Cass, Rob & Kira - Christmas on the Wonder??? Get the fog outta here!

[TestingH2O]

And then an early lunch for me. I almost cried eating this because I knew it would be my last salad

That is my kind of salad.

Last day is soooo sad.

Even though it may not be practical, I think the theater looks beautiful!

 

[bcwife76]

Yummy salad

Noooooo! You're trip can't be coming to an end already!

 

[Timon]

Day 9 Part 4

It was now time for Kira's Princess Meet & Greet. I had asked E if she had seen the princesses and she said no. Since we had three tickets, I suggested that Rob stay behind and I take the girls and everyone was happy with that.

I was a little upset when two big groups WITHOUT tickets got in line in front of me. They knew they didn't have tickets but they pleaded with the CM that was checking people in and he let them go. He said that there was some room as they didn't book as many people as they could have, which I totally understand but they should have gone to the end of the line after all of the people with tickets. They were such a big group and every single one of them wanted a photo and then they wanted certain groups of photos. We could have flown through the princesses, instead we had a wait of about 10 minutes for each of them.

I asked Kira if she wanted to change first but she said no

After that, the girls wanted some pool time and E's Dad said he would take them so Rob and I went to see Rogue One in the Walt Disney Theatre. I forgot to mention that Rob and Kira saw Rogue One in the Buena Vista Theatre a couple of days ago. I didn't join them because the seats aren't that comfortable but the WDT has better seating. I was actually falling asleep about half-way through so I abandoned Rob to go find Kira.

I found her at the pool and then we both went to grab some ice cream. It was my first time having the soft serve that week and it was really good! I totally forgot just how good it is

I think Kira took a shower and we waited for Rob to get back from the movie.

It seemed like all of a sudden, the seas got pretty rough and the boat started rocking. At first it was just a little windy...

It was now time for second lunches!

Rob was cold and Kira was a little grumpy because she was trying to rush to do everything before me and was clumsy and had spilled some ketchup and a drink and was mad at herself

She recovered quickly, especially since we finished up with ice cream on our verandah, watching the waves.

Kira went to the club with E and Rob and I went and played Final Jackpot Bingo. I swear I took some pics but I guess not

Boy, is Bingo getting expensive now! I think 3 people split the big prize (thinking $7K?) and none of those people were us

It was now time for Dreams...

People were saving seats everywhere and even though we got there pretty early, we had to sit well to the side.

Back to the room to get ready for our last dinner.

I also filled out some of the survey before it was time to eat. I really hate that they don't have any free space to write comments

 

[Timon]

I have enjoyed reading your story about your Merrytime cruise on the magic. We have booked our first cruise for family on the magic next Christmas! I feel I've gotten a lot of insight from you so thanks Plus I have an autoimmune disease so There has been some worry about taking a cruise because of the sunissue. Is a big no-no for me. It was interesting to me how you felt with the sun issue and has made me feel more comfortable that it seems to be manageable. If you have any other suggestions I would love to hear them.

I look forward to continuing reading your very entertaining posts!

Yay, your first family cruise

And over Christmas too!!

I always find shade, I am good at it

There is still tons that you can do. Obviously anything that puts you out in the sun all day is a no-go but I always find beach umbrellas (or carry one with you!) or hulk around a building to find it

Pool at night is my biggest suggestion, it is so much less crowded and no sun to deal with, it's one of my favourite things to do! Normally I skip dinner in the MDR's at least once or twice to enjoy an empty pool but our servers were so good this time, we didn't want to skip any nights!

I love your "salad". Looks like one of mine.

It has onions and pickles

I have to tell you how impressed (and sad in a way) I am with how mature Kira is already. She's not a little girl anymore, is she? But it must make you and Rob feel so proud.

No, oh my gosh, she is growing up so fast, Nanc We are proud, she is a good kid and we love her like crazy

So how does one spend a very late night, and an entire half of the next day do you ask? Reading just about the best trip report author there is of course!!

HI CASS!!

