May 10, 2008 Ship of Thieves! Stealing the Magic..AGAIN!!! Panama Canal FL to CA!!! Part 4

[gouodux]

Nope. I sent an e-mail last night to the place I ordered from because by the time I got home after work, class, and my massage, it was after business hours, so nobody was there to answer the phone. What I didn't realize is that they're closed on Saturdays too.....just found that out when I tried calling a minute ago. My next step is to see if I can get any info from FedEx, even though I was never given a tracking number. I can't find a phone number for the local FedEx, only a 1-800 number that didn't give me an option to speak to a real person, so I'm driving up there in a few minutes to see what I can find out. Of course, if the store never shipped my order, that's a different story and I'll expect a full refund. Keep your fingers crossed!

Might be of some help, but may not have good news. Unless your delivery was earmarked for Saturday delivery, don't expect for it to show.

You should be able to call FedEx and give them a zip code to zip code. They can then target your address. Most likely you will need to go down to the local hub and hope that the shipment is on hold there for Monday delivery. If so, most of the time they will allow you to pick it up.

If this doesn't happen and you have to go purchase all new items for your party, I would suggest leaving a note on your door Monday to refuse delivery of the original package. That is if you don't need the purchase any longer. This would facilitate your return alot quicker and you won't have to mess with the cost of shipping the package back to the vendor.

Just a few thoughts, hope it may help.

 

[lillygator]

They are all very cool things to do.

How's the unpacking going?

not bad - was able to do laundry at OKW which was great!

 

[fourmcds]

stayed at OKW, right on the 7th hole...very nice, rooms are a bit run down but very spacious.
We ate at Le Cellier, Ohana, 50's PT, Wolfgang Puck Cafe, Kona Cafe, Cosmic Ray's, Columbia HH - ETA - Chef Mickey and Coral Reef and more that I am forgetting. Ohana we won't be back for a while. And LC...this is a must for DH every trip and wow...the service was HORRIBLE. We have one drink from the time we ordered until dessert....and I had mashed potatoes and was practically choking and couldn't even down my filet.
Ran into a few very rude folks but for the most part it was great, very warm, we were out of the parks by early afternoon and managed to do most things. We won dream fastpasses twice at MGM, different days and yesterday they were giving away the castle stay in front of us....

we did get to wake up Tinkerbell, an honorary conductor on the railroad and ride in the front of the monorail as well.

Wow...you guys lucked out! How did you get the dream fast passes, do they give them out right at opening? EMH opening or regular? and the castle stay? I could never get my group motivated to be there at opening so I figured we missed out and then we finally hit MK on Thurs for EMH and didn't see one dream person around at the 8am hour, so figured it was 9am when they gave things away. Oh well. and, how do you wake Tinkerbell? Our dream...we bought a pretzel and were splitting it (among 8 people) and the guy selling them told us we ate it too fast and here was another one for free! Nothing great, but still fun for the kids. And they got the front of the monorail 2x.

 

[fourmcds]

I am home!!! Got in late last night, woke up this am to walk in the Relay for Life and now home, all unpacked and DIS'ing! DD2 got on the plane and fell asleep before take off, and slept the whole flight! (6:00 pm florida time - 1:00 am Florida time) woke up half way through the terminal, was a chatty cathy the whole way home and then slept until 7am! Guess 2 weeks at Disney exhausted her!

Here she is on the plane....she slept like this not matter how many times I tried to move her...the half stand-sleep!

 

[fourmcds]

Here are the pics from AKLV models....this is the 1 BR, didn't take pics of the studio....

kitchen and front door from patio

living area from kitchen

another view of living area

master bedroom, love the simba and nala on the headboard

close up of the tile work in the bathroom

 

[fourmcds]

Well, here I am all alone, so I will just finish loading some pics from our trip. I hope everyone is having fun at the DL meet! Wish I was there, but I am sure with everyone that is there we will hear lots of great stories

V....on mother's day, my youngest met a friend in the pool named Haley. I had to look around quickly to see if it was your Haley since I knew you were checking in that day, but I never saw you so I assumed it wasn't you. I thought that would have been priceless if the kids had met first and become friends before we ever introduced ourselves. What building were you guys in? We were in 47...right on a hole but not sure which one.

Overall we had a great trip, but, note to self....next trip, go without others. It is exhausting showing others around WDW if it is their first trip. We would much rather be there at opening, get done what we want and back to pool by midday for R&R...not the commando park stuff. Oh well. Still had a blast.

