Hi all,
I'm baaaaaack! Of course, that means that any of you with any sense whatsoever will run screaming to the other side of the forums.
First, let me thank you all for your outpouring of support while I was tending family needs. Yes, it was quite a wake up call for all of us when my KID sister had to have triple bypass surgery. Lemme tell you the King Charming/Hypermommy family is certainly going to be eating much more healthy these days. And I'm going to start losing some weight. Of course, the side benefit of that is maybe I can lose enough in 4 months to look much less like a beached whale when I get to Castaway Cay. My sister is doing better. She had to get stitches put back in the night before I left but all is much better now. I got home last Thursday and as much as I missed y'all terribly, I quite honestly just vegged in front of the computer for a few days playing Farm Town on Facebook.
But now it's time to get back to work and to get back to the fun of organizing and planning for this cruise. The back to work part isn't so much fun.... I don't think I'm ever going to get this project done. I have about 60 hours or so more of primary coding to do but I can't get to that for all the bug fixes. Ugh! If I could figure out what's going wrong and get that all fixed it might actually end one day. But in the meantime I'm looking on RentACoder and other places for work. And I'm going to head out to Kelly Services and a few other places today and tomorrow to look for an actual "leave the house after getting a shower and go report somewhere to work" job. Gotta do something. KC told me if I don't get some money coming in the house soon we'd have to cancel the cruise.
I don't blame him at all. Can't go months and months and months with money trickling. So I'll fix this situation this week because I'm NOT gonna do without going on this cruise with all my buddies.
And so that leaves planning for the cruise. Y'all have been so patient with me. I ask that you wait just a few days more and I'll update the spreadsheet numbers again. I just sent links to everyone that sent me PMs. If you need a link to the spreadsheet so you can fill out your information and/or a link to our private site (again - yeah, y'all know me - not really private but the URL is a closely guarded secret because there's pictures of kids out there) then just let me know.
Okay... and now on to something more important. Thank you all for keeping KC in line while I was gone. You know how those men are. And he needs more watching than others because I firmly believe the dogs are on his side... even the female one (and she's supposed to help me keep him in line). Off playing poker and darts with 'em, huh, honey? Good! Hope you got a good bite in the butt right as you were about to throw the dart. And showing off shooting pool with the dogs, huh? So you can shoot one handed and you think you're gonna beat them? Serves you right. Now what is this about medium dog wanting to play chess with me?
Palo Brunch - in order to get the private room, we need to link our reservations. The problem with linking reservations is that only one person in that linked group can be working on their reservations at a time. I thought it had been decided that we would all try for Monday and then, after the 75 day mark, we can link and fax the group to
DCL.
I have a question about this and maybe I'm just being obtuse. If we're in the linked group does that mean that we have to work on our Palo ressies one at a time or on ALL ressies one at a time?
I also am probably the only person in the world who loves the THRILL of the CAT 12. I love waiting for the cabin assignment - you never know what you might get
.
Nope, you're not the only person in the world. I too am anxiously awaiting the cabin assignment we get and can't wait to find out. Can't help but hoping for something really big like a 5 or 6 level jump. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she? But even if we're in a Cat 11, that's fine with me. All the rooms go to the same ports and I'm gonna be up on Deck 9 all the time anyway.
Oh my...you had me going with that one. I was thinking, "if there splitting up, who gets the cruise?"
LOL! Boy, that'd be a nastier custody battle than who gets the kids!!!
Nah, KC and I will never split up. We've discovered the secret to a good marriage. We're the only two people in the world that will put up with each other's "stuff".
Hi! Ok.. so now I feel like a schmuck. I JUST sent my PM to Hypermommy (BEFORE I got to the last post).
Nah, don't feel bad at all. That's just the way it goes with asynchronous communications like this.
Nice to know we are not the only ones still waiting for a room number. Maybe I'll just wander around all week with my FE hanging around my neck.
Woobie, welcome to our crazy crew of cruisers (or crew of crazy cruisers, if you prefer). We are also waitlisted for early dining. Had late last cruise and it was just too late for the kids. Speaking of which, our DS is also 10 (will be 11 by cruise time) and our DD will be 8. Hope to see you at the cruise meet.
John
@ the visual. I think I'll walk around with my FE hanging around my neck too!!!!!!!!
And quite frankly, I'd say we're more of a crew of crazy cruisers, if you want to know the truth. Yep, that describes us much better, IMO. Besides.... life's WAY too important to be taken seriously.
Congratulations! I know how you feel, I just went through that this past july 26 with my youngest one. Now we are exspecting a new one in the house in Feb. not sure what it is yet.
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!! Oh, I just can't wait to have grandbabies (but definitely want to wait for about 20 years because EM#1 is only 15 now). I'm gonna spoil them so darn rotten it's not even funny. I've already told KC that we need to start buying Disney baby stuff so we'll be ready to teach the child right whenever s/he does come along.
(dang, how do you make these icons invisible?)
