Think of all the joy you’ll find …….. Update - January 06

[dizneeat]

Holy moly that's a lot of charms! And so many that i've never seen before. Thanks for sharing!

My pleasure! I never thought I would start collecting until I saw the DCL ones, then we got some glass ones in Venice and later the destination ones and other Disney ones came into the mix. We got two (or three?) new Disney ones on our last cruise and two or three while in Cozumel and Grand Cayman and there are still A LOT which I would love to have.

I've only ever visited once for a tour and it looked really cool! That will be fun to hear your experience.

I had NO idea they had tours on the QM, so this is another thing we need to do and I looked it up, a self guided tour is even included with the room. The ship looks so cool and we cannot wait to explore for ourselves.

EEEEK!!! I'm really hoping I can make it down there and meet up with you guys if at all possible.

That would be awesome! We would love to meet up with you guys.

That cruise is going to be AMAZING!!!! So excited for you to go already!

I was just stunned when I read the dates and then counted them down to the start of our school year. The Wonder returns to PC on Friday and school starts the following Monday, so that works out perfectly for us.
We have often talked about the awesome TRs we have read about crossing the PC and we would not have dreamed about being able to go on one ourselves, so, we are SO excited about it.

Okay, i'd be freaking out!

So were we. No fun sitting next to an emergency door that might become an emergency itself.

Did you like it?!

I really enjoyed it and was a bit sad I had not watched it earlier.

No way. Ugh i'd be sooooo annoyed!

Since we always fly in on a Saturday we are quite used to a wait when picking up our rental. But this was a bit more than we would have liked.

That's a good detour for sure!

Where's the drool emoticon?!

Here ya go!

How in the world did this happen? Does this mean i'll always have to bring printed papers with me from now on?

I always travel with a binder with all our paperwork. Always good to have backup, especially since internet access is not always that easy for us foreigners.

That is such a nice surprise!

It was just the best birthday surprise ever! Pure pixie dust.

Yum that looks delicious!!!

It really was and it was just the right size for the two of us.

 

[dizneeat]

​

Day 2, March 29

They say it’s your birthday …… Part 1


And even though we had gone to bed so late, we were up at the crack of dawn.
We peeked out onto the balcony to see if we had been dreaming the room upgrade, but the awesome view was still there. The sun was just coming up

and Tom put on some coffee, we grabbed some doughnuts and sat out on the balcony watching the sun and enjoying the view.

After our first cup of coffee Tom started getting ready, while I did a little repacking to have empty carry ons to be filled with drinks to take on board the Magic. At around 7am we shared the second half of Tom’s birthday cake for breakfast, then put everything together in a corner, hung the “Do not disturb” sign outside the door and headed down to the lobby. I made sure we could leave our luggage until 11am and they even offered to extend our check out time but there was no need to do so as we needed to get to the port anyway. But first we had a breakfast ADR to go to. We walked over to the Magic Kingdom,

went through bag check and were inside the park in less than 15 minutes after leaving our room. It felt so good to finally be back to the park after 13 months and we loved walking down Main Street

and enjoying the view of the castle

and the tram coming down the street.

And how cute was it to see that they had fixed an old children’s toy at the tram.

That’s one of the things you will only find at Disney. Soon we walked through the castle

and Fantasyland and walked up to the Beast’s castle. A few days before we had left for the US I had found out that Be Our Guest was now serving breakfast and I had tried for a reservation and score, got one at first try at the perfect time. And here we were now, checking in. We were quickly pointed towards the castle where we followed the red carpet and soon had placed an order and paid for it and were now looking for a table. The ballroom was buzzing with people so we went all the way down and then turned right into the gallery.

We picked a table at the side, Tom went to get some drinks for us and I started taking photos of the room. It didn’t take long and a Cast Member pushed a cart our way and delivered our breakfast. We had ordered two dishes to share, the



Open-Faced Bacon and Egg Sandwich, Poached eggs, Applewood smoked bacon, Brie cheese and Arugula on a toasted Baguette served with Fresh Fruit and the

Eggs Florentine, a Puff Pastry Shell with Scrambled Eggs, Cheese, and fresh Spinach served with Country Ham and Roasted Plum Tomatoes. We were also served a plate of

Breakfast Pastries. And after taking pictures of the food we cut everything in half and tried our breakfast.

