The Great Thinkers Sail the Wonder - April 15 - 19, 2007

[jrose529]

Chapter 11: The Punishment and the Crime

Day 6 – April 20, 2007
MGM & MK – Disney Grad Nite 2007

Let me regress for a bit now. About a month before our trip, I noticed that there was a Disney Grad Nite while we were visiting WDW. I checked into it and thought it looked great. DD’s favorite group, The Fray was to be one of 4 bands during the evening. It was for graduating high school seniors only and their chaperones. The Magic Kingdom was closing early and they would be setting up for the kids. There was a foam dance party, and most of the rides and shops were open. DD & BFF were very excited about the prospect of attending this event. There was one problem – It was from 10 PM to 4 AM!!!! I didn’t think I could handle that. I asked BFFD if he would take the girls. He wasn’t crazy about that idea and who could blame him. With a 5 year old waking up early, it would be difficult for him. In the meantime, DD found out that another friend would be in WDW during that time and she wanted to bring him along. Well, I’m weak and I wanted to let DD enjoy this special event. Every group needed 1 chaperone for every 10 students. There was a dress code and an amazing amount of security. I convinced DH to join me and we ordered 5 tickets at $40 each. I know; we’re crazy!

Okay, back to our originally scheduled programming. Since we were going to stay out so late tonight, we decided to sleep in this morning. Are you shocked? We got up at 11:00 and went MGM. DH & I didn’t have a chance to eat breakfast, so we went directly to the 50’s Prime Time Café. We always enjoy eating there. The 3 older girls saw us walk inside and decided to join us for milkshakes. They had eaten breakfast at Olivia’s at OKW, so they weren’t ready for lunch, or so they thought. If you have never been to the Prime Time Café, it’s a lot of fun. The waiters and waitresses act like you’re eating at home. They yell if your elbows are on the table, make you set the table and get angry if you don’t finish your meal. They don’t let you order dessert if you didn’t clean your plate. If you do clean your plate, they announce it to the whole restaurant!

Well BFF decided she wanted to see what would happen if she annoyed “Dad.” The girls did decide to share chicken fingers and fries with their milkshakes. They were writing their names in ketchup on their plates and “Dad” came over to yell at them for playing with their food. Then BFF put her elbows on the table. Uh oh! “Dad” came over and made her stand in the middle of the dining room. She had to sing and act out, “I’m a Little Teapot.” It was hysterical. She had a great time being center stage. We all had dessert, but couldn’t finish it. Luckily we didn’t get yelled at. It was great fun! Here is BFF Katie as a teapot.

The girls went off to go on the exciting rides and DH and I went on the Great Movie Ride. It 's just my speed. Unfortunately, it is getting old. We’ve done it so many times, we know what to expect. What we didn’t expect was having our car get stuck! It was at the Indiana Jones set where the driver comes back after the “robber” tries to steal the ruby. We sat there as the next driver got set up. It was pretty funny. Finally someone came to fix our car and all he did was bang on it and it started to run. What a riot.

We headed over to the Backstage Tour next. That had changed some and I really enjoy Catastrophe Canyon. DH works in the propane and oil industry and loves the fires.

We walked around the Streets of America taking pictures and went to the Light’s, Motor’s Action Stunt Show. That was new for us and we enjoyed it very much. There was more fire for DH. It was all very noisy though. I had a headache when we left.

We went to shop and ran into the rest of our group in the first store we walked into. No one really wanted to shop, so we went back to OKW to swim and go in the hot tub. By then it was 8:00 and we were hungry. After getting into our bathing suits, we got some food at Good’s Food to Go, which is the snack bar by the main pool. The air was cool, but the hot tub was great.

It was time to shower and get ready for Grad Nite.

Next up: Transportation Woes and a Sea of Seniors!

 

[wilma-bride]

Judy, I am really enjoying your report so far. Can't wait to hear about how you and DH held up at Grad night We are taking our first cruise in August and I am really looking forward to it. Every report I read makes me a little bit more excited

 

[jrose529]

Judy, I am really enjoying your report so far. Can't wait to hear about how you and DH held up at Grad night We are taking our first cruise in August and I am really looking forward to it. Every report I read makes me a little bit more excited

Thanks! I'll be putting the next chapter up shortly.

