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

[MN Dis Fans]

DisneyMom92: Our eldest DS will be 2 months shy of his 13th B/Day. Perhaps we can get them hooked up as pen pals and communicating prior to cruise time? PM me if interested.

On our last cruise, our youngest had several pen pals he was e-mailing back and forth ; arranged to meet them on the cruise, and he had a great time, as he already had buddies before he got on board. I felt bad for our eldest, as we couldn't find anyone on the disboard group we cruised with, his age.

llp479: Welcome aboard! I'm hoping to use frequent flier miles for this trip. Checking the NW site daily hoping our dates will open up at standard award miles. Am a little concerned as we'll be flying over Easter Weekend, so am sure there will be very limited seat availability at standard award rates.

 

[gimpeaux]

Alas, we are likely to be "jumping ship," as a nephew/cousin's bar mitzvah in L.A. seems to be set for the Saturday the ship leaves, and no way to reschedule that. Sigh....

Have a great time!

 

[dlf246]

Alas, we are likely to be "jumping ship," as a nephew/cousin's bar mitzvah in L.A. seems to be set for the Saturday the ship leaves, and no way to reschedule that. Sigh....

Have a great time!

Gimpeaux, not you too?! Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the original people from our 3/06 trip are leaving ship except us... Plus I think all the people who posted on this board the first few pages too???

Are you rebooking for different trip??

Now for a darker confession... We have toyed with switching to a Royal Caribbean huge ship (gasp) since we will have a DD18 and DS16 along... for now we are staying with the Magic since we also have a Disney loving DD7...

Hope the Bar Mitzvah goes well and we bump into you sometime in the future!

 

[MN Dis Fans]

This thread sure has gone awfully quiet. Where are you all? We've only got 9 1/2 more months to go!

 

[dlf246]

This thread sure has gone awfully quiet. Where are you all? We've only got 9 1/2 more months to go!

MN Dis Fans: If I'm not mistaken there are far more people on this thread who have jumped ship than are still going! I think the cost due to being over Easter tempts people to do better on other itineraries. We are reliable to stay with 3 kids spring breaks over that week.

 

[brendat22]

We will also be on this cruise. We will be traveling with our twin DD's who are now 16 but will be turning 17 on the first day of the cruise.

 

[gimpeaux]

All right! Due to a change in the bar mitzvah date for our nephew in L.A. to February instead of March, it look as though we are back on for this cruise!



Sorry, just a little excited here....

DW and I are thrilled. Our DD13 (who will be 14 then) would be as well, but we chose not to tell her until the date gets closer -- and because it almost looked as though we weren't going, we're glad we did.

dlf246 - It will be great to see you again.

brendat22, MN Dis Fans, llp479, DisneyMom92, and pop5 -- We look forward to having a terrific time with you, in ONLY 270 DAYS!

 

[MN Dis Fans]

Yahoo - welcome back!

 

[skibum]

Gimpeaux -

Although we will not be able to join you, we have also had a change in plans. We cancelled our Panama repo because it was just not going to work with the kids in school, so a couple of days ago we booked the 07/07/07 11-night Mediterranean Cruise. We are leaving for Europe in 8 days! No time to really plan anything, but figure it will be a great educational experience for the kids. We are planning on a Caribbean cruise for September, 2008.
I am glad that you will still be able to make your cruise!

 

[dvcbrad]

I don't know any of you, but we are considering this cruise ourselves and have a few questions for all of you. We have cruised on DCL twice before and are DVC members, so our questions are not so much regarding the Disney cruise or the Disney experience, but are more related to cruising for Spring Break.

We've always cruised in summer, so we are curious - did the Spring Break cruise if feel like a full ship, or did you get any impression that it was or wasn't? Were there any college Spring Breakers on board? (we don't have any) How about teenagers? (we have two - a 13 DD and a 16 DS) Do you have any idea about whether this cruise books fast or is it slower due to the higer prices - regardless whether using cash or DVC points.

Thanks for any insight. We haven't booked yet, as we are considering Royal Caribbean because of the teenagers, but we're concerned about RC due to college and other young-adult spring breakers that might be on board, the size of their ships, etc. I've read a couple of the other threads regarding DCL vs. RC, too, and get mixed opinions in general.

Thanks

 

[brendat22]

I don't know any of you, but we are considering this cruise ourselves and have a few questions for all of you. We have cruised on DCL twice before and are DVC members, so our questions are not so much regarding the Disney cruise or the Disney experience, but are more related to cruising for Spring Break.

We've always cruised in summer, so we are curious - did the Spring Break cruise if feel like a full ship, or did you get any impression that it was or wasn't? Were there any college Spring Breakers on board? (we don't have any) How about teenagers? (we have two - a 13 DD and a 16 DS) Do you have any idea about whether this cruise books fast or is it slower due to the higer prices - regardless whether using cash or DVC points.

