August 13, 2011 Med - Mickey's Marauding Mates

[Anal Annie]

Greetings all. It's looking like a beautiful summer weekend today. The rain has cleared out and it's going up to around 80 today then close to 90 tomorrow and Monday. We are having a pool party at our house tomorrow (we built an inground pool last year) so we are thrilled at the hot weather.

Only two more weeks of school left for the kids - 4 days this week and 3 next week and then it's summer vacation - which means early morning swim practices for DD12 (7 a.m. YIKES) and evening practices for both kids for their summer team. DD12 is going to a week-long sleepover swim camp at a local University as well. Then we leave for WDW for her dance group which is performing at the MK (in a parade) and then at Downtown Disney. We are following that up with a five night Dream sailing (our first on the Dream!) and then 2 nights at the Beach Club. So looking forward to the trip. Though we went to California for spring break, the travel was awful (lots of delayed flights, long layovers, missed connections) so it was more stress than vacation. Plus we need our WDW and DCL fix.

Gotta head to Costco (nothing worse than Costco on a Saturday but I didn't have time this week during the week) to get ready for the party. Happy Saturday to all and have a great Memorial Day weekend. And if there are any service members or veterans on this forum - THANK YOU!

What time does the pool party start?! I can be there in about 5 hours drive!!

Costco on a Saturday?! I can barely handle it on a Thursday! Well, it depends on which one I go to. The one closest to where we live (in Gaithersburg) makes me almost hyperventilate just trying to PARK. The one up in Frederick is twice as far away but considering that it's so much nicer & is more normal and has a better customer base & better parking it's almost worth the extra drive. At least the people who shop there are civilized. It can take me 10 minutes to get parked at the one closest to me because the people who shop there are IDIOTS!!!!!! I swear, I went there a week ago to get the ravioli that DS asked to have for his birthday dinner and if I'd have had a video camera to record the NONSENSE on the parking deck I could post it on YouTube & be famous! The people there are soooo annoying. It has a very shall we say diverse crowd. IF they put their carts in the cart return they don't push them in all the way & the staff doesn't go collect them often enough so they're always spilling back out into the aisle & block half of it off. This day that I went it was raining. There was some lady parked in a van directly across from the cart return & she was trying to back out but there really wasn't enough ROOM bcuz of all the carts in the way. Meanwhile the person RIGHT BESIDE her was also trying to back out AT THE SAME TIME and then there was someone ELSE who was parked across the aisle right NEXT TO the cart return who was ALSO trying to back out. Between the carts and the 3 cars the entire aisle was blocked off. And none of them would give in to the other one! Meanwhile, here I stand in the rain with my cart & all its contents getting rained on. It was such a cluster!! FINALLY, after several minutes of nobody giving in the lady in the van did a 20 point turn to get out. Inch by inch. I swear a video of this could've gone viral on the internet!! The time before that when I went someone was waiting on someone else to leave a close parking space & they were blocking the aisle with their waiting - but MEANWHILE there was another space 3 down. BUT NOOOOO they had to have the CLOSEST one!! So GOOD LUCK with your trip to Costco on a Saturday!

 

[Anal Annie]

Hey peeps! Where is everybody?! I hear crickets chirping!

Gonna be a HOT few days here in my neck of the woods. I worked outside again yesterday afternoon...planted some more flowers & piddled around in my pond a bit & potted a couple of water plants. Almost done planting - just have a few more petunias to get in the ground. I gave up last night & came in when I started getting bug bites. Bugs LOVE me for some reason. We have a propane powered mosquito thing that helps a lot with all kinds of bugs WHEN IT'S WORKING. But it won't come on. DH thinks it may need a new ignition switch but he can't seem to figure out how to get into it. I gave him a link to a website that had owners manuals & that sells some parts but he hasn't taken the time to look it up yet. I suppose I'll have to do it. The bugs don't bother him. It's ME they eat up.

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend...

 

[Kels Sem]

Morning all, I managed to get my online checkin completed this morning and I managed to get a port arrival time of 10.30 - 11.00 so I'm happy with that. When I first logged at 7am on it there was no option to complete the online checkin so I tried again after 8am and it worked. It took a while as it crashed a couple of times.

The weather here looks as if it might finally be getting a bit better. We have had awful winds/rain showers over the last 2 weeks and DS sports day had to be cancelled twice.

I hope our US friends have a good Memorial Day! and everyone here in the UK enjoy the bank holiday. The kids are off school today but DH had to go to work as his company don't give him this one as a day off. My sister came home from her final year at university last night so myself and the kids are going round to my parents later to see her.

