February 7, 2009 Western early check in!

[deedeedubbs]

Michelle-- I'll make sure we're here on our end I'll try to get the boys up too-- They'll get a kick out of that

Dee-- Thank you Hugs to you too It IS a tough process, but I'm glad to have a WONDERFUL pediatrician and teachers to help us through. Our state has an amazing early intervention program that my son was in as an infant through his third birthday, so we've been working hard with him since then (that's my second job, actually-- I'm an early intervention specialist/developmental therapist for WV's Birth to Three program... In other words, I get to play with preemies through three year olds with special needs that involve developmental delays) At this point, most wouldn't even notice that there's something going on. Unfortunately, those who do just think he's a bad kid because, when there IS something going on, it's usually an outburst or sensory-seeking-behavior (which sometimes results in him just looking/acting hyper or a little rough). The cruise is going to throw off his normal routine, but we've been going through pictures of the rooms (even higher categories in case the upgrade fairy visits us, lol ), the kids club, the pools, the restaurants, the islands and even the navigators so we can plan his activities ahead. We also do sensory therapy with him (massaging, brushing, etc.). So, hopefully, these preps will make for a true vacation

Sorry-- that was long-winded, haha Time to go internet shop again since we're "snowed in." Since you guys all seem to have great ideas for deals on other stuff... How about the best place to get magnetic paper to make magnets???

Sorry so long!!!!
Jen

Jen, to hear your story it sounds like you're speaking about my DS6. He doesn't have many issues with new schedules and things like that to such a degree but your comment about sensory-seeking-behavoir and mistaken for being bad or hyper...wow! That really sounds like my handsome little man. He, too, was in birth-to -3 so it helped us a bit to get additional testing and so much resource help in the class when he was 3 up to now.

You must LOVE your career. I'm always considering going back to school to get my masters and when his therapists would come for our 2X a week visits I really thought it might be a great avenue to lookinto as a new career choice.

As for the magnet paper. I found it cheapest through or at Wal-mart.

 

[deedeedubbs]

Well, we just booked our stay at the Radisson at the port. We hoped my parents would have been well enough to be in Daytona during our stay but alas they are not. They are so sweet though. They just told me they sent a check for $125 to us to pay for parking or a room since they won't be around. Aren't they special?

So definetly count us in for the Friday night party!!!

Do we need to make ressies for the shuttle?

 

[JRandAJsMom]

I soooo wish we would have done Radisson We booked for the holiday inn because of the kids pool, but maybe we'll come visit all of you at the Radisson anyway

 

[marieeb]

"At Cozumel we are doing the dolphin thing at Chakunab (sp?) through Disney. Does anyone know if they let us look around a bit after the dolphins or if we have to come right back to the dock on the bus? I'm trying to figure out how much cab fare I'll need if Disney makes us come back to the dock and we decide to go back on our own for awhile - any ideas? I've gone back and forth about the stingrays on CC - my mom is totally paranoid about it, I thought it would be cool for my son and I (and to mess with her a bit ) but we decided against it since the dolphins are so expensive"


We too have booked that dolphin swim through Disney. Part of the reason that I chose it over the other was because of the park. I plan to explore it after the swim is over. We are booked in the 9:45 -1:45; how 'bout you? . I searched other threads and others have booked it independently and claimed that it is easy to make arrangements themselves. This is our first cruise and I am not that confident yet. I too considered the Stingrays on GC and rejected it for the same reason that you did. I have seen quotes of $10.00 and $20.00 fares.

What are the magnets that people keep speaking of?


Parenthood is certainly an adventure. We too have gone through testing with our DD9. First it was the allergies. She is anaphylactic to milk, eggs and peanuts. Then she was diagnosed last year with ADD - but the inattentive type. She is not disruptive or hyper, instead she just 'gaps out' and is easily overwhelmed. It was probably because of her lack of behaviour problems that it took longer to figure out that conventional approaches were not working for her.

Fortunately, things do seem to be working out now. Figuring it out so we knew what to do was such a relief!

Good luck to you all.

Marie

 

[JRandAJsMom]

I'm glad to hear that others are going to Chankanaab We're planning on just going to hang out. My boys are still too little to swim with the dolphins, DH has no desire and I already did it on another trip. I do want to snorkel though, so I'm looking forward to that.

