Wine and Scary Spirits for All - Oct -2012

[tifaas]

I'm sorry to hear about the layoffs That happened here a few years ago and it was terrible to see people packing up their things. Really glad to hear that your job is safe though.

Thanks Jenny. I am really glad I was one of the lucky ones as well as my hubby. It was just really sad to hear of my friend's fates that didn't make it. With that being said they did get a really nice package so I have hope that they will be ok while they search for their next endeavor.

On the plus side I will hear if the time off is approved for the June trip by next week. At least that is what my manager thinks. He said it should hit the three month mark while we are off on weekend so when I come back I on Friday I should know if all is good. I'm pretty sure I will be safe since it's more than three months out and most people up here don't put in requests until it's like a week or month max out. So I'm not too concerned about it being turned down. That's all for now. My lunch break is just about over and I need to focus on work and help our customers out.

 

[tifaas]

So Ian had his year end review where they share the increase in pay and what your amount of the profit sharing will be and it was ok. I was actually expecting slightly better, but then again I should be grateful we are getting anything considering all the layoffs that just happened.

I don't have my meeting until Friday and I'm a little bit nervous. He got about half of what he received last year for the profit sharing. If mine is cut in half we will be ok still with going to Disney, but if it is much lower than half of last year we might have to regroup yet again. I told Ian that we might just have to push to going in Sept instead because I heard about the free dining offer. We would probably go in the middle to end of Sept. I would need to speak with the boss's too because I am pretty sure we will have vacation blackouts and don't want to be screwed over. That is pretty much why we changed to going in June.

Hopefully it all works out ok and we can just keep the June dates because I don't want to have to think about redoing everything all over again. We discussed what we might do if it's terribly lower and our other thought was to skip going back to Disney this year and instead take the Magic out of Galveston when it's there in Oct because we wouldn't have to pay for airfare and we have always wanted to sail on a Disney ship. That would be a great chance for us with it just 3 hours away from us. So we might be changing everything up once more. LOL. We will know one way or another by this coming Friday.

 

[smile4stamps]

Oh My Goodness! You have been going through a lot with your job. I imagine it has been very stressful!

When I read the first page of your PTR I thought we would be there at the same time then I saw it was changed to June. Your original June dates included my Birthday! I'm sorry you have decided not to go in October. I have wanted to go to the F&W festival since I heard about it in 2009! Finally have my hubby agreeing to go! Unlike your hubby my husband does not have the disney bug! I wish he did but oh well... I'm happy he has agreed to go!

I hope your vacation is approved! I know how stressful that can be! We have to submit our requests in January every year for the upcoming April-March... its hard trying to make plans so far in advance!

Fingers crossed everything else works out for your trip!

 

[tifaas]

Oh My Goodness! You have been going through a lot with your job. I imagine it has been very stressful!

When I read the first page of your PTR I thought we would be there at the same time then I saw it was changed to June. Your original June dates included my Birthday! I'm sorry you have decided not to go in October. I have wanted to go to the F&W festival since I heard about it in 2009! Finally have my hubby agreeing to go! Unlike your hubby my husband does not have the disney bug! I wish he did but oh well... I'm happy he has agreed to go!

I hope your vacation is approved! I know how stressful that can be! We have to submit our requests in January every year for the upcoming April-March... its hard trying to make plans so far in advance!

Fingers crossed everything else works out for your trip!

to my crazy every changing PTR. Thanks for all the well wishes. We are certainly hoping everything works out. I am lucky that the DH caught the Disney bug and is enjoying going to the parks. I think it's the ease that Disney makes everything from the transportation to the dining packages. He doesn't have to really think about anything except for enjoying his time in the parks.

I was looking at the prices for going late Sept with the free dining that was just posted and it would make our trip more budge friendly that's for sure. However before I make another change on the poor hubby I will wait to see what I get for my portion of the profit sharing. I was looking at what Ian got last year and it is pretty much cut in half. So if mine is cut in half we will be ok still but it will take all of it to pay off this trip. Where when we were going in October I was going to pay a huge chunk and then pay 100 towards it until the final payment. So that would give us some in savings. Dang it...now I'm rethinking things and considering that might make more sense for us.

 

[tifaas]

So I'm sure you can tell by my signature that we have decided to cancel the trip this year. I was extremely upset at work today because of having to make this decision.

Let me explain how we came to this decision. We got to talking when Ian got home from work last night about how low the checks were for profit sharing. We were talking about how little we would have left over to go into savings and that didn't sit well with either of us. We were wanting to put a nice chunk into savings because of the recent layoffs for a just in case fund. We are supposed to be safe but you just never know. I thought we were safe to begin with because of everything going on this year. So it has left us both questioning things.

