Get Off The Ship - we are running out of towel animals! Update 10/25 Day 31

[dizneeat]

Hi Karin -

Sorry I have been MIA for awhile. Between vacation and a crazy work schedule I am finally getting back on the boards.

I hope your arm is well on its way to healing. Ouch. That looks like a pretty bad burn.

yay for less than 100 days until your feb trip!!!!

Beautiful pictures of pulling into port. Just lovely!

Looking forward to getting caught up!

Welcome back, Mary Ellen!
I am so glad to have you back, even though I have to admit that you really deserved your vacation. Now I cannot wait for your TR!

My arm is doing very well, thanks for your concern.

Even better than the double digits for our February vacation ..... we leave in less than 7 weeks for a few days of freezing fun at DLRP! We will catch the tail end of Christmas and I cannot wait to see "my" castle all decked out for the holidays again.

Karin I am sorry you are having such a problem with the MDE, it worked so well for us in Sept. We had everything planned out when we got there, dinning and fast passes. One morning we slept in and I jumped on my iPad when we got up and moved our FP reservations for that day back two hours and went to the park no worries. Of course this may not be so easy now that more people are using it and the magic bands. We can just be glad we got to try it when it worked the best and had a great experience, like when we got to try the free dinning plan when it covered appetizers and tips, that was an awesome week at WDW we will not soon forget. I am hopeful Disney will get yours and Toms accounts linked and you can enjoy your visit using the MB's, we loved using them for everything.

Teresa, I kind of messed up the accounts in the first place, but the really frustrating thing is that THEY have now messed it up even more.

The system offers me FP+, but won't grant it to Tom as his room reservation and now his MB are tied to his "Donald" account and his tickets are tied to his "Tinkerbell" account. What is frustrating is that after about 45 minutes on the phone there has been nothing accomplished.

I would really love to do FP+ as we only have our arrival night and two half days and one full day after the cruise. FP+ would allow us to hit all the big attrations without a long wait, which would be awesome as it will be President's weekend.

Good Afternoon Karin !!! I am enjoying my forced time off , gives me lots of Dis time !! Apart from a headache from cutting back on caffeine , I feel fine !!Can't believe how close my trip is getting !!!!

I am so glad you are feeling well again. Enjoy your rest! I cannot believe how close you are to your trip!

 

[dizneeat]

Time for an update!

First ....... an update on last week's events.
I wasn't able to update much last week, as the week was a pretty busy one. On Monday we had a course to attend which took until after 6pm and was SOOOOOOO boring. Reading statistics ...... I started watching my watch and counting the minutes.

On Tuesday we had what is called "reading night" with one of our classes at school. What it is is a sleepover party that we do for one class at a time. Well, it was the class that I taught German in last year and the head teacher had asked me if I would stay with them. I like that class a lot, so I agreed. We did everything else, but no reading books as we were just to involved in doing sports, making pizza, and the girls and I made loom bandz (which I had learned to do from my lovely little friend Molly - thank you, sweety). It was a pretty long time until we were able to get a little rest. Reinhard, the other teacher sleeping on the doctor's "bed" and myself on the corner seating area in the teacher's room. Needless to say that after breakfast the next day, when the kids went home Reinhard and I were dead tired and were really happy that our headmistress had offered to us NOT to go to a meeting that was taking place that day.
I went home and took a nap and when I got up again I figured out that I would be able to change over our dummy cruises to "real" dates. As every year we intended to fly to Orlando during my half term vacation and take a 4 night cruise on the Dream. So I took down the dates, then looked through the new itineraries and something caught my eye. There was a cruise sailing out on Tom's birthday! I checked and low and behold this would be my Easter vacation. So I took that into consideration as well.
I called and after being on hold for a little while I got quotes for both cruises and changed BOTH over to the new dates - one for February and the other one for Tom's birthday, which is a 7 night on the Magic, calling at Key West, Grand Cayman, Cozumel and Castaway Cay.
Now the quote for the Magic costs quite a bit more than an arm and a leg, but I am SOOOOO hoping to be able to pull it off.
I am hoping to change the February cruise to one for the summer of 2015.

Thursday is my long day at school and I was happy when it was over!

Friday I had a lot of errands to run after school and finally today I am able to enjoy my weekend and work on updates.

