*OFFICIAL* CC Group Cruise 02/15/2014 Cupid's IV Southern Caribbean - Carnival Breeze

[Cruisin Dave]

Us Dave's knows how to travel!!;)

I agree 100%. Dave's know how to travel. :D:cool:

[Gojirart]

Wow! Two weeks from tomorrow we'll be on our way!

 

I'm bringing 36 magnets, I hope that will be enough. I'll start putting them together today. For those who have asked, I'm not charging anything, it just seemed like a fun thing to do for what seems to be a great group of people. It isn't that much more work to make multiples than to make the first one. I'll bring them to the first meet and greet, and maybe to the meeting place the first day of the cruise.

 

Heidi, could you post a summary list of the meet and greet times and locations for all of us? I'm still looking for those Mardi Gras beads. I'm a retired elementary school teacher, so I must have some around here somewhere:D If I can't find them, I'll be wearing my flashing led cruise ship pin.

 

Temps were actually in the twenties yesterday and teens today. It's sad when those temperatures start to feel balmy! Another cold advisory starts at 6:00 tonight, so here we go again! Boy, do I need this cruise!

 

I'm off to start figuring out what to pack. I think I read somewhere that the machines in the self-serve laundry use the Sign and Sail cards? Does anyone know for sure? It would be nice not to have to pack the usual roll of quarters ;)

 

See you all soon!

 

Gwenda

[Cruisin Dave]

Gwenda, concerning the laundry, I've read the same thing about the machines. I'm bringing alond several packets of Tide that I found a Walmart and some dryer sheets. I may only do one load but it's best to be prepared.

We reached a wonderful 80 today but the cold front is barrelling down on us and there is a chance for snow Sunday night. I just hope it is calm 2 weeks from today.

Dave

[HappyAboard]

7 FTTF spots just opened for our cruise in case anyone is interested.

[Ducman]

 

Michelle wanted me to do a quick post to see if anyone has any ideas of where to get some good clip art... I was working with the above art, but it is fuzzy and doesn't look quite right. Any suggestions? Thanks

[HeidiHo]

Good Evening!

 

ONLY 2 MORE WEEKS!!!!!!!

 

Here is the announcement I made a few days ago. It has all the meet and greet info in it. One thing I have found out since then, the aft pool area will be perfect for our sail away get together. It's called Tides Pool and Tides bar. the bar is right there and the deck is not surrounded by plexiglass like on Conquest Class ships so we will be able to walk to the railing to to watch sail way.

 

ATTENTION ALL CUPID'S, NEWPID'S AND ROLL CALL PEEPS!

 

I originally had contacted John Heald about setting up a location for official Meet and Greets. He had asked me to contact him again a few days before the cruise. In the mean time, one of our roll call members, Vic (rounder) gave me the contact info for the events co-ordinator for Carnival. He had gone this route in setting up a Meet and Greet for the cruise before ours (he is doing a back to back). I emailed the events coordinator about 3 weeks ago and FINALLY heard back today. We have 2 official meet and greets set up. The first one is on the 1st sea day (Sunday) in the Liquid Night Club from 2:00 - 3:00. We will do the White Elephant gift exchange at this one for those who are participating. If you aren't participating, no problem, come anyway. It's open o all, whether you are participating in the White Elephant exchange pr not. The 2nd Meet and Greet will be on the last sea day (Saturday), from 1:00 - 2:00, also in the Liquid Night club. At this one we will socialize for the hour and then do the cabin crawl. I still might contact John Heald a few days before the cruise just to thank him and who knows, maybe he'll send us some goodies.

 

I HOPE TO SEE EVERYONE THERE!

 

We will also have a couple of "unofficial gatherings." One thing we have done the last couple of Cupid's cruise is to gather in the atrium as people are boarding. We board as early as possible and then watch everyone board so we can see all of our friends as they board and our group starts to grow as people join us for drinks.

 

We will also meet after the muster drill for Sail Away. In the past we have met by aft pool or one deck up depending on the ship. I am not sure about the Breeze. On Spirit Class ships the aft pool and bar area is perfect because that deck is open. On Conquest Class ships, the aft pool area is enclosed so we would get drinks at the bar there but we had to go up to the next deck for sailaway because that was not enclosed. Has anyone been on the Breeze (or Magic or Dream) and know what the aft decks are like? If they are like the Conquest Class, we will just meet on the deck above the aft pool. We might have to go down a deck to get drinks but that shouldn't be a problem. Any suggestions out there? Please let me know.

