1/21/12 Western Caribbean Cruise

[SuzyL]

Hi all!

I am booking a cabin for this cruise next week and am super excited! It will be my husband, my daughter (10 at time of cruise), my son (6 at time of cruise) and me. We are taking the cruise to celebrate our 40th birthdays (my 40th will be the day after we get back). We have decided to not tell the kids until Christmas. I do have several (more like a ton) of questions. Any info will be great. Thanks a bunch!

-Do they still do the fish extenders on the cruises?
-What is Pirates IN the Carribbean and do we need to dress in costumes?
-Are there any other theme nights during the cruise?
-Will DCL have a character call the kids to let them know about the cruise like WDW does for resort vacations?
-What are some good excursions to take a 6 year old on?

 

[Loriekins]

Hi all!

I am booking a cabin for this cruise next week and am super excited! It will be my husband, my daughter (10 at time of cruise), my son (6 at time of cruise) and me. We are taking the cruise to celebrate our 40th birthdays (my 40th will be the day after we get back). We have decided to not tell the kids until Christmas. I do have several (more like a ton) of questions. Any info will be great. Thanks a bunch!

-Do they still do the fish extenders on the cruises?
-What is Pirates IN the Carribbean and do we need to dress in costumes?
-Are there any other theme nights during the cruise?
-Will DCL have a character call the kids to let them know about the cruise like WDW does for resort vacations?
-What are some good excursions to take a 6 year old on?

Yeah! Welcome! The disboards are a great place to find out a ton of info! My husband & I are still learning a ton & we already did one cruise!
The cruise we did in January did fish extenders, don't know much about them never did it before.
You don't have to dress up for pirate night. Some do, others don't. We had gotten a few things after Halloween on clearance that we took with us. You will get bandanna's at dinner but they really only fit the kids. I didn't dress at all.
There aren't any other themes where you will dress up for like the pirate night if you wanted. There is semi formal & formal night on the 7 night cruises.
There is a place on http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/ to have the characters call but not sure where it is.
I haven't read up on Western Caribbean excursions yet, but I am sure there is a ton for kids to do. I have a 9 year old boy (will be 10 by the cruise) & we will probably do beach days like we did on the Eastern Caribbean. I know there are a TON of things to do at Castaway Cay.

 

[SuzyL]

Loriekins, thanks so much for the information! Maybe we'll bump into each other on the cruise.

 

[Loriekins]

Loriekins, thanks so much for the information! Maybe we'll bump into each other on the cruise.

You are very welcome! I wish our trip was closer!
Hope to meet you too!

 

[Jenscruise]

hey all...

We are putting deposit down on this Jan 21st cruise tomorrow! It is Me (36) DH (40) dd (7)

and

My sister , her hubby, and 2 kids (7 and 5)

Super excited.. we kinda booked and now are doing the research. They have never even been to DW, we have twice, but none of us have ever been on a cruise!

Looking forward to counting down with you all! We are in North Carolina (transplants from Wisconsin)

 

[Loriekins]

hey all...

We are putting deposit down on this Jan 21st cruise tomorrow! It is Me (36) DH (40) dd (7)

and

My sister , her hubby, and 2 kids (7 and 5)

Super excited.. we kinda booked and now are doing the research. They have never even been to DW, we have twice, but none of us have ever been on a cruise!

Looking forward to counting down with you all! We are in North Carolina (transplants from Wisconsin)

Nice to meet you & welcome! Can't wait until our cruise!
There is so much info on the Dis boards, I love it! This will be our second cruise, our son will be 10 by the time of the cruise.

 

[Cheerio]

We're booked too! Travelling with me (32) my Mom and my four kiddos (3 DS's 12, 10, 6 and DD 5)

 

[Loriekins]

We're booked too! Travelling with me (32) is DH (33), MIL and our four kiddos (3 DS's 12, 10, 6 and DD 5 - at the time of cruise)

Yeah! Welcome! So glad that our group is getting larger!

My son will be 10 at the time of the cruise, hopefully our sons can meet up! He'll be excited to hear of other boys around the same age.

 

[Keri88]

Hi all! I just booked this cruise for myself (42), DH (42), DD (6) and DS (7) (ages at time of cruise). I am so excited and would love any advice about cruising on DCL.

I have a couple of questions:

Our cabin is 6618 right by the elevators - will this be a problem for noise?

How is the food, service and so on?

Do the people on this board get to know each other and meet once aboard?

I am sure I have a million more but I will stop now!

Keri

 

[Loriekins]

Hi all! I just booked this cruise for myself (42), DH (42), DD (6) and DS (7) (ages at time of cruise). I am so excited and would love any advice about cruising on DCL.

