Loyd Have Mercy - Escape from Mos Eisley (to the Death Star) - Stick a fork in me, I think I am done.

Hi Mich123, Is "Mich" short for Michigan?
It’s short for Michelle...no Michigan connections for me. All the “Michelle” names were taken on the Dis.

I like your plan to leave town at the end of the semester. We were scheduled for a Merrytime cruise out of NYC but rescheduled to a cruise out of Port Canaveral because it seemed safer at the time. I’m guessing it will be canceled but I went through the midnight routine to sign up for activities last Saturday and had the joy of getting everything I wanted. So there’s that.
 
Loved following along and all the little tidbits of help, like cabana selection order etc.

I think we sit the same way at Cookies BBQ each time we go to the island, even while at Serenity Beach BBQ. I face the island, my wife faces the sea. She usually has the daughter with her and the boy is with me. Funny how habit works like that.

What do you cure garlic for? We have an old dachie ourselves. He misses fun cruise trips but is happy when we return
 
Loved following along and all the little tidbits of help, like cabana selection order etc.

I think we sit the same way at Cookies BBQ each time we go to the island, even while at Serenity Beach BBQ. I face the island, my wife faces the sea. She usually has the daughter with her and the boy is with me. Funny how habit works like that.

What do you cure garlic for? We have an old dachie ourselves. He misses fun cruise trips but is happy when we return


Hey Quellman, I think dachies have a way of stealing your heart. My spouse and I are definitely predictable in our behaviors.

We cure (hang and dry) the garlic so it will last throughout the winter. It tends to start deteriorating just about the time a new crop comes in. When the new crop is harvested, you can eat it immediately but to store it, it needs to be dried. If we have too much garlic left at the end of the season, we will slice it and dry it (even more) in a dehydrator and then use it dried in cooked dishes or pulverize it into garlic powder --- or we will chop it up and store it in a jar of oil in the refrigerator... We do like our garlic.
 
I like your plan to leave town at the end of the semester. We were scheduled for a Merrytime cruise out of NYC but rescheduled to a cruise out of Port Canaveral because it seemed safer at the time. I’m guessing it will be canceled but I went through the midnight routine to sign up for activities last Saturday and had the joy of getting everything I wanted. So there’s that.

"Not" having to stay up to midnight to sign up for activities is probably the best perk for sailing concierge, but for the money saved, I will set a clock to try to snag my desired activities. The last time we sailed, I stayed up to midnight and then was only able to sign up for one activity. :sad: Luckily, we were able to sign up for everything we wanted once we were on the ship.
 


I am so blasted excited. I managed to snag a Panama Canal cruise reservation for 2022 .... and drumroll, a Hawaiian cruise, 2022. I had not planned to sign up for the Hawaiian cruise but when I saw it was still available... Now, I really do have to retire so we have time to take these long cruises.
 
That’s awesome! I hope to take the Panama Canal Cruise someday. We ended up booking an Eastern Caribbean for next October. I am hoping for a west coast cruise but I’m trying to coordinate a few family members and it’s a bit challenging. We might fit in a shorter cruise on the Dream if things open up—I’d like to have the Grand Slam and that’s my missing ship.
 
That’s awesome! I hope to take the Panama Canal Cruise someday. We ended up booking an Eastern Caribbean for next October. I am hoping for a west coast cruise but I’m trying to coordinate a few family members and it’s a bit challenging. We might fit in a shorter cruise on the Dream if things open up—I’d like to have the Grand Slam and that’s my missing ship.

Did you manage to sign up for a west coast cruise? We have had so many cruises cancel this past year. I just signed us up for the Pacific Coast cruise from San Diego to Vancouver next April. This will be a back-to-back cruise for us. First the Pacific Coast and then Vancouver to Hawaii. So excited!
 


I just signed us up for the Pacific Coast cruise from San Diego to Vancouver next April. This will be a back-to-back cruise for us. First the Pacific Coast and then Vancouver to Hawaii. So excited!
That sounds amazing! We are planning on a western Caribbean in October and batting around the idea of a double dip on the Dream or a west coast cruise with family. We’ve done the Baja cruise from San Diego and loved it. We will probably go south but Hawaii would be awesome!
 
I am so blasted excited. I managed to snag a Panama Canal cruise reservation for 2022 .... and drumroll, a Hawaiian cruise, 2022. I had not planned to sign up for the Hawaiian cruise but when I saw it was still available... Now, I really do have to retire so we have time to take these long cruises.

