For the last 10 days or so I have promised myself to do an update. However, things are really busy and with me predominantly doing late shifts at the moment, my computer time is severely restricted. Add to this that the DIS is down for most of the morning and this makes doing anything on here pretty difficult. Still, with my September trip rapidly approaching and today marking the 90 day mark before our cruise, I have decided it is high time for an update.
Last week I put some crazy hours in at work and as a result, I have two extra days of lieu time to play with. This has worked out rather well. We are now able to leave for Paris on the Thursday afternoon instead of the Friday morning. Not only does this take some pressure off in terms of what we need to accomplish on Friday (package pick up plus the party on Friday night), but this also saved us a lot of money. By flying Thursday afternoon and coming back Monday morning we are now paying less for the two of us, which otherwise we would have paid each.
This also takes pressure off in November. I have leave as of the 10th November, which is also the day our cruise sets sail. I was supposed to be on an early shift that day so I was going to fly down to Southampton after work. That would have got me there quite late in the evening. Graham’s family lives there so we were hoping to have dinner with Graham’s sister and her husband. So this was all less than perfect. There is also the added complication that the only airline that flies between Manchester and Southampton is a low cost carrier and they have quite high charges for checked luggage. So Graham suggested that he would take the train in the morning with our luggage and I would join him later in the day with just the hand luggage. Now that I will have the day off, we can just take the train together and get to Southampton at a reasonable time. We are just waiting for train times to become available. At the moment they are only available until 3rd November, but we should be able to sort this out next week.
Of course the first trip that is coming up is our trip to
Disneyland Paris. It is kind of scary how quickly this is coming up and within the next week or two, I should receive more information about how this will all work in practical terms. I was rather pleased with myself on Sunday. After not having been able to train for my 5 K run since mid-March due to various ailments and injuries, I did the full distance that day to see what my baseline is. I mostly power-walked it and came in at 50 minutes. I was averaging just short of 9 minutes per kilometre for the first 4 kilometres and that included inclines, stairs and cobblestones. I lost some time on the last kilometre when I was on a narrow canal towpath and had to dodge bicycles and dogs. I am hoping to shave off 10 minutes between now and 24th September. Considering that I still have about 7 weeks to train and that the course should be relatively flat with no obstructions, this should be easy enough.
Other things are coming together for this as well. A friend of mine from Florida is coming over for the race weekend and it just so happened that we arrive and leave on the same days. She gets in about three hours before us and will stay in one of the onsite hotels. We are planning to stay at our usual hotel in Champs sur Marne. We are planning to eat at the fabulous Chinese restaurant near the hotel the first evening and have invited her to come along. It will nice to be able to catch up before we get absorbed by everything that is going on during the weekend.
I have hinted on my trip report that I think the aliens have been and abducted my husband. The first indication of this was him having fun with characters on the Ovation. He now suddenly said that maybe he needs to come to the parks with us at some stage as he really wants to try the Ratatouille ride that they have at Walt Disney Studios in Paris. Him volunteering to come to a park with me is huge. He normally avoids going to the parks at all cost. Fortunately for him, I think he got off lightly. The Friday of the race weekend, they have an after-hours party for people participating in any of the events, which will take place at Walt Disney Studios. We have tickets for this. According to the description, all the main attractions are open, there will be special character meet and greets as well as food stations. So I think he will get his wish without having to brave a park during normal opening hours.
The preparations for the weekend are going swimmingly. I have all my outfits for the weekend sorted. I am looking forward to getting all the odds and ends. I am still waiting for a few elements and I will post photos once I have everything.
So that leaves my birthday trip. As much as I love cruising on Royal Caribbean, their IT is a huge pain in the neck. We have My Time Dining this time round. With Royal Caribbean, you can make dining reservations ahead of time through the Cruise Planner page. This takes a lot of stress out of My Time Dining. However, it is not the most obvious on how to make these reservations. Reservations for this cruise became available two days ago and yesterday I spent ages making three reservations and then had to give up as I had to leave for work. Yesterday, I had to add My Time Dining to the cart, add both of our names, select the date and time and then check out which required my name and email address. This got old very quick as I had to repeat this for each reservation. Fortunately I worked out today that there is a way to see all days together and add the names for every day. So I then just had to pick what time we want to eat for each day. That was a lot easier. I have mainly gone for 6:30 dinner, but chose a later dinner on our second evening as this is probably formal night and the day for photos with the captain. I also booked later dinner times on our port days. I doubt that we will have dinner on the ship the day we arrive in New York. We will probably have a late lunch and then get a snack either while we are out and about or after getting back on the ship. Online check in has also been taken care of.
When it comes to this trip, I have more evidence that the aliens have abducted my husband. Graham does not plan and is always amused that I like to plan everything in advance. Well, this time he has downloaded the excursion brochure for our cruise. I did not even know that something like this existed. He also has researched what there is to see and do at Vero Beach and he is really rather excited about this. He even found out for me that the local museum has some Chihuly pieces. On the way from Miami to Vero Beach, we may do an airboat tour at the Sawgrass Natural Area and he was also OK with the idea of stopping at the local outlet mall. I suppose I will eventually get in the spirit and start planning stuff, but at the moment I am just lacking the energy and inclination. One thing that I have made my mind up about is that I will attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party both times they are offered while we are there.
