Who's in for GREECE and TURKEY, June 15 2003????

[nzdisneymom]

This is our families first Disney cruise and I have read that a lot of people bring gifts to give to special CMs... Anyone do this and if so what is appreciated?

We don't bring something, but we do tend to leave behind things that we might not use-up (like laundry detergent) or things from the Fish Extenders that we might not have room for or want to take home (like too much candy or little bottles of booze).

 

[CasaMartinez]

Whew, finally all caught up It took me a bit to go through it all but it was worth it. Lots of good information. We did the Med in 2010 with Travelbee and are very excited to be going again.

 

[BobandLee]

Good Evening All.
Had not posted for a while. Lot's of personal stuff keeping us off the Dis.
I plan on going back and reading when I get time.
However, I need to know where I can find information about the excursions at each port. I know it is on the DCL site, but I cannot seem to find it.
Help?

 

[mindelmouse]

Good Evening All.
Had not posted for a while. Lot's of personal stuff keeping us off the Dis.
I plan on going back and reading when I get time.
However, I need to know where I can find information about the excursions at each port. I know it is on the DCL site, but I cannot seem to find it.
Help?

Instead of going to port excursion. Go in through the ports and you should be able to see them.

 

[DL1957]

Whew, finally all caught up It took me a bit to go through it all but it was worth it. Lots of good information. We did the Med in 2010 with Travelbee and are very excited to be going again.

Welcome!

 

[abayaflowers]

We had calm seas in the Med in 2007, but I have read reports of rougher seas. And we'll be crossing further east so I don't know how the seas might be - I'll be bringing our Bonine.

In Augusto 2010, the seas were starting to get rough around 3 p.m. and was really rough around 7 p.m. and did not stop until we left La Spezia.

I took Dramamine and gave the children's version to my DDs. It made our cruise experience so much better.

Our family friends a party of 7 did not take it at all and they were really sick during that patch.

However, the Captain of the ship were amazing and so were the people of La Spezia. Professionals! That's why we travel on the Disney Cruise.

 

[ame]

Welcome DH and I were lucky enought to viisit your great country and city. We have very dear friends who live in Cherrybrook about an hour outside of Sydney. Sue

Thanks Sue, Sydney certainly is a special city.

We made some great Aussie friends on the April Fantasy cruise. Just leave the the Vegemite at home ;-)

Actually, I fail on the Aussie test as I don't like vegemite. My husband and ds3 are the only ones who like it!

Welcome Ame and family!

Thanks Lynn

Santorini would be nice.

Hopefully we don't get to "Tunis level".
In 2011, about this time of year Tunisia exploded

I hope that turkey still goes ahead as it was one of the reasons for changing cruises, but santorini would be a nice way to appease my disappointment

You're correct...the same thing has happened to us. They've changed from a Boeing 767 to an Airbus 330 and I'm not happy. I couldn't find a time change on any of our flights, though.

We booked our flights 10 months out. I check our seats every 2-3 weeks and they often get us shuffled around due to plane changes. We learnt our lesson in Christmas 2011 when we booked a flight and reserved seats on an Alaskan airlines flight 11 months in advance. I didn't check them and after a 14 hr flight to LAX I found that we were all sitting in different rows. Yeah I wasn't happy and it all got sorted in the end, but it was stress we didn't need after such a long flight with the kids so we now check often!!

We had calm seas in the Med in 2007, but I have read reports of rougher seas. And we'll be crossing further east so I don't know how the seas might be - I'll be bringing our Bonine.

I'll be bringing Dramamine but on our Alaska cruise they put some on the bedside table on the first night. just in case.

I've requested to joing the FB group. I also did the spreadsheet thing. We're aiming to bring 4 suitcases between the six of us (as I will push dd in her wheelchair) so we won't be participating in the FE. Ds 3 is so cranky with me as we did it in Alaska and he loved it! But we just won't have the room

So yesterday I PIF for our first cruise so I did for this one as well. so now just waiting for mar 15 to check in and book any excursions we decide on. I'll google it, but does anyone know what happens with check in times if you're doing b2b?

So excited, not long now. But so much to do still!!

 

[MichaelH]

Ok, I have to ask. I have been reading about the FE. What exactly do you do at this and where is it? Is it something that the DISers do?

 

[mindelmouse]

Ok, I have to ask. I have been reading about the FE. What exactly do you do at this and where is it? Is it something that the DISers do?[/QUOTE


Its something DISers do. You get this pocketed hanging thing to hang off the fish outside your room. Then everyone participating buys or makes some sort of gift for all the other participants and when you are on the ship you put it in each persons fish extender. Some guve just gifts for kids some give for kids and adults. Everyone does what they are comfortable with. I usually participate but since i am flying with a carrier that chges me for luggage i dont think I want the extra stuff to pack.

 

[MichaelH]

Has anyone gotten to book excursions yet? We are silver, so we are not able until March 17 I believe. This cruise will make use gold. Thought some people got to book in February.

 

[mindelmouse]

Has anyone gotten to book excursions yet? We are silver, so we are not able until March 17 I believe. This cruise will make use gold. Thought some people got to book in February.

I believe platinum and concierge book 2/15 and gold goes 3/2

 

[DL1957]

I believe platinum and concierge book 2/15 and gold goes 3/2

That is correct. We are platinum so if you have any questions please let me know. We are booking all our excursions through DCL Sue

 

[pxlbarrel]

Hey HavinABlast ... just noticed you are from Cambridge... I'm from Waterloo! Nice to be cruising with someone so close to home!!

