disneyfaninaz
It takes faith, trust & pixie dust!
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2007
Well, I guess it's about time for me to start writing my trip report. We've been home a couple of weeks now, but between mountains of laundry 
, sinus infections, upper respitory infections and bronchitis 
, it was hard to sit down and write.
So here goes! Sit back, relax and enjoy!
Cast:
Me 40 something, Disneyholic, Breast Cancer Survivor and Obsessive Trip Planner
DH 40 something, reluctant Disney convert and wonderful husband and father who totally gets my obsession.
DD 8, Disney veteran and our little Hannah Montana. Shares Moms obsession with Disney
DNeighbors, DNH, DNW, DNDD1(16) DNDD2 (13)
Background
Last spring break we had the incredible opportunity to go sailing on the Disney Magic on a 7 night Western Caribbean cruise with our neighbors. We planned for nearly a year. In December of 2007, I was diagnosed with breast cancer (see previous trip report) and our cruise was in question. Fortunately, we were able to cruise in between my chemo treatments and had a wonderfully magical time on our cruise.
Because of my illness and not knowing until about a month or so before the cruise if we were even going to be able to go after all, my DH probably didnt do as much thinking about the cruise as he would of liked. Lets just say he had other things on his mind. Anyway, while we went on the cruise and had fun, he wasnt all that gung ho about rebooking another cruise anytime soon. Our DNeighbors, on the other hand, booked their Spring Break 2009 cruise while onboard. While I was sad, I also understood and knew that we would again sail on DCL someday.
Our life goes on, I successfully finish my chemo treatments and then do 33 days of radiation treatments. One Friday afternoon in August, the week before my radiation treatments are scheduled to be completed, my DH calls me from work and tells me that he has just spent the last half hour reading my trip report (see signature). He is remembering how fun the cruise was and how he wishes he had done more things. He says hes rethinking booking and asks if I wanted to go on DCL next spring break, 2009, with our neighbors again. Well, I guess I was too shocked to be very excited and started making excuses why we couldnt go next spring. That lasted maybe 5 minutes as I checked on-line
and found out that the stateroom we had last spring was still available. It is a sign, we are meant to go. I check into airline flights, released just the day before, and find SWA has a nonstop to Orlando on March 6th for $218 per person. Just about the same fare we booked last year, another sign.
Well, we tend not to be too spontaneous, so we decided to sleep on it and decide on Saturday whether to book. Well, the next afternoon, August 23rd, 2008, I booked our Category 7, Obstructed Verandah stateroom, 7120, for the 7 night Western Caribbean for March 7-14, 2009. Castaway Cay, here we come!!!
Last year, we flew in 2 nights early and attended the Pirate & Princess Party and spent a day at the Animal Kingdom. We decided to keep it more low key this year and fly in the night before, stay at POFQ and visit Downtown Disney the night before our cruise. We loved using Magical Express and DCL transportation so much that we decided to take advantage of that again as well.
Next: What's with the airfare?
, sinus infections, upper respitory infections and bronchitis , it was hard to sit down and write.So here goes! Sit back, relax and enjoy!
Cast:
Me 40 something, Disneyholic, Breast Cancer Survivor and Obsessive Trip Planner
DH 40 something, reluctant Disney convert and wonderful husband and father who totally gets my obsession.
DD 8, Disney veteran and our little Hannah Montana. Shares Moms obsession with Disney
DNeighbors, DNH, DNW, DNDD1(16) DNDD2 (13)
Background
Last spring break we had the incredible opportunity to go sailing on the Disney Magic on a 7 night Western Caribbean cruise with our neighbors. We planned for nearly a year. In December of 2007, I was diagnosed with breast cancer (see previous trip report) and our cruise was in question. Fortunately, we were able to cruise in between my chemo treatments and had a wonderfully magical time on our cruise.
Because of my illness and not knowing until about a month or so before the cruise if we were even going to be able to go after all, my DH probably didnt do as much thinking about the cruise as he would of liked. Lets just say he had other things on his mind. Anyway, while we went on the cruise and had fun, he wasnt all that gung ho about rebooking another cruise anytime soon. Our DNeighbors, on the other hand, booked their Spring Break 2009 cruise while onboard. While I was sad, I also understood and knew that we would again sail on DCL someday.
