January 19,2008 / Eastern Magic / "The January Thaw Cruise"

[love2crooz]

Hey, just another question, do you have to have final paym't made at the 90 day mark before you can make any ressie's?

 

[plenam]

Hey, just another question, do you have to have final paym't made at the 90 day mark before you can make any ressie's?

Yes, for previous cruisers and 75 days out for first time cruisers.....we surprised our boys at Christmas one year about the cruise, the look on their face was sure worth it.

Brett

 

[love2crooz]

Yes, for previous cruisers and 75 days out for first time cruisers.....we surprised our boys at Christmas one year about the cruise, the look on their face was sure worth it.

Brett

I'm so upset!!!!! called our travel agent fri. told her to go ahead & make final paym't, so far it hasn't shown up. I think she waited too late in the day & disney's acct. dept. was already closed. I specifically told her I wanted to make ressies tonight!!!! UGH!!!!!!
thanks for listening,
Mindi

 

[love2crooz]

Yes, for previous cruisers and 75 days out for first time cruisers.....we surprised our boys at Christmas one year about the cruise, the look on their face was sure worth it.

Brett

I'm so upset!!!!! called our travel agent fri. told her to go ahead & make final paym't, so far it hasn't shown up. I think she waited too late in the day & disney's acct. dept. was already closed. I specifically told her I wanted to make ressies tonight!!!! UGH!!!!!!
thanks for listening,
Mindi

 

[Bethipooh4]

Mindi
I am sorry to hear that, hopefully everything will work out and you can get in tomorrow to make your reservations..

Now..speaking of those....

Did everyone who could book get what they were trying for??

We had 3 families together(2 here in my house, 1 on speaker phone from Guam) trying to get ours all together...

hmmm...did anyone else have any problems like we did? We kept getting 3 different red paragraphs of death..lol
One told me I didn't exist, another one told us we didn't enter our birthday and had to call Disney, and yet another told us there was a system problem and to try later.

So finally after a hour and a half, I couldn't make any Palo ressies, but the other 2 families could...I could book our excursions thankfully... All of our cabins are linked, so we could do Palo for everyone. There is a half hour time difference in our brunch, so hopefully we can straighten it out on board.

But when I did get on the first time at midnight, all of the parasailing excusions were gone...oh well....

I hope everyone else was successfull.

 

[missyoh8]

We got almost everything we wanted as far as reservations. I am so bummed that DCL changed the flaw in the system and we can no longer get 2 brunch reservations. It used to be that you could book under 2 different cabins but they fixed the glitch, only 1 time for brunch this cruise.

All of the high tea times are gone....that is really for my MIL so I am not terribly upset about that.

We don't do excursions through DCL so we were good there. We did reserve the bananna boat ride at CC, our kids love that.

We did have trouble last year getting in the system and pulling everything together. I knew ahead of time because I had done a "dry run". I also called the TA last weekend to do final payment and she did not do it. I called back during the week and another agent took care of it while I waited. This is one of the drawbacks of using a TA (actually the only benefit I see is the $$$).

I think more things will open at the 75 day mark so we can get back on then and try and get things that we can't get now.

Have a great week everyone!

 

[plenam]

Are any of you having the same problems as me?? I,m trying to make ressies for Palo and some shore excursions and the DLC website keeps giving me the dreaded red error message.

Called DCL up and was told (after 15 min) there must be a system problem and try later. Hope some of the things we wanted are still left.


Brett

 

[Bethipooh4]

yep yep yep...

All I can tell you is to keep refreshing your page....eventually it should let you in...(ok, eventually for us was an hour )

It was interesting....12:02, a bottle of Banfi in us, and the red message of death...lets say some less then Disney like language was being aimed at the DCL website.

 

[plenam]

It was interesting....12:02, a bottle of Banfi in us, and the red message of death...lets say some less then Disney like language was being aimed at the DCL website.

Brett

 

[plenam]

Well, been trying all afternoon to get Palo reservations, all I get is the red error message and now they are all gone. Needless to say we are not happy campers. Probably go to the TA tomorrow and see what we can do.


Brett

 

[owensjro]

Strange, I was able to get our Palo Brunch this morning when I tried. Got all 3 spa treatments we wanted. We just decided to do a Palo dinner and signed up for that a few minutes ago (5:30pm EST). No errors, nothing. Tons of spots open.

Of course, we are a party of 2 once the wee one is tucked in the club

Jim

 

[plenam]

Here's the red error message I get when I try to give guest information.... Sorry there's been an error. Please update the information below in order to proceed.

There are no longer cruises available based on your party size. (-45012)

Go figure.....There will be phone calls tomorrow!

Brett

 

[love2crooz]

Logged on at 8am today just to see if my final paym't maybe went through, and, WOW!!!! I could make ressies. SO EXCITED!!!!!! Had no trouble making the spa and palo, but the St. Thomas sky ride up the mountain was all reserved (boohoo) and the parasailing at cc was all reserved. Got the exact palo and tea and spa we wanted no troubles with website whatsoever. Have a great night!!!
Mindi

 

[Bethipooh4]

Mindi,

From what I have read in the passporter, the St Thomas sky ride is very easy to do on your own. You can walk from the pier(about 10-15 minutes according to my passporter) or take a taxi to the tramway if we tender in. It says you can see it from the pier. It seems the price is the same if you did it on your own or booked through Disney.

Hope this helps..our group is planning on doing it ourselves.

 

[love2crooz]

Bethipooh4,

Thanks so much for the tip, my dh will be so glad to hear this. I thought maybe they might open up more ressies for that at the 75 day mark, not sure how all that works for disney and the passengers that can't book until 75days out. Kind of not fair to them to not have a chance to book something they want. Thanks again for the tip we will definately look into it.

Mindi

 

[chepic]

Mindi
I am sorry to hear that, hopefully everything will work out and you can get in tomorrow to make your reservations..

Now..speaking of those....

Did everyone who could book get what they were trying for??

We had 3 families together(2 here in my house, 1 on speaker phone from Guam) trying to get ours all together...

hmmm...did anyone else have any problems like we did? We kept getting 3 different red paragraphs of death..lol
One told me I didn't exist, another one told us we didn't enter our birthday and had to call Disney, and yet another told us there was a system problem and to try later.

So finally after a hour and a half, I couldn't make any Palo ressies, but the other 2 families could...I could book our excursions thankfully... All of our cabins are linked, so we could do Palo for everyone. There is a half hour time difference in our brunch, so hopefully we can straighten it out on board.

Beth, even tho we are all linked, I couldn't book everyone at Palo. I had to e-mail Kathy at the Disney Weddings so that she could help. I was told that I couldn't book that until their final payment was made.

Other than that, we got the things we wanted.

che

 

[owensamo]

We got pretty much everything we wanted at 7:30am at 7:30... Then around 5 we decided we wanted a couple of other things, and managed to book those too! So now we're set for the Spa (manicure & pedicure for me, massage for Jim), Palo (brunch and dinner), and St. Thomas (butterfly farm), and Hannah's signed up for the club.

All that's really left is St. Maarten, and maybe Castaway Cay - but we'll probably wing it there, and at most just do a bike rental. I think Jim's working on a non-DVC tour for St. Maarten, but he's planning it so I'm happy to let him! We're going to WDW in less than a month - that's more then enough to take up my planning time!

Amanda

 

[owensjro]

Thank you for the wonderful lead-in there honey.....

Speaking of St. Martin's....we are looking at doing one of the island tours offered by some independent groups. Basically they take you on a tour of the island, shopping, and to a beach for a couple of hours. They seem to run between $30 - $40 per person.

Is anyone interested in teaming up for one of these? The sites I have found are:

www.norushtours.com
www.sxmtours.com
www.bernardstours.com

All of these come highly recommended by folks on the cruise critic bboards.

If you are interested in grouping together let me know. It's just myself, my wife, and our 5 year old daughter.

Jim

 

[tidefan]

Bethipooh4,

Thanks so much for the tip, my dh will be so glad to hear this. I thought maybe they might open up more ressies for that at the 75 day mark, not sure how all that works for disney and the passengers that can't book until 75days out. Kind of not fair to them to not have a chance to book something they want. Thanks again for the tip we will definately look into it.

Mindi

Count us in as one of those groups that can't book anything until 75 days out. If Palo is already booked up, do first time cruisers ever get to try it out? It would be a bit of a bummer not to be able to even get to try it because this is our first DCL cruise...

 

[Bethipooh4]

I have been told that more will open up at the 75 day mark. Plus keep checking before then, some cancelations will open up from time to time also.
But I would definately be online at midnight eastern at the 75 day mark.

I do know when we tried to get online before the red message of death, ALL the parasailing were gone already.

If there is nothing available, once you get onboard, I know there is a spot set up in one of the clubs where you can go to see if there are any spots open at Palo, or to put yourself on the waiting list. I know we will be in that line trying to get our 2 reservations put together for brunch. We are within a half hour of each other, so hopefully there won't be a problem.


Brett...did you have any luck with your phone calls?