March 22-29, 2008 - Here Before You Know It!

[MN Dis Fans]

We finally got home yesterday afternoon. Wow! What a vacation! Where do I start?

First: It was great to have met all you great people. Some of you we ran into and chatted with more than others. Different dining schedules, itineraries dictated a lot of this I guess. Our DS's had a great time meeting with all the other kids. I'm sure youngest DS "Johnny" knew every kid on the boat by the time we got off. Go figure!

They're not the greatest e-mailers in the world, but they both tell me they want to keep in contact with all the friends they made on the boat! (or is it a ship? )

The FE exchange was really cool! Our DS's loved "the booty" they collected. DW was in charge of dropping all our goodies off, and she tells me that you all are much more creative with your doors / door magnets than what I am! (Oh well, something for me to work on! )

In my defense, I did get many comments from people walking by our rooms, that they thought our door signs were "cool". So, I guess the rest of yours must have been "Way Cool!"

P.S. thanks again to JerseyBelle for making the "Management Decisions" concerning Cruise meet and FE exchanges. You did a fantastic job!

I digress: stellamb Have you tried to figure out what the chances were of running into each other in Epcot? For the rest of you, we ran into Stella and Roy (and mustn't forget the DS, who like my 2x were to busy playing video games to worry about much of anything) in Innovations in Epcot on Sunday. No prior arrangements made!

I think we've decided the only time to go to WDW is "October!" ((Can you say Food & Wine Festival?)) We've now done the spring break / summer (last year), and there were far to many people there for our liking. It wasn't that bad at Epcot on Sunday, but we made a change in plans and decided to do MK last minute on the Monday morning. We've never had to wait (we had to queue to get on the Mono-Rail) just to go to the park before! Mind you, we normally show up for park opening, so were "way behind schedule" for my "Commando Planning!"

Back to Cruise Talk: How many of you re-booked on board / and for when?

Like DisneyMom92, we are booked on the Mexican Riviera early August! This one was booked a Looonnnng time ago, before last Spring Break. At least I can go from full planning mode from this (March) one, to the one in August! Yes! Eldest DS is constantly talking about re-matches in Chess with DisneyMom92's DS. I think they had a great time together. We're also dragging along a few other members of the family, my parents (Grandpa Pete & Grandma Dorothy), and my younger brother (Uncle Tony).

DisneyMom92 Looking forward to catching up with you and the rest of the family in 4 months? Hope they have different beers at the beer tasting!

We also (Re-)booked 2x other cruises on board. For X-mas / New Years (2009 / 2010) back to back 7-nighters! I originally booked these online when they came out early December 07. I re-booked these on board, and they gave me the additional 10% off. It's always been a dream of mine to do b to b's; we'll have to see if I can manager to save enough money between now and then to do them. I'm pretty sure we'll definitely do the X-Mas one! Anyway, I got the (same) 3x SPH rooms in a row for both cruises. By re-booking on aboard, it saved just over 2k. I also learned something new; I was allowed to book the 3rd room for each cruise, in the names (TBA), so will be able to add whomever we want once we decide, who / if anyone wants to go along. (I'll have to see if any of our relatives are nice to us during the next year leading up to cruise time.) If nothing else, you all might find this information usefeul as far as booking TBA rooms on board.

If we don't get any relative takers for either of these cruises, any of you interested in an SPH room over X-mas / New Year's next year?

Here are the threads links, should any of you be interested, and looking for something to do: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1653704
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1653676

Again, great meeting / cruising with you all. No doubt, we'll run into you somewhere here on the Disboards!

Paul

 

[DisneyMom92]

We rebooked online too, but for Spring Break next year again. It's the ideal family vacation, as far as I'm concerned. We see the kids just enough

MN Dis Fans: My ds will need to brush up on his chess skills, he tells me. Apparently your ds is quite good. My ds used to be better but he hasn't played much in 2 years or so. My DS also said that he enjoyed your door decor and they were very "funny," which made them better than mine. We enjoyed the time with you guys as well.

 

[JerseyBelle]

You are welcome about the FE. I was glad to organize it. My dd loved the booty too. You are all making me jealous with the re-booking. We are going to wait a few years. Maybe when the new ships are out and in conjunction with Harry Potter World at Universal Studios. We are going to have some vacations where we see America like Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and maybe Europe like Ireland and England in the next few years. If they take a shop to Europe again, it would be a strong possibility as summers are our normal vacation time and the caribbean in the summer is iffy with storms.

