November 5th 2011 Eastern on the Magic

[2ksilverbullet]

Here's a few that I thought turned out good (getting 4 kids to smile at the same time has become more challenging over the years ).

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Matt,
those are great photos!!!
I am so happy you shared them with us. I know more will share as the week goes on.

I just have been too tired to get mine all downloaded and put over to photo bucket so I can post them here. The 3 hour time change always kills me for a week.

I will try hard to get some posted this evening.

Hope everyone is getting settled back to their normal routine.
I am sure all the ladies miss their room hosts about now.

Kathy

 

[LovesToRun]

Matt,

Those are great pictures!!! You have a beautiful family. How old are your oldest boys? Your 2nd oldest looks like he may be about the same age as my oldest... was your 2nd oldest in the Edge? Wonder if my son hung out with him at all?

Thanks for sharing!
Kathy

 

[LovesToRun]

Hi everyone,

Here are some photos from our trip:

This is our pirate picture!! This is the first time I've really dressed up, but Eric and the boys have dressed up like they are in this picture for every cruise. So, Disney converted me... I'm a true pirate now! I loved it!!

This is our family at Castaway Cay from the Lookout... I love this picture since you can see the ship in the background! We rented bikes and biked here (and everywhere else). Super fun!!

Here is Eric and me just before the Castaway Cay 5K run... I was SOOOO excited to run this because this is my first cruise not injured, so I was actually able to run it! It was SO much fun... I think we came in 5th place (just counting the poeple who were in front of us). So, pretty good!

Me on my 40th birthday at Palo! GREAT way to celebrate my 40th!!

Eric and I out on deck 4 taking a walk after Palo (walking off ALL that awesome food)! Oh, and not sure if any of you remember, but before our cruise, my best girlfriend bought me this dress for my birthday. So, this is my birthday dress! It's purple sequins... sparkly!

I also have a picture of Claire and me together (bummed I didn't get pictures of anyone else and me together... ), but I haven't taken it off my camera yet. I will post that sometime soon.

Take care,
Kathy

 

[LovesToRun]

I'm posting these pictures in case anyone here is in any of these. Tim, are you by chance in this?? (or anyone who met Tim, is he in this??) There was a guy (the big guy in the navy blue shirt and gray shorts facing the camera) whose name was Tim, and he went by "Tiny Tim" which was funny because he towered over Eric. haha!! Eric is the smallest guy on the court... in the white shirt. They all had a blast playing 3-on-3!

Then, here is Ryan (our 9 year old) playing 3-on-3 basketball. He LOVES basketball and is on a team here. We had to pull him away from the court every day. But, I'm posting this in case anyone had a kid playing in this 3-on-3 game. Let me know! I have more pictures, plus a video. In this picture, Ryan is the red head in the white shirt about to catch the ball that was thrown to him.

-Kathy

 

[2ksilverbullet]

Thanks!

Nick is 14, Colt is 11, Logan is 4, Alexa will be 2 next month.

Colt didn't hang out much at the Edge, but he was on the basketball court more often than not so they might've ran into each other there. He did find a couple of buddy's his age that he was hanging out with alot, I'll check with him after work and see if he remembers their names or where they were from. I was kind of surprised the older 2 didn't hang out in the clubs, I gave them free reign of the boat so they did their own thing. Logan had a great time at the Oceaneer club and Alexa, even though she's not in daycare here at home, came around pretty quick at the nursery. By about the middle of the trip, she wasn't crying anymore anytime we left (which my wife couldn't handle, so I usually took her, lol).

Speaking of hosts, ours were great. Our servers weren't over-bearing at all. My wife didn't like one of the soups (lobster bisque I think it was?) and our server pested her a couple of times about it and kept asking if she wanted anything else but that was about it. He would bring over new things for us and the kids to try, and cut up the younger 2 kids' meals, they were really great.