 

[dizneeat]

Day 7, August 13

A visit to the Netherlands and France before Captain Jack takes over the Fantasy - Part 3

Right behind the market was a walkway up to Fort Louis and we decided to hike up and enjoy the view from up there.





There were lots of steps to conquer, it was hot, so we took our sweet time to climb up to the top of the hill













and the remnants of the Fort,



















but it was so worth it. The view was breathtaking







and we went on to take photos and walk around the Fort, when Tom’s mobile let us know that a text message had arrived.
We looked and were excited to see that it said, we were now inside the EU and could make phone calls at an EU set rate. Needless to say, once we had found a spot were connection was fine we called our friends at home to let them know where we were.
We still had about half an hour to spare when we started our walk down again and quickly found ourselves back near the harbour.
Having miscalculated the small bills we would need for tips and being thirsty we decided to head to the Mall across the street to get something to drink and buy a few small items to get some small bills. The Mall was beautiful





and it was so nice to be in an air conditioned environment again.
We found a small bar, sat down and ordered some



Diet Coke and a Presidente beer for Tom.
The cold drinks hit the spot and as soon as we were refreshed again, we walked around the small stores in the mall and bought some postcards and magnets in several different stores, one at a time.
Yeah, small bills filled my purse again. About 5 minutes before we were supposed to be at the bus again we headed over and since it was only a one minute walk we made it there in time easily.

To be continued ............

 

[englishrose47]

Great Update Karin. That was a beautiful view up there !!! When is Tom's birthday that you will be cruising on in 2015 ? The sleepover sounded fun but exhausting !!!

 

[sdjen]

Really enjoying your report. Can you tell me what the name of your St. Maarten excursion was?

 

[Teri1]

We didn't even know about the Fort and Mall. Our driver didn't give us but 45min. to an our to walk around there and only told us about the small shops by the water.

 

[dizneeat]

Great Update Karin. That was a beautiful view up there !!! When is Tom's birthday that you will be cruising on in 2015 ? The sleepover sounded fun but exhausting !!!

It was a beautiful day and the view was even more beautiful than in the photos. You could see so far and the colour of the ocean was just beautiful.
Tom's birthday is at the end of March, Rosie! We will be sailing the week before Easter. The price is through the roof, but I am trying my best to make it happen. Sailing his birthday week AND a stop at Key West ... how much better can it get?
The sleepover is definitely fun, for kids and adults alike, BUT the sleep part either on the floor or somewhere very uncomfortable not so much.

Really enjoying your report. Can you tell me what the name of your St. Maarten excursion was?

I am glad you like the report and enjoy reading along.
The tour was called "Under two flags" and we were on the adult only tour they offer.

We didn't even know about the Fort and Mall. Our driver didn't give us but 45min. to an our to walk around there and only told us about the small shops by the water.

I think we had about an hour and our driver had pointed out the Fort and Mall while we were still driving around. The walk up to the Fort took about 10 minutes, and that is if you "crawl up" like we did.
We were told about the small shops by the water as well, but warned that they are more tourist traps as well.
Guess you will have to go on another Eastern, Teresa.

Any news of Otto?

 

[dizneeat]

Day 7, August 13

A visit to the Netherlands and France before Captain Jack takes over the Fantasy - Part 4

About 5 minutes before we were supposed to be at the bus again we headed over and since it was only a one minute walk we made it there in time easily. We were the last ones to come back to the bus, and as soon as we had sat down we were off again.



Our driver told us that we would now go back to the Dutch side and that he would show us some of the areas that were good for shopping and that people who wanted to, could get off the bus there and make their way back to the ship on their own.
We had been thinking about going back to the ship and then walking back to Philipsburg, but that way it was much easier. So once we had made it to the center of town, we got off the bus, tipped the driver and walked through the narrow streets, peeking into a few shops.
We then made our way over to the beach promenade





and walked along the it. By that time it was way past noon, so we decided to get some lunch.
We looked into some of the open air restaurant, but we both did not feel like eating in the heat, so when we saw the Hard Rock Café,





which offered air conditioning, we knew we were in the right place. We headed up the stairs and at the check in desk were asked if we wanted to sit inside or outside. “Inside please”.
They led us to a nice table by the window



and we were handed a menu and served some water to rehydrate.
They had yummy drinks on the menu and since Tom did not have to drive, we quickly found something we liked. Tom ordered the