 

 

Well, Dave and I bit the bullet today and bought TWO new computers. I bought a MacBook Air and he bought a MacBook Pro. I am typing this from my new one. I really love how thin and light it is. Dave really needed a new one a long time ago. He was just stubborn about spending the money. His has gotten so slow though. I tried to use it yesterday and it took me 20 minutes to do something that should have only taken me 5 minutes. So far I am liking the MacBook Air. I was just really concerned that it wouldn't be able to do some of the things I need to do for work but so far no problems. Of course, I have been using Staci's MacBook Pro for month now so I've had some practice. I do know of one thing for work that I won't be able to do on the MacBook but it's a very minor inconvenience and there may be a way around it. If not, I may just take Eric's old computer over when he get s a new one which should be soon. His old one is Windows 7 so if there's anything at all I can't do on the MacBook I'll just use his.

 

We are expecting another major winter storm here this weekend. I just hope the snow doesn't get bad until after 6:00AM tomorrow because I have clients flying out of O'Hare at 5:30AM. I know I can't control the weather but I can't help worrying about my clients. I want everything to go perfectly for them. I probably won't sleep well tonight. :roll eyes:

 

Have a good weekend. :)

Edited February 1, 2014 by HeidiHo

[Gojirart]

Chris,

 

I'll try not to get too wonky in my reply.

 

If you aren't using something like Photoshop where you can "tweak" the resolution of your files, probably the best choice is to use vector clipart. It usually has a higher resolution and scales up much better to a larger size without the fuzziness or blockiness. Avoid the .bmp format and look for a .tif or .eps file

.ai (Adobe Illustrator)or .psd (Adobe Photoshop) work well, but you probably need those programs to use them.

.jpg or png files also work if they had been saved as high resolution files.

Don't try to use anything less than 300 dpi for most file formats.

 

Just do a search for free vector valentine clipart and you should get quite a few to pick from. I don't know what program you are using for your design, but most will work with all but the .ai and .psd formats.

 

I found a decent porthole and put one of the Raphael angels in it to make the magnets. It took me a couple of tries to get the resolution and clarity I wanted, too. Don't try to just "right click" to copy a picture, you probably won't get anything with decent resolution. For best results, find a file that you can really download.

 

Sorry if this is technical :confused:

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

[Gojirart]

Heidi,

 

I'm sure you're going to love your new Mac. My husband is a musician/composer and I'm an artist. When we bought our first Mac (a II CX - I won't tell you how many years ago :eek:) PCs just didn't have the software we needed. (Actually, we first used my DMIL's TRS-80 and then bought Our FIRST computer, a Commodore 64!) Yeah, we're really dinosaurs!

 

I also had to use PCs at work. The only time I couldn't use the Mac for work was if they had proprietary software programs (hospital and school). Most of the time, everything worked very well together. I do use Microsoft Office for the Mac. That solves 90% of compatibility issues.

 

I also found the Mac to be more reliable and more intuitive to use, although PCs have improved a lot over the years. Actually, aside from graphic design! photo management and word processing, I use my iPad for most day to day stuff now.

 

We're supposed to get between 4 and 5 inches of snow tonight and into tomorrow. Nothing so far yet.

 

Stay warm!

 

Gwenda

[HeidiHo]

Good Morning!

 

I can breathe a sigh of relief and relax all day today. Remember I told you about my clients flying out today for a cruise. They were scheduled to leave at 5:30 AM. The first thing I did when I got up at 8:00 this morning was look out the window and saw that it had snowed about 3"-4". I then checked my phone and saw no missed calls so I figured no news was good news. Then I went on line to checked their flight and it was in the air. Their cruise isn't until tomorrow but they were flying on Spirit Airlines and they don't have code shares with other airlines and only have 2 or 3 flights a day to FLL so if their flight had been canceled it might have been difficult to find another flight for them. Probably the thing that saved them was that even though the storm started late last night, they were leaving so early this morning that there wouldn't have been a large back up at that time. I am so relieved. I was actually having nightmares about them last night. In the dream I kept trying to check the Spirit Airlines website to check their flight status but every time I tried I was interrupted and could do it. LOL. These people just booked too. They booked on Tuesday. I guess they were really getting tired of this awful winter we are having.

 

Staci has a pretty long drive for work today. I wish when the weather is like this they would cancel her. She works different places every day. Sometimes she's close to home but other times she has to drive far. Today's job would be about a 45 minute drive when roads are good so who knows how long it will take today. Her car is lousy in snow so she took my car. I have no plans to go anywhere.

 

Have a good day. :)

[Cusp79]

Chris - I LOVE the red shirt! Great job! :cool:

[HeidiHo]

If anyone knows of any solo travelers interested in this cruise, I just noticed that the single supplement is gone for inside guarantees, category 4B, and category 1A cabins. The problem is, airfare is ridiculous now. I just thought I'd mention it though.

 

I finally printed up our docs today. I also got out my toiletry bag to look through it to see what I need to buy. I threw away a lot of old, expired sun block.

 

The snow turned out to not be a big deal today. We only got about 3"-4" and that fell in the morning. So tonight we went to the Weber Grill restaurant for dinner. We had a gift card that was a Christmas present. It was very good and I saw an old friend from high school there. Besides going to high school together we also worked together many years ago at the same company that Dave still works for. I probably haven't seen her in 20 years but because of Facebook, I had no problem recognizing her because I have seen lots of recent pictures.