Jeff - I hope your party went well.

Hope everyone has a good day.

Kelly

 

[kerrykerr]

Hello everyone!

I've been reading this thread for a while in preparation for the cruise and have to say thank you for all the valuable information. I finally decided to join today.

It'll be myself, DH, and our 5 year old DD. This is our first Disney cruise and we are all very excited! We were finally able to book excursions today and got most of what we wanted, so I'm pleased. We've been to Disney World twice and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We're considering DVC and would love to hear more about your experiences with that too.

Does anybody know what time we can disembark on the last day?

Oh, and we're up for a meet and greet. I forget where/when everyone said they'd meet...

Thanks,

Kerry

 

[mikki.young]

Welcome Kerry! Are you UK or US or somewhere else? This should be fun! Happy to share DVC experiences - or just to answer what questions we can.

 

[DoeWDW]

Kerry, welcome!

DH and I LOVE our DVC and are always willing to chat about it. Our home resort is the Beach Club Villas - our home away from home. Best money we ever spent. We actually paid for this cruise with DVC points (yes, long-term DVC'ers, I know that isn't always the best use of points, but that's another post).

I forget the meet and greet time and place too but will look it up and put it on my itinerary soon. There sure are a lot of details to remember on the cruise! All these dinner rotations and shore excursions and pre-cruise hotel plans and flights.....I'm having a hard time keeping track of it all so I think I'll be creating a Word document and getting all this written down.

The planning is half the fun!

By the way, LeeAnn, how did your son like Hershey? I hope his band did well and the kids had fun at the park!

 

[kerrykerr]

Welcome Kerry! Are you UK or US or somewhere else? This should be fun! Happy to share DVC experiences - or just to answer what questions we can.

Thanks for the welcome! We're in Ontario, Canada. Finally we're getting some warm weather after one of the snowiest winters and most rain-filled springs we've had in years!

 

[kerrykerr]

Kerry, welcome!

DH and I LOVE our DVC and are always willing to chat about it. Our home resort is the Beach Club Villas - our home away from home. Best money we ever spent. We actually paid for this cruise with DVC points (yes, long-term DVC'ers, I know that isn't always the best use of points, but that's another post).

I forget the meet and greet time and place too but will look it up and put it on my itinerary soon. There sure are a lot of details to remember on the cruise! All these dinner rotations and shore excursions and pre-cruise hotel plans and flights.....I'm having a hard time keeping track of it all so I think I'll be creating a Word document and getting all this written down.

The planning is half the fun!

By the way, LeeAnn, how did your son like Hershey? I hope his band did well and the kids had fun at the park!

Hi Doreen,

You mentioned the dinner rotations. Do you know which restaurants you're in each night? I haven't seen any information on that yet. We have the early seating. That's all I know.

Kerry

 

[CastawayJP]

What time does the pool party start?! I can be there in about 5 hours drive!!

Costco on a Saturday?! I can barely handle it on a Thursday! Well, it depends on which one I go to. The one closest to where we live (in Gaithersburg) makes me almost hyperventilate just trying to PARK. The one up in Frederick is twice as far away but considering that it's so much nicer & is more normal and has a better customer base & better parking it's almost worth the extra drive. At least the people who shop there are civilized. It can take me 10 minutes to get parked at the one closest to me because the people who shop there are IDIOTS!!!!!! I swear, I went there a week ago to get the ravioli that DS asked to have for his birthday dinner and if I'd have had a video camera to record the NONSENSE on the parking deck I could post it on YouTube & be famous! The people there are soooo annoying. It has a very shall we say diverse crowd. IF they put their carts in the cart return they don't push them in all the way & the staff doesn't go collect them often enough so they're always spilling back out into the aisle & block half of it off. This day that I went it was raining. There was some lady parked in a van directly across from the cart return & she was trying to back out but there really wasn't enough ROOM bcuz of all the carts in the way. Meanwhile the person RIGHT BESIDE her was also trying to back out AT THE SAME TIME and then there was someone ELSE who was parked across the aisle right NEXT TO the cart return who was ALSO trying to back out. Between the carts and the 3 cars the entire aisle was blocked off. And none of them would give in to the other one! Meanwhile, here I stand in the rain with my cart & all its contents getting rained on. It was such a cluster!! FINALLY, after several minutes of nobody giving in the lady in the van did a 20 point turn to get out. Inch by inch. I swear a video of this could've gone viral on the internet!! The time before that when I went someone was waiting on someone else to leave a close parking space & they were blocking the aisle with their waiting - but MEANWHILE there was another space 3 down. BUT NOOOOO they had to have the CLOSEST one!! So GOOD LUCK with your trip to Costco on a Saturday!

