Disney Dream - June 12, 2011

[ashman]

This good news as our oldest will be 18 when we cruise and just graduated from The Early College at Guilford.

I matriculated at Guilford!

 

[Scouter]

Did anyone see this?

It tells of 3 new Disney movies coming out next year too!
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DisneyParks/~3/lBmQO0wBAKs/

 

[ashman]

Been away for a while, on Christmas break got some time on my hands. I don't know if this has been covered but we are giving the cruise as a Christmas present. Anyone else doing the same? What are your ideas? When we booked our first cruise we sent the kids on a scavenger hunt. This time we bought rolling duffle bags with Mickey on in embroidered with their names. We are going to spell out THE DREAM 6/12/2011 each character on a separate piece of paper. We will then ball up each piece of paper and stuff half in one bag, half in the other. Then to make it real interesting, we are going to take a bunch of other blank pieces of paper, ball them up and stuff the bags. On Christmas, the girls are going to get a poem telling them they have to take out each piece of paper, find the ones with letters and characters on them, and then unscramble the message to figure out where we are going!

I would love to hear other ideas!

 

[Scouter]

A Christmas ornament exchange party does sound like fun although I've never been to one either.

Rose, I also love Hallmark ornaments. My mother started getting the grandkids Hallmark ornaments beginning with their first Christmas and then gave them each one every year after that until she passed. I have continued the tradition with my grandchildren and I also let Rachel pick one out each year for herself when we buy the others. They always have such great ornaments. This year I couldn't resist buying myself one too---I found one that is Tinkerbell sitting on a snowflake. I just fell in love with it! My Christmas Tree is decorated with mostly Hallmark ornaments.

I was letting Sean pick one out every year so he can have a box full when he gets his own place someday, it's funny, he picked out mostly cars and planes.
He's not really even into that now.
Someday he's going to open that box and go "what was I thinking?"

I love that Tinkerbell one! I saw it too! I want it!
But I'm way over budget, so none for me, unless Santa brings me some

(I did get one for my birthday, my continuing collection of the mischievous kittens)

 

[Scouter]

Happy Monday everyone! Hope everyone is well, warm and finished Christmas shopping

DMMom (Teresa? - sorry still learning names) - Glad your surgery went well and I hope you have a speedy recovery

Rose - The play was a riot. It was "A Broadway Christmas Carol". Basically it was the Christmas Carol done very tongue in cheek and they would break out in songs from various Broadway shows (Oklahoma, Guys & Dolls, Beauty & the Beast, etc) with the lyrics changed to fit a Christmas Carol. Half the fun was trying to figure out which musicals the songs were from. As odd as this sounds, I absolutely love spending time with my former mother-in-law. So it was an absolutely wonderful day.

Friday night I was digging around a box of Disney stuff and found some of the FE gifts from the cruise I went on in January. In it were 4 cd's one of the ladies made with "cruise" music. That reminded me that I had downloaded the old Castaway Club cd - complete with the horn "music" Went digging thru my compute and found it. Loaded that and the cruise cd on to my iphone. So I've been spending the last few days listening to some inspirational music

That play sounds great! I wish it was here too.

I get the liking your ex's. I loved my ex-husbands family, more so than him I think I really married him because of his family
SIGH........................

 

[Scouter]

GOOD MORNING FELLOW CRUISERS!!

Well, it seems that Connor is the only one that suffered the stomach bug. Yay! It took him several days to really get over it. He was only sick Friday morning. His friend that spent the night left and Connor went back to bed. He was in bed for 18 hours! I kept checking on him. He did run a fever, but was never physically sick after that morning. Then he just had a hard time eating for 2 days. He would eat, but it would make his belly ache. I think it was just trying to "work" again. Poor guy.

the boys have school through Weds then they are off for the rest of the year. We were planning on doing Christmas here on Christmas Eve, then driving to Steve's parents on Christmas Day, BUT it seems Mother Nature has other plans for us. We are suppose to get another 6" of the Devil's Dandruff!! (My friend posted that on Facebook and I love it! LOL) So, if that much is on the way, the roads will be horrible, so we'll stay home! I have a turkey breast and small ham, so we'll be set!

