09/15/07 Early Check in September 15, 2007 Eastern

[Grandma4ever]

Say, we've booked deck two as well!

This is going to be our 5th DCL sailing and 16-17th voyage depending on whether you sak me or my spouse. And we are quite happy with deck two as being low has the advantage of minimizing rolling ships motion. Now I know the ship has stabilizers to minimize the rolling... but there sometimes is some side motion even so. AND, our deck two cabin is right at the aft elevator cluster so we have also minimized our exposure to vertical ships motion which is generally more pronounced at the front of the ship. We did opt for a window though. The single large one as opposed to the smaller twin portholes. We passed on a Catagory 6 veranda even though it was only about $700 for the step up from a catagory 9. I'm just slightly concerned about the potential hazard of a veranda to our 2 young kids. With the window there's no possibility of anyone falling overboard. AND we passed on catagory 8 even though it puts us on the kids' club floor because they're all clustered forward in rollor coaster country.

Oh well... we remain perfectly happy with the catagory 9 window....

We will be midship right by the elevators. That will make it really easy to find. We are doing a back to back begining on 9/8 for the Western. We have the same room for both weeks. I haven't heard much from the thread for the 9/8 cruise. Maybe it will pick up as time goes on. Really looking forward to geting together and just plan having fun. Mouser

 

[captaincrash]

Well...

As of the end of September it looks like this is our posting record...

kamgen 28
Tigger&Bubba 26
Windy City Heather 12
nacho1337 8
Grandma4ever 8
captaincrash 5
kimgregg 4
Hixski 2
lg3 2
Disneynut1955 1
Anjelica 1
kchomer 1
JLSE50 1
MADCLFAN 1
ReAnSt 1​

There are 15 DIS identities posting plus another 2 I know of who are on the sailing but have not posted yet. So, I guess it might be a tiny bit early to have seen most of the DIS folks emerge here. Either way ~ I would not be too concenrned yet. There is nearly a year to go still.

 

[captaincrash]

Hit "refresh" button while this image (above) is in your screen to activate the 7-8 photo sequence!​

Here's another bump! Yes, I am too anxious for this cruise and it is SOOOOO far away

But we had our ultrasound today and found out we are having another boy! So on our cruise it will be us, grammy and our TWO sons!!!! I know we don't know each other but i had to share the news! Hope you all don't mind!

Wow!!!

That's really beautiful! We have two wonderful DDs and it's such a joy being a parent. There's nothing like havin' a new baby around the house. The tiny diapers and clothes, shoes and so on! And if your 1st son is not too old yet - you probably still have a LOT of little boys things to "recycle" - if that's tolerable to you. Shoot... with our two little girls we recycle some... <well... we recycle a LOT at this age!!!> ... but my sweet spouse has an older sister and she says she really disliked getting all the "hand me downs" from her older sister. SOoooo she was not gonna do that to her younger daughter! Or, at least she was not gonna do that once she was old enough to start NOTICING that she was wearin' her big sisters' old stuff! LOL~!

At any rate... congrats once again! I kno you posted this some time ago but I'm reading backwards to "catch up" and your posting was a joyus occassion worth responding to!

Don't forget to bring a VHS tape to your next ultrasound! We didn't know about this until a friend suggested it - and the docs don't always tell you to do so. Their ultrasound machines almost always have a VHS recorder hooked up!
!​

 

[captaincrash]

Hey guys, What do you all think about having a pajama breakfast one morning on board? We are having one this year and it sounds like alot of fun. You come to breakfast in your P.J.'s, Disney P.J.'s preferred. It is arranged with the staff on board so you have a specific time and seating. I thought it would be a great family thing to do. I can find out all about it and would be willing to organise it if anyone is interested.

NAturally,

You can count us "IN" for a PJ breakfast! However, if we could make it just a little bit later in the morning as opposed to really early AM I would be grateful! We're not much for being morning folks... plus coming out from the west coast puts us 3 hours FURTHER behind!

Here we are post PJ breakfast with Jack....

 

[Grandma4ever]

PJ breakfast sounds fun. I'm for a little later as well.. For us that would be between 8am and 9 am some time. How would that work for the rest of you? We can be flexible and if that's still too early we can make it work. Mouser

 

[captaincrash]

PJ breakfast sounds fun. I'm for a little later as well.. For us that would be between 8am and 9 am some time. How would that work for the rest of you? We can be flexible and if that's still too early we can make it work. Mouser

Yup,

For the PJ breakfast this past sailing I ran up to attend with just my older daughter - who was sooooooo sleepy. And right at the end of it my DS came up with the 2nd girl still sleeping in the stroller. She was sooooo zonked!

