1/17/09 Magic anyone???

[CJH1102]

We just got back from Disney a few days ago. We had an AWESOME time but the best part was that when it ended, instead of going through post-Disney depression, I get to look forward to our cruise!!!! The time is almost here to pay deposits, book Palo, book excursions and get to planning! I could not be more excited!!!!

I'm with you !! I always go through the blahs after we get back from WDW. We just got back in August but this time my husband said, " That trip wasn't relaxing at all, book me a Disney cruise so I can relax." I said a big Whoo hoo and called the TA right away. So, now I get to look forward to the next vacation instead of getting depressed over my WDW vacation being over with.

 

[fltink]

TOTALLY! Our WDW vacation rocked but we came back sooooooo tired!!! I am doing NOTHING on this cruise! )

 

[Bytor01]

Finally, Boy oh boy what a mail day today. First I look and I got my DVC magazine, then I got a DVC advertisement for Bay Lake Tower. Finally, I see my Disney cruise travel kit. I am psyched that it came. The cruise is getting real by the moment. Ultimately it will get really real when I lay down my final payment next week. But, at least we have our little kit and we can look forward to reading about and deciding what we want to do as a family.

Tim

 

[CJH1102]

Just thought I'd say hello, the board has been kind of quiet. Has anyone mentioned a meet and greet for the dis board people once we get on board yet? Hope everyone is doing well !!

 

[2beaprincess]

I was thinking the same thing....pretty quiet on this board. Hope more people write in to say how excited they are about the cruise! I know we are!
Can't hardly wait!!!

 

[fltink]

That 100 days mark is coming close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then it's just around the corner! yay-yay-yay-yay!!!!!!!!!!

 

[CJH1102]

Don't you wish sometimes that you could just find some pixie dust and go fly to Neverland for a while...it's been a long week so far and it's only Wednesday !! January can't get here fast enough for me.

Has anyone thought about booking shore excursions through other avenues instead of through Disney? Any ideas of how or where to book besides through Disney? Just looking for more excursion options.

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

I went over to cruisecritic.com and looked at their boards for port information. They have boards that are specific to each location.
Their disney board isn't the best but I don't usually go to that one. I use this one for the Disney specific information.

On St. Maarten we're just going to grab a cab and head to the beach. After the beach we'll head back to Phillipsburg and go shopping.
We're still up in the air about St. Thomas. Whatever we do will be without the benefit of DCL.

I need to leave now!!!!! I'm too excited. I need to stop looking at the stuff or I won't make it to January.

 

[Bytor01]

We only have about 4 days left before we can start making some plans and reservations. That is great but we still have no idea what we want to do. MY wife wants to do the Dolphin encounter but we may balk at that because of the long time it will take out of the day just for the transportation to get there (4 hours I think). Other than that we may just hang around walk around or maybe hit a beach. Just don't know yet. I think we are going to sit down later today and really go over our options.

Tim

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

As this is our first cruise as a family I have been a bit anal retentive with the planning.

Anyway, I have been reading multiple cruising boards and saw that people were saying how many ships are in port on the day they are there. So I asked how to figure that out and got a website - www.cruisett.com. Now I have no idea if this website is accurate but people have reported that it is.

So here's the bad news for our cruise:
St. Maarten - 4 ships in port - Norwegian Gem, Liberty of the Seas, MSC Orchestra and the Magic - Using the "port load" figure (assuming that means people) that is an estimated 12,272 people in port that day.

St. Thomas - 4 ships in port - Carnival Triump, Costa Fortuna, Eurodam and the Magic - "port load" of 11,271.

I wanted to do an excursion in St. Thomas without the cruise ship so I went ahead and sent off an email to those people immediately. I hope I can get what I want!!

Now I have only cruised once before over 20 years ago so I have no idea if that is an obscene amount of people in port but the figures alone seem huge to me!!
I take any advice from experienced cruisers!! Please help calm my anal retentive nerves.

 

[owensjro]

As this is our first cruise as a family I have been a bit anal retentive with the planning.

Anyway, I have been reading multiple cruising boards and saw that people were saying how many ships are in port on the day they are there. So I asked how to figure that out and got a website - www.cruisett.com. Now I have no idea if this website is accurate but people have reported that it is.

