let the magic begin!
Before the Magic came
Cast of Characters: Me (Kenny) 55 to start 56 at the end!
Brenda (DW) 5? To start 5?+1 to end!
It all began on a dark, dreary, mysteriously cloudy day in early 2005(actually I don't remember the day very well, but that sounds good, don't you agree?).
Brenda said, "Have you seen that new Disney commercial on TV?"
I hadn't noticed it and said so. She said, "You can go to WDW with a family of 4 for 6 nights for less than $1500! With your vacation pay, we could take the grandkids to WDW for a week!! You know how you've always wanted to do that."
So we did just that… and that woke up the Disney Beast in me!
I began to plan our trip to WDW, but all the info I was gathering was sorely lacking in real information. Then, in an airport bookstore, I found a copy of the spiral bound Passporter! I was in heaven! I had all the info I could ever want on WDW right at my fingertips. So, in September of 2005, we took our Granddaughters, Jhaela 7 & Janelle 11, to WDW for a week! Well, our Disney vacation was one the four of us kids will never forget, let me tell you!
Disneyland.... or the coast of Maine?
Shortly after our WDW 2005 vacation (sometimes referred to as "Grandpa's Happiest Vacation On Earth"), Brenda and I began to think about our next vacation in 2006. Now, I was thinking Disney again, maybe Disneyland this time.... you know how you always wanted to go to Disneyland, (well, if you are over 40 you wanted to go)? Anyway, Brenda brought up that my mom always wanted to go to New England, and Brenda is from New England!
So, in September of 2006, we took my Mom and Aunt Mae with us to New England for 2 weeks. We went to Rhode Island (Brenda's home), Cape Cod, did the DUCK Tour in Boston, and ended with 5 days on the coast of Maine. And an awesome time we had!
My Mom at the Highland Lighthouse on Cape Cod.
The "Old North Church". They still have Episcopal services here so we attended a church service here. This is where they put lanterns in the steeple to alert the Minutemen as to how the British were coming into Boston, one if by land, two if by sea, and that started the "Midnight ride of Paul Revere!"
One of the Ducks used to tour Boston (that's DW in the yellow jacket).
The Nubble lighthouse, Maine.
The Marginal Way, Ogunquit, Maine.... a one mile paved walkway along the shore.
What do you think about a cruise?
I can imagine that you are all wondering what all this has to do with a cruise.... I'm getting to that, but I wanted to tell the whole story, so you would understand what this cruise means to us. Bear with me a little longer, please.
As soon as we got back from New England, we started to think about vacation 2007. Brenda asked how I felt about a cruise.... Disney cruise, actually. She thought maybe the land/sea vacation would be good, with the land portion at the Polynesian. I thought about it and chuckled a bit, "How can we afford a cruise?" I asked. She said, "your vacation pay is four weeks now and Disney will let us pay over time as much as we can, when we can. I checked, and a land/sea would be less than we paid out for the New England trip.... maybe about as much, but we have over a year to save up", she said. I liked the idea, no.... I loved the idea! The Poly sounded really nice. We had the O'hana Character Breakfast there in '05 and liked it very much.
But if I was going to cruise, I wanted to CRUISE!! No measly little 3 or 4 night boat ride for me, I wanted the 7 night cruise, Eastern, preferably, but I didn't care. I have been on the ferry from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland three times and never had a seasickness problem and Brenda has been on several smaller boats on the ocean with no problems, so I didn't see anything to hold us back.
(I don't really understand this. I have always been a mountain kinda guy. I never wanted much to do with the ocean.... I had been there and all, it just didn't appeal to me that much. Then on our way to New England in 2006, I just couldn't wait to get to the seashore! I can't explain it, I just had to see the ocean! And now I can't wait to get back again. There must be some sailor blood in me from way back).
I was leaning towards the Eastern Caribbean because of the extra sea day. I'm sure it's nice to see all those new places, and they break up the monotony of the endless ocean, but my main thing was the ride, so I don't know how much the "ports of call" will interest me.... 'course, I've never been on a cruise. Anyway, that was my reasoning. But DW always wanted to see Key West, so we opted for the Western Caribbean Disney Cruise.