Hope you get a chance to check out my trip report. I am writing it in pieces and trying to be humorous. The link is below.

 

[llp479]

It was great to meet all of you. Being the sicko that I am, I did laundry on the cruise, so all I had to do was unpack and put it in the drawers. Not like we'll be needing any of our shorts anytime soon.

DH has been feeling crummy since we got off the ship with a scratchy throat. He leaves tomorrow for Omaha, so we'll see how he is when he gets back.

We booked Spring Break next year. It's the Eastern with the St Croix stop. I wouldn't have minded doing another Western and maybe getting to see GC this time. Maybe some other time.

Funny thing happened at the sail away party. I ran into neighbors on the cruise! We also recognized a couple of cast members from our Wonder cruise two years ago, so that was nice too.

I've told so many people about Alfred and Seymour. I think those two are going to be very successful. I know my family certainly enjoyed them.

Our best to all of you.

 

[whamma]

One week ago today--Castaway Cay. I swear my tan has already faded!

We didn't rebook on the cruise and I've felt guilty about it since. Oh well, we figure we'll cruise again in a couple of years. Next year we definitely need to use our DVC time at WDW for the first time since we just purchased in Feb.

It was great to meet all of you. Still wishing we'd made it to the meeting earlier on the day we boarded. Oh well. We spent a lot of time with the stellamb's throughout the week and that was great!

All of the FE treasures filled two bags--one for each child. (That's not including the treats!) They're still enjoying them. Thanks again to everyone!

I'm jealous of you rebookers! But only have myself to blame!

Talk to you later!!

 

[stellamb]

Hi
it's been really nice to meet everyone. We haad a great time with everyone that we meet.It 's been a really busy week back my daughter had 2 doctors appointmets . the baby is doing just fine he is 4lb 3oz she has nine weeks to go He is due June 3 2008. So she is keeping me busy.
Thanks especially to for making our frist Disney special and hope we can stay in touch whamma, momdislover, & mn Dis Fans. I don't know how we came to meet in epcot but I think it was faith .
akart I hope your dh is feeling better
Well got to go for now

 

[MN Dis Fans]

JerseyBelle Great submarine picture on your trip report thread. I'm so bummed I missed that. To Cool!

DisneyMom92 Snowing in MN today (More like a blizzard), so eldest DS was whooping up on youngest in Chess. Our eldest tells me that yours did whip him in a couple of games. Both of our DS's used to go to the public library on Saturday mornings. There was a retired gentlemen there that would have a bunch of chess boards set up, and he would play multiple games against various kids, teaching them how to play chess. That was so cool.

stellamb Glad to hear your DW is doing well. Youngest DS has dropped yours a line.

akarts You and the family are in our prayers as well. We wish your DH a speedy recovery. Believe it or not, I believe our DS's are still snacking on goodies collected during the cruise.

momdislover Our youngest DS has dropped yours a line (finally!)

 

[charliez]

All - It was fun meeting all of you on the cruise... especially since I was late to the thread. I really liked the idea of the green Mickey name tags ... I can think of lots of possible uses for that little trick.

I meant to post a cruise report when we got home (as well as write some complimentary letters regarding several members of the outstanding crew), but life and work quickly overtook my good intentions. That said, here's a shout out on behalf of our server, Daniel, who did such an awesome job taking care of us and our wonderful dinner mates, Mike, Audrey and their daughter Leslie from Jacksonville, FL. Also to our cabin steward Calvin, who not only did the standard towel animals for us but also knocked on the door one evening to ask if he could come it to teach our girls how to make them, too. (As well as running to get some anti-seasickness meds for our youngest on that one rocky day. ) Finally, a special commendation to Ahlden, probably the best friend our girls made on board, who made pin buying and trading the most special experience they could ever hope for.

We did rebook to get the discount, but we'll push the reservation forward once or twice, as we don't plan on going again until 2011 for a family reunion.

Next week (Saturday) we head to our DVC home, the Villas at WL, for a wonderful week in the World. Wish us luck admidst the crowds on the 4th!