke out in song…. Bad boys bad boys whatcha gonna do whatcha gonna do when they come for you. The hotel itself was very nice… it was a Marriot Spring Suites, which I have stayed at in more…. hmmm safe locations??? The steel bars that protected the front door and parking were a little unnerving to say the least. We weren’t there too much other than to sleep but both nights we were woken by sirens and screaming and yelling. I wasn’t kidding when I said it was like an episode of Cops or the First 48 and I didn’t want to be the feature guest star of any of those shows! We managed to have a great time as we usually do. Here we are having a great time in our sketchy hotel.



Miami was good…not sure I would want to return but if I did I wouldn’t hesitate to pay the $400 a night for a hotel. Being budget minded it probably will never happen.

I spy with my little eye something that is Canadian! (and it’s NOT Nate! Lol)



On our first Carnival cruise we were introduced to a card game called “Wizard” which we LOVED and bought it when we got home. So for this cruise we brought that game and one of our personal favourites “Dutch Blitz”. Well this game was a huge hit with the Misfits and we spent many a night playing. We have some pretty competitive friends I tell ya… I think we may have only had one or two injuries. It will definitely be coming on the Fantasy.



Our friend Tony lives to organize and on these cruises he books the gatherings along with organizing the Cabin Crawl and the Scavenger hunt. One thing I love about Carnival is that you can book a room for a gathering and you can have an open bar for an hour for $12 per person …we do this for our meet and greets. I can’t convince him to do DCL so I decided to run a Cabin Crawl for THIS cruise. It is always a fun event. Basically you find 7 volunteers to host and the host cabins provide a deck of cards for each player to take at each cabin, with the last 2 cabins being optional discard cabins. The host cabins are responsible for keeping track of what card each person gets…to keep everyone honest. Each person pays $5.00 to play and the best hand at the end wins the pot. The first cruise we did this, the cabins had to provide 2 decks of cards since we had over 60 people playing! Quite a nice little pot for the winner! The hosts sometimes provide a drink or a treat of some kind. It’s a cool way to see all the different categories of rooms.

Cabin Crawl!



Our Misfits gathering… this was part of a larger cruise meet but these are my peeps that I cruise with over and over again




So that pretty much sums up our history of cruising and the reason for our obsession. So next cruise…. Fantasy October 2013! Only 157 days till we are partying with Mickey!

 

[TheBowlesFamily]

please someone help me...how do I sign up for fish extenders? & what other things do I need to sign up for or prepare for on my upcoming disney cruise?

 

[tow-mater-1]

please someone help me...how do I sign up for fish extenders? & what other things do I need to sign up for or prepare for on my upcoming disney cruise?

You need to click on Cruise Forum and from there go to Disney Cruise Meets. From there you will need to find your ship and date of your cruise and post on there. Just read the thread and see if they have an FE exchange set up. Good luck and welcome to the DIS!

 

[ChrisParker]

Following back!! Looking forward to reading everything and learning from someone else who has schlepped her big family all over the place like me!

See you in 1 year 2 months, one week and 5 days!!!

 

[runskyhy]

Hellooooo! It's been mighty quiet around this thread here and we have a ship to tip in just over 100 days!! In looking over our facebook page, this is turning into a busy cruise! Do the host staterooms get to participate in the Cabin Crawl game or are they the 'judges', incase of tie-breaker , drink-fouls , etc. etc.? I absolutely love the leis that everyone is wearing in your Carnival crawl photo... there's a lot of fun Halloween things we could do with the Cabin Crawl if we had the suitcase-space, ya know?

 

[tow-mater-1]

So I’ve been a little absent from here lately… summer is a very busy time with kids home and all their activities and trying to fit in work. I know excuses excuses AND we just got back from vacation! Ahhh vacation….what I work for and love <3. We rent a cottage up north every summer and do a little fishing, swimming, boating and reading. So now that’s over it’s back to serious Disney planning! I find this is my therapy… or some believe I NEED therapy because of my Disney addiction. But if you’re reading this you’re in the same boat .

Here’s one of my kids last week makin smores…. mmmmm



I’m missing this already!



Anyway… I’ve made some progress since my last post. I’ve booked my pre-flight hotel. The airport is only 3 hours away but we have to cross the border and that stresses me out! So when we can, I like to drive the night before and take the hotel shuttle to the airport. We’ve only had an issue once with long lines at the border and of course THAT was the ONE time we didn’t get a hotel the night before…so never again! We also got our FREE tickets a few weeks ago to Universal thanks to Air Miles!


