A magical Mediterranean vacation live report UPDATED 7/15 - Page 11 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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I finally have made it over to this forum! What an amazing trip this is going to be! Congrats on the great rate for the cruise, before the prices went up! What amazing plans you have! I'm glad it's all come together and there's just a few more days to go!
Pre-trip report – part twelve: what’s the latest on the power strip situation?
Monday 16 June
Well, we’re back from our weekend away, and the camera worked absolutely fine! There are a few things that are different with it from my last one, but at least I’ve had the weekend to get used to those differences before we head out…
Tuesday 17 June
I’m going to try some new sun tan lotion in a bid not to burn any further, as I burnt over the weekend in the Isle of Man, and heck that was only in the mid 60s and cloudy. Goodness knows what I’m going to be like in the Med sun! I had it recommended to me as it’s factor 50+ and very high protection with a good UV rating, so fingers crossed that does the trick. I have been trying to find a way of covering up, but no joy as yet. Everything I’ve found is either too heavy for hot weather or is so lightweight, it damages easily. I found something I thought would be perfect today, but there were already three damaged items, where I think the coat hanger had caught it. Not good…
I was clearing up this evening, and decided it was about time to start assembling some bits to take with us, so the three guidebooks that I haven’t copied are now sitting on a suitcase waiting to go. It’s not packing yet, but it soon will be! I honestly can’t believe we’re now in the teens in our countdown… there really isn’t long to go at all…
Wednesday 18 June
I got a message from Mari this morning to say that she hadn’t been able to print out my designs for door magnets. I didn’t realize, but she’d taken them to be done somewhere commercial, and of course they wanted a waver from Disney to say it was Ok to use their images. I guess I’ll be trying to buy some magnetic paper then, and do it myself…
I did get a couple of other things done before heading into work. I realized that I had no Greek phrases, and while I speak no Greek, as we’re taking the Athens on your own tour, I figured it made sense to print out some phrases from my guidebook, just in case… hopefully if I do that, we won’t need them. Of course, you know if I don’t do it, we will need them.
I also went through my handy Italian phrases that I’ll be carrying with me, and added a few in and printed those off, so those are now also ready to go.
I did something else that I usually remember to do when I get abroad… I found the details of different clothes sizes for the UK and Europe, as whenever I shop in Europe, I can never remember what size I am. Fortunately, the version I found had American sizes as well, so if Mari and Raleigh want to go shopping, they can!
Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple with getting the mobile phone set up to have roaming across Europe. When we went to the Isle of Man at the weekend, my phone obviously decided we were out of the UK, as the Isle of Man technically isn’t part of the UK, even though it has UK phone numbers (I know… confusing, right?) so it wouldn’t work. Well, I definitely need to deal with that before we head out to Venice. I tried calling, and got an endless stream of automated messages, as you do with these things. When I finally pressed to speak to someone, the message told me that they’re only open at 8:00am, and it was 7:45am. Ugh!
I just realized as well that I haven’t updated you with my attempts to lose weight, which started about a month ago now. Well, it went appallingly at first, with nothing coming off. In fact, at times, the weight was going on despite the fact I was eating the same or less and exercising a lot more. I can certainly tell you my fitness levels are now phenomenal with all the exercise I’ve been doing. Fortunately, that’s all started to pay off in the last few days. I’m not looking for drastic weight loss, I’m looking for something I can continue with, as at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about, making life changes that you can sustain. So far, four weeks in, I’ve lost four pounds, so a pound a week, I can live with…
Thursday 19 June
There’s good news on the mobile phone – it’s all now set up for European roaming, so that’s one more thing ticked off the list of things before we go! I’ve also started to do a little bit of packing, and by little, I really do mean a little… the tea bags and blank CDs (for backing up my photos) are now ready to go. Well, something is better than nothing!
I finally emailed my wonderful travel agent Sara back with our order for in-room gifts, and honestly, we really are the last of the big spenders – a 24 pack of water for $35! I was looking at some other stuff, but it just didn’t pan out. I liked the look of the romance package, as you get a dressing gown, but when I really thought about it, I adore my Aulani dressing gown, so what’s the point in getting another one when I already have one that I wear all the time?
I also asked her whether the situation about power strips had changed, as the last thing she’d heard, just after Disney introduced the policy, was that you could bring them on board with you, so long as you didn’t have them in your room. Well, things certainly have changed, and not for the better. Power strips are now not allowed on board at all, and if Disney find one in your luggage, they may well take it out, and hold it at port until the end of your cruise. However, as Sara said, that applies to their cruises from Port Canaveral, goodness knows what’s going to happen in Venice.
Bless her heart, she really went above and beyond for me to find out the answer. She was eventually connected to the ship to get the definitive answer, and I’ve printed it off. They are taking power strips at security, will hold them for the duration of the cruise, then return them to you when you disembark, and now I have evidence of that in writing. Ok, so lots more adapters needed then….
