FlameGirl and family's PHOTO HEAVY 2010 Christmas marathon TR ~*FINALLY COMPLETE!!!*~

[Sally_fan]

Yeah I guess we are up & you are down right? I even went back & changed it to "up to Seattle"! Oops! lol
Hey....Bellingham isn't that far from you IF you're going to save a ton of $$ & you are actually going to travel directly there. Interesting that my friend flew with Allegiant Air out of LGB into Bellingham & was delayed 10 hrs (this past December but not snow related).
Oh I hear ya on the Haunted Mansion thing!!! It's been my favourite ride (tied with POTC) since I was a kid. We have only been there 2x with the kids to see it in it's un-holiday form. First time was about 4 years ago and last time it was during Spring Break last year (went to say goodbye to the ELP) & is was crazy busy so we only got to ride it 1x. I am a huge NBC fan so I love HMH of course but it's nice to see the original once in awhile.
Enjoy your trip next month!! I look forward to your next trip report & plenty more pictures (esp the food ones!!).

 

[FlameGirl]

Yeah I guess we are up & you are down right? I even went back & changed it to "up to Seattle"! Oops! lol
Hey....Bellingham isn't that far from you IF you're going to save a ton of $$ & you are actually going to travel directly there. Interesting that my friend flew with Allegiant Air out of LGB into Bellingham & was delayed 10 hrs (this past December but not snow related).
Oh I hear ya on the Haunted Mansion thing!!! It's been my favourite ride (tied with POTC) since I was a kid. We have only been there 2x with the kids to see it in it's un-holiday form. First time was about 4 years ago and last time it was during Spring Break last year (went to say goodbye to the ELP) & is was crazy busy so we only got to ride it 1x. I am a huge NBC fan so I love HMH of course but it's nice to see the original once in awhile.
Enjoy your trip next month!! I look forward to your next trip report & plenty more pictures (esp the food ones!!).

Ugh...Allegiant will never get my money again. I can understand a weather delay, but to not make an effort to get us out for 3 days was unacceptable, as was their lack of crowd control when things got ugly. I'll pay the extra $200 and stick with Alaska.

I LOVE NBC but the HTH just doesn't do it for me the same way the original version does. The story seems disjointed.

I plan on taking many photos again next month...food too!

 

[Sally_fan]

Yeah no doubt! 3 days is ridiculous! You'd think that they would have sent someone out to help organize everyone rather than let their customers battle it out on their own. Yours is another bad experience to add to my list of why not to fly with them. We are Alaska fans too & always fly out of Seattle.
Thanks for the info on your camera too btw!
And I have to ask...your avatar pic intrigues me.....can I ask you what it is from? Looks like Jack in the background but it does not look familiar? I really like it anyways!

 

[FlameGirl]

You are quite welcome!

My avatar is a photo that I took for a flickr group called Project 365, wherein the goal is to take a photo a day for a year. I was lacking inspiration one day so I photographed two little figurines that I have - one called Voodoo Girl and you are correct - that is Jack in the background. They're both Tim Burton characters.

There was a "cheap flights" thread a few days ago and I cringed, because I saw all these people discovering Allegiant and getting very excited about saving so much money on airfare. I tried to explain that our great deal through Allegiant ended up costing us over $1200 in unexpected costs - aside from the airfare we paid for through Allegiant - but I don't think anyone was interested in my story.

 

[Sally_fan]

I love, love, LOVE that picture! It is brilliant!

You know....our flights with Alaska out of Seattle ended up costing less than our friend's flights with Allegiant out of Bellingham (minus our park & fly hotel costs of course) when it was all said & done. That was, of course, after I had redeemed many flight credits when they lowered the ticket price but still. And then they had that wonderful 10 hr delay! The stories that I have heard (yours, theirs & others as well) make me not even consider booking with them. I realize that any airline can have delays or cancelations but they just seem to have so many!

 

[kaoden39]

Kathy, I decided to devote sometime right now to read your trip report. I am on page two and I have to tell you I was laughing so hard about the rain I had to read it aloud to Scotty. I can so picture that. You have a great turn of word.

 

[kaoden39]

Well, I made it to the end. The whole calamity at the beginning of your trip would have made me cry. I think that Natalie is a trooper. I am truly impressed. It was a great trip report, thank you for sharing it.

 

[FlameGirl]

I love, love, LOVE that picture! It is brilliant!

