Disney Dream - October 9, 2011 - 4 Nights

[tylerandalexsmom]

I left early--we are moving offices tomorrow and it's SOOO hot here, especially when you are packing/unpacking boxes and files. Ugh!!

I worked at the Disney Store all weekend too (part-time 2nd job),, and I'm worn out from that...so, it's home early for me today!

Yeah, I don't have any good excuses like that.... just DREAMin'!

 

[Grooovertoo]

So..... does anyone know -- is it by timezone? Or does it open to everyone at the same time? (If so, which timezone?) -- I just need to know if I'm staying up late (or really, really late), or getting up early?!

Word is, it is by time zone and you should be able to start at 5:00 AM your time, I think?

Ok, I have to laugh at all the DIS-cussions on here in the middle of the day... is everyone playing hookie from work, or is it just me... (taking a mental health break)

Work? I thought checking out the boards all day was my job? This company just gives me a place to do it at

 

[tylerandalexsmom]

Word is, it is by time zone and you should be able to start at 5:00 AM your time, I think?



Work? I thought checking out the boards all day was my job? This company just gives me a place to do it at

I need to move back to CO and work where you do!! (I have to sneak and surf from my personal laptop! )

Might as well be my job, that's about all I've gotten accomplished today!

Hey, I just needed a little magic! Next I need to use a little magic to figure out how I'm going to fit all those suitcases in the car.... We're gonna need a bigger vehicle!

 

[tylerandalexsmom]

Word is, it is by time zone and you should be able to start at 5:00 AM your time, I think?



Hey... wait a minute... 5:00 AM, I thought it was midnight?! Are you just pulling my leg to make up for the time difference so you can beat me to the good ressies?!?!

(...No really, is it 5:00 AM?! I won't make it til then!)

 

[kstategrad]

Word is, it is by time zone and you should be able to start at 5:00 AM your time, I think?



Work? I thought checking out the boards all day was my job? This company just gives me a place to do it at

I did my online booking a couple weeks ago, and at midnight Eastern time (11pm our time--Central), we were able to do the kids' club reservations and the Palo/Remy reservations were available for booking, BUT the rest of the online booking stuff (how you want to pay, passport info, port arrival time) was not available until 3am Eastern time (2am our time).

Good luck to those who are going to be up LATE tonight getting everything taken care of!!

 

[kstategrad]

Yeah, I don't have any good excuses like that.... just DREAMin'!

I think I need to take a few 'sick' days off work so that I will have time to do some 'Dreamin' before we go. I feel like I have SO much left to do and we are running out of time...

Gotta get everyone at least one new outfit for dinner, so we'll all match for our family portrait; gotta print everything and organize my vacation binder; gotta buy Seth a new suitcase, since his is still a kids' size one and I am NOT going to pay baggage fees for a kids' size suitcase; save more $$ so we will make sure to be able to book another while we're onboard; make copies of important documents, just in case; work on my tan (which is non-existent); write letters to the schools to let them know the boys will miss a week; get new sandals for me; etc...

The list seems to be never-ending. I am SOOO ready for a break!!!

 

[tylerandalexsmom]

Whew! You wore me out just reading your list! Actually, sounds a lot like mine.... I better get busy.... (i didn't take the day off, wish I could -- just snuck a peak on here in my office when i couldn't look at my "work" computer any more and needed to Dream! ) But HA! It's 5:00 here now, I'm FREE! I'm FREE!

Acutally, you brought up a couple of things I'm still fuzzy on.... So, we don't have a "formal" night on a 4-night, right? Just a semi-formal? Or do we even have that? And family portraits... does everyone do that on the same night? (semi-formal night?) or every night before dinner? or just whenever? I am so confused.... I'm an uber-planner, and for WDW I know my stuff (and btw, have that part of the trip planned out to the Nth degree....), but since this is our first cruise, I feel like a fish out of water (no pun intended!)

Oh, and you also reminded me.... does anyone else already know you're going to rebook onboard? If so, for what cruise?

