Feb 20, 2011 - Presidents' Week - Mexican Riviera

[XMom]

Glad to see more people on here. We are excited. Have not told the kids we are going...maybe we won't tell them until we get there and they figure it out! That is really cool that you guys are off of school that whole week. I have to come up with some sort of story to tell the school why my boys will be missing Tu-Fri that week. They will be in Kinder & 2nd grade in the fall. Any ideas??

 

[Mich123]

Thanks, XMom for the advice on San Diego to Port. In my planning fever, I booked a room at the Marriott Renaissance 6 miles from Port for the night before. I think we will fly into San Diego on Thursday and drive up on Saturday.

Will your school give you a hard time about the "unexcused" absence? I'd say it was an educational family trip. Most teachers around here are good with that!

 

[minie_meese]

Minie, where in Rochester do you live? We're in Greece.

We live off Park Ave - there were a number of Rochester people on our last cruise - maybe we'll have a few more

 

[BROWNSPHAN]

I booked us on United because the times were really good. I looked at JetBlue and their flights for the fall to LAX were either really early or really late and not the way I needed them to be.

Plus the price for United was lower than JetBlue's prices right now. I didn't think they'd be much lower later. Of course, it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong!!

Minie, where in Rochester do you live? We're in Greece.

Just booked the cruise yesterday. We were going to be going on Dream but this deal was too good to pass up. Cant wait. Hopefully airfare doesnt kill us.

We are also in Greece!!!

 

[XMom]

Thanks, XMom for the advice on San Diego to Port. In my planning fever, I booked a room at the Marriott Renaissance 6 miles from Port for the night before. I think we will fly into San Diego on Thursday and drive up on Saturday.

Will your school give you a hard time about the "unexcused" absence? I'd say it was an educational family trip. Most teachers around here are good with that!

Yes, unfortunately they do not like it when the kids are out. We go to a public magnet school that you have to apply to get in to. It is very parent driven and we are all there because we want to be. I'm sure I am not the only one that pulls their kids out. I have been told to do it now because by the time we get to 3rd grade it will be too hard to catch up. I'm sure I can tell the teachers the truth if we get good ones, but the office is another issue. We may just have a family emergency!! It is an emergency when you go into cruise withdrawl and especially into Disney withdrawl!!

 

[Pooh Lover]

Brownsphan - how old are your kid(s)? This is the first time I've "met" people from the same area going on the same cruise. It's pretty cool!

XMom - it's too bad they'll give you a hard time. Our district has pads of preprinted excuse forms. One of the choices for reason is "out of town". I just check that. And I tell the teachers at the beginning of the school year that they will be out and remind them a couple weeks before. I've never had a problem. I understand where they are coming from, but in my opinion, they are MY kids and it's MY decision to pull them out for a few days or not. But then my kids don't have any issues keeping up in class and are rarely out for sickness. They miss less days out for vacation than some of their peers lose for sickness. Of course, their Dad doesn't like me pulling the out but I just tell him "tough" too!

I know it's 8 months away, but I am excited already for this cruise! We are doing the Eastern Carib. October 2011 and that's just too far away. Probably one of the reasons I booked this cruise was to have something closer to anticipate!

 

[BROWNSPHAN]

Brownsphan - how old are your kid(s)? This is the first time I've "met" people from the same area going on the same cruise. It's pretty cool!

They are 17 & 10. Both are girls.. or should I say Princesses

 

[Pooh Lover]

Mine (5 and 8) are not princesses, they are queens...drama queens that is! It's never boring at our house!

 

[minie_meese]

On our last cruise we had 4 families from Rochester - small world - or maybe people in Rochester just like cruising. We will have at least one of our granddaughters (7) with us. Our son and daughter will also be with us. We have 2 adjoining cabins on deck 7. Right now our cruise shows no availability but that will probably change. I was hoping to have our other son and his 7 yr old daughter join us too.

 

[EricaG]

We've never been on a 7-nt. before, but I know that they usually have a real formal night--I'm guessing this cruise will have the same? My husband has a tux that he hasn't gotten to wear in years, and I'd love to have an excuse to buy a great dress, so I'm hoping there is one! Not sure what we'll do about my son--if his daddy is in a tux, he'll be wanting to dress the same way!

 

[Pooh Lover]

We WERE on deck 7 but switched to deck 5 in order to be on the same floor as the kids club. We went on a 5 day RCCL in April and DD8 wanted to stay at the club WAAAAY past DD5's bed time. We were on the same floor as the kids club so I let her sign herself out and come back to the room alone. I'm much more comfortable doing this if it's only a matter of walking down the hallway and not going up or down stairs.

 

[BROWNSPHAN]

We are also on deck 7. This is going to be a great time. Cant wait

 

[Pooh Lover]

I just tried to add a friend of mine to the reservation and was told no. Apparently this cruise is entirely sold out! There aren't even suites available!

 

[minie_meese]

I just tried to add a friend of mine to the reservation and was told no. Apparently this cruise is entirely sold out! There aren't even suites available!

Keep trying. Some rooms have
opened up periodically over the past few days. People must be putting things on hold and then releasing them. I'm trying to book a room for my son and am pretty sure we will find something.

 

[Pooh Lover]

You think? I wonder why the TA didn't tell me that? I'll have to email her today and ask her to keep an eye out.

 

[Bruins]

Hi all. We will be on this cruise as well. We just got off the Wonder about a week ago (our first Disney cruise), and we had a great experience. It will be me, my wife and out 11 year old daughter and 8 year old son.

We would like to be part of the FE as well- we had a great time participating in the FE on our prior cruise.

We live about 15 minutes from the cruise ship terminal, so if you have any questions about the local area, please feel free to ask.

 

[vetbeth]

We're now booked for this cruise as well (myself, DH, and DS5). We can't wait to go. It's our first disney cruise and we are looking forward to it.

 

[minie_meese]

For quite a while I wondered if we were just going to have a few DISers on this cruise but I just went through the people who have posted on this board and it looks like we have 14 families.

Quite a few people expressed an interest in FE so we should start thinking about it. Some of us have gotten pretty elaborate with out Fish Extenders and our gifts :~}

We have plenty of time but we might want to at least talk about how we'd like to do this so we're not rushing at the end.

Here are some thought starters
Do we want to include adults and kids? (the ones I have participated in included both)
It looks like this is the first 7 night cruise for many of us so how many days do we want to plan on gifts for adults, for kids?
I'm happy to coordinate unless someone else wants to do it.

I can start to collect the information like number of cabins, number of adults and number of kids - and pass it along if someone else wants to coordinate

You can post info here or PM me

Thanks

Elaine

Here are the screen names of the families who have posted on this board.
Aurora76
BROWNSPHAN
Bruins
Disny24
Erica G
Mich123
minie_meese
MonicaD
Pooh_Lover
Senor Don Duck
silence
Sweetpeabass
Vetbeth
XMom

mindy327 - was thinking about joining this cruise

 

[Pooh Lover]

Elaine,

I would like to do the FE, especially for the kids. It's our first Disney cruise though and while I have kind of gotten an idea of what it is, could you please explain exactly how it works?

Thanks!

 

[LKFan]

My name is Deb and I'm married to "Bruins" (aka Ken).

Thanks for taking on the organizing of the FE. We participated in the FE on our last cruise and had a lot of fun. Some people just gave to the kids, some did individual gifts for everyone and others did family gifts. It didn't matter which way it was done, we all enjoyed returning to our room to and finding a surprise in our FE.