And I grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo!!

 

[pxlbarrel]

When we disembark, we are heading straight to the airport for an afternoon or evening flight to the UK.

The DDs want to visit the Harry Potter studios... any suggestions on where to stay would be great!

Thanks!

By the way, I printed out the pages for the pre-cruise stuff from our TA at Dreams Unlimited. It's so nice and exciting!

We're flying to London right after disemarkation too. We're using points to fly so we're connecting in Geneva before landing in London. UGh.

I just came back from London and I went to the Harry Potter studios. It was fantastic. We spent over 3 hours there and then some time in the gift shop. I'd go there again if I had the time.

 

[pxlbarrel]

On the Facebook page, we got talking about cameras, photography and stuff like that.

Does anybody want to meet on the second sea day (the first sea day is after Rome and I think we all might want to sleep in a bit...) for a Disers Photography Meet? We could meet just before sunrise (LOL, I can hear the groaning already but a cruise sunrise is beautiful to behold) and proceed to deck 10 to take photos... and from then, we'll move on through the ship to get photos of a yet to wake Magic. If it's raining, we'll automatically move the meet to the next sea day.

I think it would be fun, we could learn stuff from each other and we could even have a game of dueling cameras. And .. it doesn't have to be just for the people with massive dSLRs. Got a point and shoot, come along. It's not the camera that take the good photos, it's the person.

So... whadya say guys?

 

[MichaelH]

When we disembark, we are heading straight to the airport for an afternoon or evening flight to the UK.

The DDs want to visit the Harry Potter studios... any suggestions on where to stay would be great!

Thanks!

By the way, I printed out the pages for the pre-cruise stuff from our TA at Dreams Unlimited. It's so nice and exciting!

We are flying into London pre-Cruise. We booked the Novotel at Blackfriars. Rate was not bad and all four could get one room DW, DS, DD, and myself. Hope that gives you a place to look at. Also the London Walks tours has a Harry Potter tour. You can look up their tours online. We did them back in 2000 and they are great tours.

 

[nzdisneymom]

Well, I tried getting set up with everlater.com for doing our trip report and while I can set it up on the computer, the app doesn't let me even log in. It looks like they've sold themselves to Mapquest, too, so I am bummed about that because it looked like such a wonderful opportunity to do something fun with trip reporting. I did see where they are stopping making books from trips, too.

So I looked for other apps and sites but didn't find anything that I wanted, so I decided to go ahead and just do it the old blogspot way. I started today and here's the link if anyone is interested, although you all know way more about it than the intended readers I do like that I can upload pictures and text by email to the site which is what I wanted to have the capability of doing - so I can compose email without having to be connected to the internet and then whenever we happen to have connectivity, then I can upload it. We'll be sharing the link with family and friends when it gets a little closer.


In the meanwhile, I've begun the long spell of work work work to be able to have enough leave to cover the days we'll be gone! Thankfully it's our busy season and I have the work to do. The boys have no days off til the end of March when they have spring break - this will be the first year in ages that we haven't gone to WDW - I will especially miss the Flower and Garden Festival.

 

[CasaMartinez]

Last summer we had an inflatable booster seat and it worked very well for us. They weren't selling them in the US at the time so we ordered it from www.easycarseat.com and had it delivered to the hotel in BCN. Now it looks like they sell them via www.goboosterseat.com in the US. We take it with us on all of our trips. It fits in the outside pouch of the suitcase so we just throw it in before we check the bags and easily take it out and inflate it when we get there.

Sara

Thanks for sharing. I didn't know they had inflatable boosters. My youngest DS is 5 and I never feel comfortable not having a seat for him. I usually travel with a booster so it will be much easier with the inflatable.

Don't know if this helps (or perhaps you already know about them) but in addition to our converters we bought these great multi device charging stations made by ZONE Electronics that roll up to the size of a cardboard paper towel roll for packing. I found them at CVS for $10 a piece just before our last trip to Europe and figured it wouldn't hurt to try. They are awesome! We bought them almost 2 years ago, have used them on every vacation since and they are still working great.

We've never been to Barcelona so I don't know how abundant the outlets are in their hotels, but in our tiny room in Paris and B&B in Rome they only had 1 outlet. Using our 2 charging stations (plugged in to our 2 converters) we were able to charge 3 iPods and 3 cell phones at once each night and then only had to charge our cameras batteries separately (only because our cameras are older and don't have a USB plug). They can each charge up to 4 devices at once (depending on what type of ports you have) and have a little baggie inside the storage compartment with adapters to match your device. On our Fantasy cruise we added a Kindle and iPad Mini to our charging needs and were still covered. If your local or other local drug store doesn't have them maybe Amazon or eBay would or something similar for less than Sharper Image prices.

Thanks for sharing this. When I went to the Med in 2010 I remember having to constantly switch back and forth so I could charge our phones, camera, iPad & kindle. Looks like this will solve most of that and that I just need to worry about the camera. I found it at eBay for $16 but it still seems worth it.

 

[BobandLee]

Probably been asked before, but when does DCL is the earliest to take flight out?

 

[rossjen2]

Probably been asked before, but when does DCL is the earliest to take flight out?

I think DCL says 12:30...but not sure. Our flight is at 11:20 and we were told it would be OK and just to make sure we are assigned the earliest disembarkation time. Still unsure if we should use DCL transfers/taxi/etc...