I HATE that Costco in Gaithersburg! I always dreaded going there. Thank goodness I will probably never have to go back again!

So we are knee deep in planning here... Since we are doing this mostly on our own, we want to make sure we have a good plan. Especially since we are travelling with people ages 3-69! The only day I am really anxious about is Rome... We have a few things we want to see, but aren't really sure of the best way to do it. I'm thinking we will probably use the subway once we get into the city... Does anybody have any experience with this?

Can't wait to get on that ship!!

 

[Anal Annie]

Hello everyone!

I've been reading this thread for a while in preparation for the cruise and have to say thank you for all the valuable information. I finally decided to join today.

It'll be myself, DH, and our 5 year old DD. This is our first Disney cruise and we are all very excited! We were finally able to book excursions today and got most of what we wanted, so I'm pleased. We've been to Disney World twice and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We're considering DVC and would love to hear more about your experiences with that too.

Does anybody know what time we can disembark on the last day?

Oh, and we're up for a meet and greet. I forget where/when everyone said they'd meet...

Thanks,

Kerry

A lurker has joined our merry band! Welcome aboard!! I do believe that you are our first Canadian!! I'll add you to the first post - is there any other info you'd like to give us (DH's name or DD's name or anything??)

We also love our DVC membership (bought in Dec. 2006 and wish we would've done it earlier). There are several DVC'ers here on our thread so you're welcome to pick our brains about it all you want. They have made a few changes to the membership recently that make it not so attractive to buy resale now but the resale market has a lot of good deals. NOW you have to buy direct from DVC in order to be able to use your points outside of the DVC resorts I think. I'm not sure exactly what all the new limitations are but resale is much cheaper if you ONLY want to use the points AT a DVC resort. Using your points to stay AT a DVC resort really does give you the most bang for your buck tho. We used our points to cruise once right after we bought. Won't be doing that one again. THOUGHT we'd use our points for DLP but then those points went up so we ended up doing a transfer to another owner and are using the money toward it for a cash package instead. We haven't been able to get down to FL in a little over a year so we're having withdraw!

DIS Meet & Greet - I think we're just planning on hooking up on the first day around 2:30-3:00 in the Promenade lounge. The lifeboat / safety drill is at 4:00 so that would give us an hour or so to put a face to a name & for the kids to meet up.

If you have early dining then you disembark EARLY. Kelly has early dining too - I think breakfast is at like 6:45 or something & you should be done & off the boat by like 8:00 or something like that. Kelly? Can you confirm that??

Kerry, welcome!

DH and I LOVE our DVC and are always willing to chat about it. Our home resort is the Beach Club Villas - our home away from home. Best money we ever spent. We actually paid for this cruise with DVC points (yes, long-term DVC'ers, I know that isn't always the best use of points, but that's another post).

I forget the meet and greet time and place too but will look it up and put it on my itinerary soon. There sure are a lot of details to remember on the cruise! All these dinner rotations and shore excursions and pre-cruise hotel plans and flights.....I'm having a hard time keeping track of it all so I think I'll be creating a Word document and getting all this written down.

The planning is half the fun!

By the way, LeeAnn, how did your son like Hershey? I hope his band did well and the kids had fun at the park!

See above about the DIS meet.....

Hershey...DS's band did AWESOME...there are several different bands at his school - there's a concert band, wind ensemble, orchestra, chorus etc. (5 buses full of kids!) They took 4 first places and 1 second place & their Wind Ensemble took the Grand prize overall!!! So it was a verrry successful day for the bands. DS kinda messed up tho with his group that he went with. They had to stay in groups of at least 3. So I guess right after lunch his group decided to go to an arcade & they STAYED in the arcade. This is NOT what DS wanted to do. He wanted to RIDE THE RIDES. So after awhile (an hour he said) he left his group & tried to find another group but he couldn't seem to settle in with anyone & I think he bounced around a bit. He did not get to ride everything he wanted to ride because each group seemed to be on a different agenda & by the time he switched around they'd already done rides he hadn't & it just went all wrong for him. I think he was disappointed in how it turned out. He should've just stayed with his original group but he got impatient & wasn't into the arcades. I guess we'll have to go up there sometime on our own. He said he'd have rather been with us 'cuz he knows WE'D have done all the rides.

