Disney Cruise Report

We're back from our very first cruise...and it was a Disney Cruise!  If you know us, you know we are completely obsessed with Disney so this cruise was a perfect fit! It was a three night cruise to the Bahamas and we had a ton of fun! If you read my last post, you know that we had high expectations and some fears.  Here's how those played out: (Items in italics are from our last post)

Things we are looking forward to:
* 24 hour FREE room service-Mickey ice cream pops at two o'clock in the morning, anyone?
We did order from room service, but we didn't get Mickey pops.  We had macaroni & cheese, cookies & milk and popcorn. Odd combination, I know! But it was what we wanted at the time.  Still fantastic.

* Castaway Cay-Disney's private island in the Bahamas is a place you can only get to from a Disney cruise ship. It's supposed to be super-cool and it will be decorated for Christmas!

We loved Castaway Cay! It was beautiful, well maintained and the weather was gorgeous! We had so much fun hanging out at the beach, eating barbecue and riding water tricycles. We couldn't have asked for a better day! Who knew that we could be beach people?

* Movies-There is a movie theater on the ship that plays Disney movies all day: everything from things just released on dvd to first run movies. For us, since we don't have a lot of money for movies, this is a huge treat!
This is funny...we actually didn't get to go to the movie theater.  The one movie we really wanted to see was "Tangled" but they could only show it at midnight on the last evening of our cruise.  By that point we were exhausted and just couldn't do it.  Maybe next time, we'll be on the ship for longer and we'll get to see some movies.

* Magazines-This really doesn't have anything to do with Disney, but Celina has been hoarding magazines for the trip and I can't wait to read The Sexiest Man Alive People!
I got to read my Sexiest Man Alive People.  Ryan Reynolds made me very happy. In fact, we watched "The Proposal" on the plane ride home in celebration of Ryan.  Happy day!

(This next one wasn't on my list, but it should have been.)
*Fireworks at Sea-Disney is the only cruise line that can do fireworks at sea. I can't wait to see how they pull it off!
As part of the Pirates in the Caribbean deck party, there are fireworks above the boat.  They were amazing to see and they were set to the most random song..."Holding Out For A Hero" from Footloose.  Priceless! 

* Our co-cruisers-Some of our favorite people are going on this cruise, too. I think we'll have a great time hanging out, playing, and of course eating!

We had so much fun with the Flints, Browns, Tubbs and Eads! We ate with different folks every night and morning, got to play on the beach and at the pool with the group, and had many group meetings in the hallway outside our rooms. I know we traveled with adults too, but here are some of our favorite pictures of "our kids".

And now for the things we were nervous about:

* Being on a boat-need I say more?

I have to admit it was very scary to stand on our veranda and see this, but we knew that we were always within hours of land.  It was amazing to go on the veranda every morning, afternoon and evening and see how the ocean around us changed all the time.  It was beautiful! Note: The first night at sea was pretty rough and it took a while for us to get the hang of walking while the ship was rocking. Never a dull moment!

* Being bored-Jodie calls it "relaxing". I call it lack of planned activities. But I'm sure there will be more than enough to do when we get on the boat.

I should have never worried about this! Disney never lets me down when it comes to entertainment! In fact, there was so much to do, we already know what we want to do on our next cruise!

* Getting home-We have a six hour wait in the Orlando airport before our flight and a two hour layover in Atlanta on the way. Fun!

Celina calls us the luckiest travelers around.  When we got to the airport at about 9 am, we got on a stand-by list for a 12 o'clock flight.  We heard that there were 26 people on the standby list but amazingly, we were the last two people to get on the flight.  When we arrived in Atlanta, we found out we were already on a stand-by list for a flight that was boarding.  There were plenty of seats on the plane, so we ended up getting right on the flight and got home around 4 o'clock...3 hours before we were scheduled to leave Orlando and 8 hours before we were scheduled to come home.  Talk about lucky!

So, we're back and we are now officially cruisers! We had a fantastic time and we'll definitely be trying it again as soon as we can.  A big thanks to everyone who was a part of our trip and made it a definite once-in-a-lifetime experience!

We're Going on a Cruise!

Note: This mini-blog was written on Sunday morning.  Due to technical difficulties, we couldn't post it until today.  We'll post our reactions to our cruise in the next couple of days.

We are leaving for a three night Disney cruise this morning! At present, we are at the airport waiting for our flight to Orlando. As you can guess, we are so excited and thought we'd share several things we are looking forward to:

* 24 hour FREE room service-Mickey ice cream pops at two o'clock in the morning, anyone?
* Castaway Cay-Disney's private island in the Bahamas is a place you can only get to from a Disney cruise ship. It's supposed to be super-cool and it will be decorated for Christmas!
* Movies-There is a movie theater on the ship that plays Disney movies all day: everything from things just released on dvd to first run movies. For us, since we don't have a lot of money for movies, this is a huge treat!
* Magazines-This really doesn't have anything to do with Disney, but Celina has been hoarding magazines for the trip and I can't wait to read The Sexiest Man Alive People!
* Our co-cruisers-Some of our favorite people are going on this cruise, too. I think we'll have a great time hanging out, playing, and of course eating!

