May 13.2006 Eastern

[hooksenemy]

Our first time, we wanted Palo also, we didn't even really have many specific dates/times we tried and they wouldn't let up book a party of 2 - they had tables for 4 or 7 or larger but not for 2! I found it funny that an adult only would not have more tables for "2" but had I known then what I know now, I should have requested a table for 4 when I got onboard (basicly lied) and then shown up with just the 2 of us and say the other party cancelled!

Now I know it isn't right to lie but come on - who would think that being approx. 20th in line at the Palo reservation table you wouldn't get any opportunity for dinner on the 7 day Western for dinner (we didn't want brunch) - you know who would think this "the 1st timers" Back then, there was no online booking! You can't tell me that there were that many concierge level guests to fill every table for 2 for the 7 nights!

NOW- I would tell anyone today on the DIS to do exactly what we did - get there ASAP after boarding - however i would encourage embellishing the truth about the number in your party - tables for 2 are obviously tough to get

Good Luck with Palo - I am lucky I booked brunch and dinner for this trip no problem

 

[fairyG]

Oh boy, now I'm concerned that we will not get a Palo reservation as first timers. I will have to see what is available on the 27th at midnight and if nothing, book when we get on board. I'm not as concerned about the ressies for the excursions, but I really want to eat at Palo!!

I agree, my DD & SIL will be celebrating their 10th anniversay and we will be celebrating our 45 th. I thought we would each go at a different time so we would be able to watch our DGD ages 4 & 7. It looks like it may be easier to get the res.for 4 as I read the boards. We are still trying to get an early dinner seating. Nothing is going the way we would have wanted it. But we are all still very anxious for our first DC.

 

[DrCavin]

Oh boy, now I'm concerned that we will not get a Palo reservation as first timers. I will have to see what is available on the 27th at midnight and if nothing, book when we get on board. I'm not as concerned about the ressies for the excursions, but I really want to eat at Palo!!

TSirgey & FairyG - You can begin making reservations on 2/27/06 at 3:00 am EST. If I could I would go & look to see what currently is available, but since we booked it wont show us what is open anymore. They only allow one dinner/brunch per stateroom to book online.

Last time we went you had to book everything on-board. It was called the "RessieRush" It wasn't as bad as people said it was going to be. We were about the 100th to board & went right over to the Palo area & they had a sign with days/times available. There were many left when we got there. Brunch is the tougher one to get because it is available less days.

Good luck & let us know how you fair.

 

[Hanover]

Dr. Cavin,

Can you book both brunch and dinner once online or only one or the other? When I originally tried booking on 2/12, it listed dinner and brunch but when I finally got our dinner reserved (I had problems with it) brunches were gone. When I tried the "meal type" link, it kept telling me they were full and to try on board. Any idea how many spaces are available at 90 days and how many they will have available on board for brunch?
I hope we get it, but if we don't I'll just have to try again on a future cruise.

 

[DrCavin]

You can book one each, we booked dinner & brunch. From everything I have read, they do not open more spaces for online booking. I have heard 1/2 of them are available once on-board, but when I asked the CM that she didnt know. I think 1/2 is too many, but the way other things are going with this online reservations I wouldnt be surprised.
I have never heard how many spaces they have in total for brunch/dinner.
When we went to brunch in '04, I bet there werent more than 15 people there. Even dinner I bet 25 MAX. We were waiting for our table to be ready & some fellow Disers came in, so we just decided to have a table w/the 4 of us. It was a great time. Our waiter was awesome, the guy kept bringing out things to try. "this is from Momma" he would say... Good thing I had on those tux pants that had the expandable waist or I would have exploded!!

 

[hooksenemy]

Hi everyone,

It's been a few days since a post to the thread! Are all you 90 dayers resting after being up in the middle of the night?

