7-Night Western Caribbean Cruise July 25 - August 1, 2009

[Princess Runner]

I looked into Carmen's last year dress but is a 5 - 6, if you are going to Disney, stop by Downtown Disney and you may be able to buy it in special, they always have more than any of the other stores! or you can stop by Marshalls or Target, they do carry Princess Dresses. Good luck on this one!

 

[Princess Runner]

We are leaving early Saturday, since we are 4 hours away, everything is pack for the most part, the guys had haircuts and I am going for my mani/pedi tomorrow, I can't believe the trip is almost her! See you all at the meet!

 

[Kwalters]

all the clothes are in piles and waiting to jump into the suitecases!

we leave first thing in the morning also.....driving to downtown Disney to spend the night before heading over to the port in the morning!!

On my way now to get a manicure and pedicure.........gotta look good for Mickey!!!

Safe travels to everyone!

Alicia nd I JUST got back from getting our manicures and pedicures too!!!

 

[ZCrew]

I am very sorry that I just sent you the FE list today. Oh my, been really busy. Hope its not too late.
To everyone, I printed the FE list with the deck plan and will distribute in the DisMeet at 3 In Promenade.

No problem. It is not too late. We are just about packed and will fly out tomorrow early afternoon to Orlando. One night at the Hyatt and then off to the port. Whooohoooo! It's so close I can smell the salt water.

 

[marchdreamer]

I cannot believe we leave tomorrow!!! I cannot wait to see everyone! Most everything is packed and what is forgotten we'll have to do without or buy. See you soon...

 

[Susan C]

Hello,

Our DVC guide just called us here at SSR and told us we have been upgraded on the ship ... Susan C, Ron and RJ are now in 5632.. we will write our new number on the FE gifts we have for you..

Guess what...I saw Nikki and her new hubby at Animal Kingdom today.. such sweethearts..

See all tomorrow

Susan

 

[moet7]

Hello,

Our DVC guide just called us here at SSR and told us we have been upgraded on the ship ... Susan C, Ron and RJ are now in 5632.. we will write our new number on the FE gifts we have for you..

Guess what...I saw Nikki and her new hubby at Animal Kingdom today.. such sweethearts..

See all tomorrow

Susan

CONGRATS! on the upgrade. What a wonderful FREE surprise that must have been!

I noted your stateroom change on my list!

What are the odds that you would run into Nikki, how funny was that???

Just got in from shopping at Downtown Disney..........waiting on my oldest son to arrive. He is flying in from Ohio.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

 

[wideeyedwonder]

Congrats, Susan!

We are currently chillin' at the Orlando Airport Hyatt. I'm still up because I'm on Pacific time...we had a bit of thunderstorms earlier today in Orlando, so we couldn't use the Hyatt's pool.

We are ready and rarin' to go, and look forward to seeing you all tomorrow, and throughour the cruise! About 12 more hours or so to go!

 

[wideeyedwonder]

See you all in a few hours...we're on the Disney cruise bus on our way to the ship right now!

UPDATE: We got an upgrade, we are now in room 8022!!!

 

[MCourtney]

See you all in a few hours...we're on the Disney cruise bus on our way to the ship right now!

UPDATE: We got an upgrade, we are now in room 8022!!!

Hi! Congrats on the great upgrade We have some friends on the cruise with you, and I encouraged them to get to the port EARLY to see about upgrading (family of 5 in a Cat. 4). I don't think they got there until 11:15 or so. Did they offer you other rooms too, or just the Cat. 1? Just wondering if there was a chance our friends were able to get into a suite. They may be a bit smushed for a week otherwise

 

[wideeyedwonder]

Hi! Congrats on the great upgrade We have some friends on the cruise with you, and I encouraged them to get to the port EARLY to see about upgrading (family of 5 in a Cat. 4). I don't think they got there until 11:15 or so. Did they offer you other rooms too, or just the Cat. 1? Just wondering if there was a chance our friends were able to get into a suite. They may be a bit smushed for a week otherwise

(Posting from the ship...)

We ended up getting a Cat3...we are usually happy with a cat4, but being able to upgrade to a cat3 (at additional cost, of course) is icing on the cake to a so far wonderful cruise...we've met so many DISers, the cast members are wonderful, our excursions have been awesome, and the FE exchange has brought many a smile to us coming back to our cabin. we just got back from pirate night, and the kids had a blast!

 

[Kwalters]

well, we are home... but we did book while on board !!!!
It was wonderful to meet all of you!!! The fish extender gifts were great and we had alot of fun giving and receiving! THANK YOU to all who participated!

 

[Hillaryone]

We are home too. Thanks to all who participated in the FE exchange. We loved all the neat surprises left at our door. We hope you liked ours too.
We loved the Magic so much that we book on the Wonder for next summer.
(We have to wait until next summer... Mickey has all our money now!)

