June 9, 2012 Fantasy

[helenb]

We started Aug 24 and finish June 8. Next year they're moving that forward by a week: start just a couple of days before the end of August, but don't get out until something like June 14.

 

[jenedpey]

You'll all be jealous here ... last day of school is May 22!! Of course we started early - Aug. 16. Can't wait!!

 

[joius24]

SILLY, that's one thing I love about California - so much to see in our own state! It sounds like you have a wonderful trip planned! I'll be down in your area in July, stopping over for a few nights as we make our way to Comic Con.

Joius, that's a lot of Palo! You must really like it! We've never been, because we enjoy the main restaurants so much, we can't imagine not going! Well, the Pirates Night menu doesn't thrill me, but the kids would be upset if we missed that one.

Helen....I dont miss the other stuff , I book the evening palo meal at 8 PM and I am on the 5:45 seating rotation. So I go and keep my DS company and participate in any dining festivities there and sometimes nosh on an appetizer too LOL.....then off to Palo for my most excellent meal

Brunch is mid morning and DS is usually still sleeping LOL or off ot the teen club
and high tea is mid morning , so I am not missing anything AND I get to eat yummy palo food too!

I also go to the Gym at least 4 or 5 times while on the ship....gotte work some of this food off !

Comic con Cool! DS Likes you already

 

[helenb]

Helen....I dont miss the other stuff , I book the evening palo meal at 8 PM and I am on the 5:45 seating rotation. So I go and keep my DS company and participate in any dining festivities there and sometimes nosh on an appetizer too LOL.....then off to Palo for my most excellent meal

I can't 'just keep someone company' in the restaurant... I'd be eating 2 dinners! Besides, if you go to early seating dinner and then Palo afterward, don't you miss the show?

I also go to the Gym at least 4 or 5 times while on the ship....gotta work some of this food off !

Ugh, gym... I stay away from those as much as I can! We take the stairs on the cruise though (hate waiting for elevators, so we're always rushing up and down the stairs). Plus after the cruise we're going to go on my favorite exercise plan ever: a trip to WDW! Even eating theme park food, running around at WDW (or any theme park) really strips the pounds off of me.

Comic con Cool! DS Likes you already

I go every year! This year the whole family is going. Uh, we like to dress up in costumes too.

 

[chinarider]

okay, so I have to post here because my daughter is on the facebook list....and she would be extremely embarrassed for me sharing this......
Unexpectedly, I had to have surgery 10 days ago.. Nothing serious but had to have my gall bladder removed....now I'm just hoping my system can adjust so I am not extremely limited on the foods that I can eat on the cruise ( or at Disneyworld the week before ). I tried to wait until after the vacation however, based on the dr and surgeons recomendations, it needed to be done as soon as possible. I also was overly concerned about a possible serious medical issue when on the trip.. And back to the school year subject.... they changed ours for next year and school starts on Aug 2nd!!!(a week earlier than last year and 2 weeks earlier than before ). They are giving them bigger breaks throughout the year now. I had push our Vegas week up because we were going to leave on Aug 2nd

 

[helenb]

Chinarider I hope you are recovering well from your surgery. How long will it take before you are comfortable eating? There are nearly 2 months until we leave, so it seems as if that should be sufficient time to 'get back to your old habit'? Of course, I'm not familiar with your surgery, so perhaps the recovery time is longer than I would think.

August 2? Really? So they're in school for all of August? Wow!

 

[MelissaE1]

okay, so I have to post here because my daughter is on the facebook list....and she would be extremely embarrassed for me sharing this......

The problems with social media and your kids being connected to it, lol. I hope you are feeling OK! Hopefully everything settles back to normal quickly and by the cruise you won't have any residual effects.

As far as school here, we used to have it where we started mid-August and got out around May 22nd. At first I thought it was weird because we went Sept to June when I was a kid, but I ended up loving it because we could go to WDW right when school got out for great rates. Unfortunately the start date got earlier and earlier until we were going the first week of Aug. Then they passed some sort of weird tourism related law that says we can't start earlier than two weeks before labor day, so we don't get out until around June 7th or so now.

My DS is the one who has it good... he dual enrolls at a local university, so even though he doesn't graduate officially until June 2nd, he is done with school at the end of this month. He's pretty happy about that. DD on the regular schedule, not so much.

 

[joius24]

Chinarider....sending pixie dust your way for a speedy recovery

Helen...my bad, I schedule palo for 7PM.- not 8 ...so I spend an hour and 15 min with the boy...then go eat Palo and make the show ! LOL

I finished a big part of my FE's yesterday! Yay!

So soon yet so far!

 

[helenb]

Helen...my bad, I schedule palo for 7PM.- not 8 ...so I spend an hour and 15 min with the boy...then go eat Palo and make the show ! LOL

An hour and 15 minutes is still enough time for me to have a second dinner!

I finished a big part of my FE's yesterday! Yay!

That's so great! I have to admit, I'm buying ours... I am just not crafty at all! With everyone talking about making FE gifts, I hope I'm not the only one...

 

[chinarider]

THanks for all the well wishes. I think it will just be trial and error with what my stomach will accept for a bit. Trying to take it easy and not shock the system. I'm also hoping that it will help with the weight loss that I was trying to obtain before the trip.

 

[SJCruiser]

Do any of you who spend time on the FB meet page know if there is anything being proposed for a DIS get together at one of the alcohol tasting events on board? We did the tequila one on our MR and that was a fun way to get together after the DIS meet on the first day. The champagne tasting also sounds fun.

 

[MelissaE1]

That's so great! I have to admit, I'm buying ours... I am just not crafty at all! With everyone talking about making FE gifts, I hope I'm not the only one...