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Edited February 2, 2014 by HeidiHo

[Cusp79]

I always forget when I can print up the cruise docs ... I know what I'll be doing today on this snowy Oklahoma day! :D

[HeidiHo]

I always forget when I can print up the cruise docs ... I know what I'll be doing today on this snowy Oklahoma day! :D

 

Snow is exactly the reason I finally got around to doing cruise stuff yesterday. The forecast was so bad I figured I would be stuck inside all day. Luckily the snow wasn't nearly as bad as they forecast so we were able to go out to dinner last night. It's sunny today but supposedly we are in for big snow again on Tuesday.

[momofzeke]

My cruise docs & luggage tags are all printed out. I will laminate the luggage tags though, I just put clear plastic self adhesive sheets over both sides and trim it. Keeps the tags from tearing or getting wet.

 

I looked at my flight schedule again, and I knew we had a stop in Texas, but it is Austin, not Dallas. We have 2 stops on our flight to Miami, but don't get off the plane on either stop. The other stop is in L.A. so weather shouldn't be a problem there.

 

Heidi, glad you got your new computer!

[Dspcentury]

Wow! Two weeks from tomorrow we'll be on our way!

 

I'm bringing 36 magnets, I hope that will be enough. I'll start putting them together today. For those who have asked, I'm not charging anything, it just seemed like a fun thing to do for what seems to be a great group of people. It isn't that much more work to make multiples than to make the first one. I'll bring them to the first meet and greet, and maybe to the meeting place the first day of the cruise.

 

Heidi, could you post a summary list of the meet and greet times and locations for all of us? I'm still looking for those Mardi Gras beads. I'm a retired elementary school teacher, so I must have some around here somewhere:D If I can't find them, I'll be wearing my flashing led cruise ship pin.

 

Temps were actually in the twenties yesterday and teens today. It's sad when those temperatures start to feel balmy! Another cold advisory starts at 6:00 tonight, so here we go again! Boy, do I need this cruise!

 

I'm off to start figuring out what to pack. I think I read somewhere that the machines in the self-serve laundry use the Sign and Sail cards? Does anyone know for sure? It would be nice not to have to pack the usual roll of quarters ;)

 

See you all soon!

 

Gwenda

We would be interested in a magnet...

[Dspcentury]

Hello Cupids!!

Can't wait to meet everyone and get into the summer weather!!! I hope we don't get snowed out before we leave..

I have a question...Since we have FTTF, is there a special place that we would be giving our luggage to? I have not done this before.

[Cruisin Dave]

Sue, if you gave a long layover in Austin, there is a good BBQ place called The Salt Lick. Here is a short cut to information about Austin-Berstom Airport, http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2012/11/04/austin-bergstrom-international-airport/1679751/

[AKB10]

I have a question...Since we have FTTF, is there a special place that we would be giving our luggage to? I have not done this before.

From what I have read, you just let the porter know you have FTTF and they put a piece of orange tape on your luggage. I think that way everyone knows it is a FTTF piece of luggage.

[Dspcentury]

From what I have read, you just let the porter know you have FTTF and they put a piece of orange tape on your luggage. I think that way everyone knows it is a FTTF piece of luggage.

Thanks Kathy..:)

[AKB10]

I am getting very excited about this cruise!!!

Not much longer now. Less than 2 weeks!

I printed off the documents a few weeks ago.

I think everything is planned out - at least for now.

Now the weather better cooperate. :D

[Cruisin Dave]

I saw a post yesterday that there were a few FTTFs available. Don't know if they still are.

 

We are get sleet and rain now and it's about 32 or 33. Don't expect allot of acumulation but when it's ice, a little goes a long way.

 

Stay warm,

Dave

[AKB10]

I was on the Carnival site looking at things earlier this morning. FTTF's are sold out again.

Our excursion in La Romana is almost sold out (the one with the river cruise). Also Frank and I had signed up for the yellow bus tour in Aruba (can't remember name of it) and there is only 1 space left on it.

We still do not have anything planned for Curacao.

 

[Cruisin Dave]

Kathy, we are doing the Discover Curaçao Island tour in Curaçao. I don't know if it is full or not.

[AKB10]

Kathy, we are doing the Discover Curaçao Island tour in Curaçao. I don't know if it is full or not.

 

I just checked, it is sold out. :( This is a port with a strange time. We only have a few hours of daylight. Unless something else comes up we will probably just get off the ship and look around. I have also read that Carnival opens up more spots on the ship of some excursions.

[Cruisin Dave]

:mad: I haven't looked at the excursions but I'm sure people are starting to scramble for what's available this close to sailing. They do open more after sailing. See you in 12 days.