April 30, 2006 - 4 night Wonder - anyone?????

[skylynx]

I'm looking for possible pals for my two kids..DD who will be thirteen (in two days!) and DS who is 10. If you have kids even close to those ages, my two would be delighted to communicate. I'll post this again in a month or so in case there's no response and some new folks "find us" later!

 

[seallenz]

Hi everyone!

I have just minutes ago booked this cruise for my family and we are so excited! We have been to WDW many times and feel like we're experts on that, but no nothing about the cruises, other than what we've read on these boards. Since we're Disney fanatics, we're sure we're going to love the cruise, as long as we don't get seasick.

We have a four-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son. They're most excited by the chance that they may have bunk beds on the ship!

Any and all tips for first-timers would be much appreciated!

Amanda

 

[kstelzner]

Just checking in! Now that the Christmas season is over and the presents have been bought and ripped open, I am now starting to shop for the cruise (mostly for the kids so far)! Does the shopping ever end?! I haven't been so excited or obsessing over this cruise like I did the first Disney one.... not sure why. Maybe because I'm dreading the travel details with 2 little ones. We traveled to Wisconsin for Christmas to see my DH's family and though there was hardly any flight delays, both kids got sick with bad colds on the trip and were just "done" with the whole thing , so our flights home were not fun at all (and not for the nearby passengers either!)

Will be checking in again soon! Welcome everyone I haven't talked with before.

 

[Junior]

Hello everyone,

This is going to be the first cruise that I have ever been on and I can't even start to tell you all how excited I am about the trip. There are going to be 4 adults traveling in our party. If any of you guys can make any recommendations about things to do both on and off the boat it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[skylynx]

Welcome, Junior

I remember well the feeling of anticipating the first cruise and stumbling across this list-a veritable treasure trove of advice and "been there" stories. I'm sure plenty of others will want to join in, but some things I'd recommend: Don't miss the sailaway party, and run don't walk there after the lifeboat drill to get a great spot to watch. It's easy to miss it and the magical sound of the ship's horn if you aren't on deck at the time. The capt. usually blows the horn again after the ship leaves the canal coming out of Port Canaveral. The feeling that you are steaming away to adventure is matchless!

If you have a verandah, you can order early (7 am) room service of coffee, OJ and something light and enjoy it outdoors (then get dressed and go to the "real" breakfast an hour or so later).

If you want to get a hammock AND an umbrella on the adult beach at Castaway Cay, you should get off the ship pronto. You'll probably see us jetting there-one of our fondest (and laziest) cruise memories is actually falling asleep for about an hour in the hammock swinging in the breeze in the umbrella's shade. Otherwise, the sun can be pretty intense. Of course, there are lovelier palm trees and a view of the ship from the family beach, but it's more crowded. The snorkel trail is at the family beach.

These are just a few quick things you might want to know. Look forward to seeing you there!

 

[naniboujou]

Junior, this is our first cruise too -- we're getting to be quite a group! I've been make a list (I LOVE lists!! ha ha) and we have:

kstelzner - San Diego - husb & wife & DD4, DD2
MLAinVA - Northern Virginia - Mary Lou & husb
skylynx - Denise & John & DD13, DS10
oliverweagle - Matthew & Doris DS4 & Matthew's parents
seallenz - Amanda & husb & DD4, DS6
naniboujou - Mike & Nancy (me) - the newlyweds ;-)
marylou - Kitchener, Canada - husb & wife, DB, DS7, DS21 & fiance, DS16, DD19
junior - four adults

I am hoping we make a plan to meet up at sail away!

Nancy

 

[Junior]

I look forward to meeting up with some of you guys. My wife is VERY excited about shopping for the cruise. For those of you who have been on a Disney cruise before what styles of clothing do we need to bring? Do they have a formal or semi-formal dinner on the cruise?

Thanks,
David

 

[Takia]

As far as clothing it is more about what you are comfortable in. It is your vacation!! I hope to be joining you all and look forward to waiting the next 98 days out!! My best friend and I are going in search of some R&R!! No kids, no men, just us and all of the great folks we meet along the way!!

 

[naniboujou]

If it's 97 days to the cruise, that means 88 days to the wedding!!! We will be ready to relax ;-) I've been reading Lonely Planet's Guide to Florida and some snorkeling guides in anticipation (I've already about memorized the Passporter cruise book!!).

And the Disney theme at the wedding is increasing; I bought a Snow White costume and have threatened to wear it! Mike says I can do better ;-). But I plan on wearing it on the cruise instead of a pirate outfit (I'm not making any headway on wench-outfits anyway). Mike will either be my Prince Charming, or more likely, a pirate who has captured Snow White!! Our cake is going to have Mickey heads on it and the chocolate birthday cake -- lots of April birthday people will be in attendance -- is going to be shaped like Mickey!! Fun fun fun.....

