Before the Magic- Pre-Trip 10/18-25 WC- Kruzin' 2008 About This Page:

[Kenny]

Things are beginning to happen as Our cruise dates close in quickly. So, since I am finding it hard to contain my excitement and am driving my DW crazy... I decided to begin the trip now with this first attempt at a pre-trip report.

Hopefully, those of you who decide to come along with me won't be bored to tears and will find some interesting reading in the posts to come.
We have our passports and I just added the Romantic Escape to the cruise!

All that being said... Let the Magic Begin!

[Kenny]

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?). My DW says, “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 DGDs 7&11 to WDW for a week! Well, our Disney vacation was one the four of us kids will never forget, let me tell you!

[chezp]

Great start - I'm looking forward to reading more.

[MyRapunzal]

Yay! I was so happy to see you start your PTR!

Great start! And love the sig pic of you, DW, and the DGDs!

[Kenny]

Originally Posted by chezp

Great start - I'm looking forward to reading more.

Originally Posted by MyRapunzal

Yay! I was so happy to see you start your PTR!

Great start! And love the sig pic of you, DW, and the DGDs!

Thank you, Ladies! More to come...

[Kenny]

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 she is from New England!

So, in September of 2006, we took my mom and aunt 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 a lighthouse on Cape Cod (don't remember the name.


The "Old North Church". They still have Episcopal services here so we attended a church service here. Cheryl, you probably know the story, but in case you don't; 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.




Next: Did you ever think about a cruise?

[DyanKJ130]

Great start!! the photos you took during your New England vacation!! I think I need to start paying more attention to our beautiful coastline!! Can't wait to hear more

[MyRapunzal]

Originally Posted by DyanKJ130

Great start!! the photos you took during your New England vacation!! I think I need to start paying more attention to our beautiful coastline!! Can't wait to hear more

[chezp]

Wonderful photos - I love the shot of the lighthouse with that beautiful sky.

[NanaTink]

Great start, can't wait for more!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Kenny Love the shot of Nubble Lighthouse

[retiredkid]

Kenny!! Glad you have started this. Luvin' your photos. Looking forward to all the details of your plans.
Glad you added the Romance package. Have fun!!

[Kenny]

Sorry I haven't gotten caught up here, but I had no or very poor internet connection the last 2 motels I've had. The Nubble lighthouse was one of the most relaxing places I've ever been. We also went to see Plymouth Rock... now that is a littlebit of history you wouldn't want to miss!

[Kenny]

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!


Up next: Hailey’s Greatest Christmas Adventure!

[retiredkid]

I don't remember hearing about your major operation, Kenny. So glad you're okay and finally getting to go on this cruise. You will love the Western, even if its not your first choice.