May the Force be With Us...Jan 23 Western Caribbean+Star Wars day at sea; update 1/13

[TiffyRose]

I'm still alive and kicking! (I was asked recently...) Sorry for the span between updates. I've been busy with school and work and church. I've been lurking around the Dis and commenting here and there, but I haven't had much to update on honestly. But as we are less than two months out, things have been kicking into high gear, so I finally have something to write about.

Tis the Season...
To give your credit card a serious workout. Yesterday and today I spent quite a bit of time buying both Christmas presents and cruise items. So my Liea costume dress, my flapper style dress, a new bathing suit, a blaster for Mike, and Star Wars themed beach towels are all on there way here. Hopefully everything gets here in time. I know the have towels on the boat, and you don't need to bring your own, but I thought it would be fun th have Star Wars ones. Each one is themed to everyone's costume, so Darth Vader for Dad, R2D2 for mom, and Han in carbonite for Mike. Hopefully Santa will bring me the Leia towel I asked for so we have a full set...I'm also giving Star Wars metal puzzles for stocking stuffers.

Tiffany's Passport Saga
We have been looking for my old passport for about a month. I didn't even know if it was expired or not. Turns out DCL knew though. On their online check in forms they had my old passport number and expiration date. (They had it stored from my last cruise 7 years ago...) Turned out it expired in October. So I knew I needed a new one, but to get one you need your birth certificate, and mom was having trouble finding that too...But...she found my old passport yesterday. If you have your old passport, you don't need your birth certificate. So I'm going to apply for my new one this week, and that should be delivered just in time for the cruise.

Onboard Fun
As far as planning things for on board goes, I think I have as much done as I can right now. Besides booking our excursions, Palo dinner, and putting in requests for some sort of booth seating in EG (Mike's bad back) which I had already done, I added a Remy brunch and requested our dining rotation. The Remy brunch is a surprise for Mike. I want to do dinner there eventually, but it's so exspensive, and brunch is not as pricey, so I decided brunch. Maybe next DCL cruise we'll do the opposite: Remy dinner and Palo brunch. I'm also interested in the Remy tasting they offer on night 1, but I hate to miss meeting our servers right away.

I'm Not Procrastinating, I'm Just Too Busy...
As far as other ship related projects go, namely FE and FE gifts, I'm super far behind schedule. I have yet to make our FE, or even get all the allies for it. I've started on the ladies gifts, but haven't gotten very far yet, and I don't have my supplies for the guys gifts yet. I keep meaning to work on things on Saturday mornings, but then something else gets scheduled then. Like this Saturday I ended up at work. I think I need to implement my secondary plan of putting down my phone while I watch tv and picking up my craft stuff instead. Not to worry, I still have a month and a half...

Oh, and Finally
We have our flights booked. We are flying into Tampa on the 20th/21st and spending the day with Mike's parents. We will do Universal on the 22nd, hopefully stay with Orlando area friends that night, and get on the boat the next morning. Mike's parents want a hotel on the 22nd, so I'm going to see if I can hook them up. Working for a hotel chain does have its advantages. The 30th we'll get off the boat and drop our stuff back at our friends' place, then hit MK for the day. Stay with friends that night, then fly home the next day. Mom and Dad are staying an extra day. I wouldn't be surprised if the hit up Epcot that day. I would if I were them. We're flying out of LAX, leaving a car there, and Mike and I will bring the car home. Mom and Dad fly into John Wayne, and one of us will pick them up.

Hope everyone is enjoying prepping for their trips as well, or just reading about me prepping for ours. It's getting closer!

 

[TiffyRose]

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Deck the Halls With Lots of Star Wars
It was a very Star Wars Christmas around here: Star Wars comics, Star Wars mini metal puzzles, Sar Wars towels, and Star Wars costume accessories. Mike loved his blaster, and we're going to pretend we didn't read that part of the cruise docs that said don't bring weapon-y things. If they take it and hold it til the end of the cruise, fine, but it's too cool not to try and bring. I didn't have a chance to make the holster yet, do I just wrapped the raw materials: leather belt and purse. That got a giggle once he knew I wasn't giving him a man bag.

