May 10, 2008 Ship of Thieves! Stealing the Magic..AGAIN!!! Panama Canal FL to CA!!! Part 2

[birkner]

[

I'm inserting myself very late into this thread, I know...but I've been reading the thread for a long time now and I'm wondering a vew things.

First, you sound like a fun group of people. Do you all know each other from previous cruises?

Nope, I just me all these terrific people on this thread.

How can a newbie join the group? We're on the West Repro cruise in May08, our second Disney Cruise, and we're very interested in meeting other couples. I am 51 and DH is 48. We are also traveling with my parents, dad
78 and mom 72.

Of course, welcome aboard!! I will be 57 and DH will be 64 on this voyage. Just about in the middle between you and your parents.

And finally, what is a fish extender?

I believe they were originally used to hold mail. People put them on the "fish" outside their room and magically other DISers put surprises in it while we are cruising.

Thanks
Tina

 

[fourmcds]

Guess I can't PM or email anyone until I post two more times.

AuntyBrat here's my role call info.


Thanks AuntyBrat for the welcome. Here's our info for the roll call.

Tlb2864 - Issaquah, Washington
Tina 52 at time of cruise
Chuck DH 48 at time of cruise
Bill 79 (Tina's dad) at time of cruise
Betty 73 (Tina's mom) at time of cruise
2 X Cat 9 and Deck 2
Late Dining
Will be celebrating Bill and Betty's 55th wedding anniversay on 5/31 and Chuck's 49th Birthday on 5/27. Too bad we couldn't be on the ship at least one of those days.

Thanks
Tina

Welcome aboard Tina (from a fellow WA person (just bit south of you in Bonney Lake)) I am a relative newbie here as well and have not cruised with anyone here before. This group is very welcoming and fun and addictive I find myself quickly checking messages between patients during my work day! Dreaming of my next vacation is what helps get me through these fabulous WA days (today we had hail, snow, rain, sun, sleet, ice and wind (and all within in 10 minute drive home from work ))!

 

[clynne]

I'm inserting myself very late into this thread, I know...but I've been reading the thread for a long time now and I'm wondering a vew things.

First, you sound like a fun group of people. Do you all know each other from previous cruises?

How can a newbie join the group? We're on the West Repro cruise in May08, our second Disney Cruise, and we're very interested in meeting other couples. I am 51 and DH is 48. We are also traveling with my parents, dad 78 and mom 72.

And finally, what is a fish extender?

Thanks
Tina

Everyone seems to have answered your questions, so I'll just say WELCOME!!

Carolyn

 

[disneycruising]

I'm inserting myself very late into this thread, I know...but I've been reading the thread for a long time now and I'm wondering a vew things.

First, you sound like a fun group of people. Do you all know each other from previous cruises?

How can a newbie join the group? We're on the West Repro cruise in May08, our second Disney Cruise, and we're very interested in meeting other couples. I am 51 and DH is 48. We are also traveling with my parents, dad 78 and mom 72.

And finally, what is a fish extender?

Thanks
Tina

Tina,

Welcome Aboard

Jump in where you are and don't worry about all the other posts. We can fill you as we go. This is really and truely a great group of people! You should feel right at home in no time.

We use to live in Washington. In 1993, when my DH and I were first married we lived in Renton. Then in 1998 we lived in Puyallup. I now live in Northern CA and dearly miss my beautiful view of MT Rainer out of all my back windows!!

 

[tlb2864]

You are all wonderful and have made me feel very welcome.
I only have one question left....

Does anyone know where I can get a fish extender and who do I contact to get on the fish mail? The first page of this thread said CalMom but I haven't been able to find her.

I'll keep up on this thread now....I don't want to miss any of the fun!

Tina

 

[fourmcds]

You are all wonderful and have made me feel very welcome.
I only have one question left....

Does anyone know where I can get a fish extender and who do I contact to get on the fish mail? The first page of this thread said CalMom but I haven't been able to find her.

