Watch Out DCL...oopsiDAISY is Having a Quackattack on the High Seas!!!

oopsiDAISY · Jan 15, 2014

Out with the old and in with the new for this January 2014! I have just wrapped up my 2013 trip report, so now it is time to start my 2014 pre-trip report! For those who are new to the oopsiDAISY report experience :welcome:

! To get to know our family better, feel free to click on the links in my signature. Here is a very squinty sneak peek of the oopsiFAMILY:

This year the oopsiFAMILY is embarking on a brand new adventurea Disney Cruise!!! This whole thing is brand new for us. We have never been on a cruise before AT. ALL. To say that we are excited would be a huge understatement.

Another new facet of the adventure is that we will be joined by IRL friends, who also happen to be Disersthe Quackattack family! This is obviously where I got the report title from, clever, huh? :thumbsup2

The Quackattacks are fellow Disney nuts, and have been on multiple Disney cruises. They will be an invaluable resource for us as we plan for this adventure. Quackattack will be tag-teaming this PTR with me, so expect to hear from her from time to time as well. Here is a sneak peak of Quackattack and her family:

Her son is photobombing the otherwise lovely picture of his parents. :rotfl2:

Cruise details so far are as follows

Cruise Dates: October 4-11, 2014
Cruising Vessel: Disney Fantasy
Destination: Eastern Caribbean
Ports of Call: St. Marteen/St. John, St. Thomas, Castaway Cay

Its going to be a great adventure, and we hope you will join us as we plan for it. For anyone who has followed previous oopsi-reports you already know this; but to those who are new to us..get ready, because oopsi-reports always have thrills and chills, ups and downs, lots of silliness, and some really fun Disney movie nights sprinkled in, too. Are you ready? Hang on because:

oopsiDAISY is having a Quackattack on the High Seas!!!!

oopsiDAISY · Jan 15, 2014

Would you like to meet the oopsiFAMILY?

First there is me, oopsiDAISY. I am Connie, and I am a fourtysomething year old Disney fan. I work as an administrative assistant for a small, private university right here in our hometown. I enjoy reading, planning and hosting themed parties and movie nights, all things DISNEY, and just hanging out with my wonderful family.

Next is the oopsiHUBBY, Brian. Brian is an almostfourty year old Star Wars fan. He works as an aircraft maintenance planner. He enjoys Star Wars, playing his X-box, and relaxing at home. He is also a part time student. Brian is working hard to complete his Business degree through the online program offered by the university that employs me. He is just a year and a half away from completion, and will have to spend part of his time on the cruise doing schoolwork. :worried:

Next in the oopsi-line-up is:

Jillian is fourteen years old, and a daddys girl all the way. Like her daddy, she is a sci-fi fan. She has a wicked sense of humor as well. She loves to bake, and do creative things with cupcakes. Cake Boss is high on her list of faves, but like the rest of usDisney is TOPS for Jillian.

Next we have:

Charity is our almost twelve year old girly-girl. She loves to play around with fashion, and LOVES jewelry, accessories of all kinds, and SHOES, lots of SHOES. She is as her name, very loving. She is a social butterfly who befriends all she meets. She is the source of lots of laughter and silliness in our family.

And the caboose to the oopsiFAMILY is:

Gabriel is our seven year old BOY, ALL BOY! He is a creative genius. His one liners keep us in stitches. He must have a costume for every occasion, every movie, and every TV show he watches. He could entertain himself for HOURS, but we are so glad he entertains us as well!

Expect a post from Quackattack later on with introductions to her family!

oopsiDAISY · Jan 15, 2014

Chicago Mo · Jan 15, 2014

I'm here!!!!! Am I on the first page?!?!?

DMGeurts · Jan 15, 2014

Here... Will brb to read. Yay! Super excited for this ptr, its been a long time coming!

D~

Pluto0809 · Jan 15, 2014

I'm here! Wouldn't miss this one for the world!!

