Trip Report Oh, the Places We go, The People We See

Welcome to my newest Trip Report. For those who don’t know me, I am Jen.



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That’s my Daughter Claire with me.



We just got back from an amazing vacation with several family members.

We traveled Nov. 1st thru the 15th, 2012. We rested our headed at 6 different places on this trip, and though it wasn’t always easy to keep moving from place to place, I am happy to have tried some new resorts out and stayed at some familiar ones as well.



This trip came about over a year ago. My Mom’s cousin Vicki wanted to take a trip with her and my Aunt Mary. Her Daughter Katie also wanted to come along.

After some talking and planning it became a group of 16 traveling. I was elected ring leader since I have quite a bit of Disney experience.

Plans were made, some were changed, and some were a little slower at making decisions than others.

My husband Skip is what is known in the Disney groups as a resistor and he decided NOT to come along. He was not so happy about the amount of time I was going to be gone.



The dates for the cruise were set first, Nov 4 through the 8th on the Disney Dream. We all planned to arrive a day early and stay at the Residence Inn near the port. Soon I decided that I must add a few Disney days, and so did everyone else eventually. I thin decide…heck lets add some more, and Claire and I ended up staying 3 more days after the rest left.

Then after doing some research and with a heads up from my good Dis-friend Carey, I was alerted to the fact that the last Halloween party was on Nov. 2nd. How could I pass that chance up? So Claire and I decided to fly in a day earlier than everyone else to hit that party. Claire and I also decided to fly out of Columbus. My family lives near the Toledo, OH area, and the best direct flights are out of Detroit. My youngest sister, who was not going on the cruise, lives in Columbus, and I was able to get a decent priced direct flight from there, so Claire and I drove down Nov. 1 and spent the night before our early flight.



Plans were finally all set in stone and we just had to wait for our time to arrive. Not an easy task, but we all managed.



Let me introduce you to the crew. This is a picture of a picture. My sister has the CD with the actual digital copy, but hasn’t yet loaded it to the computer, so I had to go with this for now till I can get a copy.



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In the back row, left to right, we have my parents, Joe and Paula, next to them is my Uncle Geoff. Next to Geoff is cousin Vicki and her son in law Thad. Next to Thad is Pete, Vicki’s husband and then me. Aunt Mary is on the end, she is married to Uncle Geoff and my Mother’s sister.

Down towards the front, left to right, is my nieces Alexis and Abby with their parents Rob and Gail. Gail is my sister. Front and center is Claire. Behind Claire are Jude, and Katie. Katie is married to Thad and is Pete and Vicki’s Daughter. And then we have baby Luke in the stroller. He is only about 9 months old and what a cutie he is.



This trip had the usual ups and downs that most every family will have, but I have to admit things went much smoother than I planned. We never felt the need to kill each other for the most part. LOL

We had several cruise newbies and several Disney World newbies as well.



Please join me in reliving a very magical trip with all the places we traveled and all the people we met along the way!
 

jenseib

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Original Poster








Those are some pretty bad shots of the buffet and they were getting close to shutting it down, but at least I got a few.

While I was out walking and drinking my cool beverage, the family was just chillaxing as well.





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jenseib

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Original Poster


I continued my walk around as well. I was trying to get a glimpse of areas I had not seen before.



But when you drink a tropical drink, nature calls.











I didn’t do it this time, but it was tempting.



I had never made it down this far last year.



Or if I did, I don’t remember!

 

jenseib

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Original Poster








This picture makes me think of the Poly.







Spring a Leak! We made it here on our last visit and Claire had a great time. It’s a splash type area and I took lots of pictures ….. BUT ….. they were all on the card that I lost that trip. It still irks me that I never found that lost memory card.





 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster


From the back side of Spring a Leak you can see the Teen area.











I made it back over by Cookies BBQ Too and they had now closed up. I took a seat and had a little rest.



I took this video for some reason. I am thinking it was because of the music. It kind of had a circus sound to Be Our Guest.



After my rest, I continued on taking more pictures.



 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster




I just love the view of the ship from the beach!

It was time to end my walk. I had actually thought about checking out Serenity Bay, but I figured I had been gone long enough and should get back to my Daughter.



The family had been having fun without me.

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When I arrived back, my parents had gone back to the ship, and I think Gail had taken Abby back as well. Claire had been having a ball and did not miss me one bit.



Most of the gang wanted to go to Pelican Plunge, so we packed up our area and sent the girls off to get rinsed.

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jenseib

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Original Poster
I chose not to go on the slides because that’s not my thing. They all got ready and the little ones got on life jackets.



It’s always exciting when you are going to do something fun with Uncle Geoff.

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I stayed at the shoreline with the bags and tried to watch their progress, but it was really hard to see as the sun was shining right behind the slides and I was practically blinded.
I resorted to taking pictures around the area.







Every so often I would zoom in and see if I could tell if they were at the top yet.







I decided to get creative and take pictures of my footprints. I walked in the sand, then I made a big hop over to the side and came back and took the picture.

 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster










After a while it appeared that Claire was coming down. I think this is her splash.



One by one they all came down. Katie tried to stay near the slide to catch Jude but the life guard yelled at her and wouldn’t let her. Jude came flying down and got quite a bit of water up his nose. I don’t think he cared for it so much then.

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I think some of them made the decision to go a 2nd time around.




We then decided it as getting time to head back to the ship. We still had time, but we all needed to get showered for early dinner.



We rinsed off, returned the tubes and then of course we couldn’t leave without a bit of shopping.

 

jenseib

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Original Poster




I don’t think anything was bought. Well Alexis might have, but I am pretty sure we didn’t buy anything.
We then made our way back to the ship. Geoff and I took several pictures along the way and I’ll post some from both of us. I am thinking that Geoff walked and we took the tram.

