August 13, 2011 Med - Mickey's Marauding Mates

[Cumbley]

Hi All - havent been around much, work is sooooo busy! Cant believe how the weeks are going! Good to see our numbers growing! and there are other little princesses the same age as ours!

I think we've decided to do the ports ourselves and not book any trips, we're going to save the money and go to disneyland Paris in November! We've talked some friends into coming with us so excited about that too!

Starting to think about packing now - havent managed to go shopping yet - Annie you're an inspiration! Must take a day off to get everything sorted!


Cheryl

 

[Anal Annie]

Hi All!

We are a family of 4 from Calgary, Alberta - Lorne, Carrie, Logan (8) and Cassidy (16).

We are all very excited to be joining you all on this cruise, this will be our 4th.

Our plans are to travel to London, Paris, Norway and Spain and then hop on the ship..!

Please keep in touch, we look forward to see you soon!

MORE new peeps!! I do believe you are officially our 2nd Canadians to join our merry band!! I'll add ya to the roll call on the first post!! BOY do YOU have quite the trip planned! WOWIE!! Do come back & chat about it any time!!

Hi All - havent been around much, work is sooooo busy! Cant believe how the weeks are going! Good to see our numbers growing! and there are other little princesses the same age as ours!

I think we've decided to do the ports ourselves and not book any trips, we're going to save the money and go to disneyland Paris in November! We've talked some friends into coming with us so excited about that too!

Starting to think about packing now - havent managed to go shopping yet - Annie you're an inspiration! Must take a day off to get everything sorted!


Cheryl

Inspiration might be a bit overboard doncha think?! I am just a plain kook sometimes!!

We are doing 3 ports on our own I think and I'm a little nervous about it. Mostly nervous about La Spezia since it's a holiday the day we're there...I wish I could figure out a way to know the holiday train schedule NOW!!

 

[janetfk]

Gorgeous dresses, Annie! You are WAY more organized than I am

Welcome Lorne, Carrie and family!

Cheryl: how old is your daughter?
Ours will turn 3 on the last day of the cruise. We're deliberating whether to put her in the kids club (where she'll be the youngest) or just to book some time at Flounder's Reef

I booked our Barcelona hotel - finally.
AND we got our stateroom assignment!

 

[mikki.young]

Gorgeous dresses, Annie! You are WAY more organized than I am

I booked our Barcelona hotel - finally.
AND we got our stateroom assignment!

More organised than me too! Which hotel are you staying at and which stateroom did you get?

I'm feeling very undecided what to do about lots of ports. Florence looks like a long way and then everything shut when you get there. the Cinque Terre towns look great in good weather and on the boat but if it is rain or storms you go by coach and do more walking. That wouldn't suit dh! Looking forward to the day with Annie as pompeii is on my must see list and getting to see some of the stunning countryside too is a big bonus for me.

Oh and annie - I have now managed to add on ten night at BLT in January. Only got 3 more nights to get which I can start booking tomorrow!

 

[janetfk]

I'm also totally undecided about ports
We want to do things - but also spend time onboard. And I know the kids will not be up for long days of walking, so we're trying to keep it simple and fun.

So far Pompeii is a definite. And probably the short tour of Monaco

 

[mikki.young]

I'm also totally undecided about ports
We want to do things - but also spend time onboard. And I know the kids will not be up for long days of walking, so we're trying to keep it simple and fun.

So far Pompeii is a definite. And probably the short tour of Monaco

The half day tour with the car museum is the one I have booked for Monaco

 

[Anal Annie]

More organised than me too! Which hotel are you staying at and which stateroom did you get?

I'm feeling very undecided what to do about lots of ports. Florence looks like a long way and then everything shut when you get there. the Cinque Terre towns look great in good weather and on the boat but if it is rain or storms you go by coach and do more walking. That wouldn't suit dh! Looking forward to the day with Annie as pompeii is on my must see list and getting to see some of the stunning countryside too is a big bonus for me.

Oh and annie - I have now managed to add on ten night at BLT in January. Only got 3 more nights to get which I can start booking tomorrow!

Good job on snagging BLT during such a busy time! Congrats! I have booked 6 nights at SSR (for now) from March 29 - April 4 for spring break. I plan to call after our trip (on August 29) to see if we can switch to either BLT or BWV.

BTW Mikki - I emailed romeinlimo yesterday to see if we needed to pre-purchase tickets for Pompeii like we do for the Vatican and the Colesseum & they said no, we are to buy those admission tickets on sight when we get there. So I asked her how much are they & do they take credit cards & she said they're 12 euro each and cash only. More euros to get. Just FYI so we can plan ahead where we can.

Gorgeous dresses, Annie! You are WAY more organized than I am

Welcome Lorne, Carrie and family!

