May 12, 2007 -- Taking the Magic to the Mediterranean -- 14 day Repo Cruise! Part 2

[DizzneyDAnn]

Erik, I was gonna let you keep Jason on the side! I'll just have to be satisfied with Johnny and Orlando! It would be an open marriage...oops forgot about my Scott ...darn. It won't work after all! Hmm. Plan B...do you hire out????

 

[Hoagie Pie]

I love everyone's enthusiasm, and I might be the bad guy here, but the comment about the printer is great, but we are all on vacation and set to have the time of our lives. I don' t think anyone wants to be on a "schedule" or be somewhere typing a naviagtor. Now, I could be wrong and if I am, I apologize ahead of time. I just want everyone to have a great time and not worry about getting things done and who has to be where. It is to much like work - agree - disagree?

 

[Hoagie Pie]

It's active military only - bummer, cuz I know my dad would have taken advantage of it too.

Welcome cupcake's mom!

Hoagiepie: I'm surprised that USair was a good rate. My SIL and BIL work for them and every time we try to use them they are about $3000 more per ticket than anyone else.

Well, we paid $1,800 for a direct flight from Barcelona to Newark. I am going to check around on other airlines because of what other people have written. We are spending a couple days in NYC so I have a certain airport I need to fly into. USAir had a 12:10 flight into Philly which sounded good and that is what my dad and MIL is taking.

 

[padalyn]

Erik - you put a lesbian to shame here. I can't say as I have ever tackled making a tie!! I did make a set of Mickey tuxes for the three of us for the Not So Scary party...we were quite the hit I might add.

I like the dissection part...They all sound wonderful...too bad we are at early seating (we found on the Panama cruise that the late seating gave us all upset tummies!)

Tax time is near - no more planning for me for a couple of days. So, I am falling off the boards for the next day or two to tackle the hated task.

See you all on Sunday or Monday!!

 

[NHdisneylover]

Well then I hope it gets to us BEFORE the trip.

DCL apparently informed our TA yesterday that they are not going to send our cruise materials to her in time to send them to us before we leave for Florida (they would have to get to her by April 28 or 29 so she coudl turn around and send them to us to be sure that we got them before we left Rochester on May 4th)....so they're sending all our cruise documents and luggage tags and stuff directly to Animal Kingdom Lodge where we have to pick them up.


Erik

Erik--Don't fret about this. We had to have them delivered to our resort once and it went very smoothly.
As far the surprise goes--I figure if it shows up AFTER the trip, it will just be a nice reminder of the good times we had.

 

[NHdisneylover]

Erik - you put a lesbian to shame here. I can't say as I have ever tackled making a tie!! I did make a set of Mickey tuxes for the three of us for the Not So Scary party...we were quite the hit I might add.

I like the dissection part...They all sound wonderful...too bad we are at early seating (we found on the Panama cruise that the late seating gave us all upset tummies!)

Tax time is near - no more planning for me for a couple of days. So, I am falling off the boards for the next day or two to tackle the hated task.

See you all on Sunday or Monday!!

Awesome Mickey tuxes The three blind mice theme is such a great touch.You should bring that for formal night

 

[Michelle2]

ACTUALLY....I really DID make one of our sets of ties. Because ties are for men all the Disney ties mainly have the male Disney characters on them...or are very masculine....and I wanted us to be very equal opportunity...so I really looked and looked for some ties with Tink or the princesses on them (in my fantasy world I would love to have found a beautiful tie that had Ariel swimming right up the entire length of the front of it!!!)....but I couldn't find any....and then I found this fun satin-look Tinkerbell fabric...so I bought the fabric and then went to a thrift store I bought an old ugly tie for 50 cents and dissected it to make my own pattern ......and VOILA!! We now have beautiful matching Tinkerbell Ties!!! Just wait til you see them...I'm particularly proud of them!


