August 13, 2011 Med - Mickey's Marauding Mates

[Kels Sem]

Ahhh...scouting!! I don't miss it!

You're quite right - the luggage restrictions are really a complication. Aren't you allowed 1 checked bag per person? Why only 3? I was just reading thru another thread that was about packing lists for the trans-atlantic - SCARY!!! As much fun as the FE was it IS a huge consideration. I am not 100% sure either way.... I do have a few ideas...but...I don't know. This is also such a port intensive cruise - we'll barely have any time on the ship (which will make deliveries harder). <heavy sigh>

getting ready to eat lunch then head to swim practice....

3 checked bags is the joy of flying with Easyjet If I had wanted an extra one it would have cost £££ but I do have an 80kg weight allowance over the 3 bags which isn't too bad.

If you do decide on going ahead with the FE me and the kids can help you out with the deliveries if necessary as we'll probably be on the ship much more than you. But I suppose half the fun is making the deliveries yourself but the offer is there...

 

[Kels Sem]

Oh and I have found another peep I'm just going to give them the link for this thread and invite them to join us over here. Will let you know if I succeed..

 

[Joanne Hollyoak]

Ahhh...scouting!! I don't miss it!

You're quite right - the luggage restrictions are really a complication. Aren't you allowed 1 checked bag per person? Why only 3? I was just reading thru another thread that was about packing lists for the trans-atlantic - SCARY!!! As much fun as the FE was it IS a huge consideration. I am not 100% sure either way.... I do have a few ideas...but...I don't know. This is also such a port intensive cruise - we'll barely have any time on the ship (which will make deliveries harder). <heavy sigh>

getting ready to eat lunch then head to swim practice....

Hi did not know about luggage restrictions we booked with virgin and have not received all our information yet, will have to check for ship and airline.
FE is confusing me I thought that if there was 7 families then you give 1 gift to each family just once in the 7 days so you receive 1 gift a day is this right?
Just read your be celebrating a big birthday before we set sail congrats are you having a party?

 

[Joanne Hollyoak]

Sorry I have been MIA. Let's see if I can remember all the questions asked.

We are not going to do FE this time. It's just too hard with the airline luggage limits.

We actually didn't get to port until a bit later than normal but I think I remember that it opened at 10.

And yes Belle is on the ship. She appears at the princess gathering and on last years Med she and Beast came to Lumieres one night!

Have a great weekend all. Raining like mad here!

Thanks for the info, I hope Belle and The Beast attend this year, how many DCL's have you been on?

 

[Anal Annie]

3 checked bags is the joy of flying with Easyjet If I had wanted an extra one it would have cost £££ but I do have an 80kg weight allowance over the 3 bags which isn't too bad.

If you do decide on going ahead with the FE me and the kids can help you out with the deliveries if necessary as we'll probably be on the ship much more than you. But I suppose half the fun is making the deliveries yourself but the offer is there...

Oh thanks, Kelly!! That's so nice of you...I'm sure I can get DH & DS to help me out a little if we decide to participate... At this point tho I am not sure if we have enough peeps who want to do it? Jeff said no, Luke hasn't replied & Karen is MIA...

Oh and I have found another peep I'm just going to give them the link for this thread and invite them to join us over here. Will let you know if I succeed..

Good work!!! Isn't trolling for peeps fun?!

Hi did not know about luggage restrictions we booked with virgin and have not received all our information yet, will have to check for ship and airline.
FE is confusing me I thought that if there was 7 families then you give 1 gift to each family just once in the 7 days so you receive 1 gift a day is this right?
Just read your be celebrating a big birthday before we set sail congrats are you having a party?

I don't know anything about Virgin's luggage restrictions...the only restriction you have with DCL is that your hand luggage has to fit thru the scanners (just like at the airport).
Regarding the FE gifts...that's sort of a personal preference. Some people will give a gift geared toward who's in a cabin. Some will give the same gift to a cabin regardless of whether or not there are kids etc. You can do 1 gift for the entire cruise or you can do 1 thing for every day if you want. There really are no rules about it unless the group as a whole decides to set some rules. Last time I did it I had about 5 or 6 little items & I WAS going to go around & drop a little something every day. Then our organizer decided since we were a small group that she would assign a different day to each of us so that not everyone would do everything all on the same day - she wanted to be sure that the stuff was spread out over the course of the week. All but 2 families were also doing 4/3 back-to-back cruises so she wanted to be sure to include those peeps in the first cruise. So it ended up that we had our assigned day and then a few people decided to go ahead & add another day or 2 on top. I ended up just making goody bags & putting all of my stuff into 1 gift bag and going around just once. I think we had 10 cabins & it took about 30 minutes even with a copy of the deck plans that had all of the cabins marked.
LOL...big birthday...yeah!! But NO!! Not planning a party...it's on a Saturday of a holiday weekend here in the US...but DS will likely have a swim meet that morning so I doubt we'll plan to go anywhere...too far away to plan but maybe we'll go out for dinner or something...