KatMark · Jan 15, 2014

I've been waiting for you to start this. :woohoo:

Love the intros.

Now let the planning begin. :goodvibes

mickeystoontown · Jan 15, 2014

Joining in for the fun! You chose some really good pictures for the intros! :thumbsup2

missangelalexis · Jan 15, 2014

Joining in to hear all about your cruise plans! :cool1:

solana131 · Jan 15, 2014

Yay! So excited to hear all about your cruise plans! I have been on many cruises, but never a Disney one. I think you are going to be in trouble....you are NEVER going to be able to take a "regular cruise" after this :thumbsup2

Just like theme parks, Disney does it right and nothing will ever measure up again. So excited for you and the oopsiFAMILY!

FeFeMJ · Jan 16, 2014

Ok. Just finished your trip report and so happy that you've started the PTR for the cruise. So excited to read all about your Disney movie nights! I think you guys are always so creative with them!

krdotson · Jan 16, 2014

Following! :banana:

oopsiDAISY · Jan 17, 2014

Chicago Mo said:
I'm here!!!!! Am I on the first page?!?!?

Mo was first to the party....imagine that!! :rolleyes1

DMGeurts said:
Here... Will brb to read. Yay! Super excited for this ptr, its been a long time coming!

D~

D~ is in da house!!! :woohoo:

Pluto0809 said:
I'm here! Wouldn't miss this one for the world!!

Gotta have our bagelnana here for the party to start! :cool1:

KatMark said:
I've been waiting for you to start this.

Love the intros.

Now let the planning begin.

And the party crew just keeps getting better...gonna be a wild one! :dance3:

mickeystoontown said:
Joining in for the fun! You chose some really good pictures for the intros!

OOOOOO~EEE, when Mickeystoontown shows up you know there is going to be some craziness! ::yes::

Thanks for joining the party! :banana:

missangelalexis said:
Joining in to hear all about your cruise plans!

So glad you came to another oopsi-PARTY!!!! :thumbsup2

solana131 said:
Yay! So excited to hear all about your cruise plans! I have been on many cruises, but never a Disney one. I think you are going to be in trouble....you are NEVER going to be able to take a "regular cruise" after this Just like theme parks, Disney does it right and nothing will ever measure up again. So excited for you and the oopsiFAMILY!

SuziQ!!!

I have been so antsy to get this thing going, so glad it's finally time to get the party started!!! Yes, I fear this is going to spoil us for life! De~LUXE baby!!! :wizard:

FeFeMJ said:
Ok. Just finished your trip report and so happy that you've started the PTR for the cruise. So excited to read all about your Disney movie nights! I think you guys are always so creative with them!

krdotson said:
Following!

WELCOME to the both of you!!!!!! SOOOOO happy some fellow cruisers showed up to the party! :hyper:

Feel free to threadjack at any point to add your own plans or two cents!

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Now we just need Cheekypoppins and Quackattack to show up... where are those two??? :confused3

oopsiDAISY · Jan 17, 2014

Okay, today I will try to catch everyone up on what has already been planned so far...but before that, a little back story:

For those that followed my "Disney-Fication" TR you may or may not remember that we had to make a change of plans a couple months ago. With the original plans, Quackattack and her family were not going to be able to join us. WITH the change of plans, they jumped on board with us. Here is what happened:

My kids go to schools that function under the "alternative" or "year round" schedule. With this, summers are shorter, but they get two weeks for fall break and two weeks for spring break. Going on that we booked a Western Caribbean cruise the week of October 11-17. Quackattack family could not come, because their DS goes to a different school and would not have fall break that week. So about two months after booking the Western cruise, the new school calendar for 2014-2015 comes out... and... :scared1:

They are no longer going to have the year round schedule!!! AND, the one week they will have fall break is the week BEFORE the cruise!!! :faint:

After panicking, calling the school, talking, finagling, crunching numbers, checking other options, and talking some more, we settled on the Eastern Caribbean cruise. It was a bit more expensive, but we budgeted to handle the extra cost.

