May 12, 2007 -- Taking the Magic to the Mediterranean -- 14 day Repo Cruise!

[milestogo]

Have a great time, can't wait to hear about the cruise, what they do, pirates, shows, movies... and of course, the food! We expect a full report in 2 weeks or from the boat.

 

[Scott H]

Will have to wait till we get back, don't do the internet on the ship.

Just too much stuff to do.

 

[milestogo]

 

[Ed C]

Hey, everybody! Spent way too much of my day yesterday catching up on this thread (haven't had the time at work to surf much, lately), and now I am completely jazzed about the trip...The last time I was lurking here was way back in May, now it seems like the cruise is just around the corner!

This will be our third Disney cruise, and I can not wait.

Just wanted to let you all know that I love the stories and share the anticipation.

 

[milestogo]

Welcome EdC

You'll find the board is a little quiet right now (many are in Florida or on the cruise right now), but a terrific group of people! When Debbie gets back from her trip she is the one to email. Jump in and post your goals to do before the trip, what you'd like to do for excursions, what you want to buy, 8 million transportation questions, what you want to do on the boat.... Some of us have already met each other at various Disney places, so if you're going to be on the east or west coast let us know so we can meet you and your family ahead of time. Where are you from?

Welcome

By the way other lurkers, now is the time (because its quiet with everyone out of town) to come out of your computer, so we can say hello.

 

[tig82174]

Greetings from the World, Disboard Magic Med Movers!

Decided to log on quick and say hi to everyone....having a very nice stay here at the world....boy is it hot!

We're enjoying Saratoga Springs very much....the studio is nice and the grounds are nice (if you can ignore all the construction....but they're gonna be a site to behold when they're done, I'm sure!). The property is a bit spread out...but that's OK....it all works off that Disney 15!!

It's kind of ironic/surreal, too.....because we come all the way "home" to Saratoga Springs...which is themed around the horse-racing town of Saratoga, NY---which isn't far from our home in Rochester, NY...and I travel to the Saratoga area every month for work!

Anyhow, lots of fun....a very relaxing trip because we don't feel the typical pressure to do a full park in a day...so lots of time by the pool and stuff. Also....it was very ironic....on the way down here I was just telling Jason that sometime in the next year I want to come to the World for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party because I've heard it was so fun. Then when we checked into the resort on Thursday night we found out that FRIDAY was the first night of the Halloween party!! So we did makeshift costumes (we went to Animal Kingdom and had animal face painting done....Jason was a lizard/dinosaur and I was a cat/lion....and then I teased my hair up REAL big like a lion's mane). We had a GREAT time at the party even though it rained....the parade is amazing....the fireworks are very fun....and they give you SOOOOO much candy "trick or treating"!

That's all for now!

Gotta get to bed so i'm rested for another day of Disney fun!!

 

[milestogo]

Hi all, Wow Erik, that sounds like a blast. Don't miss Soaring over California... Several of us on this board live in those areas. When you see the Orange groves and the surfing, thats my area.

Went to DL Friday for my birthday and had a spectacular meal at Granvilles, then rolled out of the restaurant to mosey through downtown Disney to the park. DD3 got to go on a few new rides as she has hit the 40 inch mark. It was very exciting. Then they did a lovely fireworks show just for me and my thousands of friends. It was a nice night. Also, did some pin trading!

 

[tig82174]

Hi all, Wow Erik, that sounds like a blast. Don't miss Soaring over California... Several of us on this board live in those areas. When you see the Orange groves and the surfing, thats my area.

Went to DL Friday for my birthday

Happy Belated Birthday!

Actually Soarin' is the only thing we did on Thursday. We landed at the airport at about 7:45pm...rushed to get our our bags, use the restroom, pick up our rental car and then sped over to Epcot, arriving at about 8:30pm. We ran to the guest relations desk so that we could turn in our vouchers to activate our annual passes and by the time we got inot the park (which closed at 9pm) we only had time to ride Soarin' before it closed....so we did that...THEN went and checked into hotel and then walked to Downtown for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.


....alrighty, off to Blizzard Beach today!

 

[tig82174]

Back from a day at Blizzard Beach, lunch back here at the resort in our room (sure saves some $$$ to make a run to the Winn Dixie and get some bread and coldcuts so you eat lunch at "home" rather than eating out everyday!)...then went and did a little shopping at Downtown Disney and played for a few hours in DisneyQuest....fun fun FUN!

Now I'm just waiting on Jason to get home from his conference so we can eat dinner and then we'll either go to DisneyQuest or play miniature golf....or who knows, it's extra magic hours at MGM so maybe we'll run hop on the Tower of Terror a time or two more!!

