9/24/09 3 Day Wonder - Cruise Meets, and FEs, and Goombays oh my!

[karentan]

we're not hiring the car til the day before the cruise, i was originally going to hire a car from the airport to get to ASM, but decided i'd rather be able to have a few cocktails in TGIs and get the bus!

 

[karentan]

i've just ordered 5 sheets of magnetic paper off ebay to make some more magnets for our door!!!
and we've decided to buy a lot of 100 disney pins off ebay, we spent about £60-70 on pins last year, if i get them off the internet i can get 100 for £80. gary got really into pin trading last year so he's going to have good fun with that lot!!

 

[m_kasch]

Donna, when I saw that picture, I was like...wow, whoever that is looks a LOT like Dean from Gilmore Girls!! LOL!! That was one of my favorite shows ever -- but my absolute favorite was Dawson's Creek!! I do have all 7 seasons of GG on DVD though!!

Karen, did you add the transfers yet? If not, I would wait. A lot of times the prices for rentals go way down as the time gets closer -- last year when we went in September, I changed it the day OF our trip and saved like $20 extra. I think you can add the Cruise Transfers for a while...I was looking around and the cheapest I could find you saying I was from the UK was around $180...how much did you want to spend?

So, my test on Friday went okay I think! It didn't take me very long, they give you 4 1/2 hours but it only took me a little over 2. Most of those 4 1/2 hours are for the multiple choice questions, there were 90 and they give you 2 minutes per question, so that 3 hours!! They only took me around 50 minutes!! We'll see how I did, I will either find out next week or not until September, the 7th (the day I took my test) is the last day you can take the test and have it in the first wave of score releases, so it could go either way. But, if I failed...I'll just retake it. Less than 50% of people actually pass on their first try.

 

[karentan]

hope you get the result you want and that it all goes well

i looked at car rentals at all the major places and the cheapest i could find was budget.
basically we decided that we'd hire a car if we could get the price under $100 for the 4 days over the cruise. the price for 4 days on budget has now gone up to about £95 (about $152), so we decided to save the $50 and get the transfers.
i emailed our travel agent to ask about adding the transfers on, just waiting for them to reply.
we'll probably hire a car from DTD on the wednesday afternoon, drive to the port on thursday, drop it off at the budget place at the port, then get the shuttle bus back to the port and go and check in. on the way back we'll get the DCL transfers to the hotel. its easier that way and less hassle on the way back.

 

[jenny105]

Mary, I hope you passed! Let us know as soon as you find out! Then we can have a celebration on the ship (like we really needed an excuse for one!)

I was going to make door magnets but when I was looking up how to do it...it all seemed a bit confusing to me! I wanted to make our names with the Disney font. Ah well, maybe next time!

I am tired today. I didn't sleep well. I kept waking up every couple hours. I hate that!

41 days to go til I am in the World! What's nice is that the week before (which usually drags) is going to go by very quickly because I'll be in Universal and I only have to work 2 days that week!!

 

[karentan]

i decided to take cerby for a walk earlier because i was bored (this not having a job thing is really starting to get to me now, its been over a month now).
well an hour and a half and 5 miles later, i've got one exhausted dog!!

 

[karentan]

i've just checked the disney cruise website, and its only showing cat 10s and above. no 11 or 12s at all.... wonder if that means our cruise is filling up....?

 

[jenny105]

Who knows? Disney's cruise website seems a little...tempermental.

 

[jenny105]

Perfect example, Karen. I retreived my reservation online and clicked to fill out my documents for check in and...got an error message! Big surprise. The DCL website is AWFUL!

 

[karentan]

i'm waiting to hear back about availability for OKW at the mo, one of my facebook friends (not actually a friend but a member of disboards) has had a renter cancel on her, and is trying to get rid of an OKW reservation cheaply and quickly.

assuming she can change a 3 night 2 bed reservation to a 8 night studio reservation, i might be upgrading to OKW. it'd cost me £170 more (about $280 - thats including the WDW cancellation fee) to upgrade from free dining at ASM to paid dining at OKW.

would you guys upgrade? i'm leaning towards saying yes, for some reason i'm just not that into staying at ASM

 

[jenny105]

At this point, if it's going to cost you more and you'd have to deal with a cancellation penalty, I wouldn't switch. I know I switched hotels a bunch of times but I wouldn't touch anything now that it's all paid off and I'd have to deal with cancellation fees. It's up to you though! I've never stayed at OKW so I don't really know anything about it.

