11/05/05 Western - Who's with Us?

[GOOF62370]

Scouter:
Med cruise would be great!! That sounds cool! Any word yet which ports they would hit? DW & I would book that one in a heartbeat.

We keep talking about Nov. We want it to be here NOW!! I Tivod the DCL special on the travel channel. If some show did'nt come on about the ship soon, we were going to watch the planning dvd over & over again. On my cubicle wall at work I have a mini poster of our last cruise with all of our pics. It's a nice reminder & keeps me going!!

It will be nice to meet DS & yourself on board.

Paul

 

[Scouter]

Goof62370,
I can't wait either! I'm spending way too much time here chatting with
people about disney than I should be spending doing chores!
Do you and your DW have any children that are coming on the trip with
you?
I guess no one else is as excited about our trip as we are that not much
activity going on on our thread.

Here is a copy of the proposed cruises that Disney sent us in a survey:



This was posted on another thread by mbfergie:

2007 Itinerary Survey from DCL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just received this survey. As I was taking it I copied and pasted a few items that you may find intersting. I am now dying for the 2007 itineraries to come out. ALASKA would be my first choice! But the Mediterranean 10 day would be awesome too..better start saving my $$ now.

Disney Cruise Line® is considering new itineraries for the 2007 season. In addition to all the onboard entertainment and activities designed for kids, teens, adults, and families, guests in 2007 will have the opportunity to sail "new waters" with Disney. Please review each of the following six itineraries and answer the questions that follow.

7-Night Mexican Cruise out of Los Angeles
Ports
Los Angeles, California
Mazatlan
Cabo San Lucas
Puerto Vallarta



Pricing for this cruise is estimated as follows:

Stateroom Type
Cruise Fare per Person*: Inside Outside Verandah
1st / 2nd Person $2,899 $3,399 $4,299
3rd / 4th Person age 13+ $1,499 $1,599 $1,799
3rd / 4th Person age 3-12

10-Night Mediterranean Cruise out of Barcelona
Ports
Barcelona, Spain
Marseilles, France
Monte Carlo, Monaco
Livorno, Italy (access to Florence; Pisa)
Civitavecchia, Italy (access to Rome)
Valletta, Malta
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Valencia, Spain


Pricing for this cruise is estimated as follows:

Stateroom Type
Cruise Fare per Person*: Inside Outside Verandah
1st / 2nd Person $2,899 $3,399 $4,299
3rd / 4th Person age 13+ $1,499 $1,599 $1,799
3rd / 4th Person age 3-12 $1,299 $1,399 $1,599


10-Night Baltic Cruise out of Southampton

Ports
Southampton, England
Copenhagen, Denmark
St. Petersburg, Russia
Helsinki, Finland
Stockholm, Sweden
Oslo, Norway



Pricing for this cruise is estimated as follows:

Stateroom Type
Cruise Fare per Person*: Inside Outside Verandah
1st / 2nd Person $2,899 $3,399 $4,299
3rd / 4th Person age 13+ $1,499 $1,599 $1,799
3rd / 4th Person age 3-12 $1,299 $1,399 $1,599
7-Night Alaskan Cruise out of Vancouver

Ports
Vancouver
Juneau
Skagway
Haines
Glacier Bay
Ketchikan

Stateroom Type
Cruise Fare per Person*: Inside Outside Verandah
1st / 2nd Person $1,799 $2,299 $2,999
3rd / 4th Person age 13+ $1,499 $1,599 $1,799
3rd / 4th Person age 3-12 $1,299 $1,399 $1,599


7-Night Mediterranean Cruise out of Barcelona

Ports
Barcelona, Spain
Cannes, France (access to Monte Carlo; Nice)
Livorno, Italy (access to Florence; Pisa)
Civitavecchia, Italy (access to Rome)
Naples, Italy
Palma de Mallorca, Spain


Stateroom Type
Cruise Fare per Person*: Inside Outside Verandah
1st / 2nd Person $2,099 $2,699 $3,599
3rd / 4th Person age 13+ $1,499 $1,599 $1,799
3rd / 4th Person age 3-12 $1,299 $1,399 $1,599


7-Night Alaskan Cruise out of Seattle

Ports
Seattle
Victoria
Hubbard
Juneau
KetchikanPricing for this cruise is estimated as follows:

Stateroom Type
Cruise Fare per Person*: Inside Outside Verandah
1st / 2nd Person $1,799 $2,299 $2,999
3rd / 4th Person age 13+ $1,499 $1,599 $1,799
3rd / 4th Person age 3-12
__________________
Marie, Tim, DD (14), DS (9)
July 8, 2006 Magic Cruiser...can't wait!!

