February 11, 2006 Roll Call

[RAC]

We're home, after a long 7 hours in the car. I am so jealous of all of you who had 2 to 3 hour flights. I am down with some sort of sinus stuff, it came on last night after dinner.

Mala, I am with you on getting teary eyed at the fairwell show. Does it to us every time. We would have rebooked, but the Magic is leaving out of Port Canaveral at the time we can go next year.

It was great meeting all of you fellow DISer's. We had a blast getting to know sweeks and disneymum's families. I got to know Dean and Pam in line. We said that we would be one of the first to be there and we were.

This was the first time that Ashlyn has cried when we had to leave.
She made some great friends and talked about them the whole way home.
I hope we continue to stay in touch.

 

[atakaratemom]

Hi everyone!! I hope everyone had a safe journey home. It's raining here in Southern CA while it is now beautiful in Florida. Just total irony I guess! Mala, I am so sorry about your horse. I am glad she's going to be OK. But lucky you, two weeks to look forward to next year!

It was great getting to meet up with everyone at least once or twice during our cruise. The Martini tasting was great fun! Pam, Dean and family, you guys are so great. We enjoyed our frequent visits with you. And Russ and Eileen, it was so nice spending the afternoon at the Mickey Pool with you. I wish we could have seen you more! Julie, thanks for sharing the van to the airport. That was a real adventure, especially the mad dash to retrieve my purse!

We had a great time in spite of the weather and it made it even nicer to see so many familiar faces from our group each day of our trip. We should plan a post cruise chat. Dean, as our official cruise director, we will be counting on you to help us with this!

 

[gmcutter]

Hi everyone. We got home this morning after a 6 hr flight. I was SO depressed on Friday night and SAturday morning. None of us wanted to leave the ship. My DH, John, who wasn't so keen to go in the first place just fell in love with the cruise. We had the best experience with all the crew members with the exception of one. And we met alot!

It was great to meet up with everyone in the Promedade Lounge. So sorry if I still haven't put names with all the faces. Ran into Dean and Pam, Lisa, and Diane and Scott the most. Wish I saw the rest of you more often.

So here's a question: Who won the race to get the most sheets of paper in their final bill on Saturday morning??? We ended up with 2 full sheets. Heard of one woman who had just 4, read it - 4!, lines on one sheet. She must have had a blast!

Hope to hear from the rest of you soon.

Ginger

 

[jdiane]

Well, we made it home too after about a 6 hour trip. Only one little snafu when FL Tours tried to pick us up at the airport instead of the port. But Mary was able to fix that quickly and we made it without further problems. Home to cold weather and 10 loads of laundry! Next time I may set aside a laundry budget and just pay Disney to wash everything before I bring it home!

We had a great time too but didn't see very many people. We had dinner with Kenda and her family and that was great fun. I'm so glad we decided to set that up. We saw Mary for the ride home and Dean on one excursion. Other than that it was just passing in the halls! I wish we could have rebooked while on board but we probably won't cruise again until 2008 so that's hard to plan so far in advance. The back to back cruise sounds nice though! I was thinking maybe a 10 day cruise next time. Or maybe the European one!!

I hope we do have at least one more chat to hear the details of everyone else's trip. It will be hard to go back to regular life tomorrow!

 

[detroitdad]

Hey everyone-

It sure was great finally seeing you all. We really enjoyed meeting everyone and bumping into you throughout the cruise. Being first time cruisers we really didn't know what to expect and felt rather overwhelmed with all the choices. Weather and excursion mishaps (long story) aside, we truly enjoyed ourselves and will most likely cruise again in 2008...in June...when it doesn't matter if it's overcast because it will still be warm out!!

2 week cruise!!! Mala & Joe---we are so jealous. Now that you have met us, any interest in letting one of our kids stay in your cabin so we only have to pay for ONE! Just think of it--Emma could be your babysitter!

I'll see what I can do regarding that post trip chat Mary!


Take care all - Dean

 

[definately dory]

Hi everyone,
Just got back and boy are we tired!!! I need a vacation. Flew out of Orlando at 12:00 pm and landed here in Halifax at 11:05pm. A long day. We had a blast and it was great running into everyone through out the week. Talk to everyone soon in chat.
Kenda

 

[detroitdad]

Mary- Not sure when/if you'll see this, but for some reason I keep getting a delivery failure message on your e-mail. I know I have it right since it's the same one I used to let everyone know about the chat schedule. Is there another e-mail I can use?


Our office is closed today so I get a bonus day off tacked on to the end of my vacation. Not looking forward to getting back into the real world again. Should be an interesting few days at school for the kids (especially the boys --- as they are still wound up from the more free flowing schedule).

We got through our mountain of laundry this morning---there could have easily been a couple of bodies hidden in that pile and you wouldn't have seen them

We're toying with the idea of heading to Disney World for a trip in August before the kids go back to school. Not sure if it will really happen or if we're just in the whole "Disney" mindframe at the moment.