Thanks for the welcome! We're in Ontario, Canada. Finally we're getting some warm weather after one of the snowiest winters and most rain-filled springs we've had in years!

Glad you are getting some pixie dust on your weather. I would not be a good Canadian as I don't like the cold!! It was FL hot here today in DC...mid 90's with heat indexes over 100! Gonna stay that way for most of the week.

Hi Doreen,

You mentioned the dinner rotations. Do you know which restaurants you're in each night? I haven't seen any information on that yet. We have the early seating. That's all I know.

Kerry

You will find out your exact dinner rotation once you board. There are 3 rotations...you will have 1 of them. The abbreviations I'll use below are L = Lumiere's, A = Animators, PC = Parrot Cay:
Rotation # 1 = L, A, PC, L, A, PC, L
Rotation # 2 = A, PC, L, A, PC, A
Rotation # 3 = PC, L, A, PC, L, A, PC

When I called & asked what night is scheduled to be what they told me night # 2 would be formal night, night # 5 is pirate night and night # 6 will be semi-formal night. ALL of this is subject to change without notice though. Just hoping this is accurate and that they don't change it up unexpectedly.

I HATE that Costco in Gaithersburg! I always dreaded going there. Thank goodness I will probably never have to go back again!

So we are knee deep in planning here... Since we are doing this mostly on our own, we want to make sure we have a good plan. Especially since we are travelling with people ages 3-69! The only day I am really anxious about is Rome... We have a few things we want to see, but aren't really sure of the best way to do it. I'm thinking we will probably use the subway once we get into the city... Does anybody have any experience with this?

Can't wait to get on that ship!!

JP - I live only about 10 minutes from that Costco - straight up Rt. 355. It is a nightmare tho. As far as Rome on your own - have you been reading that thread about doing the Med ports on your own? I'm sure there must be a post or two in there about doing this. Plenty of people have done it - not sure how many use the subway & how many just walk it once they get there on the train. I need to go thru that thread again soon myself. I want to double check on doing Villefranche on our own by train. I feel so naive about the whole train thing since we've never used them here. Do you think there's any way we could mess this up?!

 

[mikki.young]

DVC has changed loads since we bought back in 92 - when OKW was all there was! It proved a great decision for us but prices have gone up a lot more than inflation. We paid $50 a point and it is way over $100 now to buy direct from Disney. Very nearly time for us to book accommodation for our January trip. Hoping to go to BLT and Kidani but haven't booked home resort as a back up as we don't like it as much since the refurb.

 

[kerrykerr]

Thanks for all of the information so far!

We are: Kerry, Andrew, and DD Emma (age 5 - almost 6 by the cruise).

 

[Anal Annie]

Hey all.... So I had scrolled thru Milliepie's shared site the other day (she does DIS signs on the Creative Dis-signers board but she's been taking a break from designing). Anyway, I noticed that she'd done the Mickey Head door signs with the itinerary maps for the 10 & 11 night Med cruises but not for the 7 night ones. Soooo I posted a message to her over there to see if she could point me in the right direction so I could maybe make us one for our itinerary & she ended up taking the time to make a blank one for us!! I'll post the link to the blank on her shared site. I took it and added some text to it in Photoshop to customize it a little bit with the Marauding Mates name & our cruise date on one ear and our family name on the other ear. I'll post pics for those too so you can see it - this way if any of you want one for yourselves you can either take the blank one from her shared site & do it yourself or if you want, I can edit it for you & customize it however you want for your family if you want to make a door sign too! I print them on heavy weight paper & then will get them laminated & put adhesive magnets on the back for our door. (The reason I customized it was so it wouldn't "walk off". If they're not personalized in some manner they are more prone to being stolen off your door!)

http://www.4shared.com/photo/tCCHmXnk/Med_map_mh_villefranche.html

I can't decide if I like this one:

or this one:

Thoughts??

I may make some more - I'll post them if I do!

(PS) you can scroll thru her whole album on that site & there are other blanks to pick from that you can use....I was just partial to the ones with the itinerary maps on them.

 

[Anal Annie]

Thanks for all of the information so far!

We are: Kerry, Andrew, and DD Emma (age 5 - almost 6 by the cruise).

Gotcha! We have lots of kids cruising that are about the same age as Emma!! Seems to be a very popular age for first time cruiser kids!!