You know....our flights with Alaska out of Seattle ended up costing less than our friend's flights with Allegiant out of Bellingham (minus our park & fly hotel costs of course) when it was all said & done. That was, of course, after I had redeemed many flight credits when they lowered the ticket price but still. And then they had that wonderful 10 hr delay! The stories that I have heard (yours, theirs & others as well) make me not even consider booking with them. I realize that any airline can have delays or cancelations but they just seem to have so many!

Thank you!

I hate to be the jerk that rain on everyone's parade, but I will speak up where I can about Allegiant Air. They may seem like a bargain, to begin with, but between their "pay for assigned seating before you board" policy (at $13 a person), their $40 per checked bag policy, and my own personal experience with how they handle delayed/canceled flights.....never, ever again.

All that being said? Natalie and I are flying back from LGB on Allegiant next month...we are using our voucher to get back home from SoCal...I didn't want to chance another botched vacation relying on Allegiant to get us down there. At any rate....Allegiant will never get another one of my hard-earned dollars again.

(rant over)

Kathy, I decided to devote sometime right now to read your trip report. I am on page two and I have to tell you I was laughing so hard about the rain I had to read it aloud to Scotty. I can so picture that. You have a great turn of word.

Well, I made it to the end. The whole calamity at the beginning of your trip would have made me cry. I think that Natalie is a trooper. I am truly impressed. It was a great trip report, thank you for sharing it.

You are too sweet Michele.

Seriously...the rain that we experienced back in 2007 was unreal. To this day, I mention that rain to my family and they still shake their heads. Unreal.

As for the rest of it...I'm sure you would have been a soldier just like me.

Natalie is a trooper and I am constantly reminded (pretty much daily) how lucky I am as a mom. They just don't come much better than her.

Thanks for reading my (very long) TR. I'm so glad you are here!

xo

 

[kaoden39]

Are you going to add the trip report for next month to this one?

 

[FlameGirl]

Are you going to add the trip report for next month to this one?

I think I probably will! Doesn't make much sense to start a whole new thread...

 

[kaoden39]

I think I probably will! Doesn't make much sense to start a whole new thread...

That was my thought. I think it is brilliant.

 

[Sherry E]

I agree! Might as well join the rest of us with the long, never-ending, multi-TR Trip Reports! They have their advantages, because if people come to the TR section and want to get to know you so they can follow along on your Disney adventures, it's nice to have all the TR's in one place so they can scroll back to the beginning and read about other trips.

Of course, on the WDW side of town it's different - all the Pre-TR's, current TR's and completed TR's have to be split up into different sections. But, for right now, for the time being, on the DLR side of town we can have our TR's lumped together into one mega-Trip Report thread.

 

[kaoden39]

I agree! Might as well join the rest of us with the long, never-ending, multi-TR Trip Reports! They have their advantages, because if people come to the TR section and want to get to know you so they can follow along on your Disney adventures, it's nice to have all the TR's in one place so they can scroll back to the beginning and read about other trips.

Of course, on the WDW side of town it's different - all the Pre-TR's, current TR's and completed TR's have to be split up into different sections. But, for right now, for the time being, on the DLR side of town we can have our TR's lumped together into one mega-Trip Report thread.

Our section seems much smaller doesn't it?

 

[FlameGirl]

Of course, on the WDW side of town it's different - all the Pre-TR's, current TR's and completed TR's have to be split up into different sections. But, for right now, for the time being, on the DLR side of town we can have our TR's lumped together into one mega-Trip Report thread.

I didn't know that. What is the logic behind that rule?

 

[Sherry E]

I didn't know that. What is the logic behind that rule?

You mean behind splitting up the TR's into different sections? Maybe it's having to due with technical issues (like actual space in each sub-forum or forum)? I'm not 100% sure but I assume it's because of the sheer volume of people over on The Other side of the board who write TR's. I think there are sooooo many people there - and that seems to be true based on how fast the threads move - that maybe it's easier for them to keep track of things if they break up the various stages of the TR's so that all the Trip Report traffic is not focused in one area of the site.

I've received a couple of PM's in the past from people saying that they were trying to follow the TR's here on the DLR side, and were having a hard time finding the pre-TR's or the current TR's. They couldn't tell who had already been to DLR, who was about to go, etc. They may or may not have known that there are TR megathreads here that include all of that in one place because it's not what they were used to on the WDW side of town.

I like the smaller community over here, and I like having the TR's all in one place, not in 3 or 4 different places. Eventually, though, if we start having a ton of web traffic, I wouldn't be surprised if everything gets split up.

 

[FlameGirl]

That makes sense. Yeah, I'm glad it's not crazy busy over here on this side.