Christmas 2003 - Who's sailing (20-27 Dec 03)?

[hawkrn]

My favorite DCL dessert last year was the Amaretto cheesecake creme brulee. Yum!!! My friend loved the cherries jubilee (another production)!

 

[Ginny]

Hi all -


I hope everyone is well and that you had lovely Thanksgivings. Yesterday we hit the two week mark and I am counting the hours until that plane lands in Orlando.

Mike (Msteg) - My apologies for such a delayed response. You are most welcome to join us for brunch! We look forward to meeting you. Please send me a PM with your full names and room numbers and I will add you to the list. Again, I am sorry for being so slow.

Well, my "formal wear trauma" has been successfully resolved by the purchase of a gown last Saturday. I went to a store in McLean, Va which was wall to wall evening gowns and tried on more gowns than my years of age (which is alot) and ended up with one by the company that I usually wear (although not in my usual size - but humility checks are good for us all). So, my family can all finally relax and no one was happier than Chuck!! He was dreading my dramatic rendition of the phrase " You all have a lovely time without me!"

Zach was with us for Thanksgiving and we had a great time. It only made all 4 of us more excited about the cruise. Chuck's mom is still with us so now that Zach has headed home to Chicago, we turned his room into DCL Central (I hope he doesn't kill me if he is still reading our thread). We only have two weekends left to accomplish so much before we leave for WDW and DCL. And, I do much better when I have one place to store all the stuff we need to bring and get organized. I still want to mail a box with presents, snacks and stuff to Wilderness Lodge so that it is there when we get there.

Julie, I'm so glad you liked Haunted Mansion. I look forward to seeing it on the Magic. Of course, the list of things I plan to do on the ship is endless which is why I need to slow down and regroup or I will need a vacation to recover from my vacation!!

Take care -

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

Ginny, mailing is a great idea!! Are you going to overnight your box, or do you have a method of calculation to make sure it arrives while you are still there -- or send it well before you are there to wait for you??

I am intrigued -- I am just thinking about how much I could mail down there, and how much I could send home if it is cooler in Orlando than we will expect on the cruise, i.e., long pants, etc.

I have mailed complete Christmases on several occasions --

May be better to mail the Christmas tree and its trimmings than to lug it on the plane - my imagination does run away with me!!

Bonnie

 

[hawkrn]

yes, Ginny, fill us in on the details of how you plan on mailing this. Do you just put your name on it and Wilderness Lodge?

 

[jgalecpa]

Ginny,

Glad the Formal issue is resolved.

I have PM'd you my cabin info.

Jim

 

[kolakdaw]

My daughter just did a weather.com search and it is 81 in Grand Cayman at this moment (10:50pm). It sounds mighty good to us up here in Albany NY where it is now 15 degrees out and dropping. We have an inch of snow on the ground. It's always wonderful leaving weather like this! Can't wait! Dawn

 

[Ginny]

Hi all -

I have never tried mailing packages before but thought with bringing all the Christmas Decorations and now you can't wrap presents for the airline...............I needed a bit of Disney Magic to pull everything together. So, I will wrap our gifts and box those up, plus all the decorations. I think I may also check out NetGrocer to have a delivery made to WL or just send a separate box with snacks, etc. We won't have a car (which is becoming more of a pain as we get closer) so I am having to do a bit of innovation.

When I started thinking about this, I did a search on the Dis Resorts Boards and found several threads for mailing with package or box as an optional word. Here is one link:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=448669&highlight=Mailing

I also started a thread about mailing home from WDW (instead of lugging warm clothes)............if you are interested. There are 10 responses with info.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=457203&highlight=Mailing

Also, just a suggestion from past experience. If you can ziplock or garbage bag stuff when putting them in the box for mailing, you might protect it from the different elements in our home towns. It may not be an issue but thought I would throw it out there.

ALSO - I got an e-mail from Shirley and she will be offering Table top trees (since they aren't live I think we squeak by the requirements) so contact the Perfect Gift if you are interested.

Have a great day.

Ginny

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

Ginny - thanks again for the great information!!

I read the thread last night which RellingTwin had started regarding apprehension going to Dis meets -- I think that most of us have passed that stage, and are really looking forward to meeting each other - I certainly am!!

Bonnie

 

[hawkrn]

Ginny and all, I know that you can't take wrapped presents through airline security, but what about DCL security? You know you have to put your luggage through the scanners there too! I think I will just wrap on the ship and send my DS off to a movie or something. Our Home Depot finally opened last night so I got a bunch or Mickeys! They are pretty small-are you sure we'll spot each other? I guess we'll look for each other in the terminal and then the sail-away party? Ha ha-I watched the weather channel and it looks like all you Easteners are getting snow/ice today! We are snowless so far this winter!

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

Julie, do you think if you wrapped everything and put it in a box and shipped it to WDW (I can't remember if you are staying there before) and then checked the sealed box as part of your luggage at port that would be okay? Certainly they can see through the gift wrap with the x-ray, but that begs the question of why they unwrap stuff to begin with.

