05/09/2009 May 9, 2009 7-Night Eastern St Maarten... Watch Out!

[j2bmickey]

I must admit, I am starting to get antsy and cant wait to purchase airfare soon!

I have also started looking at hotels near MCO more so I can decide which one we want to book for Friday night before we set sail.

Let us know if you find a good deal on a hotel as I think that is our plan also. We've also kicked around riding the Disney bus since we didn't last time.

 

[scottie]

Let us know if you find a good deal on a hotel as I think that is our plan also. We've also kicked around riding the Disney bus since we didn't last time.

We rode the bus from Port to the airport this past Feb and enjoyed it. There were only two of us then so the price was not bad at all. However, we will have 6 in our party this time so the cost for everyone has us leaning towards a suburban take us around. The price will be less that way and have private chauffered transport.

 

[scottie]

Im excited... Southwest listed fares today thru May 8th so I picked up our tickets for the trip down @ $119 each for the 5 tickets. I am happy with that price and now just need to wait for the returns to open!

 

[Mickey&JoshNut]

Happy (belated) Birthday
Steve!!!
(airtime247)



Hope you had a great day yesterday!!!!!​

 

[YenSid1222]

Hello All,

Looks like me and two friends will be joining you guys. This will be my 4th, but first time for my friends. They are both huge Disney fans and I have been trying to convince them for over a year now that they HAD to do the cruise!

I will not actually be booking until I am on board the Wonder on December 11th...I figure I might as well get the 10% and the OBC.

Anyway, happy to be back on board!

-Scott

(Friends are Jeff and Ken)

 

[Sagbrook]

This is our first DL cruise. We are very excited, and I am enjoying this disboard. However I am new to posting, so please bear with me. I will be cruising with my daughter, son in law, and three grandkids, 8,4, and 1. Two years ago we had a wonderful experience on Carnival when boys were 6 and almost 3, but will be a challenge with a 1 yr old. Anyway, please add us to your roll call for 5/9/08 Magic Cruise:

Sagbrook
Grandma-Marilyn
Kim and Pete
Matthew 8
Kyle 4-almost 5
Kate-19 mo.

#6564 and 6566

 

[scottie]

This is our first DL cruise. We are very excited, and I am enjoying this disboard. However I am new to posting, so please bear with me. I will be cruising with my daughter, son in law, and three grandkids, 8,4, and 1. Two years ago we had a wonderful experience on Carnival when boys were 6 and almost 3, but will be a challenge with a 1 yr old.

Welcome Aboard and Welcome to DIS!
If you had a wonderful time on Carnival, I can only imagine you and the kiddies may have an even better time on the Magic! Our kids have always loved the clubs and the characters onboard, to name a couple of things.
We have traveled I think two times with one of our kids being age 2 or under. Surprisingly, once onboard it was pretty much smooth sailing. We utilized the nursery area last time and checked our son in before we went to our late dinner seating. He enjoyed the time there and it was worth the cost per hour.

 

[scottie]

Hello All,

Looks like me and two friends will be joining you guys. This will be my 4th, but first time for my friends. They are both huge Disney fans and I have been trying to convince them for over a year now that they HAD to do the cruise!

I will not actually be booking until I am on board the Wonder on December 11th...I figure I might as well get the 10% and the OBC.

Anyway, happy to be back on board!

-Scott

(Friends are Jeff and Ken)

Welcome Aboard... about time your friends come to their senses!!

 

[don604]

A big to all the new folks

I've been M.I.A. lately but I'm back... we just purchased our airfare yesterday for the cruise and are very excited as May 9th slowly creeps up on us

 

[scottie]

A big to all the new folks

I've been M.I.A. lately but I'm back... we just purchased our airfare yesterday for the cruise and are very excited as May 9th slowly creeps up on us

Good for you... hopefully the airfare prices were kind to you!

