Bringing Home the Magic - Part 2 - 8/18/07 - 9/01/07- list of cruisers on page 1

[RobinMarie]

So many old friends from the Ship of Fools. I love it. We are looking forward to expanding our circle of friends.

Barb, I've ready many of your trip reports. Thanks so much for all of your reporting, it really helped me before my first cruise.

will I freak out halfway across the Atlantic and have to be shot with elephant tranquilizer and strapped in my seat?

Let's remember, no weapons on board the air craft. You'll have to swallow your pills like everyone else!

 

[eye R.N.]

I am hoping that the May cruise will give us the show schedule so I'll have the Palo thing worked out in good time.

I have been obessing air fares as well found some good ones out of Boston to Paris but who knows what is going to happen to fuel prices.

My worries, Paris first or straight to Barcelona. . . train or plane from Paris. If Paris DLP?

As for shore excursions, I have a great group of friends that tend to plan wonderful things at significant savings of those offered by the ship. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. 16 months is plenty of time. (someone remind me I said that 15 months from now.)

As for me I'm thinking a red eye flight and some Lunesta

 

[slindamood]

Great thread!! I've only made it through the first ten pages and the last 3 -

So excited to be on this cruise - after two days of deciding - decision is GO and we paid the deposit early this evening and we are in.

I am in the right place - have already spent an hour trying to figure airfares!

Suzanne

 

[DisneyElf]

Welcome to the airfare obession club.

Dee - you got to join us at DLP -- then we are going to group train it down to the port - and I called our TA - and as long as the Magic is in Port we can board - so even if we leave Paris on Friday night - (should arrive Sat morning) - we have a 24 hour comfort zone built in for travel.

 

[Haley'smom]

Ooooh...how long are you going to stay at DLP? We are interested in checking it out, too. Any information would be helpful. I don't know how we are swinging all this vacation time yet, but DH is interested and we have 16 months for pesky details like that

As for the long flight, can I use the same method as the long drive from MI to WDW and convince my non-driving travelers (i.e. DD) that she has a cold and we must all do shots of Benadryl? (every six hours or whenever she asks if we are there yet when we have not even left Ohio)

 

[Scratch42]

Ooooh...how long are you going to stay at DLP? We are interested in checking it out, too. Any information would be helpful. I don't know how we are swinging all this vacation time yet, but DH is interested and we have 16 months for pesky details like that

As for the long flight, can I use the same method as the long drive from MI to WDW and convince my non-driving travelers (i.e. DD) that she has a cold and we must all do shots of Benadryl? (every six hours or whenever she asks if we are there yet when we have not even left Ohio)

Early Obsesive plan is to arrive around Tues/Wed stay until Friday. Do a Segway tour of Paris and then take the night train to Barcelona!

I for one will use my DVC points to get DLP since they also inlcude park tickets. But have yet to decide which hotel to stay in?

It would be nice if DCL would offer a before/after package to DLP since they will be celebrating 15 years!

j

 

[slindamood]

For all of us obsessive planners A good place to check out the train schedule from Paris to Barcelona is the German Rail site (covers all of Europe, although they generally don't list the prices if a segment is not in Germany).

Appears the main Barcelona station is Barcelona Franca. There is a train with one transfer that takes only 8.5 hours (leaves Paris at 1:30 in the afternoon). The night train leaves 8:30 PM and takes about 11.5 hours, no transfers.

www.bahn.de (then click on international guests for the english version).

Happy planning!

 

[Ferkals]

Add us on your list too!! Just the 2 of us in a cat 9. It's great to see so many listed already! Mary

 

[ds2Mom]

Oh boy, our group keeps growing! Welcome to all the newly booked!

Right now we're leaning towards red-eye and the cruise.....unless I can twist DH's arm to go back to Germany for a few days earlier. And count me in on the obsessing over airfare group! Has anyone booked air with DCL? I looked at the website the other night and priced a room with and without air just to see what they were quoting. Unless I totally screwed it up (always a possibility), airfare was priced at around $750 per person. I would have big ?? about using DCL's air arrangements, but if that's a real price.....it's not bad compared to what I have been pulling up on various search engines.

Is that Barb of the infamous "Barb and Tony Suite" postings! Love reading all your posts!

DisneyElf - What play did you go see in NYC? How was it?

 

[wackywexler]

Yes, hi! totally obsessing on the airfare too! We were considering flying Aer Lingus from Los Angeles to London their August '06 rate is about $479 . Then stay in London a bit and sight see then on to Barcelona also on Aer Lingus cost of this flight at this years rates is $132 so added together it is $611 per person. I thought this was pretty good but have lots of time left to keep clicking away for rates!

 

[two-foxes]

Yes, hi! totally obsessing on the airfare too! We were considering flying Aer Lingus from Los Angeles to London their August '06 rate is about $479 . Then stay in London a bit and sight see then on to Barcelona also on Aer Lingus cost of this flight at this years rates is $132 so added together it is $611 per person. I thought this was pretty good but have lots of time left to keep clicking away for rates!

This is our plan. I was surprised to see how inexpensive airfare was from London to Barcelona. I am rethinking the whole standby thing to London. It will save us a ton of cash, although we'll have no idea when we will get there....

 

[slindamood]

I am still looking at trains from Paris to Barcelona as an option.

Found an even better site - had used this a few years ago to buy tickets online. The French rail site www.sncf.fr Go to the lower left hand corner to click on the British flag for english.

For example, this summer has Paris to Barcelona on the night train for E79 per person in a 4 berth cabin (they are same sex cabins so can book any number of persons or can fill your own). Or, for a 1st class two person cabin - E200 for two people. (that's about $100 for 2 cl, $125 per person for first. Prices vary according to capacity). It generally is cheaper to book online than purchasing in US because I have found US agents don't always give the early purchase specials.