 

[Princess Runner]

Yeap! home already for 2 days now, it took only 3 driving hours to get to Miami, still doing laundry...wanted to share the pic with you, what a greast time we have, I already had the "Perfect Pot" of coffee and proudly displayed our Mickey bottle opener in the bar, saved the pirate bags and the cute magnets, had some of the M & Ms from 25 years ago and those delicious Belgiam Chocolates, looking at the mail box and the bus (this is DS 16 favorite FE gift) will print some special pics for the mini album, and I had listen to the Smooth Sailing Sounds.
We have a Thanksgiving cruise plan, got it free trough DVC so here we go again, looked into the next Western forum leaving on the 8 and they are not as organize as we were, made me proud, thank you guys. God bless you many, many times!!! Elcka

 

[Princess Runner]

This is one of the pics from our 5K in Castaway Cay, so proud of it, we got lost so instead of running 3.1 miles we ended doing 4.25, you figure the guide (cast member) would have stop and wait!!!! manage to run a couple times during the trip so I guess didn't do that bad! sorry you have to tilt your head to see it!

 

[my3m]

Hello everyone,
Back to work today. And guess how many loads of laundry I had
Hope everyone is back home safe and sound.
Thank you all very much for all the nice FE gifts. My baby had fun, een my 2 teens.
They were very surprised with the magnets (Thanks Anna).
Anyone doing any TRs?
I am busy preparing for Marielle's 2nd birthday party and after this occasion, I am hoping I could update our Multiply site. I have most of you's email and will send you the link once I posted it.
Again, thank you my dearest DIS friends and fellow FE cruisers. Till We Meet again.

 

[NikkiLovesWDW!]

Hi everyone! It was so nice meeting those of you who I ran into on the cruise! I will post pics when I get them uploaded. I'm also doing a TR which includes the wedding, WDW and the cruise so if you would like to read, the link is in my sig.

ALSO, I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH to those of you who found my room and left me gifts even though I wasn't technically part of the gift exchange!! That was so thoughtful and I really appreciated it!

 

[moet7]

Hi Everyone!

First off......loved meeting all of you and the FE gifts were fantastic! It was like Christmas/Halloween each day when we returned to our stateroom.

Everyone was very creative in what you gave and we used many of the items we received during the cruise.

There was one gift that I have no idea who gave it to us and I wanted to give a shout out of thanks for it, as it was very nice. It was a metal container with two rings on the top of it. It was placed in a blue round box and left by our door.

Thank you to all who gave us Anniversary Cards,,,,,,very much appreicated. Disney even gave us an 8 x 10 picture of all the characters with all of their autographs on it and it was personalized with our names on the top of it wishing us a happy anniversary. We of course also received the cake in the dinning room. Along with a gift from our children. They arranged to have it presented to us at the formal night dinner.

Princess Runner - It was great meeting you and running the 5K+ with you. Did you ever get a certificate for running it? I called guest services about it and they said they would look into it and if I was to get one they would deliever it to me.....never got one!

Wideyedwonder - Saw your pics on the 4 elements posting. thanks for not putting mine up! I'm sure I looked horrible in it!!!! LOL but wasn't that the best experience for an excursion??? LOVED IT as did everyone in the family. so glad we all did it and glad your wife was able to talk the guy down in price for the pics.....the pics my DH took came out pretty well, so I'm not to disappointed that I didn't get the ones they took.

Meet Nikki and Tom on Castaway Cay.......been reading your trip report and loving it....love the little hints of disney you put into your wedding.

We went to Universal after we got off the ship.........Saturday was crazy busy there........most things had an hour to an hour and a 1/2 wait. this was in Islands of Adventure. We stayed there until 4:00 then had dinner at the Hard Rock and headed over to Universal.......lines there weren't as bad.

On Sunday we went back and started out again at IOA and the lines were no more that 15 to 20 min. long. Stayed until around 1:00, had lunch and finished out the rest of the day at Universal were the lines were also no more than 20 min.

I guess Sunday must be a travel day for people so the parks weren't busy.

Didn't really care much for IOA.......and we all HATED that Express Line......you have to pay extra to get on the rides, not like Disney were you can get a fast pass for FREE..........Universal is much nicer than IOA, but it's still not Disney.......the employees just don't have that "disney" magic in my opinion. On one ride as we were waiting in line, two of the employees were fliting with each other.....something you would NEVER see at Disney..........but we did enjoy our day there at Universal.

Got home on Monday to lots of

Then on Tuesday my washer which is just 1 1/2 years old stopped working!!!!

Not a good time to be without a washer.......I still need to do laundry for 2 more of us.

We all had a magical time on the cruise and it was a great way to celebrate our anniversary..........in fact we had such a great time, my DH told me to go ahead and book another cruise to celebrate my 50th birthday......it's not for a few years yet, so I booked a fake date and will be changing it over once the dates are open. Would love to sail on one of the new ships, and would love to go some place new.

Thanks to my3m for putting togeter the FE list and to princessrunner for putting together the dismeet!