I'll keep up on this thread now....I don't want to miss any of the fun!

Tina

Fish extenders are from Carol & Doug (pahrumpgirl).

Calmom is the one organizing the teams. Every day we hope to have one team put some type of goody into the extenders.

I think that is right, please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[amesmom]

Welcome Tina. I just have to that you say you are getting in on this thread so late when we're 436 days from the cruise. You're not late, we're just ridiculously early.

PM Pahrumpgirl if you would like to order a fish extender. You are included in receiving fish mail just by being on the roster. If you would like to also participate in delivering fish mail, you can join a team or send something on your own. Contact Calmom for that.

If you are trying to locate someone from the Ship of Thieves (like Calmom or Pahrumpgirl), I've used the following trick: On the main page for cruise meets, you can click on the replies column for the Ship of Thieves thread. That will list everyone who has ever posted on this thread. It isn't in alphabetical order, but rather by post count. But you can pretty quickly scan the list to find who you are looking for. That's what I do anyway. But as a word of warning, I am most definitely not technically savvy. So there may be an easier way.

 

[clynne]

Fish extenders are from Carol & Doug (pahrumpgirl).

Calmom is the one organizing the teams. Every day we hope to have one team put some type of goody into the extenders.

I think that is right, please correct me if I am wrong.

Think you've got it! Extenders are $30 ($25 plus $5 shipping) from Carol and Doug.

Carolyn

 

[amesmom]

You are all wonderful and have made me feel very welcome.
I only have one question left....

Does anyone know where I can get a fish extender and who do I contact to get on the fish mail? The first page of this thread said CalMom but I haven't been able to find her.

I'll keep up on this thread now....I don't want to miss any of the fun!

Tina

As if keeping up with this thread wasn't enough, we also have a website and a second discussion board. Check out shipofthieves.com for our additional discussion board and pm pjpoohbear for the login and password information for the website. The website and the first page of this thread are easy ways to keep up-to-date on all the plans that are being made without having to wade through all these posts. Welcome again. You'll have fun.

And BTW, I didn't know anyone on this cruise before either. One short month later, and it feels like I have so many new friends.

 

[been2marceline]

Thank you everyone for the pixie dust and thoughts. My grandfather passed away this afternoon and is finally not suffering any longer.

I appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers and whatnot they helped me get through all this.

My heart goes out to you

I lost both granfathers when I was to young to really know them. I was close to both grandma's and they lingered, I was so grateful when they finally found peace. My aunt also lingered and we lost her last December. I am sure that you are grateful that he passed quickly.

Sending you lot's of hugs and pixie dust.

Karen

 

[been2marceline]

We're hoping to find a red eye from CA also. I know it's exhausting but that will work the best for the school situation. The flight I'm thinking of would also get in around 8am on the 10th.

DITTO!!

We have tried the "let's do a little time in DL at the beginning of the Repo and a little WDW at the end," and as much as we love both places, it's just too much shlepping of luggage and not enough of the parks!

We did DL before the EB Repo and also fit in the King Tut exhibit. Just didn't enjoy it that much. Then we tried WDW after the cruise and didn't have enough time to see diddly. Also, after the cruise, everything else is just NOT ENOUGH!! Where are my towel animals, my room attendant, our concierge gals? I think this time we will fly in, cruise and fly home. In a perfect world, of course!!

Karen

 

[mexican-mouseketeers]

Wish me luck everybody....I'm going to join Weight Watchers after work 3/1!!! Will join the lose before you cruise thread too and will report my weekly weigh-ins. Hopefully that will keep me motivated.

Good luck, how did it go?

she is out of surgery and is moving to recovery. The doctor said things went well and she will be moving to her room in the next hour.

relief....

I am glad to read that you sister is doing good and feeling well after her surgery.

Krispy Kremes on the ship!

Thank God they won´t be that fresh or I would definetly eat a lot of them. A couple of years ago the first Krispy Kreme in Mexico opened about 3 minutes from here, around the corner of my office, and people would make a 2 hr long line just to buy their donuts. That made for some traffic chaos!