I made an appt. at the hair salon in the Grand Floridian for tomorrow so I can make myself purty...and then I'll fill my day with more of the same....and I think I am gonna do a spa service or package here at Saratoga on Wed. At home I never do facials or massages or any of that...but we always do on the cruises....so maybe I'll do soem here and make it a Disney thing!

 

[EpcotKilterFan]

Sounds like you are having a great time!!

It is raining here in Ohio I know that it is better there!!

Debbie

 

[tig82174]

Sounds like you are having a great time!!

It is raining here in Ohio I know that it is better there!!

Debbie

We are having a great time....someone remind me again WHY we don't all just LIVE here at DisneyWorld?!?

I had a blast in DisneyQuest today! I know the rumor is that it's closing down, but the cast members I spoke to today said that's been the rumor for almost 4 years and that, to their knowledge, no official announcements have been made about it closing and being replaced by another ESPN club. So let's hope that they're right adn that the rumormill has it wrong!

 

[ssnyder]

Curt and I are back from Italy. Well, we actually have been back for a couple of days, but have been recovering from jet lag. Curt has been wading through the pictures, so I'm sure he'll have a link up before too long.

For half the time, we stayed at a wonderful B&B in Tuscany (just outside of San Gimignano). Our host, Guido, was wonderful. He fixed us wonderful breakfasts each morning and each morning we went through our plans for the day with him. He was helpful with suggestions on which route to take, where to park, etc. We spent time in Florence, Pisa, and Siena. And, of course, we toured Tuscany looking for great wine. I think our favorite was the Nobile di Montepulciano. Whenever we ate someplace that didn't have a vino bella casa (which wasn't very often), we ordered the Nobile.

We then spent five nights on the Cinque Terre (in Vernazza). The first four nights, we managed to snag a room with a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean. This was pretty luck, since we had not made any reservations for this part of the trip. We spent the mornings hiking in the National Park of the Cinque Terre, and the afternoons sipping wine on our terrace with slices of parmigiana or pecorino cheese and a good book. Wish I was back there now.

 

[tig82174]

Curt and I are back from Italy. Well, we actually have been back for a couple of days, but have been recovering from jet lag. Curt has been wading through the pictures, so I'm sure he'll have a link up before too long..

Welcome home! (And for the record....that phrase is my favorite thing about being DVC and staying at a DVC resort...all the CM's greet you by saying "Welcome home!"......I really like thinking of DisneyWorld as my home...now if only I could afford it to be full time!!!)

My brother is in the Air Force and he and his wife lived in Italy for 4 years. The loved it there....actually they love Europe in general. They have orders to move to Germany in April of 2007 for 3 years. By the end of that tour he will have been in the service for 16 years and will be only 4 years from the point when he can "retire" from the service and retain his benefits...so he and his wife plan to try to extend their tour in Germany or to get shipped to another European base.....because their fondest wish would be when they move to Germany in April to never have to come back to the US except on vacations....they want to make Europe their home permanently.

We're still enjoying ourselves here...although the weather is not as nice today. But I did go get my hair done in one of hte resort salons and I have an appointment at the spa here at Saratoga for tomorrow afternoon to get a hot stone therapy massage...which I've always been curious about.

 

[mom_rules]

Ohhh! Please fill us in on the spas and the salons (will you post new "do" pics?)

Your reports are getting me through the day (and the cold snap that's just hit).

 

[maleficent1959]

I haven't posted in about forever on this thread. We booked on Day One and I've spent the time since saving money so that we could swing it for our family of 4. A week ago it became official. We have saved enough to pay off our cruise! So we are ONBOARD BABY! Now to work on the spending money...

 

[tig82174]

I haven't posted in about forever on this thread. We booked on Day One and I've spent the time since saving money so that we could swing it for our family of 4. A week ago it became official. We have saved enough to pay off our cruise! So we are ONBOARD BABY! Now to work on the spending money...

How Fantabulous! Jason and I just made a money-shifting move last week to free up some cash so that I'm pretty sure we officially have the major expenses of the cruise covered, too......which we're pretty happy about since that means we have about 7 1/2 months to save up money for incidentals like excursions, souvenirs, and food during our DisneyWorld stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge.

 

[ssnyder]

Are there any other avid readers out there? Curt goes through so many books while on vacation (about 1 a day) that his suitcase is packed with books when we start out. I don't make it through near that (I started on my fourth book on the way home), but still don't like to pack a suitcase full of books. Curt leaves a trail of books behind him and takes advantage of any trading libraries where we are staying.

