Feb.4,2006. Who else is sailing?

[skylynx]

Oh, in my last post, I didn't mean that all we wore were long black gloves and tiaras. We had dresses on, too. ;-)

If anyone is doing a little bit of Disney World pre and post cruise, we wanted to share that we got a great deal at Budget for two car rentals. We're picking one up the Friday night before the cruise at MCO, then dropping off the next day at the Budget in Port Canaveral and taking the shuttle to the ship. On the way home, we're picking the car up in Port Canaveral Saturday morning, then returning it Monday evening back at the airport. The total for a midsize with all taxes for both rentals was under $120. We used some discount codes we found on Mousesavers.com. If you go to their site and follow links to DCL and things to do around Port Canaveral, the car rentals places come up along with a link to discount codes. We just plugged a bunch in until something worked.

We found it is cheaper to rent/drop off, rent/drop off than keep the car for the 10 days and pay the $10 a night parking at the Port. We used Budget to do this on our last cruise and it worked out great...we didn't wait on long lines to rent either time, and we didn't have to wait very long for the shuttle--and certainly not long enough to negate the substantial price savings.

Something to think about if you are still mulling over how to get to the port and back.

 

[steveandtonya]

Well we are official. Last night we registered the kids into the kids club and made excursion reservations. My son and I are doing the stingray snorkle on Castaway Cay and we are all doing the Doubloon sail on St Thomas. We were not able to get Palo reservations for brunch on line or by phone. They said they were all booked up for brunch. Maybe when we get on the ship.

Steve

 

[Billinaz]

We have a minivan rented for the MCO-Port portion from AVIS for $46.84 with taxes.


On the port to MCO portion we have a Budget minivan rented for $$69.41 with all taxes, etc

 

[Billinaz]

My 9 year old DD, Kimberly, is still bugging me to find a friend for her on this cruise that she can email!


email:


kids_dcl_magic@cox.net

 

[Johnna_Story]

Marcy and Jeanette - we should all try to meet up after lunch and before the lifeboat drill - I'm thinking around 2:30 at the Mickey Pool, but of course we'll firm up plans closer to Feburary. I heard the pools are usually really empty around this time. It would be great for the kids to get to know each other.

Are you all going down the night before? We're going on Thursday night and staying at the Radission at the Port - will anyone else (not just Jeanette or Marcy) be staying there the night (or two) before the 4th?

Also - there's a great Steakhouse called Durango's in Cocoa Beach - abt. 10 minutes from the port. We ate there the night before our cruise last year, and other than the cruise itself, it's the thing we're most looking forward to doing!!

Mark - how many days from today???

 

[Johnna_Story]

Hello, Fellow Cruisers

My DH and I LOVE to dress up...we do the tuxedo/gown/rhinestone jewelry thing on formal and semi formal nights. Probably because we have virtually nowhere else to ever wear these clothes too, so we take full advantage.

On my last Magic cruise, a few of us glamour girls on Disboards decided to really take this dress up thing to the limit and on formal night we all wore long black gloves and tiaras. Who says just the little girls get to be Disney Princesses? We all had our picture together on the stairs in the atrium (and even people we didn't know were taking our picture)! Since my usual attire is boring business casual clothes or barn wear (we have two horses) it was a big thrill for me to get that put together.

If anyone's interested in Extreme Dressing, let me know and we can coordinate a great picture!

Sounds like fun - we are in Palo for formal night; but dressing up really glam sounds like a riot! It just depends on what dress I fit into by then...
I want to diet before the cruise, but hello? It's Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not the easiest time of year...

 

[jblb1020]

Hello Johnna,
The Mickey pool sounds great. We are flying in from New Jersey on the 4th our flight lands at 10:22am so we should arrive pretty early.

 

[Boxkite]

My 9 year old DD, Kimberly, is still bugging me to find a friend for her on this cruise that she can email!


email:


kids_dcl_magic@cox.net

Hello Kimberly,

My son, Martin, will be glad to be your friend. He just turned nine years old and is very much looking forward to the cruise! I will have him send an e-mail message to you.

Steven

 

[Johnna_Story]

Mark - how many days from today???

I guess I'll answer my own question - 75 days from today, Sunday, 11/20.

DH busy watching Redskins stink up the joint to the Raiders. He's not in a good mood....

 

[MarcyIn Florida]

We were not able to get Palo reservations for brunch on line or by phone. They said they were all booked up for brunch. Maybe when we get on the ship.

Steve

Our travel agent said that they reserve half for online ressies and keep the other half for onboard reservations. We didn't get a brunch time either, but hope to be in line early and often!

Marcy

 

[MarcyIn Florida]

Marcy and Jeanette - we should all try to meet up after lunch and before the lifeboat drill - I'm thinking around 2:30 at the Mickey Pool, but of course we'll firm up plans closer to Feburary.

This sounds like a great idea. Mark, too, right -- he has 5 and 3 year olds? I'm having trouble keeping all of the kids straight, but I'll get there.