So DS applied for an "Advanced Placement Power Scholars" program (APPS) at his soon-to-be high school for next year. We got his acceptance letter in the mail yesterday. I had my doubts about him getting in so it was a big surprise for sure. They only take about 60-65 incoming students into the program every year. He will be required to take 7 AP courses throughout HS and to maintain a 3.5 GPA and not miss more than 9 days of school in any 1 year (missing shouldn't be a problem). I am a bit nervous about it. I mean, he's a good student but this is going to be a rigorous program with LOTS of homework & tremendous pressure to do well. If he falls below the requirements for more than 1 semester he'll get kicked out. We're quite proud of him for getting accepted but I'm so scared!!

 

[Goofygoof]

first of all thank you Kel sem for directing me to this forum its absolutely brilliant. we r family from Essex uk just booked our first ever cruise last sat , iam traveling with my dh Dave and my son Youssef who will be 5 on the 11/8
Iam so exited as we never been to disney land either so its a big thing for us . we're yet to book flights and hotel as we're thinking of spending 2 days at bcn before the cruise I dont think i've ever planned anything that early in my life not even my wedding
seems to be lot of info on here lot of reading to do

 

[Anal Annie]

first of all thank you Kel sem for directing me to this forum its absolutely brilliant. we r family from Essex uk just booked our first ever cruise last sat , iam traveling with my dh Dave and my son Youssef who will be 5 on the 11/8
Iam so exited as we never been to disney land either so its a big thing for us . we're yet to book flights and hotel as we're thinking of spending 2 days at bcn before the cruise I dont think i've ever planned anything that early in my life not even my wedding
seems to be lot of info on here lot of reading to do

Ahoy!! Welcome aboard!! Glad Kelly found you and got you directed in the right direction!! Glad to hear you are planning to go to Barcelona a couple days early!! It is always smart to travel to your cruise port a day or two ahead so your plans are starting out right!! You will find a lot of Disneyphiles are big on planning well ahead!! We just get so darned excited about it!!

So I can add you to our first post on the thread...you said your DH's name is Dave & your DS is Youssef but you left out your real first name! Sorry to be confused but when you say Youssef's birthday is 11/8 does that mean August 11th or November 8th?! I think you're saying he's turning 5 in August, right?! Want to be sure I add it right in the roll call...

 

[Kels Sem]

first of all thank you Kel sem for directing me to this forum its absolutely brilliant. we r family from Essex uk just booked our first ever cruise last sat , iam traveling with my dh Dave and my son Youssef who will be 5 on the 11/8
Iam so exited as we never been to disney land either so its a big thing for us . we're yet to book flights and hotel as we're thinking of spending 2 days at bcn before the cruise I dont think i've ever planned anything that early in my life not even my wedding
seems to be lot of info on here lot of reading to do

Hi again, I'm glad you have joined us. At least you worked out that it that Kel Sem is me. I had forgotten to mention in my email that my username is different to that on the DIBB. When I registered on this site I wasn't able to pick the same username as it was already being used.

Wow, so this is your first Disney experience. I'm sure that you will have a blast.

kelly

 

[Kels Sem]

LeeAnn - well done to your DS

 

[Goofygoof]

hello Annie

Oops forgot to mention my name is Shereen, DH dave my son Youssef will be 5 on the 11th of August,( sorry was using british system) we plan to fly to Bcn on that day the 11th to stay a couple of days there before the cruise
please add us to your thread

Thanks
shereen

 

[Anal Annie]

hello Annie

Oops forgot to mention my name is Shereen, DH dave my son Youssef will be 5 on the 11th of August,( sorry was using british system) we plan to fly to Bcn on that day the 11th to stay a couple of days there before the cruise
please add us to your thread

Thanks
shereen

Shereen...gotcha!! Oh and what a WONDERFUL birthday trip for Youssef!! He will be quite the little pirate by then I'm sure. Does he know about it or are you going to surprise him?!

 

[mikki.young]

Welcome Shereen! Going to be quite a few of us from the UK on this cruise I suspect!

