Oct 19, 2002 UNSTOPPABLE...

[Schrolls]

Working from home today so I am stopping in for a quick hello.

>>>>>>hello

So much for quick!

Everyone stay safe with this huge storm!

 

[Denine]

We had the snow, then the ice and now snow again. Very windy too!

Pet sitter is coming by in a little while to pick up the key.

Just biding my time!

 

[Schrolls]

Lost my post in the middle of typing it so let's try again.

We only got rain and wind from the BIG storm. Denine, you just can't catch a break , can you? YES you can. You're going to WDW!!!!!!!

Work is crazy busy these days. But, it is a good kind of busy. It's performance review time and I know I kicked butt last year even with the turmoil in my life and they know it too. I am super pumped and can't wait to hear the news about bonuses. We usually here mid to late February and get them in early March. I am expecting good stuff. I better not be disappointed!!!

So, Charlotte got the Democratic Convention for 2012. It will be so crazy here. Paul was working for the Mariott Corp. in 1988 when Atlanta got it and he had to go down their to work it. Lot's of extra work back then. He is planning to bid for some of the security and protection work with another buddy. I can only imagine what downtown will be like when that is going on. Can you say: Work From Home!!!!!

Paul is out of town for the week and Turner is at his girlfriend's house. It's just me and Stanley and Blue until about 8:00pm.

Nothing else to chat about for now. Later!

LYMI

 

[Denine]

Susan: Good luck!!!! I hope Paul can get some work and I hope the Democrats lose big time in 2012!

Sunny today, but cold. I think we had somewhere around 10" total. It is hard to tell with the blowing and drifting. More snow coming for Saturday. But, we are outta Ohio come Sunday morning!

 

[Boardwalk Garry]

I'm thinking for as many trips as you take there a year, you should just get your Florida driver's license.

 

[Denine]

Garry: That would be nice. Right now, though, this is our only trip to FLA this year. We will be in DL in October and no other trips planned. We will probably do something in the summer, just don't know what.

Sunny again today. Leaving for the dentist soon.

Jerry's birthday was yesterday, but we didn't do anything special. We are kinda waiting for vacation to celebrate.

Our cruisers should be home soon I believe.

 

[Boardwalk Garry]

I'm predicting a trip to WDW in your future between February and your trip to California.

I know you were just waiting to celebrate my birthday as well, so get me something nice when you're there.

 

[jiminyC_fan]

Holy cow, a couple of posts from Garry and even more from Julie.

Loved the cruises. I only had one major complaint and that was the way they handled the MV merchandise. Just like on the first PC cruise people were buying armloads of stuff to sell on ebay leaving a lot of us without much. Things were being stolen from the ship like animator palate's butter knife for instance. I felt our deck two location was PERFECT. We had our regular oceanview room and felt it was smaller. A mod here on the DIS had a HUGE and I mean HUGE cat 9 room. WOW, HUGE! The set up in the Cabana buffet restaurant seemed to work pretty good. I didn't think so on the first embarkation day but it grew on me. The adult pool will definitely be too small for a full ship. Deck 10 aft rooms do not have easy access to a few floors. That's about it for now. I have major laundry.

 

[Schrolls]

Welcome Back. We missed you guys.

Can't wait for lots of details (in between laundry loads, of course)

Heading to the rink for 2 games today. Won't be home til tonight.


Later

 

[Pooh_Friend#1]

Hello Friends!!!!!! The ship was amazing and beautiful and huge!!!!! Some of the layout did not make sense but I think that is because we are so use to the Magic and Wonder and once we get use to the layout it will be easier. I will be posting pictures soon when I get some time in between laundry, taking care of the girls and my dog Sable. We came home to find out that Sable was attacked by my cousin's boyfriend's dog. She has some deep wounds but thankfully no muscle was torn. I think we all agreed, that although the Dream was beautiful and new, we still like the Magic/Wonder better although the Aquaduck was a blast! The best surprise ever was that Ernan was transferred to the Dream. It was so good to see him and he took great care of us.