Thanks so much for your trip report! When I saw you mention in an earlier post that you were going to be on the November 2020 PC cruise, my heart sunk for you a little bit - but I was curious to see if that meant you were going to be on the March one instead. My husband and I will be on that cruise celebrating our honeymoon -- we married March 14 2020...right before the lockdown happened in our state! :oops::oops: Counting down the days until we can cruise again! 🥰
 
That sounds amazing! We are planning on a western Caribbean in October and batting around the idea of a double dip on the Dream or a west coast cruise with family. We’ve done the Baja cruise from San Diego and loved it. We will probably go south but Hawaii would be awesome!

We are booked for a Baja cruise also. Did you go on any excursions on your Baja cruise? This will be our first time on a Baja cruise and I have not started exploring as to what to do - or not do. Any suggestions you have are most welcome. :thumbsup2
 
Thanks so much for your trip report! When I saw you mention in an earlier post that you were going to be on the November 2020 PC cruise, my heart sunk for you a little bit - but I was curious to see if that meant you were going to be on the March one instead. My husband and I will be on that cruise celebrating our honeymoon -- we married March 14 2020...right before the lockdown happened in our state! :oops::oops: Counting down the days until we can cruise again! 🥰

Hi there, Love you handle but why "ThePies"?
We "were" booked on the November 2020 PC cruise but switched it to the March 2022 cruise. We will be sailing together! Great that you were married prior the lockdown. So many people had to reschedule their weddings. We also celebrated our honeymoon a few years later as we could not afford to travel when we first married. In fact, every time we have an extended vacation, I call it our honeymoon. And when we travel, it always feels like a honeymoon. I do like my spouse, even after being married 24 years and living together several years before marriage.

For the PC cruise, were you able to snag a designated stateroom? I called as soon as I could to move our Nov cruise to March and managed to get a designated stateroom, not the one I wanted but one with a verandah, but right after that I started seeing reports that GTY was all that was available. Are you hanging with the FB group for this cruise? They seem like a great group of fellow travelers.
 
Hi there, Love you handle but why "ThePies"?
We "were" booked on the November 2020 PC cruise but switched it to the March 2022 cruise. We will be sailing together! Great that you were married prior the lockdown. So many people had to reschedule their weddings. We also celebrated our honeymoon a few years later as we could not afford to travel when we first married. In fact, every time we have an extended vacation, I call it our honeymoon. And when we travel, it always feels like a honeymoon. I do like my spouse, even after being married 24 years and living together several years before marriage.

Our new last name is Pie (hence, ThePies!) - though not officially (yet!) With the craziness of the last year we never got around to doing the paperwork - and we might wait until after the cruise so we don't have to worry about getting our passports updated and such. But, eventually, we will make it official! We were very, very lucky with our wedding date - one week later and we would have had to cancel.

I could tell from your trip report how much you and your husband get along - it was one of my favorite parts of reading it! My SO and I have been together for 17 years now - we were high school sweethearts. We decided to the tie knot after traveling around and living abroad for a while (and growing up!) Once we found a place we wanted to 'settle' and grow some roots, we decided it was time to do the thing properly :rotfl:

For the PC cruise, were you able to snag a designated stateroom? I called as soon as I could to move our Nov cruise to March and managed to get a designated stateroom, not the one I wanted but one with a verandah, but right after that I started seeing reports that GTY was all that was available. Are you hanging with the FB group for this cruise? They seem like a great group of fellow travelers.

We are GTY 09C, so no stateroom yet! We're keeping an eye on it and may upgrade if people start changing their reservations when more of 2022 opens up. We've never had a verandah room. but it sounds lovely! It's a bit cost-prohibitive for us on the PC but we will likely give it a try on a shorter cruise someday!! We are in the Facebook group -- it's a bit amazing how many people are in there! I agree with you, I think it's going to be a wonderful group of people to hang with for two weeks next March!

As a final note, I enjoyed all of your descriptions and thoughts on the state of Disney's coffee!! 😂😂 I shared all your thoughts with my husband and we're making some alternative plans (like maybe bringing a few bottles of cold-brew concentrate with us lol!!)
 
We did book excursions through Disney for our Mexican Riviera cruise. Our all time favorite excursion was on this trip! It was the Las Caletas Hideaway in Puerto Vallarta
https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/port-adventures/puerto-vallarta-mexico-las-caletas-hideaway/
We were just talking about this excursion last week. It was a fun boat ride to the hideaway and we enjoyed snorkeling. The beach was great, the food was really really good, there was a fun craft project and on the way back to the ship, the catamaran captain went out of his way and turned the ride back into a whale watch! We saw a few whales, and one did a huge picture perfect breach. It was an amazing end to a perfect day.

We did three other excursions. My daughter did the teen surf excursion and the rest of us did a kayak and snorkel excursion. This turned out funny because my youngest daughter and I took a kayak and DH ended up on his own...until he was joined by a 7 year old boy. Now the funny thing about that is that this kid was traveling with his parents and adult relatives and they left him to pair up with a stranger! Who does that? He also didn’t know how to kayak so DH had to paddle pretty hard to get to our destination. We felt like we adopted a kid along the way. So, we also talk about this excursion, too.