 

[2ksilverbullet]

Then, here is Ryan (our 9 year old) playing 3-on-3 basketball. He LOVES basketball and is on a team here. We had to pull him away from the court every day. But, I'm posting this in case anyone had a kid playing in this 3-on-3 game. Let me know! I have more pictures, plus a video. In this picture, Ryan is the red head in the white shirt about to catch the ball that was thrown to him.

-Kathy

That's Colt right behind him in the black shirt and red/black shoes!

 

[LovesToRun]

That's Colt right behind him in the black shirt and red/black shoes!

Oh how cool!!! I have more pictures from that 3-on-3 game... I also have a video (not of the whole game, but a good portion of it). If you'd like the video since Colt is in it (of course, I focus on my son Ryan in the video, but the video shows all of the kids), I'd be happy to put it on a CD and mail it to you if you PM me your mailing address. Let me know!

Ryan is 9, so he was in the Lab (when he wasn't on the BB court, or with us), and my older son, Tyler, is 11. He is the one who was in the Edge. He LOVED the Out and About activities.... he was into that part of the Edge. But, when he was in the Edge, he was on the computers playing computer games. He made a couple friends.... when he gets home from school, I'll ask him what his friend's names were. Would be ironic if it was your son.

Take care,
Kathy

 

[LovesToRun]

Oh how cool!!! I have more pictures from that 3-on-3 game... I also have a video (not of the whole game, but a good portion of it). If you'd like the video since Colt is in it (of course, I focus on my son Ryan in the video, but the video shows all of the kids), I'd be happy to put it on a CD and mail it to you if you PM me your mailing address. Let me know!

Ryan is 9, so he was in the Lab (when he wasn't on the BB court, or with us), and my older son, Tyler, is 11. He is the one who was in the Edge. He LOVED the Out and About activities.... he was into that part of the Edge. But, when he was in the Edge, he was on the computers playing computer games. He made a couple friends.... when he gets home from school, I'll ask him what his friend's names were. Would be ironic if it was your son.

Take care,
Kathy

Matt,

I just watched the video (it's about 4 minutes long), and now that I know who colt is, ironically, my son, Ryan, was guarding Colt a good share of the game! So, Colt is in the entire video because he and Ryan were almost always together, but they were on opposing teams. How funny!!! I should send you the video... you'd probably enjoy it. Let me know... just PM me.

Kathy

 

[2ksilverbullet]

PM sent, thanks!

 

[flygrl]

Hi Everyone!!
Well it was great to meet people we did get to meet and sorry we didn't meet everyone. We did hit it off with Danielle and Mike...LOL The kids enjoyed each others company. Kathy (LTR) I think we must of had the same server he kept asking us how the food was and was waiting for me to say excellent... Other than our dinning serves we all had a great time! We booked like Danielle said the lady was not very nice! Hope everyone is getting back in to gear, today is my first day at work. Darcie is here till Thursday. Thank you everyone for the FE gifts they were great!
I have to upload the pics this week when I get time.
Danielle, I will send some your way, I have a few of you guys!
Tanya

 

[LovesToRun]

Hi Everyone!!
Well it was great to meet people we did get to meet and sorry we didn't meet everyone. We did hit it off with Danielle and Mike...LOL The kids enjoyed each others company. Kathy (LTR) I think we must of had the same server he kept asking us how the food was and was waiting for me to say excellent... Other than our dinning serves we all had a great time! We booked like Danielle said the lady was not very nice! Hope everyone is getting back in to gear, today is my first day at work. Darcie is here till Thursday. Thank you everyone for the FE gifts they were great!
I have to upload the pics this week when I get time.
Danielle, I will send some your way, I have a few of you guys!
Tanya

Tanya,

So great to meet you and Darcie, too... and your kids! I wish I had seen Darcie at the hypmotist show, though! That sounded fun!

What was your server's name? Our server's name was Aziz, and he was from Turkey. He was a nice guy....that wasn't the issue, but he was just so pushy with insisting that we always say everything was excellent, even if we didn't think so. Oh well.

-Kathy

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Nice to see a few more dropping by here now that the cruise is over with.
I fell asleep this afternoon, probably getting Peters cold By the last 2 days of the cruise he had no voice and tried to avoid people hoping not to spread it to everyone.

