09/13/09 SSMC09 S.S. Member Cruise 2009 - Part 4!

[BigDogHU75]

Good Morning All! Just finshed taking DS to the doctor for his second flu shot and then dropped him off to school. Now, I am waiting for my doctor's appointment. My sinuses are killing me.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

 

[manascarfan]

Good Morning All! Just finshed taking DS to the doctor for his second flu shot and then dropped him off to school. Now, I am waiting for my doctor's appointment. My sinuses are killing me.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Marsha-Hope you start feeling better soon.

 

[wltdsnyfan]

Good Morning All! Just finshed taking DS to the doctor for his second flu shot and then dropped him off to school. Now, I am waiting for my doctor's appointment. My sinuses are killing me.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Poor baby! I am sure he loved that.

I know what you mean about your sinuses. The weather we are having her is driving mine crazy. Take care and feel better.

 

[wltdsnyfan]

Just wanted to let everyone know I called DVC today to find out when the points charts will be out. I am Curious as to what it will cost us to go. They told me they will be out this weekend and to call back on Sunday. Since if I decided to go on the Dream I could book it Monday.

Can you believe that Sunday is November 1st. Wow. We also push are clocks back this weekend.

 

[susieq55]

Hello my Wonderful Friends!!
I'm Back!! ​

You guys are sooooo nice! Thanks for worrying about me - but thank goodness all is well and I was just going crazy!

The fundraiser went very well on Saturday - but we started at 7 am and didn't get home (after clean-up) until 1:30 am! Then up again early with John for work and Dustin for soccer. Gail came over for that. Then we went over to a friends house for the leftovers and some time with our British friends. Monday John took the day off and we made a trip out to Valley Forge with the Brits to see the park and there used to be (key phrase) a scouting museum there. Well, no more museum, everything was in storage for a new location! But the colors of the leaves and such were gorgeous so it was a nice day. Came back to our house, talked and looked at pictures related to their trip out next summer and ate chinese! Another late night!

Tuesday was a "mom" day - so I didn't get home from there until about 3 pm. Then Gail came over straight from work and the four of us went over to Philly to see the Disney Christmas Carol Train!! It was really neat! I took lots of pictures so as soon as I have a minute, I'll try to post a few! Then went home - another late night - but still had to pack!!

Packing was for a the two days plus this morning that we spent in Atlantic City for John's NJ School Board Association's annual convention and conference. They can bring spouses so another one of the my friends and I hung around while the guys were in workshop sessions. It's the cocktail receptions at night that are fun!!! Lots of good food and drinks - free!!!!!

So just got home this morning and was trying to catch up! Actually, I took John's laptop with me so if I was back at the hotel I could hop on and chat, but they wanted an outrageous price for the daily wifi, so I skipped it!

But thanks for missing me guys - at least I know I'm loved!

Go Phillies!!​

 

[wltdsnyfan]

Sue,

Glad you were off the boards for fun. Sounds like you were very busy but also had fun.

 

[BigDogHU75]

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. I just came back from the doctor and I have a virus. No prescription - I just have to suffer through it.

Sue, glad to read all is well. Please post the pictures as soon as you can. I would love to see them.

 

[BoosGram]

Good Morning All! Just finshed taking DS to the doctor for his second flu shot and then dropped him off to school. Now, I am waiting for my doctor's appointment. My sinuses are killing me.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. I just came back from the doctor and I have a virus. No prescription - I just have to suffer through it.

Sue, glad to read all is well. Please post the pictures as soon as you can. I would love to see them.

Marsha, I'm glad Charles was able to get his shot. We're having a hard time finding any place that has them. And we're sorry to hear you're not feeling well. Yuck! I hope you get better asap. That goes for all who are sick. Please get well soon.

Mary, how are you and Mark doing? It's bad enough to feel lousy, but then to have to go to work, too? Yikes. And Happy Belated Anniversary (sorry

Sue, glad you are back and all is well.

Did any of you see the webcast about the Dream? Anyone plan on sailing on the Dream? (I'm trying to get DH to see that we really NEED to sail the Dream.) I love the virtual portholes and the Enchanted Garden restaurant is gorgeous!

 

[Donald is #1]

Good Morning All! Just finshed taking DS to the doctor for his second flu shot and then dropped him off to school. Now, I am waiting for my doctor's appointment. My sinuses are killing me.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Hope you feel better soon!

 

[Donald is #1]

Happy Halloween everyone!!

I hope that everyone has a great weekend!

Does anyone have any plans? For me, I will be heading down tomorrow afternoon or Sunday afternoon to visit my mother. Other than that, I am toying with maybe heading down to the the New Bedford Whaling National Park so that I can get one more set of national parks visits in this year. However, my car is overdue for an oil change and my appointment isn't for a week. So I am leaning towards not adding that additonal driving and just relaxing this weekend after visiting my Mom.