The last excursion was a beach break that was kind of odd because the hotel was not prepared for the group and there was very little beach seating. Lots of complaints all around. My family picked a spot outside of the hotel zone and DH and the kids walked up the beach and rented a jet ski that ran out of gas about a half mile from shore (seriously, I’m not making this up!). Luckily, they were rescued so we talk about that excursion, too!
 
Yes, King Cake is a Catholic thing, although we are not Catholic or any other religion, we celebrate because we lived in Louisiana and Sarah’s ancestors are Catholic and Jewish. You should see our house during the winter holidays, we move from one celebration to another.

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Mardi Gras is BIG in Louisiana. Our school closed down for the week. A lot of locals go on vacation during Mardi Gras. We had a lot of Louisianan folks on our cruise.

The link below takes you to the Mardi Gras celebration that was sponsored by our tiny town. The population when we lived there was about 1200 people.

http://iotamardigras.com/main.html

Where we lived in Southwest Louisiana (Cajun country), they celebrate Mardi Gras differently from New Orleans or Baton Rouge, no parades with big floats and no beads are thrown. They celebrate a country style Mardi Gras that comes from the medieval fête de la quémande, a sort of ceremonial begging tradition where the revelers go around the countryside offering a performance (sing and dance) in exchange for gifts (items to use in making a gumbo). The revelers are mischief makers who are dressed in costumes like clowns. There is a Capitaine who carries a cloth whip to keep the mischief makers in check. Actually, this is all well planned in advance setting up whose houses are to be visited and what gifts will be given, what behaviors are allowed and what is not allowed. It is considered an honor to be invited to join the Mardi Gras revelers. Some of the revelers ride horses and the rest ride on the bed of a large truck/trailer. Those that are old enough enjoy a bit of drink during the day and by the time they arrive downtown after collecting all the gifts, they are often quite happy. After collecting the ingredients for the gumbo, the revelers and everyone else gathers downtown for a big, big party with music, food and dancing.

Here are a few photos from Sarah’s first Mardi Gras.

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Sarah and one of the revelers. I have no idea who the reveler was, people in Louisiana are very child focus thus it was not unusual for random strangers to say to us "Give me that bebe." "Sha bebe" (Sha means something like sweet or darling baby).

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Rob and Sarah.
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We did a b2b up the west coast and then Alaska. The "2" b2b embarkment day seemed like a wasted day. You know, we really did not miss concierge. Probably the best part of concierge was being escorted off the ship and taken to the front of the very long disembarking line.
Hi! I am reading trip reports because we miss cruising and Disney in a bad way. My husband and I live in Louisiana. He works in Pine Prairie, not far from Mamou. Never would I ever expect to see someone who lives in/has lived in the area. It really is a small world!
 
Did you manage to sign up for a west coast cruise? We have had so many cruises cancel this past year. I just signed us up for the Pacific Coast cruise from San Diego to Vancouver next April. This will be a back-to-back cruise for us. First the Pacific Coast and then Vancouver to Hawaii. So excited!

I had budgeted and was all ready to book for the San Diego to Vancouver in 2019. Then it was a DVC member cruise. Budgeted and ready to book in 2020 and COVID. Some day I will get to do this sailing although It certainly won't be this year. Here's hoping for '22!
 
Highly recommend the PC cruise. We were on the March 2020 westbound when COVID blew up and it was an interesting one to say the least. Our FB group has named it "Out of Abundance of Caution" cruise. Turns out with all the closures and quarantines we were the last and only people on Disney property.

I do have a question or two, and don't mean this to seem critical, but why didn't you send back the wrong and/or cold dinners? Or say anything to the Server or chat with the Head Server? That's why the Head Server is there for and received his gratuity.
 
HI! I just found your trip report as I am also missing cruising and want to eventually take the SWDAS cruise. I mostly lurk on the boards! My friend Roxanne and I did the MDAS right before Covid shut down cruising and we really had a blast. That one completed my Grand Slam with being on the Magic.

My friend Roxanne and I are on the WBPC cruise too. We were originally scheduled for 2021 but had to move to 2022. We are currently GTY 5C now. I have a short cruise scheduled out of Port Canaveral in September to get to Gold before the activities window opens for us. Hopefully both happen. I'm so ready for a vacation. We are both physical therapists who work in home care so have been super busy through out the pandemic.

Thanks for the great report. Sorry you had such a horrible serving team. I have food allergies so getting the wrong food would be a huge issue for me! Thankfully, I've never had that issue before. Thanks for the review of the port adventure as we are starting to look at what we want to schedule on the PC cruise. Hopefully we will see you there!
 

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