February 17, 2007

[christinou]

I am in upstate NY and we also are expecting 60 degrees on Saturday pretty amazing, right now it is dreary and rainy.
So all of you coming in the night before where will you be staying. I just booked a room at the new Marriott Residence Inn in Cocoa Beach, $94 for a studio room that sleeps 4 and it includes breakfast, it seems like a good deal, and certainly will be convenient to get to the port.....

 

[Sue (mom of 3 boys!)]

Christine-
Did you book for next February already? I have some Marriot dollars and was planning to apend them at the Courtyard, but the Residence is newer... Do you know if they have rooms that hold 5? Is there a link, or can I find it through the Marriot.com site? Thanks!

 

[burma]

we will most likely be staying at the Hyatt at MCO again ... It worked out quite well this year and then we stayed at the Grovesvner in downtown disney the day we got back I will NEVER stay there again but I like the night to wind down before flying back home ... rushing to the airport to make a flight is not my idea of a nice end to a vacation .... debarkation at 7:30am is enough for one day...

 

[christinou]

Sue, I did book already, I got it through the Marriott link, they do have studio, one and two bedroom, I thought that the prices were quite reasonnable. We will have our car, so no issue with transportation.

 

[MoiraRD]

We were hoping to stay at the new Marriott as well. We saw it last week when we were in Cocoa Beach. Looks beautiful!! We stayed at the Motel 6 in Cocoa Beach the night before. NEVER will I stay there again! You definitely get what you pay for! My dh booked it because of a deal he got through work. I will pay a bit extra for a nicer room!! I didn't realize you could book rooms there already! They haven't even finished building it yet! I better get in on it now so we have a nice place to stay as well! Thanks for the tip!!

 

[MoiraRD]

... rushing to the airport to make a flight is not my idea of a nice end to a vacation .... debarkation at 7:30am is enough for one day...

I completely agree with that!! We booked our flight for later in the day so we could avoid the mad dash to the airport - and the thousands of other cruisers hoping to catch an early flight!! We did DTD during our downtime. That was a GREAT way to end a week at sea!!

 

[Sue (mom of 3 boys!)]

Christine-Thanks for the info.
As of now, we will be staying there too! I got a 2br, 2 bath, full kitchen, livingroom suite w/hot breakfast for the 5 of us for $140. I hope this place is as nice as it sounds. I can't wait to hear from other DISsers who stay there. I read the link on it in the forum--sounds nice (via Shirley). I don't know what time we will check in--probably late. We're hoping to go to Universal or Disney for 2 days before we cruise if DH and I can get off work. Who knows? I am psyched I have another thing done! Now if I can get reasonable airfare...

 

[MoiraRD]

Well, I just booked our room at the Marriott Residence Inn! I am so excited! I booked a studio as well. The hotel looked really nice when we drove by it. It is making this cruise seem more real to me! Now I just have to see if I can find a good deal on the airfare. I am counting the days already!!

 

[goscudder]

Hi Everyone!

We're doing a Land/Sea for the first time next month and are so excited!! I'm assuming we'll love our trip on the Wonder and will want to do a 7 day, so I also booked last month for 2/17/07!! I probably should have waited to rebook onboard to get the 10% discount, but since we wanted adjoining Cat 7's and there are so few of them, I didn't want to wait until the end of April. I know how popular President's Day Week will be!

It seems like some of you have just sailed last month, and are going again next Feb. Did you rebook onboard, or did you have your reservation made before you got onboard? I'm curious if I'll be able to get a discount on our 2/17/07 trip even though it's a prior reservation?? Anyone ever try to do that?

 

[burma]

ok ya all got me I just booked us a 2br at the marriott also ...I hope its as nice as my marriott time shares ....

 

[Sue (mom of 3 boys!)]

How old are your kids everyone!

Mine are: at time of cruise
DS 15
DS 13
DS 10

 

[burma]

Dd 4
Dd 5.5

 

[Sue (mom of 3 boys!)]

Hi Everyone!
It seems like some of you have just sailed last month, and are going again next Feb. Did you rebook onboard, or did you have your reservation made before you got onboard? I'm curious if I'll be able to get a discount on our 2/17/07 trip even though it's a prior reservation?? Anyone ever try to do that?

I don't think they will do that. But you could rebook a new ressie on board, and transfer your deposit, I think. I think they may be able to put you in the same rooms if you cancel the previous ressie. Let us know, though, because that would be cool to do-book way out for early booking, then add the on-board credits.....

