April 29, 2012 4 night Bahamas Dream

[lexandme]

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!
Be safe!

 

[jerseygirl74]

Happy New Year!!!. Welcome to the year of our cruise

 

[StephanieCG]

Hi everyone!
I just booked today. This will be our first Disney cruise, actually, for most of us the first cruise ever. We will be celebrating my husband's return from Afghanistan (he's scheduled to get back late March/early April) and my birthday (April 17th). We just found out he's not getting extended or anything and it's 99.9% certain he'll be back by mid April at the latest, so this works out really well. He's been on cruises before, but no one else in our group has. Traveling with us is my 4 year old and 18 month old little girls, and my folks.
I am just so super excited and I can't believe this is happening.
We wanted to get adjoining rooms, but we got ones that were one room apart. The disney guy on the phone said that I can call anytime before the cruise and check back and see if there are two adjoining rooms available in the same category. But at least we were able to be somewhat close and we got the main dinner seating.
Well I've got loads of questions and later when the kids are asleep I'll be able to phrase them coherently.
Talk to you guys later!
Stephanie

 

[DoubleAAMama]

Hello! I'm new to the DIS boards and a first time cruiser. My crew, DH and 2 kids (both beginning with "A" hence my avatar) and me are sailing on the April 29 Dream. We're renewing our wedding vows for our 15th anniversary while we are in port at Nassau. I have been reading alot of the forums before posting before now, and *really* interested and excited about these fish extenders! I would love to know how my family can participate!

We live in Central Florida and frequent WDW quite a bit (like 1-2 a month). Doesn't hurt we are both former cast members, but it's been 12 years since we worked for the company. Now we come play with our 3 and 5yo kids. We figured it was about time to go on a cruise.

Any info, tips and suggestions for first time cruisers (and with kids) is welcomed! Getting excited about the cruise---already picked out our embarkation day outfits! Yes, we will be one of those families coordinating, down to our girls' AG dolls !

Look forward to 'meeting' y'all soon!

DoubleAMama

 

[sau418]

Welcome to our new cruisers!!!! I just realized we are so close to double digits!!! How exciting!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the New Year. We are all battling a bug and seem to finally be at the end. It will be great to get back into routine.

Some one managed to talk me into running a leg of the Pittsburgh Marathon, which did not sound too bad until I realized that it is the Sunday after the cruise. As of now I am planning to take a nice 4 mile run around Castaway Cay if anyone is interested in joining me

Other than that run, I plan to relax and enjoy myself!

 

[lexandme]

Welcome to the new families! It's great to have new folks join us!

Stephanie - Congratulations on your husband's return. I look forward to meeting you both and would like to thank him in person for serving. I manage a housing program for homeless veterans and every day I see and hear of the sacrifices that are being made.

Sue - Honest to God I should run with you, I should be leading the pack (she says as she types with leftover Christmas candy in her mouth). But I know I will never get off of my float once I land on that island. I am proud of you though and will wave as you zoom past! And I think another planning lunch at Subway is due soon. We have to figure out our FE and our FE gifts! Glad you're all beginning to feel better too.

 

[lexandme]

This cruise is getting close! I received our wecome packet from DCL in the mail yesterday! I love getting this - it confirms it's real!

 

[StephanieCG]

Thanks for the warm welcomes! I really appreciate it.

It still feels unreal that I booked this thing. I was so caught up with the booking process that I forgot to mention one little major detail - my 18 month old (she'll be 22 months at the time of cruise) is gluten free. It's not confirmed if she's got celiac disease or something like that, we haven't done the tests yet because they can get pretty invasive (and she would need to start eating gluten again before the tests). All I know is that when she has something with wheat/gluten, she's up all night screaming and miserably grumpy during the day, and we definitely don't want that on a cruise! She's also pretty sensitive to MSG, it makes her cry at night also. So I need to call back the disney reservation people and have them note it. Since she'll just be 22 months, she'd be perfectly content with bunless cheeseburgers, hot dogs, yogurt, cheese, and fruit - basically her diet now, so I hope it won't be too much drama. Does anyone know if they charge more for gluten free food? They did at Great Wolf Lodge, but that's another story...
How do we know what nights we get to go to certain restaurants? Being first time cruisers we don't pick anything until Feb 14th, so I wait until then to pick things out?
Not sure if we'll do the fish extender thing, I need to read more on how that works, sounds kind of fun though, my 4 year old would probably get a kick out of it.
Looking forward to meeting everyone!