I have booked rail tickets on the French site and it worked out fine. I indicated I would collect the tickets in France and just showed up at the train station with the confirmation and the same credit card as I used to pay for the tickets. THey might now have a print-your own option with a bar code (that's what German rail does). The conductor has a scanner to read the ticket.

 

[Perdita&Pongo]

Wow Perdita&Pongo! Someone in your group is 93?! That's so great! I need to tell this to my Granny. We took her on her first cruise/vacation in Jan. of 05 when she was 75. She thought that was SO old! Now she has no excuses about being "too old to cruise." We're taking her again next Feb., (yeah she loved it), so I'll tell her about your story. That will get her going!

Erica

Erica: That is her current age - she will be 94 for the 8/18/07 cruise!

When we were on the 8/05 PC repo she received recognition as the oldest cruiser at age 93!

For next year she has booked B2Bs: final 10nt Med and return Repo - 24 nights on the ship! Go Grandma!!

 

[BAP]

Add our family yo this list also. There's myself, my wife and 2 children. We are reserved for cabin 2135. Early dining also.

We also sailed on the repositioning cruise last August. Our friends were involved in this site so we didn't really get involved too much. We saw many groups during that cruise having a great time and found out that many had met here prior to the cruise.

When we posted about this cruise on CruiseCritics we were directed here for more info. The people here have been great so far. I also received the PM and I'd like to thank the person for including me in their mailings. I'm used to sending personal messages via PM rather then cluttering these boards with info that is useless to the masses. I don't find any info sent to me here as spam and apparently some people do. Maybe someone could set up list for people who would like to receive more info about anything being planned. Those who feel unconmfortable about it could opt out by not joining the list. As a person who opted out last time I will say you're missing out on a lot of things.

BAP

 

[wackywexler]

BAP - that sounds like a good idea to me!

 

[Dalt Wisney]

I'm used to sending personal messages via PM rather then cluttering these boards with info that is useless to the masses.

The person who PMed me seems to think there are a lot of people who need this "useless" information. So maybe it should be posted here. I asked the person to do so and they haven't responded. They also have never posted on the DIS boards, so I question their motives. Still sounds fishy to me.

When we posted about this cruise on CruiseCritics we were directed here for more info.

It's also interesting that you were referred here by Cruise Critic, yet there isn't a user named BAP on Cruise Critic.

 

[RobinMarie]

Add our family yo this list also. There's myself, my wife and 2 children. We are reserved for cabin 2135. Early dining also.

We also sailed on the repositioning cruise last August. Our friends were involved in this site so we didn't really get involved too much. We saw many groups during that cruise having a great time and found out that many had met here prior to the cruise.

When we posted about this cruise on CruiseCritics we were directed here for more info. The people here have been great so far. I also received the PM and I'd like to thank the person for including me in their mailings. I'm used to sending personal messages via PM rather then cluttering these boards with info that is useless to the masses. I don't find any info sent to me here as spam and apparently some people do. Maybe someone could set up list for people who would like to receive more info about anything being planned. Those who feel unconmfortable about it could opt out by not joining the list. As a person who opted out last time I will say you're missing out on a lot of things.

BAP

Welcome!

I think you have a good idea regarding having a list. I've been reading over at cruise critic a lot lately too, though it's for our upcoming cruise THIS August.

There sure are a lot of us on deck 2!

 

[Mom2Belle&PeterPan]

The person who PMed me seems to think there are a lot of people who need this "useless" information. So maybe it should be posted here. I asked the person to do so and they haven't responded. They also have never posted on the DIS boards, so I question their motives. Still sounds fishy to me.


It's also interesting that you were referred here by Cruise Critic, yet there isn't a user named BAP on Cruise Critic.

Some people have different user names on different boards, Dalt Wisney. So, I would not worry. This purpose of this thread is to have fun with fellow cruisers and plan an awesome Ship of Fools cruise! Just ignore the PM you received if it bothers you. I can tell you, that I am pretty sure I know of the site the PMer is referring too, and that site is near and dear to my heart. There is nothing wrong with it. Many on this board frequent other boards. These cannot be mentioned here for many reasons that you can read in the procedural safeguards.

So, in the name of magic and pixie dust began by Walt Disney, would you mind letting this issue go, and let's all focus on THIS WONDERFUL CRUISE!!!

So, which port are you most interested in traveling too? Have you begun to look into airfares and flight plans for you and your family? Lots of planning and exciting times are ahead! Grab the Magic of it all, you will be glad that you did!

 

[Mom2Belle&PeterPan]

Add our family yo this list also. There's myself, my wife and 2 children. We are reserved for cabin 2135. Early dining also.

We also sailed on the repositioning cruise last August. Our friends were involved in this site so we didn't really get involved too much. We saw many groups during that cruise having a great time and found out that many had met here prior to the cruise.

When we posted about this cruise on CruiseCritics we were directed here for more info. The people here have been great so far. I also received the PM and I'd like to thank the person for including me in their mailings. I'm used to sending personal messages via PM rather then cluttering these boards with info that is useless to the masses. I don't find any info sent to me here as spam and apparently some people do. Maybe someone could set up list for people who would like to receive more info about anything being planned. Those who feel unconmfortable about it could opt out by not joining the list. As a person who opted out last time I will say you're missing out on a lot of things.

BAP

WELCOME BAP!!! I am looking forward to meeting you and yours on this cruise! WELCOME to everyone else who is joining this cruise too since I last posted. WOW! This thread is taking off!

 

[Scratch42]

Welcome BAP!

The List just keeps Growing, and Growing, and Growing!

It's like the commercial..........

You tell a friend, and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends............

I guess some do not like friendships!