The open-faced sandwich was nice, but the baguette was a bit on the hard side. We both loved the Eggs Florentine and the pastries were nice but not really anything special. All in all the breakfast was pretty good and we enjoyed it a lot.

To be continued ..........​

 

[Poolrat]

All caught up - So sorry to hear you were so sick for so long. Glad you back in the swing of things.

Great news on the new trip plans and all your mini vacations in Europe look fabulous.

That cake looks so yummy. MMMMM Birthday cake. drool.

75 minutes at the car rental counter !!! After a long flight and longer day - I am not sure that would have ended well with me.

 

[MEK]

I had that exact room view the one and only time I stayed at BLT. It was just gorgeous. Loved it! What a way to wake up.

Yours are the first pictures I have seen of BOG breakfast. Everything looks super yummy. What an awesome pick for your pre cruise breakfast.

 

[jenseib]

Catching back up again. I am so excited you get to do the Panama Canal! What an awesome treat!

Thats so fabulous you got an upgrade to your room. Score!!!
The donuts look so good. I am determined to lose at least 10 lbs before our cruise (15-20 would be better though) so my heart really pangs with longing as I look at them. LOL

 

[MAGICFOR2]

I never thought we would be able to do the Panama Canal. And I did not even really look as we were all set for 2016 with two Dream and a Fantasy cruise. I owe it all to Magdalene (flossbolna) as she told me to look at the dates. It works perfectly for us. The ship returns to PC on Friday before school starts, so this is great timing.
That would be awesome, if you were able to go on the PC cruise. I am keeping my fingers crossed for you.



I am glad you enjoyed it. We really enjoy these breakfast items. Good to know we are not the only ones.



No problem, Cynthia. I am glad you are here in the first place.
And don't remind me of breakfast at Camille's I would love to go back there myself soon.



I did ask if that was a common wait time and the answer was that it was spring break, so that's it. We usually pick up on a Saturday night and have had some long waits, but not as long as this time.
And even though they are so slow we are still booking Hertz - they have the best insurance packages and even though they are expensive - I am a better safe than sorry kind of girl.
And I hope you will be WAY luckier than us in August.




Yes, that was really so "unforseeable".



It was an AWESOME upgrade and I think it was because of the cake I had ordered. There was already another room number on the envelope that had gotten crossed out and replaced with the room number of our wonderful room.
And the supervisor explained it that way to us - the computer would not let her override our reservation, only when she had changed it to cash it would let her. She simply had forgotten to change it back to points, but it made heck of difference for us when checking in and being presented with the bill.
I have stalked the cake order thread here for a long time and was not sure I wanted to order something as Tom is not very much into sweets and a whole cake just for the two of us, which we would have had to throw out since we would not have been able to take it with onto the ship was just not what I wanted. Then I came across the mini cakes and was sold. And it was SO easy to order - email to the Contemporaty cake team, which Chef Brian answered within half an hour, then a quick phone call to place the order and ask if they would be able to place the cake in the room before we arrived. No problem and that was it. The cake was just the right size for the two of us and VERY good.



Thank you!
We were pretty sad when our plans for this summer had to be cancelled but the trip to Italy seems quite interesting and makes up for it a bit.
But then when we changed our plans to the Panama Canal cruise it all fell into place and we can finally explore the Queen Mary as well. I cannot wait to tour the ship and then spend the night there before moving over to Disneyland.



Tammie, our dates for WDW are not quite set in stone yet, but the Wonder leaves San Diego on August 26 and we should be in LA for 4 - 5 days prior. I'll let you know the exact dates when we make that decision.
You already have a lot of great things coming up for 2016 as well. And I hope all of Jim's plans work out!



It took a while, but now I am very much looking forward to our "old world" vacation. We picked some nice places to stay. I have been to all of them before, but it has been quite a while and we loved our short visit to the Cinque Terre last summer, so we are happy to go back.



That PD was just so unexpected! It was my impression that upgrades happen with cash ressies, but not DVC, so we were both floored when we walked into the room and actually saw the castle from our balcony!
As I explained to MEK above, ordering the cake was easy once I had made my mind up and I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was delicious and so cute.
Being up for over 24 hours helped a lot with falling asleep even with the huge sugar input. We were both on a high, just being at WDW and going on the cruise AND having all those planned and unplanned surprises.

