Celebrate like a Super Star - The Prequel - Updated to 10/18 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Celebrate like a Super Star - The Prequel - Updated to 10/18
I debated about whether or not to write a pre-trip report for my upcoming vacation. But I decided that I should because this is going to be one doozy of a trip. (It’s also going to be a long pre-trip report )
So first of all, what to name it? So many ideas. “I’ve taken many great vacations, but this one’s gonna kick ‘em all”. A pretty good description, but it's dorky and too long. “Silver Anniversary Extravaganza”. Maybe. That one’s got possibilities. But it’s kind of a dime-a-dozen title. “Celebrate Like a Super Star”. Ding ding ding – I think this is a winner. I’ll explain why in a minute.
Next step – The 5 W’s:
Who: My hubby Dan and myself
What: An amazing vacation!
When: Nov. 15 to Dec 9, 2010
Where: Disneyland, a Panama Canal Cruise, and Universal Studios Orlando
Why: A celebration of 25 years of marriage. I know you're asking -- how can a 29 year old be married for 25 years? Ok, I'll admit that I'm a liiiiittle older than 29.
We’ve known for quite a while that for our 25th anniversary we wanted to do something special. We debated a few things. 2010 is also my parents’ 50th anniversary so we (meaning my siblings and our families) considered a family trip to celebrate that, and Dan & I would just add a few days on the front or back of that to celebrate our anniversary too. Several options were kicked around, but the one we all kept coming back to was a trip to Hawaii. But then my sister lost her job and couldn’t afford to participate anymore. And my brother’s wife is a teacher and can only take vacations during the really expensive seasons. Like Christmas. We would love to say Mele Kalikimaka to each other, but there were a number of reasons why that wasn’t going to work for any of us, not the least of which being that Dan and I are value season folks. My mom proposed renting a houseboat on Lake Okanogan in British Columbia for a week, but I veto’d that one. I love my family, but 7 days in the middle of a lake with no way to escape from any of them -- nuh uh. No thanks. So eventually the 50th trip has just faded away. But the 25th celebration planning kept on going.
At first, we looked at Hawaii for just the two of us. After all, we had honeymooned in Hawaii, so wouldn't it be awesome to go back 25 years later for our Silver Anniversary? While I was investigating that idea, I found out that you can cruise from LA to Hawaii. That planted the cruise bug in my head. A little more research and I found something I liked even better – a Panama Canal cruise. At first we were looking at a few different cruise lines so I contacted my travel agent who helped us narrow things down. I really liked the Disney Cruise Line (really? ), but Dan wasn’t completely sold on that idea. Dang. It’s his anniversary too, so he needs to enjoy it as much as me. He mentioned that a coworker had just taken a Panama Canal cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line. So we checked into that and found one that we liked. A big seller was the “freestyle cruising” format of NCL. Neither of us are tux and gown kind of people, and with NCL there’s no real formal nights. And you don’t have to be tied down to a dinner seating so no worries about early or late dining. We also really liked the itinerary for this particular cruise because it stops at Key West, and the rest didn't. My TA very patiently let me waffle back and forth and helped me with some questions we had and eventually on Dec 30th Dan and I finally made a decision on a cruise line, a date and even a stateroom so I emailed her and asked her to book it for us.
Ok. I promised to explain the name of my pre-trip report. The name of the ship is the Star. And we are splurging on a few things we normally wouldn’t, which kind of makes me feel like a super-star.
We got a free 4 or 5 category upgrade and are booked in a stateroom on the port side, pretty much in the middle of the ship. We've never cruised before and as far as I can tell, this is probably the perfect location for us. And we have a balcony. This is the first thing that makes me feel like a super star!