 

[WDWLVR]

Sue - welcome back! Mornings just weren't the same without you!

Marsha - feel better soon.

Joanne - thanks for asking. We are both feeling much better! Still not 100% but much much better than earlier in the week.

As for the Dream I think it looks great and definitely want to try it out some day. We won't be booking the inaugural cruise. There are some that love that but it isn't us.



PDFG and all our friends who need it.

 

[BCVOwner2002]

Jack- even though the dates were announced on the cruise itself (at the sales events) they still have to do a mailing to the general DVC membership.

Here is the content of the letter I wrote (warning it is a bit long) I didn't want to come across as whining and I think I succeeded. I honestly hope that what I wrote helps them plan better for future events. I'm not saying we'll never cruise on a member cruise again but it isn't in our plans for 2010 or 2011 at this point.

I am writing today to share with you my disappointment in the 2009 DVC Member Cruise. To give you a little background my husband Mark and I have been DVC members since early 2000. We have participated on all of the dedicated Member Cruises (2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009). In addition we attended the DVC Member Homecoming in 2004. For almost all of these we have been cheerleaders when it comes to DVC especially on some of the internet message boards where many felt like these were rip-offs because they were more points and dollars than a regular cruise at the same time. We always explained that it is like apples to oranges. That you can’t equate the DVC cruise to other cruises because of how special they are. That the guests were so wonderful and that we really felt we got a great value out of the cruises. That for anyone who loves Disney history would love a Member Cruise. I tell you this so that you can understand where my frustration is coming from. We’ve seen wonderful things for these DVC member events but this years cruise just fell short and to us just didn’t have the value of others in the past.
My concern started when the Member Cruise website wasn’t being updated. In the past we had at least known the theme months before even if we didn’t know who the guests would be. This is understandable as I know how hard it is to get guests to commit and many things can change their ability to come at the last minute.
The only update to the website was this:

Welcome back to the S.S. Member Cruise Web site. You may be here to unlock a few secrets about the special entertainment in the works for this year's voyage. But here's the thing. We can't tell you. Why? Because we're taking our shows a step further this year and working with our friends at the Walt Disney Animation Studios to show you things you've never seen before. Things nobody has seen before. Things that could get us fired if we blabbed about them online.

They're good things, and they'll come to those who wait.

All of us at Disney Vacation Club are looking forward to sailing with you again on the waves of Disney Inspirations. See you onboard!


Not really much of an update. To make matters even more suspicious I was getting updates 2-3 times a day from D23 on Facebook talking about all the exciting things that were going to happen at the Expo. An event we would have gone to if we weren’t already booked on the cruise. So how come D23 can announce all of these things but DVC would get fired if they told? I’m sorry but any time I see that much hype being put out I’m pretty sure it is all smoke and mirrors and won’t live up to the hype. Sad to say I was right about the Member Cruise.

To me it felt like a cover up of a plan they really didn't have. Within hours of being on the ship I knew that was true. This years theme was the same as last years. So what is the big secret? Later that night we got the special Disney Files magazine and on the very first page the editor talks about getting together after last years cruise and realizing that it was a theme that could carry on and go many different directions. I don't disagree and if you had put that up on the website 11 months ago I think everyone would understand. But to have no updates for many months and then this whole "it is so wonderful you will be amazed" is just BS. You even kept the 2008 theme up on the website until mere weeks before the cruise and then just deleted it. It is all about the details. Know what I mean?

Here are the other areas where I felt this years cruise just didn’t measure up to the past.
The guests - yes we have been spoiled. We've seen Art Linkletter, Roy Disney, Richard Sherman, Marty Skylar, and so many others. I'm sorry but this year’s guests just didn't measure up. They weren't bad, but not up to the same level. More like the “B” team showing up. I love Ducky Williams and really enjoyed his presentations but we’ve seen him past Member Cruises as well as a number of other DCL cruises. I also enjoyed the previews being shown but again while it was enjoyable it didn’t live up to the hype.

The gifts – we cruise for the guests not the gifts, but come on these were a big disappointment. In 2007 we got these small little suitcases with the gifts inside waiting on the bed. Ok kind of strange for a cruise that has a much larger ration of adults vs. kids than on normal cruises. Still we have some friends with kids and they enjoyed them. 2008 we get the same cases with a different design? 2009 we get them again. I swear I think the person buying the gifts must have an inside deal with the person making them. Why do 2 adults (and many, many of the rooms on the cruise held just 2 adults) need with 3 sets of these mini suitcases. We've also been spoiled and got gifts twice a day while this cruise was hit and miss.

