December 13, 2008 Western Caribbean!! Let's get acquainted!

[pogopossum]

howdy ya'll,

as you can see from my chipmonk loving dd, we'll be aboard this cruise, once i get on the horn with dvc and book it.

this will be our fifth dcl cruise, dd got one thing wrong, only two have had hurricane probs, don't think this one will have any trouble.

andrea, it looks like we will have sons the same age cruising, i'm sure that they will have a great time in the lab.

cassie, your little sis and my dd will be about a year apart and just tell her to pm rachel, once she gets on the disboards.

hey michelle, it will be great to meet you, after two nascar seasons of tracking your picks, missed you down the stretch this year. i hooked with andy(xabearx) and ginny(gdulaney) at mk last sept, they were getting ready to sail that weekend and i mentioned that we were planning to go on this cruise and they should go, they said that they might look into it since the usual cruise they went on in sept was not happening next year due to cal cruises. we met up with them on cruise in 05, and had a great time. we even listened to race on sat night on andy's xm radio, sitting on deck.

anyway we are looking so forward to the cruise, there will be six of us in our party, the four of us and my fil and smil. we'll be booking a cat 6 and an inside state room for them, hopefully across from us.

he wants us to try to get there early so that we can get park time in before we cruise. so i think we will take the kids out of school early to get there by wednesday or thursday, have to see what the teachers have planned for the last week of school. i hope it works out because based on our experience last year at wdw, we don't want to try our luck after. we left for home the sat before christmas and it was the right time to get out of dodge. the crowds were very manageable until that sat, once schools had let out.

well got to run for now, but we'll have plenty of time for getting to know each other between now and cruise time, and then all of a sudden it will be time to go.

hope everyone has a happy new year!

 

[SILLYANDI]

I am such a flake. Last cruise I was on the boards constantly. It just seems like I have sooo much going on right now.

I do have to tell all of you our great news... Our family was selected to host a Disney Cruise Line House Party. If you're not familiar with it, House Party is a viral marketing firm that uses parties at people's houses to promote products. Disney Cruise Line contracted with them to market their crusies (some people are suspect Disney is using this opportunity to announce their new iteneraries for the new ships-but who knows?). Anyway, all we have to do is invite our friends to our house for a party the weekend of Jan 26th and tell them about our cruises. In return, Disney sends us loads of freebies to hand out-swag bag type stuff.
Its a win win situation-we already talk non-stop about Disney Cruises and have already talked a few neighbors into joining us-now we actually get something in return for doing it! WHEW HOO!!
Anyone who is in the L.A. area is welcomed to join us, I'll PM you the details.
Heck, anyone who wants to fly out to the L.A. area is welcomed, the more the merrier!

 

[SILLYANDI]

Welcome Possum! My son is very shy, but it will be nice to have someone his age around, I'm sure. I have a feeling he will park himself in front of some video game and only move to go pee or eat. He isn't allowed to play video games at home (except an hour on Sat) so that is his cruise indulgence! Our neighbor who is also coming with us has 2 sons-they will be 5 and 8 at cruise time (I think?).

We have 2 cat 9 rooms booked. I don't trust DD3 with the verandah(She's a monster!) We hardly spent any time in our rooms on the last cruise, and it was nice having connecting rooms. kinda like having a 2 room suite for us. We piled the 4 kids in one room, and we had the other all to ourselves. We propped the doors open, but still had our privacy.

Possum-I see your daughter is going to marry Nick someday! I have to tell you, I took my daughters to the Hannah Montana concert and I had never heard of the Jonas Brothers before that. I am a closet Jonas Fan! They really rocked, and they seem like a nice group of boys. Your daughter is in good hands!

Anywho...enough of my blabbering!
Am I the only one already planning excursions, Palo and Spa Visits? DH and I did the exotic rasul and couples' massage last time and that is all he talks about. I'll say "Honey do you think we should stay at WDW or Cocoa Beach the night before?" and his response is "I don't care what we do as long as we do that spa thing again!

 

[theodorechipmunkluvr]

well dad did it again, got to figure out why i log her off and then when i post it goes back to her log in, at least i am boosting her post total.