Of course, there are also things I am nervous about:
* Being on a boat-need I say more?
* Being bored-Jodie calls it "relaxing". I call it lack of planned activities. But I'm sure there will be more than enough to do when we get on the boat.
* Getting home-We have a six hour wait in the Orlando airport before our flight and a two hour layover in Atlanta on the way. Fun!

So, we'll be on our way soon...I'm sure there will be a full report when we return!

Bon Voyage to us!

Bad Timing

***Note to rare blog reader: Please read any words in italics in your best Papi voice. It will make your reading experience more enjoyable.

This story starts with a conversation with my dad last week. . .
-Celina, did you hear about that cruise ship.
-No, what happened? (Side note: I should have known to play along and yes I know I must have been living under a rock. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here.)
-These people on a cruise got stranded and they had no electricity and had to eat spam.

This is a typical way to get news from Papi, a few strong details with lots of vagueness. Good example. . . That poor Dallas girl from the Disney channel. It's so sad that she hurts herself.  Name that news story. But anyway. . .

The cruise story would have gone away pretty quickly except Snae and I are going to embark on our first cruise on Sunday. It's a three night cruise which includes stops to the Bahamas and Disney's island, Castaway Cay. We will be on the beautiful ship, The Wonder, staying in a room with a private veranda. I cannot wait.

There are lots of differences between that cruise and our cruise. That was a Carnival Cruise, we're going on a Disney Cruise. As is a motto in our family:  Disney knows how to do things right.  They were on a 7 day cruise. Ours is only a three day cruise. As Snae likes to say, we will never be far from land.

But the fear in Papi lives on. Here are some conversations from last night.
-Does your room have a window?
-Yes, it has a balcony with a large sliding window door.
-Good because some of those people last week had to dress in the dark. You don't want to have to get dressed in the dark.

- Our cruise book says to pack a flashlight. Can we borrow one?
-Yes, you will need a flashlight if there is no electricity. 
There was than a demonstration on how to work the flashlight and to make sure it worked properly.

-We have to turn our phone on flight mode, so we won't have international charges.
-You can't call while you're gone?
-No, it will cost too much.
-Can you get a phone card so you can call?
-It's only three days, so it should be fine.
-Okay.
-We'll call right before we load and when we get off.
-Okay.

We have traveled multiple times on our own with much less planning. This trip will be with 22 other people we know and obviously we will be able to find food, which is one of our major trip downfalls. But there is no debating that we will be in the ocean and that people have died on cruise ships. I saw it on a Lifetime movie. Can be very dangerous. So I think it just makes the fear more intense for Papi.

Is it ideal for us that a major traumatic cruise news story to occur so close to our first cruise? Of course not. But if nothing else, it will be a good adventure. It's just an example of bad timing. We'll see Papi a couple more time before we leave, and I'm sure he'll have more words of wisdom.

Wish us luck!

It was nice to almost meet you Mr. President

For the majority of my life, I kept a secret from the people around me. I was obsessed with presidents. I had the pencils, placemats, rulers, bookmarks, books and all sorts of things. As a child I loved to learn about the White House and I especially loved the "dishes." For the majority of my life, I thought this wasn't cool so I pretty much kept it to my family and myself.

The thing I've learned is that when you grow up, you quit caring so much. So here is what I have to say: I AM AN OBSESSIVE FAN ABOUT PRESIDENTS. In our apartment there are 5 different pictures of framed presidents (Jackson, Truman, Bush-41). On a side note there is only one of NSYNC (Rolling Stone 2000).

My favorite president is Truman and my favorite first lady is Bush (Barbara, of course, though I have nothing against Laura). I have a goal to make it to all presidential libraries and graves. I'm fascinated by this group of forty three men who have shaped our country.

So all this to say, it's a dream to meet or even see a president in real life. I saw a senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison in passing at the State Fair and Rick Perry at a State Fair ceremony. It's time to meet a president. And today was almost the day.

Yesterday I got an email that said President Bush (W-43) was signing his new book this morning in Dallas. It was tricky because I was working 10-4 and the signing was at 9. I thought if I could time it right, I could make it all flow. The next rough part is that I've been fighting a cold for over a week and am requiring more sleep than usual to function. (Thank goodness for the time change!) So I decided that I could be at the store by 7. It was the best I could do.

This is when things start going bad. I didn't have time to wash my hair and couldn't figure out a subtly patriotic outfit to wear. But I head out anyway and when I got to the Borders, it was out of control. There were tons of people, no parking, and people dangerously crossing the busy streets. My coworker's friend was 50th in line and she got in line at 7:30 yesterday evening, just to show how crazy the people were.

I assessed the situation from my car and realized a couple of things. All the people in line were not going to meet the president. His schedule would not allow it and I was so tired that it wasn't worth the chance today. So I turned around and  laughed about the situation. It just wasn't my day to meet a president. I made the right choice, 2500 people were there and 1300 got to have their book signed, and that was 500 more than he was contractually obligated to sign.

And tonight I admitted that of the four Bushes (George, Barbara, G.W. and Laura), that GW is definitely ranked fourth although who was one was never picked. And I decided that when I did meet a president, I would have clean hair and be subtly patriotic.

We're BAAAAACK!

For the three or so people who follow our blog (Thank you, we love you guys!), we just wanted to let you know that we're coming back! We'll be posting soon and more often...you'll be sick of us before you know it!

Talk to you soon!