mikmouse

My friend used this and she got it through ebates.com and then ebags.com http://m.ebags.com/product/bellino/cooler-sling/236841?productid=10196905

It was always curious to me why Disney doesn't have buses between parks. They want you to park hop but make it almost impossible sometimes. :'(

Are there any websites or active classified forums for used campers, other than Craigslist and eBay?

We look at those but we've narrowed down what we want to something so specific, without seeing a lot of inventory I doubt we'll ever find it.

I've been looking for two months and haven't seen "our" camper yet... I am about to give up and buy new, perish the thought! (I'm cheap!)

TIA,

Amanda

We were trying to sell our 5th wheel and Ford F350 Diesel Power Stroke. No luck and we needed money to buy a car. Just last weekend we made a deal with a Nissan deal who is taking both. We still have possession until Saturday if you're interested. Of course, price quoted is negotiable and remember it comes with all the camping hoses, chocks, etc. as we won't need them any longer.

For all the resources Disney has, computer tech is not good for any of their sites. They should have the best but it's always been slow. They have good ideas but they need to hire good tech gurus.

Thanks Jen and Chris for giving us a home. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SNARKY!

Just had abliw out on BRAND NEW tires on way home from FW today. AAA to the rescue.

Carol, So happy to meet you and spend a little time together. I am enjoying your TR.

The Disney Parks Blog confirmed Main Street Bakery will keep it's name and theming, just with Starbucks' coffee and specialty drinks and pastries, but they will keep most of the same Main Street Bakery cookies, brownies, seasonal cupcakes, etc. :jumpforjoy

We take 95 and go through JAX. We switch drivers every 2 hrs and don't you know it was a joke that I ALWAYS got the JAX stint. Well, it really isn't a problem now. Last Dec. was fine and going around is way to much longer for us. We're going to go straight through again this Dec. Good luck!

I just love that!

Oh my! This entire scenario is fabulous. I just love reading it all. Have a wonderful time and I can't wait to read more!

We never wait on line anymore. We go at the last minute and walk right in. Even if we didn't get a seat we didn't mind because at least we didn't have to wait for an hour on bleachers, without backs. We can't handle those seats any longer. Since we've seen the show so often, and we still enjoy it, we take our chances. But so far, we've always gotten in without waiting on line.

Yeah, that would be fun if we can coordinate. Hopefully we can do more there next year. This year camper was in for repairs most of the summer. Next year we plan to get out early and often. We keep our pontoon boat at the Satterwhite marina, so it works out great. Hope to see you at the Fort and Kerr Lake!

I believe this is the last weekend for Bullocksville. There are some that stay open year round, and I think County Line is one of them. But as others have said here, some areas are pretty steep and tight for our 5th wheel, so that's why we prefer Bullocksville. This is our last trip to prepare for our Dec. Fort trip. We keep it in storage so this is the only time before then we can open and clean and stock up. Wish you could come this weekend. It would be great meeting you.

We'll be at Bullocksville this weekend. Anyone? :purpleflam:

I am soo sorry for your loss. Yes, our pets are family members. Brady, I'm sure, gave a lot of unconditional love to all of you.

Awesome report, loved it! I had the chills at the end

When we came off our cruise last September of 7 days on the Magic, we were staying the night of our return in our DSL condo in Cocoa Beach. So we all went for dinner at Fishlips and watched OUR ship and OUR room sail right back out that night. Yes, it is strange. We can't wait to go on the Fantasy next September. Thanks for the journey, it was really fun.

Here comes today's second update.

I hope you enjoy it, because there won't be another until Monday.

We will get this thing wrapped up next week if it kills me.

We left off with our arrival on the island and the discovery of a crab.

The clouds cleared nicely, and we had a nice sunny morning.

There were less folks on the island this morning. I don't know if it's because the day started out cloudy, or if folks weren't feeling a second visit to the island. But, that meant there was almost no line for Pelican Plunge. We rode those slides many times. I don't have any photos of that for you because the POC Fuji underwater camera was still dead. And, in case you're wondering it still is. I am going to have to get a new waterproof camera before our next cruise.

Before long, it was time to head over to the crab races.

