May 2, 2009~~~Magical MAYniacs!~~~ 7 day Western....Updated, April 3,2009!!

[zerog]

Good morning Magical Mayniacs
We sail in 36 weeks!



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[DisneyDreamer8]

So glad that all of you are safe!! Man that looks like a LOT of water I hope you dry out soon.

The beach trip was nice but the weather was crappy. It was gray and gloomy...more like February than August

Only 36 more weeks!!!! I seriously can't wait!!!

So any big plans for Labor Day???

We are traveling east to visit my DH's grandparents...they have not seen our DS yet. Nothing like a 5 hour car trip But I guess it will help get DS ready for the long car trip to Disneyland...

 

[choco_latae]

Yea, its still flooded here on our road. I hope it dries up soon. I just heard it thundering again. OH no. Well at this rate, we wont half to go anywere to get on the cruise ship, it will come to our door. hehehehehhe
Well it is close to us but not that close. Might as well laugh about the whole thing. No use to cry.

 

[laura001]

I am so sorry to hear from all of you that have been hit by Fay! I have been away at the cottage this past week and did hear on the radio that you all had been having a tough time of it. Hopefully most of the damage to you all personally isn't too bad!!

Pink Elephants: I could help but think about what you said about being on a cottage on the water....here are a few pics, hope you enjoy!

 

[choco_latae]

Oh my gosh, Laura001, those pictures were beautiful. Looks like a little bit of heaven. So pretty. Is that up in Canada? I hear it is really pretty up that way. Thanks for sharing them with us. I love pictures. Those were wonderful.

 

[laura001]

Oh my gosh, Laura001, those pictures were beautiful. Looks like a little bit of heaven. So pretty. Is that up in Canada? I hear it is really pretty up that way. Thanks for sharing them with us. I love pictures. Those were wonderful.

Yes, they were taken on Georgian Bay (near Parry Sound if you look at a map). Georgian Bay area is well known for its beautiful landscape, rocks and wind blown trees, that being our favourite northern vacation spot. (it is what we call being up north) We live very close to the American border and Niagara Falls, so for us it is about a 4 hour drive to where the cottage is, and for sure is a "little bit of heaven". Isn't it funny you say that, DH and I were just having that discussion yesterday!

We may head up that way again for Thanksgiving, if we do, the pics of that would blow you away....just amazingly beautiful!

 

[choco_latae]

Yes, they were taken on Georgian Bay (near Parry Sound if you look at a map). Georgian Bay area is well known for its beautiful landscape, rocks and wind blown trees, that being our favourite northern vacation spot. (it is what we call being up north) We live very close to the American border and Niagara Falls, so for us it is about a 4 hour drive to where the cottage is, and for sure is a "little bit of heaven". Isn't it funny you say that, DH and I were just having that discussion yesterday!

We may head up that way again for Thanksgiving, if we do, the pics of that would blow you away....just amazingly beautiful!

Oh my goodness, do you have a website that you have your pictures on? Id love to see them. I have a website for whomever wants and likes pictures as much as I do. Anyone can go to it. Its www.pagii.com/julieeverhart Your pictures are wanderful though. Ive been to Niagra falls one time, I was eight with my parents. We only seen the canadian side, they were working on the American side. That was in the 1960's. A day or two ago.

 

[pink elephants]

Laura, those pictures were just beautiful. I do miss trees and water out here (okay, we do have trees but you've got to substitute mountains for the water - gorgeous, amazing but not really good for swimming. .). We're definitely a water family, too. Last night, we went on a hike and picnic and where did we end up? With our toes in the water of the Bow River (which was freezing, of course!). My dream is to live somewhere where we could go to a cottage on the water every the summer. Sounds like heaven.

No plans for Labour Day yet, but my guess is that if the weather holds out, we'll end up hiking again - probably near water!

 

[lbullard]

Hello, it has been a while since I have been on, sorry but hoping to beable to add and participate. Husband finally started looking at the price and said we could go. I booked last Nov for just me with the idea we could add on my husband and son to the reservation. I think we will be a go for May 2-9.

Anyways weather how is it in May really hot or not? Also sea ride we are on Deck 2 traveled last Nov for first time on Disney and the ship ride no issues with bad seas but the water at Castaway was Cold Cold Cold. So just wondering are the waters usually bad this time for sailings?

