Experiencing The Magic, October 20, 2007

[MinnMick01]

INTRODUCTIONS

Sailing on this voyage were the following people:
Myself (DW) – Age 30 – Carrie (Experienced cruiser but not with DCL)
DH – Age 37 – Scott (Experienced cruise but not with DCL)
DD – Age 12 – Kelsey (First time cruiser)
DS – Age 11 – Kyle (First time cruiser)
DD – Age 4/5 – Mackenzie (First time cruiser)
DWM – for privacy she will be referred to as Grandma
DWF – for privacy he will be referred to as Grandpa

* just a side note, there will be no pictures of grandma and grandpa posted either. (You will understand more as you read on)

I like many other people have spent months, no years researching and planning this trip. To the point that I knew that no matter what happened in that time myself, Scott and Mackenzie would be going no matter what. (I will explain Kelsey and Kyle in a minute) So of course I did not take the insurance out on the three of us. I made sure to take insurance out for Kelsey and Kyle because they are Scott’s children from another marriage and we never knew if their mother would change her mind in the three years and decided not to let them go.

We did not want to spend the extra money to get a stateroom large enough for all 5 of us, so Grandma and Grandpa said they would go along with us and take one of the kids in their room. (prayers answered, a way to save some money and a built in baby sitter for the nights when Scott and I wanted to go to the bars.)

Grandma is very particular about where her room is on the ship. So I left that decision up to them. Her only requirement was that we have joining rooms and preferably an outside room. My only wish at that point was to get a verandah. (DH and I have never had one and we thought this would be our time to try one)

*Just a note, it was nice to have, but we did not spend enough time on it to make it worth the extra money. Also every time you open the door it played havoc with the air-conditioning in the room.

More to come

 

[MinnMick01]

BOOKING THE CRUISE

Since my parents and my DH and I have cruise before, all of our cruises had been booked through AAA. That was what we did this time. Most of the trips to AAA would be made by Grandma since DH and I work full time.

*Just a note, we will not be using AAA for any more cruises. We had a very hard time with them this time. It really made the 3 years planning this trip make us want to cancel several times.

We booked cat 6. According to Grandma it was above the kids clubs, bars and restaurants. Then she did not want to be near the stairs, elevators or laundry. So she booked room 6044 and we got joining room 6046. Our room was the perfect location. We never heard anyone above us. We occasionally heard people on the one side of us, but that is to be expected after spending 7 days in a room that size. I am sure they heard us at times also.

Part of Mackenzie’s homework was to working on her counting so her and I took the stairs everywhere. We were 88 steps from deck 9 (which are the pools and buffet).

We booked late dinning and really did not care what rotation we got. We booked Disney air, hotel and transportation.

I was all for booking things separately but Grandma and Grandpa are a little on the old fashioned side of things and would not even think about booking things separately.

The reason we booked the Oct. 20, 2007 sailing was not because of the ship, or the itinerary. It was because I wanted to be on the ship on Mackenzie’s birthday and that was Oct. 21, 2007. As long as that happened I really did not care what else happened.

 

[MinnMick01]

JUST A LITTLE BACKGROUND

This might be helpful information for all of you to know. I am obsessive compulsive when it comes to certain things, and DISNEY is one of those things. I am also a completely worrier, waiting for the other shoes to drop (so to speak). So the entire 3 years I was extremely worried about if the kids mom was going to allow them to go or not.

In April of 2007, my mother became extremely ill, she spent more then half the month on life support not expected to make it, or if she did make it there was going to be a lot of damage and set backs.

Now here is the good news. After extensive work from the doctors and hospitals she came off life support and receive and pacemaker the last week of April.

While she was hospitalized Scott and I did go down to AAA to see what the options were for us if mom and dad were not going with us. The options were not that great but we figured we would make anything work because darn it we were going no matter what.