 

[portsofcall]

At this point, if it's going to cost you more and you'd have to deal with a cancellation penalty, I wouldn't switch. I know I switched hotels a bunch of times but I wouldn't touch anything now that it's all paid off and I'd have to deal with cancellation fees. It's up to you though! I've never stayed at OKW so I don't really know anything about it.

ohhh, I probably have you beat with all the switching, drives my husband crazy! I have reservations now and waiting to confirm a DVC opportunity before I cancel anything. I made our dinner reservations and YIKES, 9pm was all they had left for the ones we wanted. We're not used to all the frenzy over Disney. I guess cuz we live 15 minutes from the Anaheim one. If I lived closed to all those parks over there, wow, I think I would be booking all year and get yearly passes. LOL.

Anyways, this is the code we're using at the Comfort Suites in Nassau:

00800590 $158 per night, but I just checked and its back to $168. I was in the middle of doing a reservation and it dropped by $10. We'll take our AAA just in case.

Did I mention that Budget has their daily specials and they had one for $40 with no drop off fee from MCO to the port. Total was $52 with all taxes. We pick it up at 6:30 am if anyone needs a ride and then head over to the Disney Studios for 3 hours max. Maybe, we make a breakfast reservation to get in their earlier. We're usually on the ships while people are barely getting off

If Atlantis drops their rate to $199, I might switch over a few more times.

 

[disney honeymooners]

mary i hope you get the test results you want i remember when my mom sat for that exam she was really stressed plus the day of the exam she got sick and still had to sit through it.
well we did the test run for my hair it only took 30min WOOHOO!!! but all the hair spray my hair smelled like watermelons. laren i lost he conf. # for the ohanas ressie you had for the extra table the rest of the ressies i have including the one mary has for ohanas on a postcard i printed off the computer but i lost the other one can i have it again or do you think we will need it?
greg cant wait tilt he trip and getting away from all the stress and from work. So how was everyones weekend?

 

[karentan]

i'm still waiting on her to get back to me about the availability. so guess we will see, plus just told gary about it, so we'll see what he says!
i just cant wait to go now, 32 days to go!

 

[karentan]

the disney website is now back to showing all categories except 10. there's something strange going on!

 

[jenny105]

I have decided I hate the DCL website. It never works properly!

 

[karentan]

well i've decided to go for the renting points and cancelling my ASM reservation.
OKW wasnt available so we've gone for SSR, its closer to downtown disney which is actually better for us. it was just too good an offer to turn down and gary agreed he'd rather stay there too.
so in the process of booking yet another DVC rental!!

 

[jenny105]

Between you, me, and Cristina...how many times have we switched hotels? I don't know much about SSR either! Are you staying there, then AKL, and then there again?

I still can't get to online checkin. Damn you, DCL website!

 

[karentan]

i started off at pop, then changed to ASM, the changed part of that to AKV, then changed last night from ASM to SSR, then changing first part from ASM to SSR.

last year i started off for the first 2 nights at poly, then poly MK view, then CR club level, then AKV club level.

so it looks like (for this trip), 8 nights SSR, 4 nights AKV (now paying for the dining plan for all 12 nights), then the cruise, then 1 night SSR, then home.
i just kept getting the chance of great offers, and to be honest i wasnt ever too thrilled about staying at ASM to start with, i was only going with it because it was cheap. i like being able to walk around the resort and chill out but i dont think you can really do that at ASM. plus i think the DVC resorts will be generally quieter. and SSR is within walking distance to DTD so it gives us something to do in the evening once we've done with the parks.
plus the DVC studios have kitchenettes, with fridge (keeps beer cold and baileys from going off!!) toaster and microwave. so that sorts breakfast out everyday.

 

[karentan]

i've just officially finished my FE gifts!!