 

[sau418]

Disney is super accommodating regarding diets. I would definitely make sure you call them so they know in advance of any needs you have. At any sit down meals, just ask to speak with the chef and they will accommodate any needs your daughter has.

 

[playground]

Hi @ll,

Greetings from good old Europe - we are on the cruise as well

 

[BuckeyeBarb]

My family of 5, including DD12, DS10 & DS7, will be celebrating my DH's parents' 50th Anniversary (who are booked in the adjoining stateroom) on this cruise! We are getting very excited and can't wait for our first Disney cruise! DH and I cruised for the first time last summer and loved it. My in-laws have cruised on other lines, but not Disney, until now!

I am considering booking a room at Comfort Suites for access to the Atlantis water park, but if I proceed with that, I need to see if any fellow cruisers might be interested in "splitting" another room, since only 4 passes are given per room. Has anyone looked into that?

 

[lexandme]

Thanks for the warm welcomes! I really appreciate it.

It still feels unreal that I booked this thing. I was so caught up with the booking process that I forgot to mention one little major detail - my 18 month old (she'll be 22 months at the time of cruise) is gluten free. It's not confirmed if she's got celiac disease or something like that, we haven't done the tests yet because they can get pretty invasive (and she would need to start eating gluten again before the tests). All I know is that when she has something with wheat/gluten, she's up all night screaming and miserably grumpy during the day, and we definitely don't want that on a cruise! She's also pretty sensitive to MSG, it makes her cry at night also. So I need to call back the disney reservation people and have them note it. Since she'll just be 22 months, she'd be perfectly content with bunless cheeseburgers, hot dogs, yogurt, cheese, and fruit - basically her diet now, so I hope it won't be too much drama. Does anyone know if they charge more for gluten free food? They did at Great Wolf Lodge, but that's another story...
How do we know what nights we get to go to certain restaurants? Being first time cruisers we don't pick anything until Feb 14th, so I wait until then to pick things out?
Not sure if we'll do the fish extender thing, I need to read more on how that works, sounds kind of fun though, my 4 year old would probably get a kick out of it.
Looking forward to meeting everyone!

DCL is great about accomodating any special diet request you have. And there's no charge!
We won't know the dining rotation until check in. Our rotation in August for the main seating was Royal Palace, Animator's Palate, Enchanted Garden, Enchanted Garden. DCL assigns the rotations and I'm not sure if they take requests. Nabbing brunch ressies at Palo is tough but dinner is not as bad. If you can't get one prior to sailing make sure you go directly to the assigned area as soon as you get on board. They go quickly and the gold and platinum Castaway Club members snatch them up quickly. (I'm not a fan of the new Silver/Gold/Platinum system. Reminds me of a caste system or immigrant steerage travel on a steamship!)

 

[cjlvsccm]

Belated Happy New Year wishes to everyone. And welcome to the newbies to the meet thread!

It's getting close, and we're so excited!!

DH & I still aren't planning on any excursions in Nassau, but want to find some rum cakes, and get our passports stamped (just because we can!). May rent bikes on CC, and ride out to the observation tower.

Otherwise, we look forward to exploring that beautiful ship, eating lots of good food, and meeting y'all!

 

[StephanieCG]

DCL is great about accomodating any special diet request you have. And there's no charge!
We won't know the dining rotation until check in. Our rotation in August for the main seating was Royal Palace, Animator's Palate, Enchanted Garden, Enchanted Garden. DCL assigns the rotations and I'm not sure if they take requests. Nabbing brunch ressies at Palo is tough but dinner is not as bad. If you can't get one prior to sailing make sure you go directly to the assigned area as soon as you get on board. They go quickly and the gold and platinum Castaway Club members snatch them up quickly. (I'm not a fan of the new Silver/Gold/Platinum system. Reminds me of a caste system or immigrant steerage travel on a steamship!)

