Barb-
What kinds of things did the DIS group do on your PC cruise?
Christi
Hi!
Sorry for the slow response... caught the winter crud after getting back and time has been spent between coughing, catching up at work, unpacking and extra sleep!
The PC DIS group was THE MOST amazing, active, organized group I've ever cruised with! SOOOO many great activities. If anyone wants some ideas of things to do as a group just go to the PC, Wonder, 2011 cruise link. A link to our web site is on the first page.
http://www.wonderpanama2011.com/
For pictures of some of the activities, go to our forum thread (part 5).
We had a room tour, local wine (bottle from your home area) meet and greet, a mixology class and Hawaiian shirt contest, Secret Mickey Exchange and a reveal party, PJ Breakfast (guys did come..they wore sweat pants and a Disney Tee, several "Grumpy" t-shirts!) Champagne Girls and Pink boa party, Postcard exchange, FEs, Door celebrations decorating, old Geezers group and wanna be s , this group met in COVE at 10pm every night to chat. A scavenger hunt organized by people who work with MouseAdventures in the parks and their hunts. A book and magazine share. Tutoring groups for students. Bunco. Jewelry making class taught by a DISer for adults and also for kids. Sci Fi movie parties. Open house cabin on PC day where they shared their large balcony and suite with those who did not have one. Some arranged port adventures where the entire tour group was DISers. Or all met in a certain port location for drinks and food if they weren't going on a day excursion. Walking and jogging groups on sea days. Set up linked table reservations or arranged to have many tables of DIS families / groups all in the same section of the dining room. And a group went together and gave a special whiteboard to each DIS cabin. Oh my, I'm sure I forgot something!
The Panama Canal DIS Group consisted of 377 people in 147 staterooms, traveling as 116 parties.
I have some suggestions for the TA group to consider. To do a lot of these we will need people who are computer savvy. ( I am not one of those people! ) And I think a lot of our activities had help being set up with
DCL by guests who could ask for concierge assistance. I have not been in that group so I'm not sure what extra services are available to use.
We had special lanyards that said the name of the cruise and date. A nice souvenir. But an important addition that was for everyone even if they didn't order the extra lanyard, were custom name tags / badges. A member made a name tag that fit into the plastic pocket. It had our real name and our DIS board name printed on it. And they made the print large enough so it could be read from a distance and with "old" eyes! This was wonderful to have! At any event, especially if you went alone, you could immediately pick out a friend to sit with. And walking in the halls.....so you're DIS ABC! Hi!
We also had the lime green bracelets as identifiers. Again helpful in finding a friend.
Can a column be added to our group spreadsheet for early or late dining? This is nice to know when you make room deliveries.
I enjoyed the Postcard Exchange group. (An easy activity to do.) Everyone bought or made a postcard that represented their home area. Some put a bit of history on the card and their name, contact info. Some put a regional recipe on the card (my personal favorite to receive!) On a longer cruise with all the sea days and more time, it was nice to have a reason to walk all corners of the ship to deliver the cards. We found stairs and halls and "secret" paths we never new about before! And I took my camera with me on the delivery walks to capture some of those creative cabin doors! And, the extra walking hopefully helped a little with all those meals! I can coordinate a postcard exchange if anyone's interested.
If someone is computer skilled??? Someone in our group made a daily program which we could print before we left home. It can be seen on our PC web site. It had all of the DIS activities on it by day and time and then blank times for each hour. This was FANTASTIC to have. I knew what and where DIS things were going to be each day. I then added each night from the next day's navigator what DCL things we wanted to do and our own family reservations for Palo's etc. All activities and information on one page that was then taped to the mirror each day! I loved it.
An easy DIS Group Organizational idea:
Someone who had a cabin on deck 6, midship, put a larger whiteboard on their door. This was the place to put any activity changes, cabin changes, new gatherings, etc. Only one place to check that was in the middle of the ship for everyone. The book & magazine sharing bag was also at this cabin. It was low maintenance. A bag was zip tied to the railing next to their door. Just had a sign attached to it...DIS GROUP Book Share. It took care of it's self. At the end of the cruise, the contents were donated to the crew.
We also enjoyed the room tour on a sea day. The organizer tried to get a volunteer from each of the stateroom types....from 11 A on up! I finally got to see what a Navigator's Verandah was, a secret port hole room, and so on. Also saw how people decorated their rooms, how they organized things and of course got to see and enjoy the beautiful suites and Walt and Roy cabins! Some people had room service goodies in their rooms or specialties from their hometown and one even provided Scottish whiskey samples from their home! We were quite the parade group! It was timed out and we started on deck one and worked our way up.
The PC DISers were a very generous group and many things were donated by individuals or by a group of people and shared with us all. For some things, a person organized the purchase and we all paid for the things we ordered through pay pal accounts to them or at port. DIS people are a unique group and I think everyone contributed to the whole as needed.
Anyways!!!! I'm looking forward to playing with the TA DISers!
Barb
right now I see us with snow until APRIL... maybe. We are currently in the middle of a two part snow storm today and tomorrow... already over 60 inches since January in Massachusetts....
