Western Magic 10/21/06 - 10/28/06 Trip Updated 6/21 Chapter 17: the final chapter!

[mom_of_2_princesses]

Great report. I spent most of the day reading it so I got nothing done. Definitely worth it though.

 

[Disneygrl36]

Yeah new installments........life sure does get in the way doesn't it....but it's ok. We are here & we will wait some more patiently than other ( I have quite a long countdown left compared to others).

Love, love, love Castaway Cay. Wish you could bottle the feeling of being there & spray it on when you were having a bad day.

More please.

 

[stenogoddess]

Great installment!

 

[DisneyZell]

Great chapter Disney Zell! I do believe you will make it by May 3rd!!
Karen

aaaargh! you jinxed me!!!

Geesh! Waiting for the rest of your trip report took almost as long as this board is taking to load tonight! I swear (well I don't swear, but you get the implication) I have several more gray hairs just waiting here for your next installment!
You know I am kidding, I love the report and if you notice, I am cruising with Madisonznana, so here is two people that want you to finish by May
3rd! (oh the pressure! [/QUOTE)

now this I apologize for. I never want to be held responsible for the addition of gray hairs. I think we all have enough of those. Fortunately when I use Gel in my hair it hides the gray!

Great report. I spent most of the day reading it so I got nothing done. Definitely worth it though.

but isn't it better since you started reading it later? not much waiting for you. Feel for Madisonznana who has been with me from the start! ouch!

Yeah new installments........life sure does get in the way doesn't it....but it's ok. We are here & we will wait some more patiently than other ( I have quite a long countdown left compared to others).

Love, love, love Castaway Cay. Wish you could bottle the feeling of being there & spray it on when you were having a bad day.

More please.

agree with you that it would be great to spray on Castaway Cay. While looking back at the pictures is pretty cool, it's also sad beause I'm not there!!

Great installment!

Short and sweet. Thank you.

Thanks to everyone! hopefully I'll find time to bring another installments soon! until then...have a great spring

 

[sham101505]

Im lovin your pics, and your report of course!

 

[huggiebear23]

Great report. You have a beautiful family.

 

[DisneyZell]

Chapter 17: the final chapter (hopefully)

so when I last left (oh...I don't know, two months ago), we had just finished our day and headed back to the Mickey Boat. The sad thing about getting on the boat this time was the knowledge that it was the last day. There were still a few more things in store for us, but for the most part that was it. And that's just sad!

We made it back to the rooms and got dressed for dinner. The dinner theme was "Till we meet again" as witnessed by this shot of the menu...

The ironic part of this picture is that DW later "borrowed" the menu which is now sitting at home. So I could have scanned it...but my general laziness would not allow it!

We had a great time at dinner. Nick's birthday was shortly after the cruise...so after we had our main meal Adrienne brought out all the deserts except for Nick. He was a bit perplexed by this until....

Nick and Adrian with the cake

HUGE cake for his birthday brought by the lead guy, whom again I just can't remember his name and Adrian. Nick was embarrassed...which was fun as well.

Another happy birthday shot

I have mentioned a few times how important the server and assistant server are on vacation. The absolutely became a part of our family vacation, and we will remember them for some time to come. It took a while for us to get past the fact that there would be no magic tricks or, for that matter, anyone to serve us at home! they knew exactly what we liked...and did a fantastic job picking meals for me!

So, it only made sense that we did a big picture on this last day...

All of us!

Now, I do appreciate them, but since they enjoyed poking fun at us so much, we had some fun at their expense. As we were really floored by their service we tipped above and beyond the suggestion. That was tucked nicely into it's cute little envelope (ok, so the receipt was anyway). We gave Nick and Chris $5 and sent them in ahead of us with instructions to tell Adrienne (I know I'm hacking his name, so forgive the spelling) that we weren't going to make dinner but sent the kids on their own and to hand them the $5. Those of you who read these boards will hear stories about folks skipping the last meal so they don't have to tip, etc. Obviously we aren't those types...but thought it would be fun. The look on Adrienne's face was priceless...and even more priceless when we walked up and handed him the real envelope. We all got a good laugh...and I felt just fine doing it since we tipped more than what was "suggested".

After dinner we went to the farewell show...which was basically the end of the story that began that first night. As with most of the shows is was well done and entertaining.

One tradition I think I have mentioned is that we always wander the ship and snap random pics. Here are a couple:

Cool disney bench!

I'm pretty sure they never sat in these, except for this picture.

The wives spent some time in Shutters finalizing our orders. As you would expect it was a tad but they had to do what they had to do and did an excellent job of picking out pictures for us.

I can't remember if I mentioned our camera purchase since then. We bought a Nikon D50 Digital SLR camera. It's the same camera they use on the ship, as well as Disneyland and Disneyworld. It's fabulous. In fact, we took it to Disneyland after we had bought it and we made them take our picture with our camera after they did the official one. We had some fantastic pictures from that trip, and didn't pay a dime! we will be bringing it in 2008 on the cruise and hope to have the same success. But I digress.

The final thing of the night was a chance to mingle with the characters one more time.

Nick and Connor and the big guy

Nick with Pluto

Connor and the mrs.

then it was off to bed. At some point we had also packed and sent our luggage on the way...that was hectic...but frankly I don't remember when we did that! That's what I get for waiting months to write a trip report! bad host, bad host!



As I don't want you all to wait for the end, I'll roll right into Saturday. Because we had the early seating for dinner our breakfast was around 6am. very eary! we had kids sleeping in chairs, but we managed to eat, and then hang out for a while until the ship was cleared. We then headed out to get our luggage and followed the one tip everyone should follow. We hired a porter...he took us to our luggage, threw everything on, and pushed to the front of the line.

TIP THESE GUYS WELL, THEY EARN THEIR BUCKS!

I'll bet we saved over an hour doing that, and we were out in a breeze!

Our neighbors had a flight that afternoon, but we had to stay overnight due to flight arrangements. So we rented a van that would fit all of us and drove into Orlando. We visited mouse surplus in orlando, which was pretty cool. they have all sorts of neat old Disney things (some really cool, alot that was just junk) and bought a few things.

Then we headed over to Disneyworld to downtown disney. Shopped a bit and then took the neighbors to the airport.

This was a fantastic trip, and we really can't wait until 2008. It is so sad that it is so far away...we need to get a free trip so we can go sooner!

Sorry for how long this took to write, I'll bet those who started reading it aren't even on the DCL site anymore! post any questions you have and I'll be happy to answer them. other than that, see you in 2008!!

 

[Madisonznana]

It was great to hear from you DZ! Oh darn, I had to go on my cruise before you finished, but we tried very hard and had a great time in spite of you not finishing!
But I have learned so much from you, first and foremost, do not rush your TR. Keep them in suspense!
Seriously, it was good to see an ending, thanks1
karen

 

[iwannabeminnie]

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this---all twelve pages in one sitting. Thank you for sharing with us. You did a great job.

 

[PocaJaz]

I too have really enjoyed reading this over the past day or so (at home, at work...). Since I read it all at once, unfortunately for you I remember that you promised to share your thoughts on the kids' clubs at the end of your trip report!

My family and my sister's family are going on the Western in May/08, and the kids will be: DD7 (almost 8), DD5 (almost 6), DNephew5 and DNephew2 (almost 3...please God let him be toilet trained by then!!).

Did your younger son enjoy the club at 4 and when you went on your first cruise (really testing the memory banks now ), did you find it a challenge to find things that everyone could do together (including DS2)?

Thanks so much!!