1/26/2013-Fantasy-Eastern including Puerto Rico

[Britster18]

My DH went to USF, my brother in law went to UF, my sil went to FSU and my brother went to UCF! I just went to a community college in Tampa but all are GREAT schools!!!

 

[jilljill]

My DH went to USF, my brother in law went to UF, my sil went to FSU and my brother went to UCF! I just went to a community college in Tampa but all are GREAT schools!!!

She's been accepted at Valencia and is on deferred for UCF and USF-Polytechnic. We're leaning towards her staying at Valencia for the first 2 years and then transferring to UCF for the last 2 years. Although, UCF has a beautiful campus and is all contained in one place.
All schools are pretty much the same drive, time-wise, from our house down there.

 

[Britster18]

She's been accepted at Valencia and is on deferred for UCF and USF-Polytechnic. We're leaning towards her staying at Valencia for the first 2 years and then transferring to UCF for the last 2 years. Although, UCF has a beautiful campus and is all contained in one place.
All schools are pretty much the same drive, time-wise, from our house down there.

I thought of going to Valencia at one point to get out of Tampa!!
I wanted to get my AA in community college and then finish off at USF but kids/military orders/ life got in my way first.
My brother really like Orlando area for school.

 

[jilljill]

I thought of going to Valencia at one point to get out of Tampa!!
I wanted to get my AA in community college and then finish off at USF but kids/military orders/ life got in my way first.
My brother really like Orlando area for school.

Valencia has now been upgraded from being a community college to a college. I think this is the first year for the change. Now I have no clue what they means but as long as the education is the same I guess it doesn't really matter.

 

[Britster18]

I think it means you can get a college degree there... other then just a 2 year associates, don't quote me on that though.


Does anyone know when our info/itinerary comes out for our cruise and when I can schedule reservations/activites/kids club stuff? I know being our first cruise, I'm last on the list but not sure when all the fun stuff comes out and can be scheduled.

 

[JJ Max n Mickey]

I think it means you can get a college degree there... other then just a 2 year associates, don't quote me on that though.


Does anyone know when our info/itinerary comes out for our cruise and when I can schedule reservations/activites/kids club stuff? I know being our first cruise, I'm last on the list but not sure when all the fun stuff comes out and can be scheduled.

Certainly the others here are waaayyy more experienced than our family, but here's my thoughts on reservations: The first time we cruised, we hung back and didn't make any dining or excursion reservations until we sailed, and boy were we glad! Especially on DCL, the food and rotating restaurants are so fantastic that my kids were so glad that we didn't miss out on one minute. We keep our excursions very simple...we like the beach, and until my 8 year old is older and able to swim with dolphins or snorkel, we love simply hanging out at the beach. We have found perfect, kid friendly beaches in San Juan (there is a rougher-water beach we stay away from), in St. Thom and at Castaway Cay, you can rent snorkelling equip for very little money.

My 2 cents

 

[jilljill]

I think it means you can get a college degree there... other then just a 2 year associates, don't quote me on that though.


Does anyone know when our info/itinerary comes out for our cruise and when I can schedule reservations/activites/kids club stuff? I know being our first cruise, I'm last on the list but not sure when all the fun stuff comes out and can be scheduled.

Ok, I won't quote you then.


What info/itinerary are you looking for?
You can make online reservation for onboard things and excursions at 75 days out since your are a first timer. Excursions for ports that DCL regularly sails to are on their website. I would expect excursion info for San Juan to come out about 125-150 days before the first sailing that goes to SJ in 2012.

 

[Britster18]

Certainly the others here are waaayyy more experienced than our family, but here's my thoughts on reservations: The first time we cruised, we hung back and didn't make any dining or excursion reservations until we sailed, and boy were we glad! Especially on DCL, the food and rotating restaurants are so fantastic that my kids were so glad that we didn't miss out on one minute. We keep our excursions very simple...we like the beach, and until my 8 year old is older and able to swim with dolphins or snorkel, we love simply hanging out at the beach. We have found perfect, kid friendly beaches in San Juan (there is a rougher-water beach we stay away from), in St. Thom and at Castaway Cay, you can rent snorkelling equip for very little money.

My 2 cents

This is kind of what I was thinking. Since the kids haven't been on a cruise EVER, we want to enjoy the ship and whatever we find in port wise. That being said, I want to be able to have the kids enjoy the club (which you have to reserve/register?) and I would LOVE for DH and I to have one night out to dinner, alone at Palo or Remy, for an anniversary date.
Other then that, I don't know what else I should be looking for?

 

[jilljill]

This is kind of what I was thinking. Since the kids haven't been on a cruise EVER, we want to enjoy the ship and whatever we find in port wise. That being said, I want to be able to have the kids enjoy the club (which you have to reserve/register?) and I would LOVE for DH and I to have one night out to dinner, alone at Palo or Remy, for an anniversary date.
Other then that, I don't know what else I should be looking for?

