03/01/2008 Eastern!!

We are considering the following excursions:

St Marteen:
12-Metere Regatta for DH and DD
Island Drive and Explorer Cruise for 2 DD's, myself and DM

Beach in the afternoon

St Thomas:
Captain Nautica's St John Snorkeling Expedition for DH and DD(10)

NO IDEA FOR ME DD (7) DM & DD - Any suggestions? Maybe a trip to Coral World? If I did this I would consider doing it on my own, not thru Disney. Any feedback?

Castaway Cay:
Getaway package for 3 - will rent extra bikes if needed.


Has anyone tried any of these?
 
It's funny but we haven't thought about any excursions yet. Last March we went to Orient Beach in St. Martin. It is a nude beach. I saw alot more than I expected to! Joshua wore his sunglasses the entire time. My eyes are still burning (from what I saw).
This year we're hoping to be injury-free. Joshua received 4 stitches above his eye. He was saying today that he will not be playing soccer on the basketball court. Medical was great with him but I'd rather stay away from them this time.
We haven't booked any excursions. I know you can venture out to see the islands on your own. I will have to start looking into other threads for what people have done. Just remember - it is always cheaper to do it on your own.
Tip two...bring a soft-sided cooler and order from room service pb&j, chips and chocolate chip cookies. This came in very handy at the beach!

Have a great weekend everyone! We're watching Rent tonight and plan on getting the tree tomorrow. :santa: Happy December!!!! HO HO HO!!!

Kim
 
Hey, all. Since people are talking about port days and excursions, I have some questions (continuing with my earlier numbering scheme) for those that have done this before.

10. At St. Maarten and St. Thomas, are there any semi-decent beaches within a short walking distance of where the ship docks, and how long or difficult is the process of going back and forth between land and the ship, in case our children aren't up to a full day without breaks or we want to eat lunch back on the ship?

11. Are some of the various Oceaneer Club activities only scheduled for certain days, and will that include days in port? My children are fixated on the idea of making Flubber, and I was wondering if we may end up having to forego going ashore on a port day because there is an onboard activity that our kids feel they "must" do.

12. If for St. Maarten and St. Thomas we were going to choose one to go to a beach or do a beach-based excursion, and one to do non-beach activities, does anyone have an opinion as to which island to choose for which (I guess I'm probably asking which place has better beaches).

13. Has anyone done, or heard heard opinions about, the Atlantis Submarine Adventure at St. Thomas? I'm intrigued, mostly for the kids (but a little for Daddy, too), but it's a bit pricey compared to hanging out on the beach. Also, if we wanted to book through other-than-Disney, who would you suggest?

14. If we were just going to play at the beach, how safe is it to leave stuff on the beach unattended while we play in the surf? We would probably at least keep our KTTWs with us (anyone have suggestions for how to do this while we swim?), but what about things like coolers, towels, beach bags, etc.?

Thanks for whatever input you may have.
- Mike

P.S. PB&J sandwiches would now be out for me as a cheap port-of-call dining option, as I found out just yesterday that I have recently developed a peanut allergy. Not that I particularly liked PB&J to begin with, but I will have to watch a lot of other things now as well. And I will dearly miss having peanut butter cups. Oh well, there are plenty of people in the world with worse things to worry about.
 
I go away for a day after saving us from page 3 and WOW:surfweb: you guys have all been on except me. I guess I asked that everyone gets posting:rotfl2: :woohoo: :thumbsup2 :surfweb:

Jen-
We are celebrating 3 b-days on the ship, mine being the 1st. Mine is actually while we are on the ship. We are not doing any stateroom celebrations as thoses are the decorations and small cake in the room on the first night only, no matter when your birthday is. That has a cost to it. If you do the free celebration they bring the birthday person a slice of strawberry cake and sing happy birthday at dinner. So it is nothing big. Just a little something. I have actually called and tried to talk to them about the cake. Being lactose intolerant, I do not want the strawberry moose filled cake. They said for me to speak to them on the ship and see what other slice of cake they could do once on board, but had no promises. I have decided, to just go with the flow and someone else at the table can eat the cake and not worry about it. There is a link with a picture on the cruise boards, I'll find it and come back to post a picture of the cake slice. So no need to rush to have it included in your reservation, you could probably tell them once on the ship even and be fine. From what I get, they bake a few of the same cakes on the ship and slice them each night and all of the passengers in all rotations share this cake, this is the reason you only get one slice. I even spoke to them about DD, because she is allergic to eggs and asked them what they could do for her and they said they would get back to me as the rules say, no speciality cakes can be made on the ship. :sad1: On top of the little strawberry cake slice, they do have a "happy birthday" that sits on the top that is all choc. candy:cheer2:. Last cruise they did DD her own little icecream cake for our anniversary, but I think it was because we had purchased a wedding cake for our ceremony. Did I tell you we renewed our vows last cruise for our 10th?