Grandma was supposed to go home from the hospital and make a full recovery from the pacemaker and be somewhat normal again. She did / does have memory loss from the whole thing. But that can be worked with. May and June went by and she was not improving. She saw more doctors. She was determined to find out what was wrong because she was going on the cruise no matter what. In August they found out she had an extremely large growth on her thyroid. In September they did a procedure that the doctors called the last ditch effort. She had to be isolated for 5 days, with no human or animal contact. The doctors said that she would not notice any improvement for about 3 weeks. Before the procedure she could not walk from one room of the house to the other with out being worn out. 2 weeks before the trip she started going shopping (short trips). Her stamina was coming back.

Now it was just a waiting game to see how she would do on the trip.

I am naturally very protective of Mackenzie because she is my only child, however my mother’s illness made me extremely protective of her also. So you might notice some of that during this report, but at least you know why.

Also because of her illness is why her pictures will not be shown. She lost an extreme amount of weight and she is not comfortable with it.

 

[MinnMick01]

A BIG THANK YOU

I would like to take this time to say that the DIS Board is the best thing that has happened for my family in a long time. In May of 2007 I stumbled across a “meet” thread for our sailing date.

That is when I found the best bunch of people. They are the Konked Kruiser. You all know who you are. You excepted us in like part of your family. You all helped me get through my mothers illness along with every day challenges.

Thank you so much to all of you for the support, love and friendship that you have all shown. It means more to us then we can ever say.

 

[MinnMick01]

THE VACATION STARTS.

For us, our first day of vacation was Thursday Oct. 18, 2007
It was agreed to make it easier on my parents that we would drive to their house this evening. They live about 30 minutes from us and they only live about 10 minutes from the airport.

We picked up the kids from school, went home to do some last minute packing.

This is just the luggage for the 5 of us.

And off we go to Grandma’s house.

We all went out to dinner at a buffet. After dinner we all weighed our luggage. We cheated, we weighed ours at our house and got it all to the point of passing. But it was close. 49.8, 49.0, 37, 35, and then 5 carrion’s.

Grandma and Grandpa did good. They did not have to rearrange anything.

After the packing was done Grandma and Grandpa babysat while Scott and I went out for one last evening of just him and I time. Thank goodness. I was not sure how we were going to do this trip with everyone, but that little break really helped me.

Oh I forgot to mention. Scott works nights and sleeps days. He worked Wednesday night and came home and did not sleep on Thursday because we were getting ready to go. So he got up at 2:00pm on Wednesday.

Sleeping arraignments were fun. Kyle took the guest bed. Mackenzie took the floor in her room, and Kelsey took the bed in Mackenzie’s room. Later we found out that Kelsey joined Mackenzie on the floor. Grandma and Grandpa had their bed, and Scott and I took the floor in the living room.

Scott and I laid down about 12:00 midnight. The kids all went to bed around 9:00 pm And Grandma went to bed around 10:00 pm. Grandpa did not go to bed until 3:00 am.
I could not sleep at all. So from midnight until 2:00 am I tossed and turned. Scott finally fell asleep around 1:00 am. (36 hours of no sleep). At 2:00am I got up and went in to talk with Grandpa. Shortly after Grandma came in and talked with us, and then in came Kelsey. I finally sent Grandma back to bed around 3:00am . Kelsey and I went back to bed at 4:00am. I lay down next to Scott and heard the first plane of the morning go over the house. I bolted up and yelled I heard a plane I heard a plane. Poor Scott. Got to sleep for 3 hours. From 4:00 am until 5:15 am, when all of our alarms went off him and I just stayed up talking.

Travel day to come.

 

[.:)Tinker_Belle(:.]

good start carrie

 

[MinnMick01]

Friday, October 19, 2007
TRAVEL DAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SCOTT

Yes we spent my husbands birthday traveling.

Alarms went off at 5:15am, the shuttle was due to pick us up between 6:15 and 6:30am.

I left Scott inside with Grandma and Grandpa to get the kids ready while I took all the luggage out to the driveway. We needed to have it outside at the end of the driveway so we could rearrange the cars to park all 3 cars in the driveway.

If any of you know me or will see picture of me you would see the most of the luggage weight at least half of what my weight was before the cruise.

I got all the luggage out and the cars parked. At 6:05 am the shuttle showed up.

