Extra expenses: Opinions from experienced cruisers wanted!

[paulinewdw]

I am a first time cruiser...but a Disney Fanatic(as is DH)! Seaspray, I noticed that you were from MA (we are too!) and that you were on the same cruise August 28,2004! We are driving down to Disney leaving on August 20. We will spend 5 days at OKW and the parks and then go on our first cruise ever! DH, myself and DS(ages 7, 10, and 13). I usually post on the crafting board as I am an avid scrapbooker!

 

[cdnmickeylover]

My one suggestion for souvenirs is to go to the shop the first time it's opened. At the back they have a discount rack that has a variety of items on it. I bought a tshirt for DS there as well as little things for my niece and nephew. By the end of the week the shelves were basically empty of the discount items. It's a tip I picked up here on the boards and it was worth it.

We ate at O'Hanas the last time we were at WDW and are looking forward to eating there again -- absolutely loved the food.

 

[MrsPete]

No, smoothies are not the same thing as milkshakes. Milkshakes are ice-cream based, much sweeter, and very cold. Smoothies are 2/3 yogurt and 1/3 fruit -- sometimes they include crunchy stuff like granola. They're not so cold and very tangy-sour like yogurt. My kids love milkshakes, but won't touch smoothies.

I love my digital camera, but I'm not ready to give up my 35 MM completely. Part of the $140 that I spent on developing was printing of digital pictures. Being a photography teacher, I can't help taking tons of pictures!

I see you've checked into the timing of the Cozumel excursions. I think it's a risk, but I see you feel okay about it. Make sure the boys know that they have NO TIME for shopping or hanging around in Cozumel -- they have to hurry straight to their second excursion. Doing this on your Palo night is good planning.

 

[RebeccaLovesDisney]

I have one more suggestion to your budgeting spreadsheet. I would make Shutters purchases (formal and other pictures) a separate line item. There are package prices for the 6x8's: 10 for $84.95, 15 for $119.95, 20 for $149.95. These are the more casual pictures they take around the ship - upon boarding, with characters, on Castaway Cay, etc. Formal pictures are 8x10's and are $20 each. They also have neat 2-part frames that you can put your 8x10's in that have a picture of the ship on one side. We ended up spending a lot more on pictures than we thought we would. They really do take good pictures that are one of a kind!

 

[SeaSpray]

Originally posted by paulinewdw
I am a first time cruiser...but a Disney Fanatic(as is DH)! Seaspray, I noticed that you were from MA (we are too!) and that you were on the same cruise August 28,2004! We are driving down to Disney leaving on August 20. We will spend 5 days at OKW and the parks and then go on our first cruise ever! DH, myself and DS(ages 7, 10, and 13). I usually post on the crafting board as I am an avid scrapbooker!

Hi Pauline

Have you been over to the Cruise Meets board? We have a thread going, and there seems to be a great group of people on our cruise!! Here's a link to that thread:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=384562

This thread was started last summer and each week we've been posting a countdown of how many weeks we have left. Soon we'll be under the 200 days mark, so we're all excited.

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

Bingo Money???

That's something I didn't notice on your list...We hadn't planned to do this but ended up playing almost every time! Had fun too - but didn't win anything.... If I remember right is was $35 to get a pack of cards for the entire session (pack of 5 cards I think).

 

[ms1]

Bingo is hard to resist toward the end of the week if the jackpot is rolling over. On the 12/27 cruise the final jackpot was $8,255...we heard the week before (the Christmas cruise) it was over $11,000 on the last day. Obviously, your odds of winning are better earlier in the week. Even with smaller jackpots an extra $200 or so on the cruise could be very handy indeed.