November 18, 2012 ~ Turkey day on the Wonder

[rmonty02]

Just saw your post this morning. Our DD lives in Walnut Creek and they are also driving down today, staying at the Grand, and will then meet us at the parking lot at the pier on Sunday (thank goodness for cell phones ). If you see a young family of 4 with a mom that looks like she just finished breast cancer radiation treatment yesterday (her hair is just starting to grow back after chemo) stop and say hello Their DD is 5 and DS 3.

Have fun at DL and CA! We'll be going back down in Jan. for the Tinkerbell 1/2 marathon.

Steve

Oh Walnut Creek....my favorite shopping town. I live really close to there and shop/dine/stroll there quite often(too often) We will be driving in some rain today, but I hope it will be good for tomorrow. I will keep an eye out for her and see you all for sure on the cruise
Are we there yet

 

[adnil530]

Oh Walnut Creek....my favorite shopping town. I live really close to there and shop/dine/stroll there quite often(too often) We will be driving in some rain today, but I hope it will be good for tomorrow. I will keep an eye out for her and see you all for sure on the cruise
Are we there yet

Walnut Creek..2 of our dd's were born there .

Driving down 99 right now. Patches of rain throughout the morning. Pretty steady rain right now in Bakersfield. Everyone driving, be safe.

 

[Goofy's_Gal]

We are here with adnil530..yay

 

[calberry]

Walnut Creek..2 of our dd's were born there .

Driving down 99 right now. Patches of rain throughout the morning. Pretty steady rain right now in Bakersfield. Everyone driving, be safe.

We're hoping for a LOT of rain in Roseville tonight so the soccer games will be cancelled for tomorrow so we can get an earlier start.

We're leaving home in Lake Wildwood just before 9am tomorrow and then leaving Roseville 'whenever' to head to Santa Clarita for the night...a 2 (full) car caravan.

Our DS in Roseville had Mickey give them a call tonight and his 3 and 5 DD's were THRILLED!

Steve

 

[GhostlyHitchhiker]

I am sorry to do this so close to sailing, but I'm going to need to remove myself (and all three of my rooms) from the FE list.

We had some emergencies at the last minute and didn't get our gifts in time nor was DD able to finish the actual FE themselves. If you had planned on giving us gifts, maybe you can just add them onto the Mini FE instead.

I'm really sorry everyone.

 

[dhend30disney]

Mini FE List
Disney Wonder 11/18/12
FINAL LIST

1. Adnil520
Rooms 7627/7629
Linda (Adult)
Mike (Adult)
DD15
DD11
FE on one of the fishes.

2. Dhend30disney
Room 8042
Deborah (Adult)
Patricia (Adult
DS3 (Connor)

3. Traveln4fun
Room 7636
Lydia (Adult)
DS23 (Aaron) (23 yrs., but functions between 4-5 yrs)

3A. Traveln4fun
Room 7628
Monica (Adult)
DD25 (Sophia)

4. Goofys Gal
Room 7621
Name Susan (Adult)
DD4 (Sara)

5. PixieLizzie
Room 2548
Liz (Adult)
Elaine (Adult)

6. NorCalCruiser
Room 7536
Rebecca (Adult)
Husband (Adult)
DS10
DD8

7. sranes
Room 2538
Kathie (Adult)
Jeff (Adult)
DS Alex 12
DD Katie 10

7 Families
8 Rooms
24 Participants

See you all tomorrow!!

 

[sranes]

Disneycruise.com

 

[sranes]

Disneycruise.com

Sorry I meant see ya real soon and the fe list is perfect!

 

[SoCalDCLfan]

Hi everyone,
I've been reading this thread and keeping up on news through our good friends "sranes" for a while now. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to post. While we're not participating in the FE, we may join you for some of the meet ups. Our family is me, DH, DS 16, DD 14 and DD11. This is our 7th Disney Cruise. Can't wait for tomorrow!

 

[sranes]

Hi everyone,
I've been reading this thread and keeping up on news through our good friends "sranes" for a while now. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to post. While we're not participating in the FE, we may join you for some of the meet ups. Our family is me, DH, DS 16, DD 14 and DD11. This is our 7th Disney Cruise. Can't wait for tomorrow!