Cheryl: how old is your daughter?
Ours will turn 3 on the last day of the cruise. We're deliberating whether to put her in the kids club (where she'll be the youngest) or just to book some time at Flounder's Reef

I booked our Barcelona hotel - finally.
AND we got our stateroom assignment!

Yes! Where are you staying and where's your stateroom? Did ya get an upgrade? A lot of us are on deck 6.... I peeked at the DCL website today to see how we're looking. All inside rooms are gone & the only OV rooms are the 9D's which are in GTY. The verandah rooms are starting to go now too. 7A's, 6A's & 5C's are gone. 5B's & 4E's are in GTY and the only others with availability are 5A's, 4B's & 4A's. Concierge has been gone for a long time. If anybody was planning on doing a port upgrade it may be slim pickins by the time we sail.

 

[Cumbley]

Gorgeous dresses, Annie! You are WAY more organized than I am

Welcome Lorne, Carrie and family!

Cheryl: how old is your daughter?
Ours will turn 3 on the last day of the cruise. We're deliberating whether to put her in the kids club (where she'll be the youngest) or just to book some time at Flounder's Reef

I booked our Barcelona hotel - finally.
AND we got our stateroom assignment!

Hi
Eleanor is 8 and Lauren is 5 - they are both really looking forward to the kids clubs.

 

[janetfk]

We booked the Hotel Espana which seemed a nice compromise on distances to the port as well as the city. Had great service from the reception desk - with helpful responses to my emails in just a few minutes.

Yes! Where are you staying and where's your stateroom? Did ya get an upgrade? A lot of us are on deck 6.... I peeked at the DCL website today to see how we're looking. All inside rooms are gone & the only OV rooms are the 9D's which are in GTY. The verandah rooms are starting to go now too. 7A's, 6A's & 5C's are gone. 5B's & 4E's are in GTY and the only others with availability are 5A's, 4B's & 4A's. Concierge has been gone for a long time. If anybody was planning on doing a port upgrade it may be slim pickins by the time we sail.

Annie: no upgrade. anyone have any experience on deck 2? We've heard it can be noisy, but overall we're still very happy that we even got bookings at all, considering we booked just 60+days out! And the room looks great too!

 

[mikki.young]

I am picking up some Euros next week. Plan on having a mix of Euros in cash and on a cash card (mainly because of Barcelona stay beforehand). Annie remember we will be giving you some Euros to pay for our half of the trip......

Now for those of us who have not paid for our cruise in dollars please remember that you can't pre-order wine, beer glasses or flowers or anything else on the gifts list. Good old Disney computer systems!

Hey Annie - maybe we could come to a deal with some of you US types to order the stuff and we pay you? Disney would probably find some way to make that fail

 

[janetfk]

Now for those of us who have not paid for our cruise in dollars please remember that you can't pre-order wine, beer glasses or flowers or anything else on the gifts list. Good old Disney computer systems!
:

We also found that one can't order travel insurance for the trip either.
Anyone got a recommendation for insurers?

 

[Anal Annie]

We booked the Hotel Espana which seemed a nice compromise on distances to the port as well as the city. Had great service from the reception desk - with helpful responses to my emails in just a few minutes.

I think the Espana was recommended in my Frommer's guide book. You should be good there.

Annie: no upgrade. We had a 9C GTY, so we're in #2500 - anyone have any experience on deck 2? We've heard it can be noisy, but overall we're still pretty happy that we even got bookings at all, considering we booked just 60+days out!

We have not stayed on deck 2 but a lot of folks really like it a lot & stay down there all the time.

I am picking up some Euros next week. Plan on having a mix of Euros in cash and on a cash card (mainly because of Barcelona stay beforehand). Annie remember we will be giving you some Euros to pay for our half of the trip......

HEY, so whenever you add up how many euros you're getting do you want to just deduct our half of the post-cruise Auto Vilars transfer from your share that you're planning to give us on for the Naples day? Doesn't that make sense over us paying you & you paying us blah, blah, blah.

Now for those of us who have not paid for our cruise in dollars please remember that you can't pre-order wine, beer glasses or flowers or anything else on the gifts list. Good old Disney computer systems!

Hey Annie - maybe we could come to a deal with some of you US types to order the stuff and we pay you? Disney would probably find some way to make that fail

Wait?! What did I miss? You can't pre-order the beer mugs & stuff?! Why not?? DH always like to get a beer mug so I was going to go ahead & order him one as I've read that they can sometimes run out of them by the end of the summer over there. Do I need to order more than one??? We do not ever order anything else. I think for the most part the stuff is overpriced. But tell me what's going on? What's the glitch????


Gettin' ready to go to summer swim team practice in a bit...it's CHILLY out there today...DS will not be a happy swimmer. It rained earler but it has stopped now. He hates swimming in the rain. Not sure why - they're already wet. Guess it's a mental game. I know I don't particularly like WATCHING in the rain! They don't call it off unless it's storming tho. Jeff - have ya heard from DD any more?? Hope she's having a good time & swimming hard!!

