July 6, 2010 - 7/6/2010 ~ Pounds to Rubles ~ Mickey invades the Baltic Sea

[Deb T.]

Our Christmas tree is going up today, too -- at least assembled (9-foot, pre-lit) but not decorated as I don't want to go up in the attic to get the decorations out. We have plans for nearly every weekend between now and leaving for our holiday cruise so if we don't get the tree assembled today, it won't happen.

Wow - and I thought we were going to have ours up early!

DS is flying in the night before Thankgiving from grad school in Sacramento and staying until early Saturday morning. DD is driving from her home an hour and 45 minutes away that Wednesday, but leaving on Friday to attend a basketball game. So, the only time we can put up and decorate the tree as a family is on Thanksgiving Day. Until our kids left the nest our tradition was always to do this on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and DH still thought that was too early!

 

[tinkerbell_29]

Cindy i tried to put or Christmas tree up today but mom glared at me. I kinda got the hint that if I did I would be in trouble. I really want to decorate though so we can enjoy them before the christmas cruise. Oh well I can smeel my potatoes so they must be done. I'm off to make baked potato soup for diner.

Lissa

 

[CarolAnnC]

We have stacks of gifts wrapped now in the living room, but no tree today. I plan to do that Thanksgiving weekend. Might get up some other decorations like fireplace things before then. John out putting up the outside lights. Little flakes of snow in the air today..and our lawn furniture is still outside, LOL!

We always go for late dining ourselves. DD's are all grown up and we enjoy not rushing back from excursions to dine. We can skip some shows (before dinner) and hit the pool if we want to relax a bit. Just works well for us. I probably would have wanted early dining when the girls were younger though. Glad the dining waitlist is coming thru so early for some of you!

 

[nzdisneymom]

Cindy i tried to put or Christmas tree up today but mom glared at me. I kinda got the hint that if I did I would be in trouble. I really want to decorate though so we can enjoy them before the christmas cruise. Oh well I can smeel my potatoes so they must be done. I'm off to make baked potato soup for diner.

We just bought a 20-lb bag of potatoes at Costco on Friday. We're having mashed potatoes tonight with some beans, and then I'm planning to bake some for later in the week. Lissa, would you PM me your baked potato soup recipe?

I read that several were on the wait list for main dining. We were also on the list. Half of our group (Monstro) was on main and half was on late. DCL told me to keep calling back to check on our progress. I called this week and was told we were already updated to main.

That's fabulous! I wonder if a lot of people have cancelled their reservations already. We prefer main seating because of the boys and because I like to have time to digest before going to bed - and if I want to partake in some of the late-evening snacks/buffets, well, that's better

Tell Nathan that Deb said if he gets stuck on his make-up work to "look it up"!

LOL - I told him. I love having his lessons online as it helps us stay on top of what he needs to do and makes make-up work easier to do.

Wow - and I thought we were going to have ours up early!

Yeah, well for us, we'll be gone the next three weekends which leaves the weekend of Dec. 13th to put it up which is just 6 days before we leave for our Christmas Cruise. And it's too much work to put up/decorate to not get to enjoy it for much time. I got it up today and it's lit -- gotta love pre-lit trees, and it looks great just as it is... but we'll get the decorations on during the week.

 

[nzdisneymom]

We had main dining on the Med Cruise and I know that there was at least one night (maybe more) where they shifted the dining times to start later because of the late returns from the ports. And they were great about if you showed up late to still get you served quickly.

 

[Deb T.]

We have stacks of gifts wrapped now in the living room, but no tree today. I plan to do that Thanksgiving weekend.

Our gifts are bought and wrapped and ready to go under the tree, too! Well, let me clarify that and say that DH, DD, and DS's gifts are bought and wrapped. DH struggles on what to get for me, so I talked him into a long weekend trip to WDW mid-December! It's been three years since we were there at Christmas time and I really miss seeing the decorations, Osborne Lights (loved it better before the stunt show razed Residential Neighborhood), Candlelight Processional, and Illuminations with the holiday ending (makes me cry every time!). I snagged a great DING fare, we're using DVC points for hotel, and both of us have APs so our only other cost will be food. I am SO EXCITED!!!