The girls stopped to play ping-pong, as they needed to check that off their LOF"s.

Here's an action shot. I even got the ball in there. Look right above the center line of the table:

Frank and I had already played, but I guess he was going for bonus points:

Our new friend Simon was running the crab races. I showed him our entry. He thought it was funny (or at least he acted like he did) (also check out my man's watch) :

The ship's official DJ, Marquis was playing some music here at the Gazebo.

I asked him for a photo:

That is me holding the DJ like a baby. Frank missed on this one.

While we waited for the crab fun to begin, a seagull comotion broke out right in front of us:

What is this all about?

Well, one of those flying rats had scored a whole hot dog. And he did not want to share (you can see the hot dog right in the center of this photo) :

Simon announced that it was time for the official sign ups, so I brought our crab up. Simon said one of the real crabs would eat him:

Simon was probably right about that.

So, we let our crab go, and chose one of their crabs. We tried to remember who had won the last time. Was it number 2? That's what we thought, so we chose #2.

Simon got busy pumping up the crowd. And, look who showed up. Over there to the left. It's the lady from the sail away party with the shrunken bathing suit. Unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, that suit had shrunk even more during the cruise:

Next came the introduction of the crabs. I guess since this was the only crab race today, they felt obliged to drag this out for as long as possible:

The crabs were placed in the starting circle, and Simon exhorted the crowd to cheer wildly for the crab of their choice:

The crowd complied:

That suit shrunk more for sure.

The crabs scrambled.

Hey, look at number 2 go! :

Number 2 won the first heat.

This was good.

He could rest-up and then come back for the final round and blow away the competition again!

Finally! I thought. We were on our way to victory!

But, I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that #2 barely moved in the final round.

He had used up all his energy in that first round, and wasn't crawling any more.

He just sat there.

And we lost.

Again.

Dang it.

The plan was that after we won, I was going to beg Simon to get us some medals instead of the gift bag that they gave out.

I couldn't do that now.

What a bunch of losers.

We headed back to our base camp with our heads hung in shame.

On the way there, we passed this bar:

Wait a second.

Do you see who the bartender is in there?

It's Maria!

We stopped to say hello. Maria said she would be working there all day and that we should come back to see her. We said we would.

We continued on with the walk of shame.

Those amazing details I was talking about are not confined to the ship. Look at this:

We got back to our chairs and I broke out the flip flop and Coronas. Soon, we felt better about our defeat.

Nancy came back shortly after this. She said that power walk took her all over the island. That might be something worth looking in to next time. Nancy also mentioned that she had stopped by and seen Maria, and that Maria had mentioned seeing us. Maria told Nancy that she would like the four adults to come by and see her in the afternoon. We told her she had told us the same thing. Nancy said, no, Maria really wanted us to come and see her, and not to bring the kids. We all agreed that we would head over there later for a Mojito.

I don't have many photos from this part of our day.

it consisted of us swimming, and sunning, and sliding. We went to lunch after a while and then did more of the same. The girls all headed over to the Head's Up bar near us and got some drinks. The 21 year-olds got real drinks, the twins got smoothies.

As the afternoon wore on, there were all kinds of abandoned floats drifting around the swimming area. The girls helped themselves:

Around 3:30, we adults headed over to see Maria. She made us each a Mojito, and we had a nice chat. She told us more about life aboard the ship, and all the bars aboard the ship. She knew the differences between the bars on the Dream and the Fantasy, and we had a nice chat. As we finished our drinks and told her we were heading back the the beach, she stopped us. She said she had something for us. She reached under the bar and handed us four medals! She said we had won the mojito drinking contest. How awesome is that? Actually, Maria apparently is friends with Simon, and she had gone to him and told him about the LOF and asked him to get her four medals. And he did. That called for another drink, and we talked some more. As we talked, we decided that we should come up with a plan to let the girls know that we had poned them with the medals. I didn't really like the plan-I wanted to just wear the medals back to the beach right then- but I got overruled. The plan was that we would hide the medals for now, and wait until dinner to break them out. We would show the girls the medals, and then give them to them. There were four of us, and there were four of them. That was a nice plan, but I did not like it. I didn't want to give up my medal. But I agreed to go along.