And perhaps most wonderfully, my Liea dress finally got here! And it fits beautifully. Note to anyone ordering clothes from China: most Americans are bigger than most Chinese people, order a size up. I usually wear a medium, and I ordered a large, and I'm so happy I did. Because of how its cut, I won't be able to raise my arms more than two inches, but a small price to pay for awesomeness. It's got a monster train, so steer clear of walking behind me on Star Wars night.

Other Business
My passport also got here about a week ago. With Christmas prep we haven't finished our online check in yet, but I'm aiming to get that done this week. I have a bunch of other homework to do, like mailing back rented textbooks and such, so it'll just go in the queue with everything else.

I also still have ALL my FE gifts to make, as well as the FE itself. I got some cute Star Wars kids clothes from the thrift store that I'm going to deconstruct and use for that. Since there's no school right now, I have a LOT more free time to prep everything. I'm just happy all the ordered stuff is all finally here and I can stop panicking about that.

Sickiffany
Part of what's been slowing me down is that three weeks ago I hot hit with the creeping crud. I know a lot of people on our cruise meet thread are from the Midwest, and consequently some of the people who read this thread, and I don't know what it's been like out there, but here in SoCal, there's a lovely 3-4 week cold going around. I'm 95% well, the first week I lost my voice and missed singing in our Church Christmas concert. I blame the 5 concerts from the week prior, especially the last one, which was outdoors. A week later I got my voice back, but the cough won't quit. It's worst when I get up or lie down, and it is better everyday, but it's a slow mover. Thankfully(?) it didn't turn into bronchitis or pneumonia. Of course, if it had, I could have had some antibiotics and been well by now.

This also means I haven't been able to work out in over a month. I'm hoping to get back next week. Thankfully I haven't seemed to have gained any weight from Chrismas goodies...yet...

Hope everyone had an excellent Winter Holiday of Choice (Haunuka, Christmas, Kwanza, Winter Solstice...Diwali was back in November...), and I wish you all a safe and happy New Year. Just 3 1/2 weeks till we get on a plane to start vacation!

 

[disnygirl55]

Another great update - and hopefully you feel better soon! I'm looking forward to your vacation nearly as much as you are, because I know you'll do a great job in informing the rest of us sailing behind you about all the Star Wars Day at Sea activities we can look forward to. I really hope it's everything you expect and more. Have a great time!!!!

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Hey tiffy... Did you see the update? Blisters will not be allowed on the ship. Not matter how fake they look.

Procrastination got the better of me. Never got to my costume.

 

[TiffyRose]

Hey tiffy... Did you see the update? Blisters will not be allowed on the ship. Not matter how fake they look.

Procrastination got the better of me. Never got to my costume.

Lol, sorry in advance, must razz you for your spelling...but I'm glad Disney doesn't want blisters on the ship. Improperly fitted footwear is s major blight on America...

And as I said, were still going to try. We know we may fail, but it's worth it to us to try. I did leave the choice to Mike and he wants to go for it...here's hoping.

 

[TiffyRose]

Ok Folks, Expect Almost Daily Updates...
There's enough stuff to do at this point as we near the cruise, I'm gonna get a little obsessive for a while.

Projects
I cut out the leather for Mike's blaster holster today. Hoping to start seeing that tomorrow. I also finished my first two FE gifts today. Only 26 more of those to go and some other stuff. They came out nicely and I'm looking forward to doing some more.

Travel Arrangements
I got a text from my Florida counterpart yesterday. Her baby is a girl!...I immediately teared up. She's due in April. We started firming up travel arrangements and sleeping quarters. Tonight I relayed questions to my parentals and I'll fill her in in the morning. She works for the mouse and offered to sign us in one day, but the day and park options didn't work for us. We'd have to have changed things around and gotten the in-laws to change plans too. It didn't make enough sense, even with saving the money, so we're passing, although we appreciate the offer.

I got our online check in finally done and we now have a port arrival time! I really didn't care about being first but we are on early enough if we want to go to the board meet up at 2:30, we can. Even if we eat lunch first! Tiffys need almost constant feeding...