Here is the link to the thread with the pictures. The first cake you see is the one you pay for and would be in the room on the 1st. The red slice is the free one.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1642212

I hope this helps.

Rani- We have never done the dolphin one. It tends to be very exspensive. I just could not imagine spend over $400 to do it while my kids, especially DD is so young. To me, it is something we will do maybe as them being teenagers, so they can always remember the moment. If you decide to do it maybe I can send DS with you and the rest of us stay back.:woohoo: Just joking.......
We do not do a lot of excursions though. We love the ship and the local aspect of the travel. We are trying to look into beaches where people are with a little more clothes. I guess we will have to stay away from the french side.

Mike- We have never done the Eastern, this is our first. We have done 3/4 and 7 western, but not 7 Eastern, so once off the ship I can not help much. I do have a friend born and raised in the VI, St. Thomas, (she now lives in DC). She is a college friend I stay in touch with, so I think I will hit her up for local information and do it on our own.
AS far as the kid activities, they are scheduled at different times. Most of the big activities do only happen once and many are on port days. I think they do it on purpose, so that it is not sooo crowded in the clubs. It is to the point you have to sometimes make a decision of this or that. They do it to keep it less crowded and to keep you coming back because you missed something. They have it down to a science to keep the activities from being crowded. Now it is the older kids that make flubber in the lab. I do not think you DD will get a chance in the club. The lab is for 8 and over. Now, we are shuffling something. Last cruise, my DD missed the slumber party with Goffy, because it is doing our dinner time. So we have decided it is okay for her to miss dinner with the family to go this time. We will just have to feed her earlier. See, what I mean about needing to make adjustments. They do it on purpose. See if during dinner, you get maybe 1/2 the crowd. We have a rule in our family to always go to assigned dinner and eat together. This time we will just have to be flexible that day I guess. :dance3:

Speaking of dinner, we can link our reservations together and be together at dinner if you want, because you guys have second dinner, correct. I would want you to link with us instead of us to you though, because we already have our rotation because we have such major food issues on the ship, with DD egg allergy, that we have to order her meals ahead of time. Since this is a little more work on DCL, I try to not change our orginal request. It makes it easier for them to do assignments. Just let me know off boards. The girls will enjoy being together.


ALL- I should say not to mention FLUBBER. If you ask DS, one of the things he remembers from the last cruise was the argument between his parents about the flubber. I tossed it in the garbage because I did not want to chance bringing it through customs and getting fined if we are selected for search. DH, thought it was fine and tossed it in the bag anyway. So we got into an argument over the Flubber that had to be tossed once we got home because it was too hard.:eek: So now the joke is that I am a flubber nervous ginnie :upsidedow :snooty: .

Talk to you later and thanks to Mike as my DD now says, "Spin Ya Later".:hippie:
 

Mike,

Be sure to get a medical form from DCL for the peanut allergy. They are very professional. Tell the head server and the assistant server - don't rely on the medical form. As far as the pb&j sandwiches - you can order several things from room service. You can find something else.
There are so many beaches to choose from. Just keep looking at people's posts about the beaches and you can also search the internet for St. John, St. Martin, etc. The transportation at port is very convenient and as long as you set on a fee with the taxi driver up front - they're generally very accomodating.
As far as the cake - we asked for a cake for my MIL's retirement. It was a chocolate cake and I don't recall my FIL being charged. But, we did not arrange anything ahead of time - we just mentioned it to our server and the next thing we knew - a cake was served to the table.
We've never had a problem with things at the beach. However, I use the waterproof lanyard for my credit card and cash when I'm away from the chair.