I have just one more gift to wrap for the boys, then a few things for my family, but we aren't heading to Cleveland until the New Years Weekend. So, there's time for that. I have baked entirely way too many treats, but they travel well! LOL

Ornaments.....we travel a lot, so we pick up ornaments where ever we go! When we went to Williamsburg and DC this year, I bet we picked up a dozen different ones! We always get several when we are on the cruise or at the parks too. So our tree mostly consists of ornaments from our travels...whether it be NYC, OH, VA, FL, TN or even the State Parks here in WV! I love taking them out and remembering the time we were there!

Ornament exchange party is a neat idea. She has appetizers, beer, wine, coffee, soft drinks. everyone comes with a wrapped ornament and they go in a basket. You socialize, eat and drink! As you leave, you pick a different wrapped ornament to take home with you! There were some really cute ones! Next year I'll have to keep my eyes open and plan better!

DMMom, I hope this finds you feeling better and better every day!!

Rose, I am glad Sean is home, safe and sound! I would NOT have shoveled at 4am, regardless of how much snow there was! Kudos to you! I'd of left it for later!

StarChef, good to see you posting again! with all this snow, the days can't move fast enough!

Tammy, I love the ornament tradition your mom started. I might have to do that...when the time comes! LOL

I just heard Steve get in the shower, so I best get a move on. We have a few errands to run today. Maybe I can convince him to buy me lunch too!

Everyone have a great day!
Disney Dreaming....
Michele

So glad that your son was the only one sick. I hope he'll be feeling better soon

Great fun, that ornament party!

And as for the shoveling, we really DIDN'T want to, but we were expecting up to another foot the next day, so we thought we'd better get to the 8-12 inches that had already fallen while we were gone.

We've been mostly (except for a few flakes) snow free the past week

 

[Scouter]

Asking for advice.

We have decided not to come in a couple of days early and stay at Universal. Logistics and DD8 will not be 54 inches by June to take advantage of all the rides.

So it looks like we will fly in the night before and just stay at the Hyatt @MCO.

It looks like I can save some money and take a later flight and get into MCO at 6:30 Saturday night.

We spend the night at the Hyatt and take Disney Transportation to the port. I know for the 5 of us we can get cheaper transportation to the port but for our first cruise I'm thinking we need the whole Disney cruise magic. That and DS4 loves the disney busses and plays with his matchbox disney busses all the time.

Since I am about to book the airfare does anybody see any issues with the plan?? I want to make this trip as stress free as possible.

TIA
Mike

Nope, that should work out fine

 

[Scouter]

Been away for a while, on Christmas break got some time on my hands. I don't know if this has been covered but we are giving the cruise as a Christmas present. Anyone else doing the same? What are your ideas? When we booked our first cruise we sent the kids on a scavenger hunt. This time we bought rolling duffle bags with Mickey on in embroidered with their names. We are going to spell out THE DREAM 6/12/2011 each character on a separate piece of paper. We will then ball up each piece of paper and stuff half in one bag, half in the other. Then to make it real interesting, we are going to take a bunch of other blank pieces of paper, ball them up and stuff the bags. On Christmas, the girls are going to get a poem telling them they have to take out each piece of paper, find the ones with letters and characters on them, and then unscramble the message to figure out where we are going!

I would love to hear other ideas!

Awesome!
No, I never do anything that clever.
And I get so excited when booking that I spill the beans right away!
Besides, no one else gets as excited as me. Not even close
Bob would seriously rather go camping and hiking and DS Sean would rather I give him the money I would spend on his trip to buy computer parts

So they're going for my amusement

 

[cincinmouse]

Nope, that should work out fine

Thanks, Just booked airfare and which results in another $26 on Disney rewards points That will buy me about two drinks on the cruise.

 

[tracy51]

Did anyone see this?

It tells of 3 new Disney movies coming out next year too!
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DisneyParks/~3/lBmQO0wBAKs/

Have you seen the release date for PoTC: On Stranger Tides? 3 weeks before the cruise I'm really hoping that means it'll be playing on board.

Mike - We're considering doing the same thing. Just because it seems like the easiest/ most stress free route. A towncar to and from the port would be about the same but my husband likes the idea of letting Disney handle the luggage even if it means being on a bus with others instead of by ourselves in the towncar.

 

[Scouter]

Thanks, Just booked airfare and which results in another $26 on Disney rewards points That will buy me about two drinks on the cruise.

Two free drinks is good!
But I figure they're really about $6 to $7 so that's more like 4 drinks!

 

[Scouter]

Have you seen the release date for PoTC: On Stranger Tides? 3 weeks before the cruise I'm really hoping that means it'll be playing on board.