 

[oliverweagle]

It looks as if we will have the late seating, and I have requested that we have the PTTA rotation. We will (myself, wife and parents) eat at Palo the first night, and hope that there are many who will be in costume during Pirate Night! I read that the Magic has more passengers who dress up, and that the Wonder participation has been "disappointing." AAAAAAARGH!

 

[naniboujou]

We have late seating too and are doing Palo our second night, so TPTA would work great for us, but PTTA would be fine too - how do you go about requesting a rotation?? Through my TA? I may just let the chips fall where they may!

Mailing the wedding invitations today time is marching on! Can't wait to see y'all!

I also got a pirate-y outfit together for me - Mike says it's 'gypsy pirate'. He also says he has his pirate outfit already we'll have to wait and see He has also made me promise to bring my snow white costume as well!!

Nancy

 

[skylynx]

You can count on all four of us being dressed for Pirate night. I heard the rumor about people getting more dressed up on Magic...just got off the ship two weeks ago, and I can confirm LOTS of people got dressed up. It's neat, too, since Magic now has the Dumbotron and after the deck party we all laid on loungers in our costumes watching Johnny Depp and Curse of the Black Pearl. We were lucky, too...on board was Jason Surrell who wrote a book on Pirates of the Caribbean (from the ride to the movie). He's an imagineer (lucky dog) and gets to cruise free if he does two "behind the scenes" presentations. He did one on imagineering in general, and the one on POC which included the trailer of the new movie. He shared a bunch of trivia and then gave a quiz for prizes. We scored a movie poster and a special edition DVD. WOW!

Our costumes are re-worked from renaissance fair costumes we've assembled over the last few years since we discovered this wonderful non-stop Halloween party for adults. Right before our last cruise, we trawled around the winter clearances at JCPenney and Kohl's and managed to get some astonishingly ugly costume jewelry for next to nothing that is actually fabulous to accessorize a post-modern pirate! This self-indulgence need not be expensive! Dollar stores are great to find all sorts of weird stuff that can be re-fitted for other uses, and a really big party outlet will have pirate accouterments. If all fails, the gift shop onboard has pirate eye patches and a benign dagger for a very un-Disneylike price of $4.

One other thing for pirate fans...we were just in the parks after our Feb cruise and there is a SLEW of new Pirates/Jack Sparrow merchandise at the gift shop outside POC. One of these is a replica of the pirate medallion so prized in the film. $8 on a chain. I brought one home for my DS10 and he won't take it off. He wore it to his first orchestra concert last week with his white shirt and tie. So if you are going to the parks before the cruise, you could pick one up.

I'm supposed to be working, but this is way more interesting. It won't be long now and we'll be doing the doc dance!

Happy Tuesday, Everyone.

 

[kstelzner]

Hi guys... just mainly bumping this up... we must all be busy getting prepared for the big vacation! Anyway, I was wondering about dining rotations too. A helpful DISer said that the 4 nt. cruises repeat the 2nd/3rd night dining. So what's the best one? Never been to Triton's, only Lumierie's on the Magic.

 

[naniboujou]

Based on advice I have read here, I've asked my TA to request a APPT (Animator's Palate, Parrot Cay, PC again, Triton's) rotation for us. If we don't get it, I may try to have it changed when we board.

My reasoning? I'd like to see the "show" at Animator's. (If you have Animator's twice, the 'show' is only on the first night.) We have Palo reservations the second night. Pirate night is the third night. I'd like to dine at Triton's on non-pirate night. I think it might be fun to be in Parrot Cay on pirate night. Factoring all that together I came up with APPT as being ideal for us, and it seemed to fit with what I'd also read as a likely rotation combination.

Over thinking or smart planning?

I am having so much fun planning for this cruise that Mike told me the other day (I have to set the scene first: Mike was in the shower and I ran in the room and held up a pink picture frame with a bow that my secret pal had given me, saying, "OH! Look!! I'm going to take this on the cruise too and have the princesses sign it!!!" and ran back out again.) So Mike's reply was "You're not marrying me...you're going on a Disney cruise!!" What other reply was there but "Can't I do BOTH!?"

I can't wait to meet "all ya'll" -- somebody without a wedding to plan (hint hint) should plan a meeting

44 days to the wedding....53 days to the cruise

 

[oliverweagle]

... in our household at any rate! Now that "yours truly" has finally figured out the TickerFactory (actually, I had to add a couple of days to make the dates work out) and we have a table in the living room to deposit "Cruise Items" I feel that we are now on our way!

