March 16th, 2013- 7-Night on Disney Fantasy

[Long tressses]

Joanne--

I scrapbook too! I have a Cricut but its an older one that wont work with the computer. I haven't done any scrapbooking in a while but use the cricut alot for science fairs and national history fair!

I bought a lovely scrapbook on the dream.

Yamaharley--that is SO funny! My oldest brother is retired Navy and works for Harley in Milwaukee, he's a regional director for the Harley Stores. I lived in Milwaukee as a child and we were a big Harley family. That's a long time ago tho...

Yep, I think this will be fun. I need a do-over at CC as it was too cold to go too far into the water.

I think my kids are suspicious. I don't think we'll be able to keep this secret too much longer. I'm terrible at that sort of thing.

Paula ...
I got my Cricut about a year ago now and love it. I need new blades again. I would love some time to see what you have created with your Cricut.

We don't have Harley's. Too expensive and my DH thinks you get just as good of a product with other brands. I ride as well. I have the same bike that DH has. It is a 650 V~Star Yamaha. He has the purple one (which should be mine) and I have the all blacked out one (which I prefer the chrome!) But I am happy that I have a bike to ride.

Oh I hope you can keep it a secret for another six months for sure. My DD knows already as we have kept her in the loop as we make the plans. Good luck on keeping a fun secret.
Joanne

 

[carriemp]

I just found out this week that I might get a full week for spring break this year. We normally only get an extra day around Easter. While I teach in a different district than my kiddos and our spring breaks still would not line up, I would take them out of class for the week to switch our cruise from the end of May to March. It would save us around $1000. The school board votes on it Tuesday. Wish me luck.

They pushed back the calendar until the March meeting!!! Arghh

 

[Long tressses]

I just found out this week that I might get a full week for spring break this year. We normally only get an extra day around Easter. While I teach in a different district than my kiddos and our spring breaks still would not line up, I would take them out of class for the week to switch our cruise from the end of May to March. It would save us around $1000. The school board votes on it Tuesday. Wish me luck.

I certainly wish you luck!

 

[GoofTroop]

Elizabeth,
Last year we went to Disney World for the first time and are avid about going back! So we have booked our next visit starting with the cruise on March 16th, 2013. It will be our first and we are all excited. Our group consists of 13! Our family consists of four DH Jim, Myself: Joanne DD 10 (at time of cruise) and DGD 5. We are being joined by two other families So in total we are 13! It is fun to have family and friends go together.

We have heard and read about the FE and want to participate. I don't think I should organize one. I have ideas as to what I will bring with me for the exchange and look forward to participating.

We are from Western. Canada Where are you from?

Looking forward to hearing more from you and others
Joanne

Sorry for such a late response, I haven't been on here for awhile.....We're from Illinois....About an hour south of Chicago.

Elizabeth

 

[GoofTroop]

Hi Elizabeth,
I called the superintendant's office, and they told me the schedule. It might not work for you, but it might be worth a try I buttered them up first, and told them how wonderful they were, then they gave me the dates

I ended up doing the same. They did share the "proposed" schedule with me, and if it stays as they have it scheduled, then it looks like we're "good to go"!

It won't actually be official, or approved, till the end of March.....

Elizabeth

 

[GoofTroop]

We just got off a 3 day Dream cruise and while onboard booked a 7 day western for April and today I changed it to March 16, which happens to be our school spring break! No need to take kids out of school, and it was the same cost!

The 3 day was nice but it was just not enough!

A little about us. I am Paula, my husband is dave. In may we will have been married 25 years. We both graduated from Cocoa Beach High School in 1984. We love all things disney but are not DVC members (I'm too frugal for that!--we almost always stay off property). We're taking a year off from WDW to be able to try Universal and cruising.

DH is Dave, he's 46 also and the Chief Technology Officer for an online learning company.

The kids:

Jessica, DD 15 for the cruise
Madison DD 13 for the cruise
Rachel DD 11 for the cruise

We live in Tallahassee, Florida. I'm a preschool teacher and work part time.

We will probably do the Fish Extender, I will decide later. We have not told the kids yet. Trying to decide if we want to surprise them and when...


Looking forward to getting to know everyone!

My trip report on my 2/2 cruise is on the reports thread if you want to check it out:

First Timers on a Dream Anniversary Cruise

Hi Paula!

My daughter, Jazmine, will be 15 at the time of the cruise as well. As of right now, we are bring her friend, also age 15 with us.....Hoping, either way, she finds a good group of kids to hang out with. Our previous cruise (last month) and our first, she tended to stay with us, and not explore the Vibe much (other than the first night).

