Eastern Caribbean Fantasy Oct. 5, 2013

[pixiehallow]

Mercinursi, you are officially on the list



pixiehallow
tiggerb
TamaraH
Calitexan mouse
Roxy217
Viking
actnkidz
wifey1220
MAJPLO
CorEeyore
ARLO1
Mercinursi

I am still waiting a definite conformation from the following 2. They are still "I thinks"

JeanC
Papa
_______

 

[Mercinursi]

Mercinursi, you are officially on the list



pixiehallow
tiggerb
TamaraH
Calitexan mouse
Roxy217
Viking
actnkidz
wifey1220
MAJPLO
CorEeyore
ARLO1
Mercinursi

I am still waiting a definite conformation from the following 2. They are still "I thinks"

JeanC
Papa
_______

Yahoo!!

 

[pixiehallow]

Mercinursi -
Welcome back!!!!! We were missing you
Did you receive your PM about the Yahoo group? If not, I can resend.
And I agree with you on the excursion comment. We have been torn on whether or not to book any. The thought of joining with a few others and booking our own excursion (through a private company) has crossed our mind.
Any thoughts on that (Anyone)
Also, if you ever need a sounding board or creative assistant, I am eager and willing to help( why, just because I love to create ~ being a tinker and all ). And since it is not good to sing my own praises , I am sure Tiggerb will give glowing reviews about my 'Magical' abilities
Oh, and by the way, my family gets a bit about my going over board with planning as well, that is why we keep the family magic planning time contained to one party a month
Viking -
Or really a continuation of something he was commenting on....
I am curious to know exactly how many medical / emergency workers we have in our group. My DH was a Firefighter / EMT for years before the boys were born.

 

[Mercinursi]

Pixiehollow~yes I got them. I was behind on them too. Had to set up a Yahoo account and for some reason it didn't like my iPad. LOL.

 

[Viking]

My wife's an RN in the surgical trauma unit that treats the patients after they've been sent up from the ER or the operation theatre. Coincidentally I also have a medical background as I used to be a professional paramedic & paramedic instructor before I went into the aviation business about 20 years ago, and worked as a volunteer instructor on the weekends until about three or four years ago. The only medical stuff I'm still doing is at the office where I'm a first responder. I got an emergeny kit under my desk, an AED and a cell phone that can be reached by simply dialing 7777 on any office phone. BTW, tomorrow I'll have my annual CPR and AED training.

Talking about the shore excursions:
Depending on where we're eventually going I also tend towards booking shore activities withouth going through DCL. Fortunately we still have a lot of time to plan everything
And my wife and I have to plan at least five vacations before the cruise anyway. I have six weeks vacation time per year and DW comes close to seven. Right now we're making the final plans for our trip to Bavaria in two weeks.

Our weather presently sucks. It has been pouring all morning and it's still coming down. So we're having a TV day today. In a couple of minutes a DTM race begins, that's the touring car championship where Audi, BMW and Mercedes compete in V8-powred coupes on tracks all over Europe. Today's race takes play in Austria.
After the race we're gonna watch the festivities for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. Today there's a boat parade on the Thames with more than 1,000 boats accompanying the Queen.

 

[JGamy]

I also work in the medical field. I'm a medical social worker @ a teaching hospital for the last 25 years. I deal with their minds and emotions after you all save/fix their bodies.
Unsure about which excursions at this time. We just got back for the same cruise, will do different ones this time.

 

[Viking]

Which ones did you do?.

We did the Eastern Caribbean in 2001 with stops at Nassau, St Marteen, St Thomas and Castaway Cay.
We didn't like Nassau at all and so we returned to the ship after a short stroll through Downtown.

On St Marteen we did the 12m-regatta on America's Cup-yachts in the morning (booked thru the ship) and then took a taxi over to the French side and spent the rest of the day at Oriental Bay.