I have a couple of questions:

Our cabin is 6618 right by the elevators - will this be a problem for noise?

How is the food, service and so on?

Do the people on this board get to know each other and meet once aboard?

I am sure I have a million more but I will stop now!

Keri

Yeah! :banana Welcome! You can learn a TON of info on the dis boards & you will feel like your head will spin around! So much to learn & we are still learning for our second cruise.

We won't be too far from you, we are in 6634. I don't have any experience with noise near the elevators, we were on deck 5 last time. Here's the review on your stateroom I could find: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/cruise-new/roomreport.cfm?Room=6618

From our experience in January, the food, service & everything else was wonderful!!! We took advantage of the room service after a long day at port & in the morning for a tide me over before breakfast.

A lot of the meets have a time for everyone to met. Closer to time we can come up with one too if people want.

Now time needs to go faster...

 

[Jenscruise]

Just made another payment today! ... Trying to find info. on our cabins, deck 7 .. rooms 2122 and 2124.
This wait is going to be way harder on me than the kids!

 

[Loriekins]

Just made another payment today! ... Trying to find info. on our cabins, deck 7 .. rooms 2122 and 2124.
This wait is going to be way harder on me than the kids!

Woo Hoo!

Did you see this? http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/cruise-new/roomreport.cfm?Room=2122

I know! The wait is harder on my hubby & I then our son! My son doesn't want to hear us talk about it until it's closer to time.

 

[Keri88]

Thanks for the link. I guess it won't be a problem! I am so excited and Jan cannot get here soon enough. We went to WDW Jan 29 of this year so I guess Jan is the time to go for us. We plan to go back to WDW the following year but who knows we may be stuck on going cruising! I personally love to cruise. DH has been on 1 and kids zero but I think they will like it. We have watched the Disney cruise video so many times and the kids said "We can't wait to go to the kids club and not have to be with parents all day/night!" I told them they were not hurting my feelings! LOL

Can anyone explain the whole dining rotation thing? I saw on other websites that Sat and Sunday are rotation and Monday is "Prince and Princess" night or something but where do you eat?

How crowded is it in Jan with the kids just back to school from Christmas?

Anyone know how to make time move faster??

Keri

 

[Cheerio]

Keri, look here near the bottom http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/cruise-new/cr-dining.htm#rotation The Monday formal night is the Prince and Princess dinner

Here is a week long glance from a March cruise to give you an idea of what's going on. The special theme dinners take place in the regular dining rooms - you will receive your schedule when you board, which tells you exactly when and where to go.

http://www.wdwinfo.com/Photos/DCL-Navigators/3-19-11/Magic-19March2011-week.pdf

 

[Loriekins]

Thanks for the link. I guess it won't be a problem! I am so excited and Jan cannot get here soon enough. We went to WDW Jan 29 of this year so I guess Jan is the time to go for us. We plan to go back to WDW the following year but who knows we may be stuck on going cruising! I personally love to cruise. DH has been on 1 and kids zero but I think they will like it. We have watched the Disney cruise video so many times and the kids said "We can't wait to go to the kids club and not have to be with parents all day/night!" I told them they were not hurting my feelings! LOL

Can anyone explain the whole dining rotation thing? I saw on other websites that Sat and Sunday are rotation and Monday is "Prince and Princess" night or something but where do you eat?

How crowded is it in Jan with the kids just back to school from Christmas?

Anyone know how to make time move faster??

Keri

We went on the Eastern in Jan of this year. The ship was full because of the two promotions running (25% off for Canadian's & kid sail free in Verandah rooms). Those two promotions didn't run until later in the year (we booked the KDS in October). There was a lot of little kids (non school age) but that didn't bother us. My son (9 at the time) had a ton of room on the basketball court, he didn't swim a lot. It was really crowded. We did that on port days.

You will get dinner tickets in your room that shows your dinner rotation. It's also on your Key To The World Card. Basically there are 3 dinning rooms & you change each night (the first one you go to 3 times & the other 2 you go to twice) if you choose to eat in the dining room each night. Your dinning room staff rotate with you also.

I WISH I knew how to make time move faster!!!

 

[exnihilio13]

Hey all,

Newbie cruisers reporting for duty. First cruise and pretty much first vacation since our son was 5 months old and we drove down to Daytona. That was 3.5 years ago....so were due

Rookies will be Mr. (37) & Mrs (35), the outgoing goofball boy (almost 5) and the flirty crazy-for-the-outdoors girl (2) (ages at time of cruise). Nothing has been said to DS yet but figure once we get the DVD that'll be a good way to "explain" what;s in store. may wait until Xmas to give it to him though otherwise we're bound to literally watch it for 6 months straight. Managed to get the EARLY dinner seating as well which, for us, is huge as DD generally is out cold by 7:30 (though that may change 6 months from now) Still we're pretty regulated so the early seating should work awesome.

