May 30, 2009 - Western Cruise Magic

[klcason]

Ok it would totally be wrong to take an upgrade away, that is just wrong, wrong, wrong. I know the posts you are talking about, I read them also.

Now if I am reading the deck plans correct, and Lord knows I could be wrong, there are only 13 Cat 12's and they are all on deck 2, 6 in one hall and 7 in the other. So we could be around the corner.

I just hope we are close together, even if we stay in 12's!! Now if one can dream I would love, love, love, to be upgraded to connecting balconies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

K

 

[klcason]

OK, so according to the deck plans that I have been reviewing, there are connecting cabins down to the 10's. No connecting 11 or 12. Not a ton of connectors but there are some and the last time I played around with rooms several of the connectors were still available.

K

 

[brucechase]

Last cruise they upgraded us to Cat9 and one had a connecting room but it wasn't to the other room. I called DCL and they made the switch so we could have connecting 9.

I won't hope for anything that great this time, I just want May 30 to get here and then go real sloooooooooooooow after that.

 

[klcason]

AMEN Bruce~!! Really, really, really slow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

It was on the Magic. We had main dining so didn't see how it worked, but I was told that counselors waited at the front of each restaurant and kids who wanted to go were checked in there by their parents at 9:00 p.m.. It was listed in the Navigator with how to do it.

We are wait listed for main (that's what happens when you book 6 weeks out lol) of our 13 cruises, we had late once and honestly we hated it. I am accepting that I will probably have late this time and am going to avoid thinking about it until I have to. We just don't like eating that late. I will wish for some pixie dust and anything is possible Funny, some love late, some love main. Thank goodness not everyone wants the same thing.

My kids agree that it seems the most fun activities occur during late dining time and with so many kids main is the only thing that works for us. Even though a little rushed getting ready, better than sleeping in their soup bowl.

By the time we receive entrees, my kids have devoured their mickey bars and are off to the club/lab til show time. My kids don't spend much time in the club or lab, but when they do it is usually while we finish dinner. Big ones take the littler ones and they take turns so we actually each only do it once a cruise.

We had rooms that were not close together on our cruise last week and it was a pain but doable and considering the great rates we paid I was ok with the inconvenience. We were on the same deck, same side, but opposite ends. It would actually have been closer and faster to have been on different decks above or below each other near the stairs. We had one cruise where our rooms were separated by one cabin. We have also cruised and gotten people to switch with us to put our rooms together after boarding the ship.

Our best upgrade was booking connecting 10s. When our luggage tags came, they were for side by side 8s. We got called and told to change room numbers on luggage tags and had been complimentary upgraded to connecting 6s. At port we then paid to upgrade to a 3 and 4 connecting at last minute. Upgrade cost about 2k. All total the cruise was around 6k with the upgrade. Now that was a nice price and probably never happen again, it was I think an October cruise

This time we just decided we need connecting rooms for sure and booked two connecting 4s.

I am getting excited even though we just got off the ship

Well that is neat.
Our first cruise our oldest was 12 BUT it was our first cruise and they didn't really know the ship well yet and I really didn't trust her to take them. Plus they didn't have her available to check the others in/out herself .I'm not sure what age that is or when it changed but it was only on the last cruise (when she was 14) that all the sudden we were given the option of her to check in/out the younger kids. KWIM?

So we had to take turns.
And btw we didn't have very good waitstaff that cruise. Not really their fault I suppose- our linked dining (with DIS'ers) was messed up and the 2nd night they had to correct it and smoosh us in a table off the side of the DISers with new waitstaff- I think they just added us on so they may have had their hands full with our table for 5 added on. But needless to say things didn't go as smoothly as you make it sound- took too long for the kids to ever get their food and then they'd barely eat and be begging to go to the club/lab. And they wouldn't atleast eat SOME at the same time- what I mean is our youngest was slower and fighting against eating before she could go- and it wasn't fair to make our older two wait so we'd end up making atleast 2 trips to take them. It wasn't fun. LOL It would have been AWESOME to have counselors at the door of the dining rooms waiting to take them!

