Fantasy - July 14, 2012

[linkandclover]

Well, it is a small world!! I was actually born in Winnipeg, but grew up outside Edmonton, Alberta. My DH is from Calgary and we lived there for 3 years before relocating to Victoria, BC where my DS was born. Only DD is an American, the rest of us are "Camerican", a word my DS coined for a paper he wrote in the 2nd grade.

If it is going to be very hot, we may brave a rope drop. Probably after the cruise since we want to be well rested for the ship. We are currently staying in the Royal Rooms at POR Riverside but I am worried it is too spread out for my parents so we are thinking of moving to WL, CR or Poly. Everyone I am traveling with keeps saying "Whatever you think is fine. We trust you.", but I think that puts more pressure on me

Getting more excited now that the Fantasy is on the east coast!!!

K in SA

We seem to have something in common. My ds 15 was born in Winnipeg and my ds 12 in virginia. My husband has a more colorful history as he lived in South Africa until he was 24, moved to Winnipeg and became a Canadian citizen. After having our first son we moved to the Washington DC area.

We have stayed at POR and did not find walking to be that bad. Caribbean beach resort had the longest walk to get to the pool and dining. The only other one we stayed at was animal kingdom. The word I hear is that the hotels are nice and the service is great.

 

[linkandclover]

We just booked! This will be our second Disney cruise! Our first DCL was on the Dream in June 2011. DH and I will be celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary while on board. We have 3 kids - DD 17, DS 14, DD 12. We have two verandah's, but I'm not sure what are room numbers are yet.

Welcome to the board. I have 2 sons (15 and 12). They are glad that there are lots of kids their age on board. Let me know if you want to join our small FE group.

 

[Cruisin'Nick]

As far as anniversaries go, though ours is a little shorter than everyones on here.. My DGF and I will be celebrating our 9 months together!!! And judging by how things go by then, I may have a surprise for her . Crossin fingers, eyes, and toes on it!! As far as resorts go..Over the many visits we've had to WDW, we've stayed at most of the Resorts. Us personally enjoy POR French Quarter, The Yacht Club, Fort Wilderness Campground, the Poly, and Grand Floridian. As far as walks, the Yacht Club and Campground have the farthest walks to dining, pools, and buses. All are enjoyable in their own rights, all depends on what you are looking for.

 

[SA53]

CruisinNick that is so exciting!!! Now we will all be looking around the ship for the girl staring at her ring finger!!!! That would be a memorable way to get engaged, on a Disney cruise ship.

linkandclover, that is way too weird that we have same age Canadian/American children. Freaky

Also, have any of you every taken a limo to the boat? There will be 8 of us so after pricing it out it will actually be cheaper for us to do it this way, but I was wondering if anyone had any limo company recommendations.

K in SA

 

[noahsmom]

SA53, my friend in Calgary is also from Victoria.

We have used limos a few times. Southern Elegance, FL Tours, and Happy Limo. We've had good experience with all of them. We drive now since flying has just become such a pain. We enjoy the 2 day drive, it's an adventure in itself.

Currently we are in the midst of a winter weather warning. It's nasty outside, lots of snow and wind. I do not approve of snow in March! Only 132 days until we leave for vacation!!!

 

[linkandclover]

Sorry to hear bout the weather. We have not yet experienced winter this year. My kids are very disappointed by the lack of snow days.

 

[linkandclover]

Yay, Page 8!!!!!

 

[noahsmom]

We have had a very mild winter so I shouldn't complain too much. I just am not fond of snow in March. I prefer snow in November and December, after that it can go away. It will be gone by Tuesday when it hits 50.

What do you all think of Mariah Carey being the Fantasy's godmother? Frankly I don't see why people are getting so worked up about it. Some have posted they won't sail on the Fantasy because of it. It's not like she will be on every cruise. It's interesting what makes people angry sometimes.

 

[linkandclover]

We have had a very mild winter so I shouldn't complain too much. I just am not fond of snow in March. I prefer snow in November and December, after that it can go away. It will be gone by Tuesday when it hits 50.

What do you all think of Mariah Carey being the Fantasy's godmother? Frankly I don't see why people are getting so worked up about it. Some have posted they won't sail on the Fantasy because of it. It's not like she will be on every cruise. It's interesting what makes people angry sometimes.

This is the first I ever heard that the ships each had a godmother. I am not sure what it means so I guess I am one of the people that do not care ( I also have no idea what the controversy is about).

 

[linkandclover]

We have always used Disney to get to the port and back and was wondering why people choose to do it privately. What are some of the possible advantages?

