August 25 2012

[JustTJ]

Tara!! I'm not sure how well this particular sailing is selling, but I imagine it's probably doing well because of the time of year, right before school starts.

For all those getting the extra mailings, I've recently gotten them too, with wrong itinerary and right itinerary, 4 at a time. What a waste of paper! I've gotten the same, a month or so ago, and again when I booked!! I do think there must be a glitch in the system.

 

[Bytor01]

Hello Everyone,

We are booked on this cruise also. It is me, DW (Mary), DS (James) and DD (Moira) both (twins) will be 10, almost 11, by the time this cruise comes around.

It will be our sixth cruise, as we will also be sailing on a four day Jan 2012 on the Dream. We just got off an Eastern from Jan.15-22. We have done 2 Easterns, 1 Western and a four day Nassau. We booked our next two cruises, this one and the four day, while we were sailing this past January.

We are looking forward to joining the conversation in this thread.

Tim

btw- I noticed that we have a couple of Long Islanders (NYers) on this cruise, us too, representing Nassau County here

 

[bigbootee]

Hello Everyone,

We are booked on this cruise also. It is me, DW (Mary), DS (James) and DD (Moira) both (twins) will be 10, almost 11, by the time this cruise comes around.

It will be our sixth cruise, as we will also be sailing on a four day Jan 2012 on the Dream. We just got off an Eastern from Jan.15-22. We have done 2 Easterns, 1 Western and a four day Nassau. We booked our next two cruises, this one and the four day, while we were sailing this past January.

We are looking forward to joining the conversation in this thread.

Tim

btw- I noticed that we have a couple of Long Islanders (NYers) on this cruise, us too, representing Nassau County here

Our twins Sam and Haylee will be 11 for the cruise. We're nearby in NJ.

 

[JKSWonder]

Hello Everyone,

We are booked on this cruise also. It is me, DW (Mary), DS (James) and DD (Moira) both (twins) will be 10, almost 11, by the time this cruise comes around.

It will be our sixth cruise, as we will also be sailing on a four day Jan 2012 on the Dream. We just got off an Eastern from Jan.15-22. We have done 2 Easterns, 1 Western and a four day Nassau. We booked our next two cruises, this one and the four day, while we were sailing this past January.

We are looking forward to joining the conversation in this thread.

Tim

btw- I noticed that we have a couple of Long Islanders (NYers) on this cruise, us too, representing Nassau County here

Welcome! We are also in Nassau County and my daughter will be 11 at the time of the cruise.

 

[JustTJ]

I was having a difficult time getting excited about this Eastern itinerary, not knowing anything about our Ports of call other than Castaway Cay. Today though, I looked at excursions offered through Island Marketing. The Horseback Riding tour and Beach break, in St. Maarten has REALLY caught my eye, It sounds fabulous. There are several too in St. Thomas, oh how does one decide. The 007 Helicopter Private Island Beach Escape sounds utterly Fascinating, but pricy. Then there is the Island tours, that give you a few hours on a Beach as well as fabulous sightseeing and shopping in St. Thomas. Ok, now I'm happy happy, excited about this itinerary.
The ONLY thing that has me slightly concerned (can someone else who's been to beaches on an eastern cruise elay these for me), is that in the decription of the beaches is a blurb about them being European and therefore there is likely to be nude bathers there. My assumption would be though, that those beach goers would be few and far between. My concern lies in the fact that we will have our children with us.

 

[Pudo]

I was having a difficult time getting excited about this Eastern itinerary, not knowing anything about our Ports of call other than Castaway Cay. Today though, I looked at excursions offered through Island Marketing. The Horseback Riding tour and Beach break, in St. Maarten has REALLY caught my eye, It sounds fabulous. There are several too in St. Thomas, oh how does one decide. The 007 Helicopter Private Island Beach Escape sounds utterly Fascinating, but pricy. Then there is the Island tours, that give you a few hours on a Beach as well as fabulous sightseeing and shopping in St. Thomas. Ok, now I'm happy happy, excited about this itinerary.
The ONLY thing that has me slightly concerned (can someone else who's been to beaches on an eastern cruise elay these for me), is that in the decription of the beaches is a blurb about them being European and therefore there is likely to be nude bathers there. My assumption would be though, that those beach goers would be few and far between. My concern lies in the fact that we will have our children with us.

St. Maarten is divided in half, the northern part is French owned, the southern is Dutch owned. Although not an absolute rule the Dutch are more conservative than the French so you typically don't see nude or topless bathers in the south. DCL docks at Philipsburg which is on the southside of the island so unless your excursion takes you to the French side you should be fine.

 

[JustTJ]

Thanks Jeff, thats good info to have. I was all excited about Horseback riding along the beach, but then read a trip report from way back in 2001 about the same place. A few horses got spooked, and a few took off with Children on them. The ladies son fell off and had just some road rash type injuries, nothing more, but the daughter fell off and broke a few bones in her wrist/arm that required surgery. That put an immediate stop to their vacation. As I'll have my children with me, I've now written that one off as a family activity, but feel good knowing I can find a beautiful beach to spend the day at!