 

[Anal Annie]

We also found that one can't order travel insurance for the trip either.
Anyone got a recommendation for insurers?

You can get a better deal on your own! We purchased thru insuremytrip.com. For us it came down to deciding between Travel Guard Protect Assist Gold and Travel Insured Worldwide Trip Protector. I ended up buying the latter one. Both of these insure kids for free!! We wanted to insure our entire trip (flights, Paris, hotels, cruise, tours, medical etc.) and DCL's would have only done the cruise. We got it all covered for less than what DCL would've charged for just the cruise.

 

[jd99]

Gettin' ready to go to summer swim team practice in a bit...it's CHILLY out there today...DS will not be a happy swimmer. It rained earler but it has stopped now. He hates swimming in the rain. Not sure why - they're already wet. Guess it's a mental game. I know I don't particularly like WATCHING in the rain! They don't call it off unless it's storming tho. Jeff - have ya heard from DD any more?? Hope she's having a good time & swimming hard!!

She is having a great time. I think it's the right mix of enjoying the swimming focus and fun with other kids. She has barely communicated with us overall because she's busy or having fun or tired. All good. She did text me at lunchtime today to tell me her legs were tired - because they did 90 minutes of dryland. That's a lot. The group she is in with her team does little if any dryland so I'm sure this was a shock (they do it every day at camp) but she will be better for it and perhaps learn some good habits to do some cross training on her own!

 

[mikki.young]

Wait?! What did I miss? You can't pre-order the beer mugs & stuff?! Why not?? DH always like to get a beer mug so I was going to go ahead & order him one as I've read that they can sometimes run out of them by the end of the summer over there. Do I need to order more than one??? We do not ever order anything else. I think for the most part the stuff is overpriced. But tell me what's going on? What's the glitch????

You can order Annie but we can't. Good old system upgrades at Disney mean they can do less A beer mug is exactly what I was after for the same reason. If you do make an order I would be very grateful if you would order one for me too! And I am sure we can do a conversion to get it to you in more euros! Our plus/minus sum could be getting more complicated by the minute!

 

[kerrykerr]

Welcome to the Canadian Crew! DH Andrew, DD Emma (5) and I are from Ontario. You have a big trip planned!

Well, I'm starting to "test pack" our luggage and so far so good. Question (another one): Does DH need a sport coat for semi-formal night, or will a shirt and tie be sufficient? I'm trying to limit our luggage to the essentials.

 

[Anal Annie]

She is having a great time. I think it's the right mix of enjoying the swimming focus and fun with other kids. She has barely communicated with us overall because she's busy or having fun or tired. All good. She did text me at lunchtime today to tell me her legs were tired - because they did 90 minutes of dryland. That's a lot. The group she is in with her team does little if any dryland so I'm sure this was a shock (they do it every day at camp) but she will be better for it and perhaps learn some good habits to do some cross training on her own!

Yeah, 90 minutes of dryland would be a pretty good workout. DS's groups did about 30 minutes a few times a week. Some of the exercises they do are supposed to help with their starts. Glad she's having fun! Hey, how would you interpret this? Our winter club has put the info. on their website for Fall registration already (they offer a small discount if you pay for the whole session in full by July 1). So anyway, they have added some new time standard requirements for a couple of the groups. For the one group that he was swimming with this past session they now say "must have 'B' times in 2 or more events". To ME, an event is a 50 or a 100 or a 200. But do you think they reallllly technically meant to say 2 different strokes?! They also didn't specify short course or long course. Would you think that matters? Should I email them to ask?? DS has 3 'B' times in short course freestyle (the 50, 100 & 1000). He is only about 2.5 sec. away from a 'B' time on his 100 Backstroke in SC which I would hope he would drop this fall. Then he has 'B' times on the long course for the 100, 200 & 400 Freestyle and the 100 Backstroke. What do you think? Does he meet the minimum requirements? Would you ask them or am I just being Anal Annie again?! I would like to keep him with this group because they offer weekday evening practices at one pool and evenings work best for us during the week.

You can order Annie but we can't. Good old system upgrades at Disney mean they can do less A beer mug is exactly what I was after for the same reason. If you do make an order I would be very grateful if you would order one for me too! And I am sure we can do a conversion to get it to you in more euros! Our plus/minus sum could be getting more complicated by the minute!

Hummmm. I can't actually order anything ONLINE either. I have to either call an 800 number or I have to print out an order form & fax it in. Do you mean you're not even allowed to call them? That's absurd! I think they just leave a slip in the stateroom to be able to pick it up somewhere. I haven't decided yet if I'm calling them or faxing the form but of course we can order an extra 1 or 2 for you. How many did you want? I wonder if I call them if I can get them to just leave 1 slip in our stateroom & 1 slip in yours?