I hardly ever go to trip reports these days, but happened upon THIS at about midnight last night. I think I plopped down to bed at 2:30 am , from Page 1 to page 9 an absolutely phenomenal job as always!! Seriously, you have a talent for taking us there, putting us right where you are, and making us feel it all. I don't want this book to end. Kira, wasn't it yesterday we were watching her as a toddler?? How grown up she is!! An amazing family. Loving everything, every day. Thank you!!

JILL!!!!

HAHAHA, I am glad you found me

Yup, she was a baby (10 months) when I wrote my first trippie (that I ended up deleting due to personal reasons ) and then 2 on my next trippie! You've watched her grow up on the Dis

Thanks for posting hun!!!

Ahhhhhhmazing pics, as usual, Cass!

Thanks babe

Beautiful sunrise and ship photos! I love walking around a quiet ship early in the morning too. I really enjoyed reading your trip report and am sad that it's almost over.

One of my favourite times on the ship

I'm sad that it's almost over too but at least it will give me time to work on my trip videos

Love the sunrise photos! Can't believe it's your last full day already

I know, right??? Let's cry together

Another canadian here... I rarely post but found your trip report recently. The WDW trip we were contemplating for this year has been pushed to next year and I've got to say that after reading through your amazing trip report, I think you've convinced me that our next trip should be a Disney cruise instead! Then today, I saw this at the bottom of your post: "No cooking, no cleaning, no snow, no ice, no freezing temperatures." Yup, those 5 awesome reasons combined with being on a Disney ship is a total winning combo!

Hello fellow Canadian

I wish I had a buck for everyone I made cruise, I could go on another cruise

You will LOVE it!

Beautiful sunrise pictures!

Thank you

I definitely want to add breakfast outside to my list of things to do on this trip.

At least once!

Loving your report!! The delayed boarding sounded awful but so glad the rest of the trip was great. Ah XMAS on DCL, heaven.
Will be on the Wonder in june so I am happy to see all of your pics!
My DD is 10 now, will turn 11 a couple days before cruise. Not the most responsible kid yet but now I am thinking I should give her check in/out privileges.. well, we will see....

I tell ya, I went in thinking NO WAY is she responsible enough for that and she proved me wrong and it ended being a wonderful thing

You will have a great time, no matter what

Beautiful pictures! I really wanna be on board now!!

That's exactly why I LOVE vacations and especially Disney vacations! Hopefully great weather, zero grumpy kiddos and a lot of food that I don't need to cook!

I'm so glad you and your family had that great and special Disney Christmas. It's so much fun to witness the good times you had!

Btw I also have a HRC Nassau T-Shirt. The print on it is great, but the fitting not so much. I have 5 HRC Shirts and never tried them on before buying. So I'm lucky that it is just one out of five.

Disney cruises really are the best

I have about 4 or 5 HRC shirts that don't fit me (never tried them on but I bought the appropriate size) and I look at them now and well, they would fit Kira now! XL my buttocks!!

Thanks for another amazing trip report. I've been lurking on your reports for a veerrryyy long time. So much so that someday I hope to end up sailing with you guys. I think it would be a blast!

Thanks for posting and coming out of lurkdom

That is my kind of salad.

Last day is soooo sad.

Even though it may not be practical, I think the theater looks beautiful!

LOL, I love salad

It does look beautiful but I prefer the theatres on the Dream/Fantasy...cup holders and comfy seats

Yummy salad

Noooooo! You're trip can't be coming to an end already!

I know!! I had my last salad and that's it!!!

 

[Timon]

Day 9 Part 5

Wow, two whole days since I last updated and not one single post

Where is everyone???

Bueller?

Bueller?




Our last dinner...Animator's Palate!

Tonight was the Animation Magic Show, which I was looking forward to seeing because my only experience with it was on our Fantasy cruise in 2013 but I got sick on the last night and missed the entire dinner. I asked Rob to record it for me but he accidentally hit the pause button and nothing recorded. Been there, done that!

Kira arrived a little late, and in jammies due to Pluto's PJ Party. She was thrilled that she could be out and about wearing her jammies, that kid LIVES in her jams! On the weekend when we have no plans, she will wear jammies all day, shower and put on a new set of PJ's

It's very scary how much she is just like me

Creating our masterpieces

This was my least favourite meal and honestly, if they didn't have the animation show, I would have happily skipped it but I do love this restaurant.