I also have 3 boys, ages 19, 12, and 7 (at time of cruise).

Elizabeth

 

[Long tressses]

Sorry for such a late response, I haven't been on here for awhile.....We're from Illinois....About an hour south of Chicago.

Elizabeth

I know that getting to answers these things can take time. Glad you finally got the chance to. Well Elizabeth I hope we get to meet you on the cruise. Do you think you will join in the fun of the Fish Extender exchange? I hope so. I am looking forward to maybe meeting all that participate.Have a great weekend.
Joanne

 

[BeeTeacher]

We don't have any experience with the kids on a cruise. I will have 2 in the teen clubs and I think my 11 can do the Tween Club or the Oceaneers Lab?

What kinds of things are there in the tween club?

I'm not keen on my 11 checking herself out. Is it possible to "deny" her check out privledges or make it so either her parents or her sisters (15 and 13) can check her out? The other two will be told to stick together but I don't want Rachel wandering around the ship alone.

We saw a lot of very young kids just wandering the ship alone, and I'm thinking even though its DISNEY, its still not safe. There have been incidents of sexual abuse in the past so I dont see why parents would not keep a closer eye on their young ones!

 

[melsherard]

We don't have any experience with the kids on a cruise. I will have 2 in the teen clubs and I think my 11 can do the Tween Club or the Oceaneers Lab?

What kinds of things are there in the tween club?

I'm not keen on my 11 checking herself out. Is it possible to "deny" her check out privledges or make it so either her parents or her sisters (15 and 13) can check her out? The other two will be told to stick together but I don't want Rachel wandering around the ship alone.

We saw a lot of very young kids just wandering the ship alone, and I'm thinking even though its DISNEY, its still not safe. There have been incidents of sexual abuse in the past so I dont see why parents would not keep a closer eye on their young ones!

They do not sign in and sign out in the tween club, they just come and go as they wish. They really liked to stay late at the club, and we had them call us when they were ready to leave so we could come walk back to the room with them. We also had them call us whenever they went somewhere with their friends so we would know where they were at.

They play a lot of games in the tween club. I know one time they did a scavenger hunt on the ship. One time, the captain came and hung out with them. They have a blast!

You could let Rachel have one of the wave phones, so she could keep in communication with you

 

[Big Pro]

We just booked this cruise and can't wait. It's going to be a long year! Did the Dream last year and wanted something longer so this was perfect.

We just missed, by minutes near as I can tell, a royal suite and all that was left for us was a port side concierge suite. So if you know anyone with a royal suite or starboard suite, I'd appreciate any advance notice if they might change!!

 

[DMMom]

We are so excited to join in officially. We booked this cruise on opening day and finally got the official school schedule for next year. I guessed right on break week.
This will be our 3rd DCL cruise. It will be DH Kevin, myself Teresa, DD 12 Sydney, and DS 9 Ethan. Plus my parents Jim and Carol. Kevin will be celebrating his birthday on March 18th.
We can't wait to keep chatting and meet on the cruise. We will likely join the FE.

 

[Big Pro]

We booked this cruise on opening day and finally got the official school schedule for next year. I guessed right on break week.

Wish I was as smart as you. I'm actually still guessing about spring break and might still be wrong, but now I also am checking the Disney cruise website 5-6 times a day for the next year hoping for a cancellation of the room we really want (the starboard bump out). Regardless, can't wait. What a great cruise. Funny how something like this has us scrambling a year in advance!

 

[melsherard]

Welcome to all the new families joining us on this cruise!!!!

 

[peterpan47]

Hi Mary! Welcome to the group! I'll get you and Christy added to the Fish Extender list. I don't think we've set up anything official for a meet and greet yet, just the FE list. I'm sure as it gets closer we can all decide what we want to do. So glad to have you both in the group!!

Thanks Shonna,
This will be our third cruise where we participated in the FE activities, but for the others there was just one thread on the DisBoards. I have been checking the other thread for messages because it said it was the FE thread, but now I think that the other one is just for FE sigin up and this one is for chatting. Is that correct? I will subscribe to this thread and come here to chat from now on, now that I understand. Duh!

