[Colexis Mom]

The title of this trip report comes after the fact of the trip! I suppose if I had my act in gear, I would have done a pre-trip report, but just didn’t have my heart into it, or the time to do it with the kids home for the summer. It could be named….The “Owie, my back” TR, the “It’s hotter than heck” TR, but the prevailing one would have been the “My husband is for sale…really, please take him” TR. In his defense, I will keep it as the “There’s too many titles for the report” TR! I’m so kind!

Well, where to start. I guess at the beginning….. This trip was planned (well the cruise part anyway) back in December 2007 when Disney released dates for 2009 sailings. I was turning 40 in 2009, and what better way to celebrate than a 7-day cruise. I looked at both itineraries, and decided to go with the Western as it went to Key West and this might be my only chance of getting there. Better yet, there was a sailing right before school started, so I could save some money from going during peak time in June or July! I contacted Marisa, and she got us all set up to go! I chose cabin 6562, as that was the cabin we had on our cruise in 2006, and it was centrally located and we enjoyed it! Frankly that was about it for the planning at that point, as we were going to WDW in August 2008 so that became the planning focus.

Fast forward to 2009! I decided to drive ourselves to the port, so I had made one way car rental reservations (Budget on the way down, Avis on the way back). The trip finally got paid off, and we got passports for the kids (in 10 days no less – no expediting either)! I guess that brings us to April. We (or rather I) planned on going down on Wednesday, before the cruise, to give us some time in Orlando. We decided to go to Sea World since we’ve never been, and we still had 1 day 1 park tickets left over from our free dining trip in August 2006 when we had APs. I snagged a $79 direct flight down to Orlando on Southwest, I think in May. Coming back, however, was another issue. Pricey, pricey, pricey. I finally decided on a stop in Baltimore on the way home, and the tickets $111 per person. Ugh. What can you do! We got to our 90 day reservation deadline, which of course, was Memorial Day weekend. We always go to the in-laws on Memorial Day weekend to go to the beach. They don’t have a computer! L But Matt’s cousins do. So 12 hours after we could start making ressies, I hightail it over there (I don’t think they would have appreciated seeing me at midnight) and I borrowed their computer. I was able to score all the excursions I had wanted (Fury Catamaran in Cozumel and Stingray City in Grand Cayman) and was able to get Palo for dinner on our GC night and brunch (which was the big score) on the morning of Key West (which was the only day available but worked fine with our schedule). Thankfully, Michelle (Marv on the boards) and I had been talking, and she was able to secure tea for us for the first at-sea day! Great job Michelle!

With that done, there really wasn’t much more to do! I had got a PIN from Disney for 40% off, but there was ZERO availability at the mods or values for the days before the cruise. Ugh! I ended up booking at the Dolphin, for $129/night (not too shabby). We got a call from Marisa one afternoon, I think somewhere near the end of July, saying Disney was offering us an upgrade to a category 4 for $300 and did we want to do it? Well, it only took a minute or two, but how could you turn that down? So I went for it! Marisa gave us two rooms to choose from, and I chose 8066 on port side (the other one was on starboard side). Of course, after I got off the phone with her, I forgot to ask her if all of Matt’s “conditions” were met (no adjoining room, plexiglass balcony) were met. Thankfully, a quick look in the PassPorter Guide and we were all set! Along the way, I discovered that another PassPorter (Gina – D&G Miller) was also going to be on our cruise, so we started emailing and we found out we were on the same excursion in Cozumel)!

It finally came time for packing, which happened only about 3 or 4 days before we were due to leave. I couldn’t pack any of the kids clothes since it’s hot here and we’re still wearing everything. I put away all my “nice” clothes for dinner, and stuff for the kids as well (Matt was on his own, which would come back to BITE me)! Then I started seeing people with magnet designs and such for the stateroom doors and I set off to make a bunch of those! Then I decided that I wanted to make matching t-shirts for embarkation so we could get a nice family shot! I think I really started to stress myself out (frankly over nothing) and got very sick the weekend before we left. So sick I lost about 3 pounds. But I guess that’s a good thing when you’re going on a cruise……I’ll gain that back in no time!

So Wednesday morning arrives (departure day) and lets be thankful we have a 3:00 flight. Otherwise I would have been up until 3 AM trying to get everything done. As par for the course, Matt mainly ended up with a suitcase to himself, and the kids and I shared the other one. This is the first “for sale” issue! Maybe I should start keeping track of those in the report! After a stop at the post office, we were on our way to the airport. Check the luggage, no issues. Go thru security, and they have to search the carry on bag. Now I purposely put the pressed penny tubes in the carry on bag, and take them out at security. So the TSA guy starts going thru the bag, and what does he find? A full size tube of toothpaste, in DH’s shaving bag (for sale #2). Seriously. We’ve flown about 5 times since the regs were put into place (actually the morning that they were put into place years ago). Toothpaste now gone, we got some lunch. Made it to the gate, and sat for awhile (at least they added nice comfy chairs now to the gate)! Get into line for boarding (we were A27-30) and then they have about 5-6 TSA agents go thru the gate area, opening people carry on bags for inspection again (randomly). Is this new? First time with this one! Get onto the plane (which is oversold) and sit. And sit. And sit. Between figuring out who was going to get off and get free stuff due to the oversold situation, then it was announced that the ground crew didn’t have enough “crew” and it was going to take an extra 20 minutes to load all the bags. Really. Then we get out on the runway, and the captain announces that we need to sit again due to weather in the area. Well, I’m not sure what area he’s talking about, because the sun is out here! Finally, we are on our way, about 30 minutes late. Of course, I get to sit with the kids. Thankfully they were fine, between the i-pod and books.

Continued in next post!