On St Thomas we also did a DCL-tour: We took a ferry to St John and then were taken on pick-up trucks to Trunk Bay where we snorkeled. That took up most of the day. After our return we explored the shops adjacent to the ship.
During our second trip to St Thomas (different cruise) we booked two dives at Coki Beach via the web. The dive staff picked us up at the ship and drove us there. Return was via taxi. The dives were so-called beach dives. Meaning that we donned our scuba gear at the beach, waded into the water and then went down. Especially upon return that was kind of straining as lugging 20+pounds of gear through soft sand after nearly an hour underwater isn't exactly fun

We're not yet sure whether we're going for a dive during next year's cruise. Our last dives were in 2007 in Thailand and so we'd need to take a refresher course sometime next year. If we don't find the time for that we'd go snorkeling instead.

 

[papa]

Last year when we were on a royal caribbean cruise we took the tour over to trunk bay and enjoyed it very much.

We have done St Thomas to death and will just do a little tee shirt shopping by the ship for the grand kids.

Loved the 12 meter regatta in St Maarteen in 2001.

 

[pixiehallow]

We just got back for the same cruise, will do different ones this time.

With your Fantasy expertise you can be our go to person for ship board questions.

I'll start. We are sailing in the elusive category 8A, did you by chance meet anyone who was in that category. We are dieing to see pics or hear something about it. We can not even track down consistent info about those staterooms from people who sailed on the Dream

That is it for now, but I am sure as time ticks on, we will have more questions, and so will others.

 

[Mercinursi]

Wow! It looks like we have a lot of medical people on this board! That's great! Love my medical peeps. Before I went in to Public Health I was in Med-Surg and Oncology, but my true love was Pediatrics. BTW, I am trying to talk my DM and DIL's on coming. Both my mother and DMIL are medical. My mom is a retired EMT and my DMIL is a retired nurse. That would give us two more.

Viking~Sorry about the bad weather there. We are in the midst of a draught that has been going on for two years now. We would love a day of soaking rain. Please send it our way. Right now it is 91 degrees here and the kids are having a water balloon fight.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday!
Debbie

 

[pixiehallow]

Let me start by saying I am about to show my emotional side, which I know may be a little
You may or may have not noticed, but TiggerB has not been very active as of late. And I am posting this with her's and TamaraH's permission.

Over the last week, I have been thinking alot about asking y'all (our not so little group) if you would like to join with me and show support for cancer research and survivors. I was thinking we could add survivor/support ribbons to our design or something of that sort (I am totally open to suggestions).

What has brought this about has to do with the 2 members I mentioned. As everyone already knows, TamaraH's little one is a cancer survivor and will be celebrating 5 years on the cruise. What you are not aware of is the struggle TiggerB's family has been facing with some of her family members. I consider my self very privileged to be part of her circle of friends during her time of need, and want to do something to show my support. And finally, I am a melanoma survivor who previously lost a family member to the same cancer.

So, as you can see cancer support is something dear to my heart.

Thank you in advance for any thoughts and input you may have.

 

[Mercinursi]

Tink,

I am all in with support for this. I lost my father and DH's uncle from cancer 10 years ago. DH's uncle died from Melanoma, DF passed from prostate cancer. I am open to just about anything. Hugs to our "family members" here struggling with this.

Debbie

 

[tiggerb]

Thanks Tink for the shout out and the others too.

Yes, she is right... I spent my SIL's final weeks and days with her and Wed. I will go to CELEBRATE and bid farewell to my favorite uncle who died exactly 20 days after my SIL. SIL survived @ Stage 4 for 7 years beyond her expectancy--- started w/ Breast Cancer. (I think she had what they call a Triple Negative Cancer )! Uncle, only 13 months w/ lung cancer spreading to brain tumors too. Yet, both were comfortable with where they were headed, so that has been very comforting to me.