 

[don604]

They were... we got round trip tickets from Seattle for $328 total for each person. About 3 or 4 months ago we were looking at $650 each!!! So I'm thankful we waited

 

[scottie]

They were... we got round trip tickets from Seattle for $328 total for each person. About 3 or 4 months ago we were looking at $650 each!!! So I'm thankful we waited

Was in the same boat here. Started looking a few months ago and RT for us would have been around $500 or so each. We picked one way up with SWA for $119 each and hope the return flights when released will be about the same.

 

[scottie]

Happy Camper here Our DS (Dylan) is officially potty trained now! That means no more trying to secure reservations for Flounders Nursey and a tiny bit more spending money that we would have normally spent for the sitting services at Flounders and diapers.

 

[don604]

Happy Camper here Our DS (Dylan) is officially potty trained now! That means no more trying to secure reservations for Flounders Nursey and a tiny bit more spending money that we would have normally spent for the sitting services at Flounders and diapers.

That's great!! We are in potty training mode over here as well however my 2 year old son does not want to do it!! It is a constant struggle to get him to sit on the potty... I hope we are able to potty train him before we leave or we are going to have an interesting cruise

 

[scottie]

That's great!! We are in potty training mode over here as well however my 2 year old son does not want to do it!! It is a constant struggle to get him to sit on the potty... I hope we are able to potty train him before we leave or we are going to have an interesting cruise

I will keep my fingers crossed for you guys!

 

[airtime247]

That's great!! We are in potty training mode over here as well however my 2 year old son does not want to do it!! It is a constant struggle to get him to sit on the potty... I hope we are able to potty train him before we leave or we are going to have an interesting cruise

Our DD has been potty trained for a few months now. Nothing she tried gave her the incentive to try. We started getting worried about the cruise too. What ended up doing the trick for us was to put up a sticker chart on the bathroom wall. She got so excited to get her stickers, she jumped at the chance to try.

She is no longer afraid of the characters so that makes us more excited about her experiences on this cruise. We're not sure how she will do with being dropped off at the kids club though.

-steve

 

[scottie]

She is no longer afraid of the characters so that makes us more excited about her experiences on this cruise. We're not sure how she will do with being dropped off at the kids club though.-steve

We have had some lovely scared kids and character encounters between our three kids. Two I can think of were Morgan spending the whole meal at Chef Mickeys under the table when she was about 4 years old and Dylan only taking a liking to Donald Duck last cruise... all the other characters were a no-go!

here is a link to the photo from his last cruise with Donald
Photo

 

[Sagbrook]

​

Hi All,

Maybe I jumped the gun back when I made my reservations, but I decided to bite the bullet and buy the airfare from Disney. $443 from Hartford including transportation seemed reasonable after checking other airlines. Then, I got nervous about arriving the same day, since lately it seems there are lots of delays for variety of reasons. So then I added the hotel and we are coming in on Friday. That means one more day off from work and school and more $$, but at least I won't worry about missing the boat!!

 

[scottie]

​

Hi All,

Maybe I jumped the gun back when I made my reservations, but I decided to bite the bullet and buy the airfare from Disney. $443 from Hartford including transportation seemed reasonable after checking other airlines. Then, I got nervous about arriving the same day, since lately it seems there are lots of delays for variety of reasons. So then I added the hotel and we are coming in on Friday. That means one more day off from work and school and more $$, but at least I won't worry about missing the boat!!

Welcome to our quickly filling ship!!
We also considered the airfare option from DCL when we booked but decided to hold out and try our luck at buying them on our own.
I totally know what you are saying about arriving a day early. We thought about coming in Saturday so the kids could miss one less day of school, but then we add a big risk of not making it there early etc. It will be much nicer arriving a day early and having that day to get into the vacation mode before heading off to the Magic the following morning!

 

[scottie]

Well we have been chatting some more about hotel options for the night before the cruise. We have decided we are going to wait for about a month or two out and try to snag a room at the Hyatt inside the Orlando Airport for the night via Hotwire. If you book directly thru the hotel then it is about $200 a night. If you can find it on Hotwire then prices seem to run about $60-$80 per night. I think the kids would love swimming outside on the top while planes are flying all around.

If we cant get Hyatt via Hotwire then I think we are just going to do something via priceline near the airport.