Feb 5th - 12th 2012 Mexican Riviera on the Disney Wonder

[DVCTigger]

Me - DVCtigger . . . DH and I are vacation club members, loving every point of it! and the tigger is because I am a Tigger fan and DH and I met at college, and we were the Tigers, so DVCtigger it is.

This trip is just Me - Mary(45) and DH - Jon(46). We have three kids DD21, DS19, DS17. Two in college, one at home takin care of the dogs, school, and practices, so not able to join us this trip. We will be staying at GCV both pre and post cruise for two nights to enjoy DL. We are WDW vets, but this will be our first trip back to DL in about 6 years.

 

[Nikkim]

Sorry PrincessSophiesMom I was obviously having a brain freeze when I wrote DS1 and DS2 - I meant that they were my oldest and youngest not their ages. They are actually Luke age 9 and Jake age 6. I am Nikki, 33 and my DH is Phil, 38. We live in Alberta but are actually English and moved here 3 years ago.

And as for my name I am Nikki and M is the first letter of my last name. Not very creative - hopefully more inspiration will come to me with the FE gifts

 

[brentm3]

We will be staying at GCV both pre and post cruise for two nights to enjoy DL. We are WDW vets, but this will be our first trip back to DL in about 6 years.

Hello fellow DVCer! We are staying at a Marriott by LAX prenight, and also doing a GCV for three nights post. This is our first ever visit to DL, and something I've personally wanted for a long time.

Thank Heaven for DVC...got us to Alaska & now Mexico/DL for very little cash during this recession.

All - If you've never sat through a DVC intro, they'll do a short & fun session on the ship with drinks and cookies and little giveaways...8 years from now you may just find yourself saying "that's the best purchase I've ever made" like I am right now

 

[PrincessSophiesMom]

NikkiM + BrentM3 Your kids are identical in age! How Awesome!

I'm really enjoying reading everyone's answers. This is really helping this snails pace wait to the finish line. I can't wait to get on that boat!

Question of the Day: Tuesday December 13
What kind of vacation planner are you?

I am the ultra-researcher, super planner. It isn't that I can't go on a vacation any other way, but if I book a vaca more than a week out, I get impatient for it to arrive already. My solution is to keep myself busy and I do so by planning. We have checklists and we have spreadsheets (things to do, outfits for each day, notes on tips and tricks, sometimes detailed schedules). Luckily, my hubby loves my neurosis. I do it in google docs and share it with him. He loves that when he says, "shoot I should have brought the _______ just in case this happened", I usually did pack ________. However, I do travel like Kate Winslet from Titanic, and porters are my best friends. It is a good thing we live locally and don't have to fly in

 

[TheLanes]

I tend to overplan and over think it. Diana thinks I'm ruining the surprise, and that I'll already know everything in too much detail.

I just want it to be perfect for the family, and researching things here helps with that.

I don't keep spreadsheets, but I've got most things already booked or planned. I'm the pack the night before kind of person...

 

[DVCTigger]

Not a big planner here, especially this trip. The only thing we have planned for this trip is a Palo brunch (been on 8 cruises and haven't done this yet), and a dinner at Storytellers Cafe post cruise. We are taking a very laid-back relaxed approach to this trip. Even when we go with the kids, we are a very much go-with-the-flow family. We're on vacation! Now this doesn't mean that I don't get excited about the trip, I am on here every day!

 

[hawky7]

Okay, two questions behind... so it is just me, Rebekah 29, and DH, goes by hey you, or Art if you wanna be official, he is 34. We are both retail managers, and actually quite enjoy it. It really allows us to be flexible with our travels. We are annual passholders at both Disneyland and Disneyworld. I guess you could say im a bit obsessed. DH just goes to Disney cause he is nice and he likes to get away. He lovvves the cruises though!!!! In addition to Disney, we love vacationing to Sandals...LOVE it!!! We will be traveling with our friends, who aren't quite as obsessed as I am, but I'm planning on convinving them. Haha

As far as what kind of planner I am, it truly depends on the trip. Some trips, say Disney, we've been fortumate to have been enough that I no longer plan out days. But I do plan out my vacations very far in advance, meaning, we haven't even been on the cruise and I'm already planning what we will do for our next vacation. I'm also uber compulsive about checking for deals nearly on a daily basis. I need good good deals so I can keep traveling!!!!