Thinking of your previous disappointments, and your PD on this trip, I wonder if "Mickey" has been reading the DIS.

 

[dizneeat]

All caught up - So sorry to hear you were so sick for so long. Glad you back in the swing of things.

Great news on the new trip plans and all your mini vacations in Europe look fabulous.

That cake looks so yummy. MMMMM Birthday cake. drool.

75 minutes at the car rental counter !!! After a long flight and longer day - I am not sure that would have ended well with me.

Thankfully that sick time is behind me. I have not been so sick in a long time, so I am glad I am all well again.
It still is hard getting caught up everywhere and getting back into the swing of things.

We were really sad that we had to cancel our US summer trip, but at least our Italy trip comes together nicely and it gives us a chance to just do more day trips.

That wait at the rental counter was just insane. I do understand that they will not have a lot of people working on a regular day, but this was spring break and they knew that there would be quite a bit of business.

I had that exact room view the one and only time I stayed at BLT. It was just gorgeous. Loved it! What a way to wake up.

Yours are the first pictures I have seen of BOG breakfast. Everything looks super yummy. What an awesome pick for your pre cruise breakfast.

That is such an awesome room, isn't it! We were just in love with it and could not believe how lucky we had been.

We really enjoyed that breakfast at BOG and when I saw that our stay at BLT would coinside with them testing breakfast I thought it was the perfect place to celebrate Tom's birthday.

Catching back up again. I am so excited you get to do the Panama Canal! What an awesome treat!

Thats so fabulous you got an upgrade to your room. Score!!!
The donuts look so good. I am determined to lose at least 10 lbs before our cruise (15-20 would be better though) so my heart really pangs with longing as I look at them. LOL

Catching up ...... a game I seem to play myself pretty often right now.

We are SO excited about the PC cruise. I never thought the dates would fit into our school holidays and I just checked over and over again and finally booked. I was pleasantly surprised that those 14 nights on board came out cheaper than the Dream b2b and Fantasy cruise we had planned.

That upgrade was so unexpected. But it indeed was the icing on the cake. It was just the perfect start to Tom's birthday trip.

Since you are on a diet, Jen, I have to warn you - this TR will contain some serious food porn.

Thinking of your previous disappointments, and your PD on this trip, I wonder if "Mickey" has been reading the DIS.

What a sweet thought!

 

[dizneeat]

​

Day 2, March 29

They say it’s your birthday …… Part 2


All in all the breakfast was pretty good and we enjoyed it a lot.
Birthday breakfast over, we walked to the exit, took a few more photos of the interior of the castle

and then walked right over to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train to use the first of our FP+. There was already a stand by wait of 70 minutes and we thought we were in for a wait even with our fast pass, but after scanning our magic bands we walked through the line

and within 2 minutes we were seated on our mine train.

This was the first time we ever rode it and we both tried to get a few photos while enjoying the ride.

To be continued ..........​

 

[dizneeat]

​

Day 2, March 29

They say it’s your birthday …… Part 3

This was the first time we ever rode it and we both tried to get a few photos while enjoying the ride.
It wasn’t all that easy but we succeeded in the end and were quite pleased with the photos when we checked them lateron.

The ride had been good fun and we knew that we wanted to ride it again, but it will still have to wait until we return to WDW in 2016.
Once we were off the ride we walked around a little, explored some shops

and walked over to Cinderella’s wishing well, donating a few coins and wishes.

Then it was time to check out the new areas in front of the castle, which we had read about but had not seen yet.

We still had to FP+ but a look at our watches told us that it was better to let them go and head towards the exit if we wanted to be out of our room in time.

To be continued ..........​

 

[GoofyFan1515]

All caught up............at least for now! Love your pictures from Italy, and I have to agree with everyone who mentioned the umbrellas.......cool, but it is hard to imagine what a sight that would be crowded with people. Not sure about the pizza since I am not a fan of "raw" tomatoes. But other than that, it looks pretty good! And what is the deal with your obsession with ice cream? And why would I be right there with you??? I can't believe Rosie didn't mention the Tiramisu ice cream..........that sounds right up her alley.

Did I miss dates on your Panama Canal cruise trip next year? I know you said that the dates weren't all set in stone yet, but just wondering when you are looking at being at WDW.............just in case.

