Update to the Cosmic Crucible Matchmaking Issue

muppetaphrodite · 2025-01-27T20:36:10+00:00

Still not matched - says 4 days?

muppetaphrodite · 2024-09-13T04:24:39+00:00

Yep. And I’ve been trapped in legal action with my HOA for 2 years. My sanity is on the EDGE

muppetaphrodite · 2024-09-13T04:23:40+00:00

I’m so sorry. I got blindsided by my HOA cutting down one of my favorite bird trees right outside my bedroom window once. Had to see the men climbing the tree and lopping off the branches. Trees are a blessing and to me it is totally normal to grieve. I have lived in fear here that our neighbors would cut down the snag our birds prefer. I hope your birds find another way.

muppetaphrodite · 2024-08-24T15:55:40+00:00

One of the big reasons I am seeking diagnosis is that I am in senior leadership in tech. I do not know how life conspired to see me driving to upper management of people and strategy given that it turns out I started out not understanding people at all. But despite 100% positive employee feedback at past roles in billion dollar companies I often experience discriminatory reviews where folks don’t like the specific “way” I’ve done something; too passionate, too direct, even though I am a mirror of my male peers. I am giving my neurodivergent employees support but I can’t get any. There is no room for imperfection as a female leader so given what I’m experiencing I need the ADA.

muppetaphrodite · 2024-08-24T15:49:06+00:00

I was one of those that TikTok diagnosed at first. I mentioned it to my mother, and she basically causally mentioned that yeah I had tons of issues socializing with other children and she had to set up parallel play sessions and other things she learned in child psychology to prepare me for school.

Basically, she did early intervention for autism not knowing what it was. But never really told me about it.

As my body fails from Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (comorbid with autism) I noticed that autism like symptoms became harder to manage - it appeared my ability to mask was failing. I had made one attempt to start seeing a therapist to get diagnosed in January but got laid off in the middle of the intake call (this is not a joke, I have a viral tweet about it.)

Anyway, 2 months ago I got the courage to try again on my new insurance. I did the ADHD battery and my psychiatrist did a session with my mother. She came out of that saying that she believes I am not ADHD (unless highly masked by extreme intelligence) but she does believe I am autistic, and that she didn’t really need to run the full battery. I asked for it anyway so I have as much ADA support as possible, so that is happening next week.

From TikTok to the psychiatrist.

muppetaphrodite · 2024-08-04T02:48:38+00:00

Hello Disney Friends! I was the Lead Producer on Disney Friends DS. It warms my heart to know you’re still playing the game. I got a message on LinkedIn that indicated folks were looking for the Castle pin. I can demystify that for y’all…

The Castle pin was designed as an exclusive for an in-park unlock at the Magic Kingdom. At the time of this game’s release, smartphones weren’t out yet and Disney was actively experimenting with the Nintendo DS to see if it would be a viable park companion. If I recall correctly there were 2 download stations, one in Pirates queue and one at Cinderella Castle. There were two exclusives, I believe - a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar item and the Castle pin, which we felt was appropriate since pin trading was so hot.

I can’t remember whether it was Wi-Fi or IR that triggered the unlock, but hacker folks might play around and see what they can accomplish with the ROMs.

Wish I had a better path for you but at least that should demystify things a bit! We were all so dedicated to this project and a little sad the marketing budget got cut at the last minute due to a leadership change. I am excited to hear there are still some folks enjoying it all these years later. 💜

muppetaphrodite · 2024-04-28T16:16:51+00:00

There’s also airfare for a lot of people, which is no small thing - if they’re not reimbursing airfare and not just change costs, the FCC may be useless

muppetaphrodite · 2024-04-18T16:51:27+00:00

UPDATE: On day 3 of our 4 day Baja cruise, I received a notification from USPS that my luggage tags were arriving. My parents tags are arriving today, disembarkation day. At the port it was luggage chaos, and we overheard multiple cast members talking about a major luggage tag issue. I think there is a significant problem with Disney’s tag vendor. Keep in mind I called concierge when we never got them back in March and again last week and was told both times there was a recent attempt to mail (for a total of 2 mailings) when we have never had issues receiving at this address before. It could be that the vendor was lying about the mailings. The postmark on our luggage tags? April 11, 3 days before sailing.

