Let the whining begin!

I'm back again... much later than I anticipated but a lot can change in a week! This post I'm testing posting via an e-mail. Once I'm on the ship this will help with keeping my Internet costs down. Internet access on cruise ships is painful. First they charge you an insane amount of money for it. It's by the minute & gee whiz 90% of the time the internet is 10x slower than dial-up. Luckily, I'll have my laptop with me. I have a Mac, so I don't have "outlook" but a program like it. I can go online & get all my new e-mail from all my different e-mail addresses in like a minute, log off, read them all, write any new ones & then sign back on to send them out. So to use e-mail it will only take me like 3 minutes a day, rather than surfing the internet to all my different e-mail host's websites (gmail, work, juno, etc.) and then read & reply to all of them while my internet time is ticking away. Now before you go thinking I'm cheap, I'm not at all. However, I'm gonna be on the ship for 14 days & to give you an idea, 100 minutes costs $55 or you can also do a pay-as-you-go option which is $0.75 per minute. Ouch. So e-mail it is. A lot of people save their internet time for when in port & try to hunt down free wifi or even an internet cafe, but I'm prima donna. I'll pay more for the convenience. Moving on. I'm getting a little overwhelmed. I'm 49 days out but I feel like it's two weeks away. I still have a lot to do & even more to do at work, meanwhile I'm now leaving on Saturday to spend a week visiting my family in Fl. I can't wait to see them, especially in light of all that's going on. (fyi: my uncle & 2nd cousin are both fighting cancer) I have so much to do at work and then even more to do at home and I decided to bring the spoiled one with me. For those who don't, the spoiled one is my Yorkie, Rocky. Rocky is a she, which I know confuses everyone, but it was done purposfully. When I first got her she weighed 2lbs & I had her in a spiked collar & Harly Davidson stuff. So I wanted a name that made her seem all tough & then you see her & just crack up. 8 years later & people calling her a "he" 100s of times, I should of just gone with a normal name. I digress. Anyway. I'm bringing her with me. She's so spoiled. I don't even want to tell you what I have to pay to bring her... but I will. You know those times where you know you're getting ripped off, but you still do it anyway. That's me every time I fly with her. (Yes, I do this often. Rocky's a world traveler. She's been on more than 10 flights. Spoiled brat!) Jetblue's rule is that I can fly with her as long as she is kept completely closed in her bag, she is my personal item & has to be kept under the seat in front of me. FIne. No biggie. BUT in addition to those rules, they charge me $100 dollars each way. So most flights Rocky's "ticket" to sit under the seat is more than my ticket to sit in a seat & get unlimited snacks & watch tv. Um. Add on top of that, you can fly with a baby, on your lap, screaming & carrying on, inconveniencing the whole plane FOR FREE!! It's insane & the worst part is I PAY IT... REPEATEDLY. It's insane & more importantly, I'm insane. What a brat. So now I have to get ready for Florida and make a stop at the vet at some point this week to get her papers saying she's healthy to fly. So needless to say things have been getting crazy for me. Also, I was not planning to be going away until the big trip, so I had been storing away all my stuff for the trip in my luggage & checking it off my packing list. So now I have to unpack, to repack, to get home & pack it all back up again. Wonderful. On a positive note, while I'm in Florida visiting family, I'll be missing a family reunion here in NY. Bummer. I am so disappointed. Really, I'm just so sad I'll be missing it. I mean who wouldn't want to be with a bunch of family asking three million different ways why I'm still single, repeatedly??? That's my idea of fun. In all seriousness, I love my family, but separately. Everyone together makes for quite a traumatic time, especially when everyone wants to be the head of the thing. No thanks. I'll get to see most of them in Fl before the fly home to NY for the thing, but I'll be staying behind with the family who can't fly home to NY due to sickness. Now after all that whining... I'll get back to why we're all here. So the trip is 49 days away. I finally found the perfect carry-on. I went on both Delta & Aer Lingus to find out what was the max dimensions of a carry-on I was allowed & then went on a 3 month search of the perfect bag. I knew I wanted a spinner & I knew I wanted the absolute largest bag I was allowed- I'm gonna need all the space I can get. So I found tons I loved but they all were 22" & I could only have 21", so I finally end up with, believe it or not, a spinner from walmart that I ended up getting for $49 verses all the amazingly nice ones for $160+. So I finally got it and was thrilled. Then I went on Delta & Aer lingus and notice that they changed the dimensions to 22"!!! Are you kidding me?! I feel like I'm going insane. I'm sticking with the bag I have but it just really bugged me. I couldn't believe it. And while I'm still whining, I think I'm in the wrong field. I should definitely go into the luggage business. They're killing it! The amount of money they charge for a suitcase is insane. And these new spinners, they add two more measly wheels & it costs an additional $100. They're all mad. I bet the person who decides the extra charges for flying with a dog is the same guy who prices luggage. Seriously. It's a bag with wheels, not a car. Crazy. I also bought some movies that included the digital copy to put on my computer & ipod. They're a bunch of movies I loved but have only seen once in the theater. So I'm trying to hold out & not watch any of them, so I'll have back up in case the weather is bad on our 5 sea days straight. I also bought cables to hook my laptop up to the cabin tv, which Disney supposedly is against, but whatever. I'm not a rule breaker, but this is just absurd. Knowing Disney, I won't ever even have time to watch these movies 'cause they always have so much going on on the ships- rain or shine. In the last week I also read about Europe changing over to a system of chip-and-pin credit cards rather than the magnetic strip & sign cards that we have. Some places have been reported to not take our cards because they don't want to be bothered &/or don't know how to ring us up so that we have to sign for the purchase rather than putting in a pin. Whatever. If you don't want my money than fine. Jeez. This had been the first I had heard about this in all my researching, so I don't think it's going to be a big deal. People mainly had trouble at automated places like gas stations, metro stations, etc. and at places off the beaten path. We'll be in the touristy areas so I don't foresee it being a problem, but it's still a headache. First they have different power outlets, now this. "Why can't we all just get along?". Well, I guess that's enough whining for tonight. From now on my updates are going to be getting into the details. I'll be posting on each day of our trip & what plans we have for that day. So up next... Departure Day/Our First Day in Ireland!

Rocky ready for her trip.