Disney Dream - January 23rd-27th, 2017 4-Night Bahamas

[Browncoat4life]

Hello everyone. I am hopefully going to book this cruise sometime next week as a surprise vacation for my wife and our two girls (4yrs and 9yrs old). I have gone on several cruises with Celebrity and Royal Caribbean. This will be our first on DCL. My wife's first and only cruise so far was our Honeymoon. This would be our kids first cruise. I am really looking forward to it and having a fun time planning out the surprise. So far I have laid the seed to have a Orlando vacation on Jan 22nd. I had never heard of the Fish Extender event until I started reading this thread. I had to look it up on Google to see what it was about. I had seen some vlogs on YouTube of people going on the Disney Dream and saw that they did something similar to what I found out about the Fish Extender event. I just found the Group on Facebook and applied for an invite.

I had in the past gone on cruisecritic for meet and greets and was surprised to see none created yet. However doing a Google search I came upon Disboards.com and was very happy to see a group of people already together. I look forward to getting to know everyone!

 

[Browncoat4life]

Has anyone stayed at the Hyatt at MCO (Orlando Airport) before? If so what was your experience like?

 

[RweTHEREyet]

How fun for you to be planning the surprise. I think you will love being on a Disney Cruise. I have never sailed with kids, and this will be my 10th cruise with Disney. The Fish Extender can be a lot of fun, as long as the group you are in isn't too big, imho. When do you plan to share your surprise with your family?

 

[Browncoat4life]

How fun for you to be planning the surprise. I think you will love being on a Disney Cruise. I have never sailed with kids, and this will be my 10th cruise with Disney. The Fish Extender can be a lot of fun, as long as the group you are in isn't too big, imho. When do you plan to share your surprise with your family?

RweTHEREyet,

Right now my wife knows that I am planning on flying us down to Orlando for our first vacation as a family. I planted the seed that since we may take the red eye flight to stay at a temporary hotel the first night and let the wind guide our boat for the rest of the days for the vacation. I plan to stay either at the Hyatt Regency or a Disney resort. We can then take the Disney bus to the next place for us to stay. I will make up something to get on the cruise bus and then it will be revealed. So that's the plan so far. Any suggestions are greatly welcome. As for the packing I think it won't be that different other than saying let's bring some nice clothes for a nice night out. The pirate night clothes will be a tough one to figure out.

Update - After some helpful tips and ideas, I think we are going to do the Disney character phone call while staying at the hotel the night before and then have that call be the way to surprise them about the trip.

 

[Browncoat4life]

I found a group for the Jan 23rd sailing but I am not sure if it's for the fish extender group. Any suggestions/tips on where I can find it?

Update - Found it! Thanks

 

[intricatejewel]

Booked this cruise for my father and I. He's never cruised before, but this will be my 5th DCL cruise. (I'll finally earn my Gold Castaway Club status). He's so excited, he purchased his snorkeling gear already! I plan to book the Grayclif chocolate excursion in Nassau and also try Remy for the first time. I love planning the cruise almost as much as I love going on them!

 

[Browncoat4life]

Booked this cruise for my father and I. He's never cruised before, but this will be my 5th DCL cruise. (I'll finally earn my Gold Castaway Club status). He's so excited, he purchased his snorkeling gear already! I plan to book the Grayclif chocolate excursion in Nassau and also try Remy for the first time. I love planning the cruise almost as much as I love going on them!

Welcome Intricatejewel. Big tip on the snorkeling gear. If you haven't already get the defogging spray. Also test it out before the trip!

 

[RweTHEREyet]

I am thinking that the water will be just too cold for me for any snorkeling in January. I will be happy with just getting my toes in the water and admiring the view.

 

[msmonicahogan]

Hello, all. Love the dream. There are 6 (me, husband 9, 8, 4 and 2 y.o.) of us + my parents, m-i-l, and my b-i-l with my b-i-l. This is our second Disney dream cruise. My husband surprised me for mother's day. I think I'm more excited than the kids.

 

[bakerworld]

Has anyone cruised in January before? I've heard that the it will still be warm even in January and I'm hoping it won't be as warm as it was in October.

 

[Christina Ullom]

This is my first Disney Cruise! Sailing w/ my hubby, son (5) and daughter (3). How do we sign up for the FE?

 

[bakerworld]

Question: do we ask our TA to book cruise services or do we book our own - does it make a difference in availability? I am interested in the Spa services and want to take advantage of the 20% discount.

 

[Christina Ullom]

I'm in for the FE! Where do we sign up? Find who we have in our group and so on? This is our first time!

 

[Chiliobear]

This is also our first Disney cruise (hubs and I have been on several other cruises with Norwegian; but this will be the kids first). It will be me, Husband, Daughter (9), and Son (3). This is an XMas gift for the kids; so we plan having a scavenger hunt for XMas morning for them to "find" the gift of the cruise.

We are so excited. How do we get joined up with the Fish Extender? Also, who's been on the dream before? We aren't planning on doing any excursions, but were looking for things that we MUST do/see. Got the kids signed up with the Oceaneer's Club already. I've been told that we probably wont see them much after that LOL. Can anyone tell me how long the hours are the to Oceaneer's Club; can the kids be there ALL day, every day? Or just certain hours? Thanks! Can't want to see ya there.

Maybe we can get an adult meet up one day/evening while the kids are off playing.

 

[Cblack2010]

I found a group for the Jan 23rd sailing but I am not sure if it's for the fish extender group. Any suggestions/tips on where I can find it?

Update - Found it! Thanks

Hey! I'm trying to find the FE group mind sending me the link? thanks!

 

[Hkilde]

Has anyone stayed at the Hyatt at MCO (Orlando Airport) before? If so what was your experience like?

We stayed there for our last cruise. It was super easy and clean. We got in late the night before and got up early to catch the Magical Express to the port. Only problem was the roll away wasn't set up on arrival, but it arrived rapidly!

 

[JRSNA2222]

Hello there! This will be our first DCL cruise and we are interested in joining the FE group. And does anyone have any recommendations on port excursions in Bahamas and Castaway Cay for kids ages 4, 5, 7?

 

[DrTeri]

Hi everyone! This will be our 10th DCL cruise but first time on the Dream. My husband and I are taking our 4 yo grandson and are getting very excited for the trip. Probably won't do any excursions since there is so much we will want to do on board. Glad to see that there are so many people on this post with kids in a similar age group.

 

[Amanda129]

Taking my sister on this cruise for a girls-only trip. And it's her birthday that week, so she's beyond excited! This will be my 4th cruise, her first.

Booked this cruise for my father and I. He's never cruised before, but this will be my 5th DCL cruise. (I'll finally earn my Gold Castaway Club status). He's so excited, he purchased his snorkeling gear already! I plan to book the Grayclif chocolate excursion in Nassau and also try Remy for the first time. I love planning the cruise almost as much as I love going on them!

We're doing the chocolate excursion too! My sister loves to bake/make desserts, so she likes any kind of interactive activity like this.

Has anyone cruised in January before? I've heard that the it will still be warm even in January and I'm hoping it won't be as warm as it was in October.

All of my cruises, except one, have been in January/February and it's always been warm. Might need a light jacket and/or pants at night (especially outside on the ship), but shorts and tees/tanks during the day are generally fine. EDIT: It's generally not humid in January, but the one cruise I did in September was BRUTALLY hot and humid. Won't make that mistake again!