Erik

I SOO want to see these ties (especially the ones that you made from scratch---Tinkerbelle). We are on the early rotation though....any chance of us seeing them besides dinner time?

Oh, and we received our "surprise" today!

 

[hksilverfox]

Hi everyone! I have finally managaded to catch up! 300 plus pages and it has taken more nights than I care to admit but now I feel like I know many of you very well! I started back at the beginning and it has been great fun seeing the excitement of the early booking days, the euphoria of some people with "one year to go " and the relentless countdown! Having cruised many times before I am so excited - I never knew that this kiind of site existed! It is really adding to the adventure. A bit of bio for you - we (DW, DD and myself) live in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada. This will be our first Disney cruise and we are doing it for our 25th wedding anniversary (May15th) and our DD's 14th birthday (May 22nd). It is a complete surprise to both of the girls but I am not sure if I will be able to keep it that way much longer without blurting something out. We will see!
I have tried to make contact by pm about the bracelets but cannot get it to go through but we would like 2 adults and 1 youth if you dont mind.

DW and I will gladly participate in the secret santa! Let us know more!

DD will be 14 and I would like to put her in the kids gifts!

We have not received our secret gift or our air program - we did the disney fly/cruise.

We enjoy getting involved - euchre or whatever. Will even join Erik dancing with the kids if necessary!

We were on the ship on the video where the waves were braking over the observation deck ( over 80 feet). It was Legend of the Seas across the Tasman sea! Looking forward to a smoother trip this time!

I am so happy to have caught up to the pack and did not realize I had read over 5000 posts ( give or take a few!) The excitement is contagious!!!!!

I am sure I will have lots of questions but enough for now!
Regards to all,
Greg

 

[Scott H]

The way I got it figured, using a constant speed leaving Castaway Cay, we should hit the mid Atlantic point about 1 am on the 17th. But then you figure that DCL will leave at top speed to allow a little room for error at the Canary Islands, so maybe the late afternoon or evening of the 16th would be more likely.

Everyone have a great weekend.

Good Calculation , Bob, I think we will have to get the info from a crew member to be most accurate. Maybe DCL will toss a party after they haev read the idea here things like that have happened before.

In the old days it was called the "point of no return" kinda like the John Wayne Movie the High and the Mighty. I love walking through an airport whistling the theme song, not many folks get it

 

[Scott H]

Erik, the ties sound KEWL!!! now there is a side business for ya. I would lave to have a Disney tie made to order with the character I wanted.

Get to go home today, I hope no travel till the week before the cruise, and it looks like that will be to Chicago.

Weather is calling for rain and snow for this weekend so maybe a packing day will be in order.

Time to get to the airport.....Later Kids

 

[NoWorriesMate]

i had no idea you could get the paper work deliverd to your respost.
we have no street address postal here so DCL said they would courier everything and it should arrive by the end of April - which is paniking us a bit as we leave here at midnight on the 3rd of May...

oh well we live in hope.

needless to say no surprises have arrived here but i don't actually expect them to (ever).

we really do seem to be filling up a bit - but if you check the DCL site there are still so many room choices available in each category we should all still have plenty of space.


michelle

 

[NHdisneylover]

Greg--I am impressed you have managed to read all of the posts I never did make it through ALL of the ones that were there from before we joined. You should be able to send a PM soon (requires having made a minimum number of posts--I was thinking hte number may be 5, in which case it should work for you now). Just in case Elizabeth does not see your post before she orders the braceletts today I'll send over a PM with your info.

Erik--I am visualizing you and Jason exiting the theatre after the early show and being mobbed by papparrazzi style early DIS diners trying to get a prized glimpse of your ties.

 

[cquick]

We were on the ship on the video where the waves were braking over the observation deck ( over 80 feet). It was Legend of the Seas across the Tasman sea! Looking forward to a smoother trip this time!

I am so happy to have caught up to the pack and did not realize I had read over 5000 posts ( give or take a few!) The excitement is contagious!!!!!