Once again....LOVED meeting all of you and looking forward to seeing you all on the boards or on a future cruise!

 

[Princess Runner]

Hi Everyone!

First off......loved meeting all of you and the FE gifts were fantastic! It was like Christmas/Halloween each day when we returned to our stateroom.

Everyone was very creative in what you gave and we used many of the items we received during the cruise.

There was one gift that I have no idea who gave it to us and I wanted to give a shout out of thanks for it, as it was very nice. It was a metal container with two rings on the top of it. It was placed in a blue round box and left by our door.

Thank you to all who gave us Anniversary Cards,,,,,,very much appreicated. Disney even gave us an 8 x 10 picture of all the characters with all of their autographs on it and it was personalized with our names on the top of it wishing us a happy anniversary. We of course also received the cake in the dinning room. Along with a gift from our children. They arranged to have it presented to us at the formal night dinner.

Princess Runner - It was great meeting you and running the 5K+ with you. Did you ever get a certificate for running it? I called guest services about it and they said they would look into it and if I was to get one they would deliever it to me.....never got one!

Wideyedwonder - Saw your pics on the 4 elements posting. thanks for not putting mine up! I'm sure I looked horrible in it!!!! LOL but wasn't that the best experience for an excursion??? LOVED IT as did everyone in the family. so glad we all did it and glad your wife was able to talk the guy down in price for the pics.....the pics my DH took came out pretty well, so I'm not to disappointed that I didn't get the ones they took.

Meet Nikki and Tom on Castaway Cay.......been reading your trip report and loving it....love the little hints of disney you put into your wedding.

We went to Universal after we got off the ship.........Saturday was crazy busy there........most things had an hour to an hour and a 1/2 wait. this was in Islands of Adventure. We stayed there until 4:00 then had dinner at the Hard Rock and headed over to Universal.......lines there weren't as bad.

On Sunday we went back and started out again at IOA and the lines were no more that 15 to 20 min. long. Stayed until around 1:00, had lunch and finished out the rest of the day at Universal were the lines were also no more than 20 min.

I guess Sunday must be a travel day for people so the parks weren't busy.

Didn't really care much for IOA.......and we all HATED that Express Line......you have to pay extra to get on the rides, not like Disney were you can get a fast pass for FREE..........Universal is much nicer than IOA, but it's still not Disney.......the employees just don't have that "disney" magic in my opinion. On one ride as we were waiting in line, two of the employees were fliting with each other.....something you would NEVER see at Disney..........but we did enjoy our day there at Universal.

Got home on Monday to lots of

Then on Tuesday my washer which is just 1 1/2 years old stopped working!!!!

Not a good time to be without a washer.......I still need to do laundry for 2 more of us.

We all had a magical time on the cruise and it was a great way to celebrate our anniversary..........in fact we had such a great time, my DH told me to go ahead and book another cruise to celebrate my 50th birthday......it's not for a few years yet, so I booked a fake date and will be changing it over once the dates are open. Would love to sail on one of the new ships, and would love to go some place new.

Thanks to my3m for putting togeter the FE list and to princessrunner for putting together the dismeet!

Once again....LOVED meeting all of you and looking forward to seeing you all on the boards or on a future cruise!

Ha! you bet I got that certificate, we stood in guest services desk until they print them for us!! hope you like the pic PM if you like for me to e-mail it to you.
Love

 

[wideeyedwonder]

Thank you to all who gave us Anniversary Cards

I have to know...what is the story with the "green M&Ms"?

That was such a great cruise...the first half seemed "normal", time wise, but the second half seemed to go at warp speed! Even on debarkation day, we weren't ready to leave! On board, we re-booked for the westbound transatlantic RePo, maybe THAT will finally give us our fill (5 sea days, oy vey!)

Actually, the one I REALLY want is the next Panama Canal RePo...now THAT would be cool!

Wideyedwonder - Saw your pics on the 4 elements posting. thanks for not putting mine up! I'm sure I looked horrible in it!!!! LOL but wasn't that the best experience for an excursion??? LOVED IT as did everyone in the family.

The 4 Elements was one of the best excursions we've ever taken...my wife didn't know what to expect, but she came back from it suitably impressed! Highly recommended for the more adventurous out there. I couldn't believe how deep some of those crevasses in the Cenotes (water filled caves) seemed to go!

And thanks to everyone who participated in the FE exchange...my wife knew nothing about it until a day or two before, but she got really into it when she saw how it was playing out (she's the one who decided on the Mickey bottle openers, we saved one for ourselves).

Speaking of which, I can't believe that we forgot to leave one for Nicki and Tom.


phmce, if you are out there, I have a few really cool pictures of your daughter, our daughter, and Meridith, let me know how I can get them to you!

moet, the picture I took of you came out really nice, and in the background is a guide holding a sign that reads "4 elements zip line". Let me know if you want a copy as well!

FE participants, I have pictures of all of the FE's and door decorations (at least those on the FE list), let me know if you would be interested in having me post them.