 

[pogopossum]

andi, - after the taste of jonas i got during the parade, can't say that i'm a fan. maybe i have to breaak down and admit i'm just too old. i'll keep saving up my money for the led zep reunion tour. even if they all use walkers those guys rock. we got a wii for christmas and we have got to figure out how to get the boy on a schedule, just so we can watch the big hdtv, or we may have to move the wii to another tv. it may make me replace an old tv sooner.

we will stay at fil's house and go to the parks thurs and fri, have to get some wdw holiday spirit, then we will be headed down to cocoa friday eve, hope i can get over to ron jon in the middle of the night. last cruise we did the quality inn deal for free parking, worked out pretty well. except for the pint of chocolate milk i forgot was in the cooler for a week.

but compared to the frances cruise in 05, the last one was tremendous. as dd alluded to we have had a couple of interesting cruises, we'll swap stories over some boat drinks on deck. all i will say for now if you are booked during hurricane season and the unfortunate happens, cancel and take the deal to delay your cruise til the next year.

it seems so far away now, but i know that it will be here before we know it. we've got 11 and a half months to get ready, (time enough to get dw to get her buffett on got the radio margaritaville on now), but we'll still be scrambling om december 9 to get everything together, but it is all good.

ah, i am almost already there, bye for now.

 

[PenskeSth1]

pogopossum--It is good to see ya..After Rusty retired I kinda lost the passion for racing (I know this is like blasphemy) LOL at least I get to see him on ESPN and ABC when he is announcing. I still watch and cheer for Greg Biffle now, although it just isn't the same. We hold tickets for Homesteads last race but I let DH go with some friends this year. I may go next year as our friends want to go down early and seriously tailgate.

Marcy,
We werre going to go over to Gaylord Palms for the Ice sculptures but alas we never made it. It seems to be a big hit as DS use to get coupons during school in the winter. My moms DH sings in the candlelight procession. We've never been though. People were lining up for that around 3:00 the one day we were in Epcot so I figure it must be wonderful. I think we get to go to WDW so much that we are just getting Disney parked out if that is at all possible. NOTICE I DIDN'T SAY WE ARE TIRED OF THE RESORTS! I love Disneys resorts.

SillyandI- How lucky you are to be involved in a Disney cruise Line house party! Hey if I could get free gifts from Disney for something so fun, I'd jump on it...Enjoy all your freebies.


I hope everyone has a safe New year and look forward to chatting with everyone until it is our turn to step on to the ship.

Michele

 

[pogopossum]

well a week passes and things change, we may be jumping ship and cruising dec 20 instead. right now it is 50-50. it means that we give up the verandah for the big porthole, but there are a lot reasons that it may work out better for us. let ya'll know when we decide which one to take.

 

[SILLYANDI]

Possum- If you are planning on going into the parks then I don't blame you for changing your dates. I wouldn't want ot be in the parks the 20th or later! Good luck, but we sure hope that you get to go with us!

 

[PenskeSth1]

possum,
We just spent the week before Christmas at WDW and it was a total mad house. I agree with sillyandI that if you bail the 13th - 20th cruise so you can go to WDW before the week before Christmas GO FOR IT. We will NEVER go the week before ever again. Some of the rides had 120 min waits and more!

Michele

 

[SILLYANDI]

Where is everyone staying before the cruise?
DH has officially ruled out a week (or even a few days) at WDW prior, so I'm looking at port hotels. I think if we stay in port we will go with the Residence Inn. They have 2 bedroom suites with a jacuzzi on the verandah for less than my beloved Poly for the night.
Has anyone stayed in the Cocoa Beach hotels before? Just curious...

 

[Stinasmom]

Hey-- glad you asked!
I have been mulling that around in my head and even emailed my TA at DU to make a reservation...
Turns out the DU TA's can't make reservations at the Swan/Dolphin... you have to go through the link on the WDWinfo home page. I thought that was weird. What is also a bit weird is that they are not accepting reservations or giving out pricing info past August 31st. Sheesh! Don't they know who their base customer is??? Us compulsive planners who have had this cruise booked for almost a year now!?!

We usually stay at a timeshare resort (courtesy of the inlaws), but it is looking like we will only have 4 nights prior to cruising and I thought it would be worth the $$ to stay on Disney property so we can commando the parks.

Does anyone have any experience with Swan/Dolphin? Is Dolphin better? What about the Port Orleans resort? Is Riverside better than French Quarter?

Pogopossu--- are you able to even get on the Dec 20th sailing? It doesn't come up as available on the website. Guess that is were a TA comes in handy??

Hope you all had a great Holiday season! Looking forward to chatting through out this new year!