After booking, I had a Dismeet that Quackattack joined me for. On the way over I told her about the change. She liked it, but made no other comment.
The dismeet was at a local mall, and at one point while we were there we parted ways to shop different stores. When we met back up, Quackattack had her DH with her. He had met her there after leaving work. They both looked at me with sly grins. That is when Quack-a-DH said..."should we tell her?" They were going on the cruise with us!!! :banana:

So...now on to what has been done so far in the process. :thumbsup2

The Quackattack family has started joining us for our monthly movie nights. If you want to see pictures of the most recent one, click on the link for the Disney-fication TR and skip to the last page or two.

We have a family savings chart posted on the fridge:

I wanted to have it visible for the kids so that they will understand why the answer is NO to some of their wants... you know what I am talking about don't you? "Can we go to a restaurant for dinner tonight? "Can I have that new toy?" "Can we go to the movie theater to see that?" The answer to these types of requests is usually no for impulse wants. We plan ahead for dinners out, movies, etc. We have a strict entertainment budget and we stick to it. With the savings visible, it reminds them that we aren't just being mean when we say NO.

In addition to that, the kids have some savings of their own:

Whatever is saved in these jars will be souvenir money. They are all doing GREAT with this. They have decided that when they get chore money, Christmas money, birthday money, etc..they will spend half and save half.

There will be a Pirate Night on the cruise, and our costumes are ready. Gabe already had a pirate costume that we purchased to fit big for halloween last year, so that he could still fit into it for the cruise. I ordered costumes for the rest of us.

For the girls:

If you know their personalities, you will have no problem figuring out whose is whose. :lmao:

For Brian and I:

These are just vests. We will wear them with white shirts, jeans, and boots for me.

There is also going to be a Halloween party on board. We have a theme and costumes picked out, just haven't purchased them yet. I will make you wait to see what we will do for that. :rolleyes1

Lastly...the countdowns. We must all have countdowns, right? Here is what my 2014 calendar looks like in the kitchen:

And finally....

disny_luvr · Jan 17, 2014

YAY! You started a PTR. I've been waiting soooo long for this. Our cruise was an Eastern, too. You'll love having the extra sea day. I can't wait to read more.

cogero · Jan 17, 2014

I am here and now to go read.

oopsiDAISY · Jan 17, 2014

disny_luvr said:
YAY! You started a PTR. I've been waiting soooo long for this. Our cruise was an Eastern, too. You'll love having the extra sea day. I can't wait to read more.

I cannot wait to compare notes with you! :hyper:

Please pipe in and give advice, wisdom, tips ANYTIME! And I do hope you will share pictures from time to time as well. :goodvibes

cogero said:
I am here and now to go read.

A new friend!!! I have seen you on other threads ( I think we follow a lot of the same ones), but don't think I have formally met you. WELCOME!! :wave2:

TXDisGurl · Jan 17, 2014

Joining in! We will be on this sailing too!

DMGeurts · Jan 17, 2014

Absolutely loved this update Oopsi!

Ok - I like to think I know your girls pretty well... But I stared at those costumes for at least 5 minutes, and I could see no major difference - other than one was more red than the other. :confused:

Soooo...

Love your count down calendar... but even more - I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your savings graph! That is totally awesome!!! I need one of those... And LOOK at how much you have saved already!!!! SOOOO Proud of you!!!! That is going to be an Ahhhh-mazing cruise!!

D~

solana131 · Jan 17, 2014

The costumes look great! And I love that you have your savings up for the kids to see...it really does help with the "no"s. Love their little savings jars too. Bradey has his Disney money in two vintage Mickey and Minnie banks that I used to have in the 80's :thumbsup2

Watch Out DCL...oopsiDAISY is Having a Quackattack on the High Seas!!!

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