You will love the cruise. Are you sailing the Magic ot the Wonder?

 

[Firedog]

Judy,

You got some great pictures during your vacation. I'm glad I got to see them because I decided to look at the ones I took last night, and of course I never take enough, and the ones I did get are marginal at best. Good job!

We never did hook up with any Disers on the cruise but with our three kids we were constantly moving in different directions.

 

[jrose529]

Chapter 12: Transportation Woes and a Sea of Seniors!

Day 6, Part 2 – April 20, 2007
Disney Grad Nite 2007

Now we had a bit of a problem. Since MK was closed to the public, there was no transportation to get us there. All the groups came in their own busses. I think we were the only group of 5! I called down to the front desk at OKW to find out what we should do and they thought the best bet was to call a taxi. DD’s friend Evan was staying at The Beach Club, so he took a bus to OKW to meet us at 9:30. We called a cab for the 5 of us and they sent a regular sedan. I sat in the front and DH sat in the back with the 3kids. Do you remember the clown car at the circus? That was us. Now we expected to be dropped off at MK, but no the cab dropped us off in the middle of the parking lot at the Transportation and Ticket Center. We had no idea where to go. There was no one around. We wandered over to the monorail and found some security guards. They told us we needed Grad Nite tickets to ride to MK. Our tickets were at Will Call. They finally agreed to let us board the resort monorail and after we started moving, there was an announcement that they would not be stopping at MK! Now what. When we arrived at the Polynesian, DH jumped off to find out what to do. They said to just stay on; they made the announcement to make sure no one got off. When we stopped at MK, the station was swarming with security. They wanted to see our tickets before they would let us enter the park! We explained our situation and we were on our way.

I didn't ake any pics tonight, but Amy's friend Evan took pics with her camera.

I have never seen so many 17 & 18 year olds in one place in my life! It was a swarm of teens! We all had to empty our pockets and the kids had to turn them inside out. They thoroughly checked every bag and if the kids wore school colors or anything with the school names, they had to check it. They didn’t want turf wars! What on earth was I getting myself into? After our security check, we found Will Call, but they couldn’t find our tickets. We stood there for at least twenty minutes. Luckily I had my emailed receipt and they decided to print us new tickets. In the meantime, DH realized he lost his KTTW card! Not only did it have our DDP plan on it, it was our room key, park pass and had $1,500 worth of charging privileges! DH ran back to the security check point, but no luck. He called OKW and they cancelled his card. He’ll pick up a new on the next morning. Crisis averted!

The chaperones had to check in at Tony’s Town Square and give their cell phone numbers to the CM’s There were so many CM’s and so much security. This was chaperone headquarters and they had drinks and snacks all night. There were movies and free candy & popcorn in the theater. We saw The Bridge to Terabithia which was good, but sad. The next movie was Wild Hogs, but we saw that on the cruise, so we left. We listened to one of the bands, but it was too loud for us, so we went on a few rides. I wanted to see Mickey’s Phillarmagic and the Monsters Laugh Factory. They were both very good, but the kids never stopped talking. They were quite rude. I didn’t see any fights or problems, but boy were they loud!

Here are the kids having fun.

There was also a free breakfast until 2:30 AM for the chaperones at the Crystal Palace. It was nice and killed some time. We told the kids to meet us at 3 AM in front of chaperone Headquarters. 3 AM was the earliest they’d let groups leave the parks. We were done with breakfast at 2:00 so we went on a few more rides. They really need to get rid of Small World or at least redo it. I forgot how cheesy it was.

DH and I were a little late to meet the kids because we were stuck on Stitch’s Wild Ride. DH’s watch stopped, so we thought it was 2:10 when it was really 2:50, so we figured we had plenty of time for the ride. Oh well. That was not a very good ride. When we met the kids, who had a fabulous time, but were exhausted, we had to figure out how to get a cab. They were not letting any vehicles near MK so we had to go back to the TTC and call a cab. We sat in the deserted parking lot for about 15 minutes before it came. Again, it was a clown car! We dropped Evan off at BC and were in bed by 4:10 AM. Of course, I couldn’t sleep again! It was after 5 AM before I fell asleep and we had to check out by 11 AM! Yikes!!!!