Not all of us were functioning. Grandma is not a morning person, and Grandpa does not like to travel. The kids were all talking none stop and Scott just wanted coffee. Here I am taking pictures and videoing drive into the airport.

We got to the airport and did curb side check in to save Grandma from having to carry any of the luggage. We have never done this before. They charge $2 a bag and then want a tip on top of that. For what may I ask? The shuttle guy unload the luggage onto the curb, we took it all to the curbside check in booth. This guy that wanted our money just checked us in, and put stickers on our luggage. And for that he got the $14 from us, just because I did not want my mother lifting anything but then when the guy pointed out that tips were not including my father handed him a $10 on top of it. The guy only got 7 of our bags and we did all the work.

Now that we are checked in it is time for breakfast. Off to find the Burger King. Scott is still on the search for some coffee. He really does not eat breakfast. So the rest of us get breakfast while he drinks his coffee.

We are going to miss lunch because we are traveling so I packed snacks for the kids.

Then I figured I better eat as much as I could at breakfast. So I had to sandwiches, I ate the most so of course I was the last one done. Wolfed them down and off to security we go.

Grandma cannot go through security so they pull her off to be patted down while the rest of us have to strip down our jackets and shoes and go through security.

We get to the gate in plenty of time. We have a straight through flight to Florida. Thank goodness.

PART 2 OF TRAVEL DAY TO COME

 

[MinnMick01]

good start carrie

Thank you

 

[minnieandmickey]

Great start Carrie, looking forward to seeing more.

 

[MinnMick01]

PART 2 OF TRAVEL DAY TO COME

The kids taking a homework break, waiting for the plane to come in.

The flight went well. We all played musical seats during the flight. We got one whole row but then we got one seat in another row. So we just kept rotating seats. I am sure the ones the sat in that row were not to happy but it was a window seat and everybody except Grandpa and Scott wanted the window seats.

The flight got in on time. All we had to do was find the hotel. DISNEY put us up at the Hyatt in the airport. At first I thought this was going to be really bad. That we would hear airport traffic all the time. But it turned out really well.

It was a bit of a walk from the gate to luggage pick up and then to the hotel. If we would have been thinking we could have sent Grandma to the hotel to check in and we could have gone to get the luggage. She did a lot of unnecessary walking to go all the way to baggage and back to the hotel. Check in was no problem at all. Grandma and Grandpa got an inside room and we got an outside room. So of course while checking in I say “Oh yeah we have a room with a view I can get pictures.” The lady at the desk must have thought I was an idiot. The room with the view was the inside room. It looked out over the atrium so you could people watch. Our view was of the traffic control tower and a parking garage.

The room was nice. Except the beds were double size, so for 2 adults to sleep in one, it was tight.

Off to dinner we got. Poor Grandma. The food court was half way back the way we came from baggage. Really not much to choose from if you missed lunch and you are starving.

After dinner Grandma, Grandpa, and Mackenzie went back to their room, Kyle and Scott went back to our room, and Kelsey and I went shopping. I love this airport. It has a DISNEY store in it. I could not believe that. So of course we are shopping before we ever even get out of the airport.

It is now 10:00 pm and we decided we have an early morning that we better try to get some sleep. Everyone in our room was out by 11:00pm. At midnight we get a call from back home. There was an issue with our dog sitter and the neighbors were complaining. So of course now Scott and I are worried about the dog and wide-awake. We did not get back to sleep until 2:00am then we got back up at 6:00am.

 

[MinnMick01]

October 20, 2007
IT’S THE BIG DAY

We of course, just like everyone else, want to be first to the terminal. But we are at the mercy of the DCL shuttle. So at 6:30 am Scott went to find out where to get in line for the shuttle at. He came back and told me that they start getting in line at 8:30 am, then the lady says that sometime DCL cast members can get here as early as 8:00 am. So he helped me put our luggage outside the door. (This was a nice touch. All we had to do was put our luggage outside the door, they bell guys would come get it and have it put on a bus for us. We would not see it again until it got to our room on the ship). Scott left to get in line at 7:15am. I went on got Kyle and Grandma and Grandpa. We went down to get breakfast. After breakfast Grandpa and Grandpa went back to their room to finish packing and the kids and I took pictures.