I am totally flabbergasted and disgusted with my school district. I have inquired of the school district as to what the consequences would be to take my daughter out of school for the two weeks for this cruise. The response is that no matter what, if I take my daughter out of school for two weeks, I will be referred to juvenile court for prosecution for keeping my daughter out of school.
Okay, vent over.

Those people are crazy. Fortunately we don´t have those laws, at least not in preschool or dd would already be out since this year she will have missed at least 5 weeks of school for vacations (2 weeks for WDW and DCL in september, 5 scattered days for trip to San Antonio and Puebla, 1 week next march for NYC and another week in may for WDW again).

Sorry for repeating everyone's posts about the doctor's note. Hadn't finished reading all the posts....great minds think alike

Whenever we have pulled dd, she always gets back to school and is bored for the first few days because they haven't gotten through what they thought they would (and that is with us doing minimal work between park visits or something). Personally, I think school is very important, but I also think they learn so much in the world as well. Going through the panama canal should be a huge learning experience that most kids only read about in books. Even going through Epcot can teach them so much about different countries. Haven't figured out what MK teaches her, but she does do lots of math when figuring out how many Disney dollars it would take to buy x item and how much change she should get back . Now, once dd hits middle school I know it will be harder to pull her during the school year and we are prepared for that, but for now, we enjoy less crowded vacations (wherever we choose to go)

ITA as long as dd is small (until she turns 8 at least) we are definetly traveling during low season, can´t imagine WDW in Easter or summer

Yes, but it is Cartenga (sp?), COLUMBIA! That, and because the ship will be fighting the Trade Winds on the way back for a much bumpier ride.

I definetly am not interested in a stop in Colombia, you never know what those crazy people will try to do. My good friend from school is currently living in Bogotá and tells me that they have the military check every car going into the parking lots of grocery stores, shopping malls, etc, and that it is not safe to walk alone in the streets.

Sunshine here now Mandy!!!

Had a great hula class, really improved from last week. Will be hooping on one leg soon.

Anyone know how to go about changing user name on here? I seem to have emailed everywhere I can think of but get an automated reply that doesn't help. I did reply to the closest subject to what I was asking, but never heard anything. I am just stuck with the 'gran'!!!

With as many posts as you have I wouldn´t change the screen name and start all over again. Those posts are hard to come by, especially with the awesome mutliquote option

Don't feel bad, we are grandparents to 7 boys from 20 to 2 (1 set of twins) and are expecting our eighth grandchild by March 30th. We got a very pleasent surprise with this one, though, we are having our first girl. Love our boys but are very excited about having the girl. I am sure she will be spoiled.

Carol

A girl after 7 boys!!!! She will be one lucky girl.

Ok - finally getting down to start getting all the info together for the bracelets.

If you haven't sent me a pm yet, and you'd like some let me know how many you need and size (small, med, large). My goal for this week is to get some cost ideas down.

Need also ideas as to what to have on the bracelets.....do we want something said on both sides (if so, what do you think we should have on there?) I was thinking on 1 side the dates, 2nd side Ship of Thieves DM (or something like that) with maybe a skull and crossbones symbol. I think they will only allow up to 20 characters per side....so we may have to do some tweaking.

Once we get closer, I'll probably be asking for addresses to mail the bracelets out to....don't send that now, please....I'll let you know what I need closer to that time.

Hope all of this makes sense....

You got PM! I am game for whatever everyone else decides.

Woke up to about 3 inches of snow this morning. Not too bad though, our house is at 600 feet and the snow was at about 500 feet, so once I got down to the "valley floor" the roads were clear, just a few flurries on the way to work.
I'm home early today because we are going to pick up our new motorhome! Gotta go buy sheets too, oh and an egg cooker. We are so excited. This is our retirement dream! 13 months from today we are outta here!

