The Last Trip: An (Eastern) Fantasy Food Adventure-Bonus Feature, Pam & Her Mom Pt 2 Sept 17 the end

[pooh'smate]

Your sunrise pictures are gorgeous!!!

 

[dolphingirl47]

I woke up at 4AM. I'd had about 5 hours of sleep, and I tried really hard to go back to sleep, but it didn't work.

That is not good.

I really love this photo.

Then I went down to the lobby to turn in our request for SWDAS character meets and to get in line for Boo. And as I was going to look for the picture, that’s the one they didn’t include on my photo package. Boo hoo!

That is nice that they had Boo out for meet and greets, but what a shame that they missed out the photos.

Before getting up and speaking to the room, Captain Fabian stopped by our table. I didn't realize this but he was the Captain of the Wonder three out of the five times we sailed on it!

We really like him. He is definitely one of their more personable captains.

Corinna

 

[irene_dsc]

Loved the sunrise photos!

 

[palenskec]

Just popping in to say hi! Love reading your trip reports. We just got off our first cruise on the Fantasy last Saturday, and booked the May 2018 cruise out of San Diego for next year!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

That's my favorite one. Nice shot.

Even though I came here every day, I never took a seat anywhere.

Probably a good thing. The Cove Cafe would get upset if you tried to take a chair away.

After that I went back up to the room. Fran had me take a picture of this bag that we bought and this was for us and our usage. It was one of those, buy X amount of dollars, get this for some outrageous price.

Cool bag, though. Even if you took out a second mortgage.

Before getting up and speaking to the room, Captain Fabian stopped by our table. I didn't realize this but he was the Captain of the Wonder three out of the five times we sailed on it!

Sounds like you guys should be on a first-name basis!

 

[cruisehopeful]

Since your other reports are still going strong, I didn't realize I was missing a new one. This cruise looks wonderful. I am not even a Star Wars fan, but I am looking at the pictures and wishing I was there, too. I have a couple short Wonder cruises in my future, but would love to try out the Fantasy someday.

I'm hoping some of your motivation for cleaning out the apartment rubs off on me. We have a lot of junk to get rid of at home and repairs, etc. I get on spurts where I work on it for a few days, then I lose my motivation for months or sometimes, years! I keep a couple boxes out at all times that I can easily put stuff in to donate. I can't even bother will having yard sales or selling stuff on Ebay or Craigslist anymore. I just want to get rid of stuff and never see it again.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Stunning sunset pictures!

And all that food is making me hungry. Hope you're doing well IRL.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

Lovely photos of the sunrise. I saw a thread on the Disboards about the crew removing tables from verendah rooms because children were standing on them and they were a safety issue. Well I hope this doesn't apply where there are no children in the cabin. Where will we put our drinks!

Lovely decorated door.

I love that Star Wars bag.

How nice to attend the Castaway silver and Platinum reception. Lovely photo of you and Goofy. Food and drink sound nice.

Looking forward to hearing about Palo brunch. Sticky buns...

 

[Pinkocto]

They have to close Cabanas at 3:30PM otherwise no one would make it to the muster drill at 4PM!

You are so right! I never ever would have put those two together



Great update, gorgeous sunrise photos. I can't remember the last time I saw a sunrise.

Great door decorations!

Love the Star Wars bag, that would have come home with me too.

 

[franandaj]

No update and I know I have replies to get to, but I thought I would share this with you folks since I know you’ve been waiting for it to happen. Well already I've voided our travel moratorium. As of a week or two ago, the Panama Canal cruise was headed for the chopping block. We also weren't planning on going to the annual band conference this year even though we signed up for it at last year's Conference, and we have a hotel room booked. Flights round trip were over $1000 and with all the repairs we've been having to do we were running out of money. Then we got some good news.

Ten years ago when Fran’s parents were still alive they decided to sell their largest apartment building, but they had to reinvest the money to avoid the taxes. Well their choice for reinvestment wasn’t the greatest, but it is what it was. They spread the money out over seven different investments, and slowly but surely each of them has come to term. Some did well, others we lost our shirts. The last one is scheduled to sell in about a month, they’re telling us that we made 25% over our initial investment, so the good news is that we'll have a little extra cash in the bank and enough to justify both trips. We still have to finish the apartment to go on the cruise, but we are now set to go to the band conference over Labor day weekend. I pulled the trigger on airfare to Houston round trip yesterday. So help me, not only should we be out of that place by then, but it should be renovated and rented by then!

