People can book the cruise until 3 days prior to the sail date. Additionally, many people cruising with us have not found this thread or the other thread. A lot of people are going to be disappointed that they can't join in. On a previous cruise we cut off the list at 2 weeks prior (usually what we have done in the past) and we still had disappointed people. Imagine the people that signed up from the start, don't know about this thread or can't find the time to get to it and find out in February, March or April that they can't participate. Personally I think the cut off should be mid-April. If you don't want to do it for everyone, you are not required to do so. We have had groups in the 130 to 160 rooms range.
Maybe I'm wrong but I thought the idea behind the fish extenders was to give gifts without the expectation of getting anything back. I've always had a problem with having a list of people who are willing to participate (it's kind of like telling me I can't give someone a gift if I want to because they aren't on the list). I know many people that will just take a list of people going on the cruise in the group and give them their gift, whether or not they are on the fish extender list.
Everyone can independently decide when to cut off the list for their purposes (ordering gifts, etc.) but I don't like the idea of a cutoff to exclude people from participating this early. Just my two cents.
I'm not playing tit-for-tat (Don, be good!
) in that I'm using the list to only give things to people who give me things. I fully expect that I'm not going to get something from everyone on the list...stuff is going to happen - they'll miss our room, it'll get taken,
I'm using the list so I know to bring a reasonable amount of stuff (realistically, both in terms of luggage room and costs).
Also I'm on vacation, never been on a Disney ship, and don't have Santa's radar so I need a list to figure out where Dis'ers cabins are located. And, if I drag DH around all over the ship looking at every cabin to see if they have a FE, I doubt he will ever be willing to cruise or do another podcast event
Personally, given the other stuff I'm committed to before the cruise, I would have a very hard time managing a 2 wk cutoff.
Maybe we go to multiple groups a cut off of Jan 31 for this group, and if others are upset and want to join, they can start another group. Of course, no one is saying someone can't join both groups or give gifts to others in the other group.
BTW, I also missed the part in chat when this was brought up.
cheers,
i'm glad it was still open however i would have been ok if it closed in december - just would have wished we booked earlier but sa la vi (sp)
(that's for you Tadd).
for putting up with all this aggravation!!