I had to have some minor surgery in October 2006 for a hernia, so I was off work for 6 weeks. We decided to put off booking the cruise for a while. Some time in early November, I was due to go back to work the next week, we sat down on the phone with DCL and almost booked our cruise, but decided to wait till I was back to work. I mean to say, we both remember being on speaker phone with the Disney Cast Member and whispering to ourselves, "Let's just go ahead and book it." That's how close we came.
A week later, before I could get back to work, I was back in the hospital for a triple bypass!! That put me off work for a total of 4 ½ months! Our vacation check would be one third less than it should be.... so, no cruise in '07!
Hailey's Greatest Christmas Adventure
We did manage to save a week at Christmas to celebrate the holidays with Brenda's family in Orlando. She and her brother and sister hadn't been together in one place for many years, so this would be like a family reunion. Brenda's brother, Craig, and his Wife, Rose, live in Orlando (well, one of the suburbs). Their daughter, Karline lives in Rhode Island. Karline was planning to come to Florida with her daughter, Hailey for Christmas. Karline's husband couldn't make the trip. So we were going to have 10 days with Brenda's family from Christmas to New Years in Florida. It would be our great-niece (or is it grand-niece?.. well, she's a great little girl so we'll stick with great-niece) "Hailey's Greatest Christmas Adventure" with her Uncle Kenny and Auntie Brenda!
Hailey and Uncle Kenny. Isn't this just the cutest thing you've ever seen?
Hailey and Auntie Brenda cooking Christmas dinner.
This was one of the best Christmas's I've ever had. We had a wonderful time. I had hoped to get down to Port Canaveral and see "the Ships", but since we didn't have a car, it didn't happen. We had also planned to take Hailey to Disney one day, but her Uncle Craig, Karline's brother beat us to that, and we just stayed at the house most of the time.
Christmas in Florida, Ahhhh! For those of us that live in the north, this has to be the best. I think this might be where the idea of cruising sank in: sitting on the patio next to the pool in my jammies with my morning coffee. Well, maybe the Nubble lighthouse was more relaxing...., but, maybe not!
Sometimes the consolation prize is as good (or better) than the grand prize, don't you think? I mean I surely missed not going on the cruise last year, but being able to get Brenda, Craig, and Debbie together for Christmas was as good, in a different way, as the cruise. I think maybe things happen for a reason and we just weren't supposed to go traipsing around the Caribbean with Mickey and the Gang in 2007. The Family Christmas was much more important. I just wish God would have found another way to get the message across!... that bypass stuff is not a whole lot of fun!
We deserve a little Magic (or maybe a big Magic)!
While looking forward to Christmas, we decided to look into a cruise for next fall (2008). Don't you know there was a Western Caribbean that starts on the 18th of October and includes October 22nd (Brenda's birthday) and 23rd (my birthday)! It would also be just six months before our 10 year anniversary (April 22nd), not to mention the week before Halloween.
We have some very good friends, Dale and Charlotte, who we asked to go with us. They had helped us when I was off with my bypass surgery, so we set everything up and were going to furnish the flights, since I collect a lot of frequent flier miles with my job. Everything was fine till Dale decided he wouldn't be able to get around well enough and would hold us back. Dale is over 80 and has mobility and other medical issues. We got the "Passporter for Special Needs" and I started a thread on the Passporter Message Board, "Planning your Disney cruise" to get actual personal experiences so we could show him how much Disney caters to people like him, and to show him that people much worse have gone and had a great time. We even tried to make him understand that, although younger, we couldn't get around much better than him and had no intention of doing anything that required any effort or speed.... shoot!, I may never leave our veranda! This worked for about 2 weeks. Finally Charlotte had to call Disney and cancel all their reservations.
This really disappointed us, but there was nothing we could do. So, instead of 4 coach tickets to Orlando, I booked 2 first class tickets for Brenda and me. We still had our Cruise reservations and would be in stateroom #6600, a cat 6 with a veranda. I began to dream of having my morning coffee while relaxing on the veranda (and evening coffee with a bit of Bailey's Irish Cream!). When I lived in an apartment with a balcony, I loved to sit out there and just watch the world go by, so I am really looking forward to the veranda.
