Hi All!
We got back on Sunday night, and were sad that the vacation was over, but glad to be home. I spent Sunday night washing clothes and repacking dh, who had to leave on a business trip first thing on Monday - talk about jumping right back into reality.
We had a great time on the cruise, and really enjoyed meeting everyone we came into contact with. Sam and I enjoyed the cruise more than dh, who realized that he doesn't particularly like to be cut off on a ship. He did say that if he was going to go on a cruise again, this would be the one for him!
We haven't decided for sure about the 2006 Cruise, but I think that, realistically, we may pass on it. Sam traditionally has the week of Columbus Day off for fall break, so this would mean that we'd have to take him out of school right after they come back from break. Since he'll be in the 7th grade next year, I'm hesitant to do that to him - especially considering how much work he had to take with him this year in sixth grade. He's an honors student, but he gets stressed if he falls behind in his work, and it wasn't a lot of fun telling him he had to do homework instead of hanging out in the Lab! So, it looks like this cruise won't work for us for a lot of the same reasons that the 10 and 11 day cruises are no good.
Some thoughts about the cruise:
* For me, the best part of the cruise was the chance to meet up with some of the people from this board. My biggest regret is that there wasn't more time for us to all hang out together. I loved all of the door magnets. Thanks to all of you who helped make our door more "colorful" during the trip. Oh, and it was too funny - since there were so many DISers on our floor, by the end of the cruise, our steward knew who people were - I walked out of my door one day, and thought I saw Amy by Cindy's door, and said to myself, "Is that Amy?" Our steward answered and said, "Yes! That's her!"
* For anyone thinking about getting pen pals for their children for future cruises, do it. Even though Sam's life got busy, and he didn't keep up with it as well as he should have, he really enjoyed having people on board who he already "knew". I think that some of the kids will keep in touch for a long time to come.
* I was overwhelmed by the generous spirits of so many of you. Mark and Mary, Cindy and Gary, Kay, John and Gail, Stacy, Amy, Diana
* If we have a say in the itinerary for the next DVC Cruise, I'd prefer that it NOT go to Key West. It just didn't do it for me as a one day excursion place. I'd rather go somewhere with better snorkelling/activities or just spend the extra day on
Castaway Cay. I know that there are those of you that really liked Key West, but it was probably the most underwhelming point of the entire cruise (oh, and I was NOT impressed with the Trolley Tour - we had a great narrator on our original trolley, then got on a second one where the driver had the personality of a corpse... at least everyone got in an expensive nap.
)
* Kermit's Key Lime pie was great. Their Citrus Salsa is even better. Thanks Food Network.
* I was glad that we got a chance to hear Jim Lewis speak. He's a great public speaker, and it was enjoyable. We also had a chance to talk with him the first day on Deck 9 - we happened to sit a table away from his family, and his boys are around the same age as ds. Great icebreaker! His family was very nice and gracious, and his kids remind me of any other tween boys out there.
* Ducky Williams was another highlight of the trip. I love the lithographs we received the last night. Now I need to see if there was a framing coupon in Sunday's paper from Michael's. I'm going to double mat the print along with a set of the pins from the cruise, and hang it in my office. It will work out great!
* The scrapbooking class was excellent - truly a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours, and I would do it again in a hearbeat. Thanks for all of your hard work on this!
* Thanks to all of those of you who wrote to me about the pillowcases. I'm truly touched that you liked them (yes, I was worried that you wouldn't!) and I hope that your children enjoy them in the future. I also want to take a minute to thank all of you who helped to defray the expense of the pillowcases. I couldn't have done it without you. In the beginning, I thought that I would be making a couple of dozen pillowcases. In the end, it ended up being slightly over five dozen!
* I wasn't really that excited when I heard about the 220 point giveaways for America's Funniest Home Videos... I wish I was going to the Annual Report meetings, because I have some serious questions about this. My biggest question is who will be footing the bill for 480 points plus dues for 47-48 years? If it comes out of marketing, that means that we're footing the bill for it. Since DVC is selling nicely on its own, I don't really see where DVC needs the marketing push. ABC, which is Disney owned, will be the ones who benefit the most from this IMHO, so I'm hoping that they will be buying the points and footing the bill for maintainance, and not those of us who own DVC. This also sets a presidence for point giveaways for other Disney/ABC ventures. I'm not sure if I'm happy about seeing things go in that direction...
* I don't know if it's always like that or not, but Shutters was a madhouse!!! I wish that they would go to a photopass card type of thing, or come up with a way to sort the photos by stateroom/table #. It would make things so much easier. We had some pictures taken that we never found (and others that we quickly threw into the "bin of disgust"
). On the bright side, that was money in our pockets and not in theirs!
* I can't believe it, but I never got to try a Konk Kooler. But I did try out many other tasty concoctions.
Oh, and if you mention that you don't like the banana in the Member drink (forget what it was called) - they'll mask the flavor with extra 151 rum. By the second drink, I forgot there was any banana in there to begin with.
* We bought the wine package. I wouldn't do it in the future. Although the wine was good, we found ourselves preferring other adult beverages, and ended up taking two bottles home. Next time we'll just order by the glass.
Lisa
