February 22nd, 2014 Fantasy - Eastern

[MNKelly]

Just got home today from sailing a b2b on the wonder. We had set up the date as may 3 but changed it to this date tonight. Cheaper and one of the friends my son made on is cruise will be on his trip as well. I was in charge of the FE on both of these cruises. It will be me,30, DH , 36, Dd 13, DS 9, and DS 7. DH reproposed to me on this trip on valentines day so we are planning to renew our vows on this trip. I will post more later, horrible land sickness thanks to the auto train. It was great not to have to drive 24 hours straight to Miami but I will never do it again:/. Thankfully by this trip we will be florida residents and only around an hour away from port canaveral.

YEAH Jessica! Riley's so happy! Glad you made the switch, see you next February. Hope you feel better soon and it was so much fun meeting you and your family. Ray will be the cruise director for the February Fantasy voyage...he's heading back to that ship after the Alaska season so we'll see him then as well.

Can't wait to talk to you all over the next year. We just got off the Wonder Saturday and are really looking forward to seeing what the Fantasy is all about.

Kelly (DW-47), Tim (DH-46), Riley (DS-11) at time of sailing 2/14

 

[mrswarr]

I was in charge of the FE on both of these cruises.

Oh, good! Did you have a lot of participation? Have you had to split the list up? We can't wait to participate in the FE again - our kids absolutely loved it! I'm so happy I ended up signing up for it.

 

[emtmom0104]

365 days!

 

[MNKelly]

I much prefer the "365 day" countdown Jess as opposed to the "1 year from today"!

Can't wait to board, and yes, we will be getting there a day early.
Kelly

 

[ciraulo887]

Hi everyone. Just booked this cruise. It will be our 3rd Disney cruise but first on the Fantasy. I'm interested in FE for this cruise. But, I'm a little confused on how it works. I'm a single mom so the cruise will be me and my 2 daughters. They will be 17 and 8 when we cruise. Can someone put the Facebook link for this cruise on again?

 

[kihart]

Hi everyone. Just booked this cruise. It will be our 3rd Disney cruise but first on the Fantasy. I'm interested in FE for this cruise. But, I'm a little confused on how it works. I'm a single mom so the cruise will be me and my 2 daughters. They will be 17 and 8 when we cruise. Can someone put the Facebook link for this cruise on again?

Single mom here too, traveling with my 7 yr old and my mom. 2nd Fantasy cruise and 2nd Disney cruise.

 

[emtmom0104]

I much prefer the "365 day" countdown Jess as opposed to the "1 year from today"!

Can't wait to board, and yes, we will be getting there a day early.
Kelly

Glad your coming in a day early this time... Stupid plane issues! The boys think this countdown will take forever. We have been home a week tomorrow:/. We still aren't completely unpacked and now we are disputing charges with Disney. We got hit yesterday for $190 while they were in port . Never had an issue so we shall see what happens.

As far as the FE, I don't mind organizing it again but it will be smaller from us this time since we are renewing our vows on castaway cay so I am planning and paying for that as well.

For those who want to know what the FE is about this was something I posted on my last cruises page : Hmmmm... Ok how to put this into words. I was overwhelmed at first on our last cruise when we had about 20 cabins with a minimum of 3 people. We did a b2b then as well. Total between both cruises I had almost 50 cabins and had made serious goody bags to all of the kids for every night. 2 large duffel bags later, just for FE stuff, I was thinking what am I doing??? Ill tell you what, I ended up with some of the most amazing and thoughtful gifts. I actually just hung up one of my gifts, a Mickey Mouse shaped Christmas ornament! We had a disabled woman make us all a large bag, knitted by her, since she couldn't get to the store without help. We even had simple things like a can of old bay seasoning from a family is a from Maryland, candy from the UK, small glass jars to put shells/sand in from our vacation spots, music CDs with music tailored to our trip. We had someone give out the small bar bottles of alcohol for the adults. You name it, you got it! Including baby powder (sprinkle it on your feet that have sand on them and it dries out the sand so it falls off easily). I LOVE my handmade key fob with the Mickey heads. There is no limit to these gifts/ideas. I came home with as much stuff as we took! I think dh and I were more excited than the kids to go back to the room to see what we got! Haha. My daughters fav gift was a simple dollar store eye mask with a Mickey button sewn on the top. My boys loved the homemade dry erase boards and glow sticks. The more people the more exciting I think..never know what your gonna find when you get back to your room. I don't think we got anything that wasn't useful in some way.

Hth!

 

[mrswarr]

Hi everyone. Just booked this cruise. It will be our 3rd Disney cruise but first on the Fantasy. I'm interested in FE for this cruise. But, I'm a little confused on how it works. I'm a single mom so the cruise will be me and my 2 daughters. They will be 17 and 8 when we cruise. Can someone put the Facebook link for this cruise on again?