 

[kstategrad]

Whew! You wore me out just reading your list! Actually, sounds a lot like mine.... I better get busy.... (i didn't take the day off, wish I could -- just snuck a peak on here in my office when i couldn't look at my "work" computer any more and needed to Dream! ) But HA! It's 5:00 here now, I'm FREE! I'm FREE!

Acutally, you brought up a couple of things I'm still fuzzy on.... So, we don't have a "formal" night on a 4-night, right? Just a semi-formal? Or do we even have that? And family portraits... does everyone do that on the same night? (semi-formal night?) or every night before dinner? or just whenever? I am so confused.... I'm an uber-planner, and for WDW I know my stuff (and btw, have that part of the trip planned out to the Nth degree....), but since this is our first cruise, I feel like a fish out of water (no pun intended!)

Oh, and you also reminded me.... does anyone else already know you're going to rebook onboard? If so, for what cruise?

We don't have a formal night but we do have a 'dress up' night I think, so we're just gonna dress up (me in a dress or skirt, the boys in shirts/ties) for that one night. The other nights we are just gonna wear 'cruise casual,' (khakis/capris, collared shirt for the boys). There will be lots of families getting pictures every night (we usually do), but this year I told mine that if we get a good picture of us all on the 'dress up' night, then I won't make them stand in picture lines any other night. They agreed to all smile and look good for the ONE picture! LOL

I will definitely book another while on board...10% discount, onboard credit and paying only 1/2 the regular deposit makes it worth it.

I'm sure that by our cruise date, the 2013 dates will be released. We'll probably cruise sometime in 2013--we like to do fall b/c of weather and price, so we'll just see what's available.

Ron and I also talked about just doing a 5 night NYC to Canada one next summer, without the kids, so we'll see how that goes.

It's so expensive, with cruise fare, airfare, saving spending money, saving for incidentals, etc., that it's kinda hard for us to do it more than once every 2 years, but if we go kid free nexxt year we can probably swing it!

 

[tylerandalexsmom]

My family would probably like it if I only made them do pictures the one night, but I'm a picture fanatic, so we will probably do it every night! (They know me, so they are used to it!)

Yeah, we normally do WDW every other year too (takes me that long to recover from sticker shock!) But I'm thinking we will do a 7 night cruise next Oct (2012). My hubby thinks I'm nuts! (We haven't even gone on THIS cruise yet, and you are already planning the NEXT one?!) What he doesn't know is that not only am I already planning another trip for 2012 (seven night cruise only, no WDW), but I am already planning the next one for 2013 too (WDW only, or cruise/WDW combo)!

 

[magrudersmakes3]

Since we are new can I ask a stupid question. What exactly is the FE? I mean I see it's small gifts, but what do people give? Is it per person or per stateroom? What are the wristbands I am seeing on here? Sorry for the questions.

 

[disneynoodle]

Our family has decided to participate in the FE. It's our 1st Disney Cruise & it sounds like fun.
Adults: Craig and Jamie
DD7: Kayla
From: Texas
Cabin #5688

Thanks for adding us to the list!

 

[kstategrad]

Our family has decided to participate in the FE. It's our 1st Disney Cruise & it sounds like fun.
Adults: Craig and Jamie
DD7: Kayla
From: Texas
Cabin #5688

Thanks for adding us to the list!

Welcome!!

I saw you on the facebook page too--feel free to come over there (or hang out here) and visit/get to know us! See you in 75 days!

 

[tylerandalexsmom]

Yea! Got our ressies! (all except Palo Brunch -- guess we'll try on board for that!)

See you in 75 days!!!!!!

 

[tylerandalexsmom]

Just completed check-in Question for you veterans out there -- we have an 8:30 Ohana ressie, so I picked the 11:30 check-in time for the terminal to give us plenty of time to get there -- but I keep reading about how you should arrive at the terminal as early as possible. Should I back it up to the earlier 11:00 check in time? (will it make that much of a difference on the boarding?) Thanks for the input!

