Feb.4,2006. Who else is sailing?

[kyydd2000]

Hey Tonya!!

How are ya...I was wondering where you were ..LOL. I love to go dancing of which I did not do any of on the last cruise. Personally I am an eighties girl, love the disco stuff, and boppy stuff... things like the old Mony Mony stuff. Anything you could roller skate too pretty much..... But here at home its new country.

I work at the casino in Niagara Falls as an accountant. I was a dealer for over seven years and then decided it was way too hard on the shoulders. So that landed in the office . Its okay.

PTA's huh? For three years I used to be the school council chairman of my sons school until they decided to do cutbacks and tear down the school I know how busy you can be!

There are so many things that Bill and I just never had a chance to do on the last cruise that we are hoping to do this cruise. One of those is to try to relax a little more. Seemed to be alot of rushing around trying to do everything, see everything and be in the right spot at the right time . This time I think a little more sitting at the poolside and consuming the bad stuff is a good idea. Speaking of the bad stuff.....they had this drink called Banana, Baileys Colada..... OH MY GOD!!!! You just cant give me enough of that!!! Too bad you get full before you feel anything....LOLOLOL

Off to have some dinner for now.....chat again soon!!

Julia

 

[MrBill]

Both Julia and I went on our Feb Cruise with high expectations, not so much for us but for our two kids, we wanted them to experience a trip of a lifetime. What we got for our money was almost 100% satisfaction, the reason I say almost 100% is because I was not overly impressed with the fact that being Non-US citizens we had to be in the Rockin' Bar D for 6:00am on Sat 19th to clear customs. We waited until 6:40, got cleared and then sat around waiting for our 8:00am breakfast sitting. This was clarified for us when we picked up our luggage in the terminal, the lady saw that we had cleared customs previously and sent us on through, it actually worked out fine.

The part which dissappointed me the most was when we went for breakfast at 8:00, the lineup of the first group of people to disembark was from the main exit doors, through the main lobby, down the hall past Lumieres, through the Promenade bar and right into the entrance to Parrot Cay. I had to "push" our way through the people just to get into the resturant. Other than that, the whole cruise was A-1 perfect. I think DCL could have planned that a bit differently, but it was more the passengers, they did not want to seem to move as we were trying to make our way in for breakfast.

I want to add something here, our cruise was awesome as far as what DCL did for us as a family, however, if it wasn't for two very special families, our "first time" on a cruise would NOT have been the same. Those two families I am referring to are Jen and Joe, and Mark and Laura.

Jen (JENGANG) organized the DIS Board thread for our sailing, and that is what brought us all together. Mark (DISNEYPILOT) and Laura who are veteran Disney cruisers (5 if memory serves correctly) gave us so much advice and support it was excellent. Because of schooling for their kids and pricing for the timeframe, they all will be going on a RCCL next year and will not be joining us on our next venture, that for Julia and I is very sad news and we will miss not having them around, tremendously. If there was (or is) anyway we could get them to travel with us next year, we would love to find the solution.

We met a whole lot of people and spent various amounts of time with different ones, but it was these four people who we spent the vast majority of time with. For those of you who have not travelled on this type of cruise before, Disney that is, I truely believe that you are in for Magical Times, no matter what age you might be.

 

[steveandtonya]

Bump. Another week closer.
Steve

 

[steveandtonya]

Only 44 weeks from now we will be in the middle of the ocean. Hopefully with a drink in our hands.

Steve

 

[steveandtonya]

Bump...

 

[mark_story]

We booked through DU and got what I think is a pretty good price for a Cat 6 and a Cat 9 compared to what we paid last Feb. for one Cat 4 with three adults and two children.

I have two children (5 and almost 3 at the time of the cruise) -- anyone else with kids around this age?

And here's a tip: I told my children about booking another cruise, but since it is so far away, we counted out jelly beans in an amount that equals the days left until the cruise (it was 287 days at the time). Each day, one of my children gets to take out and eat one jelly bean from the jar marked "Days Until Our Disney Cruise." The kids love it and it keeps us all thinking about why we work so hard -- to take great family vacations.

Anyone up for a pub night while on board?