 

[mikki.young]

Looking at transfers in Barcelona. look like plenty to go from airport to hotel and/or hotel to ship. Haven't found any apart from the one on this thread that will pick up from the port.

I'm also begining to think that Fish extender exchanges are going to add a bit too much to the packing weight and we are pretty limited as going by a low cost airline from the UK.

 

[Goofygoof]

we're trying to book a budget airline as well ( easyjet out of stansted) they are so mean, they make pay £20 for hold baggage and £10 extra per/Kg

 

[Kels Sem]

Looking at transfers in Barcelona. look like plenty to go from airport to hotel and/or hotel to ship. Haven't found any apart from the one on this thread that will pick up from the port.

I'm also begining to think that Fish extender exchanges are going to add a bit too much to the packing weight and we are pretty limited as going by a low cost airline from the UK.

I found this as well. I was thinking of using suntransfers to and from the airport. I might ring them and ask if they can do to and from the port. Not sure if they will as they are based at the airport

 

[mikki.young]

I found this as well. I was thinking of using suntransfers to and from the airport. I might ring them and ask if they can do to and from the port. Not sure if they will as they are based at the airport

I asked suntransfers already and they cant. They do look the best value for to and from the airport part though.

Shareen - we ended up with BMI Baby out of East Midlands. Still lots of extras but not as bad as some of them.

 

[Anal Annie]

we're trying to book a budget airline as well ( easyjet out of stansted) they are so mean, they make pay £20 for hold baggage and £10 extra per/Kg

This is another reason I decided to book everything for us all on Air France and not try to mix up airlines to save a buck. At least I knew going into it what we were allowed as included allowances. I still need to buy a travel luggage scale for this trip too. I am not going to leave home without one this time. I don't know how accurate they are but I might try to weigh something at home then I might take the same thing to the Post Office or something and see if they can weigh it for me there so I can compare how accurate it is. Ideally, even tho we're allowed 50 Lbs I have heard that the airline scales are often off by a pound or two (they will claim something is over when it's really not). I hope I can actually pack to 48-49 Lbs to allow for that kind of crap. One time we were going somewhere and the airline weighed one of our bags at like 50.3 Lbs or something (when I thought we were at 49 Lbs) and they said I had to either take something out that weighed 3 ounces or else they were charging me $25!! I have heard different things about how strict Air France is. Their website says we're allowed 1 carry-on item for the overhead bin and 1 "personal item" for a combined weight of 26 Lbs. I am wondering what would happen if we weighed 27 Lbs instead?! I made sure I bought new "international size" bags for each of us. I had heard that they often enforced the measurements too and our old carry-on bags that work in the US actually have larger dimensions than what they say. These new bags I bought are very lightweight and look like kid size bags but they DO meet their measurements listed on the website. We already own so much luggage I hated to buy MORE (esp. 'cuz we'll never use them again since they're so small) BUT I didn't want to get to Europe and be told we had to check it between Paris & Barcelona. That would cost as much as what I paid for the bags. DH doesn't know I bought 3 new bags! I hid them! I figured if I am lucky he's so unobservant sometimes that he may not even notice they're different bags...

 

[Kels Sem]

How much room is there in the staterooms for storing luggage? I'm guessing that I'll be able to fit a couple of suitcases at the bottom of the wardrobe? Anywhere else? I'm trying to figure out what types of bags to bring. We all going to have hand luggage as well. The kids have their own little cases which they fill with all the stuff they want to bring..

 

[Goofygoof]

I asked suntransfers already and they cant. They do look the best value for to and from the airport part though.

Shareen - we ended up with BMI Baby out of East Midlands. Still lots of extras but not as bad as some of them.

someone on the dibb website used this company Quote
( LimoRent.com €86.51 per transfer including taxes from Airport to Port; and Port to Airport for family of 5 )
DCl transfer is about £18 pp

 

[Joanne Hollyoak]

first of all thank you Kel sem for directing me to this forum its absolutely brilliant. we r family from Essex uk just booked our first ever cruise last sat , iam traveling with my dh Dave and my son Youssef who will be 5 on the 11/8
Iam so exited as we never been to disney land either so its a big thing for us . we're yet to book flights and hotel as we're thinking of spending 2 days at bcn before the cruise I dont think i've ever planned anything that early in my life not even my wedding
seems to be lot of info on here lot of reading to do

Hi were from Birmingham UK going on our first DCL. Our son Aaron will be 4 in July so they might play together in the kids club which looks great.