 

[brentm3]

Question of the Day: Tuesday December 13
What kind of vacation planner are you?

I will overplan certain unknowns, but let other things go to chance.

Our evening in LA will be carefully planned, the cruise will go entirely to chance, and Disneyland will be completely researched since we've never been.

I would like to find an all inclusive waterpark hotel in Mexico that I can daypass, but haven't taken the time to research that yet...After Disney cancelled one of the stops due to safety, I kinda lost interest in exploring Mexico off the beaten path with the fam like we did in Alaska...

 

[PrincessSophiesMom]

Question of the Day: Wednesday December 14
How formal are you going for formal night? What are you wearing? Or what are you looking to wear if you haven't decided yet? (everyone on this Feb 5th sailing board seems quite friendly, so I don't think I need to say this, but just in case: no one flame anyone else for dressing up or dressing down the general DCL DIS board has been a rather high strung place as of late)

I'm big on dressing up. "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players" I come with a wardrobe department. Half the time, I look like I just stepped off the set of Mad Men. It brings me joy to play dress up so I never stopped. I think I'm going to go with a 1930s screen siren look for formal night/Golden Mickeys. Floor length cream heavily beaded silk chiffon gown with a vintage fur stole. I might toss some gloves on for good measure.

DH is going to wear his tux. We found an amazing deal for a tux when we got married so he purchased one instead of renting. I'm deliberating getting him a non-perishable flower for his lapel.

I'm still a little undecided on what to put DD in. She'll probably be in a princess gown or a crew cuts dress. She really likes tutus though, so I may just let her wear a tutu.

 

[brentm3]

Question of the Day: Wednesday December 14
How formal are you going for formal night? What are you wearing?

Wife & kids have nice outfits, but I only rent tuxes. We dressed to the nines for our last cruise. If I can handle it after the Disneyland tickets & required ancillary expenses I'll rent a tux again, otherwise it is just a suit for me this time. Here's hoping I don't get Trition's for formal night...

 

[PrincessSophiesMom]

Wife & kids have nice outfits, but I only rent tuxes. We dressed to the nines for our last cruise. If I can handle it after the Disneyland tickets & required ancillary expenses I'll rent a tux again, otherwise it is just a suit for me this time. Here's hoping I don't get Trition's for formal night...

I don't know where you're based out of, or if you'll be traveling through LA but I refer a lot of my clients to a store in LA that sells tuxes to a lot of the rental shops. You can purchase a tux for around $100. DH ended up purchasing a more expensive tux for himself, but all of our groomsmen purchased their tuxes for $100 (less than it was to rent, and they got to keep it). The shop is called Suitfellas and is 35 minutes from Disneyland.

We got Tritons for Formal Night

 

[DVCTigger]

We will dress up, but we are not the formal types. Nice dress for me, and slacks and nice sweater for DH.

brentm - We are the same way, SO happy we got into DVC when we did! I keep reading all the posts about how you don't want to stay at a DLR hotel because they are SO expensive. We are using less then 100 points for 4 nights at the GCV, and get to walk away with a $0 balance at check out (at least for the room)

 

[PrincessSophiesMom]

@brentm3 @dvctigger can you tell me more about DVC? my husband and i are seriously considering it. did you purchase it long ago or recently? would you still consider it a good investment if you purchased it today? we're planning on attending one of their sales pitches on the ship to learn more. i don't think we'd purchase it this year. 1) we're shopping for a new home 2) we'll probably wait till we have another child and both kids are old enough to fly to WDW and enjoy it. I think it may be a good investment for us in the long run though

 

[brentm3]

@brentm3 @dvctigger can you tell me more about DVC? my husband and i are seriously considering it.

