Cruise secrets that DCL doesn't tell you

[kid-at-heart]

Originally Posted by tokyodisneydad

Wooo 50 pages in 2 days...thanks guys and gals...great tips

I have a tip and story to explain why It has probably been said, but I want to emphasize the importance. If you are going to participate in the FE gift exchange on your cruise, make sure you go on the Cruise Meets boards and register with your group and the FE group.

Back in August 2007 I took my first and so far only cruise. I had read about the fish extenders and gotten excited. However, I misunderstood the whole concept. While reading I just assumed that if you hung a FE and hung it outside your door that random people would bring small gifts on board and pop them into your FE. In turn I took load of small things from Japan to share also. Well first night my 2 DDs went around popping things like Japanese fans, Character chopsticks, Japanese snacks and Japan Disney pins into random FEs around the ship. There were far mor FEs than we had gifts, but we put stuff into atleast 50 FEs. Then we waited. Four nights and Five days passed and the only thing we ever got in our FE was the bill. The girls were disappointed. I just assumed that it was because we were at the end of the hall. Now 4 years later as I begin to research for my birthday cruise in 2013 I understand why.

Another tip for international travelers who don't speak English...you can pre request that one of your serving staff be able to speak your language. We had a wonderful server from Japan. In addition to her tip we took her a care package from home. Menus are also available in a variety of languages if you let them know before you go.

See you on the Dream..Dec.29 2013...Say happy Birthday and put something in my FE

Happy Birthday!!! For this year, 2012, 2013... How wonderful to have a cruise for your birthday. I hope you plan to participate again in the FEs and this time receive many nice surprises.

[tokyodisneydad]

Originally Posted by kid-at-heart

Happy Birthday!!! For this year, 2012, 2013... How wonderful to have a cruise for your birthday. I hope you plan to participate again in the FEs and this time receive many nice surprises.

Thanks and I definitely plan on the FE exchange...although I am worried about what gifts I can take, especially after seeing all the great ideas on the Homemade FE gift thread.

[mimmi]

Originally Posted by tokyodisneydad

Thanks and I definitely plan on the FE exchange...although I am worried about what gifts I can take, especially after seeing all the great ideas on the Homemade FE gift thread.

I bought a few very cute Mickey coffee spoons in Narita last month, as well as tons of Disney stuff at the 100 Yen shop. Turns out that we won't do the FE exchange, so your advice about checking first was dead on.
I think, especially for the kids, you have the best shopping opportunities of all, I could spend days in japanese shopping malls, oh wait, actually I do .

[COASTIEandMATE]

Originally Posted by rosermama

Not sure if this has been mentioned...

We make t-shirts for each cruise, we have done them in a couple of different ways. We have done iron-ons and air brushing we have a great guy in Hawaii who does the air brush for $10-$20 a shirt and ships them to us and is amazing.

We always do the shirts with a nice picture on the front we chose a different one for each cruise. Then we put on the nametags if you search the magnet boards there is templates for the disney cruise nametags.

We wear them on the day we board the ship, makes for a great first picture and you can always tell the whole family.

Also the crew will greet you by name which is really special for the kids.

Finally at the end of the day, before dinner I take the kids shirts and drop them off at Guest Services to get signed.

Could you please share the name of the guy in HAWAII who does the air brushing? We live in Hawaii and would love to have him do some for us!Karen and Ron

[suzanneaz]

Another tip for FE is to find your group early as the groups set a cut off date around 6 weeks before the cruise. Since so many people make homemade items (which may be expensive and/or time consuming) they need to know how many to make. Once the group is formed and items are bought it isn't easy to add people so groups are strict about their cutoff. I hadn't seen mention of this on this post. I haven't looked through the FE post so I thought I would add it in case others come to this board first like me.

[rosermama]

Originally Posted by COASTIEandMATE

Could you please share the name of the guy in HAWAII who does the air brushing? We live in Hawaii and would love to have him do some for us!Karen and Ron

He is in the international marketplace kind of towards the back away from the main road down wakiki

His website is Arainbowstuio.com

He also does great henna tattoos

When we saw met him this summer he was more than happy to help us out and says he send stuff out all the time

[NAB]

Originally Posted by Four Bears

I am not sure if this was already posted....