So... for a PJ breakfast we will eventually need a "head count" and send to the ship to reserve a space.... although I suspect we could simply WALK IN and tell the head manager about our desires... OR we could just tell the manager of gues services about it once aboard.

I ran the Mickey Ice Cream eating contest. I custom made award certificates for many of the participants .... and I got the Captain of the Wonder to sign them for us. Last year on the Magic I got the captain of the Magic to sign em for us! Characters were not aproved to sign them <Disney rules I guess>. But - this year I donated huge Trophies in the form of "Bubba Mugs" which were personalized on the spot with the winners' names as I brought along a portable P-touch label printer! See the photos.....

We had 14 adults and about 10 kids competing! The groups were roughly divided into two groups to enable the kids a chance to win - and actually the there was a "tie" between the kids for 1st place (hence the two winners) and Brian (who won the "grown up" catagory) graciously gave up his trophy for the kids. I in turn offerred him MY PERSONAL (unused) Buba Mug as a trophy substitute - and he graciously declined.

I thought this was fun as it was only 1 little tiny 4 oz Mickey Ice Cream Bar and in the exchange we had a ton of laughs unlike any other oddball diversion! And I understand that this sort of craziness is not for everyone... but as a spectator event - it does have potential!

Especially if you want some fun pictures to use as bargaining leverage with our spouse or kids down the road!

 

[Tigger&Bubba]

I see the captain has arrived. I won't need to post any pictures from our trip as he will have that covered, but I will post our pirate pic. It was a great time and a great trip.

 

[captaincrash]

I see the captain has arrived. I won't need to post any pictures from our trip as he will have that covered, but I will post our pirate pic. It was a great time and a great trip.

Awww, C'mon...

... I'll post around your photos... lets share pix. You were gonna post PJ party and something else. I'll post a few from other places and so on. Besides... out of the 6700+ images I shot it's gonna take me several weeks if not months to sort through them!

So... go ahead and post as you previously mentioned. I gotta run now!

Oh, and BTW, that's a really nice pirate pix of U 2. Beats the pirate family pix we have off the ship. Now, a pic I really wanted but missed was with Mick and Minnie in wedding type formal attire. I need to get an image of that with the FOUR of us together! That will have to wait now til next September!


TTFN!

Tom

 

[kimgregg]

We will be down on 2 as well. We are also a family of four, me (39), DH (42), DD (2 weeks shy of being 7 on the cruise) and DS (2).

We look forward to getting to know everyone in this next year before the cruise.

 

[Hixski]

Anyone going without children? It is just DH and I. Just wondering about anyone else.

 

[Windy City Heather]

My sister and her husband are going and they do not have kids.

 

[Hixski]

My sister and her husband are going and they do not have kids.

I didn't think we were the only ones. Just checking.

 

[Tigger&Bubba]

Anyone going without children? It is just DH and I. Just wondering about anyone else.

Lamar and I are still children. No one under 40 in our stateroom though

 

[Hixski]

Lamar and I are still children. No one under 40 in our stateroom though

No one under 40 in ours either.

 

[JLSE50]

That's really beautiful! We have two wonderful DDs and it's such a joy being a parent. There's nothing like havin' a new baby around the house. The tiny diapers and clothes, shoes and so on! And if your 1st son is not too old yet - you probably still have a LOT of little boys things to "recycle" - if that's tolerable to you. Shoot... with our two little girls we recycle some... <well... we recycle a LOT at this age!!!> ... but my sweet spouse has an older sister and she says she really disliked getting all the "hand me downs" from her older sister. SOoooo she was not gonna do that to her younger daughter! Or, at least she was not gonna do that once she was old enough to start NOTICING that she was wearin' her big sisters' old stuff! LOL~!

At any rate... congrats once again! I know you posted this some time ago but I'm reading backwards to "catch up" and your posting was a joyous occassion worth responding to!

I think it depends a lot on how you handle the hand-me-downs and how far apart the kids are. Our kids were 4 years apart. I did not think the younger one realized that he was even wearing the older one's clothes until one time when he needed some long pants and REFUSED to consider jeans because JEANS ARE TOO STIFF UNLESS TOM WORE THEM FIRST. He saw his brother as serving a useful role and breaking-in the fabric.

My sister was three years younger than me and says she always loved hand-me-downs because that meant she was now BIG ENOUGH to wear my clothes.

I loved hand-me-downs because we got them from friends who had two daughters close in age and who wore the same size so whenever I got anything from Mary and Janey, I got TWO IDENTICAL ITEMS!!

In retrospect, I can see that my Mother did a great PR job on us.
Jan

 

[Windy City Heather]

O.K. the money is finally down.

 

[JLSE50]

Lamar and I are still children. No one under 40 in our stateroom though

No one under 40 in our stateroom either. Just two adults who are still kids--maybe even more kids than we used to be. DS#2 says we started over when we hit 40--so I guess that makes us 17. hmmm....................