I still havnt got my photos done but I promise I will soon.

I am excited to see everyones favorite photos too.

Time to start dinner, then to relax again. Its amazing how tired a vacation can make a person. Mostly its the time change.

Back tonight or tomorrow with photos,

Kathy

 

[clj1410]

Kathy & Kathy--sorry to hear your flights home weren't so good. And GMA Kathy, that really stinks that you had all those problems! Not the way you want to end a fabulous vacation.

Claire, I'm so disappointed we didn't get to chat more. I'll keep an eye out for you in BJ's

Well, I am back at work (and still experiencing some dizziness from the ship) and walked into the nightmare I thought I would. I've spent all morning working on cleaning up mistakes. Gonna be a long few days until I get it all figured out.

We had a FANTASTIC time on the cruise! It was so much fun! Isabella & I did get a bit of motion sickness the first day. She was fine until dinner when she sat down. I had already taken a drammamine so I was able to help her out and get her to the room, fortunately there was no vomitting!. Our fabulous server & asst server took care of getting our food up to our room for us and she felt better within an hour.

I loved meeting everyone, we totally hit it off with Tanya, Darcie, & the kiddos which made it even more fun. I didn't have to worry about Isabella or Mike being bored.

Thank you everyone for the FE gifts, there were some really great ideas and I feel like I'll be more prepared for next time. Isabella & I devoured lots of those yummy snacks on our flight home. (Like others, our seats were all over the place so while we were fortunate to get Isabella & I back sitting together, DH sat elsewhere).

We did book another cruise while on the ship too! We are doing the Nov 3 2012 Eastern Caribbean. I could not believe that Mike wanted to book again & so soon! He was totally Mr. Negative coming into it, but the Disney Magic (ship & 'pixie dust' magic) just blew him away.

Here's a question: Did anyone find that the lady at the future bookings desk was terrible? When we first went to talk to her, she gave us the impression we were bothering her. We asked for three quotes, she wrote them down quickly and said she'd get back to us. The next day we received the quotes on our way out the door and then when we returned later that night, there was a confirmation of a booking for a Mexican Riviera cruise! It even had a travel agent listed that I have never heard of. Since the desk was closed, I went to Guest Services and they canceled it. That night we went back to the booking desk and booked our Eastern Caribbean, however, she didn't even discuss room options with us, just booked us in the same category we were in. When I got home I saw that we could go up a category for a nominal fee. This would have been information I would like to have known at the time! (I have since emailed my travel agent about it.) I just can't believe how terrible she was, DH wrote a whole lot about her on the comment card. And I know Tanya & Darcie had an equally awful encounter with her also. Just curious if we got her on an off day.

Danielle, I was disappointed that we never really got much chance to talk, we live so close to each other it would have been nice to connect

I was not over impressed with the future booking lady either. It seemed like i was inconveniencing her, i heard her huff a few times when i asked her to check different rooms for us. We ended up booking a 9D for 11/2/13, when i came home i went online and found that i could get a verandah room for $200 more! Lucky i could change it online and still keep my discount etc!

Kathy (LTR) Great pictures, I am glad that you dressed up on Pirate Night, you guys look great Love the birthday dress too!

The kids found a Starfish at Castaway Cay (yes it was dead)

Foosball with Donald!

Pirate Night, we knd of wimped out with costumes this time, my daughter went to put her costume on and found it to be to small, of course she didn't figure this out until i packed it and took it all the way to Florida, so Danielle, if Isabella needs a pirate costume for next year, i can give you Emma's!

Little Divi Beach

Little Divi Beach

Kathy and I, taken way to early on disembarkment day!

 

[Daniellenbella]

I love seeing all the pics!

Matt, the one with Minnie & the little one nose to nose is precious!

Kathy LTR, you guys looked great on pirate night!

GMA Kathy, sorry you are getting a cold.

