I can't wait!Looking forward to hearing about your trip - your nice LONG trip! You are going to love the Dream. It's awesome!
Thanks for joining! 
Yay, thanks for saying hi!I will be joining yet again
Oh, cool, did you write a TR on that one? Can't wait to get on Mickey's boat!
Concierge made them all for us the day we arrived! 
I can not believe what I did not know!
Haha, that's kinda crazy.I did not write a TR. I actually had no idea the DIS world even existed back then! We went on that trip with NO planning whatsoever! Bob just booked a cruise and went to AAA and booked the land part. We had the dining plan and didn't even make ADRs
I guess you are making up for that now! Hi! I actually was following along on your Hawaii trip as we head there end of March (not Aulani, but Oahu & Big Island) and hopped over here and noticed you will be in Disney the same time as me! I'm taking my daughter for her 13th birthday- a mom & me trip.. from May 21st-May 25th!
Maybe we'll see you there!
Oh, cool - say hi if you see us! We'll be the ones being led around by a 2-year-old, probably towards characters. Hope your daughter has a very magical birthday! 
Oh, and enjoy Hawaii! We are super excited to board the Dream. Despite having only gone on 2, I LOVE cruises and have been dying to get on one for some time - and Dug is pumped too, as he surprised himself by loving our RC cruise back in 2008. If you have any particular tips or insights into the Dream (or DCL in general), please chime in!
Hi!I'm here!!
I can't believe how soon your cruise is...I am excited to see how you like it! 
Yeah, we originally had two waitlists and one came through (BWV for the first block of nights), so I'm not sure if we'll luck out and get both. We actually could have had BWV for all 4 of the last nights too, but really wanted to go to StormAlong Bay at least once, so figured the last night only would be worth switching for, as SWW would be behind us and we could spend more time enjoying the resort. It would be better if we could get all 4 nights there, though - just to avoid the move and have more opportunities to enjoy SAB. We'll see.
It seems like there are not a lot of cruise TRs to chose from (vs. WDW ones). I've read them sparingly, usually just ones for our cruise or with toddlers (or both). I still feel like I need to do more planning, but mostly "rope drop" types of things - what to do first, etc. How did your online check-in go? Did you reserve Palo and such at that time? Any tips?
) Like this:
. In 2008, I convinced Dug to try a cruise and we took the Voyageur of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) out of Galveston, TX for a week in the Caribbean. We absolutely loved everything about it. 
I know people talk about the great service on DCL and I'm sure it is, but we had top notch service on that RC cruise - it set a high bar for us that probably only DCL could live up to. We've been wanting to go on another cruise ever since. But our WDW love was ignited in 2009 and that became our main vacation destination for the immediate future - and was generally cheaper than cruising. Put these two things together and we started pondering a Disney Cruise. 
But we still couldn't pull the trigger. Because of Dug's new job. The one that took him away from half of our Aulani trip. He loves the job, don't get me wrong, but it had already put a crimp in one dream vacation and we didn't want it to cause a problem with another - in a way, this trip is our "do-over" of a long family-of-3 vacation that didn't happen exactly as we'd planned in Hawaii (though that was still an amazing trip!)
We had no reason to be concerned, as his new job was going well, but it was still a hurdle that had to be jumped. Because of this, we had actually paid an extra $1/point when renting the DVC points for our trip (same person as we rented from for Aulani) - she asked for the extra dollar in exchange for making the reservation fully refundable to us (not something you normally can get with a DVC rental). So, it cost us a bit more, but got us piece of mind, as we were booking that back in November (right after Aulani), when Dug was still in his "probationary period". Thankfully, he had his 90 day review and it went great and he still has a job! 
That set off all kinds of warning flares for us, as it's exactly what kept Dug away from Aulani for half the trip, so we stayed in limbo a bit longer. Dug had several conversations with managers until they finally were able to confirm that the retreat would not be in May and his trip would be fine as planned. Whew! 
Our initial idea of weekends at WDW somehow morphed into long weekends at WDW during the planning process. We fly in on a Thursday morning, arriving around noon. We fly out on a Tuesday afternoon. I like that we have three blocks of 4 nights on this trip, though - 4 WDW, 4 Dream, 4 WDW.
It does sound like you did a great job saving money where you could.
So we're still in talks, but it's definitely a big hit on the travel fund. Can't wait to see what you got!
Oh, cool, I'll have to check that out! Thanks!
Right, this has been on my mind. The Dream does have toddler areas and swim diapers are allowed there (like the splash pads). However, we've been working on potty training and I think she will be potty trained by the time May comes around. Good incentive to get it done! If not, I'm sure she'll be okay with the toddler areas and the beach at Castaway Cay.
I have read some other posts about elevator issues. Our cabin is very close to the mid-ship elevators, which I hear are the worst. However, we are not that far from another set, if needed. Also, we are on the 8th floor and my understanding is that is a good location for going up or down a few flights of stairs for a lot of the main areas - we could leave the stroller behind sometimes. Izzy does love stairs, so I'm sure she'd be fine with it. We'll see, I guess.Our only other beef was the stroller and elevators. We would wait & wait & wait to try to get a non-crowded elevator during busy times (after shows, after dinner, for activities, ports) that would fit the stroller. The best thing for us was the next two times we did cruise the kids could do the stairs and we made them because elevators are crazy! So just go in knowing that...and it'll be fine!
Can't wait to experience a Disney Cruise!
Thanks! Yes, you've certainly had obstacles to getting your Disney fix. It's so hard to resist a good ADR!
Thanks. Yes, it was really if-fy for a bit there. I'm glad things seem to be falling into place. Hopefully things go smoothly from here on out. Dug's really happy with the job and it's improved our quality of life so much (no commute changes things for all of us).
Yes, it was really worth it. If we'd waited until now to book a room, I'm pretty sure we couldn't get what we did. I am glad we found such a reasonable person to rent from. I hate paying more than I have to for something, but this was one thing that was worth it and allowed us to breathe a bit easier in the meantime.That is nice that you had the option for your DVC reservation to be refundable, even if it meant paying a little more. Totally worth it for the piece of mind!
Haha, thanks, I need it. I have duplicates of things we only want to do once...the worst is 4 of the same meal on different days.
We really need to get our act together and get this trip planned, despite the lack of SWW info out so far. I don't even have a schedule in Excel yet! 
That is pretty much exactly how it happens for us!It's so funny how these trips come about. You start thinking about, get on the web to do some research, it all snowballs and you have a 2 week trip on your hands!
I guess it's fitting, as Walt was all about making dreams become reality, right? I've tried to save where I can, but it's really hard on a cruise. The whole of this trip is going to run us about twice as much as Hawaii, which is just sickening. 
(Though, Hawaii ran us about half as much as one would expect, so there's that. )Haha, love it! These things sure morph and change quickly. Glad you all agreed on what you wanted, though!Our next trip came about when I was looking for a beach vacation. The kids wanted more to do so we looked into a Disney cruise - beach for me, Disney for them. Finally we just decided to do the World because we all love it and know we love it.
Yes, I will get something posted soon. Though I am a bit hesitant, as I'm worried the ADR police will get me.I'd love to hear more about your ADRs...
It's so hard to plan for cruises, being so far ahead of time and so hard to change as you get close. I've mentioned this before somewhere, but you might want to check the rate difference between DS being 2 and 3 on your cruise (shifting dates a bit, I guess). For ours, it was significantly less with her as 2, which means we could pay for a LOT of nursery hours and still be paying less overall than if she was 3. Of course, the awesome kids' clubs will only be useable during the open house times, but I think that will be okay. I think the nursery will be fun for her too. I hope, at least.I so know the feeling about the cruises...we currently have one booked for October of this year, but still unsure about it. BUT one big factor is that we would get 10% off because we had booked this while on a cruise and DS would be 3 by the time we go, meaning he would be in the Kids Club for free and not the nursery!
I know! We kept saying, "Let's do it!" and then he'd hear some rumblings at work and we'd put it off again. He finally got his boss to go to HIS boss and confirm for sure that it won't be an issue. Just hoping nothing crazy changes.
Yeah, they need to start a show called, "Hoarders: ADRs" and they can feature me.17 ADRS?!
I can't help but snatch up good ones that we might want.Thanks! Yes, some Disney princesses escaped WDW (and all of their licensing agreements, I'm sureLove all the random pics of Izzy! Looks like a fun Princess event!!
) and came to Minnesota! Izzy was ridiculously shy with them, though. I'll throw some videos on the end of this post to prove it.I sure hope so. I'm still a tad nervous about it, but super excited too.
Haha, I just can't seem to help myself. And the sad thing is I've thought about making even MORE.
I mean, really, we should just do all of our eating on the cruise where the food is free! Oooh, and maybe pack some empty food containers in our luggage and bring leftovers back to WDW after! Oh, cool, do we overlap at all? Only a few more months and we'll be on vacation!! I'd say we are "comfortable", but I am optimistic.
Yay, puns!
If it meant the difference between going and not going, I'd get the inside cabin - the magic portholes do seem really cool. But, I think the verandah should be really nice, especially when Izzy's napping or after she goes to bed. And I'm excited that our room is a family one and should be relatively spacious for a cruise ship!Thank you, I will need all the luck I can get.
It's just too darn easy to snap up ADRs. Yeah, that's true. Any non-last-minute trip, at least!Seems like at least 80% of Disney trips get an extra day or two added to them at some point during the planning process
Us DIS-ers just can't leave well enough alone, I think.Glad you enjoyed my creative breaking up of text!
It's a lot easier to upload pictures from my phone than to try to find relevant photos to what I'm writing. There was a "preschool fair" nearby and, probably to draw in the preschoolers, they hired Anna and Elsa to appear for an hour to do meet and greets. We were interested anyway, as we wanted to know more about preschool options and toddler activities in the area. Rapunzel was actually a complete surprise, though. We were walking around and I looked up and she walked by. We later found her at one of the booths - one of the exhibiters had apparently hired her.
I'll post some videos in a minute here. Glad to have you here and over on the TR! And, thanks - we are biased, but think Izzy's pretty adorable. 