I have been putting together some of the last minute stuff this week (well what I consider last minute stuff) I am a very TYPE A vacation planner but once I am on the plane LOOK OUT

REMINDER - our kids DS 9 & DS 7 don't know we are going in May - they think we are going in a year from May - Recently we decided along with the family we are travelling with - we are going to tell the kids over April Vacation - could use some creative ideas on how to tell them - puzzle solving, scavenger hunt etc... Pass along any ideas you have

Everyone at that point can try clothes on and make sure last years sandals fit etc... and we will have time to go shopping for any new stuff we need

 

[Hanover]

How about an Easter egg hunt with clues inside plastic eggs? Maybe making your own puzzle (I know I've seen plain ones at craft stores) and giving them each a few pieces to work on that will come together to create a picture of the Magic or "You are going on a Disney Cruise" or something to that effect.

We are trying hard to keep our cruise a secret from our boys as well.
They think we are cruising in 2007 and just doing a 4 day WDW trip for our son's birthday (May 13) this year. We told them we will be going to Cape Canaveral on Saturday 5/13 and staying in Cocoa Beach for the evening after spending a couple days at the Disney parks. That way when we pack up the rental car with our suitcases, they still shouldn't have a clue. From that point, we are going to "drive by" the port and ask them if they'd like to see if we can look at the ship or something similar. Once they realize we are actually going on the cruise, we are going to let them call their grandparents (who are going and will magically appear) and then their other grandfather (who is also going and will appear.) That's the plan as of now....if it works, it works.

 

[DrCavin]

I like the egg-hunt if you can hold off that long to tell them

Hanover, your plan sounds really neat, I think our kids would be in shock The rest of your group could be waiting up in the terminal near the top of the escalators & while talking to them on the phone the would *magically* appear

Well we started shopping for some of the things we need... some clothes for the kids mostly.. Many stores had some good deals on spring clothes. Shopping is not one of my most favorite activities, YIKES the things you see in the mall

 

[Hanover]

Dr. Cavin- That's an excellent idea about the escalator surprise thing. My only worry is that we'll have to tell my FIL to be there 2 hours earlier than we want him because he's notoriously late for EVERYTHING.

I'm probably going to purchase tuxes for our boys off of Ebay for formal night. They have tons of Polo shirts they can wear the rest of the week for dinner with slacks and a jacket/tie for semi-formal night. I'll have to buy them new dress shoes by then because they rarely wear the ones they have. I think I'll skip the Stride Rite ones I have been buying and go for cheap ones at Walmart or Payless because they've only worn their present ones a few times and I'm sure they'll have outgrown them by the cruise.

I am vowing not to over pack like we did last year. We were at the theme parks an entire week and then the 4 day cruise and brought tons of clothes. We went home with half of them clean (without doing laundry!) I'm not going to bring pajamas and bathing suits for every day this time. In fact, I'm only going to bring 2 or 3 of each. They barely wore their pajamas last time because they fell asleep during the shows and we stripped them to their undershirt and boxer briefs. I'll make sure to bring some for Goofy's pajama party though...don't want them to have to go in their boxer briefs! I really don't want to have to do laundry on the cruise, but I don't want to bring an enormous amount of clothing either. Keegan even has some reversable nice zip off cargo pants I thought of packing.


My husband and I haven't even thought about what we are going to wear ourselves. There was such a mix of clothing at dinner on the Wonder that I don't want to over or under dress.

Anyone getting dressed up for Pirate's night? Our oldest son, Keegan, spent most of his spending money on a Captain Hook costume on last year's cruise (last time he wore it in fact) and we bought one for our youngest son when we ordered their Halloween costumes from Disneydirect.com. The one from Disneydirect was way cheaper (try $19.99 minus 15% and free shipping vs. about $60 or more on DCL) and they are the exact same ones. Keegan wore another pirate/skeleton costume for Halloween so he has 2 possibilities. I'm not sure if they'll wear them to dinner or wait until the party. I just hope I remember to pack them!!

 

[DrCavin]

Our kids dressed up as pirates for halloween, so we are bringing the costumes. We definitly are not packing as much this time, well if I have any say, we had like 25 pairs of shoes last time I think.. I don't think we will be renting tuxs this trip, we guys are pretty easy dress shirt tie done.. You women are another story

We did not do any laundry last cruise, dont really want to on this one either. We have 2 days at CSR afterwards, hopefully my DD wont be in her typical 5 hours change clothes mode, she is only 8 so it will be real interesting in another 5 years...

