4/24/2010 Med cruise: Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your Ears

[Californiacruisers]

Kansas City family going on this cruise:

Brian (36), Vanessa (38), Mason (8), and Judy (67) "Gammy"

Welcome from California. Our DS is 8 also... looking forward to meeting you

 

[grlzmom]

Hey fellow MED cruisers!

Still having a wonderful time on the TA cruise.

Seas are rougher last night/this a.m. with bridge report of 8-13 ft swells.

Makes for nice waves in the pool which of course kids and adults both seem to love.

Chilly and I think we are behind a "stalled front" with another approaching us from behind.

Lots of activities, the Platinum Galley/Stores tour was incredible and I loved it!

Never a dull moment, plenty to do and making lots of new DIS buddies.

Sorry for everyone that is sick Hope you recover quickly.

Kids are wearing the radio frequency bands in the club/lab which are fine but dd7 who has the limbs of a toothpick doesn't find them all to enjoyable to wear as they are bulkier than a regular wristband and they are harder to hide in pictures and if you wear seabands they interfere with placement. FYI, my ds7 was mistaken for another child with a "cough" and his wrist band was flagged "red" when we tried to check him in and we were questioned about his "illness". The counselors who accidentally flagged him straightened it out of course but they are able to flag the kids via wrist band and prevent check in before discussing issues with parents which of course is a good thing

Dining room food in my opinion is a little off in quality compared to our other recent cruises. While some items are great others have been not so great.
Glad we switched to late dining, early never would have worked and we are finding ourselves barely getting to the 8:30 seating. Where does the day go?

DCL Dooney and Bourke bag released yesterday and myself and other purse fans were on hand in the gift shop to snatch them up.

Villians night tonight and even with the poor reviews I've read we are really looking forward to something new and different.

Wishing you all a wonderful day and soon you will be onboard

 

[dolphingirl47]

Kansas City family going on this cruise:

Brian (36), Vanessa (38), Mason (8), and Judy (67) "Gammy"

on board

Wow, lucky. I hope they call me!

Some news on the Brit Air situation. I called them this evening, and they said they're only refunding flights through Saturday, and call back. I was set to make changes, but not luck.

So if anyone hears about them offering refunds for early next week, please let me know! Thanks,
Julie

I am on my way to work shortly. I work for an airline and yesterday we were also given the guidelines for a number of other airlines including BA. Through the bank, yesterday full refunds were allowed for departures yesterday and today, but changes could be made free of charge up to including April 30th. I will keep my eyes peeled for further updates and will post as and when I find something out.

Thought you all might like to see my strange but cool Fish Extender, and the booklet that I made for the cruise!

I love both the booklet and the Fish Extender.

Depression has settled in here. I am fully expecting that I will not make the cruise. The media here widely reports that they expect the current situation with the volcanic ash to continue for at least another week. I suppose we could even still fly on Saturday morning as we are only two hours away from Barcelona, but even once the airspace reopens, there will be aircrafts and people in the wrong places. I hope I am wrong, but I am fully expecting that the Magic will sail without us.

Corinna

 

[skoi]

Corinna: I hope that's not the case. If it still looks awful mid-week, could you take the train-ferry-train to Barcelona? It would be a long trip, but is it an option?

Thanks for the offer to update us. If I could just not show up on the inbound and book another airline now.

 

[skoi]

Dicecatt:

Very cool FE. I'm just ironing transfers onto bags, and I haven't done it yet.

Julie

 

[Mineu]

Dicecatt: Please do not flash your wonderful notebooks around- I just stapled my notes together-my group will fire me as their leader if they see yours! and we joined too late to get into a FE group-so they will really be upset if they hear about that!!!

Really-your notebooks and FE look great!

 

[linkandclover]

Does anyone have any new information about flights to London for next week?

 

[Mineu]

Sorry-can't get the link posted but you can probably find it on google-or at the individual airline sites.
http://*******.com/y3g3qff>
~Plus, for travelers' convenience, Airfarewatchdog has provided a list of links to travel waivers, statements, and other pertinent information that has been issued for travel to and from Europe.

 

[linkandclover]

Sorry-can't get the link posted but you can probably find it on google-or at the individual airline sites.
http://*******.com/y3g3qff>
~Plus, for travelers' convenience, Airfarewatchdog has provided a list of links to travel waivers, statements, and other pertinent information that has been issued for travel to and from Europe.

Just spoke with British Airway. They expect to be flying at full capacity by April 20

 

[skoi]

Just spoke with British Airway. They expect to be flying at full capacity by April 20

Well this is sort of good news, as this is the day we're supposed to leave. But I have to imagine it's going to be crazy trying to get on a flight with everyone who hasn't been able to fly.

I couldn't get through to anyone at Brit Air on the phone, email, and even trying to cancel the tickets via the website. Not that I was going to cancel, just wanted to see.

Julie

 

[Giant talking head]

Just spoke with British Airway. They expect to be flying at full capacity by April 20

Gosh, I hope this is true If things don't clear up in a couple of days -- they'll never have the flights that we are booked on running in time for us to make the trip I've looked into other flights that as of today are reasonable rates and are running -- but we cannot cancel our flights yet and get any refund. The longer we have to wait the higher the price of the flights will be I'm very disappointed today -- our first ever dream cruise is turning into a nightmare Called Disney to find out about when we will have to cancel our excursions as I don't want to be billed for them if we can't make the trip... anything that I could find in writing said 72 hours or Wednesday morning.. but as I explained to Disney - we may not know if we will be able to fly until the last minute. They assured me that if we don't board the ship - we won't be charge for the almost $ 2,000 I have planned in Disney excursions.. which I suppose is good news given that it would at least cut some of our loss. The cruise - well -- we'll burn for that ... so it seems. Please everyone - let's all make a "Wishes" wish and hope that the skies clear for everyone headed to the Med.