On the cleaning out the apartment front we did take our 26 “shoe box sized” boxes of shot glasses to storage. Almost all the furniture left there is on Craigslist. Funny thing about that. We met a young couple there who were interested in our Armoire, they gave us the 10 bucks and being rookies they proceeded to use our dolly (they didn't think to bring one) to wheel it out to their car. It was some little baby SUV, and they had a baby in the back seat. After several feeble attempts to get it into the car, they decided to come back with a truck. They put the shelves and drawers in the car and then put the Armoire on the side of the building. A couple hours later we got a text that they wouldn't be back. So Yay! We can't even donate the dang thing without shelves and drawers so now we get to take a sledgehammer to it so it will fit into a trash can. Hopefully we'll get some hits on the other furniture soon.

But I hate to say it, nothing is happening this weekend, instead we're going to be out to Disney, another former DISer will be joining us and crashing on the couch of our one bedroom villa. We have dinner with five of us on Friday night and plan to try and make a small dent in the wines from my cellar that are needing to be drank. Saturday we are attending a demo with Cat Cora, so there probably won’t be an update until sometime next week. Fran has been frantically working on the taxes, so I foresee her sleeping most of the weekend, at least when we’re not at dinner or demos.

ETA: And Fran tells me she has an appointment Sunday (while I'll still be at the park) for someone who wants to look at the four tall bookcases we have listed. $100 for the lot!

I'm not bringing a computer this weekend so probably no replies until after the weekend either.

 

[dolphingirl47]

The last one is scheduled to sell in about a month, they’re telling us that we made 25% over our initial investment, so the good news is that we'll have a little extra cash in the bank and enough to justify both trips.

That sounds like great news.

On the cleaning out the apartment front we did take our 26 “shoe box sized” boxes of shot glasses to storage. Almost all the furniture left there is on Craigslist.

Looks like real progress is being made.

Corinna

 

[bcwife76]

Oh wow, well congrats on being able to book those trips!!

Baby steps right? Funny about the armoire, but yes, a little sledgehammer therapy sounds fun

 

[juniorbugman]

Have a great weekend. I was going to ask you if you were going to be around for the Grand Prix of Long Beach but I see that you are getting out of dodge for the weekend. Never been to Long Beach but can understand it will probably be busier this weekend.
Judy

 

[Malia78]

Overall sounds like good news-- one trip confirmed and the cruise within reach.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Enjoy! I wish I were there this weekend!!!!


Congrats on getting a little windfall.
YAY for having vacay's booked. I'm glad you bit the bullet and booked some in.

 

[tiggrbaby]

Sounds like things are moving in the right direction!

Hope you have fun this weekend!

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

What fabulous news that the investment saved both trips! I am so pleased for you both.

Lol re that rookie couple and their baby SUV.

Positive update! We love those.

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

Loving your report so far!! I have the same DCL cross body purse that I got in 2015. Nothing caught my eye in March which was good bc I ended up with Pandora charms instead, lol!! Can't wait to read more!

 

[pkondz]

Hey! Look at me! Commenting on your TR!
(finally. Sorry!)

If you haven't been following along, this is our last trip we're going to take until we finally get our a$$es out of our old house.

Assets? You meant assets?

That is a motivating factor, but not evidently enough.

No. You need your butt on fire too, right?

For 17 years my partner Fran and I lived in our 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment. We even expanded it to include the 2 bedroom 1 bath that was adjacent. In it’s hey day we had 5 bedrooms, 2 kitchens, 3 bathrooms, a living room, a family room, and dining room.

What, no library?


Sad.

So, last December (2015), silly me said, “OK let's not book any new trips until we get the place cleaned out.”

Silly girl.

If you know us, you know we are Disney addicts. My first trip to Disneyland was around the 7th grade.

Awwww! It's little Alison!