Thanks for any insight. We haven't booked yet, as we are considering Royal Caribbean because of the teenagers, but we're concerned about RC due to college and other young-adult spring breakers that might be on board, the size of their ships, etc. I've read a couple of the other threads regarding DCL vs. RC, too, and get mixed opinions in general.

Thanks

Generally DCL doesn't get many college students, but many teens are usually on board. We have two DD's both 16. Also the fullness of the ship will be similar to in the summer. RCL would generally have more college students on spring break and it probably would be busier as well.

 

[skibum]

We have done the past two spring break cruises, and have not noticed college spring break partiers. If they were there, they were well-behaved.
Spring break is a great time to be on the ship, because the ship is capacity-controlled, as it only holds 2400 people, whether it is high season or low season. Usually the DCL ships sail full, so there is really no difference.
Prices typically rise the closer you get to sail date, so make a ressie now - you can always cancel with no penalty.
I say go for it!

 

[dvcbrad]

Thanks for the responses so far! These help confirm what we were already thinking.

 

[gimpeaux]

dvcbrad - I agree with what brendat22 and skibum have said. Like skibum, we sailed on this cruise during spring break 2006 and I saw no sign of any college-age spring break partiers as you might expect to see on other cruise lines. Given Disney's cost and atmosphere, I'm guessing college-age kids who are looking for a noisy, hard-partying cruise would go elsewhere. There are plenty of teenagers, but they are there as part of a family trip and thus less likely to engage in the sort of activities you may be concerned about. And although the ship was full when we sailed, it almost never felt crowded.

 

[dlf246]

Gimpeaux: So glad you are back. Did you notice the thread limped along while you were gone!! did you get the same rooms as before?

Also, do you remember our exchange in an earlier page about the high fares due to Easter. Well, I checked last month, and the fare is now about 2,000$ more (i.e. 400/person more) than when we re-booked on our March '06 cruise. Glad we booked when we did...

I agree with everyone, that the Magic seems to have an edge on RCI if you want to avoid a crush of college age spring break cruisers (we have done both lines for spring break). Incidentally, we will have a DS16 and DD18, who will be not as happy as our DD7 that we are doing DCL over RCI...

AFter years of reading posts, it seems that most agree that the Magic is "full" nearly all the time, but is designed to function well at full all the time! Hope this helps

 

[brendat22]

I agree with everyone, that the Magic seems to have an edge on RCI if you want to avoid a crush of college age spring break cruisers (we have done both lines for spring break). Incidentally, we will have a DS16 and DD18, who will be not as happy as our DD7 that we are doing DCL over RCI...

The main reason we are doing Disney again other than a RCL is because of my DD's 16 refused to go on anything but disney because the teen area was so much fun. They can't wait untill the cruise, even though it is so far away.

 

[JerseyBelle]

Hi Jen....I'm sorry you won't be with us in '08. Hope you and yours have a fantastic time.

I'm a little disappointed our week came up as another Western, since we did that last time. Still, based on what we saw of Key West last time, I'm inclined, like geffric, to go get some key lime pie and then treat the rest of the day as a sea day onboard.

We are taking the western for the first time on this cruise date. It will be dd10, dh and me. Can you elaborate on the "what we saw in Key west last time" comment.

 

[dlf246]

We are taking the western for the first time on this cruise date. It will be dd10, dh and me. Can you elaborate on the "what we saw in Key west last time" comment.

Jerseybelle: Looking forward to having you and your family on board.
While awaiting gimpeaux's reply, I thought I would give our opin. We have been twice so far.

1st time, DW and DD14 did a bike tour. They enjoyed, but would not repeat. DS12 and I did a snuba dive. We loved it, but actually saw just a few fish and brown "reefs". Since we had not snorkeled yet in Cozumel, we just enjoyed the experience. Now that we're spoiled by Coz we would not repeat.

2nd time, DW, DD16, DS14 froze on a fury excursion snorkel. Again with few fish to see. DD5 and I had fun doing aquarium.

in '08, I hope to take one or both of the teens with me on the hop/hop off vehicle (I cannot keep it straight which is trolley or other. there are two modes. beware of the one that does not let you on and off at stops). This will be followed with the pirate museum. I think DD7 will stay in kid's club, and DW will shop.

Be sure to get the coupons from Shirley (lots of posts how to do this on main DCL board).

 

[JerseyBelle]

Thanks DLF246.

 

[littlebigdog]

We just booked our first cruise and are really excited. There are four of us that will be going, DW, Me, DS(12), DS(6). We'll be on deck six close to the mid elevators.