Mexican Riviera Cruise with WONDERful Souvenir in the Works! 6/7 PTR Link!

[Pinkocto]

So I booked the first three nights of our stay at AKL, but would like the last three nights at our stay to be at BLT (DH really wants the monorail with the baby). I was able to check the dates on BLT(check in Wed Dec 12, check out Sat Dec 15) and it looks like Wed and Fri are available but not Thursday? Should I try to waitlist this stay anyway, with hopes of getting that Thursday night?

Since its still seven months out I'd definitely put in for the waitlist, but book something else just in case you don't get it. If the wait list comes through you can always cancel the other one.

Congratulations on booking your first DVC trip!

 

[franandaj]

So I booked the first three nights of our stay at AKL, but would like the last three nights at our stay to be at BLT (DH really wants the monorail with the baby). I was able to check the dates on BLT(check in Wed Dec 12, check out Sat Dec 15) and it looks like Wed and Fri are available but not Thursday? Should I try to waitlist this stay anyway, with hopes of getting that Thursday night?

See if you can waitlist the entire stay. That way if it doesn't come through you're not checking in and out all three nights.

 

[Leshaface]

See if you can waitlist the entire stay. That way if it doesn't come through you're not checking in and out all three nights.

Thanks Alison. Am I allowed to have a 'back-up' reservation in case BLT falls through? BWV has complete availability for those days...because what will happen if nothing happens with BLT a month before our trip, and then i'm stuck without a hotel for the last three days of our stay?

 

[franandaj]

Thanks Alison. Am I allowed to have a 'back-up' reservation in case BLT falls through? BWV has complete availability for those days...because what will happen if nothing happens with BLT a month before our trip, and then i'm stuck without a hotel for the last three days of our stay?

I know when you book online they have a button to click that says "replace my existing stay" so you book one place and then have the waitlist as your back up. If you can do the whole stay at AKL and waitlist BLT that way you have the best of both worlds. Kinda like the trip that I was going to take.

 

[sjs314]

Congratulations on the new lil man coming into your lives!​

 

[monica23535]

Congratulations!

I have a boy and they are awesome

I love the whole cake reveal, what a great idea!

 

[Leshaface]

Okay update time!

So i've been planning two trips to go to WDW: One for December or one for January. This was all based on if DH got the job here in our hometown and we've been waiting for the results, before I moved any further along in making decisions.

DH had an interview last week and was told at the interview that now the administration may pull the position entirely due to cutbacks, but that it was very unlikely that they would. There were 5 candidates and because he knows a lot of people in the school system, it was between him and another guy.

DH got a call right now, saying they're not hiring at all. Administration had decided to not fill the position. What a waste of time for everyone! Especially the candidates who had to go through the lengthy process of applying, getting reference letters, and interviewing.

He's not showing it right now, but I can tell he's a tad disappointed. This job meant he would have been 5 miles away from our house instead of 30 miles away and he would have been in a high school instead of a junior high school. However, getting this job would have meant taking a pay cut. I think he may be a little relieved that he wasn't 'looked over', yet again and that the job was pulled from everyone altogether.

So what does this mean for WDW? When do we go?

If he got the job, we were going to go in January. But because he's staying at his current position, we get to go in December (which i'm happy about, but feel guilty about being happy about it right now) I've ALWAYS wanted to go in December to see the decorations and knew it would never be possible if he moved to another district. But because his school district starts Christmas vacation early, we get to go to WDW during one of the low seasons (2 1/2 weeks before Christmas). Right now we're looking at the dates Sunday, December 9 - Saturday, December 15, 2012.

When does planning begin???

IMMEDIATELY!

 

[Pinkocto]

Let the planning begin!!!

I'm sorry for DH, but a paycut can always be difficult. The right job will definitely come along when the timing is perfect.

I don't know if it would work to meet up, but I'll be there until the 10th.

You're going to love the Christmas decorations!

 

[Leshaface]

Let the planning begin!!!

I'm sorry for DH, but a paycut can always be difficult. The right job will definitely come along when the timing is perfect.

I don't know if it would work to meet up, but I'll be there until the 10th.

You're going to love the Christmas decorations!

Oooh yes! If our dates stay the same I would LOVE to do a meet up! Then you can meet my son

 

[Pinkocto]

Oooh yes! If our dates stay the same I would LOVE to do a meet up! Then you can meet my son

Awesome, I was hoping you would say that

 

[happenin2you]

I feel your DH's pain. There have been some serious cuts in the Las Vegas school district and they keep cutting teaching positions and as a result of that, cutting university programs to teach teachers. I finished everything for my Bacherlor's in Spanish and Education to teach Spanish except for my student teaching, and UNLV cut my program. Now I am just going to graduate with a Spanish degree and either try to get hired on with an alternate route to licensure program or just go back and get my master's. The ironic part is that they are still short teachers too, and I was substituting full time in a class that had no teacher. So I was essentially a regular teacher that had to be responsible to test scores and lesson planning and all that fun stuff, but I got paid by the day, no benefits. I had to stop and go back to my old job because I couldn't go without pay all summer long. And they still had my position open the following school year. Boy are the kids in Vegas in trouble...