Unless you have a child under 3 that needs the Nursery care you do not reserve time for the kids. The clubs are come and go as you please. Yes, you do need to register them, but that's to set up who can check them in/out and get their wristbands (ages 3-10).

 

[Britster18]

Ok, cool.
Remy/Palo is 75 days out for me? online? or call my TA?

Just paid my deposit

 

[jilljill]

Ok, cool.
Remy/Palo is 75 days out for me? online? or call my TA?

Just paid my deposit

You do it online via the DCL website starting at 12:01am eastern 75 days before your cruise. You can pull up your reservation on DCL's website and it will tell you how many days until the cruise and when you can do your bookings.

 

[Britster18]

You do it online via the DCL website starting at 12:01am eastern 75 days before your cruise. You can pull up your reservation on DCL's website and it will tell you how many days until the cruise and when you can do your bookings.

When I get my reservation number from Disney? I just have the DU one from the quote.

 

[JJ Max n Mickey]

You do it online via the DCL website starting at 12:01am eastern 75 days before your cruise. You can pull up your reservation on DCL's website and it will tell you how many days until the cruise and when you can do your bookings.

Brittany, we can call you at 11:59 the night before so that you are at your computer at 12:01 Happy to offer this service!!!

Just wanted to throw in a little tidbit from our DCL experiences...Disney is very good at communicating via email about how and when to register your kids for their club on-line before you sail. Don't worry about that. Before you get on the ship, you will have completed on-line forms with all of that information. The first time we got to the Port to set sail, there was a LOOOONNNGGG line of people standing in line at a sign called child registration. They were seriously there for hours. We asked a staff member who told us that if we had already registered the kids on-line (which we had), we didn't have to stand in that line. We just had to go to the Oceaneer Club at some point in the afternoon and get wristbands. We had lunch on board and leasurely wondered over to it and were in and out in 5 mins. A little food for thought.

 

[jilljill]

When I get my reservation number from Disney? I just have the DU one from the quote.

DU will provide you with that. If it's not on your paperwork just shoot them off an email and ask them. A reservation number from DCL is assigned when you put the cruise on hold or pay your deposit.

 

[jilljill]

Brittany, we can call you at 11:59 the night before so that you are at your computer at 12:01 Happy to offer this service!!!

What a great way to make money to pay off the cruise!

 

[JJ Max n Mickey]

This is kind of what I was thinking. Since the kids haven't been on a cruise EVER, we want to enjoy the ship and whatever we find in port wise. That being said, I want to be able to have the kids enjoy the club (which you have to reserve/register?) and I would LOVE for DH and I to have one night out to dinner, alone at Palo or Remy, for an anniversary date.
Other then that, I don't know what else I should be looking for?

By the way, on both of our DCL cruises, we sent the kids to their clubs for dinner at least one night and we had dinner for two, but we stayed in the dining room. We found the food in all 3 Disney Magic dining rooms excellent so it didn't matter which night's rotation it was, and our waiter already knew us. (I'm assuming that you rotate restaurants on the Dream every night just like on the Magic). That being said, I've heard Palo is excellent but we opted to save our money. You can also order an anniversary cake.

 

[Britster18]

So basically.... do everything they tell ya do to BEFOREHAND and you won't have a problem. To bad it's a year out! I wanna sign up now! I'm so excited I can't stand it! I've already got pins going over on Pinterest!

I also can't wait for the Travel Channel/ TV shows that show the new ship!!!!

 

[jilljill]

I recommend Palo brunch over Palo dinner. We like the main dining rooms over Palo for dinner. I'm really hoping we can get to Palo brunch on our cruise in 12 days, last 4 day cruise it was canceled since they added a 2nd CC day at the last minute due to the Aquaduck breaking down.

Oh yeah.....it also took us 11 DCL cruises before we had dinner in Palo. But it only took us 8 cruises for brunch. You can't do everything your first time, gotta save stuff to do on future cruises.

 

[jilljill]

So basically.... do everything they tell ya do to BEFOREHAND and you won't have a problem. To bad it's a year out! I wanna sign up now! I'm so excited I can't stand it! I've already got pins going over on Pinterest!

I also can't wait for the Travel Channel/ TV shows that show the new ship!!!!

....and listen to your fellow DISboarders.

 

[Britster18]

....and listen to your fellow DISboarders.

Got it!


I literally just paid the deposit about 30 minutes ago through Dreams Unlimited. My TA was nice enough to call DCL and have our hold extended until the 23rd while we waited for money to shift but it all worked out today!

Our original plan was to go to Hawaii for Christmas with DH for work BUT we figured this was on everyone's bucket list, we wanted to do it while the kids (especially our 3 year old) was OBSESSED with anything Mickey, and you get WAY more bang for your buck with Disney then a hotel room in Hawaii for 10 days. DH will miss Christmas with us b/c he still has to go but this makes up for it and I TOTALLY plan on making a dummy reservation while on board