 

[christinou]

We booked on our last cruise, in February 2005, then transferred to the dates as soon as they opened up...
When we cruise my DDs will be 9 and 11. They are as excited to go as I am.
We can have a pre-cruise meet at the Marriott by the pool.......
We will take the auto train down, and hope to be there by noon on Friday. I will be the one with the look of absolute happiness. My kids will be the one in the pool even if it is rainy and sub zero.

 

[MoiraRD]

How old are your kids everyone!

When we cruise next year:

dd13
dd5

A pre-cruise meet at the pool sounds great! We will be flying down, but I am not sure what time we will be getting in. When we cruised a couple of weeks ago, we didn't get into the hotel until dinnertime. I know that we will probably be doing something similar, so maybe I'll just be seeing you all at breakfast the next day!

 

[goscudder]

I don't think they will do that. But you could rebook a new ressie on board, and transfer your deposit, I think. I think they may be able to put you in the same rooms if you cancel the previous ressie. Let us know, though, because that would be cool to do-book way out for early booking, then add the on-board credits.....

Thanks for the advice! I'll let you know when we get back in May how it worked out!!

At cruise time next year we'll have:

DS12
DD10 (turns 10 on Feb 24!)
DS4

 

[Sue (mom of 3 boys!)]

A pre-cruise meet sounds good to me! I am not sure what time we will arrive though. We're planning on going to WDW or UVS for a few days before the cruise, then heading down to CC later on Friday. The airfare on the Thursday and Friday before vacations is usually ridiculous. We're hoping to get a reasonable flight on Wednesday afternoon. That way the kids only miss 2 1/2 days of school and won't be loaded with work.
I have heard a lot of DISsers talk about meets on the ship, too. How do people arrange that? Just all plan to go to the same spot at a specific time? How do we know who is a DIS person?

 

[MoiraRD]

I have heard a lot of DISsers talk about meets on the ship, too. How do people arrange that? Just all plan to go to the same spot at a specific time? How do we know who is a DIS person?

Hi Sue!

I met some DIS people on the 02/25/06 cruise. We set up a few meets so that those who couldn't make one could try for the others. I met a family at the airport before I even left for Florida! It turned out we were on the same flight to and from FL and they sat in the row behind me on the way home! I know that some met up at hotels if they were staying at the same one - kind of like the one we are talking about here - and the first "official" DIS meet that we had was at the model ship inside the port at PC. We also scheduled a couple more because we sailed during Mardi Gras and had a DIS Mardi Gras thing - we handed out beads, tattoos, pirate mustaches, etc to the other cruisers (some people were looking at us like we were nuts!! ). Our first meet scheduled on board was at the old Scoop's - now Goofy's Galley. It is really a lot of fun meeting people you have chatted with online for a year or so!! DIS members know each other because we make pins our of Disney paint swatches from Home Depot. The official DISboard color is Alien Green. My pin looked just like my avatar. Any time I saw someone with a pin I would stop and chat. Another thing that DISboard people do is they decorate their cabin door to identify themselves to other DIS'ers. That is lots of fun, too! I really enjoyed the cruise, but meeting all the other DIS people really made it that much better! It's nice to walk around the ship and see so many familiar, friendly faces!!

 

[christinou]

On both of the 7 day cruises that we took, we also arranged meets, on the first one we had some great conversations and 12 of us decided to share a table at dinnner, we had 6 adults and 6 kids, and it was a lot of fun for al of us. We kept bumping into each other thoughout the vacations, and it was fun to just talk, it just felt like a big party. Last year, we also had a meet but did not share a table (my kids had complained that they just wanted the 4 of us to have dinner), again it just was fun to just meet some people.
I had lime green rubbans on my bag and would also approach people who had the mickey head stickers.
The amount of meetings taking place is really up to each person and their confort level, some people who were active in discussion I never met, other people I ran into constantly. For me it just made the cruise more enjoyable.
Boy I am babbling today.....

 

[burma]

We just did the president week cruise last month and booked on board. We waitlisted for the Cat 2 for 08' thinking we would move our reservation but we have decided to do the 07' and play it by ear for the 08 moving a reservation that you book onboard is not a problem from what we were told ... but you do not get the discount for cat 1-3 I never asked about the onboard credit though.