June 25 - 28, 2009 Wonder, Early Role Call!

[bobbi565]

Hi All,

We're onboard this sailing!! It's me (43), DH (44), and DS (5), and we'll all be a year older when we sail. Anyone else going to be with us yet?

 

[VMS]

Just booked yesterday -- our first cruise ever. It will be me (48), DH (49), DS (18), DS (15), DD (12). (ages at cruise time) We will be celebrating DS's HS graduation with trip to WDW and the cruise.

 

[bobbi565]

Welcome aboard! I was beginning to feel lonely up here all by myself. Congratulations to your DS, and I hope he has a terrific senior year! This will be our third cruise (as you can see in my signature), and we have LOVED every one, as I'm sure you will. The first, another three night like this one, was just to get our feet wet. After that one, we just HAD to do a seven night, and now we're taking DS, who will be 6, for his first visit to the World. I'm not sure which of us is the most excited.

Where are you staying at WDW? We will be at AKL. It will have been ten years since DH and I did our last trip to WDW, and we stayed at CBR then. I can't wait to see all the animals out our balcony doors and DS's face when we see them.

Do you know where your stateroom is on the cruise? We wil be in 7620. It's one of the reclassified verandah staterooms, originally at Cat. 5 but reclassified to a Cat. 7 because of a slight obstruction from the hull at the corner of the verandah. We had ocean view rooms on deck 2 for our last two cruises because we were nervous about having a verandah with DS being so young!

Anyway, I spent an insane amount of time researching for our last cruise and did all the crazy DIS board stuff (door signs, FE gift exchange, Pirate night costumes, a meet thread meet) that makes your cruise all that much more special. So if you have any questions about anything, feel free to shoot them my way. Planning for a Disney Cruise seems much less intimidating than planning for WDW! My head is spinning with all of the options...

 

[VMS]

bobbi565 I just PM'd you

 

[musicgirl]

Hi everyone, we just booked!! This will be our 5th DCL cruise. It will be myself-45, dh-46, ds-18.

bobbi565-it sounds like we will be in the same area on the ship. We'll be in 7127, it is the same room that we have been in each time.

 

[bobbi565]

Hi musicgirl!

Welcome aboard! It's nice to know there will be at least three families onboard our cruise. I guess you'll be right around the corner from us. Too bad your ds is at the other end of the educational spectrum from our little guy! I suppose you're not too worried about finding time for you and dh to have some adults only time!

Are you guys going to be visiting the World before or after your cruise? We booked a Land/Sea, and it will be ds's first visit to WDW! I'm so excited to see it with him. DH and I haven't been there since 1999! I'll look forward to meeting you guys. Good luck with your room.

 

[musicgirl]

Ours will just be a quick cruise. We've been spoiled and our last 4 cruises have been 7-9 nights. But right now for us this is the best deal around since I'll be cashing in a bunch of disney rewards dollars. I had originally planned to go to a resort and then do Discovery Cove/SeaWorld/Busch Gardens/Aquaadventure (then have an awesome 7-14 consecutive day with the purchase of the DC ticket). But in the long run even without the cost of a hotel, it was still a pretty penny.

So the decision to do a 3 night came around even though it is WAYYYYY too short! But hey, a vacation is a vacation!!

Boy have I missed my smilies!!!!

You'll have a blast with your little guy!! Hopefully he'll have some fun in the clubs so you can escape to the adult areas.....my favorite part of DCL!!! Serenity Bay......my happy place. This time my ds will get to enjoy it although he's always had an awesome time on all of our cruises.

VMS-sounds like we have 2 graduates on our hands!!!!!!

Time to get this thread moving!!!! Come on people there can't be only 3 families going!! Maybe I'll get an upgrade to the Walt Suite!! The last time we cruised DCL, our thread was over 100 pages more. Our Princess thread, well it was I must say quite fun with 16000 posts +++++

 

[disneyfreakmike]

Hello all! My fiance and I will be spending our honeymoon at DW and on the cruise as part of a land/sea package. We both have been to Disney numerous times, but this will be our first time on the cruise! We can't wait! Hope to see you all when we arrive! I think our cabin is 6880, but i'll have to double check! See you all in a few short months!

 

[musicgirl]

Hello all! My fiance and I will be spending our honeymoon at DW and on the cruise as part of a land/sea package. We both have been to Disney numerous times, but this will be our first time on the cruise! We can't wait! Hope to see you all when we arrive! I think our cabin is 6880, but i'll have to double check! See you all in a few short months!

Welcome!!!

You'll love the cruise. We did a land and sea our first time, and we were hooked!!

I noticed some of your trips have been with the band. DH and are are both music/band directors. We've actually taught together for the last 20 years. Our ds-18 has been in our band/music class since 1st grade!!

 

[bobbi565]

Welcome, disneyfreakmike!

Teachers?!? Me too!!! I'm currently teaching middle school Reading, English, and Social Studies at a private school, but I used to be the Drama teacher at a public HS, so I spent a lot of time with the music folk!

We're on the Land/Sea package, too. It'll be our 3rd cruise (you'll LOVE it!), and our first trip to WDW since 1999, DS's first ever! Glad to see more folks on the thread; maybe we'll have a hoppin' crew on this trip after all, although there's nothing wrong with an uncrowded park/ship! Can't wait to meet you all.

 

[musicgirl]

Wouldn't that be cool to have a ship that wasn't crowded??? LOL!!