Next up: Marathon Shopping and Now It’s Time To Say Good-bye.

 

[jrose529]

Judy,

You got some great pictures during your vacation. I'm glad I got to see them because I decided to look at the ones I took last night, and of course I never take enough, and the ones I did get are marginal at best. Good job!

We never did hook up with any Disers on the cruise but with our three kids we were constantly moving in different directions.

Hi Firedog, thanks for your kind comments. We missed you at the DIS meet. Did you enjoy the cruise?

 

[wilma-bride]

Thanks! I'll be putting the next chapter up shortly.

You will love the cruise. Are you sailing the Magic ot the Wonder?

We're on the Wonder

Just read your last installment - Grad Nite sounded like a hoot - kudos to you and your DH for making it through the night. I'm usually in bed by 10 pm when we're on vacation

We, too, are (brand new) DVC owners so I'm really interested in how the DVC/cruise trip worked out for you. We're doing it the other way around in August - SSR first for 2 nights, then DCL and then 4 nights at ASMu for free dining. I'm slightly concerned that we will be disappointed with ASMu after having stayed at SSR - however, if the staterooms on DCL are as small as everyone says, our room at ASMu should seem HUGE in comparison, right

 

[jrose529]

Chapter 13: Marathon Shopping and Now It’s Time To Say Good-bye.

We arranged a 9:30 AM wake-up call and scrambled to pack and check out in time. We called to have our bags picked up at 10:30, but they couldn’t get to us until 11:00. We all had our bags picked up at the same time and checked our bags at the airline stand. That was great. We didn’t see them until we arrived at Newark!

It was too late to eat breakfast at Olivia’s so we took the boat to DTD and ate lunch at the Rainforest Café at noon. I never checked to see if we could use our DDP there and of course we couldn’t! It figures. The food was okay, but nothing to write home about. I had a Turkey wrap. We ordered a Volcano for BFFS1 Lauren’s birthday, just to embarrass her again. We succeeded. All 8 of us tried the Volcano and it was delicious. It was the best part of the meal.

The kids all wanted to go to Disney Quest, so DH & BFFD took the 4 of them. That left BFFM & me to shop until we dropped, which we did. I bought gifts for my son, his girlfriend, my nephews, my dad and my Mother-in-law. I forgot to mention that MIL was rushed to the hospital while we were on the cruise. We were very worried about her! She hasn’t been well and was hospitalized 2 weeks before we left. She was in intensive care for 4 days. Her blood pressure was 60/40! They never found out why, but thankfully she’s home now.

Our friends had to be back at OKW for the Magical Express by 4:00 PM, and our ME was at 5:20. While we were shopping, BFFD called BFFM to say that BFFS2 was not happy at Disney Quest. (Did you get all that?) We ended up with Erin and had fun shopping for about another hour until they had to leave. DH & DD met me and we shopped for a bit longer and took the bus back to OKW. We still had a sit down meal, a fast food meal and 3 snacks left on our DDP, so we went to Olivia’s and shared a meal. DD & I shared a Turkey Club and soup, DH had a dessert. We bought snacks to take home in the General Store and walked away from our fast food meal. Over all, I would recommend the DDP. It saved us a lot of money. I thought I purchased 3 days for each of us, but it turned I only purchased a 2 day each. That worked out great since we ate at Rainforest anyway. The plan includes a lot of food, so I can see not being able to use it all, but it is cost effective for a short trip.

All 3 of us fell asleep on the bus to the airport. We had an exhausting few days after our relaxing cruise. We probably should have done WDW first. Since we checked in at OKW, we already had our boarding passes. Believe it or not, DD & I went straight to the Disney store to shop again. You’d think we didn’t buy anything at DTD! After spending more money, we went to our gate to await the boarding announcement.

The flight was uneventful, thankfully and we arrived at Newark Airport at 10:40 PM where my dad was waiting for us. The luggage took forever to show up and after dropping my dad off at his house in NY, we arrived home in CT at 1 AM. Now you’d think we’d go right to bed, but when DH went down to the basement, he saw that it had flooded and the water had been standing there for nearly a week! We began our clean-up and crashed at 3 AM! We spent the next few days working on tossing out everything from mattresses to clothes. It was a mess! A company came today to remove the carpet, disinfect and deodorize. It cost us a fortune! There goes any chance of another cruise in the next year!!!