That was about October 2007. Hailey's Great Christmas Adventure has come and gone, I broke my knee in January and lost 12 weeks of work. After I had my bypass surgery, we were talking to one of my nurses about almost booking a Disney cruise and she said we needed to go ahead and go because I deserved it now. Well, we just couldn't swing it financially at that time, but now I think Brenda and I both need to get out and have a little magic in our lives.... or a BIG Magic as the case may be....
We ordered the new "2008 Passporter for the Disney Cruise Line" and I began to get into planning mode. I was checking things out on the Passporter Message Board and thought we should stay the night before the cruise at the Port. Maybe the Radisson, it looked like it would save us a little money and we could get a limo or rent a car down from the airport. But in the end, we decided to let Disney put us up the night before and the night after our cruise. So we booked POFQ for the 17th and 25th of October. This was Brenda's idea to keep our baggage handling to a minimum. We will check our bags in Cincinnati with Delta Airlines and have them delivered to our room at French Quarter, and then they will pick them up and deliver them to the ship and vice versa on the return. I like this idea a lot because I don't have to drive at all. Since I drive for a living, that is a big plus for me. When we went to WDW in 2005, I didn't drive the whole week and that was just sooooo relaxing to me. I didn't mind the waiting for the buses at all. Of course it was in September and the attendance was way down.
Well, we kept waiting for the bottom to drop out, but I kept dreaming of sailing with Mickey and Pluto and the gang. Key Lime pie became my favorite dessert! Finally sometime this spring, Brenda told me to go on-line and make a payment to Disney.... this put our balance to where my vacation check would be able to pay off the cruise! Then four months out, in June, we got a Disney packet in the mail!! It was all these little booklets telling us all about our cruise! Aahhhh Disney Mail!!! Also in June, Brenda got her passport and things began to seem more real. Shortly after that, I called DCL to give them her passport number and make sure they knew we would be at POFQ. While on the phone with them I booked the Romantic Escape Package, thanks to some of the trip reports I've read, and the input I received from a thread I posted on the Passporter Message Board called "Planning Your Disney Cruise", that I entitled "Romancing the Stone.... Or just a little Love?", referencing the REAS package or the new Romance gift package.
We're going to Mickey's house.... What do we do now?
We will arrive in Orlando Oct 17th at about 1pm which should put us at POFQ sometime around 2:30-3:00, I think. We have discussed it and will probably keep a low profile this day and save our money for the cruise. Maybe we will try the food court for dinner and breakfast. I hear they've got these pastries that are just "to die for!" We'll have to check that out for sure! We will be doing a carriage ride this night or when we get back on the 25th. We will surely take the boat ride to DTD both the 17th and the 25th. Even if we are taking a cruise, I still like that little boat ride! At this point in time, we are not planning on visiting the parks.... I know, I know.... but remember, I was off work for 3 months. Now, if we could go to one of the parks, we would have more dining options and could maybe get a "Dole Whip". But we are both feeling our age right now, and don't feel like we can do much walking. I thought we might do Riverside's Boatwright's for dinner one night, but after reading the review in "All Ears", I think we can come up with something better.
We have made ADRs for Fulton's in DTD for the night we get back, the 25th. Being from RI, DW really likes her seafood. When we drove out to New England, all she wanted was to get to her hometown and get some clams.... real, fresh, full-bodied, whole CLAMS!!! Just can't get that here in Ohio. All you get is clam strips, which, she says, is not the same thing. Anyway, we finally got to RI that Labor Day and went to the restaurant where she knew she could get clams.... they were sold out! The next day we went to the coast of RI and ate on the pier where they get the fresh clams every day.... they had had a run on clams the day before (Labor Day) and hadn't had a chance to restock! Couldn't get any that night, either! Finally she got her clams on the third day in New England. So, Fulton's looks pretty good to her.
We ate at the Concourse Steakhouse with the kids in '05 and really liked it! I'm sure we would go back, if it was still there. We had thought about doing the Luau at the Poly again, but we are still considering other options. DW says the food at the Luau was "just OK", although we both loved the show.