 

[steveandtonya]

Hey Mark. Welcome aboard. We are an extended family of about 10 people going. My kids will be 10 and 9 at time of cruise. My nephew will be 6. We are certainly up for pub night. We went to it late last time in January 2004 and vowed we would not miss it this time. What part of Maryland are you from? I grew up in Pennsylvania, and lived in North Carolina before moving out here. Talk to you soon.
Steve, Tonya, Delaney and Zachary

 

[mark_story]

Hey Mark. Welcome aboard. We are an extended family of about 10 people going. My kids will be 10 and 9 at time of cruise. My nephew will be 6. We are certainly up for pub night. We went to it late last time in January 2004 and vowed we would not miss it this time. What part of Maryland are you from? I grew up in Pennsylvania, and lived in North Carolina before moving out here. Talk to you soon.
Steve, Tonya, Delaney and Zachary

Hey, Steve --

Thanks for your nice note. We live in Kensington, Maryland, just over the DC border. My wife and I both work in Washington.

I love the extended family idea. My uncle (he will be 71 soon) joined us on our first DCL cruise last February (Western) and had a great time - and will be joining us this time around as well. I guess that it proves that cruises are appropriate for people of all ages. The only regret that my wife and I had is that we didn't tale more advantage of the adult activities at night (like pub night) because we were so tired from all of the *other* fun stuff to do during the day! We have vowed to take better advantage of the night life this time.

As you well know, there is something so wonderful and unique about the Disney Cruise experience -- once you go, you're hooked -- and we are most definately hooked.

I'm sure that my son would like to hang out with you nephew. The way that it sounds on a lot of these posts, the older the children are, the less you see of them on the cruise!!

Where do you guys live?

Mark

 

[mark_story]

Hey Tonya!!

How are ya...I was wondering where you were ..LOL. I love to go dancing of which I did not do any of on the last cruise. Personally I am an eighties girl, love the disco stuff, and boppy stuff... things like the old Mony Mony stuff. Anything you could roller skate too pretty much..... But here at home its new country.

I work at the casino in Niagara Falls as an accountant. I was a dealer for over seven years and then decided it was way too hard on the shoulders. So that landed in the office . Its okay.

PTA's huh? For three years I used to be the school council chairman of my sons school until they decided to do cutbacks and tear down the school I know how busy you can be!

There are so many things that Bill and I just never had a chance to do on the last cruise that we are hoping to do this cruise. One of those is to try to relax a little more. Seemed to be alot of rushing around trying to do everything, see everything and be in the right spot at the right time . This time I think a little more sitting at the poolside and consuming the bad stuff is a good idea. Speaking of the bad stuff.....they had this drink called Banana, Baileys Colada..... OH MY GOD!!!! You just cant give me enough of that!!! Too bad you get full before you feel anything....LOLOLOL

Off to have some dinner for now.....chat again soon!!

Julia

Hey Julia,

My name is Mark and my family will be joining me for our upcoming cruise. WE cannot wait. We did a Western cruise last February and got hooked. We've already begun thinking about a THIRD cruise in '07.

I'm not much of a dancer, but my wife is. If you're looking for female company on the dance floor (especially on the 80's night), I'm sure that my wife would love to join you!

I agree about the rush-rush stuff. There was so much that we wanted to see and do on the Western cruise last February but we still feel that there was a ton of things that we didn't get to. The night life would be one of those things -- my wife and I only went out one night, and that was for the pub night.

What ages are your children? Mine will be 5 and almost 3 when that magical date rolls around next February.

Mark

 

[steveandtonya]

I agree that you get so exhausted from doing everything during the day that it is hard to take part in the nightime activities. I think it being our first cruise made abig difference in trying to do everything. I wish the pub night was earlier in the cruise rather than the last night when you have to worry about packing and everything. We live just outside of Oklahoma City. Where did you find your countdown timer?

Steve

 

[mark_story]

I agree that you get so exhausted from doing everything during the day that it is hard to take part in the nightime activities. I think it being our first cruise made abig difference in trying to do everything. I wish the pub night was earlier in the cruise rather than the last night when you have to worry about packing and everything. We live just outside of Oklahoma City. Where did you find your countdown timer?

Steve

Hey Steve --

I got the countdown generator here: http://v50.net/cdgenerator.php. It generated the code that you can put right into your posting. The countdown generator was what gave me the idea to fill a jar with jelly beans and let one of my children choose one jelly bean per day -- they can see the jelly bean level decreasing and the days becoming fewer.