 

[mark_story]

Marcy,

jblb1020 (Jeanette and family) have a five year old and a 2.5 year old too. Let's try meeting at the Mickey Pool at 2:30. That should give us enough time to make the safety drill (ugh) and the sail away party.

Mark

 

[jblb1020]

I had heard that there is character breakfast??? Is that at Palo for brunch? And if not can anyone let me know how and when we can sign up for any meals that are with characters?

 

[Johnna_Story]

I had heard that there is character breakfast??? Is that at Palo for brunch? And if not can anyone let me know how and when we can sign up for any meals that are with characters?

Character Breakfast is at Parrot Cay restaurant the morning after you dine in Parrot Cay for dinner. They won't do character breakfast at Palo since the kids can't go there. It's great big fun. All the main characters (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale) were at our last one. They go to each table and the photographer takes pictures with everyone (and you can take your own photos too).

There's plenty of other opportunities to see characters throughout the cruise; if you go to http://**********************/ and click on "navigators" you can see the Navigators which list all the activities for each day, and there is a box usually on the first page that lists all the character appearances for the day.

They don't want me to post the link - it is cast away club . c o m with no spaces.

 

[MarcyIn Florida]

Marcy,

jblb1020 (Jeanette and family) have a five year old and a 2.5 year old too. Let's try meeting at the Mickey Pool at 2:30. That should give us enough time to make the safety drill (ugh) and the sail away party.

Mark

Of course, now that I looked back, I realized that Johnna is probably your wife, so my response to her about including you (along with Jeanette) probably sounds a bit odd, although I was just trying to be all inclusive. I should really pay more attention.

Oops.

 

[MarcyIn Florida]

I had heard that there is character breakfast??? Is that at Palo for brunch? And if not can anyone let me know how and when we can sign up for any meals that are with characters?

Jeanette,

The character breakfast is not to be missed, esp. with young kids!

Also, make sure you keep track of the Princess signing night for your girls -- my eldest still talks about the night she got to meet ALL of the princesses. They all sit at tables and sign autograph books and pose for pictures, and it's a princess lover's dream.

Also, there is a Tea With Wendy that you need to sign up for in advance. It's cute, but my kids didn't appreciate it very much. It would be perfect for kids who are a little older -- maybe 8-12 would be the perfect ages.

Is your youngest afraid of the haracters? Ours was on our last cruise (Oct. 2004), so I really hope she's less frightened by February. She and I ended up in an elevator with Goofy one afternoon, and she (literally and explosively) pooped her pants because she was so afraid of him.

 

[Johnna_Story]

Is your youngest afraid of the characters? Ours was on our last cruise (Oct. 2004), so I really hope she's less frightened by February. She and I ended up in an elevator with Goofy one afternoon, and she (literally and explosively) pooped her pants because she was so afraid of him.

Our youngest was just under 2 on our last cruise, and spent character breakfast snuggled deep into my chest so she couldn't see them. I hope she will be over it this year - I keep telling her that she'll see them, and she doesn't need to go near them if she doesn't want to. So hopefully I won't have an incident like yours!!!

 

[jblb1020]

I don't know how my daughter is going to be with the characters. When we went to Disney in 2003 & 2004 she started to shake when she got next to them but now that she will be three in March she says that she likes them and wants to give Mickey a hug. We will see..... I took her last month to see the Disney Princess's on Ice and she loved it so I know she will just love seeing them. My son is five and he loves them all.

 

[MarcyIn Florida]

I'm not normally a very excitable person, but I literally had to close my office door so I could jump up and down today.

Our travel agent called me at work this afternoon to tell me that DCL had Florida resident rates for our cruise, but not for our cabin category (a cat 9, which we always cruise in). BUT, they would upgrde us to a Cat 5 for $175 total for the 4 of us.



So we'll be cruising with a verandah for the first time ever, and I'm so excited I may explode.

 

[skylynx]

Wow, Marcy, that is well worth hopping up and down for! We've always had a verandah cabin and ruined ourselves for ever being able to enjoy a cabin without one. We order the gratis morning room service to be delivered at 7 (just coffee, juice, and a couple of small Danish/croissants) and sit out there in our jammies writing in our journals or just staring out at the ocean. It makes us feel like millionaires to enjoy that from the peace and privacy of our own verandah. (Then we get dressed and go to the "real" breakfast!)

At night before bed, we also sit out there a while and look at the stars and listen to the swoosh swoosh swoosh of the ship cutting through the water. Usually on our Palo evening we share a bottle of wine on the verandah, as well. Though I know there are great places to see everything all over the ship, being able to just walk out onto your verandah at any time and take a "reading" on where you are and what the weather is doing is hard to knock. I imagine if you aren't the kind of cruisers that spend any time in your cabin it is harder to justify the additional cost, but for us, it just wouldn't be the same without our verandah! Enjoy, enjoy enjoy!