Claire, I'll take you up on that pirate costume! Isabella's will definately NOT fit next year! Just b/c we didn't talk much on the ship doesn't mean we can't now, we should try to get together for coffee or something soon. Do they still have that coffee shop at the Promenade? As for the room bookings, that is what we experienced also! When we got home & I looked up the prices, I found that we could get a full verrandah for barely more than we were paying for an obstructed verrandah. I asked our travel agent to make the switch, I'm hoping the room was still available. THAT is what the travel agent on the ship should have been doing--making sure you got the best room you could. I will be sending an email.

Forgot to mention that Isabella lost a tooth on Castaway Cay. When we got back on the ship I went to Guest Services and they printed out a certificate from the Tooth Fairy & Tinker Bell and gave me a 'Magical Moments' pin for her. I then went and bought a Goofy vinylmation she was eyeing up and put them out for her the next morning.

OH and I forgot to mention that I found a pearl in my oyster at Palo! It's about a half cm big, I'll post a pic later when my camera battery is recharged.

As for servers, we loved ours! We had Stirling & Putu. We had wished we hadn't tipped our Palo server so much so that we could have given it to them. Isabella gave them a pin each & a bag of candy. She adored them. The last night Stirling had a special steak cooked for Mike. We made sure to say they were Excellent. I was very disappointed in the conch chowder however, there was no conch! I made sure to tell the Head Server guy, who was pointless, IMO. I guess they keep things on task? I don't know what his job was.

Well, my temp is finally gone so I have lots of work to do. I'm still fixing her mistakes! I'm going to have to do something different next year!

 

[2ksilverbullet]

Oh how cool!!! I have more pictures from that 3-on-3 game... I also have a video (not of the whole game, but a good portion of it). If you'd like the video since Colt is in it (of course, I focus on my son Ryan in the video, but the video shows all of the kids), I'd be happy to put it on a CD and mail it to you if you PM me your mailing address. Let me know!

Ryan is 9, so he was in the Lab (when he wasn't on the BB court, or with us), and my older son, Tyler, is 11. He is the one who was in the Edge. He LOVED the Out and About activities.... he was into that part of the Edge. But, when he was in the Edge, he was on the computers playing computer games. He made a couple friends.... when he gets home from school, I'll ask him what his friend's names were. Would be ironic if it was your son.

Take care,
Kathy

I talked to Colt last night (ironically on the way to basketball practice) and it took him a bit but he remembered playing b-ball with Ryan.. Too funny.

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Hi all,

well Greg got the photos all organised and put on his laptop before work today but he didnt have time to put them on mine yet. He said he would do it after dinner tonight, so I should have photos to share tonight or tomorrow.
YEAH!!!

Cold and rainy here, plus ice and maybe snow this weekend. Most of the snow should be in the hills around us but we may get a rain/snow mix here and ice in the mornings due to the cold temps.

I am ready to go back to the tropics, even if it did rain at St. Thomas. At least it was a warmer rain. Here is a cold rain.

Back as soon as I get my photos down loaded and put on photo bucket.

Kathy

 

[wtgilligan]

Speaking of rain in St. Thomas were were on the butterfly farm and coral world excursion when the rain happened. As we were leaving Coral World it was down pouring and we now all have the sniffles, probably from the hour long ride in a windowless/doorless van.

FYI: The butterfly farm is a giant tourist trap.

Coral world was cool but we didn't have a lot of time to spend there.

Here is a link to the pictures I put on facebook. I took over 1000 but only put a few online. Facebook Pictures.

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Great Photos BT.
I know it seemed everytime I walked by a character meet I would see you and your family waiting to have photos taken.

They came out really nice,

Kathy

 

[wtgilligan]

Great Photos BT.
I know it seemed everytime I walked by a character meet I would see you and your family waiting to have photos taken.

They came out really nice,

Kathy

Yes, we dragged our kids to most of them. Not so much dragging but they wanted to go. It ended up being cheaper for us to buy the CD of all the pictures than to buy individual credits.



Also, I should mention a thank you to everyone for the FE gifts. Some of you certainly know how to make amazing gifts and make me feel bad.....sorry that some of you got ripped off on the gifts from me.