Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Passing of a very special Aunt.


Aunt Charlotte was Sally's real mothers sister.  She was a teacher of many, she wrote prose and traveled to see all the nieces and nephews.  She will be missed.

The nieces and nephews

Sally's siblings

"Chance" house established 1909


Inside Trembletoe (Sister's house)

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Disney Fantasy Preview Cruise March 16th 2012

Our latest cruise was on a preview cruise onboard the Disney Fantasy which was Christened March 2nd 2012 in New York.  I walked on the blocks of the Fantasy when I was in Germany last November but I had not done any work on her after that.  My transition to the Shanghai project moved me from the DCL team as the focus on the newest and last ship was ramping up.  The Fantasy is the sister to the Dream and structurally identical.  Some areas were rebadged either to help support that this ship will be a seven day ship or they tweaked areas that were not as popular as expected on the Dream.
Since the Fantasy preview cruises were seven days and the transatlantic crossing were during school time the kids could not join us.  I even floated the idea of flying them from St Maarten to minimize the school impact but our kids were mature enough to realize that missing that much school at the end of a semester would be a problem and they both declined the offer.  For the first time Sally and I did a non-working cruise together. 
Every aspect of the operation was better prepared and there were very few times that made us realize we were on the 2nd cruise with guests.  The crew was a mix from being new sailors or from the Dream and the other classic ships.  Our stateroom was on deck9 and was a CatA which slept 3 with no garden tub.  We went to a couple of shows and did our own excursions in St Thomas and St Maarten. Castaway was spent walking around looking at the changes since I was there last there a year ago.  We did not see any other Disney ships and there were no big ceremonies when we pulled into the Fantasy’s ports of calls.  

Disney Fantasy outside of the Shipyard

Create your own dinner show

Castaway from our balcony


Satellite Falls

New water play area on the Fantasy



Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Braves spring training

At the game with Sally and a hundred IT nerds thanks to the folks at North Highland.




Gregg
This message was composed on a mobile device, please excuse brevity and typos.