I was reading up on a place called Devil's Grotto on GC that looked kind of neat. Decent snorkeling areas and not as "advertised." It has parrot fish according to the reviews (up to 2-feet long and colorful) and rocky entrances so no sand stirred up. Anyone else heard anything on this or been there? I might do a combination of that and 7-mile beach if I can figure where on the 7-miles is a good place to plant myself for a couple of hours!!!

 

[deedeedubbs]

I soooo wish we would have done Radisson We booked for the holiday inn because of the kids pool, but maybe we'll come visit all of you at the Radisson anyway

Come play, yes, yes, yes

We booked at the Radisson because Billinaz (I'm pretty sure it was him) mentioned the shuttle and free parking. Had to jump on that.

FYI - I called the Radisson directly and the room was $129 (maybe included tax but I don't think so, I think she was just quoting the room to me) and I said thank you and hung up and went online and got it for $107 plus $11 for tax.

"What are the magnets that people keep speaking of?


Parenthood is certainly an adventure. We too have gone through testing with our DD9. First it was the allergies. She is anaphylactic to milk, eggs and peanuts. Then she was diagnosed last year with ADD - but the inattentive type. She is not disruptive or hyper, instead she just 'gaps out' and is easily overwhelmed. It was probably because of her lack of behaviour problems that it took longer to figure out that conventional approaches were not working for her.

Fortunately, things do seem to be working out now. Figuring it out so we knew what to do was such a relief!

Good luck to you all.

Marie

Marie, the magnets are homemade from the magnet paper that you can print on or using magnet stick on paper. Many of us cruisers decorate our doors with family names, past cruise pictures, DISmeet group names or logos. You'll find threads dedicated to it here, just type in the search for door magnets and you'll see pics and get plenty of ideas. Susan, MyLove4Disney, created a very nice logo for our group and also a very nice name tag. Look in past pages within this thread and you'll see she posted the pics of these two items to share with the rest of us. Good Luck with that.

As for your DD9, how tough that must have been for you to try to figure it all out and then to make life chages around such a tough diet limitation. My DD9 doesn't have food allergies but she has Executive Dysfunction and are looking into ADHD in addition to throwing Aspergers into the mix.

There were other families in our group I was speaking to about a week ago whose boys have ADD and ADHD. We were laughing because we all have late dining seating. Will you be joing us for the seating also?

~ Dee

 

[patrsn]

Hi Marie, well we've done the stingray excursion and the dolphin excursion, the dolphin swim is much more child friendly. Don't get me wrong, swimming with stingrays was very exciting almost too exciting. First they take you and the group on a boat out to some "feeding area". One of the guides, which by the way are just locals hired by the cruise ship, jumps in the water, it's about neck deep on him, while everyone else is on the boat being coerced into the water because at this point you don't see any fish or anything, once everyone is in the water the guide pulls out stingray food from his pocket and within a minute there are stingrays EVERYWHERE. For the first 5 minutes or so its a feeding frenzy, stingrays everywhere, little ones and big giant ones, and you feel them rub up against you on all sides. It's like mass chaos with kids and women screaming and trying to get back on the boat. When we were leaving we could hear screaming coming from another group a little ways off, so I know it's not just us. It's really sorta funny when you think about it and to this day we belly laugh when we think back to it. Here you are with snorkel equipment on, trying to basically walk on water back to the boat screaming and of course laughing at the same time. My husband who was the only one of us who could stand up in the water because he is tall had myself, my son who was 10 at the time and my two daughters and a friend hanging onto him for dear life to get us back to the boat. He's lucky we didn't sink him. It's an amazing experience of course to be so close to these fish but it kinda freaked us out because there are soo many of them. And we live on the ocean and are use to swimming in it. The dolphin swim was great, we took two of our children to do that and it was one dolphin you and a trainer in the water, very calm and nice. My kids really enjoyed that one. Good luck and have fun. Sorry about the long story but it's fun for me to recall that, I'll be laughing all day thinking of it.