More to come, just wanted to stop by and say hi!

 

[wildernessgirl]

HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY TO THE BIG GUY!!!

Seems like yesterday that he was drinking the wine off the ship's deck!!!!

Can't wait to hear more about your trip.

TTFN

 

[Denine]

Sounds like you guys had a fantastic time. Looking foward to more details.

Happy birthday Big Guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Too bad we can't make it to the party.

We are leaving around 3 to head down to Columbus. Our flight is at 7:10 tomorrow morning.

It is snowing again. Blech! Can't wait to see ground that isn't white!

We packed yesterday and cleaned today.

Hope Turner wins!

Hi Barb!

 

[jiminyC_fan]

Seems like yesterday that he was drinking the wine off the ship's deck!!!!

You beat me to it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG GUY!!

 

[jiminyC_fan]

Heidi's post about the ship was spot on. It was very enjoyable. The new Animator's Palate is fun with Crush interacting with the guests. Enchanted Garden restaurant is very pretty as is the Royal Palace. Food was about the same as the others. Smaller portions which is good. We missed the rolls offered on the other ships. Our cat 9 room appeared smaller. Surprising but I liked being assigned your show time for the nightly shows. The new show Disney Believe was a disappointment for us. We didn't go to any of the clubs. As Julie knows, we have a favorite beverage waiter, Ernan, and we spent a lot of time with him at night in the Outlook Bar. It is a small bar that overlooks deck 10. Beautiful view. Extremely hard to find so we pretty much had it to ourselves. Our table server would give us a brain teaser every night. He called it our homework. We would give Ernan and a fellow cast member, Wellington, the brain teaser. We had a lot of fun with that. LOVE, LOVE the new Shutters. Great layout. Great system, beautiful room. The ship has face recognition so you don't have to dig through tons of photos to find your pictures. They lump them in your own "book". You can also go to stations around the park, scan your card and your pictures appear on the screen. You can preorder your pictures there also. The aquaduck was sooooooo much fun. We went on it at night and that was beautiful........and cold. It was so worth being that cold. The adult section is not designed well so kids have to walk through it to get to their rooms. I didn't find that a problem but many did. The hot tub was fantastic. Great view from the window and also from the bottom of the hot tub. I was kind of shocked that it was pretty easy to find a spot when I wanted in it. I didn't think that I would like the lounge chairs above the pool on a different deck but ended up liking it. The deck floors don't seem to get as hot as the decks on the Magic and Wonder. Love the new way they have the "fast food" set up. Easy to get food and great variety.

Heidi and Ted had a great time on Pelican Plunge at Castaway Cay. It was cold there but they still did it. The new extended CC seems to work nice. We watched a couple get married there.

We were so fortunate to have sailed to CC when the Magic was there. We didn't dock but the view was unbelievable. We had a horn battle with them which made my trip complete!!! We heard all the tunes that the Dream can do. Wow, what an experience. Rachel the cruise director talked to Ted, Heidi, Chris and myself and she said that she was in the room with Capt Tom during it and that the two Captains were like two little boys.

Did I tell you that we were able to spend some time with Darren? It was wonderful to see him. We were both saying that it's always like we have never been apart. I just love him to death.

I won't bore you with more now. I might find something else to tell you later.

 

[jiminyC_fan]

Here is a funny story that MMmouse37 posted. The way she told it to us in person was hilarious.

Funny story one of the CM's told us. Seems a woman went to up to a CM and complained that a man in a yellow suit was staring at her in her room. The CM was confused at first and then realized she must have meant one of the crew cleaning outside her porthole.....she said no that was not it and that she had an inside stateroom and saw him staring at her through the virtual porthole. The CM tried to explain that it is a camera and at that moment everyone would see that same crew member in their virtual porthole and he was not staring at her. She insisted she was being spied on by the crew member. She was assured repeatedly that no one could see in her room through the virtual porthole....LOL!!!

