May 3rd-10th****Dis Maytees-May Magic send off

[Fizzgig]

Dawn: Yeah, I can see why you're making that job change with a smile on your face!

I'm still trying to figure out my last night hotel (the night of the 10th). I think we'll go with the Marriott Orlando Airport again, if I don't come across some other fabulous "deal."

Great ticket from Spirit, Dawn. Have you flown with them before? My mom's looking at them for the Sept cruise with us.

Thrifty gave us good rates for the one-way rentals, too. I went with them because there wasn't a surcharge for the one way trip.

Nice to "hear" from you, Dawn!

Linda: I mentioned your name to a guy on the DCL forum who was asking about the Royal Swim.

Brandie

 

[Dawn414]

Yes we've flown Spirit before. It usually goes between Spirit out of Atlantic City or Southwest out of Philly. Although I still check travelocity.com, it tends to NOT be the cheapest when it comes to airfare. AC is about an hour away (Philly 20 minutes), but even with the extra drive, you can't be AC for the convenience. You can walk from Long Term parking to the terminal and it's a small airport so not the hustle/bustle of a big one like PHL. Spirit is annoying sometimes (i.e. they now charge to check bags, but you can pay ahead of time and it's half off), but when the airfare rate is right it's not that big a deal. Southwest is cool too with its often low rates. I don't particularly care for the 'free boarding' thing they have going on. I like to know what my seat is ahead of time.

Be well, my friend and Happy New Year!
Dawn

 

[Dawn414]

Fireworks...got sent this in an email to download from the DCL site...pretty neat and you can change the date...

http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/d...ding/landing?name=2007HolidayEmailLandingPage

 

[Fizzgig]

Thanks for the info, Dawn. I agree; I'm not to comfortable with Southwest's seating, either. I'm too much of a control freak. In addition, the prices out of Denver actually aren't cheaper!

This cruise is getting closer and closer!

Talk to you later!
Brandie

 

[Heather98012]

Thank Goodness I'm not the only one who can't stand Southwest's policy of not assigning seats! Soooo annoying!

I don't think Spirit flies out of Seattle..same with Jetblue. Wait, maybe Jetblue does, but not a lot, for sure.

I need to get my butt in gear & get the hotel for the 2nd booked & our car rental both to the ship & from it. I totally agree that Thrifty had the best prices I could find (even using codes from mousesavers.com).

I need to pay the balance soon, but my Visa bill just arrived yesterday & was 4 times what it usually is! GAH! I knew it was gonna be big with various stuff we've done (including the airfare for our cruise) but that was a shocker. Looks like my savings acct will be dwindling....esp. after I pay the balance of the cruise!!

 

[Fizzgig]

Meh, we have a month to accrue interest in the savings account before we have to pay off the cruise, so I'm going to leave it in there as long as possible. I get twitchy every so often to cross "Final payment" off my list, though!

Brandie

 

[Heather98012]

True. And since I haven't cruised with Disney before, I don't get to make reservations until 75 days out (correct?). So why bother paying early.

My finaly pmt. date is my birthday...LOL. That'll be a big present, I suppose!

 

[Fizzgig]

****WARNING TO DINKs--PARENTING POST----RUN AWAY NOW*****



Heather, I saw your other post on the Cruise Board. We got DD trained through pure bribery. Her day care teachers agreed with us that she was ready, just had no incentive. Within a week of Daddy saying, "Chocolate chips for peeps, Chocolate cookies for poops!", we were DONE! The extra diapers have been given away to a charity, and kiddo is in big girl underwear full-time now.

Oh, and lemme tell ya, kiddo keeps track of her chocolate account! That's the first thing she tells ya when she walks in the door! I try to keep her sugar intake real low normally, to allow for the high quality snacks. She gets a single dark chocolate chip, or a single chocolate-coated cookie. Still blows dinner occasionally (because she doesn't eat a lot at night), but I'm not changing diapers any more!