I will continue to follow this thread and post from time to time until I know for sure we are not going to be on this cruise. We have a conflict with DH's professional conference so are not sure what we will do yet. Plenty of time to decide and fun to chat with people as we wait.
Jan

 

[Grandma4ever]

Lamar and I are still children. No one under 40 in our stateroom though

Just two women over forty in our room. Mouser

 

[captaincrash]

We will be down on 2 as well. We are also a family of four, me (39), DH (42), DD (2 weeks shy of being 7 on the cruise) and DS (2).

We look forward to getting to know everyone in this next year before the cruise.

Well...

We're in 2618. Our DD is gonna be approximately 6.5 years of age and the other DD is 3.75 in age. Plus our likely table mates from the 11 nite southern are two families. One has a 5 year old boy and the other family has DDs 3, 8 and an18 son. All of us are between 35-45 as far as I can tell. My spouse and I are under 45 at the time of sailing. So there are a few kids of similar age in our little DIS group just among the few of us responding. TO everyone else sailing without little ones... I think the ratio of cabins with kids versus without was something on the order of 65-70% being without kids. SO you should expect something similar on our sailing it being the same time of year. During the summer and on vacation weeks the ratio of kids must be higher.

I think it depends a lot on how you handle the hand-me-downs and how far apart the kids are. Our kids were 4 years apart. I did not think the younger one realized that he was even wearing the older one's clothes until one time when he needed some long pants and REFUSED to consider jeans because JEANS ARE TOO STIFF UNLESS TOM WORE THEM FIRST. He saw his brother as serving a useful role and breaking-in the fabric.

My sister was three years younger than me and says she always loved hand-me-downs because that meant she was now BIG ENOUGH to wear my clothes.

I loved hand-me-downs because we got them from friends who had two daughters close in age and who wore the same size so whenever I got anything from Mary and Janey, I got TWO IDENTICAL ITEMS!!

In retrospect, I can see that my Mother did a great PR job on us.
Jan

On the clothing issue...

... I have to agree that it should not matter. And MY preference in this is to have the little one recycle as much as necessary and POSSIBLE. SHoot, they grow so fast that the first set has hardly a chance to get worn out before they get outgrown. So it is a real convenience to have another little one coming up right behind to take over for a 2nd run at using the stuff.

Actually, I suspect the REAL reason my darling spouse says she wants to have different things for the younger one is because it gives her an excuse to shop and rummage for new things for her! My DS is a serious shop-a-holic. I love her dearly and we've been together 22+ years now since our 1st date, and married 12 years and 20 days, 4 hours and an unknown number of minutes... and it's been truly wonderful. AND she has me pretty well trained when it comes to shopping. From early on til now she had me accompanying her on her shopping expeditions, carrying bags, rendering opinions on the spot and I do about 75-90% of her returns. I carry a book or newspaper to read while I wait and I'm often watching BOTH kids while she shops. So... she gets quality browsing opportunities. You should see her closets and our stroller when a good sale is on... the stroller is LOADED with bags. But - seriously, she is a very frugal and value oriented shopper. Sometimes I like to think of her as having found her greatest shopping find in ... her husband. And she is quick to say that actually "I" was the ONE thing she overpaid for! I don't get it?!?!

So - thanks for your thoughts on sharing / handing down clothes. We'll be thinking about your advice in the days and possibly years to come.

O.K. the money is finally down.

Oh yeah! Welcome aboard to the fun! What is the configuration of your family... kids, and so on? Or did you already chime in and say already? And also, have you sailed DCL or other lines before?

 

[Grandma4ever]

Well...

We're in 2618. Our DD is gonna be approximately 6.5 years of age and the other DD is 3.75 in age. Plus our likely table mates from the 11 nite southern are two families. One has a 5 year old boy and the other family has DDs 3, 8 and an18 son. All of us are between 35-45 as far as I can tell. My spouse and I are under 45 at the time of sailing. So there are a few kids of similar age in our little DIS group just among the few of us responding. TO everyone else sailing without little ones... I think the ratio of cabins with kids versus without was something on the order of 65-70% being without kids. SO you should expect something similar on our sailing it being the same time of year. During the summer and on vacation weeks the ratio of kids must be higher.


I'm one of those sailing without kids and in the past it has been a real joy. I can watch and enjoy the awe of other peoples kids and I don't need to worry about tember tantums or meeting their needs. On 3 for our 4 past cruises I have brought my grandkids and on 1 of those 3 we added our nephew. Disney is great even without kids. I can't think of anything else I would want to do. OK if I won powerball there are many places I would love to visit but given I have limited resouces it will be an occasional ( annual when I can find the money) Cruise. We are Midship in 2060. Mouser