 

[DisneyDreamerK]

My room number changed to 7684 from 7686! lol

 

[Grooovertoo]

All checked in!!

 

[Sparkie]

My room number changed to 7684 from 7686! lol

Hellow! Fellow Dreamer!!!!

We are cabin numbers: 7677,7679,7681, and 7689


I "almost" had a HUGE BOO BOO!

My son was registered in room 7689 but because of some health issues he was not going to be able to go. I was just going to forfiet the points and just not check him in at the port. ....... BIG MISTAKE.....

2 days ago, I thought, you know, I hate to let those points go to waste so let me see if I can swap somebody in his place. one of the girls going wanted her boyfriend to go with us, so I called DCL, and tried to swap.... would not have been a problem if he were 21.... he is only 20 and the other passengers in the room are not 21 either (my son was over 21)....

It is maritime law that each cabin have a passenger that is over 21.

So I asked the DVC rep what would have happened if i had arrived at port and my son (the 21 yo registered in the room) didnt come.

She said that NONE of the passengers in that room would have been allowed to sail because not only does the passenger that is over 21 have to be registered in the room but they have to check in and board.

So it could have been a BIG BOO BOO!!!

 

[tylerandalexsmom]

Holy cow! Good thing you checked!!!

In other news.... can I just say I am so stinkin' excited that we are under the 75 day mark!!!!! I am so excited to have our ressies and online check-in complete! (yeah, we're newbies, so today was the first day we could register) I've been in the clouds all day! It's the little things that make me happy!

 

[miztressuz]

We're all officially committed now (well I was committed a while ago, but that's a different topic and I digress ) so I was going to bring up the name again. I haven't been getting my notification emails so I just saw that tylerandalexsmom had a top vote for DREAMing across Stranger Tides. That would still keep that name in the #2 slot in the private msg board polling.
(#1 by good margin, Quacking Up On the DREAM, followed by DREAMing on/in/across Stranger Tides (pick your preposition) with a decent %, and then Captain Donald's Swabbies / Rocktober on the Dream are tied, with Living the Dream in last)

There's only 16 votes there so hopefully people have been PM'ing cctimmom? Or is it being discussed on FB? I have to admit, I'm one of the last adults in America to not have a FB account so I won't be joining in there and I have no idea if the topic has been discussed there. I think most people agreed the deadline for the name should be Aug 1 which would line up nicely with the FE cutoff of Sep 1 to make it easy to remember.

So do we think we can come to a decision on the name in 6 days?

 

[Blanche_Neige]

Hellow! Fellow Dreamer!!!!

We are cabin numbers: 7677,7679,7681, and 7689


I "almost" had a HUGE BOO BOO!

My son was registered in room 7689 but because of some health issues he was not going to be able to go. I was just going to forfiet the points and just not check him in at the port. ....... BIG MISTAKE.....

2 days ago, I thought, you know, I hate to let those points go to waste so let me see if I can swap somebody in his place. one of the girls going wanted her boyfriend to go with us, so I called DCL, and tried to swap.... would not have been a problem if he were 21.... he is only 20 and the other passengers in the room are not 21 either (my son was over 21)....

It is maritime law that each cabin have a passenger that is over 21.

So I asked the DVC rep what would have happened if i had arrived at port and my son (the 21 yo registered in the room) didnt come.

She said that NONE of the passengers in that room would have been allowed to sail because not only does the passenger that is over 21 have to be registered in the room but they have to check in and board.

So it could have been a BIG BOO BOO!!!

You could always have moved on of the adults (over 21) in your party in that room just to follow that rule even if in reality he will not be sleeping in the room. This is what DCL told us when we booked our 2 connecting staterooms the kids will have one room and DH and I will have the other. On the ressie DH is in one room with DS and I'm in the other with the twins.

In any case I am glad you found out before and resoled the issue before getting at the port - can you imagine getting denied boarding for that

74 days