Christmas Time 3 Day in 2003

[westjones]

I just had to reschedule our cruise for 2003. It didn't work well with the school for us to go in September.

But now we get to see what the ship looks like during the holidays.

Did you guys see they have a 3 day cruise in 2003 right before Christmas? It is for Sun-Wed. (Dec. 21-24--getting off on the 24th). We won't have to miss any school with this one and we will be back by Christmas evening to celebrate with my sister.

This cruise is considered to be in the value season, but the one the following week is considered the holiday season.

Anyway, just thought I would point it out for anyone else who might have the 'school schedule' problem.

In the DVC book it was listed as a 4 day cruise, but it has since been changed to a 3 day cruise. Most 3 day cruises are Thurs.-Sunday, so they must have changed it to allow for the staff to have off for the holiday.

If you didn't have 'school' to deal with, this would be a great one to do back to back (two 3 day cruises back to back instead of a 3 and 4).

Well, now we to wait a LONG time before our next cruise. We are going to Epcot in March and Disney's Hilton Head resort in June, but it just isn't the same as the DCL.

I hope someone who going at Christmas this year gives a VERY detailed report for us! I want to know what to expect for next year!

Debra

 

[cruisnfamily]

I'm just curious....why didn't it work with the school? From reading your other posts, it seems like you do this every year without a problem. I just wondered why it will be a problem for you this time? We had no trouble with our school this Sept when we took the kids out and are planning to do the same next year.

 

[westjones]

We homeschooled up until this year, so no problems before. Our school does 'testing' in September for one thing, so when we returned my girls had to make up tests AND school work.

But the worse part was getting a letting in the mail saying that if we missed two more days we would be reported to children's services!!!!! I was shocked because I had told the school before enrolling them about our trip and asked if I should wait and enroll them afterwards (they had never been in school before, so what was one more month?). Then I gave letters to the teachers with the dates we would miss, told the principal about it. But they have 'rules' to follow and if you miss 9 days you are reported. We had a 7 day cruise and missed 6 days (we drove there). Then my girls had missed one other day earlier in the year. So that brought us up to 7 days. At 9 you are reported.

One girl is back homeschooling, but the other one loves school.....I told her if she gets sick at all this year she has to drop out of school and go back to homeschooling.

But she wants to go to school, so I am not going to go through this again next year. We will just have to stop going on their birthdays (twins) like we have done in the past (unless we go back to homeschooling again.....but right now, we are planning to let her continue going to school if you wants to.....she wants to be on the basketball team next year, she likes sports).

Anyway, I figure it must be an Indiana thing, or a local thing because with all of those kids on that cruise surely some school districts work with parents who travel. Ours is just not very cooperative.

DJ

 

[Mic]

Our county school attendance policy got a lot stricter a few years ago, so we stopped taking our children out of school at the end of Sept./early Oct. for our annual trip to WDW. My oldest DD was in the 6th grade the last time we took a week off, and even with advance notice, approval from all teachers and principal, and the ability to do some of her work before we left, she still missed a lot of things! Now that she is in high school, it is even worse! We just returned from a 10/10 Wonder cruise, and even though our school had the days off, she still missed cheering at the football game, and her coach was not happy(I booked the cruise in Feb. for the Fall break, 3 months before cheerleading try-outs, never dreaming that football games would still be played while school was out!) At this point, Summer vacations are so hard to plan because we have cheerleading camp(s) schedules to accomodate, and the dates are not given out until late May/early June. My husband suggested we bank our DVC points to the max, and only use what we have to from now until 2012, the year youngest DD graduates. Assuming I could even NOT go to WDW for a year(let alone 10), how would we be able to afford food in 2012 with 4 kids in college?! We(ok, just me)are considering making Christmas-time our annual trip(hoping we will still get Christmas vacation for a while), but that will require purchasing more points and paying more for everything, and fighting the crowds that are not there in Oct. If it's any consolation, teachers are faced with the same vacation restrictions I complain about...I personally know of several who are planning to go during Spring Break, which is the week of Easter for us. I don't have the heart to tell them just HOW crowded it will be, but if my one(and only)trip during Easter had been my first, I would have never returned to WDW!