So the other night we booked our free rental van… again thanks to Air Miles! So we are picking it up at MCO and heading to Universal and staying at Portofino. I’ve never been to Universal so I’m quite excited! It will be interesting to see how my boys like it since they are not Disney World fans. That still hurts to write that out….
The plan is to hit Universal Studios the first day until closing and go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter with the early entry the next day. We are heading to the Port at 5 so hopefully we will get to see everything we want to.

My parents and Daughter are flying in late afternoon on the Friday as well as Joh and family so we planned to do a late supper at Port Canaveral for a reunion. So far for supper we will have Wendy and Rich, Joh and Gary and fam, and my large brood. I haven’t seen anyone since our last cruise in 2011. Wendy and Rich had a reunion with Joh and Gary in May when they flew out to the UK and my daughter Cass just spent several days with Joh and Gary a few weeks ago for the start of her big European trip…she’s still there, presently in Germany! It will be great to see everyone again. The plan is to eat at Fish Lips since it’s close. Definitely we will have to hit a liquor store for our supplies to take on the cruise and for the pre-cruise party! We are staying at Country Inn and Suites… never stayed there but I’ve heard great things. I can start booking for Palo and Remy tonight at midnight…. Can’t wait! Things are starting to come together. Wish me luck tonight!!!

 

[tow-mater-1]

Following back!! Looking forward to reading everything and learning from someone else who has schlepped her big family all over the place like me!

See you in 1 year 2 months, one week and 5 days!!!

Yes I have some good tips! Having to be very budget minded with a big fam! Although sometimes I find convenience outweighs cost

 

[tow-mater-1]

Hellooooo! It's been mighty quiet around this thread here and we have a ship to tip in just over 100 days!! In looking over our facebook page, this is turning into a busy cruise! Do the host staterooms get to participate in the Cabin Crawl game or are they the 'judges', incase of tie-breaker , drink-fouls , etc. etc.? I absolutely love the leis that everyone is wearing in your Carnival crawl photo... there's a lot of fun Halloween things we could do with the Cabin Crawl if we had the suitcase-space, ya know?

Haha yes... but I'm back And yes host rooms do participate. Oooo I like your idea about the Halloween thing... maybe instead of drinks or treats we could do some sort of dress up thing. Every cabin you have to wear what they provide... NO THONGS THOUGH!

 

[wilma-bride]

Yay Char, you're back with more. The cottage looks (and sounds) just heavenly. Very relaxing - shame the wifi wasn't better so we could have Skyped more.

I am so excited to be booking our excursions tonight and fingers crossed we get an early PAT

Just how many free tickets to Universal did you get? Free tickets = You are gonna love it.

 

[tow-mater-1]

Yay Char, you're back with more. The cottage looks (and sounds) just heavenly. Very relaxing - shame the wifi wasn't better so we could have Skyped more.

I am so excited to be booking our excursions tonight and fingers crossed we get an early PAT

Just how many free tickets to Universal did you get? Free tickets = You are gonna love it.

Awww... it was heavenly! Yes I wish it was better too, I wanted to give you a tour lol.

We got all 5 tickets for free! AND since we are staying on site our fast pass thingy is free. Since we got the tickets free and the fast pass thing is included I was able to convince Nate to stay at Portifino... Disney math ya know

 

[wilma-bride]

Awww... it was heavenly! Yes I wish it was better too, I wanted to give you a tour lol.

We got all 5 tickets for free! AND since we are staying on site our fast pass thingy is free. Since we got the tickets free and the fast pass thing is included I was able to convince Nate to stay at Portifino... Disney math ya know

Gotta love Disney (or Universal) math

 

[tow-mater-1]

WooHoo... so I got my Palo and Remy ressie for the days that I wanted and I got a PAT for 11am Kids club is booked so now we just wait.....

 

[MRAven]

Great report and great picture too

I'm sure you will have a FANTASTIC Cruise

See you soooooon


Manny.

 

[tow-mater-1]

Thanks Manny! Right back at ya!

It will be a fantastic cruise See you in 85 days

 

[dringster]

Your going to have an amazing trip by the look if things looking forward to meeting you soon

 

[tow-mater-1]

Your going to have an amazing trip by the look if things looking forward to meeting you soon

Thanks Zoe! I'm looking forward to meeting you and your fam too!

 

[PrincessTrisha]

WooHoo... so I got my Palo and Remy ressie for the days that I wanted and I got a PAT for 11am Kids club is booked so now we just wait.....

that's great! gotta love that early PAT - when we sailed the Dream having an early PAT meant that when we got up to Cabana's it was practically empty. By the time we were done lunch, people were really scrounging for tables.