The Disney Magic (and I imagine the Wonder as well) do not have electrical outlets by the beds. Fortunately, I figured this out before I cruised 2 years ago, since DH uses a BiPAP machine at night due to sleep apnea. We were prepared, though, and brought an extension cord. So it wasn't an issue for us, but I want to let others know who could be affected.

Another tip is that if your machine takes distilled water they well provide this for you free of charge. Just call and it goes under Health request. They had a 4 litre bottle waiting in the room when we got there.

[poohj80]

Originally Posted by rosermama

He is in the international marketplace kind of towards the back away from the main road down wakiki

His website is Arainbowstuio.com

Just to fix a slight typo:

http://www.arainbowstudio.com/

Also, do you tell him what you were thinking of a design or does he come up with it on his own?

[rosermama]

Originally Posted by poohj80

Just to fix a slight typo:

http://www.arainbowstudio.com/

Also, do you tell him what you were thinking of a design or does he come up with it on his own?

He will work with you on what you would like. Also he told us that if we have a picture in mind we can send it to him and he will try to make something close to it, depending how detailed the picture is you want.

I have tried the iron on shirts many times but the iron ons don't last, they either peel off or wash off.

On our next cruise we are going with air brush but a non-disney centered designed something simple.

I can post some pictures of my shirts I have done, if someone can PM me and explain how to add pictures to my posts. THANKS

[mousetrip]

Leaving for our first cruise in 34 days! I am loving these tips! Keep them coming! Maybe when we return I can add one of my own (though I doubt it with all you pros!)

Jennifer in MO

[rescuetink]

Bumping!!!

Originally Posted by rescuetink

Ok, so thanks to msabol01 he showed me how to post the list as a Google Doc!!

I hope this works!! If not I'll just keep sending it out, I don't mind at all!!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...TnQeDYrkA/edit

Originally Posted by rescuetink

I meant to add this which I was including in the emails that I've sent out:

There are a number of things that seem to repeat themselves, but it shows that different people had different experiences with different things!! But all in all it seems to be an easier read then paging through the thread!! I did do a spell check and make some minor changes to some posts. It also indicates the end of each page so if you see a post that interests you, then you can just go to that page on the DIS and see the responses after it!! If you see anything that I posted incorrectly PLEASE let me know so I can change it!! I just got off the magic and can't wait to sail DCL again in 2013!!

Oh, and one of my BIGGEST tips is to re-book another DCL trip while your onboard!! And what we did was book a December 2013 3 day sailing and paid the required 10% deposit on that, we booked 2 rooms at around $89.00 per room deposit. Now we can decide when we actually want to sail, which we can even push it into 2014, and then we can change our sail date!! And if we decide that we can't do the cruise, or something else get's in the way of us going (NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!!) we can just get our deposit back, but we can never get the discount once we get off!!) You can also add a TA after you book online depending on who has the best incentives, as long as you don't pay the cruise off before you try and add the TA!! Oh, and I think that the re-booking desk was without question the #1 busiest spot we saw on the cruise!! That girl had a line of people waiting before she would sit down twice a day, and she wouldn't get a break till she cut the line off!! So try and get to her early!!

Oh, and keep the suggestions for the thread coming!!! I love the DIS... and all the DISigners who made wonderful door magnets and shirt DISigns for my family!!!

Happy Sailing!!

[2CME911]

It works great! Thank You so much for posting all of this info together.

[mousetrip]

Originally Posted by mimmi

I bought a few very cute Mickey coffee spoons in Narita last month, as well as tons of Disney stuff at the 100 Yen shop. Turns out that we won't do the FE exchange, so your advice about checking first was dead on.
I think, especially for the kids, you have the best shopping opportunities of all, I could spend days in japanese shopping malls, oh wait, actually I do .

Japanese shopping malls? Is this a place you go to online to buy FE gifts? I'm new to this, info please!!

[rescuetink]

Originally Posted by rescuetink

Ok, so thanks to msabol01 he showed me how to post the list as a Google Doc!!

I hope this works!! If not I'll just keep sending it out, I don't mind at all!!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...TnQeDYrkA/edit

I updated the document up to this point in the thread!!!

[kuhltiffany]

What an awesome thread, thanks from a cruise newbie!