Today, I'm working on all the gifts we have to mail. Every year we send presents to family in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Arizona, and Texas - 24 people in all! I miss the good 'ole days when we all lived near each other!

 

[ugarxdawg]

We had main dining on the Med Cruise and I know that there was at least one night (maybe more) where they shifted the dining times to start later because of the late returns from the ports. And they were great about if you showed up late to still get you served quickly.

We had late dining on the Med cruise. There were a few nights we did not get to eat until 9pm due to the late main dining. That makes it hard to enjoy midnight pizza.

 

[tinkerbell_29]

We just bought a 20-lb bag of potatoes at Costco on Friday. We're having mashed potatoes tonight with some beans, and then I'm planning to bake some for later in the week. Lissa, would you PM me your baked potato soup recipe?


Cindy the recipe comes out of a Sotuhern living cookbook. I'll be glad to PM it to you. This is actually the first tiem i made it as I usually don't cook but it was great. Even Matt thought so and with him being a chef he cna be picky.

Lissa

 

[denise]

We had main dining on the Med Cruise and I know that there was at least one night (maybe more) where they shifted the dining times to start later because of the late returns from the ports. And they were great about if you showed up late to still get you served quickly.

I think on our cruise there were 2 nights that they made later. All the excursions were back they just shifted the times later. Hated it...they would not seat us either so one night we ate at topsiders instead. We were hungry and couldn't wait any longer. The place was packed with people who couldn't wait.
So glad we are going back to main seating.

It has been in the high 70's all week here. Hit 79 on Friday....very nice indeed...

 

[nzdisneymom]

I think on our cruise there were 2 nights that they made later. All the excursions were back they just shifted the times later. Hated it...they would not seat us either so one night we ate at topsiders instead. We were hungry and couldn't wait any longer. The place was packed with people who couldn't wait.
So glad we are going back to main seating.

We sailed the med just after you all did. Our servers told us that with each Med sailing they had been making adjustments to dining to accomodate guests better based on excursions, times in port, and feedback from the guests. That's one reason we didn't want to take the first Baltic sailing - we wanted DCL to have a chance to work out the kinks. Any time a ship has a new itinerary, you would expect things to not be quite as smoothe as their usual itinerary. I expect that the Med-2010's will go pretty well, and of course the Sea Days for our Baltic, and since we're the third Baltic, I hope that most of the kinks are out

We had thought on the Med that we would end up with more casual dining options, but we ended up eating in the dining rooms every night. We adored our serving team (Andrew and Vivian!) and we were seated at a table for four. We found that dining was a lot more casual than on the regular Caribbean itineraries - or maybe instead of casual I should say relaxed. We had one day when we literally went straight to the dining room after reboarding because of time. But we were so tired that if we had gone to our cabin first, I doubt we'd have done anything but crash

 

[long_time_cruiser]

We actually requested late dining. We don't have small children, so we didn't want to take up any spots from those who prefer main dining.

Same with us...plus we usually eat pretty late anyway so we are just used to it.

 

[tfc3rid]

We are on the late dinner seating... We're just two adults so we'd rather give main seating to those with kids...

 

[sshaw10060]

I had to show my wife this thread to prove I am not the only one already working on Christmas. I like Christmas lights. A LOT! Last weekend I rented a lift to gets the lights on the roof and eaves and I spent this weekend getting the yard decorated. Next weekend will be spent running the wiring and hooking up the computer (yes I said computer) so that a week from Friday Christmas on Pine Street will begin its annual show of lights dancing to the music. We have a website (www.christmasonpinestreet.com) I still need to get some pictures posted, hopefully this week.