 

[NC_Tink]

Just spoke with British Airway. They expect to be flying at full capacity by April 20

Oh - I really hope this is the case because that's when we, too, are supposed to fly to London for our 3 day pre-trip! I've been stressing like crazy about this - drank a very full glass of wine last night and snacked myself out of house and home I'm not a stress eater or anything So, I'm going to hope for the best - plan my contingencies and hope that Mother Nature is cooperative!

 

[sabrecmc]

I'm on the May 5 cruise, but we are supposed to fly out next Saturday the 24th for Paris. Like many of you, I've been watching the situation quite closely. That's good to hear about British Airways. Here's hoping!

 

[skoi]

GTH- I feel your hysteria and return it! I tried to cancel my flight with BA last night to rebook and they wouldn't refund the tickets at that point, doesn't matter that if they decide to cancel Sunday for Tuesday it'll be near impossible to rebook.

So I'm going to check back after 8:00 PM Eastern when the message on the phone line (I couldn't even get to the busy signal, forget the voice menu or an agent) said a decision should be made about future dates. No option to stay on the phone (and I have a land line, so I could wait all day)

And I couldn't get through on the website- just to see, after the message instructed to use BA.com, I tried to start the "cancel your flight" process, but I couldn't access the page. The servers are overloaded, maybe?

But I keep telling myself, if getting to my vacation is my biggest worry, I'm lucky.

(Of course that doesn't make me feel any better and I'm so glad I have people to commiserate with here.)

Julie

 

[auntshell]

Welcome Brian, Vanessa, Mason and Gammy...=)
we just found this site a few weeks ago and we love it... can't wait to see everyone on the cruise real soon...hopefully if the ASH takes a hike....

 

[auntshell]

Dicecatt...... Very nice....love them both....=)

 

[auntshell]

Oh - I really hope this is the case because that's when we, too, are supposed to fly to London for our 3 day pre-trip! I've been stressing like crazy about this - drank a very full glass of wine last night and snacked myself out of house and home I'm not a stress eater or anything So, I'm going to hope for the best - plan my contingencies and hope that Mother Nature is cooperative!

Hope so...we are leaving Seattle on 23rd...fingers crossed...I don't want to miss the cruise either....Darn Ash, go away...lets all huff and puff and blow the ash away....=)

 

[Becx N Gav]

Gosh, I hope this is true If things don't clear up in a couple of days -- they'll never have the flights that we are booked on running in time for us to make the trip I've looked into other flights that as of today are reasonable rates and are running -- but we cannot cancel our flights yet and get any refund. The longer we have to wait the higher the price of the flights will be I'm very disappointed today -- our first ever dream cruise is turning into a nightmare Called Disney to find out about when we will have to cancel our excursions as I don't want to be billed for them if we can't make the trip... anything that I could find in writing said 72 hours or Wednesday morning.. but as I explained to Disney - we may not know if we will be able to fly until the last minute. They assured me that if we don't board the ship - we won't be charge for the almost $ 2,000 I have planned in Disney excursions.. which I suppose is good news given that it would at least cut some of our loss. The cruise - well -- we'll burn for that ... so it seems. Please everyone - let's all make a "Wishes" wish and hope that the skies clear for everyone headed to the Med.

I'm with you on that, looking at alternative ways to get to Barcelona by land and sea - it's gonna cost a fair bit and that's if anything is available and we know far enough ahead of time

Hope so...we are leaving Seattle on 23rd...fingers crossed...I don't want to miss the cruise either....Darn Ash, go away...lets all huff and puff and blow the ash away....=)

I was thinking if enough people over here blew or turned on fans at the same time it might shift it north

It seems the updates are every 12 hours or so i.e. they grounded planes for 12 hours and then extened it by 12 hours. Some transatlanic flights have gone from Scotland and Northern Ireland where they have had a gap in the ash! I'm hoping it settles down and things are back to normal early next week to give the airlines time to catch up.

Wishing everyone luck and lots of pixie dust - I don't want to miss the cruise

 

[mrosen]

Oh - I really hope this is the case because that's when we, too, are supposed to fly to London for our 3 day pre-trip! I've been stressing like crazy about this - drank a very full glass of wine last night and snacked myself out of house and home I'm not a stress eater or anything So, I'm going to hope for the best - plan my contingencies and hope that Mother Nature is cooperative!

I echo that sentiment and hope its the case these flight start back on 20th. We are on a flight on the 20th to London and then on 21st from London to Barcelona. I too have been stressing. Would like to know what ideas on "contigencies" you have. I feel like we have none. We can't change flights or we'll loose money since airlines haven't cancelled yet anything this far out and I would imagine at some point as others have commented, either the increased airfare costs we would have to pay (assuming we could find an alternative flight given the volume of people impacted) would be hard to swallow or we won't find an alternative option.

I am hoping that by Tuesday this has cleared up and we can get on our flight as planned that evening to fly to London.

 

[linkandclover]

I echo that sentiment and hope its the case these flight start back on 20th. We are on a flight on the 20th to London and then on 21st from London to Barcelona. I too have been stressing. Would like to know what ideas on "contigencies" you have. I feel like we have none. We can't change flights or we'll loose money since airlines haven't cancelled yet anything this far out and I would imagine at some point as others have commented, either the increased airfare costs we would have to pay (assuming we could find an alternative flight given the volume of people impacted) would be hard to swallow or we won't find an alternative option.

I am hoping that by Tuesday this has cleared up and we can get on our flight as planned that evening to fly to London.

I am struggling with the idea of booking another flight or not. I can't afford to spend that kind of money but also cannot fathom wasting the money on not going. I keep trying to talk to DH but he is not ready to even listen because after all that is still days away.