Cass, Rob & Kira - Christmas on the Wonder, The Sequel ~ 2017

[bcwife76]

Haha Rob is hilarious, look at him with those beignets, as if he's sneakin' them out ;-) YUM!!! Glad you were able to get in another swim

 

[NotAnotherHPI]

Cass I am I longtime lurker and fell in love with your trippies! I just binge read most of them -- so fun to see Kira grow up and all your reports help me get excited for my upcoming trip to Disney with my soon to be hubby I wanted to find some of your earlier trippies like SeaWorld etc but the website doesn't have them- anywhere else I should look? I can't even look at your DIS profile. Thanks for your good humor and your awesome and VERY detailed posts, makes me feel like I am on vaca!! xoxo, a fan

 

[jenseib]

Cass I am I longtime lurker and fell in love with your trippies! I just binge read most of them -- so fun to see Kira grow up and all your reports help me get excited for my upcoming trip to Disney with my soon to be hubby I wanted to find some of your earlier trippies like SeaWorld etc but the website doesn't have them- anywhere else I should look? I can't even look at your DIS profile. Thanks for your good humor and your awesome and VERY detailed posts, makes me feel like I am on vaca!! xoxo, a fan

I think you need to make more posts to see more things. But I am not sure all of Cass's reports are still on here, especially since photobucket when wonky with charges. I know she was trying to fix her past report though

 

[jenseib]

Cass I am I longtime lurker and fell in love with your trippies! I just binge read most of them -- so fun to see Kira grow up and all your reports help me get excited for my upcoming trip to Disney with my soon to be hubby I wanted to find some of your earlier trippies like SeaWorld etc but the website doesn't have them- anywhere else I should look? I can't even look at your DIS profile. Thanks for your good humor and your awesome and VERY detailed posts, makes me feel like I am on vaca!! xoxo, a fan

Here's one of her older ones when Kira was really little.
https://www.disboards.com/threads/c...empers-and-tantrums-final-video-1-06.2324431/

 

[SonyaShay]

so I just spent basically all of my "work" day binge reading this entire trip report. Can't wait for the rest!

 

[Timon]

Sorry, I got sick a few days ago so I will try to reply to all the posts either today or tomorrow and I will finish up the character meet now because it's short

Day 9 Part 4

After swimming, Kira showered and got dressed again. I didn't have the energy to shower so I just went with wet hair because it was almost 9:45pm and we didn't want to miss whatever this was!

I had zero idea what this was going to be, other than to meet a few characters. I had no idea why we were chosen or how many other people would be there but it was rather exciting

We showed up 5 minutes early and took a seat.

There was only 4 or 5 other families in there with us, so I thought that was kind of weird. I figured there would be tons of others. The CM then closed the side door of the D Lounge and covered it so no one could see in. Oooooh how mysterious.

Then all of a sudden, from around the bend near the front of the stage area came character after character after character!!!



There were also some non-Disney characters, all from different shows that are held in the Walt Disney Theatre, some of which we recognized from all of the character meets.

For Kira, this was HEAVEN!!!

She was over the moon!!!

She was a little shy at first because honestly, it was a little overwhelming, in a good way, of course! Normally, she waits her turn in a long line and has a minute or two with each so this was just so different for her. I had to nudge her a little bit with each character, it was quite sweet.

Love this one, she wore the perfect shirt to meet Ariel, whom, of course, commented on it.

Recognize that very tall CM from our first meet with Mickey? Loved his costume!

The funniest part (for me, because you know how much I love Minnie ) was when Minnie came up to her...

If you look at the background of the above photo, you can probably guess what was about to happen

Yup, she totally dissed Minnie to go hug Stitch. Even Minnie was laughing about it

I apologized to Minnie and told her that Stitch was her FAVE and that she would have ditched the Big Cheese himself if Stitch had come by

Love of ducky love...

Most of the time, the characters were just standing around because there was hardly anyone there!

Stitch took the opportunity to have some fun!

Pluto, who is now her second fave, got lots of love, including some rubs on the nose

The Mickster

After about 15 minutes, the characters got ready for the Final Farewell show in the Atrium.

Kira gave Stitch one last big hug and thanked him.

Sometime while I was taking photos, Rob asked one of the CM's how they choose people for this event.

He said that each cruise they choose about 5 families and it is all up to the CM's themselves, the ones who play the characters and their handlers, who are all part of the Entertainment team(those who act in the big shows in the WDT)

So I'm guessing it's the ones who really seem to enjoy the meets, the ones who come often or maybe even just some pixie dust sometimes.