So here's the bad news for our cruise:
St. Maarten - 4 ships in port - Norwegian Gem, Liberty of the Seas, MSC Orchestra and the Magic - Using the "port load" figure (assuming that means people) that is an estimated 12,272 people in port that day.

St. Thomas - 4 ships in port - Carnival Triump, Costa Fortuna, Eurodam and the Magic - "port load" of 11,271.

I wanted to do an excursion in St. Thomas without the cruise ship so I went ahead and sent off an email to those people immediately. I hope I can get what I want!!

Now I have only cruised once before over 20 years ago so I have no idea if that is an obscene amount of people in port but the figures alone seem huge to me!!
I take any advice from experienced cruisers!! Please help calm my anal retentive nerves.

These don't sound too bad to me. Last January we had to tender at St. Thomas and there were two other ships also tendering with us. I believe we had 7 ships in port at the same time and only one or two were smaller ones.

also note the times of arrivals. At St. Martin we arrive at 7am. Liberty is at 8am, Norwegian is at 9am and MSC is at 11am. That helps.

Jim

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

These don't sound too bad to me. Last January we had to tender at St. Thomas and there were two other ships also tendering with us. I believe we had 7 ships in port at the same time and only one or two were smaller ones.

also note the times of arrivals. At St. Martin we arrive at 7am. Liberty is at 8am, Norwegian is at 9am and MSC is at 11am. That helps.

Jim

Wow!! 7 ships??!! That's a lot of the people.
Thanks for the updates. I'll try not to stress too much. I'm just too anal.
- Allison

 

[JenKatt]

Just a thought, be very careful if you book an excursion on your own on St John's. If you get caught on St John's with your excursion and miss the all aboard, Disney will leave you. They will wait if you are on a Disney excursion. And Disney and all the other ships will leave. We've been on a few cruises where pilot ships had to race the cruise ships to get passengers back on. And you'll pay that out of pocket and it ain't cheap. And if you miss the boat on St John's/ St Thomas you're cruise is pretty much over. Flying from there to Abaco Bahamas isn't easy, if at all possible.
Just a thought.
You won't have that problem to the same extent on St Thomas or St Marteen since you'll be physically on the island that the port is on. Where as St John's is apparently a 40 minute boat ride from Charlotte Amalie on St Thomas.
Again, just a thought.

 

[Sparky47]

New posting here after months of just reading. I'm with all those that just can't wait until January!!

For those looking for excursions, I have to recommend two:

St. Maarten: 10-metre regatta. We did this last September and LOVED it. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it since it's a "working" sail excursion but it was easy and so much fun. We really want to do it again but we're trying to talk ourselves out of it so we can do something new.

St. Thomas: Sea Helmet Dive at Coral World. Fabulous! Again, we were intimidated intially because we weren't about the whole being underwater with a helmet. But it was fantastic.

We're not sure which excursions we'll be doing in January. Looking at the catamaran/snorkle on St. Maarten and a sail/snorkle on St. Thomas. Can't wait until 10/19 when we can book Palo/Excursions--makes it seem that much closer although I don't want to wish away the year !

 

[Bytor01]

New posting here after months of just reading. I'm with all those that just can't wait until January!!

For those looking for excursions, I have to recommend two:

St. Maarten: 10-metre regatta. We did this last September and LOVED it. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it since it's a "working" sail excursion but it was easy and so much fun. We really want to do it again but we're trying to talk ourselves out of it so we can do something new.

St. Thomas: Sea Helmet Dive at Coral World. Fabulous! Again, we were intimidated intially because we weren't about the whole being underwater with a helmet. But it was fantastic.

We're not sure which excursions we'll be doing in January. Looking at the catamaran/snorkle on St. Maarten and a sail/snorkle on St. Thomas. Can't wait until 10/19 when we can book Palo/Excursions--makes it seem that much closer although I don't want to wish away the year !

We certainly would have liked to do the regatta but our kids are too young. I have not heard of the Sea Helmut Dive but that sounds interesting. Is anyone doing any of the excursions or going to travel to St John? I don't think we are planning on doing that.

