Disney Disaster turned into a Disney Dream

[fantasmicfantastic]

So cool...what an awesome child you have raised.

 

[shelbell77]

What an amazing story! Thanks for sharing!

 

[JoieNsk]

We just got back LATE last night from our 7 Night Disney Alaskan Cruise...

I know kids can be just very nice people by themselves )) Just because - they just have those huge hearts of their own ) Congratulations on having such a nice person raised by you.

But I do believe most of times it happens because kids breath it in from the air in the family.

 

[MomoMama]

Thank you for sharing your story! I got teary too.
Your kids are both wonderful!

 

[bumbershoot]

and 100 minutes of Video Arcade game play for the boys

Now THAT is gold.

(and I've just reminded myself that Dream took OUT their arcade...sigh)

 

[AquaDame]

I would be SO proud to have raised such a great kid! Kudos to you and your family!

 

[jknewberry]

Wow, what a great family memory, and a testament to the type men your boys will be with the wonderful attitude and empathy they showed DCL to Alaska has always been on my bucket list, just got bumped up a few notches, your trip sounds amazing!

 

[tink182]

AWESOME!!! What a SELFLESS son you have!!!!!

 

[bobbiwoz]

Thank you for posting this wonderful story!

 

[Geomom]

Thanks for sharing your story! We were on the same amazing cruise. What a great 7 yr old you have!

 

[mickey squared]

Awesome story!!!

 

[sayhello]

I love it when these stories have a happy ending! Kudos to you and your kids, you deserve all the goodies you got, even though that wasn't the point.

Sayhello

 

[swooshbear]

Great story! Just curious if the Cal in your screen name references UC Berkeley?

 

[CalDisneyMomof2]

Great story! Just curious if the Cal in your screen name references UC Berkeley?

I can see how it can be that but just California in general. We're in So Cal. My brother did graduate from UC Berkeley a few years ago though!

 

[BelleBway]

I'm literally crying... thanks so much for sharing this beautiful story!

 

[lovedisneycruise]

Thank you for sharing this touching story; I really needed to read something like this today. As everyone has said, you should be incredibly proud of your sons.
I agree that we are all very lucky to be able to take these trips and keeping compassion in the forefront of our minds is always a good idea.

It's wonderful that Disney rewarded you so generously for your kindness, but I'm sure the feelings in your boys' hearts was the greatest reward of all.

 

[ILovePixieDust]

Fantastic feel good story!

 

[swooshbear]

I can see how it can be that but just California in general. We're in So Cal. My brother did graduate from UC Berkeley a few years ago though!

Cool, Go Bears!

 

[QuiltTeddy]

We just got back LATE last night from our 7 Night Disney Alaskan Cruise and WOW! What an incredible place. It was our first cruise with Disney (and the first cruise my husband and I took was a little 3 day cruise to Ensenada from L.A. soo not comparable) and we were blown away by the amount of fun that could be had and by the top notch customer service.

I had booked a helicopter/dog sled excursion through Disney in Juneau as a surprise for my family. I was able to keep it from my husband and two boys until the morning of when DH had to sign a document to get off on Juneau (or so he thought until he read it was a disclosure for our excursion!). Lo and behold, our 8:45 tour got cancelled. We were devastated and at that point my kids already knew what was going on. It was obviously in our best interest because of poor weather conditions but we waited around a little longer to see if anyone else would not show up for any later ones.

Of course MANY of the same excursions were cancelled. By 10:00 we realized we weren't going to get to do the excursion we booked. By waiting we missed the chance to book a summer dog sled excursion. We ended up booking an Alaskan Whale & Glaciers Photo Safari. Awesome! I was looking forward to seeing some whales! We board the bus and the boys (7 & 5) were given disposable cameras so they were so excited. A few minutes later, a CM from Port Adventures boards the bus to call out a family. This same family (from my understanding) had a helicopter/dog sled excursion cancelled two days in a row. Being a close distance to the conversation, it appeared that the excursion was overbooked and they had tried to reach this family of 3 to let them know they wouldn't be going on. They were understandably irate. I believe there was some miscommunication somewhere and it wasn't really anyone's fault.

Anyway, because of maritime law, there was no way everyone on that bus was going to be able to go on the excursion. At this point they (the husband, wife and now port excursions supervisor) are in a very heated discussion right outside the bus door. Our tour guide is trying to move things along and explain the cameras to the kids. Explain a little bit about himself and the tour. All the while, my 7 year old is paying attention to the discussion outside the bus. He gives me the saddest face as he's really feeling for this family. The Port Excursions' Supervisor interrupts to ask if anyone would like to give up their spot (it just needed to be a couple) and book another excursion. Obviously no one stood up right away, except for my 7 year old who has a heart too big for his body.

He walked off that bus and volunteered the four of us to get off of the bus to let the other family have our spot. (My 5 year old initially did not like that though but because he got to keep his camera to take selfies he didn't mind) The mom and dad objected and didn't want us to do that but we assured them that it was ok. The dad seemed to have a slight tear coming down from his eye as he patted my husband on the back and said thank you.

Moments later, we were approached by Sheldon, the Port Excursions Supervisor. He asks what our most expensive excursion is of the trip as he'd like to comp that. Well, that would have been today I told him, but it was cancelled. Ok, next most expensive excursion. The Liarsville Panning for Gold. No, not enough he said. He told us to book any excursion today and tomorrow and it would be comped. We went with a Juneau City & Mendenhall Glacier Tour for that day as it was really all that was left but we enjoyed it nonetheless. For the next day, we already had a Lumberjack Show booked but we still wanted an airplane or helicopter excursion so we booked the Misty Fjords Boat and Floatplane Adventure as well.

Sheldon kept his word and then some! On our bed that day was a card and 100 minutes of Video Arcade game play for the boys. The following morning was two DCL blankets, 2 DCL coffee mugs and 2 DCL journals. Again with a nice card. On our final evening was a beautiful lithograph personally autographed to the boys and signed by Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald. Their eyes lit up.

To top it all off, the Floatplane was comped, the Juneau City tour was comped as well as the Lumberjack Show. I expressed to Sheldon that it wasn't necessary to do all of that. We weren't looking to be rewarded. But he thanked ME over and over for putting out that fire for him with ease. In all honesty, it was our family's pleasure to make another family happy.

Well, here we were on our last sea day, now with $2,500 in Disney Gift Card credit as I loaded our onboard account with $3,200 from our DVA paid with Disney Gift Cards! What was I going to spend $2,500 on??? Another vacation of course! With that $2,500 we booked a 3 day Bahamas Cruise for MLK weekend in FULL! So our initial disaster literally turned into the Disney Dream. Mostly, I am so proud of my boys for having the hearts to see another family so very upset that they put aside their wants for someone elses. And because of Sheldon's and every CM I came in contact with and their WONDERful service, we are DCL fans for life!

What a wonderful child you raised!

 

[CarolynU]

What an amazing kid you have. You must be so so proud of him. This is the story of the year! Well done to your entire family. Just shows with all the bad stuff going on in the world there are still wonderful people out there.