Can you stand another trip report from the 1st Annual UNofficial WDWMagic Girls’ Cruise? What’s that you say? Well, I’ll just keep going anyway. Fair warning: I’m long-winded. If three words are all that’s required to get the message across, I’ll use ten.
Just so you recognize me:
On October 29, 2011, I was browsing the WDWMagic forums and guided the mouse towards the Disney Vacation Club forum. By accident, I clicked on the Disney Cruise Line forum, where I noticed a thread called “**It's UNOFFICIAL** The '13 Unofficial WDWMagic Girls Cruise!” Intrigued, I opened it up and discovered that @sweetpee_1993 and @Disneyfalcon had organized and were recruiting for a trip in September 2013. In a matter of hours, I had signed up. I was going to be celebrating my 50th birthday in July 2013, and declared that this would be an ideal birthday present from my darling husband! Saint that he is, he agreed, although I’m pretty sure he didn’t think I was serious about it until I booked my airline ticket this past February! I lined up @joanna71985 as a roommate for the cruise, and @plaz10 as my roommate for the one-night pre-cruise at Bay Lake Tower, as well as a couple of nights post-cruise at the Boardwalk.
Fast forward to Saturday, Sept. 7, 2013. I’d packed my bags the night before (and weighed them!), tucked in my cruise paperwork and my passport, and we said we’d leave the house our usual 3 hours in advance of flight time to make it to LaGuardia and through security without any last-minute rush. Suddenly, I remembered that the US Open would be playing that day--“honey, check the time of the first match!” Noon. Same time as my flight. OMG, there’s going to be massive traffic, and the tennis stadium is right next to the airport. Now we start rushing, and though I’ve traveled plenty on my own, and am usually the calm one, I realize that I don’t know where my passport is. Sheer panic. Took me almost ten minutes to find it in my purse.
After all that drama, we had the smoothest drive to LGA ever, no traffic, and then no security line! I never had so much time to burn at the airport.
Boarded my multi-cultural flight--sitting next to me was a young couple from Italy on their honeymoon. Behind us was a French family (mom, boy and girl directly behind, dad across the aisle from them). Before we even take off, the boy is acting up. Italian bride looks scornfully through the seat at them, to no effect. L’enfant terrible starts kicking his legs. Right into my seatback. Once the flight attendant finished the safety spiel, I asked her if it was okay for me to move into the empty aisle seat directly across from me—she glanced behind me and suggested I move right away before we took off.
So I joined the honeymooning couple from Spain on that side of the plane, and spent the remainder of the flight with Pere’s knees giving me some unwanted lumbar support.
Arrived at MCO, scooted off the plane and onto the monorail.
This would be my first time using DME! Because I was only there for one night, though, I handled my own luggage since I didn’t want to wait for it. I swung my suitcase off the carousel, and whacked myself in the foot with the thing. Got down to Level 1 and had to pull over and dig out a band-aid so I didn’t bleed all over my shoe. [Note to self: in future, pack band-aids in carry-on.]
Finally!
Funny, it was a Disney Cruise Line bus! I was too excited to snap a photo, and I decided to use the time on the bus to call home and let the hubs know I’d arrived safely. I’d been texting Jess @plaz10 since landing; she’d gotten in early before the room was ready, so headed into MK, but by the time I got to check-in, she was in our room at BLT. Contemporary would be the second stop on the bus. As we were pulling into Wilderness Lodge, very ominous dark clouds appeared, as you can see here (I had to get a picture of the DCL bus!!)
The moment I got my room key, the deluge began, and since both routes to Bay Lake Tower are open, I had to wait it out—
I grabbed some lunch at the Contempo Café [kid’s meal mahi-mahi sandwich with fruit]. I’d lost three pounds in preparation for the trip, and wanted to wait til I was on the boat to start packing it back on!
I figured there are worse places to be stuck than on the Grand Canyon Concourse:
At long last, I made it to the room, and found Jess out on the balcony, soaking in the view of SpaceshipEarth:
—it seemed as if all of the WDW resort (except for MK, of course) was spread out in front of us:
Not only could we see (from left to right as indicated by my crudely drawn arrows on the zoomed-in screen capture below) Spaceship Earth, but the Swan, the Dolphin, the Tower of Terror, Miss Tilly, and Everest.
As if we needed a good omen, a rainbow appeared:
We had a busy evening ahead of us: Jess wanted to visit the Top of the World lounge, we were joining the group dinner at 1900 Park Fare, and we also wanted to meet up with the group that was having drinks at Tambu Lounge. So we needed to get off the balcony and start getting ready for the evening!