The DVC staff – sadly they have been more and more distant ever since 2006. In 2003 and 2005 you could always run into the staff and they would stop and talk and make sure you were enjoying the cruise. In 2006 they just about refused to even acknowledge anyone. My guess is that is because after that cruise came the announcement that they were going for first time cruisers. So why talk to those already cruising. This cruise felt much the same way. I constantly saw DVC folks standing around in groups talking to each other and in some cases ignoring guests. Not all the time but enough to be noticed by more than just myself.

The sales presentation – do you really need to hold everyone captive on the boat until 10:30 on our first Castaway Cay day to make sure people attend this? Back in 2006 I know it made a lot of people mad not only because of the delay but because the presentation itself was so hard sell. (This coming from a woman who got to enjoy Hawaii in 2007 because my husband was the winner of the II trade out). 2007 and 2008 was a little better. I will say that this years was better still as it was an hour of some music to introduce the properties and only 15 minutes or so of the incentives. Before there were more raffles with one big prize (an II or RCI trade out) but many smaller ones like a rainforest pass or dinner at Palo. This year there were only 3 winners all for an RCI trade out and one of them wasn't even in the room (where in the past that would be drawn again). One other thing on the Sales Presentation and maybe this one is just me but I'm really sick of seeing Dave and Joan tell about all the wonderful trips they have been on. I'm sure they are really nice people but again it comes across at look at us (DVC) aren't we wonderful. Wouldn't it be much nice to match up some real DVC families (either those booked on the cruise or even better offer a cruise) to some of the stories that come in to the DVC office and I'm sure there are tons. That would pull at the heartstings of fellow DVCers more than hearing that these guides got yet more wonderful vacations so they could do research for all of us.

Last but not least the survey. Does DVC really care what we think? I think maybe not because there was no where on the survey is there an option to put your name, e-mail address, or phone number to be contacted. To me that says you don't really care and may not even read what we have to say. Yes I know we could have put our name on it, but if you don't have the thought to do it why should I?

Thank you for taking the time to read through all this. Hopefully some of the concerns I have voiced can help make it a better cruise for those going in the future. We won’t be calling in for the 2010 cruise, that’s how disappointed we were. We have other plans with DCL and I know we will enjoy them. We will also continue to enjoy our DVC membership and still plan to add on once Ko Olina opens up for selling. I will say those that were on for the first time did seem to enjoy themselves but many of the repeat guests I spoke to were disappointed. Maybe that was your plan all along. Disappoint the repeaters so we can get new blood on the ship. If that is true you have succeeded, but I find that very sad.

​

Wow! You go girl!! We didn't even get a survey card this year. Tom and I talked about this when we got back to BCV after the cruise. If SSMC09 was someone's first member cruise they may think it was perfect. The problem was that so many of us had been on a prior SSMC that our expectations were high and unfortunatley DVC fell flat! We will not attend again. It's just not worth the points or cash.

Annmarie

 

[djstweety]

Hello everyone, I missed you all, been a lot to do here, Son closed on a house and is painting and preparing to move out with his daughter, I'll miss them both,
But the good news is I get my sewing room back

I dressed up at work today as a mouseketeer....it was a lot of fun.

tomorrow will be another busy day...talk to you later

 

[susieq55]

Hi everyone again. Home after a pumpkin-carving party!!

Where did you guys see the new Dream and where was the webcast??

 

[manascarfan]

Hello Everyone

Sue-Glad to see all is okay. Here is a link for the dream http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/
I think it looks very nice, and can't wait to sail on it someday.

 

[BoosGram]

Hi everyone again. Home after a pumpkin-carving party!!

Where did you guys see the new Dream and where was the webcast??

Sue, the webcast is here: http://www.disneycruiselineevents.com/disneydream/ and it's pretty long. Oh, do I ever want to go!

Hi Dave .

 

[wltdsnyfan]

Hello everyone, I missed you all, been a lot to do here, Son closed on a house and is painting and preparing to move out with his daughter, I'll miss them both,
But the good news is I get my sewing room back

I dressed up at work today as a mouseketeer....it was a lot of fun.

tomorrow will be another busy day...talk to you later

Dianne,

I am sure you will miss them. Nut like you said you got your sweing room back.

Did you take pics of the cute mouseketeer to post?

 

[wltdsnyfan]

Happy Halloween​

Hope everyone has a good one.

 

[wltdsnyfan]

Danny and I got e mails this morning from DVC about Disney Dream. Did any one else? I am goingto explore it now to see if it has any thing different then the announcement.

 

[BigDogHU75]

I received the email too. I have not looked at it yet.