I hope we like main dining. There were other things we didn't like about late dining but we went with that thinking early dining wouldn't work for us. But now we think it might- which is why we just let it stay main dining even though we hadn't even asked for one or the other. We thought it would mean it would cut short our ports/excursions and make us have to get ready earlier but really even with late dining and the show before hand we STILL had to get back on the ship and get ready at basically the same time! Add to that the kids stuff being during late dining, eating so late that we were stuffed during evening activities and that making my early bid husband REALLY get tired early and having to fight to get him to stay up atleast a bit after dinner, etc.- we're gonna give early dining a go and see if it works better for us. LOL
Plus being semi-late to the deck parties and evening activities wasn't fun either.

Ok it would totally be wrong to take an upgrade away, that is just wrong, wrong, wrong. I know the posts you are talking about, I read them also.

Now if I am reading the deck plans correct, and Lord knows I could be wrong, there are only 13 Cat 12's and they are all on deck 2, 6 in one hall and 7 in the other. So we could be around the corner.

I just hope we are close together, even if we stay in 12's!! Now if one can dream I would love, love, love, to be upgraded to connecting balconies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

K

I know! I think it's totally wrong to give an upgrade and then take it away. Horrible!

Yeah if we stay cat 12's atleast we'll know we're still on the same deck- that will be our "silver lining" if we end up ones without an upgrade... we'll just tell ourselves that's better than being far far apart with upgraded rooms. LOL

Last cruise they upgraded us to Cat9 and one had a connecting room but it wasn't to the other room. I called DCL and they made the switch so we could have connecting 9.

I won't hope for anything that great this time, I just want May 30 to get here and then go real sloooooooooooooow after that.

Bruce I hear ya..... I always hope the cruise will go slow and darn it never does! LOL It always flies by really quickly.

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

Hi everyone! I just booked this cruise for myself, Laura, and my DD Melissa who will be turning 23 just before we sail. She is graduating from college on May 2 and she wanted a western cruise for her birthday/graduation for just the two of us, so mom has granted her wish! We are both extremely excited! It will be number 2 for her and 7 for me (I am addicted, I admit it!). Since I will only cruise Disney, she didn't have a choice! I tried to get her to take the eastern (we have never been there!) but she loved the western so much last time that we are doing it again. This will be my 5th western! Oh well, we are looking forward to a week of mother/daughter bonding, sipping drinks next to the pool and relaxing! The weather should be perfect, just like the cruise, so we should all have a fantastic time!

Laura

Hi Laura!
Sorry I missed your post earlier- welcome!
We can't wait- how about you? hehe

Congrats to your daughter!

 

[Pooh_Friend#1]

Hi everyone! I just booked this cruise for myself, Laura, and my DD Melissa who will be turning 23 just before we sail. She is graduating from college on May 2 and she wanted a western cruise for her birthday/graduation for just the two of us, so mom has granted her wish! We are both extremely excited! It will be number 2 for her and 7 for me (I am addicted, I admit it!). Since I will only cruise Disney, she didn't have a choice! I tried to get her to take the eastern (we have never been there!) but she loved the western so much last time that we are doing it again. This will be my 5th western! Oh well, we are looking forward to a week of mother/daughter bonding, sipping drinks next to the pool and relaxing! The weather should be perfect, just like the cruise, so we should all have a fantastic time!

Laura

Now that I read the May 23 cruisers are getting their rooms assigned, I am so anxious to get ours!!!!!!! Please please please be next week!

 

[chccatfish]

Where would you guys like to meet on the ship? I welcome any suggestions.

Thanks, Carolyn

 

[CarolinaBlue]

Anyone else having trouble pulling up their reservation today?

 

[brucechase]

Anyone else having trouble pulling up their reservation today?