Welcome to the Canadian Crew! DH Andrew, DD Emma (5) and I are from Ontario. You have a big trip planned!

Well, I'm starting to "test pack" our luggage and so far so good. Question (another one): Does DH need a sport coat for semi-formal night, or will a shirt and tie be sufficient? I'm trying to limit our luggage to the essentials.

I am glad I'm not the only "test packer" among us!! I am bringing a suit for DH + 2 or 3 dress shirts & a couple of ties. I was not planning to bring a separate sport coat for him. The suit coat will likely come off during dinner and hang on the back of the chair anyway knowing him. I was hoping he could get by on semi-formal night & Palo with the shirt & tie and his suit pants if that's all he wants to wear. I am also trying to limit the packing as much as possible.

 

[jd99]

Yeah, 90 minutes of dryland would be a pretty good workout. DS's groups did about 30 minutes a few times a week. Some of the exercises they do are supposed to help with their starts. Glad she's having fun! Hey, how would you interpret this? Our winter club has put the info. on their website for Fall registration already (they offer a small discount if you pay for the whole session in full by July 1). So anyway, they have added some new time standard requirements for a couple of the groups. For the one group that he was swimming with this past session they now say "must have 'B' times in 2 or more events". To ME, an event is a 50 or a 100 or a 200. But do you think they reallllly technically meant to say 2 different strokes?! They also didn't specify short course or long course. Would you think that matters? Should I email them to ask?? DS has 3 'B' times in short course freestyle (the 50, 100 & 1000). He is only about 2.5 sec. away from a 'B' time on his 100 Backstroke in SC which I would hope he would drop this fall. Then he has 'B' times on the long course for the 100, 200 & 400 Freestyle and the 100 Backstroke. What do you think? Does he meet the minimum requirements? Would you ask them or am I just being Anal Annie again?! I would like to keep him with this group because they offer weekday evening practices at one pool and evenings work best for us during the week.

[/COLOR]

I'll answer your last question first- yes I think you just being Anal Annie Again!

I'm betting they just meant events (not strokes) but regardless he has it on both counts. And it should make no difference in long course or short. If you notice on meet entries for BB and above meets, the requirement is always to have that time standard in EITHER long or short course. So i think you are all good!

 

[jd99]

Greetings all. Today is DD12's last full day of swim camp. Working butterfly today and the classroom session is "the psychology of swimming." Tomorrow they have a mini meet late morning and then 'graduation' - so we get to go see both. So happy I have the flexibility to get there. DD7 is at a cheer camp this week so Friday morning is HER show! I thought summer was supposed to be relaxing but this first full week of summer vacation has been nuts.

Have to get some major work done in the next few days because we leave a week from today for WDW. Getting ready for the heat, especially DD12 who will be dancing twice in one day (parade down main street in the hottest part of the afternoon and then a stage performance at downtown disney at 5:30). The good part is that they get both performances in on one day and their other commitments are not all day kinds of things so the girls get to enjoy the parks. This may be a trip for a water park.....and so ready to see the Dream for the first time and hit Castaway twice in one sailing for the first time ever. Now THAT'S what summer vacation is supposed to be all about !

Just read on the AP wire this morning about riots in Greece. Great....we are heading there before the Med sailing and although we will be on an island most of the trip, we do have 2 nights in Athens on the way to Barcelona - staying pretty close to Parliament Square. It's like a part of the summer tourism season in Athens...these riots...as I think this is exactly what I read about at this time last year. Another adventure for us for sure!

 

[jd99]

The suit coat will likely come off during dinner and hang on the back of the chair anyway knowing him. I was hoping he could get by on semi-formal night & Palo with the shirt & tie and his suit pants if that's all he wants to wear. I am also trying to limit the packing as much as possible.

We tried to pack very light last year and though I have tux, I didn't bring it on this trip because it all takes up so much room. I actually didn't even bring a suitt - we already had nice formal pix from a recent cruise so we decided to skip formal night and go to the buffet so that we wouldn't be "too dressed down." Then we saw how others were dressed (think shorts in the dining room on grown men; jeans on lots of folks every night including formal). One guy even wore a swim suit to dinner on formal night. So when we saw this all and talked to our servers (whom we have had several times before), they talked us into coming to formal night. I wore khakis, a sport coat and dress shirt and tie and was one of the better dressed people there. Probably going to follow that same plan so that I don't have to bring the full suit and extra shoes. If the cruise turns out to be more "formal" - lotsa guys in tuxes instead of just 2 or 3 walking around - we'll go to the buffet that night. I don't want to ruin anyone's dining experience by being too dressed down (though the people next to us last year where the mom and dad both had on plain white tee shirts and jeans may have done it for some).