 

[Muggs]

Kereen, Marcia my wife will be sending a request for the Facebook group so our grandkids Jacob (11) and Courtney (11) can begin meeting the other kids sailing on the Fantasy. Muggs

 

[mmouseforpres]

I am very glad to see the kids have started a facebook page I'll have mine join. We are interested in joining the FE group. We haven't done it before, but it sounds like fun.

We will be celebrating our 19th anniversary on July 17th.

 

[mmouseforpres]

We have always used Disney to get to the port and back and was wondering why people choose to do it privately. What are some of the possible advantages?

We used the Disney transportation last year. It is expensive, but we were able to board the ship as soon as we arrived at the port. For our family of 5, we are looking at other possibilities this year. We may rent a car because we will be arriving the day before the cruise.

 

[noahsmom]

We used the Disney transportation last year. It is expensive, but we were able to board the ship as soon as we arrived at the port. For our family of 5, we are looking at other possibilities this year. We may rent a car because we will be arriving the day before the cruise.

We love using a towncar service. You don't get crowded into a bus, they pick you up when you want, they will do a grocery stop on the way to port, and it's cheaper even for a family of 3.

Our 25th anniversary is July 25th, I hope to get Remy reservations for that night.

 

[linkandclover]

I am very glad to see the kids have started a facebook page I'll have mine join. We are interested in joining the FE group. We haven't done it before, but it sounds like fun.

We will be celebrating our 19th anniversary on July 17th.

Welcome aboard. Please let me know what room you are in and who is in your group including the ages of children so that I can put you on the list. We will either each take 2 days or have a random day depending on the overall number of guests participating.

 

[SA53]

Kereen, Marcia my wife will be sending a request for the Facebook group so our grandkids Jacob (11) and Courtney (11) can begin meeting the other kids sailing on the Fantasy. Muggs

Muggs, I have set up Marcia on Facebook. My DD is looking forward to chatting with others on the cruise.

There is an Ashley T. who has made a request. Just want to make sure she is on our Dis meet. Are you out there Ashley???

Noahsmom, I think it is so weird that we have a Calgary/Victoria connection. Like I said to linkandclover, it certainly is a small world!!!

linkandclover, we are booking a limo because it is $70 return per person to take the disney bus (although it looks soooo cool) and there are 8 of us so it would be cheaper to rent a limo and I got some shopping to do on board!!

As someone who has never cruised before, do we actually meet in person? I know I will probably run into Noahsmom on the back of deck 10 but I was just curious.

Glad to see the board getting busy! So excited to be going.

K in SA

 

[SA53]

We love using a towncar service. You don't get crowded into a bus, they pick you up when you want, they will do a grocery stop on the way to port, and it's cheaper even for a family of 3.

Our 25th anniversary is July 25th, I hope to get Remy reservations for that night.

Noahsmom, it does make sense for you to celebrate you actual anniversary on your actual anniversary (here is me being sad cuz we are already off the ship ), but if you want to go to Remy on the your first leg we can have Noah eat with us that night so he is not alone.

Also, I forgot to comment about Mariah Carey being godmother. I don't really care, but I did think she was an odd choice because I thought they would choose someone who was more "Disneyfied".

K in SA

 

[noahsmom]

SA53, thanks for the Noah offer. We are planning a Palo dinner during this cruise. Last summer our table mates had a DS the same age as Noah (actually we had sailed with them before and had such a great time we connected our reservations to sit together again). All the adults went to Palo and the 2 boys went to our dining rotation that night. They had a grand time being treated like princes. We were a large table (12) so we were the only table our servers had.

I will let him know of your offer for him to sit with you. Not sure what he will want to do, he's pretty excited about Vibe and may just want to go there.

 

[GarakDS9]

Hello everyone,

Just finished reading the entire thread and I am excited to announce that our family just joined this sailing. We were originally booked on an April 2012 Fantasy but we pushed it off to Christmas 2012. The combination of having just left the Wonder MR and all the Fantasy in NY coverage made us all desperate to get back on a ship. The new GTY rates made this trip possible. Instead of 2 weeks in WDW we are now dividing it WDW/DCL. I suspect that GTY might add a few more families to this thread.

In addition to me, my family consists of DW and DS turning 14 four days before sailing. Lucky stiff will get to celebrate his actual birthday in WDW and again on DCL.

I amazed to see all the children of the same generation. It must be Disney magic.

 

[GarakDS9]

As I just mentioned, we are literally 1 week removed from the Wonder MR sailing. We participated in a few DIS meets and the FE and they both really added to our cruise experience.

We would like to participate in both.

By the way, our last cruise used a spreadsheet in Google Docs to organize the FE. It seemed quite simple but I have very little experience with spreadsheets. After the document was created it was available for our group to view via a link and made gift planning easier. Does anyone have experience with this?