9/23/06 Let's go!!!! Who's with us???

[strawberryblonde]

Monica and family! My son is 9 and my daughter is 6 so they will be in the same clubs as your youngest two.

Thanks Kathy , but we don't have it humid and muggy right now. Except for the rain, it has been very temperate. I love the weather here.

Happy planning everyone

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Good morning everyone,

Well, we survived another weekend of painting and cleaning, packing and unpacking. It will sure feel good when we are all moved and settled in.
Then I can concentrate more on my door signs and things for the cruise.

I heard lots of songs on the radio while working ,that we have heard on the cruise. So I just kept picturing where I was and what I was doing on the ship when it was playing. I got to relive the last 4 cruises. That was fun and made it easier to get the work done.

I hope all of you had a great weekend.

We are suppose to hit 80 again today, so we are going to have a beautiful day today.

Kathy

 

[Euphscott]

Welcome aboard Monica - it sounds like you will have a great time!

Thanks for the info on the Magical Express Angela. I was not aware of that little nugget. My grandparents live near Orlando, meet us at the airport, and whisk us off to our hotel, so that piece of the puzzle escaped me. That is a significant cost savings as well.

Tropical weather invaded north Texas this weekend - I was very much in the mood to cruise. Throw in my daughter's birthday and we were all very festive. We took her out to eat at a sit down restaurant. We started working on the napkin on a lap, thank yous to the wait staff and so on. We will have a polite little princess by September we do hope!

Have a terrific start to your week all...

 

[sftnslky]

Greetings!Our kids consist of an 11 year old son, an 8 year old son, and 5 year old daughter. We live in New Jersey but we're not from here. Talk to you all later!

Welcome Monica... Just like you we can't wait. While we have five kids only our two younger girls are going with us. Jennah will be 10 and Macy is 7. They actually don't know yet that we are going. They have been on outer cruises [not disney] and didn't have a great time. So this time they know that there aunts and cousions are going but not us. But we did tell them we are considering going [a later month then we actually are] and that if they earn enough points we will probably go. They can earn two points per day. 1 by having a good day at school and completing all their homework & 2 by doing all their chores and NOT FIGHTING with each other and their brothers. they have to earn at least 200 points.

i just hope that Disney is the answer we are looking for. We took the girls last year on the Carnival Pride...and the kids "camp" was literally like a 8x10 room, with a small art table with four chairs.... a small tv with a dvd player, and some board games. They HATED it. And only spent a total of 3 hours in 7 days there. And Macy had just barely [by two weeks] turned 6..so she couldn't stay up for any of the shows..and the dining room WAS NOT kid friendly... as in meals for them. So I only was able to enjoy the dining room 1 night...all the other nights we ordered room service or went to get pizza...or salad and fruit from the buffet. I was never so happy for a cruise to end as I was that one

On a side note I ordered and received the porthole guide [?] book. It is GREAT...ive learned a few things already. I would Highly reccomend this book to anyone.

Well, I should go..Have an awsome Monday all.... many and

 

[yazee1]

Greetings, Everyone! It's was so warm today in New Jersey. It was just too lovely outside to not take a walk. We finished all our schoolwork early and went in search of geocache. We found one out of three and put over five miles of wear and tear on our sneakers doing it. I'm tired!!

Once again, thanks for the welcome. A few days ago, I skimmed the thread. It looks like the group is growing at a comfortable rate. We sure do cover every corner of the country, don't we?

Scott, I apologize for greeting the ladies last time and not you. You're obviously not a female. My in-laws live in Tyler. My MIL was telling me about the weather yesterday. Did you write that your daughter is almost four? With manners like you're teaching her now, I'm volunteering to be your tablemates!

Well, Sftnslky, sounds like that last cruise disappointed on many levels. No worried now though! I'm too tired to scroll, so tell me again, please, how many Disney cruises have you been on? We almost took a Carnival cruise, just dh and myself, last month, but when we found out that none of the grandparents were available to keep the kids, we canceled it. We've been talking about a cruise, just the two of us, for 16 years!

Dh and I are thinking of getting recertified in order to go scuba diving during the cruise. That's just one of those hobbies we haven't pursued since having children. That's my excuse anyway. I think Dh is still getting over the time he brushed his arm over some fire coral.