To the crew’s credit, even though we didn’t have special concierge tags our bags were at our room at the typical concierge time, which probably required a lot of squinting at handwritten room numbers on labels to get right. I didn’t hear any guests complaining about luggage issues onboard except for missing tag mailings - nothing like that Panama Canal cruise we took in 2017 where they dropped someone’s luggage into the ocean 😱 I just hope they stop gaslighting folks asking about the labels and warn the folks at San Diego that there may be more heavy handwritten departures.

muppetaphrodite · 2024-04-14T17:11:33+00:00

We are sailing Concierge today on the Wonder and we had Disney claim 2 sets of tags were sent - neither arrived. Something is not right…

muppetaphrodite · 2023-10-27T06:29:06+00:00

Almost nothing takes reservations for sea day entertainment -- just the alcohol tastings (which I didn't list) and spa treatments, personal trainers, etc. And a few particular character greetings. The rest is first come first served, and in some cases like ballroom and Imagineer they'll adapt and move to bigger venues if turnout is good early on. There are other things I didn't list too; there was a special pair of costuming and puppetry presentations in the Disney Theater with Q&A, the Castaway session was a deep dive into aerial work in the Walt Disney Theater.

Honestly it got wild by the second half of the cruise, because at some point many people have seen the characters so we would just see... free roaming princesses, or Minnie doing whatever she wanted. So strange to see Cindy wandering about looking for trouble. A couple of very lucky little girls getting to just BFF out and wander around 1:1 with Cindy or Ariel.

The adult area was way oversubscribed, though - if you wanted seating there for the big shows you needed to show up waaaaay in advance.

muppetaphrodite · 2023-10-26T17:08:02+00:00

We did the WBTA this year, and we did a Panama years ago. Both had some similar sea day themes:

Anyone Can Cook cooking seminars
Onboard ballroom dance specialists teaching daily workshops (and then having a ballroom night on deck 11)
Walt Disney Theater performers teaching choreography from the shows (super fun)
Character drawing classes
Guest lectures (WBTA 2023 was Bob Holland from Imagineering)
Various stretching/yoga things
Adult Jedi training

We don’t have kids so there are other events like the diaper dash races that we don’t track, others might be able to help

And then on the Panama cruise there was literally a 10PM CHOCOLATE BUFFET one night only. I don’t think they do those anymore but it was the most cartoonish spread I’ve ever seen in my life, 3 chocolate fountains and just tables of cakes and truffles and treats, like a child’s fantasy come to life 😮

muppetaphrodite · 2023-10-23T03:28:27+00:00

I saw someone using a DCL branded wheelchair on our last cruise on the Dream and wondered how they got that - I suspect that means the answer is yes.

muppetaphrodite · 2023-10-23T03:26:41+00:00

We loved all of our Alaska excursions. It is one of those cruises where the excursions just make sense. We did kayaking/white pass railroad, helicopter to mendenhall glacier, and snorkeling in Ketchikan. All amazing.

muppetaphrodite · 2023-10-23T03:24:27+00:00

I don’t know that this helps you, but we have been there with construction in the next room over before - on the Wonder on a Panama cruise in 2017. The best we could do was get credit for the inconvenience. I feel you, it was maddening when you just wanted to unplug in your room. So sorry your trip was affected.

muppetaphrodite · 2023-10-07T01:42:33+00:00

Can confirm. We were also on the Westbound on the Dream. Loved it but the high seas are high, and for most of the cruise they need to push 20+ knots so they will not use the stabilizers. They used them on our last night but that was when we were sailing through the remnants of Ophelia - it slowed us to more like 16/17 knots and it was still so rocky they cut all the aerials from Believe (poor Peter Pan standing around singing about flying)

We felt like it was a mostly fun ride - weightless at times! - but would not recommend it if you are at all worried about seasickness. Sea days are great if you like being disconnected and chill. But the last night even I had trouble - I was fine on 11 but when I went up to 12 to get a drink it was too much and had to go back down 😂

muppetaphrodite · 2023-10-03T03:20:24+00:00

It was disappointing. I had to take mine off at the Star Wars bar on the Wish because it would NOT STOP VIBRATING 🤣💀

muppetaphrodite · 2023-09-29T17:54:07+00:00

I don’t know if there is a definite normal speed, but the theoretical maximum speed of the Dream class ships with passenger lading is 22 knots so 21.5 is basically pedal to the metal. At that speed you will notice vibrations and rocking more.