Everyone gets the same appy and I told Aaron not to bother to bring me one because I knew I wouldn't eat it.

Instead, I got the spaghetti & meatball soup, which tasted like Alphaghetti's

Kira enjoyed her final Caesar Salad on the ship.

Wow, that's it for food Can you tell we didn't care for this menu?

Here's pics of our characters in the show...

Mine is the weird skeleton dude on the far right...

Kira's looks like Mike Wazowski's sister

And Rob's looked like Darth Vader in drag

Got a pic of with Aaron and said our Good-Byes

Caught the Final Farewell in the Atrium..

We had finished dinner super early and we were excited to spend our final night watching a movie on Funnel Vision, with a nice swim and hopefully a pretzel.

Instead, we found that all the pools were closed!!!

BUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, guess it's early to bed then

Tomorrow...home time

 

[Jillpie]

Awww once again, I'm in mourning for the final ending of Cass's story boo hoo!! So I wonder if they close down the pool, so people will be forced to go back to their rooms and pack, so not to be delayed in the morning! Thats too bad, I know how much you enjoyed that at night. Well, this isn't the end, not really, you will come back and give us the final chapter yes?

 

[bcwife76]

awww sad..... pools closed, the menu being your least favourite. Bummer. I'm glad the animation show is on all the ships now, we had a fun time doing it on the Fantasy but forgot to take photos when our drawings came up

Fingers crossed your disembarkation went a little smoother than your embarkation!

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

We are all here! Many of us just read and do not comment much but really appreciate your report. You all look like you had a great time. We went on the womder 3 years ago the week after Christmas and it was a fun time to travel! Thanks for reminding me off our trip too!

 

[Kontos]

Gasp! jammies in an MDR?!

 

[TestingH2O]

Sad that it's over.

Sorry, work kept me from thinking about cruising.

 

[SplashMom]

I'm so sad that you are almost finished! I love your report!!

 

[cntkg1]

Wait! No pigeon poop all week? I know how you love that stuff!

 

[Timon]

Awww once again, I'm in mourning for the final ending of Cass's story boo hoo!! So I wonder if they close down the pool, so people will be forced to go back to their rooms and pack, so not to be delayed in the morning! Thats too bad, I know how much you enjoyed that at night. Well, this isn't the end, not really, you will come back and give us the final chapter yes?

I think they drained and closed the pools because of the weather. It was super windy and the ship was rocking

Yup, it's not over until this fat lady sings

awww sad..... pools closed, the menu being your least favourite. Bummer. I'm glad the animation show is on all the ships now, we had a fun time doing it on the Fantasy but forgot to take photos when our drawings came up

Fingers crossed your disembarkation went a little smoother than your embarkation!

It was a fun little show! I managed to get some pics and some video

Disembarkation was MUCH smoother

We are all here! Many of us just read and do not comment much but really appreciate your report. You all look like you had a great time. We went on the womder 3 years ago the week after Christmas and it was a fun time to travel! Thanks for reminding me off our trip too!

I'm glad I didn't lose you

Gasp! jammies in an MDR?!

LOL, did I offend you?

I am one of those people who think that people should wear whatever they want, as long as it's not offensive

People showed up to Christmas dinner in Christmas jammies and you know what??? Everyone still had fun and enjoyed their dinner.

Kira was not the only kid wearing jammies at dinner that night either as Pluto's PJ party did not end until 15 minutes into our dinner time

Sad that it's over.

Sorry, work kept me from thinking about cruising.

Work sucks

I'm so sad that you are almost finished! I love your report!!

I'm sad it's almost over too

Wait! No pigeon poop all week? I know how you love that stuff!

Nope, no pigeon poop at all

 

[Timon]

Day 10 Part 1

Sadly, this was the last day of our trip


The ship was a rockin' last night and the room was creaking quite a bit. I didn't sleep as much as I would have liked to and missed sailing back into the channel.

We were docked by the time my alarm went off but we did get to see a beautiful sun rise in port.