Money Stuff
We're doing our last round robin of gift card purchasing tonight. Yay! We actually hit our goal amount, do now I don't have to worry about paying for excursions, dining, drinks, or tips on board for the most part. We may even have a little left over.

Wonder what fun cruise things I can do tomorrow before work...

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Lol, sorry in advance, must razz you for your spelling...but I'm glad Disney doesn't want blisters on the ship. Improperly fitted footwear is s major blight on America...

Disney considers it their job to protect their passengers. If you have blisters on your feet, they might pop and leave biological contaminants to infect other passengers. It could spread. Next thing you know, there will be a big blister outbreak and lawsuits, and oh... it gets ugly from there!

In any case, Good luck!

 

[TiffyRose]

Happy New Year!

I trust everyone had a safe and enjoyable New Years Eve last night. I have not made much cruise progress yesterday because of the holiday. Today I brought my FE supplies with me to work, so hopefully I can separate out some colors to make things easier for myself later.

Working in a hotel, yesterday was one of our three busiest days of the year (the others being Valentines and 7/4). After over 60 check ins, I'm not surprised I was tired last night. Always be nice to your front desk people. Unless they themselves are being rude, the chances that anything that's gone wrong is directly their fault are very low, and they WANT to fix it for you, even if they can't always. I'm rambling. I'm going back to work now...

 

[TiffyRose]

Just a quick update today while I'm having trouble focusing at work.

I'm Awakened, Are You?
So DH saw SWFA the day it came out cus that was the work Christmas party, and despite that there was a coworker who didn't want to go and I did, they wouldn't let us trade places. So for the last two weeks he's been saintedly biting his tongue. We finally went to see it together today! It was so awesome! I want to go see it again and again! I know we'll see it on the boat, but that's three weeks away!

Crafty Tiffy
So I'm a crazy person and I have several craft projects to complete before we fly away in 2 1/2 weeks. Some are started, but I wouldn't count anything as done. Today I decided the FE gifts I was going to give the men in our FE group was not going to work (I just don't have time gor that particular project), so I had to come up with a back up. I thought up my back up, pretty proud of it, then had to find where I could get the supplies for a reasonable price and shipped here in enough time to personalize them. Finally found a supplier who met my requirements, so that's good. I'll order those when I get home.

I'm also working on the ladies gifts a little at work tonight. If I can get all my materials for that prepped this week, I'll be happy.

Other Weird Vacation Prep
Since we are doing universal and HP stuff there I started a rewatch of the HP movies too. No idea if I'll finish before we leave, but I think I can.

I'm also trying to finish reading the character in Les Miserables that I'm reading right now (the original, unabridged book is divided into characters, then books, then chapters. There are 5 or six characters, with 15-20 books each, with 3-20 chapters per book...) before we leave so I can read or bring the Jedi Striketh Back (the Shakespearian book of the Jedi Strikes Back) on the cruise. But with all the crafting and movie watching, plus regular stuff like eating, sleeping, cooking, going to work, church, quality marriage time...I have no idea if I'll be readin Les Mis on the plane and super gluing FE gifts at my in laws. I'll keep you posted!

 

[TiffyRose]

Well, so much for the daily updates. I guess trying to get everything I want to get done done doesn't leave much time for doing updates...

One Week to Go!
So we now have 7 days left before we get on an airplane to Florida! Even though our flight leaves closer to midnight, technically, we just have a week left. Thankfully I've made quite a bit of progress on several projects and no longer feel like there's no way I'll ever get it all done.

Shop Till You Drop
A bit of what we still needed to do was shopping, so last weekend on Saturday we hit up the thrift store and Party City. At the former we got a Han Solo shirt, a pirate shirt, a pair of pirate pants, as well as accidentally finding a pair of regular pants and a cruise worthy shirt, all for Mike. At the later we got Darth Vader gloves for dad, pirate accessories for Mike, and FE gifts for the boys in our group. Adults and girls I can craft for, but crafting for little boys down to age three...in this case I'm lost.