Once the outside is done it is time to move on to the inside. My wife and I have a deal. I follow her directions for indoor decorating and she leaves me alone to when it comes to the outside.

- Scott

 

[OurDogCisco]

I think on our cruise there were 2 nights that they made later. All the excursions were back they just shifted the times later. Hated it...they would not seat us either so one night we ate at topsiders instead. We were hungry and couldn't wait any longer. The place was packed with people who couldn't wait.
So glad we are going back to main seating.

It has been in the high 70's all week here. Hit 79 on Friday....very nice indeed...

That's funny because our servers would beg us to come any time. They said it didn't matter what time you showed up. But we had main seating which probably had less diners. Anyways... for the Rome day we didn't eat in the dining room and they were offended. We just spent all day in port and the kids wanted to go swimming so, we just did plutos, etc... My dh did topsiders but they wouldn't let him leave the place with his tray so, when they weren't looking he ran out.

Most of the ports get in time for you to make it to dinner on time. I'd imagine for the Berlin port you really wouldn't be eating dinner that night and either do room service, topsiders or plutos, etc... I thought it worked out well for us and we are normally late diners on regular cruises.

 

[scottishwee35]

Hello

We are taking the late dining on this Cruise as we had been 3 times Cruise with main dining. We give a try for late dining and see how things. We have two kids so they can eat at Pluto or pizza if they want to.

I bought a new xmas lighting bulbs (old fashions) for our xmas tree but we won't put it up until 1 Dec. I cannot wait to see it.

Dollar rates go downhill worst now We are praying for get better rates next year?

Scottishwee35

 

[DadofLostBoys]

so I made one.

and another.

Both should have transparent backgrounds. Please feel free to use them in the banners if you wish.

 

[CarolAnnC]

I had to show my wife this thread to prove I am not the only one already working on Christmas. I like Christmas lights. A LOT! Last weekend I rented a lift to gets the lights on the roof and eaves and I spent this weekend getting the yard decorated. Next weekend will be spent running the wiring and hooking up the computer (yes I said computer) so that a week from Friday Christmas on Pine Street will begin its annual show of lights dancing to the music. We have a website (www.christmasonpinestreet.com) I still need to get some pictures posted, hopefully this week.

Once the outside is done it is time to move on to the inside. My wife and I have a deal. I follow her directions for indoor decorating and she leaves me alone to when it comes to the outside.

- Scott

Wow! Sounds fantastic! I will definitely check out your website later..

Hello

We are taking the late dining on this Cruise as we had been 3 times Cruise with main dining. We give a try for late dining and see how things. We have two kids so they can eat at Pluto or pizza if they want to.

I bought a new xmas lighting bulbs (old fashions) for our xmas tree but we won't put it up until 1 Dec. I cannot wait to see it.

Dollar rates go downhill worst now We are praying for get better rates next year?

Scottishwee35

Yikes, bad for you on the dollar rates, but good for us. I am going to check this out more later on too.

so I made one.

and another.

Both should have transparent backgrounds. Please feel free to use them in the banners if you wish.

Very cute! Thanks so much for sharing..

 

[DadofLostBoys]

Maybe someone could do a better job. I used GIMP to add the Viking Mickey and used the clone tool to wipe out the remnants of the Pirate Mickey. I also could not get it to the right size for our signatures (I tried but either it is too big or too small)

 

[Deb T.]

Maybe someone could do a better job. I used GIMP to add the Viking Mickey and used the clone tool to wipe out the remnants of the Pirate Mickey. I also could not get it to the right size for our signatures (I tried but either it is too big or too small)

LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[denise]

Maybe someone could do a better job. I used GIMP to add the Viking Mickey and used the clone tool to wipe out the remnants of the Pirate Mickey. I also could not get it to the right size for our signatures (I tried but either it is too big or too small)

John,
Looks great! Maybe "Crissup" can help in the size. He helped me when I couldn't get the white boarder to go away.
Have you heard if you got main seating yet for dinner?