PM sent! Feel free to ask me anything about the way we use DVC, but everyone will have a different answer too...some will do a vaca every other year, some will try 3 per year in smaller rooms, others will travel with large groups and get 2000+ sqft rooms...We are almost always borrowing into next year's points ourselves...in fact, this cruise will be using the points we would have gotten on Feb 1, 2013! We need more!!

 

[hawky7]

I really want to go all out too for Formal night. My DH has a tux, (bought it cheap off of ebay, and it's not completely horrible. lol...) but I don't really have any dresses that are that formal. I've been on the search for one. So I guess the answer is, if I can find one I love, we'll be going all the way formal, if not, I'll still be pretty dressed up. I am excited though, since we've only been on 3 night Disney Cruises, we've never had formal night, so I can't wait to see how decked out everyone gets!

 

[PrincessSophiesMom]

Question of the Day: Thursday December 15
Where are you from and tell us a bit about your hometown. (You can include more than one location if you move around a lot)

I'm from Anaheim, California, born and raised. I think many of you have been to Anaheim before (but probably only the resort area). Yes, it is the happiest place on earth in my opinion, the city itself, less so. We do live in a more affluent neighborhood than what is immediately around the resort, but ha ha, not by a whole lot. When my husband and I got married, real estate was at it's highest so we've been holding out. Now that the prices are finally reasonable, we're shopping and we want out of this neighborhood! Upsides to living in Anaheim? We have some pretty decent ethnic food, I'm a 10 minute drive from Disneyland, I'm centrally located from the different places i work and yes, the weather is pretty great 99% of the time (I kind of wish we had seasons though).

Hubby is actually from Irvine. So he seriously thinks he's stuck in the slums living with me in Anaheim. For those of you unfamiliar with Orange County, Orange County is mostly suburbia + chain restaurants (behind the Orange Curtain). Irvine is the extreme OC, super planned suburbia and I'm pretty sure the chains outnumber the mom+pops. And oh yeah, all the homes look like stucco clones of each other.

We're compromising on our future neighborhood. We'll probably end up in North Tustin. It will be near the in-laws in Irvine, schools are excellent, neighborhoods cleaner and less congested, but I will get some ethnic restaurants thrown in and a chance at a neighborhood with non cloned homes.

 

[DVCTigger]

@princesssohiesmom, you probably got all the info you need from brentm, but I'll throw in my 2 cents here as well.

Like brentm said, you will get lots of different opinions from lots of different people. But for us, it was one of the best things we did for our family. We too are ALWAYS borrowing points from our next year, and we have added on twice already! We have used our points for cruises as well as villas, and it has changed the way we vacation. We bought in 2002 when points were MUCH cheaper then they are now. You may want to consider buying points from the older resorts and see how you like it. They will have shorter contracts, but you will still get (I believe) all the benefits of buying thru DVC. There is so much I could say about DVC, it may be easier to just ask some questions, I'm sure brentm and I would be happy to answer! The best thing.....walking away after a trip with that $0 balance on the hotel bill. It only took us 4.5 years for it to pay for itself, and that is including maintenence fees.
Feel free to ask away!!

 

[DVCTigger]

We are from the Denver metro area. Been here for over 13 years now, and absolutely LOVE it! Close to the mountains and just so nice. One thing most people don't know about Denver.....we have more sunny days here then anywhere else in the US!! True statement!

 

[Nikkim]

Evening all,

We are originally from Essex, England and moved here to Okotoks, Alberta almost three years ago. We absolutely love this place. The kids have so much freedom and the schools are fantastic and we have the added bonus of the rockies on our doorstep

 

[TheLanes]

Formal Night: We will dress up, I in a suit, ladies in dresses. Same for Palo night, but girls get to have fun in the club that night!

We are native San Diegans. Live in the eastern part of the county, in the foothills, town of Alpine. Absolutely love it here, never want to leave.