Rob assumed it was because Kira went to all of the meets but then I told him the story about our first meet with Mickey and how the CM asked for our room number well after our M&G was done. I think Kira just had such a great interaction with that CM & Mickey and that third CM noticed Kira beaming afterwards and then asked for our room number so she could send an invitation.

That's just my guess though and nobody really knows why we got so much pixie dust, we were just lucky


Kira was on such a high afterwards!

We followed them all out into the Atrium and then watched the farewell show from above.

Well, that was the best ending to any cruise evah!!!

Tomorrow, they would kick us off

Stay tuned for our disembarkation and journey home.

 

[juniorbugman]

Hi - I don't comment often but had to comment for this one.

Then all of a sudden, from around the bend near the front of the stage area came character after character after character!!!



There were also some non-Disney characters, all from different shows that are held in the Walt Disney Theatre, some of which we recognized from all of the character meets.

For Kira, this was HEAVEN!!!

He said that each cruise they choose about 5 families and it is all up to the CM's themselves, the ones who play the characters and their handlers, who are all part of the Entertainment team(those who act in the big shows in the WDT)

So I'm guessing it's the ones who really seem to enjoy the meets, the ones who come often or maybe even just some pixie dust sometimes.

Wow a wonderful event for Kira. I am sure that you were excited as well. Did you have any photos taken with you and the characters?

 

[disneyfaninaz]

On our first cruise in 2008, I was going through chemo for breast cancer. We received an invitation as well to meet with the characters before the Final Goodbye event. My then 8 year old DD was in heaven. What a great "Magical Moment" to experience! We had several magical moments on that cruise, but the character Meet & Greet was the most memorable!

 

[tiggrbaby]

What lovely magic! Such memories!

 

[cntkg1]

That Pixie Dust you received was well deserved! How exciting that must have been. It’s probably safe to say you are being envied by everyone reading your trippie. I know I am!

 

[bcwife76]

Oh wow......now that is some serious pixie dust!!!!

Definitely the best ending to a cruise

 

[Timon]

Day 10

Today they are kicking us off the ship, nooooooooo!!!

I hate it when they do that

I was up super early and I watched (yet again HA!) as we sailed into the channel and the pilot boarded our ship.

I woke up my family so they could go shower and get dressed. They would be eating in Cabanas this morning while I got showered and ready and packed our carry-ons.

Last pic of Kira on our verandah...

This is when I noticed that we were at terminal 1 instead of terminal 2!

They enjoyed their last Cabanas buffet...

By the time they got back, I was all ready to go but very sad, goodbye stateroom!

We walked over to the Atrium on deck 5 and just as we got there, they called our luggage tags, Green Tink

Oddly enough, we disembarked on deck 4 but then I remember that we were at Terminal 1 so I guess the walkway is a different size

Dropped off our comment card and out onto deck 4, so weird!

I told them to make a sad face...I have no idea what the heck they are doing here

Yup, definitely Terminal 2

Looked very similar to Terminal 2 actually.

We found our luggage!

Went through customs super quickly and then out to find the shuttle bus for Lot A.

Which was just to the right...

We hopped on and off we went right away!

How cool that we saw wind turbine blades on a train!

We found our car and packed it up and headed out.

We were originally going to stop at Target to grab some snacks for the flight home but I had forgotten to tell Rob to go up further to the 45, instead we just kept going on Harborside Drive until it met the 45 so we totally missed Target. Rob asked me if I wanted him to turn around and I said nah, we can grab them somewhere closer to the airport. In my 45 years on this planet, I always ALWAYS find that everything happens for a reason so always just go with the flow


It was a fairly quick and painless drive up to Frontage Road...about an hour or so.

Awww, but we wanted to go to Cleveland!

Lots of construction!

There's our exit!

Our destination...Waffle House, of course!

This ended up being my absolute favourite Waffle House food I have ever had!

It was getting busy in there and I just wanted to get out ASAP so we hurried up, grabbed a leftover box for Rob (that man takes forever to eat ) and hurried out.

We filled up the car at the gas station next door and also filled up on snacks.

Then we headed back to the airport to return the car.

Headed out to the shuttle area where it was just waiting for us! Perfect!

