August 6, 2005 Mexican Riviera..Who's In?

[Itinkso]

Jenny, Right now I am so nervous about Jessica driving, the other drivers seem so scary. It must get easier when they are older and you see them practicing and all. I'd rather have them drive than go in someone else's car. Does CA have laws about passengers when they are new drivers?

Cathy

Hi Cathy - I think Brynee's driving has been easier for me thanks to Traci now having been a driver for 4 years. Brynee cannot have any passengers for 6 months and our rule is also no radio for the first 6 months. Too many students rear-end others because they are flipping radio stations or CDs! Jess is so mature I'm sure you'll have an easy time especially because you live in a smaller community. Visalia's population is now over 100,000 but Brynee basically drives the routes we taught her during her "permit" period - so far, so good and she appreciates the independence! How is Steve doing? - better now that he is back to home-cooked meals?

 

[justmestace]

I finished the trip report....where are everyone else's??? LOL

I've been working on shore excursions for the next couple of cruises, and flights for one of them....then I read what Eve wrote and I'm wondering if I really want to do this again?? I've learned my lesson after the last flights to/from Florida....non-stop only from now on....whenever possible.

Jordan gets her driving permit in December, and her license in May...if we let her. I still have Jared to drive around though. By the time he drives, I will have spent 27 years chauffering kids.

Jordan tried out for the high school's cheerleading squad and made it. It's good for her as they have to maintain good grades, but not good for me as it means even more driving around!
They say kids keep you young....I'm beginning to wonder!

 

[SchultzFamily]

Vickie - You can only get to Three Rivers by driving right through Visalia! We've been to the White Horse Inn many times for receptions including one where Brynee was the flower girl in the wedding party! Maybe on your way back down from Three Rivers we can meet for coffee, dessert, or lunch. Let me know what your schedule is! We should be in town; Traci leaves for UCSD the first week of September and we probably won't plan on going to San Diego until the end of September or early October.

Have a great weekend! Were you able to meet up with Barb, Jay and Alexa?

Jenny, that would be great to meet on our way back through Visalia. We're spending the night Saturday so we'll be driving back Sunday. We'll set something up when it gets a little closer.
We met Barb, Jay and Alexa for dinner tonight. We had a nice time. Sara and Alexa were taking turns threatening that Alexa would stay here and move in with us then Sara was going to fly home with them. They're on an early am flight home.

Stacey, I haven't had the energy to thing about a trip report yet! I'll give you the highlights: We made some great friends, I got stung by a jellyfish and we almost missed the ship in Cabo. More later...
Vickie

 

[justmestace]

Barb's home!! Bumping it up so she can find it!!

WHAT? Almost missed the ship, Vickie???

 

[jilljill]

I can't show that picture to Jordan! She would really be upset that she "missed the boat" if she saw Kenney.

Another great picture!!

Stacey you should have said is she ever saw the 'Phantom Kenney'. He's a great son and a great brother, Jordan would have liked him. There's always D'land so that you can meet up with Vickie and family.

 

[jilljill]

... I wondered why Alexa was always so independent and we would see her everywhere ...

And I'm sure you found her wherever Ian or Josh was to be found. We didn't see her much either and if we needed to find her we would just ask a couple of the Entertainment CM's and they would know where to find her.

 

[jilljill]

Look at that...a post cruise T.O.P. without even knowing it was just around the corner.
The cruise was great and it was so nice to meet everyone, wish it was longer so we could have spent more time with each other.
We arrived home around 6:45 tonight after going to D'land and touring northern CA and Lake Tahoe. We had a great dinner with Vickie, Wick and the kids last night. Now it's back to reality .

 

[SchultzFamily]

Barb's home!! Bumping it up so she can find it!!

WHAT? Almost missed the ship, Vickie???

We were just wandering around the shopping district in Cabo, actually watching the time because we wanted to get back for the 3:30 matinee of Dreams. We got to the tender boat and a large group from a Disney excursion had just finished boarding and they're motioning us to hurry and board. I look at my watch and it says 3:20 so I'm thinking good we'll make that matinee when I hear people from the group talking about it being 4:05! I start looking around at everyone's watches and sure enough all I see is 4:05 and I look down at mine again and it says 3:20 and it WAS running! Sometime during the day it must have stopped and started running again and I never realized it. The last tender was supposed to be at 4:00, thank goodness for last returning Disney excursions! Made the ship, missed the matinee! We actually talked to 2 CM's that evening that told us if we had missed the ship we would have been brought out in a pilot boat but the ship does not stop for you to board, you have to board it moving! I'm glad I didn't have to experience that!
Vickie

 

[Itinkso]

Barb - Glad to hear you made it home safely! I was thinking of you on Tuesday as I knew you would be driving by on 99. It's too bad I was working or would have offered to meet you guys for a pit stop. It was fun getting to know you, Jay and Alexa! Say hi to them for us!!

Last night we went to Red Robin for dinner as it is Traci's favorite fun place to eat. We had about a 10 minute wait for a table and Brynee was getting antsy...was expecting immediate and top notch service !

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I went out to breakfast with friends including Sonia who was on the July 2nd cruise. We had a great time comparing photo albums!

 

[Catnip0113]

We actually talked to 2 CM's that evening that told us if we had missed the ship we would have been brought out in a pilot boat but the ship does not stop for you to board, you have to board it moving! I'm glad I didn't have to experience that!
Vickie

Wow, I hadn't heard about that Vickie. We had Palo that night. Our excursion was over around 2:15pm so we just got a Tender then because it was so hot out. We had gone to the mall in the morning for air conditioning and shopping. We walked back to the harbor with all the merchants trying to sell things and we were very hot. Our Land's End cruise was air conditioned which was nice, I got some good photos and Steve has done a pastel painting of the arch. He did one pastel painting on the ship on our verandah and got into it so he has been doing them at home now from photo inspiration. He goes from there and adds things like little boats or flowers.