She did crazy things like waiting in line 4-5 hours to ride Star Tours when it first opened.

That's... dedicated.
About as bad as waiting hours to see Jack Skellington... in driving rain.

But no one is that stupid.

Since then we've been to WDW nearly 15 times, we're one cruise away from Platinum on DCL.

Just like me!
I'm one cruise away from.... what do they call it when you take your first cruise?

We've been to Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and even the 24th Century.

Nice of Picard to give up his seat.

We also played at a concert for the Gay Games in Cleveland, so we had to check out the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame!

I missed that. Had to chose between that or Christmas Story house.
The latter won out.

Those of you who have followed along know that our day before we travel is always chaotic.

No. You don't say.

I did actually get to sleep that night! Almost six hours!

What?!?!?! Who are you and what did you do with the real Alison???

My perception of the morning was that I got up, got dressed,

I would suspect that's correct.
Otherwise you'd really remember.
"Went outside. Got arrested. Spent the day in jail for indecent exposure."

made it to the freeway when she asked, “Did you pack my arthritis pills?”

“Oh my god I forgot!” I gasped.

Ohhhh... crap.

Luckily we didn't encounter traffic

Sure. There's practically zero traffic in LA.





I have a story about that.
Which will have to wait upon the inevitable TR.

Evidently they had changed the rules. They wanted us to pay $150 to check this third bag. Fran said, “So we'll carry it on.”

Whoops.

so the ticketing agent lucked out. She could have a party that night.

They brought lunch. I had picked the Lasagne over the Greek Salad, not so sure I chose wisely. It was pretty gross.

It looks..... ew.

They brought us Ice Cream Sundaes, Fran went with the butterscotch.

Because Fran is very wise.

I chose strawberry topping.

Butterscotch > Strawberry.

We had a nice spacious comfortable room.

It's huge!

Whoa. That's more than our family of four takes.

Mischievous on vacation grin.

They brought us Fresh bread right away. It was so hot that tearing off a piece almost burned my hand.

mmmm..... yummy.... warm bread...

 

[pkondz]

I made us a waffle.

Not a huge waffle fan... but.... suddenly I want waffles.

Here's hers:

I get that you like to share, but personally, I would always take the blurry one for myself.

That's where the snag hit. Evidently the port channel was closed to all cruise ships. Normally the ships dock by around 6AM and the “walk off” passengers can leave by 7:15. The ship had just docked when we arrived at the airport at 9:20. The CMs told us just to take a seat and they would start checking people in after about an hour.

Ugh. Well that bites.

At one point they made an announcement about boarding and everyone got up and in line. But then they were like. “Just kidding, sit back down.”

"You didn't hear me say 'Simon Says'!"

the grandfather says, “Well we live in Long Beach, so that would certainly be convenient.”

Of all the people in that room and I sit down with the ones from my hometown!

Small world indeed!

She was so tired that she was falling asleep in her scooter

Awww... all tuckered out.

At one point I thought I had woke her up and I moved ahead in the line about 10 feet. I turned around just in time to see another passenger tap her on the shoulder. She made small noise of surprise and this time she did wake up and drove up to join me.

I don't know whether to say "awww..." or "lol".

However when we were what should have been 10 minutes from the port we hit the worst traffic our bus driver had ever seen. It took us another hour to get to the ship.

Holy crap.

And yet, you're still smiling.

Can I steal your shrimp?

and this Asian stuff caught my fancy so we had these bowls.

That's the official name for it on the name tag. "Asian stuff".

Oh my gosh the noodles were spicy. I downed my water trying to cool down my mouth!

Really! I'm surprised.
Usually buffets are pretty bland.

She wanted me to get this mousse and I remembered how much I liked the apple cobbler on the Dream. They added vanilla Ice Cream and I put vanilla sauce on top. Yummy!

mmmmm.... Apple cobbler sounds sooooo good.

It was called a Paradise Punch and it was pretty good.

Wait. Lemme guess.... Rum.

Fran was ancy to go shopping.

A favourite hobby of hers. Ship's shops good?

I believe this was the first time in all of our cruises she came out on the verandah to join me for sail away!

Nice!