Were so excited to go with you guys

 

[calberry]

We just got home this evening after a WONDERFUL cruise, but just had to share our 'adventure' this morning. This is what I posted on Facebook for our friends and family;

We are now at home, safe and sound after a long day of debarkation and driving from San Pedro to Lake Wildwood. The day started off well with all 13 of us at our 7:15am breakfast seating, and just as soon as we got back to our cabin they announced that our group could leave the ship. Wow, fast, VERY fast. After the long line of going through customs we entered the 'barn' to get our checked bags...and quickly found all but one...MINE! Our porter and port employees helped us check every room (there were 3 or 4) and my bag was not to be found. All of a sudden our porter saw a bag that looked like the one we were looking for and after checking the tag realized what had happened...some one else had my bag, and the one she had in her hand was his (she recognized his name; Frank Trotta from Colorado). We then tried calling the shuttle service where she had taken him and his (OK, MY!) bag but could not find him. We called several park 'n cruise motels trying to track him down (she said she knew he was driving back to Colorado today) but to no avail. After filling out the lost bag form and heading out to the parking lot, she 'screamed' THERE HE IS! Frank was in a van that had just pulled up in front of the terminal. When he had taken 'my' bag from the van he then realized his mistake and had the driver bring him back. What a set of coincidences; first that our porter would have been the one involved with helping him (if we had gotten a different porter who knows how long we would have stayed there looking around) and second that we would run into Frank on our way to the parking lot. As they say, "All's well that ends well" ;-)

 

[kennedyparalegal]

We are also home after a longer than planned drive. We are still new to California and I had no idea the holiday traffic would be bad all the way north on I-5. I will know next time.

We had a terrific trip, but I was wondering about a few things. Two, possibly three of us became ill on the trip. I became ill right after our Mexican cooking experience excursion on Wednesday and at first blamed my illness on that. My son who did ziplining with my DH on Wednesday became ill on Friday and my daughter had terrible stomach cramps that lasted for hours at one point. I gathered there was illness on the ship from all the restricted access to serving yourself at the drink station and buffets, but how wide spread was this?

I hope all of you had a terrific trip too!

 

[Double Trouble]

We are also home after a longer than planned drive. We are still new to California and I had no idea the holiday traffic would be bad all the way north on I-5. I will know next time.

We had a terrific trip, but I was wondering about a few things. Two, possibly three of us became ill on the trip. I became ill right after our Mexican cooking experience excursion on Wednesday and at first blamed my illness on that. My son who did ziplining with my DH on Wednesday became ill on Friday and my daughter had terrible stomach cramps that lasted for hours at one point. I gathered there was illness on the ship from all the restricted access to serving yourself at the drink station and buffets, but how wide spread was this?

I hope all of you had a terrific trip too!

It is not terribly uncommon for some type of stomach "bug" to make its way through some of the passengers/crew during a cruise, particularly in the fall when everyone seems to be getting something anyway. We were told 18 people had seen the medical staff for "flu" symptoms, which precipitated the serving restrictions, but I'm not sure if it was stomach flu or the regular flu. You have to figure there were numerous other unreported cases as some don't want to go to medical and get quarantined in their cabin (the standard protocol). Sorry to hear it, but it may have been from Mexico, or possibly the ship. No way to know for sure. Our family was "hit" to a lesser degree (stomach "discomfort") on a previous cruise.

Anyway, hope everyone feels better! Take care.

 

[Double Trouble]

Just wanted to say what a pleasure it was to meet everyone and enjoy our cruise together. I'd have to say it was our most fun cruise to date! Our girls were quite sad on the drive home, as you might imagine, as they missed their new BFFs (and Cruise Director Jimmy, of course).

Thanks again to Linda for getting the thread and FE organized. Always to a hoot to cruise with you guys...have fun on the EBPC! Also, thanks to everyone for all the awesome FE gifts!

Look for us and any of your other cruise buddies on future dis-threads. I'm sure we'll be seeing some of you real soon! Best wishes to all.

The Double Trouble family

 

[adnil530]

Ditto Paul. This was an awesome trip! I loved all the FE gifts and meeting up with everyone before dinner. Again I missed the first sea day meetup!

Yes, I heard too that there were 18 visits to the Dr for a stomach bug so the precautions were necessary. Sorry to all those who experienced this in some form or another. My dd11 came down with an awful cough which I am sure this will flow through to the rest of us in the family.

Traffic coming home was pretty uneventful for us. I-5 was starting to back up on the grapevine so I shot over to the truck bypass lane and bypassed most of it. I felt that traffic on I-5 would be pretty busy so we took 99 and did not hit any other traffic other than an occasional slowdown but pretty much 65+ most of the way. Still, it was a good 8+ hours with a lunch stop to get home. Mostly unpacked now.

I hope to meet up with everyone on a future cruise!