 

[Euphscott]

I never said my daughter was successful with her table manners yet! Actually she's doing well with the napkin on her lap. She gets that and can hold still for about 5-10 minutes, after that it's time to consider alternate forms of entertainment. She does reasonably well in restaurants, but we still have work to do. Texas weather has been crazy. We were near 90 on Sunday, but today we start in the upper 30's. We should warm up to near 70 by the end of the afternoon. Fortunately your family in Tyler is a little wetter than we are - this drought we have been in is making life miserable with fires and threats of them all around.

I just wanted to remind everyone of the Travel Channel programming listed above (thank you Angela). I have my PVR set up to pick it up. While I've seen it my daughter will enjoy checking it out.

 

[yazee1]

I never said my daughter was successful with her table manners yet! Actually she's doing well with the napkin on her lap. She gets that and can hold still for about 5-10 minutes, after that it's time to consider alternate forms of entertainment. She does reasonably well in restaurants, but we still have work to do.

Don't worry, Scott. I wasn't envisioning the perfectly behaved little princess. I know what preschoolers are like. The only perfectly behaved preschooler is a sleeping preschooler (or one who is totally engrossed by a movie, subdued by the lethargy of illness or has a big bowl of ice cream in front of her). I just have a good feeling about the fact that you and your wife are teaching her manners. When our oldest son was our only child, we could go anywhere and he never fussed or misbehaved no matter how long we were at the table. When second ds came along, we were dealing with a different kind of kid. It became obvious that going out to eat was not worth the effort of keeping him occupied for the length of the meal. DD was a tough one to take out too for a while. We probably saved a lot of money during those years. LOL

 

[sftnslky]

Greetings, I'm too tired to scroll, so tell me again, please, how many Disney cruises have you been on?

Actually we have never been on a Disney Cruise, This will be our first one. We have sailed on Carnival MANY times and on Royal a few.... And we usually went with my hubbys family and our oldest daughter...and last time was with our two younger girls......which was THE BAD one!!!!

I was thinking the other day... That since we are on the west coast... and we asked for the early seating dinner, will we be thinking/feeling that we are eating lunch instead? And is the ports of call in the same time zone as FL?

Second Kathy did you read my post about the great deal another poster got by being a FL resident? Were you guys able to get an additional percentage off? I was hopping you would be able to take advantage of were you live

Third Have any of you done the "dolphin" excursion? I was thinking how much me and my girls would love that. DH dosen't swim so he wouldn't like it...but I KNOW my girls would.

I was reading my book that I got and it was talking about a heated spa pass [charge per day] that you can get to use on the ship..lol ok this probably isn't making much sense...so I will get the book and read it again..but was wondering [if you know what I am talking about lol] if any of you have tried it? Did you like it?

Well have a great Tuesday afternoon all. Many &

 

[yazee1]

I think the room you are talking about is the Tropical Rainforest. I didn't buy a pass but since I had purchased a spa treatment, I had use of the room, too. It was a lovely experience, made lovelier by the complimentary champagne I was drinking and the fact that the room was empty while I was there. Does your book show pictures of it? I can't describe it. Someone here help me out.

 

[Euphscott]

It does sound like the Rainforest room. It is a nice relaxing room. Thumbs up from here!

My recollection is that the ship keeps the same time as when in Port Canaveral. Although this is a Western cruise, so it would be possible to have a ship time and on shore time be different. Mexico is in the Central Time Zone. That's worth checking into...good question.

 

[yazee1]

Here's a link to some pictures if you haven't already seen the post and the link on the Cruise forum.

http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/cruise-new/cr-adultactivities-vistaspa.htm

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

We just did the Western last December and there was a time change. I believe it was one hour. They leave a reminder in your room the night before and it is on the front page of the Navigator too.
Hope everyone is having a great week

Kathy

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Hi Becca,
To answer your question, we have beeb so busy getting ready for this move that we havnt had a chance to check out the florida resident rares. My DH has checked them out from time to time in the past. You can get some good discounts sometimes.

I hope everyone has a great weekend,
Kathy

 

[yazee1]

Did anyone watch that special you guys were talking about? We don't have our tv connected to an antenna or cable, we use it to watch dvd's and that's it. Was it a documentary? Maybe, I can rent it from netflix if it was.