So being the grown ups we are, we decided that it's not worth it to be in trouble if they do another round later on. We are going to take our work week off still because we have the time and think we might do something local still. We have decided to put half of what we get in savings and play with the other half. Some of our options are there is a 4 night cruise out of Galveston on the Carnival Triumph to just Cozumel. I checked on the prices and it's pretty cheap. They have some great rooms available still to. So it's between that or drive to San Antonio, get a room on the riverwalk, and eat at some of our favorite places down there, go tubing down the Guadalupe and possibly Sea World. We will see where the road takes us. Knowing us though we will do the Carnival cruise because that is our other favorite vacation to do. That is actually what we did primarily before getting bitten by the Disney bug. We normally take a week long cruise from Galveston on the Royal Caribbean ship in port. It was the Voyager of the Seas but now is the Mariner. This would be our first time on the Triumph so it would be an adventure.

I will keep ya'll updated and still have my Jan trip report to finish. I will probably work on that some tomorrow since it's the first day of my weekend. I have to wake up and call in the morning to cancel Disney. It will be a sad morning for me so Ian offered to take me to breakfast at my favorite diner here for some yummy blueberry pancakes.

I will be sure to still visit ya'lls PTR as I'm excited for your upcoming trips. Plus it will give me ideas for when Ian and I can return to the magic in 2014.

 

[jenny105]

Sorry you had to cancel your trip but it sounds like you made the right decision. And a cruise is always a blast! San Antonio sounds fun too. I've never been but I've heard great things about Riverwalk.

 

[tifaas]

Sorry you had to cancel your trip but it sounds like you made the right decision. And a cruise is always a blast! San Antonio sounds fun too. I've never been but I've heard great things about Riverwalk.

Thanks Jenny! We both feel at peace with this decision even though it was a tough one to make. We are waiting to find out my official amount before we book anything and if there are no rooms left on the cruise then we were meant to do the Riverwalk option. At least that is how we are looking at it. We pretty much decided if my amount is basically half of last years, we will do the cruise and if it's less than half, we are doing the Riverwalk. So at least we know what direction we are going now. We will have fun no matter the decision.

I did get our trip cancelled this morning. I figured I was going to be on hold forever because last week to change the dates it took about 30 minutes before I spoke with someone. However today to cancel it, I was right through. I wonder if they are like us and depending on what you need depends on how fast you get through.

At least that is off our shoulders and since it was within the 45 day mark we are getting almost the full amount back. She said they had to subtract for the insurance that was purchased because that is non refundable I guess. I'm just happy to be done with that. I also cancelled the ADR's we had made so hopefully someone gets something they were looking for that I might have had tied up.

Off to the grocery store now to get the rest of my checklist completed for today.

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

While I am sad for you that you cancelled your WDW trip, I am glad that whatever you end up doing, you will be more at peace with and not worry about finances the whole time. I had one of those and it took away from enjoying the whole experience. It's difficult to be an adult sometimes isn't it? Keep us posted on what you decide to do for your vacation...the cruise sounds pretty cool!

Good luck!

 

[tifaas]

While I am sad for you that you cancelled your WDW trip, I am glad that whatever you end up doing, you will be more at peace with and not worry about finances the whole time. I had one of those and it took away from enjoying the whole experience. It's difficult to be an adult sometimes isn't it? Keep us posted on what you decide to do for your vacation...the cruise sounds pretty cool!

Good luck!

It does stink to be an adult. I will definitely keep ya'll updated regarding what we decide. We should know for sure one way or another on Friday. My meeting with my manager is set for 1:45 pm so nice and early. Ian is going to meet me for lunch so we can talk about it that day and he will go home and book the choice we make.

 

[smile4stamps]

I'm really sorry you ended up having to cancel the trip but I completely understand! I originally started planning for an October 2010 WDW trip till I decided it would cost too much and be detrimental to all the hard work I had been accomplishing on our Credit Card debt. I ended up doing a budget trip to DL in its place so I was not completely without Disney.

Hopefully you don't have to wait to long to make trip plans again!

 

[tifaas]

Hey all....sorry to have left you hanging...it's been a crazy busy week for us this last week at work. I finally had my meeting with my manager and was able to get my bonus money information. It was lower than half of last years so happy we did decide to cancel Disney after all. We would definitely be going on a very tight budget and who wants to go on vacation and worry about every little penny they spend.