I am sure I will have lots of questions but enough for now!
Regards to all,
Greg

WELCOME!!!! It'll be great to have such veteran cruisers on the ship! Especially if the waves get high! We'lljust bunk in your stateroom for companionship!

 

[cquick]

What WONDERFUL outfits! I think we saw you at MNSCHP. I think it would be great if you wore them on the cruise! AT least one night!

 

[tazzmacd]

Erik--I am visualizing you and Jason exiting the theatre after the early show and being mobbed by papparrazzi style early DIS diners trying to get a prized glimpse of your ties.

And I can see Erik loving every minute of it!!

Greg, Welcome aboard and yes it is 5 postes before you can PM

Cheers!!

Pat

 

[Scott H]

Greg, Welcome abaord!!!!

 

[Kissimmee]

Good Calculation , Bob, I think we will have to get the info from a crew member to be most accurate. Maybe DCL will toss a party after they have read the idea here things like that have happened before.

In the old days it was called the "point of no return" kinda like the John Wayne Movie the High and the Mighty. I love walking through an airport whistling the theme song, not many folks get it

How accurate do we need this to be? A ten second count down sort of thing? Mid point between where? Port Canaveral and Cadiz? or Cast Away Cay and Tenerife? I think the latter makes most sense if you think of the actual crossing as the 6 1/2 day trip between the last western land fall and the first eastern one.

The ship might not follow a true great circle due to shipping lane and or weather issues so the only real way to do this would be to decide on start and end points and then calculate the GCR distance to each of those from your current position and when the distances become equal you are half way. As we get close we would need a laptop and a GPS receiver to pull this off.

Maybe as you said we should put the bug in Disney's ear (if you haven't already) to plan a mid point bash. (what if it is at 4 AM?)

I do have a Delorme GPS/usb receiver that is very small and with a bit of programming I think I could make it do a mid point count down.

Sounds like a good use for the Jumbo Tron. A mid point count down clock on a scroll at the bottom of the screen.

Let me know what we want to use as the starting and ending points and I will experiment...

 

[milestogo]

Goodmorning all and welcome Greg and his secret family... do give them time enough to prepare. The preparation is what is killing everyone with how much there is to plan.

I've been trying to keep track of our special events during this cruise. Will everyone check this list and fill in the blanks that I may have missed.

cupcake May 21 is our 16th

roserae Ours is May 22nd. 15th wedding anniversary

elderfam
May is our anniversary month as well! May 2 will be 14 amazing years! Hoping for 50 more of the same! OOPs There having a baby instead!!!

hksilverfox
This will be our first Disney cruise and we are doing it for our 25th wedding anniversary (May15th) and our DD's 14th birthday (May 22nd). GREG

Milestogo: anniversary May 27 (we’ll be on the 11 night)

 

[milestogo]

Hoagiepie: do check for better rates. We got India air out of Paris for $360 pp into Newark. And most of the rates I checked into Newark from BCN were $560 pp. Was $1800 pp or the whole group?

did everyone see that cruise ship in Greece that hit rocks? They said they didn't even get their passports or wallets. Scary getting home. :scared1

Hey Linda must be on her cruise today!

 

[AuntyBrat]

My new Conde Nast Traveler had a very timely piece on the Value Added Tax refund forms that you can apply for with Global Refund at the airport after you clear customs.

1 - Global Refund is at the Barcelona Airport so they will handle your refunds
2 - When you fill out the form there is a refund number that appears under the bar code at the top right-hand corner of Global Refund's form
3 - Right this number down and keep it somewhere safe
4 - If you refund goes missing that number is the ONLY way to track it!!
5 - Since the VAT can be 15-25% on top of your purchase price and we appear to have some professional and semi-professional shoppers on board, this could add up to a healthy bit of money!!
6 - You MUST keep all your receipts and present them to get your refund

Hope this was helpful for everyone!!!