Somehow, I don't think we'll be that lucky! But I bet there are lots of teachers!!! It always seems like all the teachers run away on a cruise in June!!

 

[musicgirl]

Has anyone looked into excursions? We are probably going to do the catamaran sail and snorkel. It was actually our very first snorkel excursion on our 2nd cruise. We fell in love with snorkeling. We'll probably run to snorkel at CC early and then run and I do mean run to Serenity Bay!!

We're hoping the snorkel trip will stop at Atlantis on the way back. DS -18 wants to gamble for real. He really thinks he can clean them out..... I can't post enough of the laughing smilies on that one!!!

 

[bobbi565]

Hello all! My fiance and I will be spending our honeymoon at DW and on the cruise as part of a land/sea package. We both have been to Disney numerous times, but this will be our first time on the cruise! We can't wait! Hope to see you all when we arrive! I think our cabin is 6880, but i'll have to double check! See you all in a few short months!

Hey disneyfreakmike, forgot to ask where you will be staying at WDW.

Has anyone looked into excursions? We are probably going to do the catamaran sail and snorkel. It was actually our very first snorkel excursion on our 2nd cruise. We fell in love with snorkeling. We'll probably run to snorkel at CC early and then run and I do mean run to Serenity Bay!!

We're hoping the snorkel trip will stop at Atlantis on the way back. DS -18 wants to gamble for real. He really thinks he can clean them out..... I can't post enough of the laughing smilies on that one!!!

I fell in love with snorkeling on our last cruise too! I think I'm going to spend as much time as I can snorkeling on CC, but I think we've pretty much decided to remain onboard in Nassau. We weren't all that impressed with the place last time (although we didn't check out Atlantis or Paradise Island), and we fully expect to be totally exhausted from our four days at WDW. DS is a very good boy, but I know all the sun, stimulation, and activity will have us on our toes with him! I think Friday will just be our day of rest.

Also, can anyone recommend a nice INEXPENSIVE hotel near WDW? We are driving down and will be arriving Saturday evening, so we can get an early start Sunday morning. We need a place to stay, but would like to keep the cost down!

 

[disneyfreakmike]

We really can't wait to go! We have our countdown in full swing now! We haven't looked at any shore excursions yet, but probably will be soon. It's pretty cool how many other teacher and artsy people we have going. That is very cool!
We will be staying at the Polynesian during the land portion. I am sooooo excited. I have always wanted to stay there but could never justify the $$$$!

 

[musicgirl]

Since I'm too lazy to put up a countdown, I'll rely on looking at yours!!!! This is the shortest amount of time that I have had for a countdown. It is usually at least a year. My longest one well over a year.

I guess I don't really have much to do, because we are pretty much set. We're driving down. for the first time. Staying over somewhere along the line, driving to a cheap hotel outside of Port Canaveral. With a quick trip to the port, we'll be arriving bright and early!!!

I just have a few things to do:
book the hotel near PC
pay for the cruise
book our 1 excursion

have lots of fun!!!!

I don't have to worry about flights, or train travel (we did this to NYC last year), or paying for luggage, or overweight luggage or getting dinner ressies of any kind. It should be so simple this time!!!

Well I'm off to search for a cheap hotel!!!

 

[bobbi565]

I've been excited! We rebooked on our last cruise in May, and I came home and posted this thread, so yes, I've been counting down for over a year ! I've been at a pretty high pitch of excitement the whole time , so obviously it's been a little crazy around here.

Since I haven't been to WDW in a decade, I will be very busy planning that end of the trip. As far as the cruise goes, this is our second 3 Night on the Wonder, and we plan on really taking it easy onboard after what I expect will be an exhausting four days at the parks, so there shouldn't be too much planning involved there. I just want to do some snorkeling on CC. I'm angling to convince DH to give me the time to book the seahorse catamaran snorkel adventure while he hangs with DS. Seems fair to me, since neither of them snorkel!

We're driving too! DS was terrified of flying the last two trips and although he now claims to be anxious to fly, we've kind of gotten used to the freedom to pack as we like.

 

[musicgirl]

DH did the catamaran snorkel at CC and really enjoyed it. We all go out ASAP, not to get great spots, but to snorkel before the sand is kicked up and the fish fade away.

We'll be heading for Serenity Bay. Did anyone see the recent thread about the dead seaweed over there and the smell it created? Boy I hope that was a one time thing. I haven't been on the boards recently, but what a big disappointment that would be.

If you can't talk dh into letting you escape at CC, tell him you're going to meet some strange people from the boards and do the Nassau catamaran sail and snorkel!!!

I'm sure as heck ready for CC, it's going to be -4 in the morning (-15 to -25 wind chill). Anyone enjoying the delightful temps????

Oh did I forget to mention, NO SCHOOL,TOO COLD!!!

 

[bobbi565]

No worries! I made a deal with DH: I get to have a couple of hours me time to do the seahorse catamaran snorkel excursion on CC in exchange for a couple of hours of "him" time to play at DisneyQuest during our stay at the Word! Seems like a fair exchange to me..

 

[musicgirl]

Yikes!! We may be changing our plans!! We may have to cancel due to a shift in summer schedules. We'll let you know.

 

[musicgirl]

Well, we did end up canceling the cruise. I think we'll try for a longer one in the near future. With ds going to college and not knowing about his summer schedule, it will be easier this year.

I hope you all enjoy the cruise!!!