So I have a funny story to tell. We booked a premium vista balcony on the Carnival Triumph for a 4 night cruise to Cozumel in June. However after doing some research we found one that leaves on our wedding anniversary in Jan on a Princess ship that is coming to Galveston for $400 cheaper than the 4 nighter. It's a 7 night cruise so our thought is um, transfer our booking to the Princess instead. It is going to Cozumel, Belize, Roatan, and Costa Maya.

However here is where I have a question for the travel agents *cough cough* . Do you know if we can transfer our current booking with the Carnival Triumph over to the Princess cruise. I know they are owned by the same company so I'm thinking yes. But I could be dead wrong on that as well. We aren't switching anything until next week as we are going to pay a huge chunk on it. If it can't be changed over we are then thinking of switching to the Carnival Magic in Jan that will take us to Key West, and the Bahamas. Since that one is also cheaper than the June cruise.

We really want the Princess cruise over the Carnival one because we like the Sat-Sat sailing better and the ports are some of our favorites. If any travel agents that read this know I would love your thoughts on it. If it would be easier to transfer it to a travel agency we could do that instead and then have them change out stuff. Please feel free to PM me if you would rather discuss it there. We don't have a travel agent as I normally book it all but have no clue on this. I did a search on the web and came up blank there as well.

As for the June vacation, we are now going to just go to the River Walk for a few nights. I'm really looking forward to it. We will probably take a riverboat cruise at night. We will probably hit up some of the fun eateries on the River Walk and just have a romantic non hectic filed couple of days. Then we we come home we are going to go catch a baseball game by the round rock express team, maybe catch a movie. Things we don't normally get to do because of working oddball schedules. Should be fun.

 

[tifaas]

So I'm guessing you can see by my signature that we finally made our decision. We went and spoke with a travel agent today. After telling them the time frame we were looking for, the price we were willing to pay and that we wanted to go out of Galveston so we didn't have to pay for airfare we booked the Jan 4th sailing on the Disney Magic.

Ian and I both had no idea the Magic will still be in Galveston in Jan. I thought it was only through December. Anyways, back to the plans. We looked over the dates in Jan and fell in love with this sailing. It's an 8 night cruise instead of just a 7 night one. Our anniversary will fall on the first sea day so I plan to book us a couples massage and dinner at Palo that night. We are a little upset that we are going to lose the deposit we put down on the Triumph but we are pretty sure we will love the Disney cruise line more than the Carnival one. Plus with not having to purchase the soda package we save money there right off the bat. So while we don't get to go to Disney World again this year, I do get some Disney magic still. We are really excited about this change and can't wait to really get into researching the ship. We know what we are going to do in the ports because we been to them all except for Key West. So we don't have to do as much research there.

Cozumel - We will go to Nachi Cocum as we love this little slice of paradise. We have never had a bad experience here and love the atmosphere. We will also probably get a few items in the pier area here as well. We typically like to get vanilla here and my last bottle I picked up is just about gone.

Costa Maya - We are going to just stay on the ship and enjoy some quite time while others are off the ship. We have done all the normal tourist things here and don't need to do them again.

Grand Cayman - We are going to do some shopping here and some quiet time on Seven Mile Beach. We have done the stingrays and reef snorkel trips. We have never been to seven mile beach though so that is why we decided on this.

Key West - Never been here before so not sure what to do. We were thinking of getting off the ship and walking around on our own. I know I want to try the conch fritters and of course some key lime pie. Anyone that has ever been here, have any tips, thoughts, suggestions?

We will probably take two weeks off for this vacation because we will head down the day before and stay in a hotel. So now it's just a waiting game until then.

Work has definitely been busy since the lay offs. So we have had no down time like we used to. I am just crossing my fingers that we will not be put on black out for vacation around then. I told Ian that as soon as the dates open up in our management tool we need to put it in. This way they can see we had the request in before any black out is called. They will typically work with you in these types of cases.

That's all for now. Hope everyone is doing ok.

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

Yay for some Disney Magic. Glad you got it all figured out and are happy with your plans!

 

[tifaas]

Hey everyone. It's been a while since I have been on the boards. Work has been super crazy. I ended up getting a lateral promotion which puts me right in line for the next big one to supervisor. My scheduled changed slightly too. I'm still working Fri - Mon but now only from 11:45 - 10:45pm. So I get off about an hour and 15 mins earlier than I was.

We have started to do some research on the cruise. We have our day at Nachi booked officially. I can't wait to be at this little slice of paradise. I will be back with more of an update tomorrow along with finally finishing my review of our Jan trip.