 

[GPLarge]

My DD has been coping with ADD for quite a while and manages well now. The only thing she hates about it is it suppresses her appetite.
We are also with the Radisson group and are looking forward to meeting you all.
Does anyone know how well family radios work onboard? Was going to bring them along for times we are separated onboard. If anyone was curious I did find out from Verizon the rates for cell use on the boat while not docked is $2.49/min. Not that we will use it that often except to check in with my MIL and make sure everthing is ok at home.
I will be creating our FE this weekend and my DW will be getting all the goodies to fill others.

 

[marieeb]

Yes we will be at the late seating! Could be interesting..... I doubt if DD9 will make it to 8pm without eating earlier. Over the Christmas vacation she turned into a late sleeper so I'm hoping that we can temporarily dial her bed time and waking time back a couple of hours. Fortunately, she does seem to stay up quite easily.


When she was first diagnosed with the allergies I had now idea about how I was going to feed this kid. It has gotten easier with practice but there are always disappointments and we never travel without food. Part of the reason that we are on this Cruise is because our past experiences with Disney feeding our kid has been so amazing. In fact, I am thinking that cruising may be a stress free way of travelling with her and seeing some places that language barriers would otherwise keep us out of.

Mark, my husband, doesn't know that I have my eye on the Mediterranean.....Shhhh


Thanks for the pointers, I will check out the magnets.
That cove in GC sounds interesting. I was hoping to take in some local terrain so I am interested in some low cost simple excursions.

I was hoping to see some Mayan ruins but Cozumel seems to be the place for that and DD9 has her heart set on Dolphins.

We are also staying at the Raddison on Friday (and possibly Thursday...)

 

[pgsahm2]

Hi ya'll! The last 12 hours has been a nightmare because my mouse was not working. Have you ever tried to browse the net without one? It stinks!

I'm beginning to feel left out since we're not at the Radisson Friday night. We decided to stay at Country Inn and Suites because of the kids' bunks and the hot breakfast. Now I feel disconnected!

I found the magnetic paper at Micheal's. My Wally World did have it. It's not cheap but at least I found it.

The shout out tomorrow sounds awesome! Is your show saved so I could get the shout out snippet saved as a file? I'm not computer saavy so I have no idea how to explain that better!!! Sorry!

Documents were mentioned... I can't believe it's that time already. Once I have them in hand it'll feel much more real. I get teary just thinking about it.

Time is going to either fly between now and next month, or it's going to drag like it's ten years long.

 

[marieeb]

Thank you patrsn for the description of the stingray swim. We will definitely give it a pass. My kid would freak!!! She is a cautious child. Calm, friendly dolphins will be perfect!

You helped avoid potential tragedy! All this money on a cruise and all she would remeber of it is being attacked by rays!!!! Think of the therapy!

 

[patrsn]

Marie, no problem...glad I could help.


GP...We took our motorola radios with us for the last cruise, they worked ok. Sometimes we got interference from other people using them also but then we would just change channels. I'm bringing them again so we'll have to make sure we are all on different channels! We have late night seating as well, there are 5 of us but usually one or two of the kids skip out on the dinner because something better is going on and they have been eating all day anyway. Anyone is welcome to join our table if interested.

 

[mickchick6]

patrsn-- I loved the description of the stingray tour, made me laugh hysterically! We had an adventure in Magens Bay (St. Thomas) where we did a beach excursion. DH and I were drinking rum punch and drfted a bit passed the bouys, when we saw SOMETHING (I'm still not sure, b/c what ensued was CHAOS)

DH and I are trying to paddle in, trying not to spill the rum punch, when he gets a cramp in his leg! Mind you, potentially dangerous b/c he cannot swim. All I could do was laugh to the point I almost fell off my raft. DS (15 at the time) had to swim out and pull us to safety, all the while I was hysterical!! We still laugh at the day that DH and I almost drown or got eaten by.... as the years go by, the story grows, by now I think is't JAWS that almost ate us. In theory, it was probably a little fish!

We could NEVER swim with any sea creature!! Even with large amounts of rum punch!

Michelle, Now that I figured out my computer is off, I will be listening at 7:20 am tomorrow. I don't care if you use my name, it's kinda fun hearing your name on the internet!!!

Radisson people, enjoy your first meet! I think we will be at "Hollywood Studios" on Fri night seeing Fantasmic!!