Then we went back and got in line with Scott at about 8:15am. There were not many people in line. I would say 5 different families. Grandma and Grandpa met us down there.

*Just a note. A complaint that Grandpa had. His room card for some reason kept deprogramming itself. In the time we were there he had to go to the desk and have it reprogrammed 5 times. Only problem is the floor we were on you need to use your card to access that floor on the elevator so there were times where he got stuck on the elevator going for rides because the doors shut and it would not except his floor.

This is where we met up with Steve and his family. It was so great being able to know someone before ever even getting on the ship.

It was about 8:45am when the cast member showed up and checked us in. Scott was first in line and got us on the first bus. We left the hotel at 9:30am.

I really liked the bus. The seats had plenty of room and the movie they showed kept the kids entertained. It was raining on the trip to the port. But we are from AZ. So we like any rain we can get. We round the corner and there is the ship.

Check in was a little stressful for me. I really wanted to get a picture of the family on the outside of the terminal, but Grandma and Grandpa were following the crowds and were gone before I knew it. Grandma got stuck at security. They were not prepared on how to deal with people that could not go through.

My poor husband was so excited. We were standing in line to check in and he is sitting there saying ‘look honey there is so and so, and over there that is so and so.” I yelled at him to stop it and just let me get us check in. We got boarding pass number 6. Now I must be honest. That upset me. I really wanted to be number one or two.

After check in Grandma and Grandpa went to sit down with Kelsey and Kyle while Mackenzie and Scott went to stand in line for Mickey Mouse and I went to stand in line for the pager and bracelets for the kid clubs. As soon as Scott and Mackenzie were done with Mickey they joined me in line along with Kelsey and Kyle.

We really did not have more then 10 minutes from the time we got out of line to when they started calling numbers. I never got to look at the model or even look around the terminal. I was amazed at how fast it all went. Before you knew it number 6 was being called.

 

[Karen Mouse]

Excellent start Carrie - WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than Planktons trippie



Cant wait for the next installment



Roll on KK2

 

[Kay1]

MinnMick01, about what time did you get to PC? Just wondering how long a drive it is from the Hyatt.

 

[MinnMick01]

Great start Carrie, looking forward to seeing more.

Thank you , I am hoping to at least do one part a day so keep checking back.

 

[MinnMick01]

Excellent start Carrie - WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than Planktons trippie



Cant wait for the next installment



Roll on KK2

Thank you Karen, but I think Planktons trippie is much better. You have since of humor that I just don't have. Hey put your link to the report on her so others can check it out.

 

[MinnMick01]

MinnMick01, about what time did you get to PC? Just wondering how long a drive it is from the Hyatt.

Thank you for reading Kay1. It is approximatly a 45 minute to an hour drive and that is by bus. We got inside the terminal past sercurity (which took us longer because they did not know how to handle Grandma) at 10:30. That is after we claimed all of our luggage off the bus. We were checked in to the ship by 11:00. What took the longest was the check in line for the kids clubs. We had signed up 2 of the kids online. We honestly thought that would be faster. We still had one kids that was in Grandma and Grandpas room that we needed to sign up. I will tell you honestly it took the same amount of time for each child. So doing it online did not save us anytime. I would say I was in that line for about 45 minutes to an hour. So it was about 12:00 when they started letting people on the ship.

 

[GOS]

Carrie - loved reading your trippee. next installment please. It was great bumping into you guys on deck 6.

 

[MinnMick01]

Carrie - loved reading your trippee. next installment please. It was great bumping into you guys on deck 6.

I will post one this evening. We loved all of your door signs.

 

[DisneyDadFaNaTic]

For some reason, when you were talking about boarding the ship, the tune "Yakety Sax" (Benny Hill theme) started running through my head. It sounded pretty hectic!

Love the report! Keep up the great work!

 

[Dyerneeds]

all right!!
carrie and the candyman are doing a trip report!!
great start!! sure do miss you guys.
kkers rule