Also anyone done the Western and can reccomend what is fun to do with a 10 year old boy? I would love to do the waterpark at the huge hotel Atlantis but I don't know how that all works. Heard you have to book a room, that could be expensive. Anything else you can think of please post.

Would buy pencils be appropriate to post on the fish extenders. I live in Va and we have some cute sayings. Do you just do it on one day or several days? We were to late in Nov on our first sailing but folks still sent little things to my son who thought it was great.

Can't wait!! Lynn

 

[tazgirl1981]

Pencils would be perfect for the Fish Extender gifts...people give mostly little gifts like that....or even candy or what not. Anything pretty much is a good thing for them (within reason )

I like your pictures Laura...those are gorgeous!

Thankfully Florida has the heat that helps to dry up the water when it does stop raining. Ours is pretty much dried up now But I am sure that when it starts raining again the same could happen once more. Im not sure ours was fully attributed to Fay (although I am sure she helped) because we are in rainey season and because of that the ground takes all that it can and then just stops draining

Well Dad just left here mom (Just FYI) and its 2:30pm so just in case you didnt know he will be back home in a few hours We are off to get some food and do our errands. Talk to you all in a little while

 

[laura001]

Welcome back lbullard!!!!! Glad to see you want to be part of the Magical MAYniacs!

As for the FE.....I believe pencils are great etc. We have yet to determine what and how our exchange will work. Tazgirl and Pink Elephants will be updating us sometime soon and I will post it on the main page. It sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun!

Glad everyone enjoyed my pics!

 

[tazgirl1981]

In order to help us to put together how things will work for the FE exchange, I would like to ask everyones imput on a few things:

1- Would everyone like to do Just 1 gift/giftbag per stateroom or 1 gift/giftbag per family?? I know that some families or groups travel together in the same room so i just wanted to ask to be fair before we set the rules

2- Would everyone just like to give out their gifts whenever they want or do we want to set each person to a certain day in order to be sure that each day everyone will get a gift in their FE??? And not just loaded down on maybe one certain day..

I just wanted to ask those to get a better idea on how we can set the rules

 

[laura001]

hmmmm....myself, I would rather do a gift(s) per stateroom or is it too much to do something for each person??? Myself, I would do something different if it was an adult vs. a child maybe....not sure how that works????? It doesn't matter to me if we are assigned days, but it might be nice to be able to do it at random only because we may have something that could be used say on Pirate Night or something??

Can you explain to us exactly how it would all work, then I might have a better idea of what I want to do. I have quite a few ideas of what I would like to put in, do you give more than once etc????

Editing to say: if you can figure out anything that I just wrote, you get extra, cause nothing makes sense to me!

 

[tazgirl1981]

you are too funny Laura...

That is another thing we have to all vote on...do we just want to do one giving of FE gifts or do we want to break it up and give whatever we want whenever we want There are many different ways that we can go about it depending on what everyone would like to do. Here is what we are doing for the October Meet (just to give you an idea):

Each person has to get or give a FE gift for everyone on the list..We are only doing it one time...so lets say I get a bag of goodies for everyone, I would be assigned ONE day to give out my gifts to everyone (depending on how many people have signed up, then More than one person each day will be giving out gifts...I think we have 3 people per day giving out gifts) but we have 25 rooms signed up.
We are giving out 1 gift bag/gift per room but some of us are including gifts for kids and such in our bag of gifts for each room I hope this makes sense...

SO lets say there is you and your daughter and friend in one room...I MYSELF would include in your giftbag, a gift for you to enjoy (or a family gift), a gift (age appropriate) for your daughter and maybe also a gift for the friend as well. I am not saying that everyone is doing this, but just me personally would include things for everyone. Although sometimes hubby and wife would have to share gifts but this equals only one gift bag type thing per room. I know sometimes if people cannot afford this, they may only include like one generic gift for everyone to share. Just FYI.

 

[laura001]

you are too funny Laura...

That is another thing we have to all vote on...do we just want to do one giving of FE gifts or do we want to break it up and give whatever we want whenever we want There are many different ways that we can go about it depending on what everyone would like to do. Here is what we are doing for the October Meet (just to give you an idea):

Each person has to get or give a FE gift for everyone on the list..We are only doing it one time...so lets say I get a bag of goodies for everyone, I would be assigned ONE day to give out my gifts to everyone (depending on how many people have signed up, then More than one person each day will be giving out gifts...I think we have 3 people per day giving out gifts) but we have 25 rooms signed up.
We are giving out 1 gift bag/gift per room but some of us are including gifts for kids and such in our bag of gifts for each room I hope this makes sense...