The new comedy show...just so/so in my opinion. Not something I would rush to see again. Wishes....still my favorite thing in the parks. Am I the only sap who gets weepy when the Wishes song comes on looking at the fireworks?! EE....great ride!!! BB....need to remember to hit that park more often. What a great day we had there! Oh...and at the water parks they give out photopass cards on a bracelet. So, another note to self...hit BB day 1 so you have that handy photopass card for the rest of the trip rather than looking for the other one that looks like the rest of the cards in your wallet. OKW...great room size and deck size. Love the quietness of the resort and distance from all parks. WL...still my favorite place, but what a distance from DTD or AK. And, being a hotel and villas...the pools get VERY crowded
One other tip I learned....might come in handy for some of us next year....photocopy the pages of the kids' school books that they need to do. Lugging math books and history books around was very heavy!

Since we are doing the cruise next year, we have no WDW trip planned until 09...which seems so far away. I am sure I won't make it that long, but I might have to!

I'll post a few last pics in another post.

 

[fourmcds]

Just a shot of the castle I took as we entered the park that night for Wishes...

Not the greatest shot, but they started doing jump rope and hula hoops while everyone was lining up for the parades. Here is Jaide with the castle in the background...Really helped make the waiting easier for the kids

I always try and capture a few shots of the fireworks....here are 2. Sometimes I get great pics, other times not so great.

Enjoying the water mice that Jaide and I won at OKW

The girls at WL...they really can like each other sometimes!

Last family shot in front of castle

Thanks for letting me share.

 

[pahrumpgirl]

Ok, so I have now read Wally's website on San Diego and what a help it is thanks!!!

But, and a big but, he really doesn't recommend Late May/June for a vacation to San Diego because of the weather!!!!!! Will we be wasting all that money(and the hotels will be extra expensive because of Memorial Day) on a gloomy trip? We could always take a trip to SanDiego in September one year and really enjoy it then.

Where else would you recommend? Should we head to Phoenix, Las Vegas, or go back to our original plan of SF? LV will be bad for Memorial Day also.

Haven't finished reading the rest of the board yet so maybe someone else has answered this. Having live in San Diego for 15+ years I do know a little about the weather there. May and early June have a lot of early morning fog and haze which on most days burns off around noon or so. This is mostly a coastal thing and the further inland you go the less you have to deal with it. San Diego is really a beautiful place even without the sun shine 24/7 and I would recommend it over any place else you have mentioned. (NO, I am not on a retainer for the city of San Diego! )

We are headed for San Diego on the 19th of June so most of the morning gloom should be gone by then but will give you an update on what we find. With all this global warming the AM fog should be burning off much earlier in the day.

Doug

 

[lillygator]

Hi Kaylee, glad you made it home safely! Love the AKL model pics, they look great! We were in bldg 63 really close to the HH. The dream fast passes we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. As far as waking Tink, well we have done it before but it was different then, you could walk down mainstreet and wait for rope drop at the castle...that is no more --they even rope off the lands...we were there for opening and John kept saying go check, I walked past the frint door to the shop and thought what the heck, went in the second and asked and we were first, as we were heading to the box a mom and daughter stampeded in and asked as well and the cm's let about 6 kids all do it at once and poor Haley was drowned in the background of all the big kids. It's nice that they all go to do it, but they should let us do it individually...we went back later just to get shots of the two girls without all the other families.
Laugh floor was cute but we walked in with no wait...not something I would wait a long time for...we did MK two different days and were out of their after lunch each day and did everything. The castle stay is given away by 10:10 am daily, they have to get the family ready and in the parade and such. On Friday we were the first ones to ride the speedway!! Samantha has conquered all the mountains and wanted to do RNR and TNT but I wouldn
t let her...I am still thinking those are a lot more intense.
Haley finally warmed up to the characters towards the end -- the furs --- and fell in love with Stitch, we had to buy one! We opened toontown both days and the second day Donald and Daisy took Samantha by the hand skipping towards the judges tent but she told them she wanted to go on branstormer!!
We had fun, saw two of the three caballeros and loved the flowers at Epcot. Didn't make it to a water park but both girls loved the slide at OKW as did John....

 

[lwilliam]

from our mini meet with John and Deb (EllaEnchanted) - WHAT A GREAT COUPLE We just met this evening and couldn't stop talking....honestly, it was a FUN night....we WILL meet again very soon....this is going to be a GREAT trip....have fun tomorrow at DL everyone.
I'll be there in spirit.....give us reports.

DEB: honestly, I can't believe how much fun I had with you guys......NOW I'm so anxious to meet everyone else.