 

[franandaj]

Okay update time!

Right now we're looking at the dates Sunday, December 9 - Saturday, December 15, 2012.

When does planning begin???

IMMEDIATELY!

Yay for having a plan!!!!!!

Did I miss the end of this TR?

 

[Leshaface]

I feel your DH's pain. There have been some serious cuts in the Las Vegas school district and they keep cutting teaching positions and as a result of that, cutting university programs to teach teachers. I finished everything for my Bacherlor's in Spanish and Education to teach Spanish except for my student teaching, and UNLV cut my program. Now I am just going to graduate with a Spanish degree and either try to get hired on with an alternate route to licensure program or just go back and get my master's. The ironic part is that they are still short teachers too, and I was substituting full time in a class that had no teacher. So I was essentially a regular teacher that had to be responsible to test scores and lesson planning and all that fun stuff, but I got paid by the day, no benefits. I had to stop and go back to my old job because I couldn't go without pay all summer long. And they still had my position open the following school year. Boy are the kids in Vegas in trouble...

Oh my goodness, I hate hearing these things. It sucks not only for the teachers, but for the students that suffer as well. I'm not sure if things will ever get better for teachers at this rate. Hope things turn around for you really soon and know that tons of people are going through the same thing

Yay for having a plan!!!!!!

Did I miss the end of this TR?

You're going to be SO happy with me!

Update coming right up!

 

[Leshaface]

**Now that I FINALLY have a trip coming up, this TR needs to come to an end. I'm SO SO SOOOOO SORRY that's it's taken me forever to finish up this TR. I really hate seeing things come to an end, which is why i'm always so slow to finish them (this is not the first TR i've done where it takes me forever to finish) So lets get on with the last day of the cruise! I last left us off with just finishing up a food seminar and DH was competing in a 3 on 3 basketball tournament**

DH came to the room within 10 minutes, and luckily didn’t try to be a hero and search for me on the ship! He said it was really cold and windy outside and there was no way we’d want to get into the pool today. We decided to get a head start on packing so we did that for about 30-40 minutes and then we got hungry. Up to the BBB we went!

Each day, the buffet has some slightly different food, and today's food was Asian cuisine. The noodles with vegetables were really good!

I also got my first parenting lesson here. In the picture that I was taking of the buffet, the table with the tray on it had a father and young son, maybe 5 years old. He was not having anything to do with food that his dad got for him. He was crying and throwing a major fit at the table. But the dad just went right on eating saying, "Mmm, this is so good! You're totally missing out on this buddy. But if you're not going to eat it, I'll eat after i'm done with mine, so you decide what you want to do by the time i'm done eating my food, okay? And this is your last chance to eat food." About 45 seconds after this statement the boy finally sat up straight in his chair and started eating his food. I was amazed! It gave me a new perspective on parenting (my old thinking would have been to smack the child in the behind , but I could try this approach a couple times, I suppose)

After lunch we decided to walk around the ship some more (as if we hadn’t done that enough over the past 6 days!)

I just love the big portholes here.

We walked into Diversions and saw a lot of people in here playing games, so we grabbed a game and some water (SHOCKING!) and started playing Trouble. DH won and he’s happy about that.

If you find yourself bored and wanting to hang out, Diversions has TONS of board games, card games, chess, and checkers here. A great place for game time with the family and it allows you to play games that you’ve always wanted to try before. I have to say, this was really fun and relaxing to do. Something we never really get to do at home since there is always projects to be done, like yard work, cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc so it was really nice to be able to play a board game for once.

After our game, we checked out the Navigator to see what we wanted to do. Since it was too cold to go to the pool, we had seen that there was a ‘Behind the Scenes’ presentation over at the Buena Vista Theater in about 20 minutes.

I really had no idea what to expect of this presentation, and I didn’t think it would get very full. WRONG! This place was completely full by the time it got started and I could see why. The presentation was given by Becky Cline, the Walt Disney Archives Director. She has access to all kinds of neat things that have been stored away and not readily available for public viewing. No pictures or video was allowed during the presentation, so I’m afraid I have nothing to show. However, I did find one of the weirdest commercials that she showed at the presentation. It’s the first ever Walt Disney World commercial, and it’s very strange and creepy. I’m sure some of you have seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wTcH49N-8A

She also showed a ton of other ads and commercials that I’m not able to find on the internet. Becky also showed us the construction of the Contemporary resort over at WDW, and that each room was a compartment. The room itself was made on the ground and then inserted into the building like a puzzle piece. So neat!

The presentation was about an hour long and was so wonderful and informative. We were so glad we decided to go to it. If you decide to go, make sure you show up early to snag a seat, because I was honestly surprised at how filled it was in there.

After the presentation, we headed back to our room to finish up the last of our packing so we could enjoy the rest of the evening. While we were packing, we spotted this:

We started getting ready for the night (very informal and comfy clothes for us) and saw this as we were heading out of our stateroom.