As is typically my thing I've done crudloads of internet research on the stuff and we finally decided to go for it.
Most helpful I found was "magical kingdom's cruise" (google search it. I'm too new to post links.
Helpful to have menus, excursions, shows and schedules though by the time our cruise gets here there'll be changes but it gives a real nice feel.

Think it's gonna be a TON of fun for everybody individually and together as a family. Both kids are really good natured and outgoing so I can't wait to see them interacting with everyone onboard.

Question about the above specials posted by Loriekins though:
Any thoughts as to if either of these will come into play this season as well (both would apply for me) and if so would our agent re-work our price point?

Oh yeah and the other kinda nifty trick is my first day of cruising falls my birthday. Not sure what to expect to that end though. Thoughts?

Anyhow, gonna be poking into this message board frequently enough and may chuck occasional questions since there seems to be some savvy vets.

ex

 

[Loriekins]

Hey all,

Newbie cruisers reporting for duty. First cruise and pretty much first vacation since our son was 5 months old and we drove down to Daytona. That was 3.5 years ago....so were due

Rookies will be Mr. (37) & Mrs (36), the outgoing goofball boy (almost 5) and the flirty crazy-for-the-outdoors girl (2) (ages at time of cruise). Nothing has been said to DS yet but figure once we get the DVD that'll be a good way to "explain" what;s in store. may wait until Xmas to give it to him though otherwise we're bound to literally watch it for 6 months straight. Managed to get the EARLY dinner seating as well which, for us, is huge as DD generally is out cold by 7:30 (though that may change 6 months from now) Still we're pretty regulated so the early seating should work awesome.

As is typically my thing I've done crudloads of internet research on the stuff and we finally decided to go for it.
Most helpful I found was "magical kingdom's cruise" (google search it. I'm too new to post links.
Helpful to have menus, excursions, shows and schedules though by the time our cruise gets here there'll be changes but it gives a real nice feel.

Think it's gonna be a TON of fun for everybody individually and together as a family. Both kids are really good natured and outgoing so I can't wait to see them interacting with everyone onboard.

Question about the above specials posted by Loriekins though:
Any thoughts as to if either of these will come into play this season as well (both would apply for me) and if so would our agent re-work our price point?

Oh yeah and the other kinda nifty trick is my first day of cruising falls on the anniversary of my first day of breathing. Not sure what to expect to that end though. Thoughts?

Anyhow, gonna be poking into this message board frequently enough and may chuck occasional questions since there seems to be some savvy vets.

ex

Welcome! Welcome! There's a TON of info you can learn, I am still learning.
There was a thread on specials not too long ago. Others didn't think there would be much chance in the future for specials like that. I will just try to keep an ear out just in case...
I know you can buy celebration packages but I don't have a clue about anything they do for special occasions. I am sure there's a thread out there about it.

 

[exnihilio13]

Welcome! Welcome! There's a TON of info you can learn, I am still learning.
There was a thread on specials not too long ago. Others didn't think there would be much chance in the future for specials like that. I will just try to keep an ear out just in case...
I know you can buy celebration packages but I don't have a clue about anything they do for special occasions. I am sure there's a thread out there about it.

Thanks so much for the welcome.
Turns out we got the DVD today. We're going to screen it to see if it'll be tolerable for 500+ viewings leading up to the cruise

Curious as to if you recall *when* those specials cropped up for your January cruise? Several months before or *just* before the actual date? Might be good to keep watch for similar timings this year.

ex

 

[Loriekins]

Thanks so much for the welcome.
Turns out we got the DVD today. We're going to screen it to see if it'll be tolerable for 500+ viewings leading up to the cruise

Curious as to if you recall *when* those specials cropped up for your January cruise? Several months before or *just* before the actual date? Might be good to keep watch for similar timings this year.

ex

Beginning of October when they did the kids sail free for our Jan cruise. It was for select jan through feb caribbean cruises. Our TA said it booked in 5 days.

 

[exnihilio13]

Beginning of October when they did the kids sail free for our Jan cruise. It was for select jan through feb caribbean cruises. Our TA said it booked in 5 days.

Yeah no kiddin' Guess it's worth our while to keep an eye out in case that TA misses it since I imagine when the rooms sell out then the promo would not be applicable to our pre-booked.
Fingers crossed. Would save us close to $1000.
Hopin', as I've seen on here, we get paired up with a similar family. DD is pretty felxible around anyhow who'll let her flirt but it'd be nice for DS and the parental units to have someone to chat with. I've heard Disney does make an effort like this though.
How'd you find the weather last Jan.?

ex