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Now that we’ve settled on what we are going to do to celebrate, there’s a lot of blanks to fill in. I'm in planning heaven! Dan needs to take 19 days of annual leave but he can’t actually put in for it until the new year, which starts April 1st. But he does have unofficial permission from his boss. Some of you might be wondering about how he's going to get 19 days of leave. We get a lot more vacation time here than in the USA. I don't know how y'all get by on one or 2 weeks a year! He gets 6 weeks of leave every year and he never uses it all so he banks what he's allowed, which gives him 10 weeks at the beginning of this fiscal year; and they have to pay him out for the rest. It's to our advantage to take the leave because they tax the dickens out of it if they pay him out. So that’s pretty much got his time off taken care of. I've warned him about what I will do to his Crackberry if he checks it while he's gone, too. There are other people who will cover emergencies, and everything else will be there when he gets back so there's no need for him to check in and then worry for 3 weeks about work.
Our cruise leaves from Los Angeles and finishes in Miami. It’d be a shame to be so close to Disneyland and not stop in to say to Mickey, wouldn't it! Downright stuck up, I think! And Universal Orlando will have the Wizarding World of Harry Potter open by then. Dan is a big Harry Potter fan. And I’m a guide for the Universal forum here, so it’s practically my PassPorter duty to check that out, right? Since Miami’s not that far from Orlando (well, it’s not if you are coming from Winnipeg!), while we’re in the neighbourhood we may as well drop by!
Now to figure out how we’re going to work this out. We almost always fly on our vacations using our air miles. But one of the things about using them is that they don’t do “open jaw” or multi-city flights meaning we couldn't fly in to California and back home from Florida. After I scratched my head a little and worked out several scenarios, I decided to use air miles to fly into Orlando. That way when we finish our vacation at Universal Studios, we’ll be able to fly home from there. Ok, so how to get from Orlando to Disneyland? I checked various discount websites looking for economical airfare and lucked out with one on Continental for dirt cheap. In fact thanks to those outrageous baggage fees, it is going to cost our luggage more to fly there than it is going to cost each of us!! How sick is that?
Next blank to fill in is admission to Disneyland and Universal. Conveniently, we received a phone call from a charity that we support, asking us to canvas our neighbourhood for donations. We agreed to do it. The next day, I was looking on the Give a Day, Get a Disney Day website and discovered that that exact organization, doing that exact volunteer work qualified for the GAD promotion. I signed us up for it immediately and we notified the charity who said they would definitely honour the promotion. Yay! Free day at Disneyland for doing something we had already committed to do. Sweet! But that is only one day. There’s still a few more days we need admission for.
Just like our flights, I have rarely paid cash for theme park tickets – I use reward points. So I checked the website and found 7 day park hopping passes to Universal available for a ridiculously great “price” and I jumped on that ASAP! I also checked for Disneyland tickets but right now all they have is a promotional ticket that is only good until the end of April. I’ll have to keep checking the website until I can order tickets for our dates. And I booked 4 nights at a Good Neighbor Hotel right across the street from Disneyland, near the pedestrian crosswalk.
Something I haven’t mentioned yet is my mobility issue. I'm not telling you this for sympathy or to be patted on the back; I am telling you this because it is an important part of our vacation and a serious motivator for me. As some of you know, I fell off my bicycle a couple years ago and ended up taking an ambulance ride to the ER. Despite the fact that I was wearing a helmet, I split my head open and needed stitches over my eye, and I landed hard on my right side. At first they thought my elbow and hip were broken. And erring on the side of caution, the paramedics put me in a collar and stuck me on a back board in case my neck was broken. Ok, seriously, that was more uncomfortable than my injuries! After x-rays, they determined my neck and hip weren’t broken, but it took a few days until the swelling went down to confirm my elbow wasn’t. However I did manage to really do a number on my pelvis and I have been in a wheelchair on the last two Disney trips we have taken. I used to have difficulty just doing normal day-to-day activities like laundry or grocery shopping. Even 6 months after my accident I could barely lift a gallon jug of milk. It took over a year to finally get a diagnosis of what was wrong, and it’s been a very very long recovery. Some of you may be thinking "but you didn't seem to be have any issues last spring". True. I was healing but we still didn't know what the problem was so I was sent to a specialist to get a diagnosis and her examination set me back to almost exactly where I was immediately after the accident. So basically I've had to recover from my accident twice. I've worked really hard and now I'm up to occasionally hitting 6000 steps a day, although I do spend the next day recuperating. My goal is to double that and not need to take it easier the next day. So another thing we are celebrating is that I plan to be able to walk on this vacation! But it is still important to be pretty close to the parks – the last time we went to Disneyland, it was over a 20 minute walk back to our hotel at night because we didn’t know where our motel was located when I booked it. Be wary of websites that say "we're located right across the street"! Yes, technically they were. But you couldn't cross the street there and it was over a mile from the gates to our room. Although it’s been 10 years since we were in Disneyland last, this time we have a better idea of what it’s like so I knew where to be looking for a place to stay. And this time a) there's Google Maps, and b) Google Maps now has street view. Take THAT, misleading websites!!