What're we gonna do with the Magic?
OK, it's a cruise, for goodness sake! Isn't the itinerary pretty much laid out for you? Well, that's what I was thinking until I realized There are a lot of pre-planning things to do on a cruise. There are excursions, Palo, Palo, and, of course, Palo (dinner,brunch,and high tea)! You have spa treatments.... there are a lot of plans an Itinerary Nerd such as I, can make.
First, I should point out that I have been looking into these cruises for several months, now and didn't know all there is to know! For instance, I knew the REAS package included the ability to make Palo dinner reservations at 105 days out.... but, I didn't know, until I went to make our Palo dinner reservation, that you could make Palo brunch and high tea reservations also at 105 days! And book excursions and spa treatments at 105 days, too. I didn't have any spa treatments to book, but I took care of Palo. We are still considering excursions.
So, here is what we have, now:
"Thursday Oct 16: The day before the day before. We may go to Cincinnati and get a room since we live about 3 hours away from the airport. Depends on my work, if I get in in time, we might do this, otherwise we will leave early Friday.
"Friday Oct 17: The day before the Cruise. Make our way to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport and then to the Delta Airlines check-in. Catch our flight to Orlando at about 10:55 am. This is a direct flight that gets in about 1:01 pm. We will board DME to Port Orleans French Quarter. I think we will arrive about 2:30-3:00 pm. Check into our room and take a break for about 2-3 hours. About 6 pm, we will probably be going for dinner, to be decided.
"Saturday Oct 18: The Cruise Begins! We will board the DCL bus for Port Canaveral and the Magic! Nothing special planned today.... except, maybe, the most exciting day of the millennium!
"Sunday Oct 19: Key West and our 10 year anniversary celebration. Our plan is to do the Conch Train on our own today. We will make stops at the Southernmost Point, and somewhere for Key Lime Pie, other than that, I don't know. Today, we will celebrate 10 years of marriage, 6 months and 3 days early. As an aside, today is my Mom's anniversary, so she will no doubt get a call from Key West! We should get cake at dinner tonight!
"Monday Oct 20: At Sea; Palo High Tea. No plans for today except "Tea at Three!"
"Tuesday Oct 21: Grand Cayman; Palo Dinner. We may get off the ship for a while, mainly just to say we've been there.
"Wednesday Oct 22: Cozumel; Brenda's Birthday. We really don't know if Brenda will swim with the dolphins here, but she did say that since I bought that camcorder she just might spend the money on the excursion! Hey, Ken.., I mean, Brenda gets cake again tonight!
"Thursday Oct 23: At Sea; Kenny's Birthday, Palo Brunch. Nothing planned today except Brunch.... and Kenny gets cake again tonight!
"Friday Oct 24: Castaway Cay; Last full day on the Magic. I'm pretty sure we will get off here and explore the island a bit from the tram to Serenity Bay anyway.
"Saturday Oct 25: End of Cruise; Back to POFQ. Back to the World. Fulton's for seafood tonight.
"Sunday Oct 26: Fly Home today; The End! Back to reality.... Bummer!!. At least we get to fly First Class!
More DCL mail.... ain't life grand!?
So there we were, just going through life like anybody else. I kept badgering Brenda with little reminders of the cruise and she would buy a new t-shirt and say, "it's for the cruise." She was trying not to let any excitement show, and I was trying to let all of my excitement show! She would remind me that there is a lot more to a cruise than just the few thousand bucks to get on the boat! There is the kennel fee for the pets (of which we have a few!), the parking fee at the airport, new clothes, new shoes, we have to have the bills paid up, and have enough money in the bank so that we can live until the next paycheck comes in when we get back. Not to mention having enough to put on the shipboard credit and incidentals on the trip!
It was quite disheartening.... but it wasn't long before I would order a piece of Key Lime pie and say something about the cruise. LOL! She just couldn't give into the excitement completely, it seemed.