We had a fabulous vacation, but coming home to that mess tarnished some of our vacation glow.

Next Up: Final Thoughts

 

[wilma-bride]

Thanks for sharing your report with us Judy. Your DD is a lovely looking young lady and I'm glad she got over her initial boredom on the cruise

How awful to come home to all that mess and trouble - glad it is finally sorted.

 

[jrose529]

We're on the Wonder

Just read your last installment - Grad Nite sounded like a hoot - kudos to you and your DH for making it through the night. I'm usually in bed by 10 pm when we're on vacation

We, too, are (brand new) DVC owners so I'm really interested in how the DVC/cruise trip worked out for you. We're doing it the other way around in August - SSR first for 2 nights, then DCL and then 4 nights at ASMu for free dining. I'm slightly concerned that we will be disappointed with ASMu after having stayed at SSR - however, if the staterooms on DCL are as small as everyone says, our room at ASMu should seem HUGE in comparison, right

You'll love it on the Wonder! It's smart that you're going to WDW before and after the cruise. That will give you more time. welcome to DVC, it's been great for us!

I've never stayed at ASMu before, so I can't comment on the size of the rooms, but you're right that nearly any room will seem larger than the stateroom. The stateroom is quite comfotable in size though, so it shouldn't be too crowded. It all depends upon how many people you have in the cabin and what category cabin you have.

 

[wilma-bride]

It all depends upon how many people you have in the cabin and what category cabin you have.

We're in Cat 11 and there are just the 2 of us, me and DH. We're doing a Sleepydog and testing it out to make sure the kids will like it before we bring them too

 

[jrose529]

Thanks for sharing your report with us Judy. Your DD is a lovely looking young lady and I'm glad she got over her initial boredom on the cruise

How awful to come home to all that mess and trouble - glad it is finally sorted.

Thanks, she's a great kid most of the time!

The basement was a huge mess, but there is a silver lining. We've wanted to clean it out and now we are forced to!

 

[jrose529]

We're in Cat 11 and there are just the 2 of us, me and DH. We're doing a Sleepydog and testing it out to make sure the kids will like it before we bring them too

You should be fine in the stateroom with just the two of you. I told DH that our next DCL cruise will just be the two of us. Unfortunately, we couldn't rebook just yet since we are still paying for DS's college and DD starts in the fall. It may be awhile before we cruise again since we used all our points for this year and next year. We decided to book a verandah room, so it was alot of points.

 

[Miscoehill]

Judy,

Your not alone...we came home to a basement filled with water too! What a mess and an awful smell as soon as we walked in the house. So up came the carpet, and some tiles...not a fun time. John is going to try and do all the work himself so we can save for another cruise!
Great trip report..make you want to go back!
Laurie

 

[wilma-bride]

It may be awhile before we cruise again since we used all our points for this year and next year. We decided to book a verandah room, so it was alot of points.

I must admit, I was tempted to book this cruise on points so we could get a higher category room but we need all our available points for next year's trip - 3 weeks for me, DH, the 3 kids and MIL and FIL

DH and I keep telling ourselves we'll be rich when the kids grow up and leave home but I guess there's always something that keeps on costing you money. I just can't wait until I can start going back to WDW at non-peak times

Looking forward to reading your final thoughts - would be interested to hear more about the DVC presentation on board - is it worth going to?

I'm off to bed now as it is 10:30 pm here in the UK and I have a 4 year old who will be up at 6 am

Been nice 'chatting' with you

 

[jrose529]

Since I'm on a roll, I'll post my last installment now. It will be nice to get it out of the way!

Chapter 14: Final Thoughts

We have been on 7 cruises, 2 of them on DCL, and by far those 2 were the best! Disney really does it right. I love the fact that they know how to cater to every age group. The only negatives I have are the smoking in the Cadillac Lounge and at the Quiet Cove Pool, but again comparing it to other cruise lines, there is much less smoking on DCL. The other complaint is that the shows pretty much stay the same, but compared to other cruise lines, the quality of the shows on DCL are far superior. So even my negatives can be turned into positives!