Linda

 

[norcalcruiser]

We had an awesome cruise and although we seemed to miss every meet up we all loved participating in the FE. My kids were so excited and surprised to be going on the Disney cruise and loved getting gifts too. We intended to surprise them as we drove up to the ship, but they found out early in the morning on Sunday when leaving the bay area. Thanks to all of your advice we purchased travel insurance and thank GOD we did (well, I am still waiting to see). On our drive out to I5 out near Tracy, my husband hit a Feral Cat (yes that's right) and took the radiator out on our car. I simply couldn't believe it, we had gotten so far and now this was going to possibly keep us from our cruise. AAA towed us back to our friends shop in Concord, he drove us to the airport in Oakland (as airports are the only place you can rent cars on Sundays) and by the time we got there had to pony up $800 (one way) for us all to fly down to LAX (no way we could've made it from Oakland at 900am). Southwest was awesome and they didn't break our booze bag either. When all was said and done, we arrived early, a slight bit stressed, but so grateful we were able to make the cruise. The kids found out when I called DCL while waiting for AAA and they overheard it on my cell phone. My son screams out 'We're going on a Disney Cruise!' We so can't wait to go again. Truly one of the best vacations ever! (well other than the drive back which was 11 1/2 hours yesterday).

I'll keep you posted on how the travel insurance pays out. Pray that we get reimbursed.

As for those being sick. I heard that when they get to 30 they get really worried, if they get to 40 they shut the boat down. A lady I met had someone in her group get sick. They weren't able to even get off the boat.

 

[GhostlyHitchhiker]

We got home last night as well. We should have known I-5 would be horrid (last year it took us 13 hours to get home from Vegas Thanksgiving Sunday - usually around 8 hours), but GPS didn't think 99 would be any faster so we just stuck through it.

As for the illnesses on the ship/Mexico: My oldest DD said there were quite a few teens that were ill, though I don't know how many of them went to the Medical Facilities. In fact, they had hand-washing restrictions/enforcement before the rest of the ship so I wonder if it seemed to start there. (Before we ever got to Puerto Vallarta.)

I wasn't told how many (other than one crew member), but was told 1% were ill overall. At 2% they crack down far more, but they were only at "elevated" status so the crew we talked to weren't worried at all.

Now both of my kids are sick though. Youngest DD who barely went to the clubs has been coughing for two days and oldest DD isn't able to talk. So they are going to the Dr. shortly. Yay.

I didn't get to any of the meetups and even though I opted out of the FE gift exchange at the last minute I did recieve a few gifts anyway. Thank you very much! My DDs were so disappointed when we had to cancel and you guys made them so happy. I know I met one or two of you anyway throughout the trip (we were the crazy people handing out massive amounts of Glo-Sticks on Pirate Night). And perhaps even more at tastings/etc etc. I'm glad everyone had as WONDERful a cruise as we did!! (Sorry, still in Corny-Joke land!)

I actually *have* a gift I would like to give everyone who would like it. If you want, please PM me your address and I'll send one to anyone who wants it. I am an amateur photographer and my husband is an amazing graphics/photoshop guy so we made Disney Cruise Line Calendars for everyone that didn't get printed in time. I took somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000+ photos on this cruise so we will be updating the calendar to add some of this specific cruise (but still be DCL in general - not just Mexican Riviera/Wonder). As soon as the updated calendars are finished we will be happy to send them out to whomever wants one!

 

[Goofy's_Gal]

What an awesome cruise! Glad I was able to make one of the secret veranda meetups as well as the first one. The FE gifts were awesome, creative, and very generous . I booked a dummy cruise for 2013 - now to figure out which one I really want to take.

No illnesses for us and like Linda (who I mostly followed), found the 99 traffic not too bad. Glad to be home to my kitties...but not looking forward to unpacking One more week of vacation for me tho so I ought to be able to get it done.

Thank you all for the FE gifts and I hope to see you again.

 

[G'sMaman]

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful FE gifts! So creative and thoughtful! I tried to make the first meet-up, but was dealing with a room situation and got there a little after 3:30 and did not see anybody. Oh, well maybe on the next cruise! Anyway, thanks to each of you for making our cruise so special.

 

[rmonty02]

It's great to hear everyone's home safe and sound. We also had a FUN cruise! I was bummed I missed the meet-ups but Loved the FE. Thank you all for everything As far as the bug that went around we were fine on the cruise, until we got home. My son and husband have a stomach bug and I'm trying to quarantine them
I don't know when our next cruise will be, but I'm sure I'll be right back here for all the fun planing!