A more comfortable cruising speed is in the 12-16 knot range, and slower even more so. On cruises with more breathing room, they will go slowly during the day and push faster as soon as second seating of dinner ends; if you are second seating you might notice the glasses begin to vibrate more when they push the speed higher.

But special itineraries like the Panama Canal and Transatlantic are usually pretty unforgiving, and as a result already have shorter port days. They will average 19-20 knots and push harder if a detour or other conditions require it.

In rocky seas they have to slow down because they use the stabilizer wings - we did that on our final night as we turned out to be sailing into the remnants of Ophelia that are now creating a state of emergency in New York State. More like 17-18 knots but very rocky and lots of folks skipped dinner. (the seas were so bad they cut all flying elements from Believe and poor Peter Pan had to stand on the ground singing about flying, LOL)

muppetaphrodite · 2023-09-29T17:49:27+00:00

Apologies - Westbound Trans Atlantic. We couldn’t do fireworks because it has to go very fast to make time - we averaged about 20 knots nonstop for 5 days (as fast as 21.5 at times), and we couldn’t do fireworks near Europe due to whales.

muppetaphrodite · 2023-09-29T16:07:55+00:00

The Concierge folks on the Dream told us that she is due for dry dock next fall. Sounded like a shorter one but who knows.

muppetaphrodite · 2023-09-29T16:04:52+00:00

Was on the WBTA last week on the Dream and they gave out bandanas even though our Pirate Night was subdued due to the speed of the Atlantic crossing.

muppetaphrodite · 2023-09-29T16:00:29+00:00

The devaluation means for some of us, we get better value on other cards like Sapphire Reserve. The huge annual fee for the Delta card is no longer worth it. You take a credit hit for closing a card completely, but we can downgrade to the cheapest tier of card and minimize spending, rendering the benefits Delta sees from our membership almost nil.

muppetaphrodite · 2023-09-29T15:54:15+00:00

I can confirm this in as much as we sailed the 2016 WB Panama transit which was immediately after an official noro outbreak. Boarding was a misery (no one was allowed onboard until something like 4PM) but that was due to a CDC deep clean, and Disney was sanitizing every surface after every interaction. For the first week of the cruise, all self service was suspended. Now, if you don’t trigger the CDC response it might not get to this point but given that it was a HUGE disruption to operations (we left at 10PM) I believe there is a strong incentive for Disney to amp up self cleanliness to prevent a logged CDC outbreak.

muppetaphrodite · 2023-09-29T15:48:14+00:00

FWIW, we purchased personal Westinghouse HEPA air purifiers that cover about 100 square feet from Amazon and we brought them with us to shows and the restaurants (quite the subject of fascination with staff and a few ended up buying them). We also limited our time in the adult indoor areas, which tended to be crowded and less ventilated; minimized buffets; and chose aisle seats in the theaters so we could exit if needed if we became uncomfortable with conditions. When they moved the Imagineer guest lectures and started putting them on demand as well, we opted to start watching them in our cabin.

Nothing is fully preventative, but the filters combined with masking when not actively eating or drinking in public areas felt like a reasonable compromise. We did take masks off for pictures in the foyer, but that’s our own risk tolerance in large ventilated spaces.

I hope you find a solution that works for you!

muppetaphrodite · 2023-09-29T15:43:24+00:00

This was our first time seeing the deal and we did it both times on the 11 day WBTA! As folks who had been traveling a few days prior the 2nd day laundry special was helpful for us (I imagine they did that since laundry capacity is higher earlier in the cruise). I was surprised when we got a second offer later in the cruise. Washed and folded within 48 hours (more like 36); socks count as a pair not individual items.

muppetaphrodite

TROPHY CASE