I took a peek at the DCL website this weekend - first, I was reviewing some of the DCL excursions in Villefranche then I went to see how full we're looking by now. There were NO inside cabins showing up at all and there were no 9C's or 9A's, no 4D's or 4C's and still no Concierge. 9D's, 7A's, 6A's, 5C's and 4E's were all in GTY status. The only categories with specific rooms to pick from were 9B's, 5B's, 5A's and 4B's. So it appears that with 2 months to go we're ALMOST a full boat!!

 

[mikki.young]

They all look pretty cool Annie!

 

[BWV Dreamin]

LeAnn, can you make me one? I like the one with the family name on one ear and sailing date on the other ear!

Hey all.... So I had scrolled thru Milliepie's shared site the other day (she does DIS signs on the Creative Dis-signers board but she's been taking a break from designing). Anyway, I noticed that she'd done the Mickey Head door signs with the itinerary maps for the 10 & 11 night Med cruises but not for the 7 night ones. Soooo I posted a message to her over there to see if she could point me in the right direction so I could maybe make us one for our itinerary & she ended up taking the time to make a blank one for us!! I'll post the link to the blank on her shared site. I took it and added some text to it in Photoshop to customize it a little bit with the Marauding Mates name & our cruise date on one ear and our family name on the other ear. I'll post pics for those too so you can see it - this way if any of you want one for yourselves you can either take the blank one from her shared site & do it yourself or if you want, I can edit it for you & customize it however you want for your family if you want to make a door sign too! I print them on heavy weight paper & then will get them laminated & put adhesive magnets on the back for our door. (The reason I customized it was so it wouldn't "walk off". If they're not personalized in some manner they are more prone to being stolen off your door!)

http://www.4shared.com/photo/tCCHmXnk/Med_map_mh_villefranche.html

I can't decide if I like this one:

or this one:

Thoughts??

I may make some more - I'll post them if I do!

(PS) you can scroll thru her whole album on that site & there are other blanks to pick from that you can use....I was just partial to the ones with the itinerary maps on them.

 

[Anal Annie]

LeAnn, can you make me one? I like the one with the family name on one ear and sailing date on the other ear!

Hey Hope!! Whatcha doin'? How's DVC at Hilton Head?! How's the weather this week?! Do you like it?? Where have you eaten?? Did you try Truffles Cafe? How about Roastfish & Cornbread? When do you head back to Maryland?! It is hot as all get out up here this week (98 today with a heat index of 102 - still currently 92 at almost 6:30)!!! So did you get your Palo ressies & excursions booked??

Of course I can make you one...but let's get specific! Do you want August 27 - September 3, 2011 or do you just want August 27, 2011? And on the other ear do you want Hope and Marc, Hope and Marc Heppding or The Heppding Family or The Heppding's Magical Vacation or what exactly would you like me to put for ya?! Send me an email when ya get back home if ya want...

 

[BWV Dreamin]

My trip sucked! We are leaving early ... tomorrow morning. I started a TR on Mousellaneous. I didn't put have the stuff in it I wanted to!

How about the two dates August to September, and you can put Hope and Marc Heppding.

Hey Hope!! Whatcha doin'? How's DVC at Hilton Head?! How's the weather this week?! Do you like it?? Where have you eaten?? Did you try Truffles Cafe? How about Roastfish & Cornbread? When do you head back to Maryland?! It is hot as all get out up here this week (98 today with a heat index of 102 - still currently 92 at almost 6:30)!!! So did you get your Palo ressies & excursions booked??

Of course I can make you one...but let's get specific! Do you want August 27 - September 3, 2011 or do you just want August 27, 2011? And on the other ear do you want Hope and Marc, Hope and Marc Heppding or The Heppding Family or The Heppding's Magical Vacation or what exactly would you like me to put for ya?! Send me an email when ya get back home if ya want...

 

[Anal Annie]

My trip sucked! We are leaving early ... tomorrow morning. I started a TR on Mousellaneous. I didn't put have the stuff in it I wanted to!

How about the two dates August to September, and you can put Hope and Marc Heppding.

Uh Oh!! I'm gonna look for your TR!! I can't wait to hear what went so wrong!! (I'll work on your sign tomorrow!!)

 

[Kels Sem]

Hey LeeAnn, I would be grateful if you would be able to do one for me as well. They look great. If it was left to me it would look awful I like them both.

Also do you still have the link handy for the taxi prices in Barcelona? I know you posted it somewhere on this thread but I'm being lazy by asking you rather than trawling through the thread.

Thank you