Then one day in June (about 4 months from the cruise), I was home and got the mail. There was this big manilla envelope in the mailbox. I said, "Disney Mail!" We weren't expecting anything from Disney this early! Then I noticed the DCL logo on the envelope! "It's from the Cruise Line!" I exclaimed. She said, "Well, open it up already!" She couldn't contain her excitement anymore than I could! It was really just advertising the many facets of our upcoming cruise. There were several little cards and brochures telling about excursions, dining, and such, and one with all the fine print. Not much we hadn't read already on the website. It had a personal note specifically about us and our cruise (well it seemed personal enough, anyway). I think that's when Brenda really started to let herself believe this cruise was going to happen. She had put quite a bit of money in the vacation account, my vacation check was coming soon, and we would be able to actually pay off the balance. This bit of Disney Mail made the cruise seem a little more real.... like it was really going to happen for us! A couple of weeks later, the cruise was paid and the vacation account was well stocked!
A day or two after I left on this last trip for work, Brenda called me on the cell phone. She was all excited because DCL had sent us another note.... (I thought, "More DCL Mail… Ain't life Grand!"), it was just one sheet telling us all the times we would be in and out of the ports.... but it was more DCL mail! This was actually new stuff to consider, too. For instance, will we be in Key West late enough to "hear" the sunset?...
Disney mail.... doesn't it just make your whole day seem a little brighter?!
Odds and Ends....
Well, we have been a little busy getting things together. Brenda talked me into going on Ebay to look for a Disney tie. We couldn't find one locally. I wanted something with Pluto, my favorite character, and I found one at a pretty good price and got it:
I might be pretty well dressed on this cruise, what do ya think?
We picked up a few new clothes so we don't look like a truck driver and his wife. Brenda has some very nice looking clothes if I can get her to stand still for a few photos on the vacation.
I think I told about the magnets Brenda found at the Dollar store. They are three princesses in a package for a dollar, so she got 4 packs so we'll have extras in case someone needs one for their door. I found an ear template for our stateroom number on the DIS boards. I also got a Mickey head template so we can make our own magnets.
I went on the Key West Trolley website and ordered our tickets for that. You get a price break online. I looked all over for an expiration date but couldn't find one till I printed out the ticket voucher! It is good for six months.... I'm glad I didn't buy them sooner!
Last Sunday, after church, our good friends, Charlotte and Dale (who were going with us originally), handed Brenda an envelope. I guess one of us had said something about Brenda wanting to see the dolphins on our cruise and Charlotte decided she would do something about it. Inside the envelope was a note that said, "Please make sure Brenda gets to play with the dolphins" and a check that covers more than one persons fee!
That made up our minds as to whether to do a dolphin excursion! I got to researching and found out that Cozumel has the only dolphin excursions on the Western, and they have two, basically. Dolphin Discovery is the cheapest and gets very good reviews, but you have to book on your own to get to swim with the dolphins. Disney does not offer a dolphin swim at Dolphin Discovery. They have a newer place, Dolphinaris, where a dolphin swim is offered through Disney. Since neither of us has been to Mexico or on a cruise, we wanted to stay with the Disney excursions this trip. I figured Key West was different in that it's still in the USA. Anyway, we opted for the Dolphinaris Dolphin Swim for both of us on the day we're in Cozumel.... which just happens to be Brenda's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRENDA!!
That's about it for this installment. We should probably try a trial packing, to see if we are on the right track. LOL
The Packing Blues…. Or Greens…. Or Reds……… update 8/29/08
Well, I finally got home for three days+ from my last trip west. I was out 12 days, a little long for me.
I had a nice picture of Multnoma Falls, along the Columbia River in Oregon, but didn’t hit the “save” button! If you follow the link it has a better picture of the falls than I could get driving by with my phone camera, anyway! This is a pretty awesome sight as you drive along I-84 through the Columbia River Gorge.
I got out all the new clothes we’ve bought for the trip the other day and put them in my main suitcase. Everything fit nicely with quite a bit of room left over, so I’m not going to worry too much about my clothes getting packed! I’m having second thoughts about whether one suit jacket will be OK for all the dress-up dinners. I’m thinking, “no problem for Palo and semi-formal, but I’m just not sure if I will feel out of place on “formal night” since I don't have the matching slacks. I really think I’ll be OK…. just winding down jitters, I guess!