 

[peterpan47]

Hello Shonna, Sorry it took me so long to reply. I missed this one for some reason ( read it but didn't reply
Any how I would love to meet on the ship or earlier if we are lucky enough.
I have friends that would like to join in the fun! They are in a different cabin than us but we are traveling as a group
The names are Gwen DG (aka Hammah) Joanne (yes another Joanne and we are really good friends) Brian DH, Elizabeth DD 10 and Alex DS 7
I do have another family in our group but I have not heard from them yet. Now this is all assuming that they don't have to be DIS board members before If that is the case let me know and I will work on that
Well I am off. I am making valentine goodie bags for my daughter's class mates.
Hope you are having a good day
Joanne /COLOR]

On the first cruise where we participated in the FE activities my daughter made us T-Shirts with the FE Cruise logo on the back, and we met several people in the group (who recognized the logo) in the hallways and the elevators while we were waiting for ourstaterooms to become available

Will someone be making a logo for this cruise? If I was any good at that kind of thing, I would volunteer, but I don't think anyone would want to identify with a logo that I created :-(

 

[peterpan47]

Welcome to the FE group. This will be a lot of fun. I can tell you have been on a few cruises. This is our first and hope to learn how it is done through you experienced cruisers.

Joanne

Hi Joanne,
Sorry to take so long to respond. I've been looking at the other thread for responses and just realized that is only for signing up for the FE while this thread is to chat on. I'm slow like that sometimes

We took our first cruise in 2008 as a celebration for when I retired, and have not been able to get enough of cruising since then! We wish we would have started cruising much earlier! We would love to take several cruises a year, but we live in New Mexico and the expense of getting to the east coast for some of the more inexpensive cruises makes the cruises not inexpensive at all! If we lived close to Port Canaveral, I think we would be a lot more regular cruisers than we are. We do love Disney, though, and prefer DCL just because it's Disney, I guess

Mary

 

[peterpan47]

Thank you for adding my traveling friends! I know they will enjoy it as much as the rest of the group will. I love the chats.
I have over half of the goodie bags cut and glued together now. I got the last of them cut as well. Took me a bit but once I got the idea of how they are put together it went much faster. We will be visiting our local dollar store to fill them.

Your Valentine's Day box sounds interesting. Are they pictures of machines on them? Wish I could see a picture of it.

Oh I was thinking about how many should be in the exchange and I thought perhaps the cut off could be around 40. Does that sound about right? I don't know much about these as this is our first time on a cruise never mind doing this. Let me know what you think and what others think as well.

Joanne

I think 40 staterooms would be a good number to split in half. We had 23 staterooms on the FE we did in October and about the same in the one we are participating in for the Alaska cruise we will take in May. I think that's probably a good (managable) number. Have others of you had more than that in a FE exchange?

Mary

 

[Long tressses]

Hi Joanne,
Sorry to take so long to respond. I've been looking at the other thread for responses and just realized that is only for signing up for the FE while this thread is to chat on. I'm slow like that sometimes

We took our first cruise in 2008 as a celebration for when I retired, and have not been able to get enough of cruising since then! We wish we would have started cruising much earlier! We would love to take several cruises a year, but we live in New Mexico and the expense of getting to the east coast for some of the more inexpensive cruises makes the cruises not inexpensive at all! If we lived close to Port Canaveral, I think we would be a lot more regular cruisers than we are. We do love Disney, though, and prefer DCL just because it's Disney, I guess

Mary

Mary,
It is wonderful that you are getting some cruises now. I have never been on one but heard how wonderful they are. My parents are going on in a few weeks to Hawaii! I am so excited for them. It is a 14 day cruise.

I am looking forward to meeting up with a whole group of people. I think that the extenders are a great thing and so much fun. I am working on our gifts now and hope to be done in a year lol.

Take care
Joanne

 

[Long tressses]

On the first cruise where we participated in the FE activities my daughter made us T-Shirts with the FE Cruise logo on the back, and we met several people in the group (who recognized the logo) in the hallways and the elevators while we were waiting for ourstaterooms to become available

Will someone be making a logo for this cruise? If I was any good at that kind of thing, I would volunteer, but I don't think anyone would want to identify with a logo that I created :-(

That is really a wonderful idea! I have no idea of how to create a logo or rather not how but what to use as the logo. This is very interesting. Maybe I will look and see what I can find on that just to get an idea or two and go from there. Do you have a picture you could share of these t-shirts?

Joanne

 

[skoch]

Thanks Shonna,
This will be our third cruise where we participated in the FE activities, but for the others there was just one thread on the DisBoards. I have been checking the other thread for messages because it said it was the FE thread, but now I think that the other one is just for FE sigin up and this one is for chatting. Is that correct? I will subscribe to this thread and come here to chat from now on, now that I understand. Duh!

You got it! It's just a little easier to keep the list separate from the discussion thread.