Southern Rock, Jack Daniel’s Whiskey, Southern & Comfort, Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur and Smirnoff Vodka, mixed with sweet and sour and lemon-lime soda. I had set my mind on the



Raspberry Lemonade, a classic with a twist, superior rum, raspberries, raspberry syrup and fresh, made from scratch lemonade. Our server, who had taken our order talked us into getting their special, which meant that we would get a free refill and a souvenir glass if we ordered the slightly more expensive special. Oh well, we were tired and hot, so why not.
Our drinks were delicious, so we sat and sipped while waiting for our lunch. I had ordered the





Cajun Shrimp & Poached Pear Salad, spring mix tossed with goat cheese crumbles, chopped seasoned bacon and a sweet Dijon pear dressing, topped with poached pear segments, spicy pecans and grilled sweet cajun shrimp. It did sound a bit out of the ordinary, but that was what I felt like and it was absolutely delicious. Crisp salad, spicy shrimp and the sweet pears made for an absolutely fabulous lunch. Tom had ordered the



Hickory Smoked Pulled Pork Sandwich, hickory smoked pork, hand pulled, so it was tender and juicy, served with Bar-B-Que Sauce and fried onions, seasoned fries, ranch beans and fresh coleslaw.
The portion was huge and hit the spot perfectly. And while we were munching away and checking the internet, thanks to free internet access we saw a familiar face entering. We thought for a few seconds until it dawned on us, the familiar face was Aladdin from the performance on our second day. He and a friend sat at a small table at the other end of the room and while waiting for their food they were taking advantage of the free internet as well. And while we still enjoyed our lunch our server came over to bring us our free refills and our souvenir glasses in a paper bag. We took quite some time until we were ready to head out again, but then finally started walking along the promenade towards the ship.















At the end of the promenade we turned left and headed inside the town.





We stopped into a few shops and bought a lovely hand painted bottle of rum and some beers for Tom to try. We stopped at the Del Sol store and needless to say we bought a T-shirt or two. Soon we had made it back to where the Hard Rock Café was.









And after a short deliberation we decided not to walk back to the ship, but use the water taxi that was offered there.

To be continued ............

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Hi Karin. How is your arm feeling? I know how painful that is - I burned my hand on steam from the teapot when the lid fell off while I was pouring about a month ago - the pain was excruciating for about 24 hours. I hope yours healed up quickly.

I'm glad you survived your sleepover! How cool that you found a cruise date for Tom's birthday! We were also considering cruising Summer 2015, but now we realized Jim's cousin who is like our niece in California will be graduating from college in San Fran, so our plans are changing. It will probably be DLR instead!

Yikes on the MDE fiasco! I am thinking it is going to be quite a problem for awhile. I am actually happy we took our trip before the bands kicked in, and I don't think we'll be back until some of the bugs are worked out.

Wow! I can't believe that CM was so rude! How would you know they were behind schedule? You got some great view pics in St. Maarten! It looked like Ft St Louis was worth the hike to see. What did you think of the shopping in Phillipsburg? My excitement to shop in an "exotic" location as quickly dampened by the pushy salespeople everywhere we went.

Your hard rock lunch looks delicious - Nice view to enjoy it from, also!

 

[RGirl]

Hi Karin!

I am really enjoying reading about your excursion and time off the ship.

And I was just looking at your signature and noticed that you have a trip coming up very soon and another shortly after that!

 

[dizneeat]

Hi Karin. How is your arm feeling? I know how painful that is - I burned my hand on steam from the teapot when the lid fell off while I was pouring about a month ago - the pain was excruciating for about 24 hours. I hope yours healed up quickly.

It is MUCH, much better now! It hurt a lot right after I did it, but was already better the next day.
Oh, burning yourself on steam is horrible.

I'm glad you survived your sleepover! How cool that you found a cruise date for Tom's birthday! We were also considering cruising Summer 2015, but now we realized Jim's cousin who is like our niece in California will be graduating from college in San Fran, so our plans are changing. It will probably be DLR instead!

As much fun as the school sleepover is, it is no fun for the teachers to sleep on the floor or in my case on a seating area.
I don't know HOW I came up with the birthday cruise, but it fits so nicely. We always wanted to sail into Key West and to sail out on his actual birthday is just the icing on the cake.
And even though you might not be cruising in 2015, your plans sound great!

Yikes on the MDE fiasco! I am thinking it is going to be quite a problem for awhile. I am actually happy we took our trip before the bands kicked in, and I don't think we'll be back until some of the bugs are worked out.