 

[jiminyC_fan]

Poor Ted was called out to snowplow tonight until midnight. We are both extremely tired from the vacation. I have a slight cold and cough now. He is fighting a sore throat. I slept for 10 straight hours last night and am still exhausted.

Denine, I am gathering that you have left for FL now. Have a great trip.

 

[jiminyC_fan]

I'm home and all alone.....anyone want to talk to me? LOL

 

[jiminyC_fan]

The inch or two prediction ended up being 8 inches. It's very heavy snow. More to come next week. They are talking about school closures for that one. We shall see!

 

[wildernessgirl]

Sorry Sandy, I would have talked to you last night! Ok, I want to hear more about the ship. Did you get a chance to meet our server? The ship looks beautiful, but I know to a disney cruiser, there has to be some low points. Do tell! Does anyone know if when the Fantasy sets sail, will the Magic still do it's 7day cruises? Cause I was told the Dream will only be doing the 3,4, and 5 day cruises and the Fantasy was doing 7days. I was just wondering about the Magic.

Well, waiting for the superbowl game to start. Don't really care about either team, but hoping Green Bay has a good game. A true Clevelander will ALWAYS hate Pittsburgh.

Well, gonna run! But will be back checking in!

TTFN

 

[jiminyC_fan]

Julie, you don't have to be sorry. I know the weekends are hard. I was just being silly.

Hmmmm, the ship. We were told that the Magic was staying overseas, the Dream 3-4 days, the Fantasy 7 days and the Wonder stays in CA. The only downfall in my opinion was a design flaw and that is already being changed on the Fantasy. The aft rooms have horrible access to other decks. Another thing is that mid ship is DEFINITELY NOT MID SHIP. Forward and mid ship elevators extremely close and aft has LONG, long ways to go. No, didn't see your server. Lots of new CM's and lots of old CM's. Sounds like they really didn't get an option whether they wanted to go to the Dream or not. They were chosen. They all had great stories to tell about Germany. Most of them had never seen snow before and love to tell the story about the Mickey Mouse snowman. They were allowed to ride the Aquaduck in Germany even as cold as it was. DCL provided the wet suits. DCL also bought the CM's winter gear like coats and boots which I found was a nice gesture.

There are a lot of whiners out there and it makes me mad. If they wanted perfection then they should have avoided the first few sailings. I know we paid more but I still wasn't expecting the moon. I didn't experience half the bad stuff that is out there. As I said on another thread, a vacation is what you make of it. A negative person can find fault in anything. We found wonderful servers and asst servers. Our head server jumped in on the second cruise to help. Bar staff was wonderful but you know that.......Ernan is great. We made friends with the deck 12 guy who puts out towels and tends to the chairs etc. He's from Cancun and his mom recently moved to Playa Del Carmen where we go. He gave us his email address to contact him next time we are in MX.

When I saw pictures of the kids pool and family pool altogether I didn't think it was a good idea but it seemed to work ok. The adult pool concerned me, too. It worked ok for us but we weren't on a full ship and it was cold. I can still see that it could be a problem for warmer weather cruising.

I loved all the dining rooms. Someone complained that Enchanted Garden was just kind of thrown in with no thoughts behind it. It is GORGEOUS and elegant. I think I like it better than the Royal Table. Cabana's the Topsider equivilent was pretty cool. One complaint of mine is that the tables are so close together that it makes it hard to get around. People complained that you had to get your own drinks. Good grief, give me a break. Each little room in Cabana's had it's own beverage station and if you can't walk just a few steps then you shouldn't be cruising. Flo's the fast food spot is great. It never had a line and had a GREAT selection. They don't have napkins out so you have to ask for them. I get it though because they were always blowing around on the other ships. The Dream has two beverage stations with 2 or 3 fountains on each station. The District where the lounges are located is BEAUTIFUL.

I'm sure there is more, I just can't think of anything.