And someone enjoyed her last Disney cartoons of the trip...

Getting ready for the next set of passengers

The plan this morning was the same as every other disembarkation morning. After showers, Rob and Kira would hit the buffet while I packed up all of our stuff.

So off went Rob and Kira....only to return 5 minutes later saying that Cabanas was not open

What?? I didn't bother to check because it has always been open the day we leave the ship

I guess they would be heading back to Animator's without me

So they did this...

Finally, a pic of the lovely Maria

While I hung out in the Atrium...

I watched as they removed Christmas

I finally got a small glimpse of the other side of the port area...

Rob and Kira met me in the Atrium when they were done eating and it was now time to get off the ship. I have never stayed on the ship this long!

Not very happy to be leaving, that's for sure!

What goes up...must come down

Customs guy working hard

Down to the baggage room...

Look, almost no luggage left!

More sadness...

Through customs and out the door. We hopped on the shuttle that was waiting for us...

And found our rental car...wasn't hard

What a totally different experience than 7 days ago

We made one last stop at Target for snacks before driving back into Houston.

I just ran in to grab the snacks while Rob and Kira waited in the car. Rob totally missed the coolest Star Wars display

Then off to Houston!

Our exit!

We stopped at a waffle house that was close to the airport so Rob and Kira could get their last WH fix

This one was neat, the tables were set up so that the servers could stay on the one side of the counter...

Kira was happy to get one last waffle...

And I was finally able to eat

Right next to WH was a gas station, which worked out nicely since we had to gas up our rental car.

And less than 10 minutes later, we arrived back at the car rental place.

And then back on the shuttle bus to IAH.

We were a little too early to drop our bags so we camped out for a bit.

 

[m3owbox]

I need you go to on another cruise soon so I can read more of your trip reports!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Hi Cass! Just finished reading. Isn't it funny how on a sea day, especially your last, a do nothing day can go so fast?

Your drawings at AP are fun! Sorry your trip is over, but I know you will be traveling sometime soon!

DH has convinced me to cancel my NCL booking and book DCL instead. Reading your report was one reason. I felt such a part of your crew while reading that I told him I was feeling sad our cruise was not Disney! Now we're thinking maybe a land and sea so we can check out the changes at AK.

Thanks for writing!

 

[cntkg1]

That glass of OJ is bigger than Kira!! I like how DCL roped off the line for disembarkation. In the past, or at least on my cruises, the line would form nicely, but then others would just merge in whenever they wanted forming a huge bottleneck. This seems to work out a lot better.

As usual kiddo, this was an awesome trippie. Can't wait to read the next one!!!

 

[Timon]

Day 10 Part 2

We explored the area but it was tiny, not much to see but this...

Finally, it was time to drop off our bags. One of our bags was over the weight limit so we had to shuffle a few things around.

Just before we started to leave, Rob had the brilliant idea to ask them if they had found Kira's iPad case and they had!!



It had her name on it but they said when they searched her name, it didn't come up with any contact info, which I thought was weird since you have to provide TONS of contact info just to buy the ticket and then even more when you check-in but oh well, we got her cover back!




Our gate was in Terminal A (east) but they only offered TSA Pre-check in Terminal A (west) so we just went through that one and then walked around back to the east side. They were awfully thorough for Pre-check, I tell ya

We found our gate and settled in next to a power station as Kira tends to drain her battery fast because she is addicted to Netflix

We were there for quite a while but that was okay, Kira had internet and access to unlimited power and Rob and I were able to catch up with emails and such.

After a bit, I decided to grab Kira and I something to eat and some waters for all three of us for the flight. Rob had brought his leftovers from Waffle House so he munched on that while I went is search of some food.

This is when I found out that Carrie Fisher, her mom Debbie Reynolds and George Michael had all died while we were on the ship!

It's weird not getting any news for a whole week

I had grabbed Kira and I some Chick-Fil-A, it had been a LONG time since I had it and I figured we could split an order of fries before we boarded and then eat our chicken after boarding as our plane had arrived by the time I got back to the gate.