 

[disneymum]

Hi Everyone:

Mala, I'm very sorry to hear about your horse, please keep us updated on her condition. As well as congratulations on booking a back to back cruise, I'm very jealous. It probably won't be for a few years before we are back on a Disney Cruise so have a wonderful trip and let your countdown begin!

Julie, How is your Grandmother doing? I hope that everything is o.k.

Kenda, Russ and Mary and Lisa, it was nice to bump into you and your families from time to time. Kenda, your Mom is such a nice lady, I enjoyed our little talks in line and on the boat on the way back from Grand Cayman, she sure seemed to have a great time with your daughters, I think that's great!

Randi, it was so nice to get to know you and your family at dinner. Madison is missing Ashlynn as well and was showing her Grandparents her picture yesterday and telling her all about their time in the kids lab.

Dean, Ginger and Diane it was great to get to meet your families and spend time with you all on the Mayan Ruins excursion in Costa Maya it was by far one of my favourite ports as we learned so much.

Suzanne, Keith, Sean and Caleigh, we had such a great time with your family and hope to see you again in the near future. Grant and Madison are both missing Caleigh and couldn't wait to watch the video to see everyone once again.

Well, I guess we are now back to reality,no one to make our beds, cook our meals and entertain us and then to top it off I was trapped under an avalanche of laundry yesterday. Oh well, at least we have our memories!

Keep in touch and if your doing another chat I'm in.
Take Care,
Lisa

 

[atakaratemom]

Mary- Not sure when/if you'll see this, but for some reason I keep getting a delivery failure message on your e-mail. I know I have it right since it's the same one I used to let everyone know about the chat schedule. Is there another e-mail I can use?

Hi Dean, sorry about the e-mail problem. That is my work e-mail and after a week away it is probably full to capacity. Sigh!! I am not looking forward to dealing with all of that tomorrow. Try using my home email address, marybethii@aol.com. Thanks!!

 

[NoFussRuss]

OK - back at work - getting into the swing of things and just thinking back to the cruise.

Not to repeat what everyone has posted - but I felt that is what made the trip great - turning the corner and bumping into somebody I knew and having a little chat. We, like many, saw some of you more than others. It seemed like Topsiders was the place to see everyone - breakfast alone I would bumped into 5 or 6 families we knew.

One of the most memorable moments was when we had just boarded the ship and where following a waiter to our table when all of a sudden I hear - "No Fuss Russ!!!!! - I almost jumped out of my shoes! There was Mary and Scott with the kids having lunch. I also saw Team Disney enter the terminal, but I was already in the middle of waiting in line to check in, so I wasn't able to say hi at that time.

DD was on terrible behavior in the beginning of the trip (Suzanne can attest since she saw her from the moment we met in the airport last Saturday - her behavior on the plane - to the drill on the ship - she was unbearable) - in fact it wasn't until Tuesday when she finally began to behave. I think she was just overwhelmed and really needed a good nap each day to catch up. However, after talking to other parents - we found out that many were also having similar problems - so it put our mind at ease - a bit.

Dean - really wished we had a chance to talk other than in the hallway! Still hope we get a chance to chat again and exchange stories. I saw Pam by the pool and she was trying to get Reid out - "Reid we have an appointment at the Spa!" - "Pam are you going for the Rasul?" - "No we already did that!" - I got a laugh out of that!!!!

Suzanne - wanted to say goodbye at the airport - but one of my bags were missing and I had to file a lost luggage complaint. Not to worry - it showed up on my doorstep while we were asleep on Saturday night. Hopefully we can get together sometime this summer with Sean and Caleigh and you and Keith for some cocktails at the shore.

Lisa (disneymum) - Once I located some vitamin G - I could not wait to tell you. However, I only had one since the Rum Runners with the 151 floaters seemed to be a more appropriate cocktail during the cruise. Did you get a chance to indulge in some Irish Orange Juice youself? On Castaway Cay - I did manage to force a Budweiser down while out at the Heads Up Bar - hoping nobody would see me drinking one!

Mary - great chatting with you and Scott by the pool - I hope I didn't upset the woman next to you - for sitting on her chair? By the way - I loved your door signs. Took a picture of them - real nice. Hey is it me or was our group the only ones that did things like door signs? Maybe because deck 5 doesn't have many rooms, I didn't see any - but our stateroom hostess loved them since she was able to learn our names.

Pirate night? - DW was going to kill me since she didn't see any adults dressed like pirates, especially at our dinner. DW did thank Lisa (GotMouse) since she had on a costume and we did see Keith (great job on his costume) dressed - so once again I wonder - were we the only ones that dressed on Pirate night? Lisa (GotMouse), by the way, if that photo of us came out, I would really appreciate a copy, since the only photo we have is a 8x10 glossy from DCL which I will have to scan into my computer. NOTE: Wearing a pirate bandana, given to you by DCL, does not constitute a pirate costume! I would love to see other photos of pirate families, as I went looking for everyone at the Pirate Party!