Kim
 
Guess it is my turn to pull us back up :wizard:

I just talked to my TA and she said that she would help us try to set up a Palo's group brunch if anyone is interested....she spoke w/ disney and they said that they could not guarantee that we could get it, but they would let us know one month ahead of our sail date...they said that all we needed to do, was get all the names/reservation#of everyone in the group

I believe that we can have 12 people in a group, last year, the Story's set it up for our Dis board group through their TA... so if you are interested ,you can let me know..
Last year we did a 10:30 brunch on Sunday and that seemed to work well, (we could do either Sunday or Monday) this was Ron's and myself's first and only time at PAlo's.... the food was AMAZING!!!!! and it was a fun way to get to know some fellow crusier...

So I guess we can just start by seeing how many want to do it first, and then go from there...remember that the room they put us in, only seats 12..

So has anyone made any reservations yet???? I made a couple this last weekend...it won't be long now;)

Brenda:)
 
sorry i've been out of the loop for so long....

we've been through a lot in the past two weeks. DH was in a terrible tractor trailor accident (day before thanksgiving - huge national news, big headache) but walked away. Now we're dealing with the aftereffects....long story, will tell on cruise...

Anyway, things are getting so close and still seem so far away. I've been totally distracted and not thinking about this cruise...so yesterday I went and got the clear shoe holder for the bathroom door on the cruise. I started a box where I am just throwing the little things I got for the cruise in one place - including costumes, bags for kids on excursions, pirate stuff, etc.

Question on dinner - how do we reserve a table? I don't know if it's better to chance it and sit with strangers you wind up not being able to stand or sit alone?

Hope all is well with all of you,
Rani
 
Hi Rani-
So sorry to hear about your DH. We will say a prayer for him. I am happy he was able to walk away, but I am sure it has placed stress on your entire family.:sad1:

Happy Hanukkah to you and your family. I know with the start of your Holiday and this, your hands are full. Just relax. Know our house has not started anything yet and we will be okay. I am getting stressed for the Holidays already and my Holiday is still a few weeks away. Get through the Holidays and then stress about the trip.

No need to do any table reservations. This is automatically done for you. Now if you want to link your reservation with another DIS family, you can do this if both parties agree. If you link them together, you either sit together or near each other and therefore in the same restaurant as them. You have the same servers also. You hear of some people requesting tables alone due to disabilities or allergies of the kids, but most people do not. So no extra work is needed. Just relax. You are a family of 5, many times you will be seated by yourselves anyway. Are you first dinner or second?:love:
 
Hi everyone !!

I'm sorry I haven't wrote in a long time. I hope everyone is doing great (my prayers are with your family Rani).

While we are offically going now but for a while it did not look good. My hubby got laid off about two weeks ago and he is the "bread winner". I've been working six days a week to make up the difference. He's applied everywhere !! The problem is he made so much at his last job that it is hard to find a job that pays more then his unemployment !!

I've booked our flight, hotels and car rental. Anyone have a good code for Buget??

I make our final payment on the 17th, I was going to do it the friday before to make sure everything processes right.

Michelle
 
Michelle (Micday),

Wow, I can pretty much guarantee that if I lost my job, there is no way my wife would allow us to go on a trip! Our hopes are with you.

- Mike
 
Thanks Mike !! That means a lot to me. James is trying everywhere but he has a good shot at a great job. The job does not stop accepting resume's until the 21st. What is worring me is when he gets a job he will not be able to get the time off. Don't get me wrong I'd rather him have a job and worry about what to do about the cruise !!

Michelle
 
Hey Everyone,

Thanks so much for the messages and prayers. I'm sorry I made it sound so dire in the message - I'd just told it so many times I was exhausted talking about the accident.


I shudder when I think of it. He is in PT now and will be so much better by the cruise...so long as no one brings a tractor trailer on board!

Now I have DD's bday party this weekend and then I'm all cruise all the time.

So once again - thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers.

Micday -- so sorry about the job....another door will open.


Not too long till we all see each other, folks!

Always,
Rani
 
Hello, 3/1/08 cruisers :wave2: -

There is a thread going right now

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1627762

for people wanting to pass on items such as over the door hangers, pails & shovels, unopened snacks/water, etc... to people on the following cruises.

We currently have someone on the cruise prior to yours looking for someone to leave items to. If you are interested, please respond on that thread. I will add the first person who responds...