Our life goes on, I successfully finish my chemo treatments and then do 33 days of radiation treatments. One Friday afternoon in August, the week before my radiation treatments are scheduled to be completed, my DH calls me from work and tells me that he has just spent the last half hour reading my trip report (see signature). He is remembering how fun the cruise was and how he wishes he had done more things. He says hes rethinking booking and asks if I wanted to go on DCL next spring break, 2009, with our neighbors again. Well, I guess I was too shocked to be very excited and started making excuses why we couldnt go next spring. That lasted maybe 5 minutes as I checked on-line
and found out that the stateroom we had last spring was still available. It is a sign, we are meant to go. I check into airline flights, released just the day before, and find SWA has a nonstop to Orlando on March 6th for $218 per person. Just about the same fare we booked last year, another sign. Well, we tend not to be too spontaneous, so we decided to sleep on it and decide on Saturday whether to book. Well, the next afternoon, August 23rd, 2008, I booked our Category 7, Obstructed Verandah stateroom, 7120, for the 7 night Western Caribbean for March 7-14, 2009. Castaway Cay, here we come!!!
Last year, we flew in 2 nights early and attended the Pirate & Princess Party and spent a day at the Animal Kingdom. We decided to keep it more low key this year and fly in the night before, stay at POFQ and visit Downtown Disney the night before our cruise. We loved using Magical Express and DCL transportation so much that we decided to take advantage of that again as well.
Next: What's with the airfare?
Great start! can't wait for more!
We ended up booking a late afternoon non-stop flight for $268 per person. Yikes!! I wasnt thrilled but was hopeful I could get a better price later on.
I resigned myself to the fact that we would pay through the nose for airfare to Orlando this year.
I had all but given up hope of lower fares as the fares just kept getting higher. Well I immediately looked on SWA, but the price had already gone back up to $174 per person. I then checked my return flight and it had dropped to $219. Well, it was better than my original price so I changed my reservations and took my credits. For some reason, I went to check later that day and it the outgoing flight had dropped again to $159 per person. Again, I took the credit, only to check back later and now the fare was $139. I again took the new fare and ran. My return flight also went down again to $199. I now had well over $400 in credit to deal with, but thats another story. Suffices to say, we are traveling over fall break in order to use all of my credits before they expire. Gotta love Southwest Airlines! 
We finally ended up with $139 per person going and $174 per person coming home on nonstop flights. Not too bad! 
So it is now official, I am officially cleared by all of my doctors that I can go cruising! Yay!!!!! The shopping for new clothes can now commence. 
As we were dining with our neighbors, it dawned on me that I could get online that night at 10:00 PM MST to make excursion and Palo reservations as my 90 day mark was December 7, 2008. Boy, I’m glad I remembered that or I would have been 24 hours behind the 8 ball. 
We had already decided to book directly with Dolphin Discovery at Chankanaab for the new Swim Adventure encounter so all I needed to book was Palo and Grand Cayman. I had no problems neither logging on 
I had to make it through a Girl Scout Cookie Booth for 4 hours on Sunday, Girl Scout Leader Meeting, a Brownie Meeting and a trip to the zoo with the Kindergarten class I volunteer for and packing before we could leave for our cruise. What was I thinking? 
The day I was at the zoo, I asked my DH if he could get our boarding passes from SWA. My DH ended up getting us B boarding passes for Southwest Airlines. To be honest, he just normally doesn't deal with our plane reservations and just doesn’t get it about the timing with SWA and boarding passes. 
We ended up not sitting together as a family because of it, but hey, we all ended up in Orlando at the same time, right? The flight was uneventful and we ended up at the gate at 4:00 PM Orlando time. We then proceeded to Side B, ground level of the airport and checked in with the Disney Magical Express desk. Check in was very easy and we were directed to the red carpet to board our bus. We waited about 10 minutes in line for our bus to arrive. This is my 2nd time using Magical Express and I have yet to ride a Magical Express bus. This time we were on a 
Go figure! Anyway, while we had to endure the same lame jokes, he did drive faster this time and we arrived at port at 1:25 PM. 
A lot of them were already there. We met CapeCodRob, thrMike, WDWKeven, 7cotedwarfs, NYLaurie, WDWJAN, Jynohn and SplashMountainManiac and his parents. It was a lot of fun putting faces with names and we would run into them often during the week.
We went to the muster station in Animator’s Palate and waited to be dismissed. It dawned on me that I put my jacket on the security belt and didn’t pick it up. 
The drinks were very good. We got positions right at the rope in front of the stage and waited for the fun to begin. Tisa was our hostess. I wonder how many calories these guys burn at every deck party. They are moving! 