I really need to call about the MDE again, but I am so not in the mood for an hour long long distance call.
We didn't have the bands in the summer and I was quite excited to be able to try them in February - not knowing what I got myself into.

Wow! I can't believe that CM was so rude! How would you know they were behind schedule?

I am not easily speechless, but she was so snappy I didn't even know what to respond. I was pretty mean though and did not give the onboard port adventures crew the all so important "excellent" in the survey.

You got some great view pics in St. Maarten! It looked like Ft St Louis was worth the hike to see. What did you think of the shopping in Phillipsburg? My excitement to shop in an "exotic" location as quickly dampened by the pushy salespeople everywhere we went.

We had no problem with shopping in Phillipsburg. We did not shop at the markets though.
The shops we went to were all nice and no one was pushy at all. The same can NOT be said for the Western ports. I hated being pulled into shops in Mexico.

Your hard rock lunch looks delicious - Nice view to enjoy it from, also!

Lunch was absolutely delicious! And as unusual as my salad sounded, it was a perfect combination.

Hi Karin!

I am really enjoying reading about your excursion and time off the ship.

And I was just looking at your signature and noticed that you have a trip coming up very soon and another shortly after that!

I am glad you are enjoying our trip as well. Maybe we can talk you into an Eastern itinerary as well.

Yes, we indeed have two trips coming up soon. The first one is our short trip to DLRP, where we will stay at the Hotel New York at the entrance of the Disney Village. 4 days of Disney holiday fun!
The other trip is our annual winter getaway. 1 night at VGF, a 4 night on the Dream and 2 nights at OKW. It cannot come soon enough.

 

[jenseib]

St. Thomas looks so pretty. I really hope to get there someday. I know I would go picture crazy. I always love seeing pictures of forts!

 

[Wicket's Mom]

Our first cruise was to St Thomas & St Maartin. We spent the day in Phillpsburg shopping. On St Thomas we went over to St John to the underwater national park. The water at the beach was so clear, loved. St Thomas not so much. We were warned to hide our money as the crime rates were high.

I know what you mean about the merchants on the western Carribean, they drag one back to their shops & it's hard to get away.!

 

[jedijill]

Back from a weekend trip home and playing catch up.

Great update! I really want to go back to St Maartan. I thought it was beautiful and loved the European feel!

Congrats on the booking the new cruise!

Jill in CO

 

[eandesmom]

The cast member actually got to me more than the overcooked breakfast. She really put a damper on the day, but thankfully we forgot about her soon, as it was a beautiful day.

She was most unmagical, glad it didn't last

Cynthia thanks for letting me know they can fix the MB issue while you are on hold. I would not mind paying for that long distance call IF they were able to fix the issue. The other call I had to made took me almost 45 minutes at international rates and NOTHING got fixed - they messed it up even more.
Guess I am trying the member service number this time.

I forgot about the international rate issue, my brother has some kind of deal where they can call our land lines (not cell) insanely cheap...not sure how they do it but they can kind of call anytime as a result.

It's not all that urgent for us, as we are still outside the booking window, but I cannot book ANY FP+ for him, as on one account he needs a room reservation and on the other he needs a ticket. The ticket is linked to one account and the room reservation (and now MB - which they changed to the wrong account) is linked to the other.

Right, so they need to reassign his ticket to the room reservation, right? Merge the profiles. Total pain but yes, they can fix it and wise to take care of it now and not have issues later!

I went home and took a nap and when I got up again I figured out that I would be able to change over our dummy cruises to "real" dates. As every year we intended to fly to Orlando during my half term vacation and take a 4 night cruise on the Dream. So I took down the dates, then looked through the new itineraries and something caught my eye. There was a cruise sailing out on Tom's birthday! I checked and low and behold this would be my Easter vacation. So I took that into consideration as well.
I called and after being on hold for a little while I got quotes for both cruises and changed BOTH over to the new dates - one for February and the other one for Tom's birthday, which is a 7 night on the Magic, calling at Key West, Grand Cayman, Cozumel and Castaway Cay.
Now the quote for the Magic costs quite a bit more than an arm and a leg, but I am SOOOOO hoping to be able to pull it off.
I am hoping to change the February cruise to one for the summer of 2015.