Congratulations on the motorhome! Those trips sound like a lot of fun, but I know I will never convince dh to travel in one of those.

I checked out the websites because I was a little bored today and I think I found the loophole you are looking for. The child/ren need to attend a minimum of 180 days (total days in school less abcenses, holidays, etc. Actual seat time in the class) if you kids have hit that amount, then they have met the state requirements, so how could they be truant? That is the state law that ALL school districts have to meet. They can schedule more, but the state only requires a minimum of 180 days. And yes that was the state of Tennessee!!!

You are lucky to only require 180 days. In Mexico the official calendar says 200 days, son in my dd´s school parents know that they finish the program about 3 weeks before the school is over and children only go to play and they even encourage us not to send them and keep them home

Thank you everyone for the pixie dust and thoughts. My grandfather passed away this afternoon and is finally not suffering any longer.

I appreciate everyones thoughts and prayers and whatnot they helped me get through all this.

for your family.

TammyAlphabet: Homeschooling is growing in popularity here, and I have several friends who homeschool. I do know that it may be a possibility that I have to remove the kids from school, enroll them in homeschooling and then reenroll in the fall. It would be a lot of hassle,however. And DS9 would NOT want to go back to school, so I don't even want to open that door.

The East Coast of the US got the Fish Extender as well today!! Thank you very much!! It is so cute. I can't wait to decorate it!!

I had to decide where to put is so I do not lose it over the next 400 or so days......I decided it file it with all my paperwork for this cruise. My kids want me to take it to the MED this summer....but my guess is no one would know why I had it hanging on my door.

Yes it was a bit of a relief. I am going to run all this information past the principal of the elementary school and reach an understanding with her. Hopefully, she will still be the principal in 436 days. Ha Ha.

Well slap me silly and call me Shirley...We just keep adding and adding and adding to this slap happy group! Welcome to all the new folks and remember to check out Page 1, Post 1 for updates and links and all that good stuff!!!

Update - I have no updates at this time that I can share....


Round Up -

If you will be taking your child out of a public school you might want to check and see if they will be throwing you in jail for this because it is against their 'rules' and to give your fellow disboarders time to research your states laws to help keep you out of the pokey and not having to use your DOD funds for an attorney. And, no folks, I am not kidding on this one. I can not make up stupidity like this.

I will be moving back into costume mom roll again starting next week so keep these posts pithy so I can keep up!!!

I am off to shower and shampoo and then crawl into bed and drool over Hugh Laurie....sigh...those of you who are totally gaga over AI, good luck with that one. I caught the last 10 minutes last night and frankly, I was shocked and my dogs started howling. Frightening....truely frightening....

Night all....

Laura, I love your updates, even when you say you have nothing to update, lol.

 

[been2marceline]

I'm thinking redeye too, we may even shoot for the same flights...where will you travel from? I'd love to find a direct flight but don't have any of those from San Jose, I figure we'd look into flights from LA to see what we could find from there....

United goes direct from SFO. We have flown on the afternoon flight 292 which leaves at 1:05PM and arrives at MCO at 9:21PM. Also, there is a redeye flight #52 at 11:15 PM arriving at 5:16AM. There are other times but those are the two flights we have flown. We stay at the Hyatt MCO and take #295 which departs at 8:00 AM and gets into SFO at 10:55 AM. Outbound flight is 5:16 minutes and inbound is 5:44 minutes.

SWA does fly to Orlando from San Jose but you have to change planes. The cost differential is not that much so I would rather fly direct. 973 Depart San Jose (SJC) at 8:00 AM arrive in San Diego (SAN) at 9:15 AM then change to 371 in San Diego (SAN) departing at 11:25 AM arrive in Orlando (MCO) at 7:55 PM . The return is direct #1008 Depart Orlando (MCO) at 10:15 AM and arrive in San Jose (SJC) at 3:00 PM.

Of course this may all change by 2008 but this is current as of 2007. Hope this helps.