 

[FJS961]

We are hopeful to be on this sailing! I put a deposit down but won't know until late May of this year if I will be able to take this week off for sure ...

 

[Kaizen]

We are hopeful to be on this sailing! I put a deposit down but won't know until late May of this year if I will be able to take this week off for sure ...

Hope you will be able to join us! MY DD will be 12 at time of sailing and I know would love to meet some other kids as well. Any thoughts on how we can get them chatting??

 

[lesabrowning]

My daughter will be 10 at cruise time and is VERY interested in meeting other kids before the cruise. I would love to brainstorm with other families on ways to get the kids together online. I know message boards are frowned upon for the under 13 year olds, but many younger ones do have access to email. Any ideas out there?

 

[JustTJ]

My daughter will be 10 at cruise time and is VERY interested in meeting other kids before the cruise. I would love to brainstorm with other families on ways to get the kids together online. I know message boards are frowned upon for the under 13 year olds, but many younger ones do have access to email. Any ideas out there?

For our Last Cruise, a KIDS THREAD was started and was linked to the main meets thread. Although my kids didn't participate on it, as they didn't KNOW about the cruise till the week before, there are other parents on here whose kids did participate. Jeff or Beth, do you know how that was arranged?

 

[tinkerbelltwins]

For our Last Cruise, a KIDS THREAD was started and was linked to the main meets thread. Although my kids didn't participate on it, as they didn't KNOW about the cruise till the week before, there are other parents on here whose kids did participate. Jeff or Beth, do you know how that was arranged?

Hmmmm. I have no idea who started that thread on the Halloween Magic cruise, maybe it was Janice? Though I did put the girls' names down on that kids thread, they never got on it because they don't know how to type on the computer, plus it seemed like the kids using it were a few years older. My girls did start privately emailing Jeff's daughter (mom typed their messages) once Jeff and I figured out that our kids were the same age and had similar interests. I think Jeff talked about setting up a FB site with the teenagers a few months before we sailed, but not sure if that got off the ground.

Beth

 

[FJS961]

Hope you will be able to join us! MY DD will be 12 at time of sailing and I know would love to meet some other kids as well. Any thoughts on how we can get them chatting??

at time of sailing kids will be 12,10,6

this will be our first eastern itinerary. Our first western is coming up in april.

 

[spoohs]

My daughter will be 13 at the time of the cruise and would love to chat with others that will be at the tween club (I saw that a bunch of you have 11 and 12 year olds). This will be our 4th cruise and she has chatted with a bunch of kids before each one. It helped to get to know some of the kids before they got on board and then they would set up a time to meet. Usually how we have had them get started is the parents would send a pm with an email address, and they would start that way.

 

[threeiscrazy]

Judy you have me thinking about the 007 excursion, but as soon as I think "Yes, we need to try that" I start thinking, "what if they don't come back & pick us up" Crazy, I know.

 

[mvlimmex]

Hi Everyone,
This is Adriane ( Vicki's 12 year old daughter) and I was the person who started the kids thread for the Oct. 30th Halloween cruise. I just posted the kid's meet thread as a new thread and then later Janice linked it to the adult meet thread.
Hope this helps!
Adriane

 

[JustTJ]

Judy you have me thinking about the 007 excursion, but as soon as I think "Yes, we need to try that" I start thinking, "what if they don't come back & pick us up" Crazy, I know.

LOL. I've wiped the horseback riding one off my idea list. I read a moms TR from several years ago about their experience with the horse place near the beach that we wanted to go to. The horses her two kids were on got spooked and tore off down the beach eventually spilling the kids off. The boy was ok other than scrapes and bruises, but her daughter broke the radius bone in her wrist. After an ambulance ride, then an emergency flight home and surgery, the rest of their cruise didn't happen obviously. I don't want to risk such things, and I can totally now picture Tim falling off. So NO horses for us on this vacation. Just a Beach, thats all, maybe some shopping. (Unless my mom just wants to stay on a beach and the boys can stay with her, then maybe Martyn and I will do the horse thing)

 

[minie_meese]

Just booked this sailing while on last week's Mexican Riviera cruise. We plan to have a large family group of about 10 people in 4 cabins - Elaine and David, our grown children, their significant others and 2 granddaughters.

Looking forward to meeting everyone.

 

[tinkerbelltwins]

Just booked this sailing while on last week's Mexican Riviera cruise. We plan to have a large family group of about 10 people in 4 cabins - Elaine and David, our grown children, their significant others and 2 granddaughters.

Looking forward to meeting everyone.

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

 

[JKSWonder]

Just booked this sailing while on last week's Mexican Riviera cruise. We plan to have a large family group of about 10 people in 4 cabins - Elaine and David, our grown children, their significant others and 2 granddaughters.

Looking forward to meeting everyone.

Hi there and Welcome!