Bonnie

 

[Ginny]

Julie - You bring up a great point. I was hoping to just check the box with the presents in it. But, I will contact Donna with DU and see if she has any info about presents at the port. Thanks for bringing that up!

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

Ginny - did you stay home today??

 

[hawkrn]

bonnie, I don't know about Ginny, but I stayed home today! And I'm accomplishing nothing! I guess I am lucky because I am only taking xmas presents for 1 person and they are all small (nintendo, etc). So I will shove them in the suitcase. And I never understood the rationale for not wrapping presents, other than if it looks suspicious, they will unwrap it. And at Orlando, my friend was picked out to have her carry-on searched and she had presents she had bought but were in a sack-they went through those too. Now I considered the security at DCL to be about the same as the airport (they were searching carry-ons) so I would imagine they would unwrap too!

 

[jgalecpa]

Julie

Our Home Depot finally opened last night so I got a bunch or Mickeys!

It seems like just yesterday you said it wouldn't open for months!!!!

The time really few, in hindsight.




I would think that shipping the items to WDW and then checking it at the ship would be no problem. This may be one of those "Ask forgiveness and not permission" things.

If they try to unwrap every wrapped item on this cruise the ship will never sail.



We shipped the Mebourne FL people (the ones we are staying with before and after) their xmas box last night, and in it we had a little room so I.....


Packed my Duct Tape!

as well as extension cords, etc.

I thought it might look odd going through airport security with them!

Go to accuweather.com and they have weather 15 days out, so you can see the forecasts starting friday 12/5.

Jim

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

Atta boy, Jim!! We knew you wouldn't let us down!!

How should we go about contacting you to borrow (steal) some?

Does anyone know if there are phones in the cabins? I wondered if we wished to reach others from our thread how we would do that onboard.

It's so close!!

Bonnie

 

[kolakdaw]

Bonnie--they must have phones in the room, otherwise how could you call room service? I bet it's just like a hotel, and you dial the person's room number. Maybe we should post them all and make a list to bring along. I have no problems posting mine--we're in 7612. I still didn't get my docs yet. The travel company said they don't send them until 10 days before, so don't even call to ask... We fly out two weeks from today! Dawn and Girls.

 

[Ginny]

Hi, all -

I'm busted!! Boy, you can't get anything by Bonnie. I was eating lunch and forgot I was at work and the next thing I realized was that I had posted!! Hey, but Julie's point was a good one and, of course, my obsessive-compulsive personality took over and now I am in worry overdrive. Between "worry overdrive" and my "elevated guilt titer" - I think we can agree that a vacation will do me good.

But, what I really want to know is "How does time FEW?" Or, Jim did you mean "FLU?" I am really too confused! Oh heavens, I slipped..............better not say the word FLU on a DCL thread!!

For me, the best news of the day is that Jim has got the duct tape covered. So, we're golden!

By the way, they have phones in each stateroom and you can call room to room just like in a hotel. But, if you need to stay in touch with home, bring your cell and call from Ports where it will work. We have the previous bills for ship-to-shore calls and it isn't pretty.

Just added: Just read Dawn's post! Great Idea!! I have an Excel spreadsheet for the brunch with most of the folks listed and Julie had sent me her info earlier. I don't mind doing one for everyone that I can send by PM (or e-mail) if everyone concurs to share info. Let me know -I want to respect everyone's privacy and security so will not share anyone's info if they don't want me to!!

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

Ginny, that would be a great idea - I would love to have that information, and to share mine -- if I had any information to share ----

My TA sent me an email the day before Thanksgiving saying something to the effect of my documents would be in her office when she returns from her trip on DEC 8 and she would THREE DAY fedex them to me (I frankly think she had them that day, but didn't have time to send them off to me- I had called DCL the end of the week prior to Thanksgiving and the wonderful CM told me that my docs went out on 11/20 - and should arrive by 11/25 - which would have been the Monday of Thanksgiving week) I am not HAPPY about that at all - I still don't know our stateroom number and would like to have those in hand now (or one month ago).

I know that I could probably call DCL and have them give me the stateroom number, but there is just something so exciting about getting the packet and seeing it there in print.

I think we have quite a few very organized (shall I say Type A) people on this thread. Jim and I were discussing our mutual excel spread sheets for this trip - his is very thorough and even includes clothing choices for day and evening. Mine also has excursion details down to the minute, dining dress codes, etc.

Thinking back several months ago, we still don't have a name for our merry band of Dis'ers --

Edited: Thanks to Lynn's sharp eye - I hope my docs arrive BEFORE Christmas Day LOL!!

 

[kolakdaw]

Bonnie--I didn't know my room number either until I got the confirmation from DCL about the excursions. It was listed in small type at the bottom of the page. I had a guaranteed room up until I saw that. Was your room number listed there? Dawn

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

Dawn, I haven't received anything -- Do you think my excursion confirmation will come with my cruise docs?

Did you get upgraded?

Bonnie