On Sunday we headed over to one of several local malls (the joy of living in the OC! Although it does cut down time for stuff like this...) for lunch and a look around. They have a sporting goods store where we each got water shoes: blue for Mike and pink for me. While we don't always conform to gender norms, color is definitely one place we do.

We passed by a baby/kid store and saw a really cute crib set that was space themed. And although we've agreed stockpiling things for children who are only a thought currently is weird, not ok, and we don't have the space for it, it was so cute we had to check the price tag. Just the blanket, which was really adorable and had planets with faces and labeled a smiling Pluto
as "not a planet, but still our friend," was $125!!!!!! So yeah, I may be trolling e-bay for one when an extra people is more than a thought, but that just seemed excessive! Babies/children are exspensive enough without over inflating the price of bedding. End of digression.

Back at Base Camp
...Mike's new clothes needs cleaning, the Han shirt needs the collar taken off and sewn back together, and I still had a ton of other projects to work on. Between Monday and yesterday, I managed to fix the Han shirt, get almost all our clothes washed (4 loads in a day), actually do some cooking, and finish both our FE and my parents'. When I started cutting my raw materials for ours, I realized I had enough for two. It took significantly longer than I thought it would, mostly because I kept making it more complicated. But they are done and they look really awesome. I salvaged a random piece of black plastic pipe from work to use for the upper support. They are totally Star Wars themed, and may never get used again, but I'm very proud of them!

The Dark Side
Friday was my Dad's birthday, so last Wednesday we went to DL to celebrate. Our passes were going to expire soon, so it was sort of a last hurrah (for now) as well. We'd never been to the park just us before. It was a great time, even though it rained all day. That meant it was much less crowded, in fact about as uncrowded as I think you could ever hope for. We were there from about 8-1. We did Mayer's tractors, Haunted Mansion, Jingle Cruise, Star Tours, Hyperspace Mountain, the Star Wars/Marvel stuff inside Innoventions (the greater CM said this structure was provided by theEmpire to protect us from the rain. A nice touch I thought), Towe of Terror, breakfast with Minnie and friends, a snack at Jolly Holiday, and Toy Story Midway Mania. We had FPs for Radiator Springs Racers, but when we went back it was 101 (broken down), and later it was raining too much. We also got dad a Darth Vader light saber, which was a major goal of the trip. It was a great day, and very memorable. Here are some pics from breakfast.

Unfortunately, dad's seat means he's pretty back lit. Cinderella's Fairy Godmother wanted to know why I was letting Chip pull the wool over my eyes...I said I was used to it at home. As you can see, it is attitude, and not age, that make a character meal/interaction fun.

Movie Time
I am now 5/8 for HP movies. Just to be clear, it's not like I hadn't seen them before. I've seen them all several times. But getting ready to go to Universal, I wanted to watch them again, I was falling behind schedule yesterday, so I watched 4 and 5 back to back. This was when I realized I don't have a favorite HP movie! Or rather, my favorite one is whichever one I am currently watching. I have specific memories tied to eac film, so they all have a different specialness to them. For example, I saw HP4 solo at Doentown Disney for my first viewing. Others I saw with different groups of friends. Mike's favorite is HP4: he likes the various challenges, and of course it has everyone's favorite Dr...but for me, picking a favorite is like picking a favorite kid I've had in choir over the years. I love them all differently, so it's an impossible question.

Time is Short, the List is Not
There are still several things I have yet to do. I do feel more in control, however, as I see my sewing pile shrink. So here is what I still have left: Mike's blaster Holster, find dad a Sarth Vader helmet (thankfully there are a couple year round Halloween stores nearby), finish FE gifts (that's a big one, I'm only 1/4 done I think), repair two dresses of mine, hem Mike's shants (short pants for pirate night), run at least one dryel load, finish the section of Les Mis I'm reading, and watch 3 more HP films.

Thankfully "call plumber" got taken off the list. Last night as I was prepping dinner, the sink started backing up. We decided to call maintenance in the morning and go grab a burger. When we got back with our food, the sink was totally functional again! Must have been an issue further down the line. That's what we get for living upstairs.