SO lets say there is you and your daughter and friend in one room...I MYSELF would include in your giftbag, a gift for you to enjoy (or a family gift), a gift (age appropriate) for your daughter and maybe also a gift for the friend as well. I am not saying that everyone is doing this, but just me personally would include things for everyone. Although sometimes hubby and wife would have to share gifts but this equals only one gift bag type thing per room. I know sometimes if people cannot afford this, they may only include like one generic gift for everyone to share. Just FYI.

Ok.........I get it and I like it that way....also, I would probably add a few little things on my own perhaps on other days...but, that is me personally! I understand that isn't something everyone would do. I like the idea of how you are doing it in October. My vote would be to do it that way! : )

 

[choco_latae]

you are too funny Laura...

That is another thing we have to all vote on...do we just want to do one giving of FE gifts or do we want to break it up and give whatever we want whenever we want There are many different ways that we can go about it depending on what everyone would like to do. Here is what we are doing for the October Meet (just to give you an idea):

Each person has to get or give a FE gift for everyone on the list..We are only doing it one time...so lets say I get a bag of goodies for everyone, I would be assigned ONE day to give out my gifts to everyone (depending on how many people have signed up, then More than one person each day will be giving out gifts...I think we have 3 people per day giving out gifts) but we have 25 rooms signed up.
We are giving out 1 gift bag/gift per room but some of us are including gifts for kids and such in our bag of gifts for each room I hope this makes sense...

SO lets say there is you and your daughter and friend in one room...I MYSELF would include in your giftbag, a gift for you to enjoy (or a family gift), a gift (age appropriate) for your daughter and maybe also a gift for the friend as well. I am not saying that everyone is doing this, but just me personally would include things for everyone. Although sometimes hubby and wife would have to share gifts but this equals only one gift bag type thing per room. I know sometimes if people cannot afford this, they may only include like one generic gift for everyone to share. Just FYI.

Sounds good to me. But if we do that, we need to know the ages of the kids in the rooms, so we can get apropriate gifts for them. ( sorry about the spelling)

 

[tazgirl1981]

It doesnt have to be specifically age appropriate...I mean I am basically doing princess things for the girls on our cruise in October and CARS things for the boys...mostly pencils, stamps and notepads...if the person has a little one...then I just included stickers of the baby characters It wasnt exactly perfect on the age thing but I figured who wouldnt like pencils and notepads and stamps

 

[choco_latae]

It doesnt have to be specifically age appropriate...I mean I am basically doing princess things for the girls on our cruise in October and CARS things for the boys...mostly pencils, stamps and notepads...if the person has a little one...then I just included stickers of the baby characters It wasnt exactly perfect on the age thing but I figured who wouldnt like pencils and notepads and stamps

Ok Tazgirl thanks. Love ya Lots, MOM

 

[laura001]

Sounds good to me. But if we do that, we need to know the ages of the kids in the rooms, so we can get apropriate gifts for them. ( sorry about the spelling)

At some point we will have a list of all the participants names and their ages (if the parents feel ok with that, it is a personal choice) Hmmm....wonder if my big kid minds me saying that he is 50 (wow....that is old!)

 

[pink elephants]

Hi Lynn, It's great to have you on the cruise!

Also anyone done the Western and can reccomend what is fun to do with a 10 year old boy? I would love to do the waterpark at the huge hotel Atlantis but I don't know how that all works. Heard you have to book a room, that could be expensive. Anything else you can think of please post.

I think only the eastern cruise (the one that goes to Nassau) stops near Atlantis, but there are lots of activities on the western cruise for kids. Is your boy a good swimmer? There are snorkel expeditions off Grand Cayman, and there's a dolphin encounter and more snorkeling in Cozumel. There are also Mayan ruins in Cozumel, which my DD and I are really excited about and which your son might like if he's an "Indiana Jones" kind of kid.

Have you bought the Passporter Disneycruise edition? It's got tons of information on all the excursions, as well as ratings of all of the excursions from readers. DD and I have spent lots of time hanging out together looking at it. It's been great mother/daughter bonding.