What a great first night when you arrived in Orlando (well, once you escaped the airport at least). Krispy Kreme doughnuts and being able to walk out on your balcony and see Space Mountain and Cindy's Castle.......not much better than that! Tom's cake looked really yummy!

Sorry you were sick, but glad that is all behind you! And looks like you had a great birthday celebration with the Disney cake and your "cat" bag!!!

 

[dizneeat]

I have to agree with everyone who mentioned the umbrellas.......cool, but it is hard to imagine what a sight that would be crowded with people.

That's why we never go in the height of summer - we had to do that as kids and it scared us for life! Gazillions of people on the beach, thanks but NO thanks.

Did I miss dates on your Panama Canal cruise trip next year? I know you said that the dates weren't all set in stone yet, but just wondering when you are looking at being at WDW.............just in case.

So far we are toying with the idea of flying into Orlando the first week of August next year. We will then stay for 2 weeks before heading to Anaheim and DL. I'll let you know as soon as we are able to make definite plans.

 

[jedijill]

Caught back up!

I'm sorry you guys got caught in the long lines but what a wonderful upgrade! That cake looked so yummy! Breakfast looked great too.

I'm so happy you are going on the PC cruise! Its on my bucket list but I just haven't gotten it to work yet.

Jill in CO

 

[dizneeat]

Caught back up!

I'm sorry you guys got caught in the long lines but what a wonderful upgrade! That cake looked so yummy! Breakfast looked great too.

I'm so happy you are going on the PC cruise! Its on my bucket list but I just haven't gotten it to work yet.

Jill in CO

It was just such a long and annoying wait if you have a voucher in hand and just need to pick up a key. But KK and the room upgrade made more than up for it!

We are SO excited about the PC cruise. I always envied the people who were able to take time off when school was on here. And now the dates just fell into place with the Wonder going east very early in 2016.

 

[Teri1]

Karin I love the pictures, trying to get caught up on your new report. We have lunch reservations for Be Our Guest on our next trip. I couldn't get dinner, but at least we are in! I can't wait to ride the Mine Train too! Very excited to read you changed to the PC cruise. Sounds so exciting to go on a new itinerary.

 

[dizneeat]

Karin I love the pictures, trying to get caught up on your new report. We have lunch reservations for Be Our Guest on our next trip. I couldn't get dinner, but at least we are in! I can't wait to ride the Mine Train too! Very excited to read you changed to the PC cruise. Sounds so exciting to go on a new itinerary.

We really enjoyed lunch at BoG. We have done it a few times and really liked the food.

The Mine Train is really good fun. It was unbelieveable, how fast we got onto the ride even though there was quite a wait posted.
And we still cannot believe that we will be able to do the PC in 2016. But I still hope that we will find time to enjoy WDW together with you again.

 

[cheermom2four]

Following and finally caught up!!! What a wonderful bday cake for your DH!!!

 

[dizneeat]

Following and finally caught up!!! What a wonderful bday cake for your DH!!!

Yeah!
Great to have you on board.
We both liked that cake - small enough for us to manage and still very very yummy!

 

[dizneeat]

​

Day 2, March 29

They say it’s your birthday …… Part 4


We still had to FP+ but a look at our watches told us that it was better to let them go and head towards the exit if we wanted to be out of our room in time.
So we started to slowly move down Main Street, just to see the dancers perform right where the side streets enter.

Needless to say we had to stop and watch and enjoy their dancing. Then it was finally time to leave the park. It had been a brief visit, but the perfect start to Tom’s actual 50th birthday.

Once we had exited we headed towards the resort monorail, so we could fit in another “ride”. The monorail just pulled into the station when we reached the top of the walkway and since about everyone left to visit the Magic Kingdom we got to have the car all to ourselves.

We got off at the Contemporary, used the ATM and walked through the shops admiring the Easter basket displays

they had before making our way over to Bay Lake Tower. I had asked if we could stay in the room until 11am and they had said that it was no problem and we had even been offered a later check out time, but we needed to get going anyway, just wanted to spend a little more time on the balcony enjoying our upgrade.

So after another Coke while enjoying the view we collected the rest of our things, checked for forgotten items and moved the rest of our stuff back to the car. In no time it seemed we went through the Contemporary’s exit and towards our next destination, Port Canaveral.
But wait, we needed to do a little shopping beforehand, so we drove towards Downtown Disney, saw all the work going on and went towards the Publix that is close to Lake Bryant.