Nope, pulled it up 3 times so far today.

Still no cabin assignment .

 

[BamaBornNemoNut]

I pulled up my reservation, no problem just now.

I'm up for having a before boarding meet both at the Raddison late p.m. on the 29th or early a.m. on the 30th and also preboarding area of the terminal @10:45ish on the 30th. Also, on the ship pre 4pm drill in the lounge. My plans are pretty flexible 'cause my kids are a little older and don't want me to swim, explore, etc. with them once on board.

 

[grlzmom]

Well that is neat.
Our first cruise our oldest was 12 BUT it was our first cruise and they didn't really know the ship well yet and I really didn't trust her to take them. Plus they didn't have her available to check the others in/out herself .I'm not sure what age that is or when it changed but it was only on the last cruise (when she was 14) that all the sudden we were given the option of her to check in/out the younger kids. KWIM?

I hope we like main dining. There were other things we didn't like about late dining but we went with that thinking early dining wouldn't work for us. But

I hope you like main dining

I think they have to be 13 to check siblings in and out, so our first few cruises, we did most of the running ourselves. But by this cruise, we have us and 4 dds old enough to do the checking in so it really works out good if we each just take one night. One benefit to having a tribe of children I guess Sometimes they don't go to the club, but usually they do.

We never really found that early dining impacted us having to get back to the ship any earlier from excursions or anything except on that last day being Castaway it seemed a little rushed to get changed and to dinner at 5:45. That day would probably be more relaxing to have late seating although then you are last minute getting luggage out the door.

I guess there are advantages to both, but for my gang, early works best and we probably aren't getting it this time.

To everyone who is meeting at the terminal, we don't have lime green or anything but are easy to recognize with all the kids and would love to meet other Disers prior to boarding so the kids can make cruise buddies. We will get there early just in case, so if you see the crazy mom with 6 girls and a boy in tow, that's me!

Laura, congrats to your daughter on her graduation. One of the dis designs people made me some beautiful graduation cruise graphics (my dd is graduating high school) for magnets if you are looking for some.

 

[grlzmom]

One other thing I forgot to post, even though there are only two dining times now 5:45 and 8:15, breakfast on last day was still staggered with three early and three late seatings and times were based on which restaurant you dined in for dinner the last night.

We were given tickets on the last night with what time to be there. Ours was Lumieres at 6:30 a.m. UGH! Kids went without me.

 

[loveysbydesign]

Anyone else having trouble pulling up their reservation today?

I can pull mine up, still says "guaranteed"!

 

[CarolinaBlue]

That's weird, 'cause I've tried several times and it won't do anything. It just sits there after I've typed in the email, password, reservation # and my birthdate. After I click on retrieve reservation a couple of times, it tells me that my user name or password isn't correct (but they are).

 

[loveysbydesign]

Lime green kids tshirts are buy 2 get 1 free at Hanes.com(so are other colors)! Just though I'd throw that out there....lol! We may be making lime green mickey head tie-dye shirts for boarding day!

 

[loveysbydesign]

Also wanted to mention that the new 3-D movie "UP" will be realeased a few days before our cruise so we should get to see it on our cruise in the theater!!! How cool is that!

 

[CarolinaBlue]

Okay, I just pulled my up. This time, I went to a screen that just asked for my ressie number and my birthdate and it came up with no problem. Before, it was asking for my user name, password, ressie number, and birthdate and wouldn't come up at all. WEIRD!

 

[CarolinaBlue]

Also wanted to mention that the new 3-D movie "UP" will be realeased a few days before our cruise so we should get to see it on our cruise in the theater!!! How cool is that!

Yeah, I'm excited about that, too!

 

[grlzmom]

Also wanted to mention that the new 3-D movie "UP" will be realeased a few days before our cruise so we should get to see it on our cruise in the theater!!! How cool is that!

Oooh, thanks for sharing that, the previews for "Up" look good.