That's great there's no extra charge for special diets! At Great Wolf Lodge there was NOTHING at the buffet she could eat, so they offered to make her a hotdog with a gluten free bun. She loved it and ate it all (lots of food for a little 17 month old!) but then they charged me an extra $10 Oh well.
I really, really don't want to miss Royal Palace or Animator's Palate. Enchanted Garden seems nice but if I had to pick one to miss that's it. I'm sure it's lovely but the decor at the other ones just sound really appealing to me. I really want to do dinner at Remy...the sound of some of the food kind of frightens me but I would love to get all dressed up and eat a dinner with my husband without kids, in a restaurant named after a rat. Sounds perfect to me.
Yeah the gold/silver/platnum thing sounds a little unfair to me now but I don't know...I'll probably like it a lot after I get a few cruises under my belt!

 

[jerseygirl74]

Its nice seeing so many more people on this thread!

How many are in the FE now? I need to get started on my gifts....I feel so behind.

Just a few months left until we are sailing away.....i booked almost a year ago.....feels good to say a few months !!!!

 

[Deweysgirl]

Hello Everyone

I'm so happy and excited that we have booked this cruise and we will be sailing with you all!

Me - Liz
Dewey - DH
Tabetha - DD
Brianna - DD

We are in cabin 5156 Cat 04E

We would love to take part in the FE exchange. We did this on our last cruise and it was so fun coming back to the cabin to find little surprises in our bag. The girls really had a blast delivering the goodies to our fellow cruisers too.

Glad to be sailing with you!

 

[lexandme]

Hello Everyone

I'm so happy and excited that we have booked this cruise and we will be sailing with you all!

Me - Liz
Dewey - DH
Tabetha - DD
Brianna - DD

We are in cabin 5156 Cat 04E

We would love to take part in the FE exchange. We did this on our last cruise and it was so fun coming back to the cabin to find little surprises in our bag. The girls really had a blast delivering the goodies to our fellow cruisers too.

Glad to be sailing with you!

Welcome! We had cabin #5156 in August.
It's a great location; very close to the elevators and the extended verandah is a plus - very roomy and an unobstructed view! It was surprisingly quiet too. I expected more noise because it's so close to the children's area and the stairs/elevator but it was ok.

 

[Deweysgirl]

Thanks for welcoming us! We are really happy to be aboard this cruise! It's been a long time coming, planning and re-scheduling dates for one reason or another so we are thrilled to finally be going!

I was wondering about this cabin...wow, what a coincidence that you had the same one. I'm glad that you did so maybe you can give me your opinion. I am a little unsure about it and have thought about changing it...I've heard mixed reviews...I love the idea of the extended verandah and it doesn't really bother me about people above being able to look down on us but my concern is our neighbors...can you tell me is it open on the sides to where you can see next door into our neighbor's verandah next to us, or is there a divider?

I've tried to look up pictures and it seems like in some of these cabins there are dividers but in others it's open if it has the curved railing...thanks for any help you can give me in getting an idea of how it is.

 

[lexandme]

Liz,

It has a tall divider on both sides. You can see the neighbors verandah if you half hang over and look past the divider (which I did by the way because my neighbors were part of our DIS discussion and FE group). The deck above can look down on you but rarely did. The only time I saw anyone from above was the day we saw 2 huge tornados (technically water spouts) in the distance. And we were all talking to each other about them! I will admit I didn't spend a lot of time on the verandah, basically because it was only a 4 night cruise and I was busy on board or on shore. It was nice in the morning and late evening though.

Judy

 

[Deweysgirl]

Hi Judy, Wow, tornados...how scarey! Thanks for giving me some input about it...I was finally able to find some pictures here on the disboards and I really think it will work for us so I'm going to stick with it. We are like you and probably won't spend a lot of time on the verandah, there's just so much else to do, so I think it will be just fine. Thanks again!