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I wish I could take credit for the next couple, but Geoff took them.





 

jenseib

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Original Poster








But all good things must come to an end so we headed back to the ship.





We got showered and ready for the night. It was Pirate night, so more fun to come. We did take a look out on the verandah to get a few last pictures and watch us sail away.





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jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster


Here are a few of Geoff’s pictures. There are still people on the island in them, so it was close to the end of the day.

















 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster


It was finally time to set sail. We watched as we pulled out. Last time the Captain played all the different horns as we left, this time he only played the one. I did get it on video, but it’s so bad that when I watched it I felt REALLY sick and the wind was loud and you can barely hear it anyways.

I did take this video as we left and it’s not so bad.

 

PolynesianPrincess

Well-Known Member
The jetski adventure sounds like it was a blast! Definitely something I want to try should we like our cruise and want to do another one! :)

Love the pics of the island. It's so vibrant and colorful.
 

jenseib

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Original Poster
The jetski adventure sounds like it was a blast! Definitely something I want to try should we like our cruise and want to do another one! :)

Love the pics of the island. It's so vibrant and colorful.

It was a lot of fun. When do you go? I am really wishing I had one planned soon, but none in my immediate future.
 

jenseib

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Original Poster
It was now time for Pirate night!!!!

I was running a bit late. Turning myself into a pirate took a bit longer than I had planned. Well actually I didn’t get myself started early enough and played around. And my hair was not drying fast from the shower, so I gave up. It was going in a ponytail anyways and then a hat…Oh you know how good that looked by the end of the night!

I was excited to see who dressed up tonight or how much they did. I knew Gail’s family would be dressing up and that Katie had brought along a few things like eye patches and bandanas. Some were resisting though. Aunt Mary and Geoff said there was no way they would dress up. We kind of started giving Geoff a hard time about it in the months prior to the cruise. Just joking of course, but Katie would tell him he had no worries as she had stuff for him, etc. All in good fun.

So Claire and I rushed down to Animators Palate for dinner. We weren’t the last to arrive, so all was good.





It was nice to see that most of us did have at least a little touch of the pirate look to us. Dad went wild with the bandana around his neck.







Geoff and Mary still had not arrived, but it wasn’t unusual for someone in our family to be late. We dug into the bread while we looked the menus over.



Rob giving me his pirate look.



Aunt Mary finally arrived and let us know the Geoff had had too much sun on the island today and just was not feeling well. Oh man. I felt bad, because he seemed to have such a good time today too and I really didn’t want him to feel sick. She did say that he may try to make it by dessert after a little rest. Ok, well nothing we can do about it, but I was hoping this would be cured with a little rest and wouldn’t spoil the rest of the trip for him.



We made our orders and chatted with each other. All of a sudden we noticed some commotion at the end of our table. I noticed Aunt Mary had her iPad out and was taking pictures with it. That was unusual, because she doesn’t take many pictures, and usually Geoff does with his camera. I guess since he was ill, she was taking some. But what really stunned me was that she was taking pictures of a pirate at the end of our table. I glanced at him and I wasn’t sure if he was a Cast Member or just some guy dressed up really well and talking to people. It still seemed odd that Aunt Mary would take his picture. And then I heard the whispers …..I think that’s Geoff. What? Geoff is sick!

Nope, Geoff was dressing up as a pirate and made a Grand Entrance!



See, even in this picture, Claire hasn’t realized its Geoff.

 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster


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We were in total shock. I couldn’t believe he dressed up and not only dressed up, but went all out!



Abby wanted to know who the heck that creepy pirate was.



It took her a while to realize it was Geoff and warm up to him.

I just have to add that Aunt Mary and Geoff (I never call him Uncle Geoff, but all of our kids do, because they didn’t even get married till 1987, and I was out of high school at that point and had known him for 10 years already), are the best Aunt and Uncle EVER! They do so much for our kids, over and above what needs to be done by any Aunt and Uncle. They don’t have kids, nor did they want any of their own, but they treat our kids as if they are their own.
And Geoff is just like a playmate. He does so many fun things with the kids that I think they forget sometimes that he is an adult. LOL

We then heard the story about how Alexis kept going in Aunt Mary and Geoff’s room before dinner. They had the divider curtain up and Geoff was getting ready on the other side. Alexis wanted to see him, but Aunt Mary told her he was sick. Well that didn’t matter, she still wanted to see him, so Aunt Mary told her he was in his undies. You know that will make a kid run away fast. Nope, it wasn’t working. She still wanted to check on him. So Geoff popped his head out and told her he felt awful. Gail said Alexis came back to the room telling her that Geoff was really sick and even had dark circles under his eyes. LOL Well he had started putting his pirate makeup on and that’s what she saw.
Geoff had gotten a late start at dressing, so that was why he was late for dinner.

So after the shock, appetizers were being served and we all dug in.
I had the Pirates Golden "Pot Stickers" ~Oriental Pork "Dumplings" deep fried and served with a Tamarind-Ginger soy sauce and Pickled Vegetables.



And I believe this was Claire’s soup, but not sure what it was.



I don’t know who had this, but I took a picture.



They had specialty cups this evening and we got one for each of the girls.



Dad had The Buccaneer’s Sun Ripened Pineapple~ Fresh Island Pineapple with a Coconut covered Banana and Orange Glaze. This was pretty “wild” for him, but I think he enjoyed the pineapple.

 

jenseib

Well-Known Member
Original Poster





A few pictures of our pirates.









I guess Luke was getting fussy, so Thad left with him. Let’s just say their idea of fussy isn’t bad at all. LOL! He was so quiet, I never even heard him, but Katie said for him this was very fussy.



We also had a photographer come around and take a few pictures.





 

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