Julie
 
Hey all,

Do we want one or two of us (I am NOT volunteering) to try to coordinate the "passing it on" stuff for the entire group, or just go at it free-for-all style? I guess I had been assuming the first option, but understand if people want to go the second route. Personally, I would be more inclined toward the leaving-stuff-afterwards part of it so as to (1) avoid getting to the ship only to find the stuff I thought would be left behind for me either isn't there or isn't exactly what I expected, and (2) to free up luggage space for the return trip with whatever new possession we may have acquired during the cruise. My wife is a penny-pincher, so I could see us perhaps wanting a couple of items, but probably only stuff that is not critical or for which we wouldn't otherwise spend the money ourselves. Thoughts?

- Mike
 
By the way, just over a week ago Brenda through out the question of a group brunch. Is this still being considered, or has the time to join in passed? If it is still being considered, then (1) what day/time are you thinking, (2) how soon do you need to know, and (3) is it something we could book and then back out of later? My wife has sounded generally against Palo ("why pay extra when you can eat for free?"), but I may be able to bring her around.

- Mike
 
Okay, I have some reservations questions for you repeat cruisers. I know I can start making reservations 75 days out, but is there a specific TIME that I can start doing this? What time zone? Also, if the time is sometime in the middle of the night or wee hours of the morning, how critical will it be to do it right away (Do things book-up right away, or do I have some time?)? Thanks.

- Mike
 
The time the ressie open up for you is actually at midnight EST on the 75 day mark, so technically 76 days if you are not on EST. Our family are wing it people, so we do not get stuck on DISer belief that you have to be there that day. We have alwyas got what we have desired without a lot of work and our last cruise was 100% booked over the 4th of July. We have 90 day out ability and still have not done it. Do not follow our foot steps though, we tend to run behind for everything. Check out the morning debarkment oops thread about our family over sleeping.:lmao:

About brunch, we are all in too but I have not contacted Brenda yet. My only issue is, I think you guys wanted to do it on the 2nd and I actually wanted to do it with DH this day as it is my birthday. Maybe we have to just do that mud room thing this time instead,:lmao: :lmao: :lmao: On the ship, since we eat all of our meals as a family, it is nice to get together to do things alone; especially since DH still does not realize after 3 cruises, he can not get it all done. So many times during the day, he runs around without me on a mission..... Can you believe I am the actual Disney Freak :rotfl2: . So Brenda, if you can keep me inform of the date and number status.

The other Michelle volunteered to be the collector and reciever of the pass it on items. I did post the link to the 3/8 cruisers though. We too will bring whatever we need and free space by paying it fwd. I am really hoping there will just be a box we can add too and address to the next cruiser with a date and SR # to be delivered to thier room.

Michelle, how is the job thing going?

Rani, how are things in your house as well?
:hippie:
 
Hi everyone !!!

James is still looking and I'm tired ! I offered to work 6 days a week so we could go on the cruise. By the time the cruise gets here I might sleep through it ?!

We are PIF so now I have to gewt ready for the 75th mark to book Palo's. Was anyone worried your child would NOT like the children's programs so you could not go to Palo's ?? I do not care if Madison wants to stay with us or go the the lab ( a little alone time would be nice!) so I'm torn ??

I don't know if it's in the budget for excurstions but if I can fit it what are the "you really should do this or we really LOVED this"

Michelle
 
Did Everyone make their Ressies last night. Now everyone is finally on board :woohoo:. I want to be honest, the slow Minnesota Family just paid them yesterday. We paid it off so that we could get Palo for Brunch on my Birthday, which we got at 11:00 AM-1:00PM. :banana: I guess we are lucky, we have never had a problem getting anything I asked for in all of our cruises. :cool1: Without sitting on the computer at midnight. MicDay, great chat the other night. It was a by chance thing that really worked out.

Mike, hope you got the e-mail........

I was thinking, can we get on the boards Friday night and chat under group cruise. This way we can all talk live. MicDay retires by 9PM, so if we can maybe do a 8:30 EST. That is a little early for when I usually hit the boards. but lets do it. Unless you guys want to wait until the week after Christmas if you are getting ready for the Holidays. Just post your responds here.

..............Happy Monday All...............
 

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