Wedding Wednesday

My friend and fellow Disney fan @DragynAlly ( http://www.dragynally.com/) asked if I was interested in joining a viewing party of the upcoming Royal Wedding on April 29th.  Being a Royal fan and planning to get up at the ungodly hour to watch the wedding live, I responded with excitement that I would be pleased to attend.  This lead to a plan to have Wedding Wednesday blogs.  So please enjoy.....



On July 29th, 1981  I was 10 years old.  I woke up early in the morning to watch the royal wedding of  Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

gifts from my grandmother another Royal Watcher.

I was the only one in my family crazy enough to get up that early.  I sat there watching the 14 inch screen TV we had, with bunny ears (no cable).

What I remember from that morning is the shy Di arriving in the covered carriage with her dad, getting out and that was the moment I saw the dress.  The dress that little girls dream about having for their wedding.  The train was 25 feet long.  Two brides maids  Lady Sarah Armstrong- Jones (17, daughter of Princess Margaret) and India Hicks (13, goddaughter of Prince Charles, http://www.indiahicks.com/) had to smooth the train as Diana climbed the stairs into St Paul Cathedral.  Well as I remember they had to fight with it as there was some wind.  The bridesmaids were all children, the remaining were Catherine Cameron (6),Clementine Hambro ( 5, great granddaughter of Winston Churchill) and  Sarah-Jane Gaselee (11).  I remember how I loved their dresses.   I didn't find it strange at the time that there was no maid of honour or any adult bridesmaids.  Charles had his brothers Andrew (21) and Edward (17) join him.

As I watched the wedding I dreamed of marrying a prince.  I even considered how I could meet their children if they had sons.  I wanted the Cinderella story, poor girl meets prince and they live happily ever after.
I watched and remember how Diana stumbled on Charles' name saying Phillip Charles Arthur George, instead of Charles Phillip Arthur George.  It made me love her even more.  When the church bells started ringing I had tears in my eye.  Watching the newlywed couple go through the streets in an open carriage, I will never forget.  Then they were inside taking photos and other things including having a brunch with guests.  I waited, watching replays of the wedding, the crowds of London, and the cameras focusing on the balcony of the palace, waiting for the couple to come out and wave at the crowds and share their first public kiss.   I watched until I saw them leave on their honeymoon in a carriage that said "Just married".  The queen and the wedding guests all looked happy and relaxed.


This event was the start of my fascination with the royal family, not just present day, but also in the past.  I have many books about Diana including Di and Charles paper dolls. (I know you can get Kate and William dolls)

On Friday April 29th, I am getting up by 4 am (hopefully)  to watch the newest royal couple start their fairy tale.  I think once again I will be the only one up watching in my house, everyone else says we can PVR it.   I want to watch as it happens.  The one different thing is for this wedding, there is social media and we can connect instantly with others all over the world. 

I am going to be joining a  Royal wedding viewing party http://friendfeed.com/royal-wedding-viewing-party and everyone is invited to join us.  Information is available at (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=219696528044844 join friendfeed.com and then join us at http://friendfeed.com/royal-wedding-viewing-party.

We are all having home parties of our own and will be viewing and talking together about our morning.  Some have grand plans and others like me will be watching in a house full of sleeping family members.  I am happy to be sharing these moments with my friends.

Please join us, check out the other Wedding Wednesday blogs ( listed at http://www.dragynally.com/) and see what they suggest or are planning for a royal viewing party.  Oh and did I mention there will be prizes????  All you have to do is join us, answer some trivia questions (hint read the blogs).

Happy Wedding Wednesday

Our Cabins 5022 and 5020 - family oceanview cat 8a

About 6 weeks before going on the cruise, after the dream had started sailing with passengers, I started to see photos of our cabin.

These photos created questions for me as I had thought that both cabins would sleep 4, have a slit bath and have a round tub shower with a rainfall shower head.  This was all based on what the DCL website said.
So I emailed my awesome TA at Mei Suzy.   She told me that our rooms slept 3 (crap), but we did have a split bath.  Now based on photos I had seen from another TA who slept in these cabins, I knew that wasn't true.

I have to say that I actually cried when I found out the rooms slept 3.  We have 4 kids, and none of them sleep well when they share a bed, we will do it for one night but for 4 nights that is too much and usually it ends up that my husband and I have to each sleep with one of the girls.   Our hope was to have the children in one room and us and the baby in another.  So this made us have to change this view.  Thankfully I had those weeks to deal with this (and some of you may think this is a small inconvenience, but when you have planned a trip for over a year and paid as much money as we did, plus we were celebrating our 10th year anniversary)


photo of our bathroom

 Now to the bathroom,  as you can see from the photo it was indeed not a split bath.  It took DCL almost the full 6 weeks to admit that the room only had a single bath.  Thanks to Suzy and Beci at MEI for all the work they did to get Disney to confirm this was true (the website has been changed, but I have the print out of the original wording).

We arrived into the room just after 1:30.  The layout of the room is side ways, so there are two large portholes.  The bed is in front of one.

The bed in 5022,  you can see the TV in front of it.




Taken from the porthole looking into the room.  The entrance to the room is to the left of the closet on the same wall.
 

 This layout creates a lot of space between the couch and bed area and the entrance/ closet.

5020 has a longer desk taking up almost the entire wall.



The bed in room 5020


So in the end we loved the layout.  Sarah and Meagan had one room and  Gillian, my husband and I and the baby slept in the other.  We had lots of space, we never had to fold up the stroller.  One morning we had 7 people and a pack n play in room 5020 and we didn't feel like we were jumping over each other.

Now the bathroom wasn't bad, there was only one day where Sarah was in the shower for one of her hour long showers and someone else was using the other bathroom and we had a bathroom emergency.

The one thing that is a little annoying is the key cards.  When you book two cabins with two adults and 4 children, you have to put an adult name in each room.  Thus hubby and I had keys to different rooms.  It gets a little frustrating when you know children are sleeping in one room and you have to walk by them to get to your room.  I could never remember what room I was registered in so when we signed for things, I am sure that I signed the wrong room.  For shutters we had 2 books with most of the same photos in them, such waste as in the past they would only make one copy.