When Kira found out that I got waffles fries, she said she didn't want any. I assured her they were delicious so she tried them and immediately polished them off in 2 minutes

And then she started in on her chicken strips too! You'd think we didn't feed her or something!

We boarded and settled into our seats.

And soon we were off, back to Calgary!

I got to have my chicken sandwich...it was delicious!! It actually tasted like real chicken, unlike another chain's chicken McSandwich

And then I noticed that the row behind us (we were second to last row) was empty so I asked the flight attendant if I could move back there and I was able to.

This was awesome because that meant that I could try to nap and Kira could stretch out too and possibly nap too!

Well, we both ended up sleeping for a couple of hours! That is the MOST sleep I have ever gotten on a plane!! Normally, I can only snooze for a few minutes here and there but I guess the lack of sleep had caught up to me and I passed right out

Rob took a very unflattering photo of me while I was asleep I think it was to have proof that I actually slept on a plane

Have to say that sleeping on a plane ROCKS!! After I woke up, it was only about an hour or so before we were landing in Calgary!

Once at the gate, we started our very long trek to Canada Customs. People have been complaining about how long it is but really, it was long before they moved to the new terminal and I didn't feel that it was any longer than before but it sure was much nicer looking, albeit, a little plain.

We found the Nexus area, no lines, just straight to the machines where we do the retinal scan.

Got our slips of paper and then headed to the HUGE new baggage area.

Our bags came out really quickly

Kira found this on our suitcase! Which was kinda neat until I realized that it was December 30th, not the 29th Someone at Westjet was something

Once we had all of our bags, we went to the final Canadian Customs area...and no judging...Kira WANTED to push the cart

I found out that I totally forgot to write down our DOB's on the customs declaration card

Boy, I was more tired than I thought

DOB's listed and we were off!

We waited at the Park2Go area to grab a shuttle to our vehicle. It had snowed while we were gone and it was a little cold so it was nice to arrive at the lot with our car already started and brushed off

It was about 30 minutes home with almost no traffic and then unpacking of the vehicle was another 5 minutes.

Although I was dead tired, I emptied all suitcases of our clothes and Rob started laundry.

Thanks to my brother, Boo was dropped off shortly after we got home and we were all VERY happy to be reunited!!!

Kira went to bed and Rob and I stayed up way too late doing laundry.

It was sooooo good to be home again.

It's so wonderful getting away but nothing beats coming home again

Thank you all for reading along and a special thanks to those of you commented, it really makes a difference knowing that someone is reading your drivel and enjoying you telling your tale, so

THANK YOU!!!



I will write a Final Thoughts post in a few days and then I will get started on editing the TONS of video that I took and I will post my finished product here when I am done

Thank you and Good Night.

 

[Darkrobe]

Great trip report as always babe! Though you did stay up way too late to finish this one off!
Looking forward to another trip soon!

 

[Timon]

I need you go to on another cruise soon so I can read more of your trip reports!

LOL!

Okay

I should start a GoFund Me

Hi Cass! Just finished reading. Isn't it funny how on a sea day, especially your last, a do nothing day can go so fast?

Your drawings at AP are fun! Sorry your trip is over, but I know you will be traveling sometime soon!

DH has convinced me to cancel my NCL booking and book DCL instead. Reading your report was one reason. I felt such a part of your crew while reading that I told him I was feeling sad our cruise was not Disney! Now we're thinking maybe a land and sea so we can check out the changes at AK.

Thanks for writing!

I know, it really did go by soooo fast!!!

Awwww, well, you won't be disappointed, DCL really is the best and honestly, the ONLY cruise for Disney fans

That glass of OJ is bigger than Kira!! I like how DCL roped off the line for disembarkation. In the past, or at least on my cruises, the line would form nicely, but then others would just merge in whenever they wanted forming a huge bottleneck. This seems to work out a lot better.

As usual kiddo, this was an awesome trippie. Can't wait to read the next one!!!

Yes, I totally agree with that! Normally people are sneaking in near Guest Services but not this time

Thanks babe

Great trip report as always babe! Though you did stay up way too late to finish this one off!
Looking forward to another trip soon!

You know me, I'd rather be doing something productive than tossing and turning

Yes, another trip....soon