 

[GOOF62370]

Scouter:

Nope, just DW & I no kids just yet. We have 4 dogs which we enjoy alot. If it is just DS & yourself maybe we can arrange to have the same dinner table if you don't mind the late seating. If interested let me know & I can arrange it with DCL. Its always nice having dinner with people you know (at least over the web) rather than complete strangers.

The Med cruise sounds fantastic!! Those are places DW & I have been talking about going to for the last few years.

Paul

 

[Scouter]

Goof62370/Paul,
We are also on the late seating. We are going (supposedly) with
another girl from work and her 2 sons. So perhaps we can all sit together.
I haven't heard back from her yet, so I'm not positive about her plans.
But she is already linked with me for dinner.
Now how do you arrange this?

 

[GOOF62370]

Scouter:

I just need your res# & I can call DCL to arrange it. If you want, you can send me a PM. That would be nice. It would be great to sit with DS & yourself for dinner.

Paul

 

[poohssmum]

Have no fear, I'm just as excited about this trip as you all ... but I spent last summer wishing it away for my cruise to arrive. I promised myself that this year will be different ... I'll enjoy the summer and not start wishing time away until school starts

Speaking of school ... I got a peek at our school calendar for next year. The last 2 year, our school system has given the kids a 3-day week while they wrapped some teacher-days around the Veteran's Day holiday. I was hoping, with Veteran's Day being on a Friday this year, they'd have the professional day on Thursday ... no such luck The professional day is Monday. So, my kids will miss 4 days of school BUT they will have Monday off to rest. We're planning on hitting a water park on Saturday when we leave the ship and then we fly home later in the day on Sunday. DH and I thought about chaging our flight home to Monday, but I've got to be back at work to process payroll

 

[Scouter]

Yup! I read the calendar too. I was hoping for the same thing.
For my DS to only miss M-T-W, but now it's Th too!
Well he's excited about this missing 4 days, but I'm a bit worried
about him. He'll be in 10th grade, so missing stuff is pretty
important.
That is why I am wondering if they will have the Wi-Fi for our cruise.
My son will bring his laptop and some of his new classes the
teachers have homework sent to them or at least available on
the web somewhere. We'll find out more about all this in the fall.

I also agree that we shouldn't be wishing our summers away, but
I am just soooooooooooooo excited!

I'll try to enjoy my summer too.

 

[Travelingmice]

We are planning on booking Captain Marvin's in GC for the stingray city and snorkel (either the 2 hr or 3 hr trip). DS5 is looking forward to it.
Anyone interested in booking as a "group"? I would love to have some other children around DS's age on the trip!

 

[Scouter]

We really want to do Stingray city, but my DS will be 15.
I have no little ones. But we'll probably book this.

 

[GOOF62370]

For everyone doing the Stingray City expierence: God Bless You!! DW & I looked at someones video of that. Way too creepy for us!! Have fun you guys!!. We will stick to the safe stuff like sight seeing & shopping!! Although I heard the plush stingray at one of the stores was pretty cool!!

Paul

 

[poohssmum]

Just a word of caution about the Stingray excursion. DH and my then 8 yo DS did this last year with friends and their DS's 9 and 7. My 8 yo was not a strong swimmer at the time and the water was a bit choppy. My DH was going to just hold him in the water, but DS wouldn't stop squirming and freaked when the stingrays swam up ... DH almost dropped them both into the water before sending DS back onto the boat. Our friends DS7 was happier than a clam to snorkel and look at the fish ... right up until the stingrays swam up. Then he freaked and spent the rest of the trip on the boat too. I'm certainly not trying to discourage anyone from doing this if they are interested ... I just wanted to share our experience from last year. While the rest of the group was swimming, or not, with the stingrays, I was hanging by the Mickey pool with my other DS (5). The adults headed back to the island later to do some rum cake sampling sans the kiddos That's my kind of excursion.