Marcy

 

[PenskeSth1]

I just made our reservations for the Residence Inn the other night. We stayed there in 06 and it is a wonderful hotel. I like that you can go to the breakfast Buffet, grab your food and head back to your room to enjoy a nice quiet breakfast with just the family. I liked the price I paid back in 06 better than the price we are paying for this year...geesh!

SillyandI- we stay at Port Orleans Riverside at least twice a year. It is DS's favorite resort...(well he loves their pool). The rooms aren't huge, at least the ones we've stayed in. We have always had plenty of room for the four of us though.

Michele

 

[SILLYANDI]

I made a reservation for Residence Inn and I was actually very happy with the price. I guess since we always end up spending over $300 a night for a room at the Poly it seemed like a deal!
I figure if I find a better deal or a discount code before then I can reserve another room and cancel this one.
So I've got the rental car, the hotel and now I just have to wait a month so I can start fare shopping.
Since we're not going to WDW I am going to be bored out of my mind after that! I really think planning everything is half the fun. I don't know what I will do with myself. There are only so many things you can "plan" on the cruise. I've pretty much laid out when we are going to do PALO but I haven't looked at excursions.
Wow, I'm a Disney Dork!

 

[PenskeSth1]

Somehow I got a room at Residence Inn in 2006 for only 99.00, even the lady at the reception desk asked how I got that rate. That was for the king bedroom with kitchen. This year I didn't get so lucky, I paid 179.00 for the same room. I almost went with Best Western, but just liked the Residence room so much I figured We'd just splurge. I don't think we would ever pay anything more than that for a motel room (we are to cheep). LOL

I started working on door signs but haven't printed any yet. On our cruise in 2006 we did a magnet exchange with the folks from our cruise meet board. It was alot of fun coming back to your room and finding a new magnet. Alot of the folks placed a magnet that had something to do with the state they were from. thankfully none of ours ever got stolen. Maybe we could do something like that.

Michele

 

[SILLYANDI]

We did a magnet exchage too! We allchose something that represented our neck of the woods, it was really neat to see all of the different places/things people chose. We still have a few on the fridge and they are a great conversation piece.

I paid $209 for the 2 bedroom suite with the verandah jacuzzi. I have become something of a hotel snob after staying at the deluxe hotels at WDW. I am TOTALLY CHEAP when it comes to everything-but this is one thing I will splurge for (oh yeah and spa treatments on board!).

 

[pogopossum]

we stayed at the quality inn in cocoa last cruise, so that we would get free parking, same deal applies at the radisson, which looked like a nice resort, nice pool. quality inn was a nice hotel with a short walk to the beach, and the rate was good.

as to whether or not the cruise is available i haven't called member services yet, but i did call dcl and we could get a booking through them. i thought the same thing about it not being on the website, but it is a special western itinerary, so it is not listed with the regular cruises. two stops at castaway cay and costa maya and cozumel. so i assume that we can get it booked when i call ms.

 

[Dr. G]

Hi all:

Well, we're booked for the Dec 13th cruise. This board has been so helpful as we've tried to figure out what we're doing. We've never cruised before, so this will be a new experience for us. We are very excited. Being the planner that I am, I'll feel more relaxed about it once we have the flights, ground transport and port hotel figured out.

There will be 8 of us. My mom is coming along, and we have 5 kids: 3 boys cruising ages of 15, 9 and 6. 2 girls cruising ages of 13 and 11. I'll be 40 this year and my wife 39. We've extended invitations to my siblings and their families to join us too, but I don't know if any will make it.

I've got the new Passporter coming in a month or so from Amazon and can't wait to read it. Now to just be patient for the next 11 months....

 

[SILLYANDI]

Welcome Dr G! We have kids about the same age(Oldest DD will be 1 month shy of 11 at cruise time & DS will have just turned 7). Glad to see another big family coming along!
I am a freaky planner too, I don't think I will sleep well until I get our flights booked. I've pretty much done everything else.
Whew Hew, our group is slowly but surely growing!

 

[STLDisney_Freak]

Hello Folks! We are going to be on the same cruise as all of you. I gotta tell you we are definitely going to be ready for a cruise by the time December gets here. We have not had the best start to 2008. Unfortunately, my parents house burned down. Trust me I was scared to death to hear about it. Anyway, things are starting to look up and I am starting to plan more on our trip. I just booked our hotel for the Country Inn and Suites and our rental car. I'm going to be looking to get my plane tickets soon too. We are newbie travelers so this all so exciting to me.

 

[SILLYANDI]

Welcome Sandra! I am so excited to see new people joining us everyday!