Well, it's about time for me to get back to tackling that list. Next update, it should be shorter!

 

[chunkymonkey]

Just wanted to say, I'm still following along! Today was the first ever Star Waes Day at sea and I've been trolling Instagram and Twitter for updates from people who are on board. Looks amazing and I cannot wait to be there! Looking forward to seeing your costumes! DH and I have decided to cosplay as well (our first time really not counting our pirate outfits from last year). I am not crafty so I had to purchase everything. They are not perfect costumes but at least I'm trying. Happy birthday to your dad! Sooo excited for the cruise!

 

[disnygirl55]

I am still here, too! Lots of questions were answered today with many things being posted and tweeted. I'm still uber-curious about dining rotations, but surely someone will be posting those over the weekend!

Your plans are coming right along, TiffyRose! One week left - Eeek! It's going to fly by. Check in again before you leave, and let us know if you're getting everything accomplished for an on-time departure - LOL!

 

[TiffyRose]

Ok, as requested, a close to departure update.

Harry Potter-thon or Farewell Dear Villain
So I managed to get through the last three HP movies. I considered it a tribute to Allan Rickman who passed this week. Between Half Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows 1&2, it was a nice way to remember some of his later work, filled with some of his best brooding and wonderful range of emotions.

Fish Extender Gifts
They're not made yet, but all my materials are finally prepped. I'm planning on doing a fair amount of work on them today and tomorrow, but truth is they probably won't be done until I'm on the boat. So if you see me furiously crafting while watching a Star Wars movie, don't be surprised. Also, don't bug me, I'll finish faster, and you might spoil the surprise.

Costume Mistress Extraordinaire
Dad's almost got his costume all together. He got boots, and has cape materials.

Mike's holster is still in pieces. That's another project for tomorrow.

I did get a dress I'm going to wear in AP fixed today during a church staff meeting!

A Couple Last Things
Tomorrow I get my hair done (Leia doesn't have grey hair in the version I'm doing), during which I'll be trying to finish the section of Les Mis I'm reading. We also need to get recycling done, I have a necklace to get repaired, and I'd like to visit Victoria for some new underpinnings. Oh, and I still need to pack!

So tomorrow will be a very full day after a long night tonight, and I expect to have no trouble sleeping on the plane.

Also, they're predicting, not only rain, but a storm for while we're at Universal Friday. That should make things...interesting. I'll try and squeeze one more post in before the boat leaves.

Soon, soon soon!

 

[disnygirl55]

Safe and happy travels! Can't wait to see the photos of all your hard work - FE gifts, costumes, holster, ha ha! Have a wonderful vacation!!! We'll be waiting eagerly for your trip report one of these days soon now!

 

[chunkymonkey]

Have a great trip! Can't wait to hear all about it and see lots of pictures!!

 

[TiffyRose]

Ok...Airport Update!
Got most of my stuff done today. The FE gifts still have a long way to go, despite working on them last night. All other tasks were accomplished today! Mom and dad picked us up at 8:45, we got to the airport about an hour ago. American Airlines even lets you tag your bags yourself, which was confusing for half of us, but mom and Mike figured it out. We waited a bit for someone to come with a wheelchair for mom (she's had 6 foot sugeries so walking for long distances can be problematic), then headed to TSA prescreened. Dad's knee replacement slowed us down as it set off the metal detector and he had to get the full body scan, but Mike loved leaving on his shoes and belt. I did too, as I had to sacrifice my hiking sandals to the packing gods (FE gifts and dress shoes are up a lot of space). We found some seats and everyone abandoned me! Food, drinks, and restroom called for all. Everyone just returned so here's pre flight pics.
Up next, Tampa by way of Miami!

PS, my nose is not that big, I swear!

 

[Yoriel_Wiz]

Following! Got caught up with the thread and am excited to see cruise photos! Our family's going on the Feb 6th SWDAS cruise so I can't wait to hear back on your experiences for that day (especially from SW fans). Have a fun and safe trip!