Since we won’t have wheels down there, we are thinking of packing a case of water in one of our bags from home. I’m not sure how this will work on an airplane, though. I think it will be OK as long as the bottles haven’t been opened, but I just don’t know! I’ll have to have an experiment on one of my trips for work.
We need to call the resort and check on making reservations for the carriage ride, we’ll try to do that on our first night at POFQ.
Well, that’s all for now. More rambling thoughts to come as the long wait gets nearer to its end!
Corrections, Reservations, and Dinner (gotta eat!) (Update 09/09/08)
Well, we made a new reservation, had to correct Disney, and had a great time at an anniversary dinner this weekend, so I thought I had enough for a new update!
We were invited to attend a dinner in celebration of Dale and Charlotte’s 50th Anniversary Saturday afternoon. This is the couple who were going to come on the cruise with us, but decided not to go.
Me (stylin‘ for da Cruise), Charlotte, Brenda, and Dale
The Cake (Mmmmmmm!)
Dale and Charlotte and Family
We got to try out our new camera and camcorder at this event…. And I think I need more practice before we sail! They didn’t turn out too bad, though. I am NOT happy with our video making software; it came bundled with a DVD drive and so it’s the “light” version. I don’t know if the full program will help to get it through my thick head or not, but I’ll have to see what’s available.
Brenda got Disney Mail today! But it was mailed to Dale and Charlotte’s address , so we had to go get it! Good thing they live close by! It was our luggage tags and instructions from DME for the day we arrive at WDW! But, since they had our address wrong, we thought we had better call and make sure they had the right information. Turns out the resort had the right info, but DME had some of it wrong. I put the New Englander (DW) on the phone with them and she got it straightened out pretty quick, I’ll tell you!
While we were on the phone calling all over WDW, we decided to call the French Quarter to see if we could reserve a carriage ride. You have to go through recreation and boating or something, anyway after 2 or 3 menu choices and a transfer, we got to the stables and got our carriage ride setup for 8:00pm on the 17th, the day we arrive. So, I guess we will be taking the boat ride to Riverside which is where you start the carriage ride. We will either get dinner at the French Quarter food court or go to Boatwright’s at Riverside, since we need to go there anyway. Just depends on how we feel at the time, I don’t think an ADR will be necessary for Boatwright’s if we decide on that plan.
We started a “Trip Book” in which to keep all paperwork pertaining to the trip today. This is the insert I made for the front cover:
We will keep everything that is not in the Passporter here where we can get at it.
That is all I have for now. I keep counting down the days and getting even more excited as we get closer and closer… and Brenda is doing the same!
Up next: More of the same (but from inside a month!! )
9/25/08 Update Excitement! Door Candy! and a Disney Day!
Every day I get a little more excited. If I count in my trips for work, I only have about 4 trips left before we go! I am now on my way to Los Angeles and should get there Friday sometime. I try to do trips to the west coast or so that take 4-5 days. It doesn't always work out that way, though, so I might end up with another trip or two in there. I suppose here would be a good place to post a picture of what I do for a living:
We call it piggybacking. We deliver new trucks to dealerships in the US and Canada.
I found some Halloween Mickey heads, orange with jack-o-lantern eyes and mouth cut outs, on the DIS boards and borrowed them. I added "DCL/WC" and "10/18/08-10/25/08" on the ears and printed them on magnetic paper, 12 to an 8 1/2" X 11" sheet. We figure to put them on our door expecting others to take them if they want. I also found ears for our door number. I made up some magnets of the names of our ports of call to add to the door, and Brenda had found the Princess magnets. I think we may find some other items to make our door stand out a bit.
I called DW last week and she told me she was having a "Disney Day"! She had recorded three Disney programs from the Travel Channel for me to watch. Samantha Browns favorite rides in both WDW and DL, another one I can't recall the name of right now, and one about Disney's best kept secret - the DVC. She got on the phone and called the number and talked to a CM about the DVC and ordered the information packet! She also cut out our door magnets. And then she got the mail and there was Disney Mail! It was just more luggage tags from DME, which were wrong , we do have the right ones now, but it was still Disney Mail! So she had a "Disney Day"!
Up Next: Final thoughts and plans before the Magic.