I am paying my balance off tomorrow and I will get ready to make my reservations on the 5th. Wow I can't believe ressie time is already here. I will try to leave everyone some good times at Palo...just kidding.

I have really been hitting the sites lately and trying to figure out the best day to do Palo. I think I have decided on Wednesday. Tuesday we are in St Maartan and that seems to be the Pirates night so I want to stay away from that. The only thing though is I don't want to miss out on Lumeire's for the second time. Any of the other restaurants won't be a problem but I really like Lumeire. So I wonder if I can put in a request for a rotation. I know you can but it is not assured. I would want a PAL rotation. What are you thoughts on the rotation you would like?

Funny I see your Biggest Loser icon on your post. I wonder... do you remember the twins from a couple shows back? One twin won the whole show and the other won for losing the most weight once he got home. Yeah I work with the one who went home and lost the weight, Jim Germanakos. I see his brother Bill all the time too, usually when we play golf together. Just a little tid bit of info.
Tim

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

Just a thought, be very careful if you book an excursion on your own on St John's. If you get caught on St John's with your excursion and miss the all aboard, Disney will leave you. They will wait if you are on a Disney excursion. And Disney and all the other ships will leave. We've been on a few cruises where pilot ships had to race the cruise ships to get passengers back on. And you'll pay that out of pocket and it ain't cheap. And if you miss the boat on St John's/ St Thomas you're cruise is pretty much over. Flying from there to Abaco Bahamas isn't easy, if at all possible.
Just a thought.
You won't have that problem to the same extent on St Thomas or St Marteen since you'll be physically on the island that the port is on. Where as St John's is apparently a 40 minute boat ride from Charlotte Amalie on St Thomas.
Again, just a thought.

Thanks for the heads up. This was our fear as well so we are staying on St. Thomas. I'm hoping we enjoy cruising and this won't be our only one. I'd like to hit St. John another time.
We're going to Coral World. I figure with the beach right next to it, we can do the park in the morning and then swim for a couple of hours in the afternoon and then head back early to the ship. We're trying to stay away from any quality shopping so may just pick up a few touristy type things on the way back to the ship. I'm hoping there will be vendors for that type of stuff around the port.

 

[Bytor01]

Sweeeeetttt.....we are all paid for and the status on the DCL page has changed to "Booked". Well, no turning back now I guess. Now to do some fast research and decisions so we can book everything on Sunday. It's finally here....

Tim

 

[owensjro]

Well, we booked Palo brunch for Thursday and Palo Dinner for Wednesday night.

And we booked the Coral world stuff at St. Thomas.

I think that is all we're going to do this trip. On St. Maarten/Martin we like to just take a taxi to the beach and then taxi back to town after. Not going to do an official excursion there.

Hope those who can book today have fun. For those waiting another two weeks I'm sure you will get what you want!

Jim

 

[Bytor01]

Well, we booked Palo brunch for Thursday and Palo Dinner for Wednesday night.

And we booked the Coral world stuff at St. Thomas.

I think that is all we're going to do this trip. On St. Maarten/Martin we like to just take a taxi to the beach and then taxi back to town after. Not going to do an official excursion there.

Hope those who can book today have fun. For those waiting another two weeks I'm sure you will get what you want!

Jim

So I just got finished booking everything also. We booked the Palo dinner on Wednesday night also but we booked the brunch for Monday. We also are going to do the Golden Eagle Catamaran on St Maartan and decided on the Land and Sea package for Coral World in St Thomas. I have to wait until my wife wakes up (works at night) to see what spa things she would like to do.

On a side note, when entering in our online check in I realized that our (wife and I) passports will expire prior to our trip. So I quickly filled out the renewal forms for our passports. They will be out in the mail on Monday. The Department of State says the turn around time is 3 weeks. Wow that is great because I remember the last time (10 years ago) I applied and I think it was 2months. Good Luck to everyone else on the reservations.
Tim

 

[JenKatt]

We had to order our son's passport about a month ago. We had it in less than 2 weeks. Better than a few years back with the mad crunch for everyone to get it to travel to Mexico and Canada. The wait then was 3 to 4 months.
We booked our Palo and spa stuff today as well. We're still up in the air about shore excursions, but I'm not worried about getting those done like I was about Palo and especially Flounder's Reef.