I sure hope that we have some good weather for the cruise -- last February 26 March 4, we only had one day of complete sunshine -- the day that we arrived back in PC!! I suppose that any sort of weather beats DC in the winter, but it rained on the last day that we spent at CC and it kind of bummed everyone out. No one wanted the cruise to end, but we specifically didn't want the last day to have rain.

Are y ou guys planning on coming in a day or so before the cruise? If so, where are you planning to stay? That's something that we're thinking about now.

Mark

 

[steveandtonya]

We plan on coming down by Wednesday night or early Thursday. We are driving. Her sister and family live in Orlando so we will be staying there and then the whole crew will head over Saturday morning. Are you following the ship leaving this afternoon. There is a live thread with pictures coming up almost instantly of people already on the ship for the 14 day Pan American cruise. That would be great.
Steve

 

[mark_story]

We plan on coming down by Wednesday night or early Thursday. We are driving. Her sister and family live in Orlando so we will be staying there and then the whole crew will head over Saturday morning. Are you following the ship leaving this afternoon. There is a live thread with pictures coming up almost instantly of people already on the ship for the 14 day Pan American cruise. That would be great.
Steve

Yeah -- I've been following the 14-day cruise today as well. It's strange that we won't be able to go to the Canaveral Cam and see her in port every Saturday.

One of our excellent servers (Tessa) on our last cruise told us that while a 14-day cruise sounds great, cruisers tend to get a little grumpy after about ten days, just from being in close quarters with the other member of their party. It would be nice to find out, though.

The on board threads are great - I'm still trying to figure out how the people posted their threads and picture yesterday before they boarded the ship...

And driving sounds like a great idea. I wish that my children were better car travelers, because we could save a lot of money that way.

Mark

 

[snicklefrytz]

My name is Chrissy. We just booked our cruise this morning, and we are very excited. I searched the boards, and found this thread regarding sailing on Feb 4th 2006. We have never cruised, so this is a huge first time experience for my family. We have two kids, my daughter will be 10, and my son will be 3.

I am just reading through various threads, getting tips and information. It is nice to find others who are sailing the same date.

 

[mark_story]

My name is Chrissy. We just booked our cruise this morning, and we are very excited. I searched the boards, and found this thread regarding sailing on Feb 4th 2006. We have never cruised, so this is a huge first time experience for my family. We have two kids, my daughter will be 10, and my son will be 3.

I am just reading through various threads, getting tips and information. It is nice to find others who are sailing the same date.

Hi Chrissy,

I am a relative newcomer to the DIS boards myself, but have felt a really warm welcome here from some of the other folks who are cruising on February 4th.

We have two children who will be five and almost three next February and this is our second cruise -- the last one was a Western Caribbean cruise last February.

I can tell you that you are in for the time of your life -- you will experience happiness, joy and you will see wonder in your children's eyes. Our last Disney cruise was by far our best vacation ever. I've got a whole lot of unsolicited advice, so feel free to ask any questions of me or of the group -- and welcome!

Mark

 

[steveandtonya]

Welcome Chrissy and family. This will be our second cruise with Disney. Mark is right , it is the best vacation. Our daughter will be 10 next week and our son will be 9 in October. If you have any questions just ask.

Steve and Tonya

 

[snicklefrytz]

Thanks Mark and Steve!

We are very excited to say the least. February is pretty dismal around here, so we will be itching to go as the winter draws near.

I am sure I will have many more questions, for now I will skim the boards and learn as much as I can.

Thanks again for the warm welcome, I look forward to talking with you both!

Chrissy

 

[mark_story]

Have you guys been following the on-board posts from those on the repositioning cruise? I last looked at it a couple of days ago and there were more than 40 pages of postings!!

Seeing some of the pictures onboard and hearing about the fun things on the ship makes me really nostalgic.

I cannnot WAIT!! 260 days and counting!!

Mark

 

[mark_story]

Thinking about all of the wonderful things that my family and I are going to do on the cruise helps make the time go faster.

I'll put it out there -- what are my fellow Feb 4th cruisers planning to do? Snorkeling? Submarining? Shopping? Pub crawling on board? A night at Palo's?

Let's all dream!!

Mark

 

[snicklefrytz]

I truly have no idea yet. I see all the posts about the excursions, and I wonder if we should do one or not??? For a first time cruiser do you suggest excursions, or should we just meander around on our own? Do adults do excursions sans children, or is it good to bring them along?? I need suggestions, please.

What is pub night? Sounds fun!