And hit the traffic jam.

We waited in front of a traffic light for more than 10 minutes, then decided to no longer waste time as we had made no progress at all and head to the Publix at Port Canaveral instead. We got out of the line and tried to find a spot where we could turn around just to see that there had formed a huge traffic jam in the other direction as well.
So we just drove straight on, hoping that we would find a solution. Thankfully the GPS sent us up another street and soon we found ourselves on the highway, again, in heavy slow moving traffic, but at least it was moving. And as soon as we had cleared the airport, traffic got lighter and lighter and we finally made good progress.

It was already going toward noon, when we finally reached Port Canaveral

and I aimed for the usual Disney sign at the harbour, but every time I tried it would change over to Carneval,

which was kind of disappointing. We drove towards the town and soon found ourselves in the Publix parking lot. It didn’t take long to pick up a few drinks for the cruise, which we then put into the empty carry on before starting our way back to the harbour and the Disney parking structure. We arrived about 10 minutes later, paid for parking the rental car (and for those of you who wonder why we would pay for a rental car to just sit in the parking structure AND pay for parking – it saved us a lot of time on our last day! And since we were so short on time to spend at WDW this time it was more than worth it) and drove nearly all the way up to the top to find a spot. By now it was past 1pm and we hurried to remove everything from the boot, crossed the bridge over to the terminal and went through security in no time as we were the only people there, then we went right over to concierge to check in and had our Key to the World cards in hand in just minutes, plus we got a DCL birthday button for Tom to wear as well.
They had already opened up boarding to everyone, so we just walked over to the Mickey ears entrance and walked onto the ship. A minute later we heard our name announced and were back on the Disney Magic. Again, it hit me how small the Atrium is compared to the new ships, but this time I had been prepared for it and it didn’t bother me that much.
There were two things we still wanted to do, one of them being to check if we had been granted our request of a table for two. So we walked to the side entrance of Lumiere’s and had a CM waiting right there to take us to the right table and in a matter of seconds we knew that our request had been granted.
Yippie.
A look at our watch told us that by now they must have opened the staterooms and before we went in search of some food we headed up to our room to drop off our carry ons. I had Tom walk in first, as there was another surprise waiting for him, a DCL Birthday Package, which included a bed runner, a greeting card and a banner

and a bottle of Fairytale Sparkling Wine to toast his special day.

A short restroom break and we were off to find some food. For a moment Cabanas crossed our mind, but we wanted to try for Carioca’s as at least we would not have to search for a table. About 20 minutes before they closed the restaurant we walked up to the podium and asked if they still allowed guests in and were welcomed right away and were walked to a table in the back of the restaurant.
And on the way there a familiar face caught my eye.
And we must have caught his as well, as Jason, our server during the Med cruise, came hurrying over to us to hug us and say hello. The greeter who was taking us to our table had a pretty funny look on his face when we stopped right in the tracks to hug one of the cast members. Jason walked to our table with us, unfortunately it was not one of his, but he stayed with us and chatted for a minute or two and advised our server to take good care of us.
And after getting over the initial surprise of running into Jason and ordering our drinks we were off to the buffet. We were more than surprised to find it well stocked, even if they only had one line open and we did not feel rushed at all. We filled our plates with some yummy food

and went back to our table to enjoy it all while they were still leading guests to the tables. While we were eating, Jason came over again and we chatted a little more and learned that he had just gotten back onto the Magic after his vacation and that Jay, his assistant server during the Med cruise was still on vacation and coming back in a few weeks’ time. Time was just flying by and we were asked to go up to the buffet again, before they closed it, but we were both full and soon got up to check out our stateroom in more detail.

To be continued ..........​

 

[jedijill]

Boo to saying auf wiedersehen to WDW and BLT but yay for heading to the port! Glad you figured out a way to get around the traffic jam. I love the birthday surprise! I liked Cariocas but it is loud!

Jill in CO

 

[michelle9343]

Karin,
I am finally having a moment to read !! Your picture on main street that you mention about the childs toy, those "dogs" are actually named butterscotch and licorice. They are the pets of the main street new reporter Scoop Sanderson, he this the guy in your picture on the back of the trolley. Angelina is a very good friend of Scoop and many years ago when one of his "dogs" were retired they came home to live with us .
Tell Tom we all say HELLO !!!!