I dont think I mentioned here that BIL, the one in Cali, went to the ER twice the weekend before the trip. So 6/14 to 6/16. Fri night he said numbness tingling and burning in his hands and feet, MIL told him he needed to go in right away so he did after a bit. He had gone in to urgent care a day or two before and been diagnosed with pneumonia. BIL had shingles last winter and has had a cough since then, but does not take care of himself so didnt go in. Then his wife had gallbladder issues (a whole other story) so he didnt go until that was taken care of.
So this ER trip they sent him home the next morning, not sure what was wrong but said he didnt have pneumonia. Then he went back on Sunday afternoon because he was having trouble breathing. They said his throat was swollen and thought it was a reaction to the medicine.
Meanwhile I am ready to fly ILs out to Ontario which is the closest airport for 12k United points, told them not to worry but they waited. After Sunday they switched meds or took him off or something and he was supposed to go back on 6/28 for a follow up and do allergen tests. BIL is all I'm fine now, still going to try and meet you guys for Kennedy.
Now, I could write a book on his wife. I tell DH I dont have to claim her as SIL because his brother married her
But sticking to my personal observations and impressions. She is a high maintenance, attention seeking type. There is always some drama going on. Anytime BIL leaves or is about to there is a crisis. I also feel like she is the type who feels she needs to compete with and replace BILs family in his life, if that makes sense. I believe you can't necessarily let family get in between your relationship with your spouse and make all your decisions and cause issues, you need to put your spouse and kids first, but they dont need to be cut out unless there are certain situations. My dad is an Alien Swirling Saucers-hole but DH did not try to get rid of him, he left that to me and I had to figure out everything for myself which was good. My ILs are not crazy overbearing people. She had to have her gallbladder removed recently. Outpatient procedure. She kept putting it off with the excuse of needing to check out the surgeons, but also going to the ER every 3 days for the pain. Bad enough the ER dr was finally like, we are doing this tonight and being done with it. Then he got called away and said we will do it in the morning and you are staying overnight because we dont trust you not to go home and eat and sabotage this. So theres a teeny look at SIL.
So we bought insurance for this trip, right? Mainly thinking of grandparents but BIL is all no, I'm doing better, it's fine. Ok, so we give everyone including SIL the ship phone number and two email addresses.
DCL gives you 50mb of free data, so the plan was to try and check email a couple times a day. Everyone was supposed to email BOTH emails because we didn't know which would get checked first. One was mine and one was FILs, chosen because we get the least emails to save data. But then MIL got worried about accidentally turning the phone on when we were leaving on tbr cruise Sunday so we didnt set hers up to check FILs email. It's fine, we'll just check mine!
Soooo can anyone see where this is going?
BIL goes back into the hospital on Monday morning. He sends an email like hey I'm going back to the hospital. To ONLY FILs email. Dropped ball number one. So we dont know. Other BIL back in CO doesnt know either, just his brother is no longer answering so he texts SIL who says hes back in the hospital but fine. Dropped ball numbers two to... five? BIL doesn't tell BIL, SIL doesnt tell him or us, BIL in CO sends an email about it... to ONLY FILs email. Arghhhh.
So then we figure out we can call and text over wifi! This never crossed my mind or came up online anywhere. Seriously next time I will just budget a data package and then tell people we can respond to texts but only occasionally. So DH sends BIL a text like how are you feeling and he responds, when can I call. Ok, this is not a good sign. So we try wifi calling and get ahold of him on speaker with everyone there.
One more small interjection, BIL mentioned on the call that he was going to call the ship that night if he hadn't heard from us... which is about $8 a minute plus fees. He sent ONE email that he was going, sent nothing else, SIL sent nothing else, before he was going to place a $300 phone call. Seriously next time data package, no one is getting the ship number.
On to seriousness. BIL seems to have contracted one of those one in a million chance auto immune diseases where after clearing a normal infection his antibodies for whatever reason started to attack his nerves. They are doing treatments but wont know what kind of recovery he could be looking at until they can do rehab or more tests. His regular dr is back today so they are supposed to find out more today. When we spoke to him on the ship he said he was too weak to get up himself. He couldn't eat solids because that was what was wrong with his throat, more paralysis/no control not swelling. It was hard for him to talk.
GUYS THIS WAS AT THE TIME SIL WAS TELLING OTHER BIL HE WAS FINE THEY WERE JUST RUNNING TESTS. WHATTTTTTT THIS IS NOT FINE IN MY BOOKKKKKKK
So BIL probably couldn't reach out more, but how could she not? What in the actual bad word????
And they knew that weekend he was going back in. We could have cancelled everything at that point and sent ILs out there. Had we found out Monday we could have jumped ship in Nassau on Tuesday and gotten half the money back and everything else. I dont want to sound like all that matters is the money it's more that everyone would have been happier being there sooner. And frustrated that BIL was not honest with us about what was going on because he didnt want to ruin the trip.... Instead everyone stressed and fretted and didnt really enjoy the last 1.5 days of the cruise. Other BIL booked flights out there and hotel for ILs and and flight home for aunt on Fri. So now on my to do list for the day is to reach out to insurance because I think the policy should cover those flights.
So that's how we ended up back at Disney over the weekend. We dropped everyone off at the airport and booked a room at the Dolphin. I had a thought of cashing out some Discover cb for Hotels.com GCs and booking through there, but their GC tool is still down online and would have had to call in the car and no notepad handy.... just said screw it and booked the AAA rate and used my $40 Amex offer. Just glad we have a cash cushion so it didnt really matter. I was able to refund the KSC tickets through Expedia. I cancelled the rooms in Canaveral for Fri night which were booked with certs and cancellation said we'd get them back. I havent seen them in the accounts yet but kinda figured I would have to contact Marriott because that's what happened last time too. Kept the original car rental and just paid for a second night of parking at Swolphin since we took back half of ILs things that they wouldnt need and left some bags in the car. Lost the AA points for the second Dolphin room but all I cared about was not getting charged the resort fee on it...
ILs hotel room is through Thursday currently. Early stages but will probably look at getting them SW CP to help with travel expenses and help them make the spend. Maybe something for hotels too. have a feeling there will be lots of back and forth. One set of grandparents knows what is going on becuase of aunt, but DH and I are off to try and tell other grandma tonight (along with his dad on the phone) which worries me, I think it will be hard on her
.
It was a final hilarious moment before I had to pack up and go, and we both totally wished that were true. 
Not at all like I'd imagined.
I'm sorry that trip didn't go according to plan.