What will we all do 2 weeks from now? We won't get anything done, b/c we will be on the disboards!

 

[patrsn]

mickchick, I'm laughing picturing that scene in my head. All I can say is once is enough, don't need to be doing that again. My husband walked in when I was reading that and went back out the door laughing hysterically, thanks for the laugh!

Im addicted to this board already I cannot imagine how I will be 2 weeks from now! Im driving my family crazy with who's going to be on the cruise, who has this many kids, who's doing what excursions, etc... haha they are just jealous Im going to have buddies before them!

 

[marieeb]

GPlarge,

How old is your daughter? Ours is 9. We were concerned about our kid's appetite as well. She is on the petite size to start with. At first she didn't eat much at lunch but her appetite seems to be improving. We fill her with high calorie foods in the morning and at night.

So far, the pay off in other areas is worth the further attention to her diet.

 

[princessmeesh]

hey guys, okay, so make sure you all listen tomorrow 8:20 EASTERN (figure it out in your time zones!)

cant wait to meet you all! i have begun packing and unpacking as i think i am packing waaaay too much already! UGH! my FE gifts took up 2 carry ons!! LOLS

my daughters are 8 and 6 and they LOVE to make new friends ESPECIALLY my shy 6 year old.....so anyone that has daughters her age, maybe they can hook up in the oceaneers club??

 

[GPLarge]

My DD is now 18 (they grow up too fast). She seems to be outgrowing the ADD a bit but like me can have difficuty focusing at times.

 

[patrsn]

Princessmeesh, I have a 7 year old daughter, Sophie. She loves the kids club so we can definately hook them up, she'll be so happy to have friends there.
Can you put the link up for your radio station? I want to listen but don't know what it is!

Well Im off to cook dinner, Im determined not to eat out or do any takeout for the next three weeks!! (ya right)

 

[brinalyn530]

Add my DS to the ADHD list. He was diagnosed in first grade and we finally found a medication that works for him last April. I decided on medication mainly to help him at school, but once we found one that works for him, I was pleasantly surprised at how observant and funny he is when he can "think straight". We have so much more fun together now because I don't have to constantly remind him to pay attention and think about what to do next. I know medication is really controversial, but I tired everything I could (diet, behavioral therapy, counseling, etc.) and nothing made it better for him at school - it was heartbreaking to see him struggle with the work I knew he could do and with the self esteem issues. We tried a couple of meds before this one and it was literally like a switch was flipped by the second day. Now he's testing for the gifted and talented program and is upset about being in the advanced third grade math class and not the 4th and 5th grade math class (that's my boy ). He's still a little shy because of his past experiences meeting new people (pre-meds) but he opens up pretty quickly so I'm sure the Lab will be a very lively place this trip! We have main seating, though, so we'll miss all the late dinner fun!

As far as the on air shout out (how exciting BTW) I will set my alarm early just so we can turn the computer on to listen! Names or group doesn't matter - awesome either way - but just in case you go with names, we're Payton and Sabrina. Thanks!

And in my novella yesterday I forgot to add :
Favorite Disney Movie - Enchanted and WallE (new) and Snow White (old)
Favorite Character - Snow White and Tigger
Favorite song - That's how you know (now re-stuck in my head - not good for DS when I pick him up later ) and Under the Sea (but really, I love them all)

marieeb - We're taking the later dolphin excursion at Cozumel, 11:45 I think? I'm not a morning person - plus it takes my mom awhile to get my dad ready for the day so I know she'd be mad if I made her get up at 4 am to watch us play with the dolphins (she doesn't swim, but wants to watch to make sure my DS doesn't drown ?? whatever). I was a little nervous doing something like this on our own too, although I am kind of kicking myself that it is apparently cheaper not through Disney. Oh well. Thanks for the heads up about the cab fare.

Sorry I was long again - I don't usually "talk" this much, and I'm never this talkative in person I promise! Please don't avoid me on the ship

Sabrina

 

[3-MER]

OK, It just keeps getting better! . NASA is scheduled to launch the shuttle around 1:30 PM on Thursday the 12th. We are on our way to CC. Does anyone know if we can see the launch from the ship at sea?


Can't wait to hit the warmth and water, 4 degrees in NH right now, falling to well below zero today and tomorrow!!