A (Very) Long Overdue Wonder Trip Report

[dlrtr]

This is a trip report for our 1/21 Wonder cruise (hey, I've been busy). The cast of characters are myself, my wife Robin and daughters Tory (7) and Allison (5).

Santa had given the cruise as a Xmas gift to the girls and we were incredibly excited about it. Then on December 27, my company announced that they were going out of business and I would be unemployed as of January 1. After much consternation we decided that because the trip was already paid for, we would go. That, plus the fact that neither one of us could handle telling the kids we couldn't go.

Now one of the decisions I was faced with when I booked the cruise was whether to get insurance or not. Considering that we would be flying in a day ahead of time, we decided to save some money and take our chances. Well...The week before we were supposed to leave, the weathermen started talking about a storm that was buidling, that had the potential for significant snow and ice. Oh, by the way, it should be hitting the day we are leaving. But hey, its still a week away, what do they know? We are due to leave on Saturday. On Wednesday the weather still seems to ba a problem. We send the kids off to school on Thursday saying there is a good possibility we will be driving to Florida that night. And we did.

We left NE Pennsylvania at 5:00 with a goal of getting to Fayetteville NC before stopping. I drive the whole way and we stop in Wilson NC at 2:30 in the morning.

Next morning we are out by 10:00 AM, with the Raddison at the Port as our final destination. After an ill-advised stop at South of the Border for lunch, we are making pretty good progress and should be at the hotel by 9:00 when the kids grow tired of Game Boy and decide to come up with a game I like to call "Hey, I've Got A Really Dumb Idea". Apparently this dumb idea consisted of, lets pretend to poke each other in the eye, and come as close as we can without really doing it. I'm assuming you can all see where this is going.Next thing I know both kids are crying at the top of their lungs. My older daughter is crying because her sister just buried her finger a couple of knuckles deep in her eye and my younger daughter is crying because she's upset that she hurt her sister. Did I mention that they were both crying HYSTERICALLY. Luckily, we were just pulling in to the parking lot of The Cracker Barrell for dinner, so we were able to share the noise with a large number of people. We finally reached the hotel at 10:30, and settled in for the night.

After spending the day in the pool on Saturday, we were all excited about getting up on Sunday and boarding the ship. I watched the Weather Channel that night and became a little concerned when they were taliking about overnight lows in the 20's. Hmmm.

Well, now that I see that I am a little more verbose than I had planned on being, I guess I will do this report in parts. Next post - Day One.

 

[Bev J]

Looking forward to the next installment-make it as long as you want!

 

[MNmom]

I am looking forward to the rest of your report. We leave on 1/19 for our first family cruise with our DDs (5 and 8). I would love to hear about what your girls liked in the clubs and their favorite things to eat.

by the way--" lows in the 20s" was in Pennsylvania and not in FL--right?

Happy Cruisin' MNmom

 

[sandee]

As you know I too was on the 1/21/01 cruise which we refer to as "the big chill" LOL! loving your report. We took a chance and flew down on the 20th from Baltimore. I remember running to Walmart that night in Kissimee and trying to buy sweatshirts and pants....the shelves were almost bare! I lived in Fla. for a few years and don't remember it ever being that cold before. Pls. don't make us wait months for part 2!!

 

[happylady]

After living in both Central Florida (Deltona) and South Florida (West Palm Beach). I can say with authority, IT CAN GET COLD HERE . The pictures they show in the brochures, don't show the photgrapher in a sweatshirt. LOL

It seems like most of the cold fronts stall just South of Orlando. One of the saddest places is the Florida Turnpide is just north of Orlando. The turnpike use to cut through miles and miles of orange groves. In January of 1977, the area had such a horrendous freeze (yes, a hard freeze) that the trees all died. My parents lived just North of Fort Lauderdale and they actually had a few snowflakes. I still have the front page of the Sun-Sentiel. Living just north of Orlando (Deltona), we had a fireplace and used it often during the winter months.

Most of the fronts only last 1-2 days, though, with the temps getting back into the 70's.

One of the best (short line days) times we ever had at the parks,
was one morning when a front came though the area. It was 38 degrees when we left the hotel. We just layered our clothes and had a great time...no water rides though! By the afternoon the temps were in the 60's.