Uh, huh... I see how it is dear. Now let's see... what would be the proper response to this. Oh yeah... I guess I could make tonight's dinner with loads of onions and garlic (which I know you love both of sooooo very much).
Very quiet but funny how clean things seem to stay.....
I can't imagine how clean my house would stay if I didn't have the 3 boys to contend with (yes, the 13yo, the 15yo and the real troublemaker, the 50yo).
Thanks, Becky. I know what the FE is, just wondering about how many participating on this cruise, ages, dollar limit, etc.
Check my sig for a link to the last time I tallied up numbers from the spreadsheet. I'll do it again soon but the latest numbers I have are linked in there. As for dollar limit, think something like what you'd get from Oriental Trading or think about like birthday party goodie bags. That kind of thing is what I found most often in my FE last time and what I'll be doing. Hope that helps.
Now time is screaming by and I haven't finished my list yet!
Ain't that the truth! We had forever to pay for it and now it has to be paid off in a couple of weeks so we can make ressies?!?!
Looks like I may just go pick up a job at the local convenience store.
Actually, that's just the kind of job I need. Something rather empty that I can do other stuff during. If I could do some "empty job freelancing" then I could get even more money. Or maybe finish that book. LOL
Oh wouldn't that be great!!!! Travelbee, I'm with you.... maybe we can head down early if it's not delayed. Surely there's a rather inexpensive motel we could stay at that's not too far away from the shuttle launch (Pop Century comes to mind).
Kim went back to work on wed:
the two day's she had off was driving her sture crazy. so she got her Dr. to fix it to were she can just wrap her leg just to work. and then put the cast back on at night.
Please tell Kim I hope she feels tons better soon!
we're making t-shirts with the logo that Denise (hypermommy) designed (what color shirts? and we're wearing it on sat?)
That fell through because no place would print them. Cafe Press gave me static about copyright problems. Personally, I think they're idiots. You can't copyright a circle and two ice cream cones, but they say it looked too much like Mickey. Hmmmmm..... But I can send you a link to the design at 10" x 10" which is the right size for a t-shirt (according to Cafe Press) and you can print it out. Might have to go 8"x8" so it'll fit on a regular printer but then you can just get t-shirt transfer paper from Wallyworld and go to town (t-shirts, tote bags, etc, etc, etc).
Still a maybe on a poker game?
The poker game fell through when the person organizing it had to leave the cruise. If someone still wishes to organize a poker game we were going to play Texas Hold'em for Hershey's Kisses. We could each bring a bag of kisses and whoever ends up with the final pot could go into chocolate overload (or share). Anyone still want to do this? If so, does anyone want to organize it?
I am booked on this cruise also and can't wait. I am currently deployed and this is my gift for coming home from Iraq. All I can do is think about this trip and laying on the beach at Castaway Cay.
First off....
for serving and keeping us free!!!!!!!!!!! Can y'all imagine how sane we'd have to act if folks like rosermama didn't work so hard to keep us free to be insane? And what fun would that be?
Second, please send me a PM with your email addy so I can send you a link to the spreadsheet. I know there's a couple of folks who need to get their stuff in there. I'm going to give it a couple of days and then I'll do another summary post.
And let us know if you have any other questions. This is a fantastic group of folks and everyone's really nice and helpful .... well, except for that King Charming fellow. He can be a real pain in the butt, but he's cute so what'dya want?
I just booked this cruise tonight...have been contemplating it all weekend.
Hi there and
to you too for keeping us free to be crazy!!!! Please send me a PM with your email addy so I can get you a link to the spreadsheet too.
And there... now I'm caught up. Okay, everyone can come out now. Come out come out wherever you are! Look at all your little heads poking up... you look like munchkins!
Sandiegosusie - That's a great deal!! Wish we waited... but seeing the airfare creeps up made me too nervous!
) about the likelihood of seeing one ourselves. So I checked. STS-129 is currently scheduled to lift off Nov 12, just after 4pm. It doesn't look like this one is contingent on the Aug 18 launch of STS-128 (different ships), and the payload of one has nothing to do with the other. Of course these missions get postponed, delayed, well, you know the deal. Best case scenario would be a slight delay, say 2 days. We'd watch the launch right after the safety drill and our departure out to sea would not be hindered. I'd say that's one heck of a way to start a weeklong celebration!
I think it's this Disney spirit amoungst us that makes Disney so special.
ITA that planning is half the fun. I, too, have the Passporter, for both WDW and DCL, plus the UG for WDW. And I just bought my 3-ring travel binder at Staples, along with the section dividers, for our November trip.
. We went on our first cruise last year in Octoberwith all the kids, we wer on the double dip and fell in love with Castaway Cay and cruising. That one was planned for over a year and rescheduled a few times. My husband is in the military and several things came up that were unplanned. So this one will have me very stressed out with planning! It will take me a bit to get caught up with this thread but I will enjoy planning the rest of the days with all of you.
I hope that there will be no unplanned delays for you on this one! 