Just so you recognize me:
On October 29, 2011, I was browsing the WDWMagic forums and guided the mouse towards the Disney Vacation Club forum. By accident, I clicked on the Disney Cruise Line forum, where I noticed a thread called “**It's UNOFFICIAL** The '13 Unofficial WDWMagic Girls Cruise!” Intrigued, I opened it up and discovered that @sweetpee_1993 and @Disneyfalcon had organized and were recruiting for a trip in September 2013. In a matter of hours, I had signed up. I was going to be celebrating my 50th birthday in July 2013, and declared that this would be an ideal birthday present from my darling husband! Saint that he is, he agreed, although I’m pretty sure he didn’t think I was serious about it until I booked my airline ticket this past February! I lined up @joanna71985 as a roommate for the cruise, and @plaz10 as my roommate for the one-night pre-cruise at Bay Lake Tower, as well as a couple of nights post-cruise at the Boardwalk.
Fast forward to Saturday, Sept. 7, 2013. I’d packed my bags the night before (and weighed them!), tucked in my cruise paperwork and my passport, and we said we’d leave the house our usual 3 hours in advance of flight time to make it to LaGuardia and through security without any last-minute rush. Suddenly, I remembered that the US Open would be playing that day--“honey, check the time of the first match!” Noon. Same time as my flight. OMG, there’s going to be massive traffic, and the tennis stadium is right next to the airport. Now we start rushing, and though I’ve traveled plenty on my own, and am usually the calm one, I realize that I don’t know where my passport is. Sheer panic. Took me almost ten minutes to find it in my purse.
After all that drama, we had the smoothest drive to LGA ever, no traffic, and then no security line! I never had so much time to burn at the airport.Boarded my multi-cultural flight--sitting next to me was a young couple from Italy on their honeymoon. Behind us was a French family (mom, boy and girl directly behind, dad across the aisle from them). Before we even take off, the boy is acting up. Italian bride looks scornfully through the seat at them, to no effect. L’enfant terrible starts kicking his legs. Right into my seatback. Once the flight attendant finished the safety spiel, I asked her if it was okay for me to move into the empty aisle seat directly across from me—she glanced behind me and suggested I move right away before we took off.
So I joined the honeymooning couple from Spain on that side of the plane, and spent the remainder of the flight with Pere’s knees giving me some unwanted lumbar support. Arrived at MCO, scooted off the plane and onto the monorail.
This would be my first time using DME! Because I was only there for one night, though, I handled my own luggage since I didn’t want to wait for it. I swung my suitcase off the carousel, and whacked myself in the foot with the thing. Got down to Level 1 and had to pull over and dig out a band-aid so I didn’t bleed all over my shoe. [Note to self: in future, pack band-aids in carry-on.]
Finally!
Funny, it was a Disney Cruise Line bus! I was too excited to snap a photo, and I decided to use the time on the bus to call home and let the hubs know I’d arrived safely. I’d been texting Jess @plaz10 since landing; she’d gotten in early before the room was ready, so headed into MK, but by the time I got to check-in, she was in our room at BLT. Contemporary would be the second stop on the bus. As we were pulling into Wilderness Lodge, very ominous dark clouds appeared, as you can see here (I had to get a picture of the DCL bus!!)
The moment I got my room key, the deluge began, and since both routes to Bay Lake Tower are open, I had to wait it out—
I grabbed some lunch at the Contempo Café [kid’s meal mahi-mahi sandwich with fruit]. I’d lost three pounds in preparation for the trip, and wanted to wait til I was on the boat to start packing it back on!
I figured there are worse places to be stuck than on the Grand Canyon Concourse:
At long last, I made it to the room, and found Jess out on the balcony, soaking in the view of SpaceshipEarth:
—it seemed as if all of the WDW resort (except for MK, of course) was spread out in front of us:
Not only could we see (from left to right as indicated by my crudely drawn arrows on the zoomed-in screen capture below) Spaceship Earth, but the Swan, the Dolphin, the Tower of Terror, Miss Tilly, and Everest.
As if we needed a good omen, a rainbow appeared:
We had a busy evening ahead of us: Jess wanted to visit the Top of the World lounge, we were joining the group dinner at 1900 Park Fare, and we also wanted to meet up with the group that was having drinks at Tambu Lounge. So we needed to get off the balcony and start getting ready for the evening!
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Finally made it, and Jess and I got in the customs line, which moved pretty quickly, and we encountered @