Anyhoo... on a happier note, DH and I started the Tony Horton 10 minute Trainer today along w/ the 2 day jump start meal plan. DH started his last night due to his schedule and lost 7 lbs in 1 day ! Basically due to PORTION control, caloric intake, and no sugar, breads/pasta, and more veggies and fruit. We will see what happens to me tomorrow a.m. after I have given it 24 hours. The DVDs show me that I have NO Rhythm and coordinating the moves will take some time , but I still got an incredible sweat in the 30 minutes I worked out. We will see what happens! After 2 days, you go back to picking your meals, but hopefully w/o the intense sugar or preservative /jjunk food cravings. My first real attempt to lose weight.

and... boys are almost done w/ school! One more day and baseball hits high gear! Enjoy the week!

 

[tiggerb]

Oh, forgot to post... Tink has INCREDIBLE artistic abilities! She has some great sketches for the logo(s).

Viking, it sounds like if we become friends, I can live vicariously through you as you have had the opportunities to see and travel the world. Very My mom was excited to hear someone from Germany was going and lived not too far from Stuttgart. She said she often wonders what the town and area she lived in looks like today. I know her house use to have a bomb shelter in the front yard back then. Wonder if they removed them all?...

Super excited to see people start checking in on the boards more often...

 

[Viking]

TiggerB, there are still some bomb shelters left over here.
Bomb shelters have a big advantage and a big disadavantage_
-Big advantage: They're nearly indestructible
-Big disadvantage: They're nearly indestructible

It is really a pain to demolish them and so some are still standing. They're often used by amateur bands as rehearsal rooms as they're absolutely soundproof. You can play the hardest metal rock there without bothering the neighbors.

Here in Frankfurt we presently have a reconstruction project going on and in a few years our historic downtown will look exactly the way it looked before WWII. But Stuttgart is also very nice. We're especially fond of its Zoo as it is one of the nicest in Europe.

Yes, we like to travel. So far we have done 19 trips to the USA, 3 times Thailand, 4 times Canary Islands, 2 times Tunisia (The area where they filmed the Tatooine portions of Star Wars), 5 DCL cruises, and numerous trips to our European neighbours and around the Mediterranean Sea. Since 1996 we've only owned convertibles and love to tour Germany whenever possible with the top down. In 10 days we're going to Bavaria, but we've also done tours to France (including Disneyland Paris), Austria, Switzerland and Denmark by car. In Europe you have the possibility to cover several countries in just a few hours

 

[Mercinursi]

Viking, I'm so jealous! I love to travel and don't get to do enough of it and a convertable to boot! Oh man! My dream life..... I will just follow your travels and dream....

Debbie

 

[JGamy]

Viking, We did the TWO FLAGS Tour on St.Maarten. It was OK, but won't do again. It did show the kids both sides of the island. We spend 1 hr in Marigot( French capital). I was not impressed. On St.Thomas ,we did tram ride to paradise point. The tram ride was good and very good views,pictures from top of point.
Pixiehallow, we stayed in a category 6A AFT cabin( now category 5E), so I don't have any info on category 8A cabin. We didn't see any other cabins. The new ship is beautiful and can't wait to cruise again on the Fantasy.

Joyce

 

[papa]

Pixie hollow we stayed in a cat 9A on the fantasy on the 12 may cruise.

My wife is a NICU nurse with 25 years experience.

 

[fridayfun]

Hello! My DH and I will also be joining this cruise (we are also a part of a few previous cruises with Viking and the gang!).

We will be celebrating both of our birthdays and our anniversary on this cruise (they are all togethher, helps to remember them!).

We are going to book the 2013 cruise when we take this exact cruise this August! We plan on diving in St Marten and taking the tour of St Johns (both are booked through the ship excursions). Going to try out Remy for dinner and managed to get a cabana on Serenity Bay to see how we like it.

No FE for us. It sounds fun, but the thought of trying to decide what to give sends me into panic mode!

Sounds like this should be a fun cruise!

 

[Viking]

Joyce,
I just checked out the 2 Flags Tour and it really doesn't look very impressive. We usually prefer excursions that are a bit more physically challenging. We're now thinking about doing the Kayak & Snorkeling Adventure first and then taking a cab to that beach: