11/14/09 - Special Western - 2 CC stops

[mousemom11]

Hi Everyone,

Went through my bout of bronchitis, which turned into pnemonia,then got Lyme disease.
OMG, I am so ready for this trip.


I forgot some of our plans, so if you read this and remember let me know please.

I know we are doing the Dolphin thing on cozumel, but forgot who with

also, the stingray thing on Grand Cayman, forgot that one too

I need to catch up on everything.

xxcell

I was just thinking about you the other day and wondering how you were. Glad you're back and feeling better. That was sure a rough patch!

We also are doing the Royal Swim in Cozumel, and I believe you're in our group for the Rays, Reef, and Rum Point excursion on Grand Cayman (see link in my sig about that).

xxcell - I'm with you, I can't remember who I'm doing the excursion with. I think we're with you on the sting ray in Grand Cayman.

Yes, you're also in our group for the Rays, Reef, and Rum Point excursion.

 

[Desi]

FYI---
Went on the reservation site last night at midnight to book 105 days out. It was a No go at midnight (EST) I refreshed, and at 12:01 everything popped right up!
So I got our Palo dinner, brunch & tea reserved and the Boy registered into Oceaneers.
I went ahead and did the Grand Cayman island tour too. It's only 2 hours and the Boy gets to see the turtles, which is all he cares about.
I figure I can always go back on and revise different things as needed.
Most urgent for me was the Palo ressies. Now at least I feel like I accomplished something, having stayed up waaayy passed my bedtime!

 

[Hypermommy]

Wow! The first Disney ressie in our group.... now this is getting really, really, real.

 

[sharen24]

I also stayed up really late to make my reservations - 9:30pm!!!! One good thing about living in California (LOL!). Decided to book Palo for Pirate Night. We will take DS to the dining room for dinner, but leave at 7:00pm for our dinner at Palo. That way we won't really miss out on anything. Also booked a brunch and a tea, but I'm not certain we will make it to tea. DS usually takes a nap from 1-4 in the afternoon so I will have to play that one by ear. The glass bottom boat in CC looks like it is already booking up (which I don't understand based on the reviews). Also booked the dolphins for me and DS in Grand Cayman and stingray city for DH. I had to book the DCL excursion for DH because I don't trust him to make it back to the boat in time on his own! Now I can relax until 8/13 when I have to be online at 3:00am to make my WDW dining reservations. Has anyone seen the youtube video of Hitler trying to book a reservation at Le Cellier? I almost peed my pant laughing.

 

[mousemom11]

Has anyone seen the youtube video of Hitler trying to book a reservation at Le Cellier? I almost peed my pant laughing.

No, I'd love to see it. Can you post a link here?

 

[Hypermommy]

I hadn't even heard about it but it's HILARIOUS!!!!

Thanks Sharen for telling us about it. I hope you don't mind but I had to go out and find it right away. Since I have the link handy I figured I'd share it. Hope that's not being rude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlfc8zZF7Wc

Thanks again... this is soooooo funny!!!!! Can't wait to show KC and the two eating machines.

Speaking of which, time for me to go get EM#1. He's been away at camp all week. I'll check back when I get back.

 

[makaylee]

We've never done WDW, but I get the sentiment with Palo and that was hilarious!

 

[RookieMouse]

Hey all...

First of all, a big to all the new folks joing our crazy crew. You don't know what you're in for...

Got our Palo ressies done last night!! I had spoken with someone at DCL and they told me that Pirate Night is Wednesday (Cozumel) so I booked Palo for Tuesday at 8pm for dinner, and again on Thursday for High Tea at 3pm. As well, we booked the Couple's Choice at the spa for Monday afternoon (DW's birthday). We did this on our last cruise and it was soooooooo relaxing!!

Sarah is registered at the Oceaneer Lab (yes, yet another 8 year old girl named Sarah on this cruise... that's like 4 I think). Denise, you might want to put another column on the spreadsheet or the summary for Ocean Quest, as DS11 wasn't able to be booked into the Lab. On the Magic, the Lab is for ages 8-10, and Ocean Quest is for 11-13.

