January 17, 2010 Buccaneer Booty in the Bahamas!!

We are in the process of booking this cruise with friends of ours. There will be nine of us in total with five kids, ages 14, 14, 11, 9 and 7. Our husbands will be returning from Iraq in December and this is our welcome home trip as well as a major part of our kids' Christmas gifts. We will be spending a few days at Disney after the cruise.
 
We're booked! Had to take GTY for our category 4, but was able to get an assigned Cat. 5 room for our friends. Kids have no idea. It will be a Christmas surprise!!
 
Hi All - for those of you who have cruised to the Bahamas and Castaway Cay in January - what is the weather like and what are the water temps like?

Wishing our cruise was sooner! Can't wait!

we showed the boys the disney cruise line dvd tonight and told them we were just "thinking" about it. They will be so excited when we tell them!
 
We're also doing a back to back, but ours three day is the 14th. Bummer! Would've been nice to know more people!

We had both cruises booked, but ended up with a savings of $850 with the new promo!!!

We saved so much we spent the savings on the 3 day after this one! The kids have a 2 day school week this week, so we booked our 3 day after so they would only miss 2 days of school! It is a shame we could not be back to back on the same cruises. You'll have to tell me how getting back on the boat goes for you and any inside tips!

Hi All - for those of you who have cruised to the Bahamas and Castaway Cay in January - what is the weather like and what are the water temps like?

I've heard the temps are shorts weather, but it might be too cold to swim. Now, I'm from NC and get cold when it's 70 degrees :rotfl2: (Yes, I freeze during our short winter!) Others from colder areas might be OK with the water temps.

Our plan is to visit the aquarium at Atlantis in Nassau and ride bikes on Castaway Cay and do the treasure hunt. This will be our 5th and 6th visit to Castaway Cay and have never found time to do the treasure hunt yet! :lmao:

Is anyone interested in coordinating the FE exchange? I'm in if we do this!

Tiffany
 

First time cruisers looking to have some quality family time this winter! We would like to join in on the FE activities.

Can't wait until January - seems a long way away.

Laura + hubby, plus 3 son (8), dd (5) and dd (soon-to-be 3):cool1:
 
We are interested in the fish extender exchange as well. Although I have to say I'm going to need some additional information on exactly what it is, when we do it and what it's all about. But, hey, we're in!!!! LOL
 
Temps in Jan---I can speak to that as we cruised at the same time last year.
The water can be a bit nippy at first, but once you get use to it...its not so bad
Since the pools are heated on board, the only time we had to worry about water temp was at the private beach...and trust me, it was not cold enough to keep out hubby, the kids or the hundrends of other families for going into the water
The temp outside was perfect! It was around 80 degrees--sometimes high 70s. It was not too hot or too cold...still shorts weather, but needing a light jacket or sweater in the evening. The people in the Bahamas were wearing jackets outside during the day...but for us northerners (and I am from NC) the weather was absolutley not cold LOL

The fish extender is easy to do--First do a search on these boards to find pics of the fish extender
Then all you have to do is make a list of who is intrested and how many kids each cabin has.
Then you just make sure you buy enough goodies for each family that is particpating.

If everyone is intrested can post again in the next couple days with how many kids and their last name, we can create a ongoing list. Then once we all get rooms assigned, we will add the cabin numbers and each select which day we want to deliver our goodies. On my last cruise in Jan, we had so many families particpating we would have at least three families handing out goodies through out the day...it was so much fun!!
IT was funny though...most of the time, people just left the goodies in a bag on my door handle...never even using the fish extender. It was like the fish extender itself was just a way to mark the cabin door.

We cant wait!
 
The temp outside was perfect! It was around 80 degrees--sometimes high 70s. It was not too hot or too cold...still shorts weather, but needing a light jacket or sweater in the evening. The people in the Bahamas were wearing jackets outside during the day...but for us northerners (and I am from NC) the weather was absolutley not cold LOL!

Then since we are from PA, we should think it is definitely warm!!! LOL

If everyone is intrested can post again in the next couple days with how many kids and their last name, we can create a ongoing list. Then once we all get rooms assigned, we will add the cabin numbers and each select which day we want to deliver our goodies. .........We cant wait!

We can't wait either! I should say I can't wait. Only the adults know about the trip, we're going to surprise the kids at Christmas and tell them we're going to Disney, but maybe save the cruise information until we actually get to Florida and then surprise them again!

We are a family of 5: Jim, Tina, Lauren (13), Jacob (11) and Matthew (7)

Our friends are: Michael, Sharon, Olivia (14) and Peyton[girl] (9).
 
Is there a Palo brunch on the 4 day cruise?

And if there is do you think Silver Castaway Club members will even be able to get a reservation? We will not be Gold members until after both of these January cruises.

I was a Castaway Club member before our September Double Dip last year, but because of all the REAS we could not get Brunch or High tea. That was frustrating.

I would really like to try Palo Brunch instead of just hearing about how good it is!

Tiffany
 
Palo's offered the brunch on my last 4 day cruise...reservations were much easier since we were off season last year in Jan.
My friends who I went with did not bother getting reservations online, they went the day we got on the ship and still had their pick of dates and times!
We even were able to change our time once we got on board
 
Palo's offered the brunch on my last 4 day cruise...reservations were much easier since we were off season last year in Jan.
My friends who I went with did not bother getting reservations online, they went the day we got on the ship and still had their pick of dates and times!
We even were able to change our time once we got on board

Thank you! I hope this is true! On our Double Dip last year at 90 days all of the Brunch and Tea times were gone and I was #5 getting on the boat - went straight to Wave Bands and there were no spots left for Brunch or Tea! Very upsetting after waiting over 18 months for the cruise.

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that there will be open spots for brunch on this cruise. I'm not going to get upset if I can't get a Brunch spot though because at least I'll be cruising again with Mickey! :cool1:

Tiffany
 
Several of you have posted that you are going to surprise your kids with this cruise for Christmas.:santa:

How do you plan to do it?

We are also giving this cruise to our kids for Christmas and have a friend who is cruising on the Magic in October picking up some DCL cookies for us to wrap with a note about the cruise.

I'd love to hear other ideas and perhaps some ways to improve our surprise!

Tiffany
 
Not sure exactly how we are surprising the kids for Christmas yet. Their biggest surprise at this point will be that DH (and my friend's DH) may be back from Iraq in time for Christmas. That will be a huge surprise for both families' kids.

We don't have all of the logistics down yet of how we are going to tell them we are all going to Disney together AND on a Disney cruise. Would love to hear some ideas as well!
 
We just got off the Magic on 9/12, and we are going to take another cruise in January. We are using our DVC points to book our next cruise. The only question is which cruise to take, a 4 day (save some DVC points for later in the year) or a 7 day Eastern.

We just wanted to stop in, say hello and introduce ourselfs.
I am the enabler (Michael) 31
DW is Rose 32
DD is Taylor 4

We have to make our decision by Wed, so we can get our "onboard" discount for booking with points.

Michael
 
We are also going to be on the 4 day cruise on 1/17/10. This will be our second cruise but the first with 2 of our boys. Our oldest went with us on the last cruise. He will be 13 in April of 2010, my other 2 boys will be 7 and 5 when we go. I am really excited, we had such a blast the first time and couldn't wait to go again. Our kids have no idea that we have booked this cruise it will be their Christmas gift (if my husband can keep the secret until then)
 
We are interested in the fishfinder as well. Is there someone who is coordinating /organizing this?
 
I was going to ask the same question. Do we have a coordinator for the FE exchange? :confused3 Or a list of all that will be on board so far?
 
Hey, we are going to suprise the kids at Christmas with our cruise also. I am going to create a video using (power point type) for them to watch together and then give them a basket of goodies for the trip/cruise. What do you think?
 
Ok for the fish extender...
If you need someone to just keep up with the list of a names, I can do that
We need to set a deadline date so we can start buying items without having to run out to buy more.
Last cruise we set it 45 days before the cruise...so the last day to sign up would be around...lets say Nov 1st

Then on Nov 1st, we hopefully will all have our room numbers and we will have a sign up for which dates we will want to be assigned to us to deliver the gifts.

Does this sound ok?
 
Ok I am going to start the official Fish Extender sign up list...I will also add names of the last few people that said they might be intrested..please edit your info...
To sign up, hit the quote button and copy this thread...then add your name to the next number spot. This will be the easiest way to capture everyone that want to particpate.

1.Mintee-Brigitte and Brian-DD(7), DD (7)-Cabin #- unassigned
2. Mary Poppins-Jim and Tina-DD (13), DS (11), DS (7)-Cabin # ?
3. RaysinFL-
4.Sailin2010-Laura-DS(8), dd (5) ,dd (almost 3)-Cabin# ?
5.DWJunkie-
6.------- Sharon and Jeff-DS(7), DS(4)-Cabin # ?
 

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