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Hi Monica,
I didnt see it last night, but i have seen it a few times before. it is not a documentary, it is just a one hour special on DCL. You wont be able to rent it anywhere. I'm sure it will come on a few more times, it always does this time of the year. Maybe you know someone who could tape it for you and then you could watch it on a VHS tape if you have the player. My stuff is all disconnected getting ready to move next week or i would try to get it for you. If it plays again in a couple of weeks and you dont have anyone to tape it for you I will try to get it for you, if you have a VHS player. let me know.
I will be off line soon for a few days, so dont think I am being rude if you write soon and I dont answer you right away, I just wont be able to get on line for awhile. I should have a few days yet until I'm turned off for awhile.
mom x4,grandma x4
Kathy

 

[sftnslky]

Hi Becca, To answer your question, we have beeb so busy getting ready for this move that we havnt had a chance to check out the florida resident rares. Kathy

Dear Kathy I totally understand. I was so happy for you thinking you might get more $$$ off your cruise. Thats always a nice surprise

Did anyone watch the Travel channel DCL special? I thought it was pretty good. It had ALOT of what the DCL DVD had, but it was still cool to see somethings we didn't know.

As for my question about the rainforest room.... LOL yes that is what I was talking about. It looks so cool. They talked some about it on the special. Not really sure if it is worth the $$ But maybe for just one day. Is anyone planning on getting a massage on the trip? I read the prices and OH MY they are MUCH higher then here on land, and shorter in time that they actually do the massage. And then to be "sold" to for the whole 50 minutes isn't my idea of fun

I have a question for those of you who have made door signs in the past. I've got the magnatic paper, got the Disney magic artist CD, BUT we have the wrong kind of printer. We have a black and white laser printer. I went to kinkos and asked them if they would print it out for me.....after they stoped laughing They said NO!! They wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole due to copyright infringement. So any suggestions on what I should/could do?

I hope everyone has an awsome weekend. Many and

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Becca,
another way to make the door signs is to go to a craft store, I like JoAnne's and look at the stickers they have. They still really well on the magnetic sheets. They have disney ones, and lots of tropical ones and some that say specific islands . There is just about anything you can think of for cruising and tropical themes. Plus they have all kinds lettering you can use to write out anything you'd like too. When your done you can have it laminated to protect it or just leave as is. I did 2 signs this way and they came out really nice. Most craft stores have stickers, even wal mart has some.
You might think about looking to see what you can find and then play around with some ideas. The great thing about stickers is you can lay them out and rearrange them many times until you get them just perfect. Then remove the backing and stick into place.
I'm sure someone else may have more ideas, but this worked for me.
mom x4,grandma x4
kathy

 

[yazee1]

I purchased a mini-facial and massage package. It was a special. If you specifiy on your pretreatment forms you are not interested in the products, you won't be bothered. That being said, the big deterrant for me is the price and the fact that you don't know who's going to do your massage. The gal I had was horrible. My husband gives better massages. The facial was not relaxing. It felt like goop going on and then rubbed off. I was glad when it was over. After the treatment I was given a gift of cream and a glass of champagne to enjoy while I relaxed in the Rainforest room. They provide the towels and robe. That was nice.

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Howdy everyone,
I hope everyone had a good weekend. we had very nice weather all weeekend.
I didnt have anything much to say, but at least I bumped us up to page 1 again!! It is easier for people to find us if we can stay on page 1.
Have a great week, everyone,
Kathy

 

[Euphscott]

WET weekend in Texas. Officially we had 4 inches of rain over Saturday and Sunday, but many parts of our area had well over 9!!

Interesting personal note is that I was outside marching in it all day Saturday. I march in an all-age drum and bugle corps each summer. Our first drill learning rehearsal was scheduled for Saturday. As long as there was no lightning we were in it. And by the end I was soaked to the bone. Temps were in the 40's and 50's - but (here's the crazy part!) I loved every bit of it. But the thought of cruising instead sure sounds better.

I watched the DCL special with my daughter. She was pretty excited by all the characters. I was impressed with the soundtrack of Animator's Palate. I was not aware of that bit of information. I'll be listening for it during dinner. I still wonder why the cruise line does not produce a CD. That soundtrack would be one more item of interest to publish.

Happy Monday once again!