So we went back to base camp, and didn't say a word. The wives hid the medals in their beach bags, and nobody suspected a thing.

Oh, and the medals were not the only gifts we got from Maria. Check these out:

Big deal. Corona bottles.

Hang on there. Look again.

Do you see those little funnels up top? Those are plastic bottles. They had those at the bar. They pour a Corona in to them so guests can walk around with a bottle, but not have glass. Have you ever seen such a thing? We hadn't either. When we saw those at the bar, we remarked to Maria how cool they were. Next thing you know, she handed a bunch over to us.

So when I got back to base camp I fixed us some.

See that lady with the straw hat sitting down there by the water? That's Mrs. TCD. See the little chair next to her? That's where I was about to sit. And right after I took this photo, I did:

Oh yes, something else, when we got back from our visit to Maria, the girls all said they were heading back to the ship. Their new BFF, Jerry, was hosting a Karaoke party some time in the early evening, and they all wanted to go and see him there.

Frank and Nancy called it a day too.

So, the beach was pretty empty:

We enjoyed our beers and the quiet.

As we sat there, a boy who looked exactly like Russell from UP! came swimming up to us. It was around 4:15 then. His mom was down the beach some. We were the last ones left on the beach. Russell was a hoot. He asked us if we were from the Dream. We told him yes. He asked if the ship would leave without us. I told him it might. He went directly back to his mom, and asked if they could go. Too funny.

We finished our beers by 4:25, which is when I took these photos. We were the only ones left:

At 4:30, they announced that the beaches were officially closed and that all guests should head back to the ship.

So we did.

We hopped on the last tram:

And rode passed the closed shops:

The ship grew bigger and bigger as we approached:

There were probably 20-30 people on the tram, so we just got dropped off at the tram stop, and we had to walk back to the ship. No golf cart ride for us today.

This small boat was taking off as we walked up. That is some of the employees from one of the local islands heading home:

We took our time walking up to the ship. We were about to leave Castaway Cay, and who knows when we will be back? It had been and still was a beautiful day:

Since we were walking slow, there were not many people behind us.

Maybe we could be last on the island again?

We will see in the next update.

And, don't forget that we will have the big medal reveal coming up too.

As I said, that won't be until Monday.

So, take this opportunity to go back and read the parts you skimmed.

Also, to all you lurkers out there, this would be the perfect time for you to become a member and post. Southern Blessings did it, and look at how much fun she is having!

I'll be back on Monday.

Have a great weekend everyone.

TCD

I'm enjoying this so much, thanks! We went on our first DC last September for our 45th anniversary on the Magic. We booked on board for the Fantasy in Sept. 2013 and a whole bunch of family will join us. I love reading your report...reflecting on what we did and looking forward to going again. We absolutely loved everything about it, and enjoyed CC so much. I can't wait to read more. Have a great weekend.

I saw somewhere on line that there may be wi-fi in MK? I know you can now get free wi-fi at the resorts but I was curious if anyone at the parks now can comment on whether there is free wi-fi in the parks?

PLEASE DISREGARD, I JUST SAW THE TOPIC HAS ALREADY BEEN POSTED.

I'm just loving your trip report! Your family is beautiful and it looks like you all had a great time. I love the Disney horns! I love that the Port Canaveral web cam now has sound and just this weekend I saw/heard the Dream go out and they played about 4 songs right in front of Fishlips. So cool. I look forward to hearing more.

Loved it!

The discount available for June/Jule 2012 (right now) is 20%. It was still available for all of July except the 3rd & 4th when I called yesterday for a client. Currently the AAA code is about $7-11 cheaper than AP rates IIRC.

That was my experience in the spring as well but I always wait for AP rates to be announced just in case they're lower. AP used to be the lowest possible rate but not recently. No idea why the change...

Very strange. I just called about AAA discount and CM told me it is never more than 10% ?

Is there a list of what restaurants offer the AAA discount?

We also love Kerr Lake - Bullocksville! We will probably be ther the 4th. We keep our boat at Satterwhite Point Marina. It is so beautiful. We'll have to look for you next time. :wave1: