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

[DVCinderella]

How large are the certificates? I don't see a size listed. That will help me decide how many we want. Thanks!

It sounds like they are larger than 8 1/2 x 11?? Since that is probably the case, we'll just take family one as well. Anything larger, I can't scrapbook it!

15.5" x 21"

 

[dthogue]

I was just curious what everyone's dining plans are - early or late seating? We have late, it worked well for us on the last cruises, but I'm a little concerned about the time change, but I guess we'll adjust.

We were talking about whether we wanted to ask for a table by ourselves or take a chance on sitting with others. 14 nights of having bad tablemates would be terrible, but 14 nights with a fun group would be awesome - decisions, decisions! Any thoughts??

 

[skoi]

We have late seating, have been doing it for a while. We did it on the TA where we went forward an hour for six nights, and we made it through dinner (but passed out every afternoon for a while.

We're usually a large group at least 6, often 8, and last time 12, so we only had table mates once. They were really nice, but I always worry about sticking us with some other, poor, unsuspecting family. It would be torture for them.

 

[socababy]

We have early seating simply because we have always done early seating. For those of you that have done the longer cruises, do you eat in the MDR every night or do you sometimes just want to grab a burger and have a more relaxed meal? My kids have always done well in the MDR on our 7 night cruises but it will be interesting to see how they do on a 14 night one!

 

[skoi]

We never did a longer cruise with the little ones, but our two older kids always wanted to go to the MDR. If they could go to Palo, they'd have missed a night for that.

Our littler ones also love the MDR- so we'll probably be there every night.

 

[dthogue]

We have early seating simply because we have always done early seating. For those of you that have done the longer cruises, do you eat in the MDR every night or do you sometimes just want to grab a burger and have a more relaxed meal? My kids have always done well in the MDR on our 7 night cruises but it will be interesting to see how they do on a 14 night one!

I was wondering the same thing - on our shorter cruises we have always done the MDR. On our 7 night cruise we did eat in the buffet one night and that was nice. With 14 nights of dining, I'm thinking we might skip a night or two in the MDR. We also want to try dinner at Palo one night. I also want to try the sit down meals for breakfast and lunch this trip.

 

[dthogue]

We have late seating, have been doing it for a while. We did it on the TA where we went forward an hour for six nights, and we made it through dinner (but passed out every afternoon for a while.

We're usually a large group at least 6, often 8, and last time 12, so we only had table mates once. They were really nice, but I always worry about sticking us with some other, poor, unsuspecting family. It would be torture for them.

Your family sounds like alot of fun

 

[BethC1952]

We've had late dining on all of our cruises. It works for us because we don't have to rush back onboard on port days, and we eat that late at home anyway. We may have a bit of trouble the first few days because we'll be eating earlier than we're used to due to the time change!

We've only skipped the main dining room once, other than for Palo. I had a horrible migraine, and leaving my cool, dark room just wasn't going to work. That's one really good thing about an inside room--they can be nice and dark when you need them to be!

As for tablemates--I'd say go for it. If you get awful ones, you can always ask to be changed to a different table. We've never had really bad tablemates. We've had some that weren't very talkative, but most of the time we've had great times! Twice we were seated by ourselves--once because we changed rotations to keep the same serving team on a b2b. The second time we were at a six-top by ourselves, but our servers also had a very large table which seemed to be a family reunion, and I imagine they had all wanted to sit together. The six-top was a big problem for us. Our servers kept bringing us enough food to fill the table "so that we wouldn't feel lonely"! And, of course, there never seemed to be anything left at the end of the meal. No wonder I had to lose 20 pounds when we got home!

Beth

 

[Gdes1]

How is the time change handled on this cruise? I didn't even think about that.....
Because we have really young kids, we did early seating and I can't imagine doing late. But I have to think of how the time change will affect their schedules.

Our plan is to go to the early seating as a family and get the kids food first, then take them to the kids club and babysitting. We'll have to see how that goes.

 

[LindaBabe]

Sitting with other DIS-ers was one of the highlights of our WBTA last year! Table 23 ROCKED! Linking dining was one of our best ideas. It was early seating. We went to dinner in the main diningroom every night because nobody wanted to miss seeing the others - the night 9 went to palo, the rest of us went to Topsiders because we couldn't face the big table alone - but we told our serving team it was so they could have the night off, lol.

BTW, lots of parents prefer late seating. That way they go to the 6 pm show while the kids are awake. Then dinner - which the kids get served first - and at 9 pm the counselors come from the clubs and take the kids who want to go. Otherwise, they seem to just sleep on the floor under the table or on a couple chairs pulled together.

 

[dthogue]

How is the time change handled on this cruise? I didn't even think about that.....
Because we have really young kids, we did early seating and I can't imagine doing late. But I have to think of how the time change will affect their schedules.

Our plan is to go to the early seating as a family and get the kids food first, then take them to the kids club and babysitting. We'll have to see how that goes.

From what I can tell by reading the Navigator's from the 2008 EBPC cruise you start on PST (which for us is 3 hours later), then on the first night you turn your clock ahead one hour. Then Tuesday night turn ahead another hour and then the following Tuesday ahead the third hour.

 

[dthogue]

We've had late dining on all of our cruises. It works for us because we don't have to rush back onboard on port days, and we eat that late at home anyway. We may have a bit of trouble the first few days because we'll be eating earlier than we're used to due to the time change!

We've only skipped the main dining room once, other than for Palo. I had a horrible migraine, and leaving my cool, dark room just wasn't going to work. That's one really good thing about an inside room--they can be nice and dark when you need them to be!

As for tablemates--I'd say go for it. If you get awful ones, you can always ask to be changed to a different table. We've never had really bad tablemates. We've had some that weren't very talkative, but most of the time we've had great times! Twice we were seated by ourselves--once because we changed rotations to keep the same serving team on a b2b. The second time we were at a six-top by ourselves, but our servers also had a very large table which seemed to be a family reunion, and I imagine they had all wanted to sit together. The six-top was a big problem for us. Our servers kept bringing us enough food to fill the table "so that we wouldn't feel lonely"! And, of course, there never seemed to be anything left at the end of the meal. No wonder I had to lose 20 pounds when we got home!

Beth

Thanks for the encouragement - I'm thinking we'll let it go and see what we end up with and hope it all works out well!

 

[schepp]

Chaccobean ruins (Costa Maya):
Group Brunch at Palo:
Panama Canal Certificates:
[/I]

Please add us to the list for all three. Just one certificate.

 

[BethC1952]

Well,we finally decided to check the mailat 5 PM, and what did we find?

A "Disney Cruise Line Planning Guide" for this cruise! It's really more of an advertisement for the online planning site, but it's personalized with our reservation information. It was quite a surprise, since we still haven't gotten anything for our June cruise!

Beth

 

[dthogue]

Well,we finally decided to check the mailat 5 PM, and what did we find?

A "Disney Cruise Line Planning Guide" for this cruise! It's really more of an advertisement for the online planning site, but it's personalized with our reservation information. It was quite a surprise, since we still haven't gotten anything for our June cruise!

Beth

We got one too

 

[lbrown62]

Hi all,
My husband and I are trying to decide on this trip. We are scheduled on the Fantasy for the Sept 29th trip to WB Caribbean with all of the family , but wanted to try one on our own. I keep reading about the certificate and wanted to know what it is. Also, we are both retired and will be in our 60's by the time we sailed and wanted to see if there are others with like interests to us to maybe pair up with for dinner. Hope to be sailing with you all.

Linda

 

[BethC1952]

Hi all,
My husband and I are trying to decide on this trip. We are scheduled on the Fantasy for the Sept 29th trip to WB Caribbean with all of the family , but wanted to try one on our own. I keep reading about the certificate and wanted to know what it is. Also, we are both retired and will be in our 60's by the time we sailed and wanted to see if there are others with like interests to us to maybe pair up with for dinner. Hope to be sailing with you all.

Linda

Hi, Linda!

We'll both be in our 60's by cruise time...my husband is aleady there and our June cruise will be my birthday celebration. He will be retired by the time of the cruise, but I plan on working another two years to get my full pension benefitsso I can afford even more cruises. We're both really looking orward to this cruise, both because of the length and because of the fact that we're both really interested in seeing the Panam Canal!

I hope you decide to join us. This is setting upto be a wonderful experience!

Beth

 

[skoi]

Is it too early to buy airfare for this cruise? Saw a decent price out of Miami, and I'm thinking it's probably not getting any lower. What does everyone think?

Will be in touch with everyone in the Palo group and for the Costa Maya tour soon.

 

[BethC1952]

We bought our airfare about two weeks ago. I can't imagine that the price will go any lower than $141/pp (plus some extra to upgrade to extra legroom seats) from Philadelphia to LA. We'll be buying the Miami to Philadelphia trip by the end of this week.

I still haven't got all the details worked out for my June cruise (like how I'm getting there), but I know how I'm getting to California !

Beth

 

[skoi]

We bought our airfare about two weeks ago. I can't imagine that the price will go any lower than $141/pp (plus some extra to upgrade to extra legroom seats) from Philadelphia to LA. We'll be buying the Miami to Philadelphia trip by the end of this week.

I still haven't got all the details worked out for my June cruise (like how I'm getting there), but I know how I'm getting to California !

Beth

I think you're right, and we have five tickets to buy so...

We also don't have our September cruise plans totally worked out.