 

[endkaos]

fourmcds:

I love looking at pictures and yours are awesome! I may even pirate one or two for myself (castles and fireworks will do.)

 

[Ginamarie]

Holly- I hope you found all the party supplies you needed!

Sounds like you guys had some good trips to WDW! I love the pictures from the AKL villas!!!

 

[LiserAnn]

Thanks for letting me share.

Kaylee-thanks for sharing, I loved your pics. Looks like you all had a nice time!!! The girls are adorable!! Okay, I don't want you and Scott to be left out, you guys look adorable too!

 

[LiserAnn]

from our mini meet with John and Deb (EllaEnchanted) - WHAT A GREAT COUPLE We just met this evening and couldn't stop talking....honestly, it was a FUN night....we WILL meet again very soon....this is going to be a GREAT trip....have fun tomorrow at DL everyone.
I'll be there in spirit.....give us reports.

DEB: honestly, I can't believe how much fun I had with you guys......NOW I'm so anxious to meet everyone else.

Lucy-I'm so glad to hear you had a great time at your mini meet. I'm anxiously looking forward to tomorrow's BIG meet. Say "hi" to BOB for me!!!

 

[pjpoohbear]

Kaylee love the pics, everyone looks so happy!

I was wondering if you had a big version of the first fireworks shot it is beautiful, I would love to use it on the desktop of my computer.

Pj

 

[HollyTyler]

sounds like you might need to plan another one for after the party???

You've got that right!

lovely site, I wish our massages cost those fees, more like double. Which I guess makes it okay to get them on the Magic as it's relatively resonable compared to home.

good luck on the party supply search, was the order from brithday express? I've had a friend that had the same thing happen with her stuff. Not a "normal" way to deal with a back ordered product. SOP is to ship all you have on hand then ship the balance when/if they arrive. I wonder how businesses like that stay afloat.

Nope, it wasn't birthday express. It was pinatas.com. Nothing arrived today. Needless to say, I'm not happy because I did spend most of the day driving all over to many stores trying to replicate what I ordered from them. Normally, I wouldn't do that, but since Tyler knew what we ordered and was looking forward to all the cool camo stuff we were supposed to get, I just couldn't let him down. I managed to get about 75% of almost the same stuff, told him what happened, and told him which items I wasn't able to find in any stores around town. He was a little bummed about not having the camo helmets & dog tags for all the kids, but he said, "That's OK mom, it's not your fault. Thanks for trying to find some". The pinata we ended up with is a Hummer instead of the camo Army tank we had ordered, and is a bit smaller, but should still be big enough for 9 kids to whack (I hope). I'll feel terrible if only 6 kids get to whack it and it breaks before the others have a swing!

BUT the important part is that we have the basics and the weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, so a good time will be had by all! I just have to remember to charge up my video camera and put my dad in charge of that, put new batteries in my digital camera, and we'll be ready for fun!

 

[EllaEnchanted]

from our mini meet with John and Deb (EllaEnchanted) - WHAT A GREAT COUPLE We just met this evening and couldn't stop talking....honestly, it was a FUN night....we WILL meet again very soon....this is going to be a GREAT trip....have fun tomorrow at DL everyone.
I'll be there in spirit.....give us reports.

DEB: honestly, I can't believe how much fun I had with you guys......NOW I'm so anxious to meet everyone else.

We just got back too....we had an awesome time, chatting and laughing and eating and drinking....we MUST do it again soon....we brought the camera and left it in the car and forgot to take pics. We'll have to remember it next time....This is going to be a great cruise because of all the great people on it!!!!

 

[HollyTyler]

While you're waiting for that Fed-Ex truck, look at the party stores websites for replacements, then call the stores to see if they have it in stock. This way, they can set aside the things for you to pick up later. It will make your running around go quicker. Good Luck.

Just keep hitting zero but NOT TO FAST in succession. Most systems have that has a default. If you hit it too fast, it will hang up on you.

zero, pause, zero, pause, zero....etc.

Thank you! All's well that ends well!

 

[HollyTyler]

we did get to wake up Tinkerbell, an honorary conductor on the railroad and ride in the front of the monorail as well.

Cool!

Welcome back!

 

[EllaEnchanted]

Lucy-I'm so glad to hear you had a great time at your mini meet. I'm anxiously looking forward to tomorrow's BIG meet. Say "hi" to BOB for me!!!

We had the best time and we would have stayed longer, but they might have kicked us out....don't do what I did and forget to bring the camera....we want to hear all the stories and see all the pics. Have a fabulous time!