Donna, I hear you 100% about your recovery and what you're able to, especially having been dealt the blow of chronic fatigue over the last few months. It sounds to me like you've got the right attitude there and that's half the battle.
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Yea, it is started! I have to say, after "seeing" how you have focused on getting better these past few months I know this trip will truly be one of a lifetime! Can't wait to hear the rest of the planning.
Great planning! Oh how I wish I had 6 weeks of vacation! I worked 5 years to get myself up to 2 weeks this year and the company I work for was just bought out and I'm back to 1 week! Grrrrr!!!! At least Tom gets 5 weeks. Looking forward to more from you!
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)
A pretty good description, but it's dorky and too long. 
“Silver Anniversary Extravaganza”. Maybe. That one’s got possibilities. But it’s kind of a dime-a-dozen title. “Celebrate Like a Super Star”. 
Ding ding ding – I think this is a winner. I’ll explain why in a minute. 
), but Dan wasn’t completely sold on that idea. Dang. It’s his anniversary too, so he needs to enjoy it as much as me. He mentioned that a coworker had just taken a Panama Canal cruise with Norwegian Cruise Line. So we checked into that and found one that we liked. A big seller was the “freestyle cruising” format of NCL. Neither of us are tux and gown kind of people, and with NCL there’s no real formal nights. And you don’t have to be tied down to a dinner seating so no worries about early or late dining. We also really liked the itinerary for this particular cruise because it stops at Key West, and the rest didn't. My TA very patiently let me waffle back and forth and helped me with some questions we had and eventually on Dec 30th Dan and I finally made a decision on a cruise line, a date and even a stateroom so I emailed her and asked her to book it for us. 
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He gets 6 weeks of leave every year and he never uses it all so he banks what he's allowed, which gives him 10 weeks at the beginning of this fiscal year; and they have to pay him out for the rest. It's to our advantage to take the leave because they tax the dickens out of it if they pay him out. So that’s pretty much got his time off taken care of. I've warned him about what I will do to his Crackberry if he checks it while he's gone, too. There are other people who will cover emergencies, and everything else will be there when he gets back so there's no need for him to check in and then worry for 3 weeks about work.
to Mickey, wouldn't it! Downright stuck up, I think! 
So basically I've had to recover from my accident twice. I've worked really hard and now I'm up to occasionally hitting 6000 steps a day, although I do spend the next day recuperating. My goal is to double that and not need to take it easier the next day. So another thing we are celebrating is that I plan to be able to walk on this vacation! 
But it is still important to be pretty close to the parks – the last time we went to Disneyland, it was over a 20 minute walk back to our hotel at night because we didn’t know where our motel was located when I booked it. Be wary of websites that say "we're located right across the street"! Yes, technically they were. But you couldn't cross the street there and it was over a mile from the gates to our room. 
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
At least Tom gets 5 weeks. Looking forward to more from you! 
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