Mike - We're considering doing the same thing. Just because it seems like the easiest/ most stress free route. A towncar to and from the port would be about the same but my husband likes the idea of letting Disney handle the luggage even if it means being on a bus with others instead of by ourselves in the towncar.

I'll have to check that out

 

[Scouter]

Sean just got his college grades in. He's got a 3.491 this semester!
His highest grades since elementary school!
And here's the kicker........... he hardly went to any classes!
He studied from online class notes since his adhd made the classes
too distracting for him.

We're so excited!

 

[DMMom]

Sean just got his college grades in. He's got a 3.491 this semester!

Congratulations to Sean! That is so exciting.

The kids are driving me nuts. Christmas can't get here soon enough. I have a feeling that Christmas is going to start before 5am. They have been talking non-stop about opening presents and saying "I hope I get ..."

Tomorrow we are going to going to probably play many card, domino and board games to keep them busy.

 

[ewinme]

Well the first part of the wait anyway. We booked this cruise in 11/09 and have painstakingly kept it from the girls. It has not been easy and we have had several slips that thank goodness as teens they were ignoing us and did not catch.

Well anyway tomorrow is the big day. They will get their normal Christmas gifts out of the way and then the big moment will happen........

We bought them each suitcases and inside they will find these little books I made that are stories of "me" books written from their suitcase. I am sure once they see the suitcases they will know they are going somewhere but the book mentions many of our favorite travel places so each time they turn the page they will think they are going there. Eventually they will find the page with a little pocket that has a little boarding pass giving them the Dream details.

Once they calm down (at least I hope they are excited) we have another mini book that will let them in on the fact that my parents are going.

After that i have a travel binder I made that has details about each of the teen areas they will be able to use, the dinners etc. Kind of a web site summary for them. We also have the new video and the DCL cruise book I bought at Barnes and Noble.

I am so excited to tell them and I hope they are excited as we are. I am pretty sure the 15 yr old (will be 16 right after trip) will be she has been begging to go, but my 12 (will be 13 before trip) is very shy so it might be overwhelming for her. I am hoping to find girls their age on here they can exchange emails etc with so they will feel they know someone before boarding.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with your families.

 

[abitagirl916]

Sean just got his college grades in. He's got a 3.491 this semester!
His highest grades since elementary school!
And here's the kicker........... he hardly went to any classes!
He studied from online class notes since his adhd made the classes
too distracting for him.

We're so excited!

Rose, tell Sean congratulations on his grades! That is a great accomplishment for one who has ADHD. (That is one of my daughter's issues, although she has more learning disabilities other than ADHD.) I know you are very proud of him!

 

[ashman]

Merry Christmas everyone! The big reveal went great! The girls opened up their bags. My youngest said, "Are we going on another cruise?" They then read the following poem attached to their bags:

"This present is not what at first it may seem;
To figure it out, you must work as a team;
Go through the bags but don't hurry or dash;
Some papers are clues and some are trash;
When the letters are in order, without error or slip;
You will discover the location of our next trip!"

We balled up a ton of paper and on 8 slips of paper wrote the following letters:

A,D,E,H,M,R, and T

My youngest said, "Awe man, no C, no cruise!"

They then started sorting got the "THE" pretty quick, to a while to get the "DREAM" but when they did the look on their faces was great.

"We are going on the new Disney ship? OH YEAH!"

We booked this back when they first released the dates, we have been sitting on this for a while, glad to have it out in the open!

 

[abitagirl916]

Merry Christmas my Fellow Cruisers!!

Hope everyone's Christmas is wonderful!

Ashman, what a wonderful Christmas present for your children. Don't know how you kept it a secret for so long. No way I could do that. Well at least now they can help in the planning and excitement!

 

[nanceliz]

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!
Ashman, what a wonderful gift for your kiddos! I would not have been able to keep it a secret this long!

Sean, congratulation!! What an accomlishment! You should be very proud!
My nephew is home from Tulane and he didn't do so well his first semester. It was alot tougher than he thought. But, now he knows what he has to do to bring up his grades.

I am so excited about all the pictures and videos Disney is releasing! The cabins look even nicer than they did in the original photos! Or is that just me getting more excited!

Hope everyone is well. Talk again soon.

 

[PixieTl]

Merry Christmas everyone!! hope everyone had a wonderful day and no one got coal! lol

our actual Christmas will be on Sunday, can't wait until the kids figure out where we are going on vacation!!

Rose congrats to your son on his grades!! that's terrific!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!