This is my wallpaper now:

 

[Itinkso]

Cathy - Great picture and great idea for wallpaper! I have just finished printing out pics and will now need to focus on loading them onto the computer to a webhosting site. I think I'll try Photobucket.

Vickie - Wow, I didn't hear that story either! I did want to suggest that because Three Rivers is almost to the entrance of Sequoia National Park, you may want to go into the park to see the Giant Sequoias. There's also Crystal Cave with its stalagtites/stalagmites if you like cavernous hikes. There are stairs to the cave - going down is fine but it's the coming back up that did me in.

A DISboards tip: When you are first on the DISboards homepage, CLICK on Quick Links, CLICK on Subscribed Threads and this thread should come up in the listing. It's a fast way to get to the thread without searching the cruise meets listings - searching used to make me dizzy until I discovered Quick Links!

 

[j-rod]

Very cool picture, Cathy!

Vickie.....wow....you guys are really lucky! I think I would have been shaking in my boots. I wouldn't have wanted to have to "jump" onto the ship, either! Wow.

I can't tell you how glad I am that we aren't on the free Royal Caribbean cruise right now. I would have been way too tired and just not up to it. And I'd be missing all the fun stories!!

Doggone it! I keep forgetting that I let Jared sign on here....and he never logs off! This is Stacey!

 

[justmestace]

I might have already posted this...it was one of my favorites ....sorry it's so small...

 

[Kidoctr]

Let me know if this works.....here are the albums in my Shutterfly collection - all 360 or so pictures, one album per day, for your viewing pleasure:

http://disney05.shutterfly.com

 

[SchultzFamily]

Let me know if this works.....here are the albums in my Shutterfly collection - all 360 or so pictures, one album per day, for your viewing pleasure:

http://disney05.shutterfly.com

Eve, It worked! Great pictures, I just love the first one of Amina watching the parade! That look on her face is wonderful!
Vickie

 

[SchultzFamily]

Very cool picture, Cathy!

Vickie.....wow....you guys are really lucky! I think I would have been shaking in my boots. I wouldn't have wanted to have to "jump" onto the ship, either! Wow.

I can't tell you how glad I am that we aren't on the free Royal Caribbean cruise right now. I would have been way too tired and just not up to it. And I'd be missing all the fun stories!!

Doggone it! I keep forgetting that I let Jared sign on here....and he never logs off! This is Stacey!

Stacey, Luckily we were already on the tender when we discovered what had happened and and already safely back on the ship when we heard about haw we would have to board if we missed the tender. Did I mention Kenney was on the ship and Sara was with us? We had gone out in the morning and rented waverunners and Wick parasailed but Kenney didn't want to go shopping so we took him back, changed clothes and left him on board!
Vickie

 

[justmestace]

Stacey, Luckily we were already on the tender when we discovered what had happened and and already safely back on the ship when we heard about haw we would have to board if we missed the tender. Did I mention Kenney was on the ship and Sara was with us? We had gone out in the morning and rented waverunners and Wick parasailed but Kenney didn't want to go shopping so we took him back, changed clothes and left him on board!
Vickie

Well, at least ONE of your family members would have had a great cruise! LOL
Truly, that would have made it even worse. If we were going to miss the ship, I'd rather it was ALL of us. What am I saying?? I hope to never have anything close to that happen!

 

[Catnip0113]

Eve - Great photos! It is funny how you have different photos from us because you have younger kids. It was fun to see the kids club and character signings and such. On Pirate night Jess had our camera. I will have to do the captions on ours. I had put them in 3 albums because I wanted to share different ones with different sets of friends/family.

We booked our cruise for July 2, 2006 today on the Crown Princess which is a new ship commissioning in May 2006. It is a nine night cruise from NYC to Grank Turk, San Juan, St. Thomas and Bermuda. I hope the other four couples we are going with book soon because it is filling up fast being a new ship.

Cathy

 

[Itinkso]

We booked our cruise for July 2, 2006 today on the Crown Princess which is a new ship commissioning in May 2006. It is a nine night cruise from NYC to Grank Turk, San Juan, St. Thomas and Bermuda. I hope the other four couples we are going with book soon because it is filling up fast being a new ship.

Cathy

Cathy - That sounds like a great cruise! We'll be on Sapphire Princess the same time you're on the Crown ...our airfare is outrageous as we need 2 one-way fares rather than round-trip. Check out CruiseCritic.com - there are boards just like this one rerincess and your ports! Say hi to Jess for Brynee and me. Brynee has decided to stop playing on the tennis team as she was slated to play JV singles and she only likes doubles...and she hates challenges to move up the ladder. Hope Jess is enjoying her last few days of summer vacation!

 

[jilljill]

I had an email from Ian today and he said they missed Cabo due to a hurricaine and very high seas. I then read the repo thread and heard about the 30 foot waves they were having yesterday. Sure am glad I'm not on this cruise as I know I would be very sick. I'm very glad we had smooth sailing.

I'm sure everyone is finally getting back to their normal lives and reality that meals need to be cooked and not ordered from a menu all the time. I'm having a hard time adjusting to eating at a normal dinner time instead of eating late every night.

Once again, it was so nice to meet everyone we did and we hope we can meet up again sometime.