Our Valentine Cruise Pre Trip report About This Page:

[lsimms]

Hello all my fellow passporter's. Here is my stab at a trip report. Travelling will be Me Laure 36, DH Joey 36, DD Amanda 9 and DS Clayton 7. I am a travel professional and every so often Disney puts out incredible rates for TA's. Well on Dec 30 they put out one for the Feb 13 7 night Eastern Caribbean cruise. I am not picky about staterooms so I call in to see how much it would be for the 4 of us. I was shocked that it was so cheap. I booked this without telling my DH because we were planning to go to the beach in June. So I book it and then tell my DH and at first he says we just don't need to go right now. Well I knew if I used my feminine charms that he would come around. Also we are from Louisiana so we have Mardi Gras here in Feb and it just so happens they also have parent teacher conferences on Feb 12 so the kids are out of school on Feb 12, 15 and 16. I thougt that was a perfect week cause the kids would only miss 3 days of school. Well I finally get my stateroom number on Fri Jan 29 and it is Cat 11 (6113) which I stayed in last March with a fellow agent and it was great. We will see how it is with two kids along for the ride. We are driving to the Port on the 12th and the boat sails on the 13th. I can't wait to go and I need to get packing so I will leave you guys for now and hopefully we have blue skies and smooth sailing.

[chezp]

Great start!

[Colexis Mom]

Have a great time!

[DrDolphin]

Have a great trip!!

[pamcarey]

Great start! Can't wait to hear all about it!

[Magic#7564]

Have a good time!

[lsimms]

Well as I said in my pp I booked a Cat 11 and that is what we were assigned. Well I got a little Pixie Dust because I called in and was able to upgrade to a Cat 5 for not too much money. So I did it and did not tell the family yet. I am going to suprise them with the Verabdah when we get on board. WOO HOO two more days. I hope we can get there. As you know I am from Louisiana and the Saints won the Superbowl on Sunday night and today we are having Sleet and possibley 2-4 inches of snow here. What happened to global warming. Oh well I am sure we will make it there. Thanks for all the replies.

[chezp]

What an awesome upgrade!

that the weather allows you to make it down there safely.

[Magic#7564]

Congrats on the AWESOME upgrade!!! That is terrific. Have fun!

[Kenny]

What an awesome upgrade!! Great start!!

[lsimms]

Well when I left off it was only two days from our depature and as I said we were expecting to get 2-4 inches of snow. Well I usually say that is crazy but on Feb 11 it started to sleet and then it did turn into snow to the tune of about 4-6 inches. I could not believe it, it seems that each time I plan a vacation there is some weather related issue, lots of rain, a hurricane or now snow. My DH is a State Trooper so he had to work late the night before we were to leave and he said we could not leave the next morning as planned. I was so upset about that. We had a 13-14 hour drive ahead of us the next day and I planned to leave around 4 am so that we would be at Port Canaveral by dinner time. Well that did not happen. On Feb 12 we finally left around 730am. Oh well at least we are still going right. Well off we go and the snow was crazy, we saw snow from our home in Alexandria LA until we got to Pensacola Fl. They said it snowed in 49 states that day and I believe it. It was odd to see snow in southern Alabama and Mississippi. The drive to the Port was not bad, my kids were really good and we finally arrived at 11pm. The funny thing was we were about 2 miles from the Country Inn and Suites where we were staying and were pulled over by a Fla. State Trooper. I thought oh no this is not good. But luckily he was very nice and when we told him my DH was also a State Trooper in LA he said well get on out of here and just said to slow it down a bit. There was nothing left to do tonight but grab a burger a BK and hit the sack. We plan to get to the terminal when it opened at 10am. At this point I still have not told my family about the upgrade to Cat 5. It is my little secret suprise for them.

[lsimms]

We get up at 7 or so in the morning because we want to be ready to leave for the terminal at 930am. We get up and dressed and head to the breakfast room to eat our free breakfast, another reason I booked the Country Inn and Suites for this trip. I also got it for $50+ tax for the night and we could leave our car there for the week for free. The breakfast room was packed but we found a spot to eat and we took out time and ate. When we were done we went back to our room to pack up the rest of our things and load it into the car. As my DH was putting things into the car the shuttle driver tells him not to get into a hurry if you are on the Magic because the ship is stuck at Castaway Cay and we won't be able to board until around 8pm. He comes back to tell me this and I am shocked. Well I was going on this cruise with four other families and we are all like what now. We start going online to see if we can figure out what is going on. I call DCL who has a message for everyone on the Magic which says " We apologize but the Magic has not been able to return to Port like expected but you may come to Epcot for the day on us." So the group of us check out of our hotel and head to Epcot. By the way I am glad we had a car because it would not have been good to be there without one. And it was actually quite cold, with temps in the 40's and wind chill in the upper 30's. And I thought it was always warm in Florida. So next our adventure begins at Epcot. Like I told my DH you said you wanted to do a Land and Sea package one day, well here is your chance.

[Kenny]

Nothing quite like a little last minute surprise!
At least they offered something!

[chezp]

I remember that cruise getting stuck and being a day late back. Wow, seems like you were really fighting with the weather!

[B.M.]

Great start! I would be very disappointed to have been ready to board and have the ship delayed.... Looking forward to more...