12/10/05 ~ Anyone else cruising.....??

[lbgraves]

NO! NO! NO! Don't do that John!!! I promised her that I would not start packing yet. I think that I told her on the last cruise that I was done with the kid's gifts already & just needed to pick up things for relatives & teachers. Tell her to send me her list & I will help her shop.

 

[missmulan]

i forget we are on different time zones....i'm in california so it's still early here.

what other deals board are you on?

 

[lbgraves]

I am at flamingoworld.com. It's a nice group of people who bargain hunt...like us.

 

[lbgraves]

If I don't reply to you, I'm not being rude. I need to get some sleep here on the east coast. Night!

 

[missmulan]

i am on slickdeals. it gets brutal there. some people are relentless and others are outright rude. i don't mind it...when i am there i wear a different hat...and when i'm here i wear my ears...

 

[lbgraves]

That is one thing they wont tollerate at FW. Come on over some day. Alot of the other forums swipe things from our board.

 

[MrsMork]

We've taken our grandkids out of school twice a year for the past 4 years for Disney trips. DW in Dec and Disneyland in May. Our oldest started High School this year, so that had to stop. The deal was that their grades had to be good, they had to be up on all their work and had to get assignments from teachers and have it turned in right after we got back. Dec was usually easy as they had Christmas break to work on it. May they had to work on it in the van on the way home (2 day drive) because they were nearing the end of school. Never hurt them. BTW, we are raising 2 of our grandchildren which is the reason we take them with us regularly. This year we moved our Disneyland trip to June after school is out. Not looking forward to dealing with the crowds. We really have never been concerned about what other people thought about us taking them out of school, we just do what is right for our family.

 

[MrsMork]

Whoa! We are getting lost on page 2 there. Bump for us.

 

[lillygator]

Well, I just added the REAS to our cruise....I think making the spa and Palo ressies ahead of time will be loads off my mind.....

 

[lillygator]

oh and still no Disney Princess yet.....

 

[lbgraves]

I sincerely hope that you don't have to wait until *my* birthday to have your little princess yet. With a little one, it probably will make it easier for you. I was surprised how easy & nonstressful the entire process was. Of course, we were in the queue outside the ears in the terminal & went right to the bar to make our resies then ate lunch. I had to go to three tables...Palo dinner, Palo brunch, server requests. It took no more than 10 minutes from getting in the line to walking out the door.

 

[lillygator]

I was figuring on having to run around doing the following:
Palo dinner and brunch
Spa
Flounder's
Oceaneer's Club

Now one of us can go to Flounder's and one to OC...we were the first in line at Flounder's last cruise!

 

[lbgraves]

Did you know that you can sign the kids up in the terminal now? Not sure about Flounder's but they should definitely have the kinks worked out of the sign up by the time we go. It had only been done for 2 weeks when we went 12/4 and I opted to just go to the club after lunch. It only took 10 minutes, especially since DH picked up a form in the terminal so I had it all filled out. Maybe they can start doing flounder signups too?

Not sure if we will do dinner at Palo this time but the brunch is a definite part of the plan!!! I might make a resi & see how DD & John's DD are with the club. If they don't care to go again then we can cancel it. Who knows, they will be a year older & little kids can change alot in that time. This morning I didn't even set foot in DD's PS class when I dropped her off. I can't remember the last time that happened. It seemed that she really regresssed after the cruise & started in with the crying & clingy stuff again. It's not like we forced them to stay. After we had brunch, I don't think they even went back on their own again. They will be in the same group with DS in December so maybe that will help us out???

 

[cristit14]

I went downtown this morning and picked up our "Disney Cruise Pack" that we won from the radio station for qualifying for the Repo cruise. It included a DCL beach towel, baseball cap, softsided cooler and a very small personal radio. Other than the cheap radio everything is pretty good. DH was hoping that it had a good discount for a cruise in there. Hey, we are better off now than before we tried to win the cruise. Of course I did have to pay $2.00 to park for the 15 minutes that it took me to run in and get the prize and I had to drive downtown. I hate driving downtown.

So, Lisa, have you done both Palo brunch and dinner? We didn't do either one last cruise since we were only on a four day. I am thinking about doing the REAS and if we do we will do both dinner and brunch. If I don't do REAS though we will probably only do one of them and I am leaning towards the brunch. It sounds really good. Hopefully, by next year your DD will do better in the club. Having her big brother there should help. Hopefully, my DS will want to stay. He didn't do too bad last time, but he didn't have any friends in there so he didn't want to stay as long as DD did. Maybe this year he can hook up with your DS since they will both be 7.

 

[lbgraves]

I just told DS about your DS being the same age & he is really excited about making a new friend on the ship. They will have to email a little bit before we go.

We did go to dinner at Palo thanks to John & his wife. The girls were suppose to go to the club but his DD fell asleep at dinner so our DD just hung out with them at the table enjoying a Mickey Bar before they ended up on deck 9 dancing to the band that was set up. Dinner was fantastic. Sasha took very good care of us & brought out alot more food than we ordered. LOL! Everything was wonderful! I had the filet, shrimp salad, souffle, prichetta pizza...NOTHING was bad and I am a picky eater. Brunch on the otherhand was an adventure. The four of us dropped off the girls, promising that they wouldn't have to go again after this, and really enjoyed everything. I like the fact that you can have a little bit of everything instead of just settling on one or two things. There is a bread display, a cheese display, a fruit display, deserts of course, & then there are the menu items. The pizzas are really good & the sliced filet that they have a brunch is also very good. You are taken on a tour of the displays if that tells you anything about how much food there is. LOL! We have pictures but they aren't downloaded or printed yet.

We didn't go to Palo on our first cruise...no I did high tea with the DIS ladies. It was no charge then & was pretty good but we were rushed thru it so I wouldn't care to go to that again. It did ruin my dinner for that night, which greatly concerned our server since I wasn't eating very much.

 

[cristit14]

Lisa, I mentioned to DS about your son being excited to have him for a friend on the ship and he says, "He wants to be my friend?" He is pretty excited too. DD is hoping to have a friend too. She still emails her friend from the last cruise.

 

[lbgraves]

DS is a very sweet boy who wants to be everyone's friend. He even told me last week that the 5th grader who bullied him was his friend now....I don't think so! When I get all of this recovery work done I will have him sit down with me & sent a note.

 

[lillygator]

For some reason I am just not that interested in the high tea....but I know I would love the brunch and dinner. I need to stay away from these boards...we still have 300+ days to go!! I wish it were sooner....they just came out with some awesome rates for Fl residents for March!!

Has anyone stayed at the Contemporary? We are staying there in March - our first time in a wing room. but I have been reading awful things about it lately...but the difference in price from the Poly is $112 per night....much more than I would like to spend....

 

[cristit14]

We have only been to WDW once and stayed at CBR. I think I would go with the Contemporary instead of the Poly. $112 is a lot of money. How bad can it be? Isn't it considered one of the higher end resorts? I don't know much about the resorts, but when we did land and sea we stayed at a moderate value and I don't remember seeing that one on the list.

I agree about the high tea. It doesn't sound that interesting to me. I would like to go at the other times though.

Time seems to be dragging right now. I am ready to go and have some fun with my new friends.

 

[lbgraves]

Well, we have only stayed at the AS Movies the two times we have been & have been very happy with it. It was even better last time because they had specials for $55 a night. Goodness! I just can't spend that much on a hotel room that we only sleep in.

We were in this same position last year so I know that the time will go by & the cruise will be here before we know it. I have alot to do before then though, so I don't want it to come too quickly.