You definitely won't be the only one. I'll be buying at least part of ours. I have one simple crafty idea that I'd like to make, but it depends on time. In the two weeks before our cruise I have DD's soccer tournament at Disney (about 7 hours from us), DS' graduation, his 18th bday celebration, and back to Orlando for college orientation. My poor ADD brain doesn't know what hit it lately.

 

[MelissaE1]

Do any of you who spend time on the FB meet page know if there is anything being proposed for a DIS get together at one of the alcohol tasting events on board? We did the tequila one on our MR and that was a fun way to get together after the DIS meet on the first day. The champagne tasting also sounds fun.

I haven't seen anything about that. I'm probably in the minority, but the champagne one sounds fun. Sick on tequila once and sick of tequila for life.

We're still working on the regular meet up. Pretty sure it will be 3:00 on boarding day, but we haven't decided what location. The best options to me seem to be either on one side of the deck right above the pool (pros are it works very well for mingling and has a great view, cons are it might be quite hot) or inside at the "D Lounge" (pros are no weather worries and a stage to take a pic on, cons are might be less conducive to mingling because of small seating arrangements.)

I'll post something on FB today to see what people's opinions are over there, and anyone who wants to comment here please do so! I'll even post a thread on the DIS to see if anyone has any good insight. Hopefully none of the current crop of boogers will show up on the thread.

 

[helenb]

Does anyone know what time the safety drill is? The gathering might run into that if it is at 3 pm.

Isn't the first full day a sea day? Why not have it at 10 am on that day? That's what I've usually seen for other cruise line gatherings. Also, can't you request a room/lounge from DCL to use for the gathering? Again, other cruise lines I've sailed on will usually do this if you contact them in advance.

 

[MelissaE1]

Does anyone know what time the safety drill is? The gathering might run into that if it is at 3 pm.

Isn't the first full day a sea day? Why not have it at 10 am on that day? That's what I've usually seen for other cruise line gatherings. Also, can't you request a room/lounge from DCL to use for the gathering? Again, other cruise lines I've sailed on will usually do this if you contact them in advance.

The drill is traditionally at 4:00. I think I saw where they had done it at 3:45 on the Fantasy MV, but with no trip back to the cabin for life vests that's probably OK. Or we could move it up 15 minutes. Over the years on the DIS people just seem to have the best luck with that general time frame.

The problem with doing the first meet on the first sea day is that people invariably find something else in the navigators that looks interesting and you lose quite a bit of your group. We've never made it to those and have heard they are not attended as well. Some people will set up additional meets like that though, which could be an idea. Then people could have a choice of what works best for them.

I don't think Disney does the advance set up thing, although I've heard of one group requesting space when they got onboard and getting a meeting room. Their ships aren't as set up for that as other lines, there aren't really any options for reserved space.

Pretty much just going with what has worked best for the ones we've attended and the general knowledge from the DIS boards, but we can change it if our group wants to.

 

[helenb]

Fair enough. It's been a long time since I've sailed Disney. I'm just going with what has worked for the Cruise Critic group meets I've been a part of on Princess, Celebrity, RCCL and HAL. Those lines usually go all out to host a meet, especially if you get a minimum number of people signed up. They'll provide a room, refreshments, a host, and officers usually appear for meet & greet... I'm surprised Disney doesn't do something similar.

 

[MelissaE1]

I've noticed on Cruise Critic that they are a big event. There's seems to be a disconnect between other lines and DCL on this, not sure why. They definitely work differently, though.

We didn't go to the one on our Oasis cruise because the whole meet thread was populated by a big group of people who already knew each other and had cruised together multiple times before. They had no kids and were pretty much all about seeing how much they could drink at each location (and in between). Not saying there's anything wrong with that, I just didn't really fit in. If I want to drink myself silly on the water for a week I can go to the local pier bar for a lot cheaper!

 

[helenb]

I'm not a drinker either, so I can see why you weren't interested in that one!

I can see why DCL isn't very big on setting up Cruise Critic meets. The DCL boards and roll calls there are very quiet, as compared to here. That was why I was so excited to join the roll call here, and then so disappointed when I discovered that the chatter was all on Facebook. I'm so used to active roll calls on Cruise Critic, which make a huge difference!

On our last cruise (Celebrity) I was actually 'hosting' the Cruise Critic get-together because I was the person who started the roll call thread for that cruise. It was so easy, and so much fun... not sure why Disney can't do something similar if enough people commit. For Celebrity, you have to get everyone on the roll call to sign up on Celebrity's website, and if it reaches a certain number (80 people, I think?) then Celebrity will host the gathering.

Anyhow... DCL is a different line, so it will be a different experience! I'm sure whenever/wherever the gathering is, it will be fun!

 

[chinarider]

just count me in and keep me posted. I think I'm pretty flexible

 

[joius24]

I've noticed on Cruise Critic that they are a big event. There's seems to be a disconnect between other lines and DCL on this, not sure why. They definitely work differently, though.

We didn't go to the one on our Oasis cruise because the whole meet thread was populated by a big group of people who already knew each other and had cruised together multiple times before. They had no kids and were pretty much all about seeing how much they could drink at each location (and in between). Not saying there's anything wrong with that, I just didn't really fit in. If I want to drink myself silly on the water for a week I can go to the local pier bar for a lot cheaper!

Melissa ...I am thinking the inside place (dbar?) just because people will be trying to get their "place" for the sail away party and the meet would not be as private? But if that is not the issue.... I'd say ok. I am also really okay with what the largest # decides.

And I am also with you, not much of a cruise drinker either....prefer to spend my money on massages and excursions! and I can make a fool of myself (sing out loud /dance etc..) completely sober