As for excursions, we are only booked on the Dolphin Royal Swim at Cozumel (with a bunch of you). We are staying on board at Grand Cayman and taking advantage of the relatively empty pools. As for Castaway Cay, we have nothing definitive planned yet, except that Sarah wants to get her hair braided and Dale is keen to complete the Treasure Hunt.

Also, we finally got our flights booked (and probably as cheap as we'll get) but we had to move our flight to FL up by a day. So I called DVC Member Services and we are tacking on a night at AKV Kidani House on the 10th, followed by 3 nights at BLT. I am so pumped right now, but still don't want to wish the summer away.

Still not certain whether we will be doing the FE and SM things, as I haven't run it by higher headquarters yet.

Enough rambling for now... it is a long weekend here and we are off to the big air show tomorrow (once every 5 years). Time to grab some lunch and get some stuff done.

Later gang...


John

 

[makaylee]

Mamie and family. First, thanks to your entire family for your military involvement and support. And the same goes to anyone else with us that I didn't say it directly to - you keep us free.

You're Very Welcome for our service
I can't complain because I've actually enjoyed my husband being in the AF these last 14 years (except when he's gone). Someone has to do it though
We've been very fortunate and have gotten to live in some fantastic places like Germany and England.
Not to mention i've never had to pay over $2500 for a DCL trip because of the discounts. Although we had to pay $3200 for the airfare this time YIKES!

 

[Hypermommy]

Sarah is registered at the Oceaneer Lab (yes, yet another 8 year old girl named Sarah on this cruise... that's like 4 I think). Denise, you might want to put another column on the spreadsheet or the summary for Ocean Quest, as DS11 wasn't able to be booked into the Lab. On the Magic, the Lab is for ages 8-10, and Ocean Quest is for 11-13.

Oh no, did they change it? I remember when we last cruised in April 2008 Quest was available to kids from ages like 10-14. Does that mean the Stack doesn't start until age 14?

I'll add the columns, but just curious. Thank goodness EM#2 is going to be 14 at the time of cruising. That's the thing he's most looking forward to is being old enough to go to The Stack. It's like some rite of passage or something. You'd think he'd been looking forward to it for years or something like driving!!!

So I'll add the columns and y'all go ahead and check your rows, please, and move kid-counts as necessary. Thanks!

Oh, and I added yet another page to the workbook. The last page now is IM addys. I had a question for one of MouseMom today and I was thinking how easy it would be to handle if I just knew her IM addy. So I added the page. Hopefully it'll be useful as I know many are trying to get the kids to get to know each other a bit before the cruise. Y'all can have a little chat between the kids with moms or dads doing the typing (and thus knowing what's going on LOL).

 

[xxcell]

 

[sharen24]

I hadn't even heard about it but it's HILARIOUS!!!!

Thanks Sharen for telling us about it. I hope you don't mind but I had to go out and find it right away. Since I have the link handy I figured I'd share it. Hope that's not being rude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlfc8zZF7Wc

Thanks again... this is soooooo funny!!!!! Can't wait to show KC and the two eating machines.

Speaking of which, time for me to go get EM#1. He's been away at camp all week. I'll check back when I get back.

Not rude at all. I would have posted it myself if I knew how. Unfortunately I am a complete idiot on the computer. You can tell from my naked signature and lack of posted photos.

 

[mommyarewegoingback]

Wow, I'm gone for a day and we have so many new families, YEAH!! The more crazy dis people the better this will be. Although I've never been on DCL, I have a feeling that just knowing all of you on board will make it so much more fun. My DH can't believe we're like what around 100 people!

Welcome back hypermommy! It seemed to be so quiet without you.

Thanks for finding out about pirate night, it definitely helps with planning! I also totally bring the medicine box with me, even when it's just WDW. Although, one time I needed motrin at HS and it actually didn't cost that much. But had to get nyquil at POP and man that was expensive.