 

[Hanover]

Must be 8 year olds...our son goes through 2 or 3 outfits a day too. I keep telling him he's going to be doing the laundry himself if he doesn't stop it.

I thought the tuxes would make a great formal picture with Mickey and Minnie. My husband has a couple himself so we wouldn't have to buy or rent one for him. I thought that buying tuxes on Ebay (less than $40 each) would be cheaper than buying the boys a new suit or jacket.

 

[SQUIGGLE]

I like the egg Hunt idea and hanover's terminal surpise. I hope they both work out.

We are to the point of getting ready to see what we need, clothing-wise too.

Looking forward to seeing all the Pirate outfits.

Everyone have a great weekend.

fran

 

[hooksenemy]

there are so many options it becomes to many DH and the other guy we are sailing with are in no way going to agree to dress up which is fine with me however I would like to dress up and so would all the kids (5 total)

I found a Seinfeld puffy shirt that the guys might consider with a bandana however it might be more work convincing them of the fun we will have if we are all dressed up

I found several outfits on ebay that would work for me, and the kids but haven't been willing to jump and make the purchase what if I only have the guts now and when I get onboard I won't do it, I hate to waste money

So for now, I am looking for sandals and putting off the pirate outfit - but I will keep looking on ebay hoping to find something that isn't to risque'

Cold up here in the northeast, I am thinking of the beautiful waters of the carribean but the thoughts are hard to beat out the 12 degree day

 

[TSirgey]

Our dd 5 got a Captain Hook costume on WDW last year and she is completely psyched to wear it. She also wants to wear her Belle dress on formal night. Ugh, I'm going to need a suitcase just for costumes

 

[Hanover]

I was looking on Disneycruiseline.com to see what was new (I read on one of these threads that they were updating) and printed out some of the cutest coloring pages with Disney characters at the beach, swimming, etc. on them. After I logged in, went to My Disney Cruise and checked out the Castaway Club link they were on the bottom. I had not looked on that link before, so don't know how long they've been there.

 

[hooksenemy]

I have been trying to avoid the coloring pages since the kids don't know we are going! I am planning/scheming daily as to what we are doing!

I purchased travel things today (sunblock etc...) now to find the perfect hiding place

Warming up here in Boston really would like a couple of more days of snow and ice - makes vacation in May feel that much more needed

 

[Hanover]

I printed some of them out and put them away in our hidden DCL folder with all our other paperwork. I'm going to let the kids color them in once we are checked in and waiting at the terminal. They wouldn't even catch on if I gave it to them on the plane ride down to Orlando either. I'm always printing out coloring pages for them. I'm also a big scrapbooker and they are always wanting to " help me out" with our Disney albums, so I can tell them it is for that too.

I figure if they've come in while I'm on DCL's web site and this cruise meet's thread and not asked, they don't have a clue. We did tell our oldest that we put the deposit down for his birthday cruise in May of 2007. I just hope he doesn't expect to go again then once he finds out he's going this year! We figured that by telling him we put the deposit down if anyone slips we can say, "yeah, remember when we go on your birthday next year..." We've specifically avoided telling most of our friends about the cruise part of the trip just so we wouldn't have to worry about any of them (or their kids) slipping.

In a way, I miss them getting as excited as they were about going on last year's Wonder cruise we went on, but at least they're very excited about going to WDW in May...the cruise will just be the icing on the cake. They talk about going on another one constantly.

 

[bpd196]

Has anyone done the butterfly farm on St. Maarten before. Is that tour one of the exclusives Disney has or can you go on your own after you get off of the ship.

 

[DrCavin]

We did the BFF on our own, just grab a taxi when you get off the ship. Our driver even came back in about an 1 hour or so & took us to a beach.

 

[SQUIGGLE]

Hey folks 11 eleven weeks from right now we'll be on the big beautiful ocean heading for St Maarten!
Hope everyonw is having a nice weekend. We're getting some rain today; so it looks like a good day to see what I have for formal night.

Everyone enjoy their weekend.

fran