I think I rambled enough now - I'll post more as things come back to me - it still is a blur. However, we took this cruise as a learning experience and booked for 2007. Mala - hopefully one of the weeks you rebooked is the same as ours. We will do the same western route (I don't know why) next year. We will do the early dining, rather than late. We are going to arrive a day earlier to unwind before boarding the ship (rather than getting up 3:00 am the day the ship leaves). We booked the same room (bartenders loved that easy number) - and I think we will take the same rotation APL. Did anybody think one restaurant had better food than another? We never did Palo's, but I really did enjoy having dinner with the kids each night. They always got excited for dessert - especially the Mickey bars. OK enough. Talk to everyone later.

 

[sweeks82]

Wow! What a great cruise! It was really nice meeting everyone the first day and it was amazing how we kept on bumping into the same families the entire trip.

Dean - it was great having you as our cruise director! Hope there are more cruises where we can all meet up!

Kenda - Caleigh loved the time with Maddison, I'm just sorry we couldn't spend more time together!

Russ - Your family is great and we hope to see you at the Jersey shore this summer! Loved the pirate costumes, Keith was really into it too!

Randi - It was great dining with you all every night. We hope to see you again. Caleigh loved Pirate night with Ashlyn!

Lisa, Rob, Madison and Grant - we're so happy that we got to spend so much time with all of you. We hope to get together this year with you to continue the Magic.

To the rest of the group - I hope you had as much fun as we did. Sorry we didn't get to spend more time together!

Next February, we're doing Disney in February...hope the weather is warmer!

Suzanne, Keith, Sean and Caleigh!

 

[umber]

Russ, you certainly weren't alone in the "my child has been kidnapped and been replaced by a cranky, ill-tempered look alike!" Yikes, Morgan was in rare form the first few days of the cruise, we were at wits end at times. She wasn't like that last year... must have been a misalignment of the planets or something!
Anyways, a bit of sad news, I had to put my horse to rest this morning. I couldn't bear to see her suffer and I truly believe she was waiting for me to return home. Since I got her when I was 11 years old I can't hardly remember life without her. She will be missed.

 

[detroitdad]

Mala-

So sorry to hear about your horse. Animals have a way of just knowing, don't they? I can't imagine having an animal companion for that long. Hope you are doing okay---as good as can be expected. Will be thinking of you.

Dean

 

[sweeks82]

Mala - I'm sorry about your loss. I know that it was a tough decision, I had to put my dog down in August and as much as it hurt, I knew it was the right decision. Hang in there. Suzanne

 

[dsrj]

Mala - so sorry to hear about your horse.

Is it just me, or is anyone else still rocking? We also had a great trip and it was a pleasure meeting all of you. We can't wait to go again, although I'm not sure when that will be.

I'm in for a post cruise chat.

Dianne

 

[detroitdad]

Dianne-

Nope it's not just you. My head is still a little "swimmy" from the cruise. Not enough to be bothersome but definitely noticeable when I am sitting still or bending over to pick something up.

First day back at work -- what a drag!


I'll figure out a chat date soon.


Dean

 

[disneymum]

Mala, my condolences to you and your family.


Diane/Dean, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only feeling this way. I feel like I'm going to fall of the face of the earth at any moment! I've been on 5 cruises and have never experienced this before. I'm fiqure that it must mean that I had a great time and I should have done a back to back cruise instead.

Russ, I thought that was you looking suspicous at the Heads Up Bar. HMMM!!! No, I didn't indulge in any Vitamin G, I kept waiting to see
you at the pool bar to have one. Oh well, we will just have to meet on the Jersey Shore sometime - Eh!


Lisa

 

[atakaratemom]

Mala I am so sorry. I am sure that this has been a difficult few days for you. I hope that you are doing OK.

I am back at work today and trying to get back into my routine, but it is hard. It didn't help that I had 287 emails to deal with! Of course 75% was just junk. I too am feeling a little on the dizzy side. Last summer after our first cruise it lasted for a full week after we got back. This time it's a little less bothersome, but I still feel a slight rocking sensation when I sit still or lie down. At least this time I knew what to expect. I sure wish I was still feeling like this because I was on the ship. Somehow swaying back and forth in front of the computer in my office isn't nearly as fun!

 

[NoFussRuss]

The house only moves when I wake up on the couch to head upstairs to go to bed! Otherwise my sea legs are pretty good!

Mala, real sorry to hear about your horse. At least you were able to see her one last time.

 

[atakaratemom]

Hi everyone, I'm just giving our thread a bump because I can't stand to see it languishing. It makes me sad that our cruise is over! I hope everyone is doing well post-cruise. I know some of you are still around as I see your posts on the main forum. Russ, I know you never thought your thread would cause so much controversy!

I miss planning our cruise. If anyone is still up for a post-cruise chat, I'm in!