Now that folks are making their reservations, it really does seem so much more real. 105 days!! Yippee! I remember booking this last March! Now I have to figure out my ADRs for our post DCL stay.

-Virginia

 

[Travelbee]

Okay, it's official. I've been around that King I'm married too for just waaaaaaaaayyyyyyy too long. My very first thought on learning that you were saving $1K by not having a b-day party was "and you're spending how much to save that $1K?". I can just hear him saying that and giving me that "tell me again how you're saving money by spending it" look he has.

Arrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!! This is terrible. I'm supposed to be right there backing you up on your quite reasonable reasoning and instead I'm starting to think like him. This is worse than getting old!!!!!!!! Oh noooooooooooo!!!!!!!

You had me laughing hard on that one and I just had to show DH. But don't ever change that mentality of "saving money by spending it"... it's what gets us going (or dragging our DH on these trips)!!

 

[sandiegosusie]

Got my Palo reservations! Dinner for 2 and a brunch for 4 (my room is linked with my BILs) but only we have the REAS so I was surprised that I could book it for the 4 of us.

I will also be travelling with 2 more 9 y.o. girls so feel free to PM me as well - my daughter and niece would also like to connect with some new friends. If anyone has a 4 y.o. girl, I have one of those too......

I vote for Sept. 30th as the cutoff date for the FE. I plan to ship my box from Canada so would like a little extra time....

SandiegoSusie: You asked about the treats I had in mind....Well my mom is sewing up some tote bags that I plan to fill up with sand toys and they'll be waiting in the staterooms. I'll go down early - leaving the husbands with the girls at the pool. Well, that's the plan anyways. I also picked up some great bath stuff on clearance at our Disney store (that has now closed ) that Tinkerbell will be leaving in the bathroom for the girls.

It's starting to come together!!!!

Yippee,
Lisa

Lisa,
I have a 4 year-old that would love a friend. She turns 5 in December but I think I may keep her with the 3-4 year olds in the club.

Love the Tink bathroom idea. I have bought Tink stuff to make 2 baskets for the girls that I will ship down. Busy trying to keep that out of the way. I found pjs, chapstick, books, purses, pony holders, all kinds of garb.

I was thinking it might be fun to make up t-shirts for all the 8-9 year old girls since there are so many of them. There is a great discreator on the boards that does cool name shirts. If anyone else likes this idea, let me know and I can request the designs from her after we choose them. We can just iron them on shirts for our own girls since we know sizes and all. I just thought that since there are soooo many of them, it might help them remember names...

Glad you got your ressies...keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of us!

 

[sandiegosusie]

Oh, I just remembered something I wanted to mention but keep forgetting. Someone was talking about getting the characters to sign pillowcases and that's a capital idea. But another idea that I read somewhere is to get one of those large frame mattings from a craft store (like Michael's or whatever your local store is.... Walmart might even have them) and give that to guest services with a Sharpie marker. We did that but gave them several markers. I also left a note with guest services saying that we wanted the characters to sign it in portrait orientation (as opposed to landscape). We got it back the last day (if memory serves it was even delivered to our room) with lots and lots of signatures of all the characters that were on the ship. Now that matting is in a frame with our picture from semi-formal night (our favorite pic) and that's up on the wall. It's a great souvenier and is darn near free.....

... except for the picture which I believe KC calls his $500 picture. LOL

Anyway... just another idea for y'all to consider.

We did the pillowcase on our first cruise. On our second, we bought a Disney hardcover book from Costco and had the characters sign inside their title page. The girls love it! I was thinking of bringing pens for the girls to have their new club/lab friends sign on the last day...I just can't remember what kind of pens to buy? Any reccomendations?

 

[Hypermommy]

I have a 4 year-old that would love a friend. She turns 5 in December but I think I may keep her with the 3-4 year olds in the club.

Hey there... don't forget that I've added a page in the workbook now where y'all can share your IM addys. I was thinking it'd be a great way for the girls (and any other kids) to get to know each other -- let mom/dad do the typing while the girls tell them what to say. It'd be kind of a way for them to "meet" before the cruise. Anyway... just hope it's helpful.