I was thinking with all the sea days on our cruise, we are going to be going through a bunch of books. I was wondering if it might not be a good idea to start our own trading library. I was thinking if everyone brought an extra book to start the library with, we'd have a pretty good collection to start with. We'd volunteer to host the library. Is this a good or bad idea? I can see the main difficulty would be a variety of tastes. Curt and I like mystery, fast action, science fiction, and fantasy.

All the books at the end could be donated to the crew.

 

[tig82174]

Ohhh! Please fill us in on the spas and the salons (will you post new "do" pics?)

Your reports are getting me through the day (and the cold snap that's just hit).

My spa appointment is not for another 4 hours.....so I'll have to post on that later...but it seems like an interesting treatment I'm getting, so should be fun (an 80-minutehot stone massage!! yippee!).

My salon appointment was yesterday.....I think the salon is a mixed bag. I got sent to the one in Coronado Springs...but that was a whole story in itself.

I actually was booked, with the assistance of the lovely woman at the concierge desk here at Saratoga, for a 10am cut and color at the Grand Floridian. I used Disney transportaiton to get there (because Jason had our rental car at his conference and had left at 7am while I was still very much sleeping....this IS vacation for me after all!). Well Disney transportation has been the only negative of my entire vacation here this time. Without fail every time I try to use it it's been awful. Long waits, slow rides, lengthy travel times...and a couple really awful incidents with other guests who either can't control their children or can't control themselves! Anyhow I got to the salon 10 minutes late b/c the transportation was so slow (took me 55 minutes to get from Saratoga to the Grand floridian!!!). When I arrived they had already taken another woman in my place because of confusion over who had an appointment when....only one person was working and was trying to cover phones, work the front desk AND color the other woman's hair....so basically told me I couldn't get my hair done today...but offered to send me to another salon.....and thus I ended up over at Coronado Springs. (Note: all the salons at different resorts are actually just different "branches" of the same salon, I believe and some of the staff and stylists bounce to multiple sites to work and they are all managed by a team of the same people.....so the costs and services are, I think, pretty much the same in each...the difference is primarily location.)

So....the salon there is really tiny. My stylist, Tara, was from Staten Island (and I"m from upstate NY and spend a lot of time in Manhattan myself). She was lovely and friendly and fun....and did a wonderful job on my hair....my hair is almost shoulder length and highlighted, so not your typical "guy haircut" (Actually I'm often told I have the same hair as the country singer, Keith Urban). I just went in to get split ends taken off, layers restructured, and my color freshened up. My hair looked great when I left. It IS, I will warn you, pricey. The same basic cut and color at a salon at home costs me about $145.....but at the salon here on property it cost $185 plus tip.

All in all....a little more expensive than I would have liked.....BUT Tara was a delight to spend time with, did GREAT quality work, bent over backwards to help me get my hair done when the Grand Floridian screwed up my appt. and actually worked really really fast (I didn't end up even ARRIVING at Coronado until almost 11am...a la Disney buses again! hehehe....and I was done and headed to Epcot before 1pm rolled around).




p.s. I can't post a picture on here for some reason.....otherwise I would take a picture of my hair for you....and I'd post our GREAT halloween picture on the buzz LIghtyear ride, too.....but when I click on the icon above that should allow you to insert a picture it just opens a box that says "Enter the text to be formatted

" and it doesn't really let you browse and select a photo to post.

 

[tig82174]

Are there any other avid readers out there? Curt goes through so many books while on vacation (about 1 a day) that his suitcase is packed with books when we start out.

OOOOOH you're so much better than us! How I sometimes wish that Jason and I were LESS media queens (which means we adore all things movie and television....so I call us media queens b/c it sounds somewhat more fashionable than "couch potato" ) and bigger readers. But, alas, we rarely read.......I do read all the Harry Potter books the second they're released but the next (and last) one isn't due out until after the cruise. Other than that the last non-work related book i read was Wicked: The Life & Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (which is a fabulous book, by the way, and an even better broadway musical!!)...and that was easily 5 years ago.

 

[ssnyder]

But, alas, we rarely read.......I do read all the Harry Potter books the second they're released but the next (and last) one isn't due out until after the cruise.

That reminds me that I haven't read the latest Harry Potter book - maybe that would be a good book for the cruise.

Other than that the last non-work related book i read was Wicked: The Life & Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (which is a fabulous book, by the way, and an even better broadway musical!!)...and that was easily 5 years ago.

We just saw Wicked here in San Diego last month. That was the best! Full of great surprises and lots of fun.