May 10, 2008 Ship of Thieves! Stealing the Magic..AGAIN!!! Panama Canal FL to CA!!! Part 2

[taysmom]

The new website is up and running. If you are part of the top 28 posters to this site, please check your PM messages for address, username and password. In order to protect integrety of the site, please do NOT post this information on this board. PM to to folks if they need it.

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Looks fantastic! Thanks again to you and everyone for being so organized so early! It's making me more excited for this than my med trip!
steph

 

[pjpoohbear]

Thank you and PJ for doing this. Will we be posting photos of our family and a bit of info about who we are and what we do on the website?

Angie, on the faces page, and there will be room for a blurb along with any families who want to submit photos.

Pj

 

[MrsMork]

Are you guys flying out the day of the cruise. That has been my big decision. Take one more day off or fly out on red-eye.

Defiantely fly the day before from the west coast. It will be winter....flight delays....you do NOT want to miss the ship. We will probably fly on Thursday at the latest. I recall Denver being closed for a couple of days this winter and that caused delays all over the place.

 

[pjpoohbear]

Angie, we are sailing in May, sweetie.

adopted DD Pj

 

[taysmom]

Are you guys flying out the day of the cruise. That has been my big decision. Take one more day off or fly out on red-eye.

I have been looking for flights and I can't really find anything from Oak/SF to orlando that gets in decent on saturday. I'm willing to take a red eye, but they all have stops. We should post if we see good deals...what am I saying of course we'll post when we see good deals.
Steph

 

[MrsMork]

I hate to be so dumb, but I will ask this anyway. Why would you want to send a package to the ship ahead of time?

Too much stuff to haul on the plane with us.

 

[mom_of_2_princesses]

Angie, we are sailing in May, sweetie.

adopted DD Pj

I am going to fly the day before. That would just make me to nervous to go in the day of the cruise.

 

[MrsMork]

Angie, we are sailing in May, sweetie.

adopted DD Pj

Duh, Angie! I have two trips, three threads I am trying to keep up with! However, we have also had delays in April and May due to storms in the midwest...Chicago. I am just a paranoid and if it takes 8 hours and 2 flights to get there, I need to be safely tucked into a close by hotel the day before. We even drive to Portland airport the evening before our flight and stay in a hotel there. It is an hour from our house without traffiic, but can take several hours if there is bad weather or an accident. The extra hundred bucks is my insurance that I don't miss an early morning flight.

 

[taysmom]

I hate to be so dumb, but I will ask this anyway. Why would you want to send a package to the ship ahead of time?

Some of us want to scrapbook. So instead of bringing our supplies, we can just send them.
S

 

[clynne]

I am going to fly the day before. That would just make me to nervous to go in the day of the cruise.

We will fly in before, too. Will decide if we want an extra day or two at WDW beforehand. Right now, thinking that 2 weeks on vacation will be enough...

Carolyn

 

[taysmom]

I agree, can't really imagine taking my DD out of school any more than she will be. I've never taken her to WDW, but we'll have to save that for another day. Guess, I'll be planning my next trip to florida for a land/sea! Hope the magic doesn't go somewhere fantastic summer 2009.
s

 

[disneylover5]

Looks fantastic! Thanks again to you and everyone for being so organized so early! It's making me more excited for this than my med trip!
steph

I am on MED July 28th. I started getting more excited about this cruise than the MED......but this morning, I am working on booking hotels over in Barcelona and all of a suddden I can not wait to go......I think they site said it is 167 days till the MED!!!

 

[seaulater]

The fish extenders started on the original Westbound Panama. A lot of the disers who were cruising brought small gifts that were left in the fish extenders. It was also a great place to leave notes, etc. We all called it "fish mail". It proved so popular, we did it again on the 11-night southern caribbean.

Gifts included custom printed M&Ms, pirate tatoos, costume jewelry, a custom printed white board, door magnets, postcards, waterproof lanyards, glow necklaces, etc. For pirate night, one person printed up Letters of Marque for everyone.

It was done completely on a optional basis - we knew that for a lot of families, just coming on the cruise is a stretch financially. But it was a lot of fun - coming up with ideas, delivering them to the extenders, and then discovering surprises throughout the cruise.

Yep, that was the best part. It seemed like everytime you came back to your stateroom there was a new "surprise" in your fish extender. I have a box of goodies with my Panama Canal Cruise stuff. Used some of it in my scrapbook.

The funny thing was my mom got more into it than I did. Everytime we returned to our stateroom she had to look at what I got to see if she got one in her fishmail too. It was pretty funny. One time I got something and she didn't and she was so disappointed, so I gave it to her.

Alot of the little surprises were themed. So on tropical night, someone left a little tropical gift, pirate night a pirate gift and so on.

Of course, as Tony said, it was all voluntary. But it was so fun getting "fish mail" everyday!

 

[calmom]

SFO - Orlando
United has a direct 1:05pm flight on Friday, arriving in at 9:30pm - I think that is what we will do. Kids in school Friday AM, arriving the night before so no worries.

 

[seaulater]

I have been looking for flights and I can't really find anything from Oak/SF to orlando that gets in decent on saturday. I'm willing to take a red eye, but they all have stops. We should post if we see good deals...what am I saying of course we'll post when we see good deals.
Steph

We have taken a red eye out of Las Vegas that stopped in Houston (I think) and got into Orlando around 9 a.m. It leaves Vegas right after midnight, I think (this was a couple of years ago). We did a round trip purchase on Delta from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas and then LAX to Salt Lake City. And then purchased a one way on the other airline.

Go to kayak.com and mess around with different scenarios, although it is too early to book for 2008, but you could do the same days for 2007 and pretend that's when you are going to get an idea

 

[disneylover5]

I went with some good friends to the Pirate & Princess Party this past Thursday. It was fantastic! LOVED IT! Parade and fireworks were amazing.
Can definately see myself doing that again. The 3 of us went with our tiaras and wands, and had a ball.

Do you know SueEllen (DU Agent)? She was at this party as well. I hope she had an awesome time!! I haven't heard from her so after your account, I am thinking they had a great time!!

 

[seaulater]

I really think that those makers of Fish Extenders might, just might be on this cruise already!

They are. However, give them some time and I am sure they will post their plans at some time. I know last time it ended up being alot bigger project than anticipated and I think they are still trying to figure out how to handle it this time.

 

[seaulater]

The website is INCREDIBLE!

Thanks for all your hard work. I emailed a picture over.

It will be fun as time goes on as more and more info is posted!

 

[ibouncetoo]

Hope everyone is having a decent Sat morning.....heading off to MK cool1: ) this afternoon. Have a great day!

Yeah, yeah....rub it in!

Welcome to all the new folks who have shown up in the last couple of days....I wouldn't be surprised if this cruise (and the EB too) have the highest percentage of DIS folks (lurkers too) to 'regular' people

OK...some more pages to catch up on and I'll be back!

 

[mom_of_2_princesses]

SFO - Orlando
United has a direct 1:05pm flight on Friday, arriving in at 9:30pm - I think that is what we will do. Kids in school Friday AM, arriving the night before so no worries.

All the flights I have been able to find leave early in the morning from LAX or are a red-eye so it is looking like the girls are going to have to miss Friday. I refuse to fly another red-eye. We just did in December and it was horrible. My kids slept but others did not.