I have found tha flights are cheaper from SFO than SJC when you cross the country. We just take a limo both ways and still it is cheaper than leaving the car if we gone for more than a week.

Noel

Once again, Noel, you've got the INFO!!

We wouldn't fly on United again, even if it is direct. Too many delay issues with them in the past.

Karen

 

[been2marceline]

Well slap me silly and call me Shirley...We just keep adding and adding and adding to this slap happy group! Welcome to all the new folks and remember to check out Page 1, Post 1 for updates and links and all that good stuff!!!

Update - I have no updates at this time that I can share....


Round Up -

If you will be taking your child out of a public school you might want to check and see if they will be throwing you in jail for this because it is against their 'rules' and to give your fellow disboarders time to research your states laws to help keep you out of the pokey and not having to use your DOD funds for an attorney. And, no folks, I am not kidding on this one. I can not make up stupidity like this.

I will be moving back into costume mom roll again starting next week so keep these posts pithy so I can keep up!!!

I am off to shower and shampoo and then crawl into bed and drool over Hugh Laurie....sigh...those of you who are totally gaga over AI, good luck with that one. I caught the last 10 minutes last night and frankly, I was shocked and my dogs started howling. Frightening....truely frightening....

Night all....

Where are you seeing Hugh Laurie? No house because of Idol the last two weeks I'm hoping looking forward to it's return next week!

Karen

 

[birkner]

you crack me up Lisa !!!!

Once again, Noel, you've got the INFO!!

We wouldn't fly on United again, even if it is direct. Too many delay issues with them in the past.

Karen

I have found that this particular United flight which originates in SFO has not been subject to delays. I usually fly in a day or two before the cruise so even if it was delayed, I would still make the cruise.

 

[been2marceline]

Welcome Tina. I just have to that you say you are getting in on this thread so late when we're 436 days from the cruise. You're not late, we're just ridiculously early.

PM Pahrumpgirl if you would like to order a fish extender. You are included in receiving fish mail just by being on the roster. If you would like to also participate in delivering fish mail, you can join a team or send something on your own. Contact Calmom for that.

If you are trying to locate someone from the Ship of Thieves (like Calmom or Pahrumpgirl), I've used the following trick: On the main page for cruise meets, you can click on the replies column for the Ship of Thieves thread. That will list everyone who has ever posted on this thread. It isn't in alphabetical order, but rather by post count. But you can pretty quickly scan the list to find who you are looking for. That's what I do anyway. But as a word of warning, I am most definitely not technically savvy. So there may be an easier way.

There are so many reasons to love this group! But I also love that I learn something new everyday here!! I love to learn!!

Karen

 

[fourmcds]

Those people are crazy. Fortunately we don´t have those laws, at least not in preschool or dd would already be out since this year she will have missed at least 5 weeks of school for vacations (2 weeks for WDW and DCL in september, 5 scattered days for trip to San Antonio and Puebla, 1 week next march for NYC and another week in may for WDW again).
.

We will be in WDW for 2 weeks this May. maybe we will see you there!

 

[fourmcds]

Did anyone else receive a postcard from Disney about the cruise? I got our preliminary cruise info, but no postcard from Mickey welcoming us. One of dd's classmates is going on the cruise and her mom mentioned that they got a postcard in the mail. I am feeling very unloved by DCL if I am the only one who didn't get one

 

[LiserAnn]

Did anyone else receive a postcard from Disney about the cruise? I got our preliminary cruise info, but no postcard from Mickey welcoming us. One of dd's classmates is going on the cruise and her mom mentioned that they got a postcard in the mail. I am feeling very unloved by DCL if I am the only one who didn't get one

I have received NADA from DCL, nothing.....

 

[birkner]

Did anyone else receive a postcard from Disney about the cruise? I got our preliminary cruise info, but no postcard from Mickey welcoming us. One of dd's classmates is going on the cruise and her mom mentioned that they got a postcard in the mail. I am feeling very unloved by DCL if I am the only one who didn't get one

Nada for us either.