We are looking forward to meeting all of you, please let us know if there is amything we can do for you! Being that this is our first cruise I have no idea what that would be, but don't be shy!

Now, family and I are off to the Houston Rodeo to enjoy our day. Maybe DS will find a nice hat or furry creature to accompany us on the cruise!

All the best,

Matthew, Doris and Noah.

 

[skylynx]

Well, I don't have a wedding to plan for, so I'm willing to coordinate a get together before Sailaway. Here's what worked really well on our last Magic cruise in Feb...we had a group get-together at 3:00. This gave most people time to get on board, find their staterooms, and have some lunch before the mandatory lifeboat drill at 4. If anyone is arriving later than that, we can have a secondary "spot" to rendezvous during the Sailaway party. On the last cruise one of the Disboarders had a suite with enough room for us all so we met there, but the time before that we simply met by the adult bar area (Signals, by the adult pool). Absolutely no one else was hanging around there yet, so it was easy to have a roomy place just sort of get to match the names to faces. We had a really big group (40+) last time, so just used little sticky name tags with Disboard aliases and real names just for the meet and greet.

Please share other ideas...otherwise I'm happy to coordinate this gathering.

 

[naniboujou]

Denise, you get my vote for head organizer! Here's all the info I have accumlated so far:

kstelzner - San Diego - husb & wife & DD4, DD2;
MLAinVA - Northern Virginia - Mary Lou & husb;
skylynx - Denise & John Pumfrey & DD13, DS10 ;
oliverweagle - Matthew & Doris & Noah, age 4 in#7614 & Matthew's parents #7114 - first cruise;
seallenz - Amanda & husb & DD4, DS6;
naniboujou (Nancy's the disboard user, not Mike) - Chattanooga, TN - Mike & Nancy Harrison #6085 - first cruise & honeymoon ;-) ;
marylou - Kitchener, Canada - husb & wife, DB, DS7, DS21 & fiance, DS16, DD19;
junior - David & wife & 2 other adults;
takia - 2 girl friends;
rtphokie - ??;
simba sarah - ??

I wish I had a suite to donate for the cause, but alas....the adult bar would be peachy with us.

The wedding is coming together little by little but I still have dreams everynight about all the possible loose ends!! Forty days...I think...something like that.

I am going to try to watch the upcoming Travel show special on DCL.

 

[skylynx]

I'm happy to coordinate a Disboarders Meet 'n Greet. If you are not on Nancy's list in her above post and would like to be included, please post or PM me. If you'd like to offer your Disboard alias and real name I'll make up stickers. If you hate name tags, you don't have to wear them. Please just provide the info you feel comfortable giving, and I'll compile a list to share. Some of the Disboarders on Nancy's list don't have much info attached...if you are on the list and want to share more, please do. If you are in a witness protection program or just don't like to share personal info, that's fine, too. You are still welcome!

BTW, I'm still looking for pre-cruise email pals for DD 13 and/or DS10. If you have one or both of those yourself, or fairly close to it, my kids are eager to pre-make friends (just like the adults are doing here on the boards).

It won't be long now before we start hearing reports of cruise docs arriving, so it's time to buy those underwater cameras and stockpile dollar bills for room service tips!

 

[Takia]

AHHHH!!! I am so looking forward to this vacation!!! Can we please leave sooner?!?!?! Kinda wanna book onboard for 2007 summer stuff. I so look forward to meeting you all!!! A special thanks to skylynx!!!!

 

[goscudder]

I'm happy to coordinate a Disboarders Meet 'n Greet. If you are not on Nancy's list in her above post and would like to be included, please post or PM me. If you'd like to offer your Disboard alias and real name I'll make up stickers. If you hate name tags, you don't have to wear them. Please just provide the info you feel comfortable giving, and I'll compile a list to share. Some of the Disboarders on Nancy's list don't have much info attached...if you are on the list and want to share more, please do. If you are in a witness protection program or just don't like to share personal info, that's fine, too. You are still welcome!

BTW, I'm still looking for pre-cruise email pals for DD 13 and/or DS10. If you have one or both of those yourself, or fairly close to it, my kids are eager to pre-make friends (just like the adults are doing here on the boards).

It won't be long now before we start hearing reports of cruise docs arriving, so it's time to buy those underwater cameras and stockpile dollar bills for room service tips!

Skylynx, we are also going on the Wonder next month and are so excited!! We have a DS11 (turned 11 in Jan), DD9, and DS3. I would love to have the boys "meet" before next month!