I assume you saw the info about the re-booking window changing? Now you have to book, and complete a cruise booked on another one within 18 months of booking to keep discounts, OBC etc. Older ones are all grandfathered in until November of 2015 but I'd check and make sure the one you want to move to summer of 2015 works with their new rules!

Lovely lovey day you had all around. I loved the fort, your salad looked FABULOUS to me and yes, after those steps I do think a vacation tropical drink in a souvenir glass was absolutely earned!

 

[Linda67]

Great pictures and sounds like a really great excursion
If we do excursions I like them to just be for a few hours in the morning so you still have time to explore on your own

 

[dizneeat]

St. Thomas looks so pretty. I really hope to get there someday. I know I would go picture crazy. I always love seeing pictures of forts!

We really enjoyed our day in Sint Maarten. Such a beautiful place and we loved that we got to spend quite some time roaming Philipsburg.

Our first cruise was to St Thomas & St Maartin. We spent the day in Phillpsburg shopping. On St Thomas we went over to St John to the underwater national park. The water at the beach was so clear, loved. St Thomas not so much. We were warned to hide our money as the crime rates were high.

I know what you mean about the merchants on the western Carribean, they drag one back to their shops & it's hard to get away.!

We really loved the Eastern itinerary and especially Sint Maarten. St. Thomas was nice too and other than you we were not warned or did we experience anything frightening (apart from the bus we were riding in )

Back from a weekend trip home and playing catch up.

Great update! I really want to go back to St Maartan. I thought it was beautiful and loved the European feel!

Congrats on the booking the new cruise!

Jill in CO

I hope you had an awesome weekend.

You really need to try and go to Sint Maarten. It was really beautiful and felt very European!

Can't believe we really booked and are going on another 7 night in 2015!

She was most unmagical, glad it didn't last

Yes, unmagical describes that CM very nicely.

I forgot about the international rate issue, my brother has some kind of deal where they can call our land lines (not cell) insanely cheap...not sure how they do it but they can kind of call anytime as a result.

Even though the international rate here is not as bad as it was, it adds up when you are on hold for half an hour.
I know I could use skype, but I'd rather have a real phone in hand.

Right, so they need to reassign his ticket to the room reservation, right? Merge the profiles. Total pain but yes, they can fix it and wise to take care of it now and not have issues later!

Yes, that is what needs to be done. I am considering just adding another ticket to his account (we have gazillions of tickets lying around as we used to book with the Brits and I always bought the non-expiration option for them. Maybe that would keep me from being on hold again forever. Well, I will try to call them again next weekend.

I assume you saw the info about the re-booking window changing? Now you have to book, and complete a cruise booked on another one within 18 months of booking to keep discounts, OBC etc. Older ones are all grandfathered in until November of 2015 but I'd check and make sure the one you want to move to summer of 2015 works with their new rules!

Cynthia, about 5 minutes after I had hung up the phone, I got three emails from DCL explaining the new OBB policy. They are giving bookings made prior to their announcement another 6 months (until Nov 30 of 2015) so we are in the clear.
I do hold three (actually 4, but one is paid in full) OBBs. The first one we are going to use up in February (that's the one paid in full), the second one is our summer Med cruise, then cruise no 3 is the March Western Caribbean with Key West and I save the last one for our summer 2015 cruise - hoping for a 7 night Fantasy IF the prices aren't too high.

Lovely lovey day you had all around. I loved the fort, your salad looked FABULOUS to me and yes, after those steps I do think a vacation tropical drink in a souvenir glass was absolutely earned!

We loved our Sint Maarten day. The view was awesome and the retail therapy was nice as well.
The salad though was out of this world - SO good! Yeah, and you cannot give up a free refill and a souvenir glass.

Great pictures and sounds like a really great excursion
If we do excursions I like them to just be for a few hours in the morning so you still have time to explore on your own

I can really recommend the excursion, especially if they offer an adult only. It took about 3 hours and was just the right length to give you time to explore on your own as well.

 

[englishrose47]

Hi Karin Just keeping up with all the chatter

 

[Leshaface]

Congratulations on the cruise!!!

The view from up on the hill is amazing! Great shots.

Ooh, the food looks so good at the Hard Rock. I've only been to one HRC and that was in San Francisco for some beers only.

 

[KatMark]

I'm playing catch up...again (and I know you know how that is).

Beautiful photos on your excursion.

I am now drooling over Tom's fried onions on his sandwich (I love those things).