Saturday 21 June
I finally plucked up courage today to have a look at the long-term weather forecast to see just how blisteringly hot it will be out there… and actually I had a pleasant surprise. Although there are some images of thermometers, which is how AccuWeather signify it’s really hot, there were none when we’re due in those places. It looks as if things will have cooled down from the 90s to the mid 80s at most, which I think we can deal with. Hopefully, although we’re looking quite far ahead now, that won’t change too radically… fingers crossed!
We spent much of the day cleaning up the house, as Mark’s parents are coming over tomorrow. The idea is if we clean it up now, hopefully we can keep it clean until we go away… we’ll see! I also checked out how long it took me to water all the garden this morning, as I’m asking Mark’s sister to do it while we’re gone, and obviously I don’t want it to be too onerous. The only thing that needed dealing with was our hanging basket watering system, as it’s watering the four baskets at back absolutely fine, but the three on the side are barely getting anything. Mark had a look at it, and hopefully he’s managed to do something with it…
In the afternoon, we headed back to Canterbury to pick up Mark’s suit, all perfectly adjusted for him. We were literally in and out of there in about 10 minutes. We’d deliberately left our trip until fairly late in the afternoon, so that we wouldn’t have a problem parking, and it worked out perfectly. You see, all that Disney training works well…
We headed back home, and Mark wanted to go and get some more tops at a shop in town, so we headed there, dropping the car off to be cleaned. He found what he wanted, although I was struggling more. I tried on some crops, but they didn’t fit. I went into another shop, which is my favourite for clothes, but nothing in here either…
We looked in some other places for lightweight cardigans, but still no joy. At least it wasn’t a complete waste – we got some more USA to UK plug adapters for the cruise, so we’re set on that front.
We decided to head over to another shopping complex, so I could try and find some magnetic paper. Wow, that turned into a real treasure hunt! It was our local craft shop, and I knew I’d seen some on their website, so hopefully they’d have them in store. The first woman I spoke to told me to try by the glues… I can’t see anything here, so I asked a guy. He took me to another section, and there were some magnetic sheets, but how would you stick paper on that? He had no idea, so went to find someone else.
The woman he brought over, Sandy, was an absolute joy. She insisted on him standing there, while she explained how the magnetic sheets worked. Basically they were to keep die cuts still while you were putting them through the machine. I explained again what I was after, and she told me she knew they used to have something like that, so we headed over to the paper section. Ok, now I feel as if we’re finally getting warm!
We looked and couldn’t see anything. I got on my phone, got on the Hobbycraft website, and found the product I’d found on them. I showed Sandy, and she said they looked familiar. It had a product number, so she headed to the front of the store, punched it in, and it told her that there were two in store. Ok, so where?
We headed back to the stationery section, and stood there again. Finally I saw something that said “netic” on it, and sure enough, there it was! I picked it up, and my goodness, I couldn’t believe the weight of this thing, bearing in mind that it held three sheets. It turned out that the pack had three packs of three sheets in it. As Sandy said, anyone who’d bought those had got a great deal.
Finally, I was done, and by this time, Mark was back from his trip to another store, where he’d got a memory stick for his sat nav (GPS), which needed one, and as we’d need it in Italy, that was a good investment. I headed that way, and found some more leggings, some vest tops, and finally a lightweight cardigan! He got a couple more tops, including one that was just £3 ($4.30)! Bargain!
It was all done under the extended warranty we purchased, which covered us for an additional two years. Bearing in mind, we got a new laptop a couple of months ago under the same type of warranty after the previous one died very unexpectedly, I'm now a fan of them.
Thanks for that info! Maybe I'll have to reconsider extended warranties.
Congrats on the weight loss, and also on finding the magnetic paper!
Slowly but surely, getting things done and checked off your list!
What a journey to get that paper, wow! Can't wait to see how this all turns out!
__________________
Tanya
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
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What an amazing trip this is going to be! Congrats on the great rate for the cruise, before the prices went up! 
What amazing plans you have! 
I'm glad it's all come together and there's just a few more days to go! 
There are a few things that are different with it from my last one, but at least I’ve had the weekend to get used to those differences before we head out… 
I had it recommended to me as it’s factor 50+ and very high protection with a good UV rating, so fingers crossed that does the trick. I have been trying to find a way of covering up, but no joy as yet. 
Everything I’ve found is either too heavy for hot weather or is so lightweight, it damages easily. I found something I thought would be perfect today, but there were already three damaged items, where I think the coat hanger had caught it. Not good… 
Fortunately, the version I found had American sizes as well, so if Mari and Raleigh want to go shopping, they can! 
despite the fact I was eating the same or less and exercising a lot more. I can certainly tell you my fitness levels are now phenomenal with all the exercise I’ve been doing. 
Fortunately, that’s all started to pay off in the last few days. I’m not looking for drastic weight loss, I’m looking for something I can continue with, as at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about, making life changes that you can sustain. So far, four weeks in, I’ve lost four pounds, so a pound a week, I can live with… 
Power strips are now not allowed on board at all, and if Disney find one in your luggage, they may well take it out, and hold it at port until the end of your cruise. However, as Sara said, that applies to their cruises from Port Canaveral, goodness knows what’s going to happen in Venice. 
Bargain! 
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