Last time we couldn't check our luggage in for awhile because no one was at the Westjet counter. I knew there was an earlier flight but wasn't sure if anyone would still be at the counter but I saw that they were! I was hoping to drop off our bags early so we didn't have to lug them around. Our flight didn't leave until 5:30pm and it was now around noon, so we had a long time to wait. I had intended on taking our time at Target and maybe even hit up Walmart again but instead we had just headed out of Galveston.

Thankfully we were able to drop off our bags, yay! Got our boarding passes and then headed through the Pre-Check line. We had to go around the long way because only the East gate has Pre-Check, but it was worth it because we sailed through security like we never have before!

Like I mean quick!!

So we back tracked to where our gate is and I looked at the monitor and I noticed that the earlier direct flight to Calgary, which I thought had left already) would be leaving in about half an hour.



I looked at Rob and told him about the early flight and we decided to press our luck and see if we could get on that flight. I figured it was a long shot for many reasons; they are probably boarding already, I didn't think they would allow us to board with our bags on another flight since we had just checked them in and I figured they were probably full anyway.

BUT, we were going to check anyway, just in case

Well, remember what I said about everything happening for a reason?

We actually managed to get on the flight, have seats together AND they were able to track and pull our luggage and put it on this flight!!!



Holy Hannah!!

If we had gone to Target or took longer at Waffle House or had to wait for a shuttle bus at the rental car place, or got stopped at security...if any of that happened, we never would have made it onto this flight!

We did pay an early-show fee but it was soooo worth it! We would be landing in Calgary at the same time we would have been leaving Houston!!

While they were dealing with our baggage search, I had ran to Chick-Fil-A to grab me a chicken burger to snack on later. I had planned to have it for dinner, nice and hot with waffle fries before our flight but that obviously was out of the question now.

I got back and we started boarding!


Talk about timing!



This time Kira snapped our traditional selfie since she had commanded the aisle seat

Buh-bye Houston!

I ended up falling asleep on Rob while he watched a movie. I woke up and then we all ate. Kira and Rob ate an entire can of Pringles And Rob also snacked on his WH leftovers while I ate my cold but still delicious chicken burger.

I watched part of a movie and then we descended into Calgary! Wow, that was quick! I need to sleep on planes more often!

Oh yeah...back to snow! UGH!

Landed and then took the long trek to Canadian Customs and breezed through with our Nexus cards!

It was super duper cold in Calgary so Kira and I headed to Tim Horton's to grab Rob his fix while he went and got the vehicle. We met him at the curb and we headed home.

My brother was dropping off Boo shortly, we had just enough time to grab a bite to eat and then start unpacking and doing laundry.

Because we got home so early, we had plenty of time to finish all of the laundry and cuddle with our Boo bear

Oh and shovel.

And that's it folks! Another great cruise comes to an end.

I am SUPER blessed to have had this amazing experience and getting away for Christmas for the second year in a row was just as amazing (if not more!) as the first time.


Thanks for reading along, hope you enjoyed it and maybe even learned a thing or two

And for everyone who commented..... THANK YOU, THANK YOU my lovelies, you made my day every time and helped encourage me to continue to write!!!

I will reply tomorrow to the comments that I haven't responded to yet.

I gotta go pack, I'm going to Disneyland next week for some training!!!

I will be posting pics on my TA FB page during my trip, which I can't post a link to here but I am fairly certain you can find it yourself

 

[TestingH2O]

1. We got one of those invitations once. I still love thinking about it.

2. Her hair in Cabanas is so cute and sleepy! It really shows how hard that last morning is. Sweet girl.

3. Snow on the ground. What a rude thing to come back to.

Thanks for another awesome report!

 

[SplashMom]

Loved your report and so sad to see it end! I'll be watching for pictures on FB. We are boarding the Magic in just a few weeks...this was perfect to read to get me really excited. Enjoy your next trip!

 

[bcwife76]

Wow, well that was a SMOOOOOTH trip home, fantastic for getting on an earlier flight with the luggage!!!

Sad your trip has now come to an end but I'm sure you'll be back not only with comments to our comments, but with some parting words. And yahoo for Disneyland!

 

[cntkg1]

So, its real isn’t it? It’s over. .
As always Cass, it was an awesome trippie. One last question though. What did Kira’s red tshirt read?

 

[watel]

Another great trip report! Thanks for sharing!

 

[tiggrbaby]

Thanks for taking the time to share your adventure with us!

 

[iivye]

I love all your reports. Thank you for sharing!

 

[lorimay]

Excellent!!! (as always!)