EBPC December 9, 2012!!! Who's in????

[magicmaker1]

what a great mom and dad!

 

[magicmaker1]

Just found out that the sister of a teammate from my son's football team has been hired by DCL and will be on the Wonder during our cruise. She was telling us about the employment process-WOW. She'll be working with childrens activities and we have no kids anymore but still fun to stop by and say hi!

 

[Land Park Tudor]

I hear it's crazy busy at WDW on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. If anyone has ever done WDW on those days please share any thoughts/tips.

 

[mug318ca]

I've not done DW during those times, but I have done DL on Christmas Day. It was a zoo, but it was soooo much fun to. We live in LA so we opened presents and one of the presents for the kids were DL tickets.

 

[Chinook]

Are there any geocachers on board? I've seen some caches at a couple of ports.

 

[holula]

We did Christmas at WDW last year. Christmas Eve we did Animal Kingdom, surprisingly wait times were mostly under an hour! In the evening we went to Hollywood Studios where the wait times were over 2 hours for every ride! Christmas Day we did MK, got there when the gates opened at 6am (7am?) and only Tomorrowland and Fantasyland and Main street was open until 8am. The park was EMPTY. We rode a bunch of stuff back to back like Spacepuntain and Buzz. The other lands I think opened at 8am, the park was still pretty empty. Then we did Big Thunder Mountain three times in a row! It was great fun.

The park started getting super packed around 10am. We left around 1pm as the lines were insane and went back to All Star Sports and had a nap. Then we had dinner at the Crystal Palace and watched the fireworks from their viewing area instead of fighting for a good spot in the normal crowd.

And this year we plan on doing it again. One thing to note is that you are not guaranteed re-entry to the park even if you have dinner reservations. We just asked how full the park was before we left and they will tell you if you have no chance of getting back in or not.

 

[adnil530]

Are there any geocachers on board? I've seen some caches at a couple of ports.

Yep, we've found a few in our time. Have you ever done the ones on Castaway Cay? I think there is only one there now. There were 3 of them but it's been a while since I looked it up. I snapped a photo of it last December while we were there. A clever hide. The first time we found it was in 2010. We were just checking to see if it was still there.

Linda

 

[Liz Arjay]

Are there any geocachers on board? I've seen some caches at a couple of ports.

That sounds really interesting! I've read about this but never done it. I wonder if we could do something similar on the ship, and as you find the cache and take the contents, you replace it with something else (like an FE item). Of course the DCL cleaning staff would probably find and remove them. But it would be fun to have something like that.

Liz

 

[dthogue]

WOW! Talk about pixie dust! Things like that are what makes life so wonderful. You're boys are very lucky to have you as parents. My oldest daughter is in college too and she has finals the first week that we are on the cruise. I've thought about flying her to Miami so she can staying with us for 3 days before we fly home, but then I think, she doesn't want to be flying across the US on Christmas. Now you have me thinking different. I'll have to ask her tonight.

Our oldest 2 DD's are also in college - we have been playing with the idea too of flying them down on Saturday and then we would all fly home on Christmas eve or Christmas day. My oldest is not a Disney fan, so she really wasn't too keen on the idea - she would rather go to the beach

Ok I am prob the biggest softie around. Remember above statement about "Sorry Mattie". Weeeeelllllllllll not anymore. Big softie mom along with big softie dad are bringing Mattie along for the DL part. Using points he is flying out with us on Friday. I moved our hotel ressie to the Fairfield Inn across from DL, changed our rental car to drop off Sunday morning at the airport, Mattie will fly back home Sunday so he will be at class Monday morning and we will take Disney transport to the ship. The difference in price for the rental car is $100 less this way, just enough to pay for the Disney transport. Hotel was the same too. So for him to come out with us will be his food and park ticket. Then my first born will be able to realize his dream of Haunted Mansion/ Nightmare before Christmas.
He has a rough week of college this week 4 exams and 1 paper due. We are going to tell him Fri night. I can't wait to see his face!

Oh what a great mom you are!!!

Just found out that the sister of a teammate from my son's football team has been hired by DCL and will be on the Wonder during our cruise. She was telling us about the employment process-WOW. She'll be working with childrens activities and we have no kids anymore but still fun to stop by and say hi!

That is so neat - best of luck to her on her new job!

I hear it's crazy busy at WDW on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. If anyone has ever done WDW on those days please share any thoughts/tips.

We did MK on Christmas Eve and as said previously the morning was fine, but it got fuller and fuller as the day went on and by evening you could barely move. We are going to WDW after the cruise, but only for the day on the 23rd.

Are there any geocachers on board? I've seen some caches at a couple of ports.

what is geocachers???

Tammy

 

[abbyar]

Well, I booked (and booked late, had to fly out this morning and finally got done with work at 6), but got all of the activities I wanted (tour for the 4 of us to the ruins, tour for the 2 of us for 21+ in Cartegena), so very glad. Was able to book 1 dinner and 1 brunch - is that right? I tried to book another dinner and it wanted me to sub one for the other.

I checked in at 4 am this morning and only got the 11:30 check in time but I think a few people have said on other threads that in LA they let you show up early if the line isn't full. Anybody know if that's true?

Thanks! We're getting excited now that it's *booked*!

 

[Chinook]

Yep, we've found a few in our time. Have you ever done the ones on Castaway Cay? I think there is only one there now. There were 3 of them but it's been a while since I looked it up. I snapped a photo of it last December while we were there. A clever hide. The first time we found it was in 2010. We were just checking to see if it was still there.

Linda

We've done 4 total on Castaway Cay. 3 of them are archived. The one that is still active we found a couple of years ago but this past May when we were there we also had to go check on it!

 

[Chinook]

what is geocachers???

Tammy

It's kind of a treasure hunt using a GPS receiver. Wikipedia has a decent description of it - go check it out.

 

[holula]

If anyone wants to see the difference from am to pm at WDW on Xmas day... http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150498404294705.374177.500874704&type=3&l=13c41cb6ca

You should be able to view if you have a Facebook... Scroll about halfway down and MK goes from empty to people everywhere!

 

[Jeff Spencer]

Welcome to you and your family. I do believe there a a few boys your kids age in the group.
Good luck reading the 164 pages, because it will just keep climbing. It is sometimes hard for us to keep up, and I read almost every day!

At it increases at an almost exponential rate the closer we get to the cruise.

 

[dededisney]

Pirate Night dinner is served during both seatings. The whole evening is themed around Pirate Night. That's the night I usually have my Palo dinner reservation. For us, Pirate Night is a "one and done" thing, although we do enjoy the fireworks. Lots of people do enjoy the evening, however!

Beth

We just moved our Palo dinner to Pirate Night as well for the same reason...one less outfit to pack! We made the reservation early enough so we can still see the fireworks. I never get tired of watching them.

 

[Jeff Spencer]

I hear it's crazy busy at WDW on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. If anyone has ever done WDW on those days please share any thoughts/tips.

Honestly, only go if you're OK with the fact that the parks will be uncomfortably packed and you will struggle to do more than a few attractions the entire day. If you're fine with just "being there" and don't mind being in long lines and around throngs of people, you'll be OK. You best bet is to stay onsight and be at whatever park you want to see way early at the front of the Early Entry crowd and make a beeline to what you want to do first and have someone else in your party go to whatever attraction you want to do next to get Fastpasses. Do as much as you can in that first hour or so because the rest of the day will be long lines.

 

[Land Park Tudor]

Thanks holula, Tammy and Jeff (hope I didn't miss anyone) -- we will definitely plan to be there well before the park opens on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Back to the issue of Early or Late Dinner: Based on everyone's great advice I'm still conflicted about whether we should do the early seating or the late seating with DD (8) and DS (6). A case can be made either way....and perhaps for us it will come down to whether there are other Dis folks with kids at the late seating.

Is anyone else with preteens doing the late seating? (I didn't see any discussions re who is going to the late seating, but could've missed it.) I think I might be bummed to miss out being in the same seating area as the large group with and w/o kids that's already forming for the early seating. I'm glad we have early seating so that we have the option to go either way, but we're sort of leaning towards late seating if we wont' be there by ourselves.

 

[adnil530]

That sounds really interesting! I've read about this but never done it. I wonder if we could do something similar on the ship, and as you find the cache and take the contents, you replace it with something else (like an FE item). Of course the DCL cleaning staff would probably find and remove them. But it would be fun to have something like that.

Liz

It would take some doing on the ship as geocaching requires a gps and with the ship moving...a gps will be useless. But yes, it can be a game we can play. Maybe in teams? It would be a treasure hunt of sorts. Let's think about it and plan it! With 10 sea days, I'm sure we can make it interesting!

We've done 4 total on Castaway Cay. 3 of them are archived. The one that is still active we found a couple of years ago but this past May when we were there we also had to go check on it!

I thought there might be one that I missed. I'd have to check my logs but so much fun.

 

[cayucan]

I'm new to this group and to cruising. Our family is really looking foreword to this DCL experience. Any tips and advise would be greatly appreciated.

 

[pharmjenn]

Welcome Cayucan. My family is also new to cruising. This is a pretty active group, with lots of activities being planned. Join in as much as you want and ask any questions you come up with. Lots has been covered in the last 100 pages, so you will either be pointed in the right direction or get your questions answered.
Who is cruising with you? There are lots of kids of all ages, and adults up to elderly, so you will likely find some kindred souls.