I just can't remember what kind of pens to buy? Any reccomendations?

I'd say you want Sharpie markers as they're permanent. But then they might also bleed through the shirt if the kids are signing them while they're being worn. But that's what I think my guys have had their shirts signed with. This is something they did at the end of school -- especially when I wouldn't buy a yearbook. Sorry kid.... you don't need a $50+ yearbook for MIDDLE SCHOOL. Puh-leeze! I'll get 'em in high school for them but middle school? I don't think so. LOL

About the workbook
Oh, I found out that the workbook (it's not just a spreadsheet anymore) invitations come from my google account. The account is designsbycrazydiamond AT gmail DOT com. So new folks, that's who it comes from - not google itself.

Unknown workbook request
I got a request for access to the workbook from an email addy of vaseidng AT gmail DOT com. Y'all will have to forgive me... you know I only have one or two brain cells left. Whoever's addy this is please claim it on here so I can know that one of our DISboard cruisemates goes with that addy and it's not just some random person wanting access. Please forgive the inconvenience. New folks, you may not know it but I'm phobic about other people's data. I know, I know.... all of you old hands are tired of hearing it I'm sure. But I know how carefully I guarded my kids' information and images when they were little. Now that they're 15 and 13 I figure it's probably safe enough but I remember what I was like when they were 8 and 10. Of course now whoever would steal them would bring them right back because the cost of buying them food for a week is almost more than the cruise.

Wonder if I should give Disney a heads-up about how much these two can eat.................

 

[mommyarewegoingback]

Unknown workbook request
I got a request for access to the workbook from an email addy of vaseidng AT gmail DOT com. Y'all will have to forgive me... you know I only have one or two brain cells left. Whoever's addy this is please claim it on here so I can know that one of our DISboard cruisemate.

That's me! I also sent PM to mousemom11 who got me taken care of! I was making some updates and wanted to see the counts.

Questions about Secret Mickey's... There were really only the contact Dis'ers information on that page. Were we doing this by family or were we doing it with any adults from our group, like my DH included?

-Virginia

 

[glindamood]

Questions about Secret Mickey's... There were really only the contact Dis'ers information on that page. Were we doing this by family or were we doing it with any adults from our group, like my DH included?

-Virginia

There is a Secret Mickey tab on the spreadsheet where you need to sign up. It is an individual activity and open to any adult that would like to participate, just remember that everyone participates as an individual. I have copied the original email below so that everyone understands - and doesn't have to go back through and find it.

The news on Secret Mickey's has finally arrived. Sandiegosusie and I have talked (well, typed) and this is what we have come up with.

1. SM is open to adults - assignments will be made ladies to ladies and the guys to guys.

2. At least three deliveries should be made with a total $$ amount to be spent around $35.00 (that is total for all gifts).

3. Hypermommy added a tab on our group spreadsheet - if you wish to participate, please fill out a line and add anything you think helpful in additional columns. Better yet, if we have missed something, let me know and I can add a column specifically for the subject.

4. Those of you with guaranteed rooms, please let us know once you get your cabin number. Those that choose to upgrade at the port, call my cabin so that I can get the info to your SM.

5. The cutoff for participation is 10/20. That will give us time to make the connections and let everyone know who their SM is by the end of October.

6. The "reveal" will take place at our group lunch in Lumiere's on Thursday. If you can't attend, please let your SM know who you were.

Well, I think that covers it. Any questions - please let me know. I can't wait!
__________________

 

[mrp4352]

No cut-off established yet, but I am thinking that September 30th is a good date. For those of us who are ordering them, that would give enough lead time for ordering, shipping, and assembly.

I agree we need a cutoff date, but would 30 days out be better? 6 weeks out just seems like a really long time...

Also - I'm in shock - we've filled over 3 pages since I got off work Friday - and it's just Sunday morning!! I think the reality of the cruise being so close is hitting!