Here is the link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/298275220294855/

The FE is really fun. I will have a 17 year old as well when we set sail! Our kids have no idea. We had a close call yesterday when I had my 12 year old dig something out of my bag and forgot I had our stateroom confirmations in there! Luckily, the cat's still in the bag!

 

[emtmom0104]

Welcome kihart! (and cancun4 if we can convince you to switch your date! )

I've been reading a lot about the FE exchanges and would probably like to participate. It will depend on how it's set up. I've read of some groups setting it up for X number of cabins and then starting a 2nd group and that works for me. I read of another that had 90 CABINS involved and I just couldn't do that. So...waiting to see and then hoping to do a FE exchange!

I hope this group stays active here too as I'm one of the few without a FB account. For those on the group there though, have fun!

Looking forward to cruising with all of you!

I think the biggest FE list I've ever done was 20 cabins. It gets to be too much. Just let me know how everyone wants it set up and we will go from there

 

[ciraulo887]

For the FE... Do we bring a gift for everyone in the group everyday of the cruise?

 

[emtmom0104]

For the FE... Do we bring a gift for everyone in the group everyday of the cruise?

It's completely up to you. You can bring individual gifts for every person everyday, cabin gifts for every day, individual gifts for one or two days or cabin gifts for one or two days. There are no "rules" to how you do it. With small groups I do individual gifts ever day but bigger ones I do deliveries once or twice during the trip.

 

[ciraulo887]

Gosh, I feel like my gifts might not be good enough. I'm afraid I might not be creative enough...

 

[mrswarr]

Gosh, I feel like my gifts might not be good enough. I'm afraid I might not be creative enough...

I felt like that, too at first. Some people make the coolest things! Truly, my kids were excited by everything they came across in our FE. Whether it was a piece of candy or something more elaborate - they were just so thrilled things were showing up in there! And the delivering of our gifts was so much fun for us all.

 

[emtmom0104]

Gosh, I feel like my gifts might not be good enough. I'm afraid I might not be creative enough...

I wouldn't be worried about that! This cruise we had someone use a paper plate and decorated it with puffy paints and made a door hanger out of it as well ss making a door hanger out of the type of stuff kids $1 visors are made of and made it look like a sandal and writing DIS on it. I love getting things like this. Someone also got the plastic cups with the straw in red, probably from someplace like oriental trading Nd put the kids names on them and a few Mickey heads with stickers. The kids went nuts over them! I praised whoever gave me a Starbucks reusable cup with some of their instant coffee packets in it. After 9 days of Disney coffee I wanted another flavor! I will be happy to post more things we recieved over the years that we loved.

Have to get ready for my brothers Eaglr scout court of honor and my boys pinewood derby.

 

[MNKelly]

Jess - I think I want in on the FE for this trip. Can we split it up though if it gets too big? DH was already wondering why I brought the kitchen sink last cruise and I didn't even participate in the FE!

 

[ciraulo887]

Jess - I think I want in on the FE for this trip. Can we split it up though if it gets too big? DH was already wondering why I brought the kitchen sink last cruise and I didn't even participate in the FE!

I was just thinking that. How the heck am I going to get all that stuff on the ship??? It sounds like loads of fun though. We always seem to over pack so maybe I should leave some of the clothes and bring fun stuff instead!

 

[mrswarr]

I was just thinking that. How the heck am I going to get all that stuff on the ship??? It sounds like loads of fun though. We always seem to over pack so maybe I should leave some of the clothes and bring fun stuff instead!

I know that you can ship a box up to two weeks ahead. That's what I think I'll do this time. Our FE stuff did take up some room.

 

[Maddiesmommi]

Hi everyone!! My, daughter, who will be 4 at the time, and I will be traveling on this cruise!! We're bringing along some friends and a set of grandparents, too. We are very excited, as this will be our very first Disney cruise!!

 

[kihart]

Gosh, I feel like my gifts might not be good enough. I'm afraid I might not be creative enough...

Don't worry about that! I was just as excited as my little one to come back to the room everyday and see what gifts were delivered! I, er, I mean SHE didn't care if it was a piece of candy or a little bottle of 'pixie dust'(aka gold glitter). Lol!! The FE is just FUN!!! We are totally in!

 

[kihart]

For the FE... Do we bring a gift for everyone in the group everyday of the cruise?

We did a gift for the adults and a gift for the kids and delivered a few each night. We are already trying to think about what we will do for this cruise. In our deliveries we got stuff for me and mom(adults) and then stuff for my daughter. In other deliveries it was one thing for all of us. It didn't matter, it was great fun!