 

[Travelingmice]

poohssmum - thanks for the advice. we have discussed w/DS extensively and to date he's in love with the idea so we hope it will go well, and if not we'll be peering over the edge of the boat

Scouter - are you thinking about the 2 hr or the 3 hr? it would be fun to go with people we "know"!

 

[Scouter]

Travelingmice,
I am looking at the Passporter guide to the Disney
cruise line and am looking at the Stingray City Snorkel Tour, Disney code G08. It says $45 for adults, $35 for children 6-9 and it says 3 hours. I went on Captain Marvin's own website and saw different packages but
I'd probably feel better booking through Disney.
What book/brochure/website are you looking at?

BTW, neither me (40) nor my DS(14) are great
swimmers. Sean has done a bit of snorkeling in pools
before, I haven't. But neither one of us is afraid to
try this.
For some reason, fish swimming up to me kind of
creeps me out but not bigger things like stingrays,
dolphins, ....but then I won't know until I get there.

We're game to try! (DS will just not do anything resembling amusement park rides. )

 

[Scouter]

I just typed in a search on Stingray city and several people
booked it themselves without disney. One interesting thread about what to do on Grand Cayman after the stingray excursion.
One of the stingray excursion companies had a deal where after the snorkeling and playing with the stingrays they dropped people off to a beach where they went horseback riding. That sounds cool!

 

[Travelingmice]

We will probably book through Captain Marvin's. I have read a lot of threads about Diser's booking with them and being very happy with the program. His sight does offer some "after" items. We did this cruise in Dec. '03 and did an island tour & turtle farm on our own. It was neat, but I think after the snorkel and stingray city that we (and hopefully DS) will need a nap . If I hadn't heard so many good things about Captain Marvin's I would just book through Disney to be sure of what I am getting, but I feel comfortable booking this myself from the reviews here. The big question is whether to do the two snorkel (3 hr) or one snorkel (2hr). Do we book both so we know what to do when we get to the second stop???

 

[Scouter]

Travelingmice,
Then lets book through Captain Marvins. The 3 hour sounds good I think. 2 hours doesn't sound like much time. It sounds great to see both places on the 3 hour trip too.
Now, am I correct that we cannot book until 3 months before our trip? Or is that only through Disney?
Oh, this will be exciting!

 

[magmom]

Hi Everyone!

We are also on the 11/5 Western! It's me, my DH, our DDs - 10 & 8 and our DS - 5 . This is our 1st Disney cruise but my DH and I have cruised RCCL 3 times. We are in Cat. 11, Deck 6.

Is there anyone out there with kids the same ages? My girls are concerned about being split up at Oceaneer Lab. (We haven't told my son that he won't be with his sisters in Oceaneer Club.)

Can anyone recommend good excursions or are we better off on our own?

 

[Goofy623]

Welcome magmom & family!! Hope you enjoy the cruise!! Do not have any kids, but I can give you some advise on the excursions. This will be DIS cruise #4 for DW & myself. Key West we feel is best winging it yourselves. So much to see & do. Grab a basic Frommers guide & looki it over before you go & you should be fine. Cozumel has some nice tours with DCL. I would stick with them. I know there is a fun Jeep trip we took last time. Grand Cayman you could go either way. I know alot of people do some of the stingray tours with captain marvins directly. DW & I are thinking about doing the botanic gardens & some sight seeing on our own. DCL has some other nice trips as well. Once we get to Castaway that is another definite place you guys can handle on your own. Everything is right there & the ship is so close. I hope this helps a little. See you on board!!

Paul

 

[magmom]

Thanks Goofy623!

Thanks for the info. I will get the Frommers guide for Key West. I heard the sunsets there are not too be missed!!!

 

[GOOF62370]

Magmom:

Absoulutely!! The folks in Key West make it a nightly holiday. The entire city just stops!! They all line up & watch the sunset. It is the most amazing site I have ever seen.

Paul