I found the DCL staterooms to be more spacious than other lines. I like the split bathrooms, but each side should be a bit larger. Our last cruise before this one was the NCL Dawn which is also a beautiful ship. The shower on the Dawn was uncomfortably small and the one bathroom was not much larger than one side of DCL’s split bathroom. The Freestyle Dining on NCL had its good and bad points, but no food on any of the ships we sailed can compare to the food at Palo. I also like DCL’s dining rotation. The embarkation and disembarkation on DCL is also far superior to other lines.

I just thought of one negative that I didn’t mention at the beginning of my report. Our lifeboat drill was in AP, as were many other groups. We were all sitting right next to one another. With all the CM’s making announcements at the same time, we couldn’t hear a thing! We’ve never had that problem before. Here is a picture of DD & DH, since I have no pics for this post.

As you can see, DD was not happy about this picture!

The first DCL cruise was a 7 day Eastern on the Magic and I thought 4 days would be too short. I would have loved to stay on longer, but leaving after 4 days wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. Maybe that’s because I knew my vacation wasn’t over just yet. Also, If I were going to combine the cruise with WDW again, I’d either do WDW before the cruise or spend more time at WDW after so we didn’t feel rushed. I would also spend more time in Epcot since we missed so much in the countries.

Thank you all for hanging in with me for this very long TR. I hope it wasn’t too boring.

 

[jrose529]

Judy,

Your not alone...we came home to a basement filled with water too! What a mess and an awful smell as soon as we walked in the house. So up came the carpet, and some tiles...not a fun time. John is going to try and do all the work himself so we can save for another cruise!
Great trip report..make you want to go back!
Laurie

I'm sorry to hear that Laurie. The smell was disgusting, wasn't it? Steve has a bad back, so he couldn't move any of the heavy items.

Good luck!

I must admit, I was tempted to book this cruise on points so we could get a higher category room but we need all our available points for next year's trip - 3 weeks for me, DH, the 3 kids and MIL and FIL

DH and I keep telling ourselves we'll be rich when the kids grow up and leave home but I guess there's always something that keeps on costing you money. I just can't wait until I can start going back to WDW at non-peak times

Looking forward to reading your final thoughts - would be interested to hear more about the DVC presentation on board - is it worth going to?

I'm off to bed now as it is 10:30 pm here in the UK and I have a 4 year old who will be up at 6 am

Been nice 'chatting' with you

Sometimes it isn't cost effective to use points for the cruise. You need so many points. We have also always gone at peak times, so we use more points.

When you go for 3 weeks, are you also going on the cruise? It sounds like a great trip!

The kids only get more expensive as they get older!

I enjoyed the DVC presentation. They give away some nice free goodies and it's nice meeting other DVC members.

Have a good night and thanks for taking the time to read my TR.

 

[disneegrl4eva]

Thank you all for hanging in with me for this very long TR. I hope it wasn’t too boring.

awesome TR Judy..I enjoyed every minute of it

 

[outahere]

Great TR Judy!!

I thought we would come home to a flooded basement, as well. However, I think the gutters we had installed last Fall probably saved us. The previous owners of this house has some basement water problems, which prompted us to do the gutters. Probably money well spent!

Take care and I hope to sail with you again.

Ed

 

[jrose529]

awesome TR Judy..I enjoyed every minute of it

Thanks disneegrl4eva, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Great TR Judy!!

I thought we would come home to a flooded basement, as well. However, I think the gutters we had installed last Fall probably saved us. The previous owners of this house has some basement water problems, which prompted us to do the gutters. Probably money well spent!

Take care and I hope to sail with you again.

Ed

Thanks Ed! It was great sailing with you also. When are you sailing again?

Unfortunately it isn't as easy as our gutters. They are relativley new. It's hydrostatic pressure coming up through the ground and cracking our foundation! We have alot of repairs ahead of us. We have to seal the cracks and reseal the floor. Steve sealed the floor years ago and we had been dry until last year. He put a curtain drain in this past summer and that worked for a while.The snow melt and intense rain was too much and everything failed! Our whole neighborhood is on ledge rock, so the water has no place to go. We had to drill a new well a couple of years ago and they had to go 450 feet before they hit water!