Sigh, it was so gorgeous and peaceful. I wish we had an extra few days on the ship.

Tonight’s performance was “Remember the Magic” so we got to the theater early. But not before I snapped a few more pictures on the way into the theater.

We were super early (about 15 minutes early) and we were bored so we started taking pictures of each other.

I'm not exactly sure why he's on the floor

The show was a little corny but towards the end, with the married couple, was really, really cute. I had a little tear in my eyes because it was so sweet.

After the show, we headed to Diversions to watch a little bit of a football game since we still had time before dinner started. I probably already mentioned this, but just in case I didn’t, they serve hot appetizers for about an hour in between the two dinners. I didn’t get a picture of the food, but here’s the buffet! Lol!

Then it was time for our final dinner of the cruise.

 

[franandaj]

After our game, we checked out the Navigator to see what we wanted to do. Since it was too cold to go to the pool, we had seen that there was a ‘Behind the Scenes’ presentation over at the Buena Vista Theater in about 20 minutes.

I really had no idea what to expect of this presentation, and I didn’t think it would get very full. WRONG! This place was completely full by the time it got started and I could see why. The presentation was given by Becky Cline, the Walt Disney Archives Director. She has access to all kinds of neat things that have been stored away and not readily available for public viewing. No pictures or video was allowed during the presentation, so I’m afraid I have nothing to show. However, I did find one of the weirdest commercials that she showed at the presentation. It’s the first ever Walt Disney World commercial, and it’s very strange and creepy. I’m sure some of you have seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wTcH49N-8A

She also showed a ton of other ads and commercials that I’m not able to find on the internet. Becky also showed us the construction of the Contemporary resort over at WDW, and that each room was a compartment. The room itself was made on the ground and then inserted into the building like a puzzle piece. So neat!

The presentation was about an hour long and was so wonderful and informative. We were so glad we decided to go to it. If you decide to go, make sure you show up early to snag a seat, because I was honestly surprised at how filled it was in there.

I'm so glad that you went to Becky Cline's presentation. When I saw that on your navigators, I wasn't sure if you would know who she was. She had the opening spots at both of the Destination-D presentations we went to and her take was "Weird Disneyland" and "Weird WDW". It sounds like she did a lot from the WDW last May on your trip. If you don't mind, we could take pictures and I'll post a little bit from my TR. You can tell me if these were the weird pictures. She did show that commercial. Did they show the Grad nite commercial with the pied piper like guy leading all the hippie kids all over WDW?

Now these little guys were hired to promote Pinocchio, but someone hoisted up some liquor to them and by mid afternoon after a game of strip poker….well let’s just say we didn’t see any photos of that!

This was the intended story to be run with the picture

But this was run instead

Walt kept the apology letter

This was the original photo sent to the press for Fantasia

This is the clip that the LA times received

This was their response

And this is what they got!

So continuing on with the weird characters, they called this one the Tammy Fay Baker Minnie

This was Pluto the Hunchback

And when the seven dwarves had big heads

And two faces!

Evidently they played Non-Disney Movies in the theater at one time and this guy scared lot of little kids

More scary Mickeys!

And this white Rabbit is just creepy!

And what’s with the bun in the back?

 

[franandaj]

Here's a few more, hope you don't mind the posts!

When Disneyland opened the Rivers of America were stocked with live fish and you could keep what you caught!

Aunt Jemima was a sponsor of one of the restaurants

Hence the pancake races on Main Street

And finally we have some WDW weirdness

Water skiing characters

And outhouses?

Everyone deserves a makeover

These characters are just scary

All I can say is that it was the 70s

Evinrude doesn’t transfer well to a live action character

These characters are more frightening than anything, I don’t think they say “Welcome to Epcot!”

I’m not sure what this is!

Can you say wardrobe malfunction?

Bad 70’s costumes

Just whatever….

I was actually there for this mistake! (That’s the castle if you can’t tell)

 

[Leshaface]

LOVE all these pictures that you have! I wish I was allowed to take pictures during her presentation. Nope she didn't show any of this stuff. She showed a lot of videos like commercials, interviews, and behind the scenes clips. And a lot of old pictures of rides and characters.

She didn't show any weird stuff like this (all that stuff you posted is so weird and freaky and would scare any normal person!). I'm so disappointed that I can't remember!

Oh, that picture is the characters from Captain Eo!

Thanks for posting all those!

I’m not sure what this is!

 

[marciemouse]

Well, apparently Disney advertising has come a long ways! That commercial is just plain creepy!

 

[DISNEYaddict4evr]

I mean...

or this

even a bit of

So many emotions. I am not sure how to feel right now. What crazy photos. I am so glad I am growing up with today's Disney culture.

Sounds like a fun presentation I hope they have something similar when we go in November.

 

[Shell54]

That was interesting actually and yeahhhh pretty weird My DH would be all over a presentation like that. We actually have a magazine here in NJ called "Weird NJ"