And, yes, you're right about the 75 days. DCL doesn't extend return cruising benefits to other cruise lines. Other cruise lines do extend those benefits for DCL cruisers, though. A little strange, I think. *shrug*

Brandie

PS - DINK means "Dual income, no kids" which is what we were, prior to having Fiona.

 

[Heather98012]

WARNING DINK'S.....SKIP THIS POST!!

Brandi,

You're killing me here! First I tried bribing her with a Star chart. She got one colored star for every pee & the gold stars were reserved for poops. That was cool....for like a week.

Then we tried M&M's. Again....nice, but not a deal breaker.

Then we moved on to Gold foil chocolate coins. One for a pee & two for poops (a lot of candy I know, but we were depserate!). Um....again, cool for like a week, then if she felt like pottying in the potty, she wanted her coin. But they were no real incentive to motivate her to use the potty.

I'm going out of my mind! LOL....I need to relax. She just turned 3 years old at the end of Nov. But dang it, come on kid....just train already!

 

[Fizzgig]

Heather: It's hilarious to me... We used the same tips, I think!!!

DH thought a star chart was a good idea... I just laughed and said, "Go for it, then!" so of course it didn't happen--too much work for him.

We also failed with the rewards being a sticker. Too much of a mess to clean up.

My daughter (being MY child)... the first time I rewarded her with chocolate for a potty break, a devilish gleam was noticed in her eyes. Oh, and the first time I rewarded her was with a gold coin from our first DCL cruise... I carefully hoarded those bad boys. Daddy saw how much Fiona liked that reward and caved to the inevitable. If you want to bribe one of his gals, bring chocolate! We can't do M&M's (possible peanut contamination), but we ALWAYS have dark chocolate chips in the house! That day we went to Sam's Club and scoured the cookie tins for safe cookies and got a BIG tin of those. Enough of a variety for her to choose to her heart's content, and make her eyes go wide every time she opens it up. *oh yeeeeah, baby!*

Hey, let's face it, they won't be in diapers, wearing onesies, sucking a pacifier, or still sleeping with us when they go off to college. This, too, shall pass. Not quick enough for some phases, I agree, though!

Brandie

 

[Heather98012]

LOL....see, you know where I'm coming from then!

I just really want Stella to figure it out so that a) We can hit Palo's (is that selfish to admit??) & b) so that she can really enjoy the kid's club on her own. Have a little independence & make some friends. I don't want her to "miss out" on it, but then again....she won't know she's missing out on it, since we don't have any other kids.

I just need to get zen about it & realize worrying won't make it any better. <sigh> Is it 5:00 yet so I can have a drink?!

 

[Heather98012]

BTW Brandi, I love, love, love the name Fiona.

 

[Fizzgig]

*grin* Thank you for the compliment on kiddo's name!

Fiona's best friend's mom (still with me?) was just talking to me about potty training this afternoon, so you are definitely not alone in the world. I felt downright envious of all the moms who got their kids potty trained at 6 months more than a few times. But kiddo has also been weird in that she would stay dry overnight at a young (TOO young, in my mind) age. Now granted, once she was up, wow ... RUN to the bathroom!

The trade-off of having her potty-trained, though, is she still wakes up screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night. She's done it since birth; one day, she won't... right? *hopeful look* I'm hoping one day she'll have the verbal skills to benefit from a therapist. *cackle* I need my sleep!!!

It's sure to be beer-thirty SOMEWHERE in the world... oh yeah... it is right here! Feel free to have one on me!

Brandie

 

[wdhinn89]

 

[bobbi565]

Well, it's getting pretty exciting as the days tick on by. I have a question about booking excursions. I plan on doing Stingray City on our own using Captain Marvin's, who's been recommended highly by several people. Is this something I should ask my TA to take care of, or should I just do it myself?

 

[LJC1861]

Do you all realize that 4 months from today we will have just spent a wonderful day in Key West??

It is really getting close. I ( the last one in our group) finally got my passport in the mail today. Only took 3 weeks!

I am now looking for canvas bags for everyone in our group of 6 to begin making goodie bags. I love doing this kind of stuff!

Hope everyone is well,

Linda

 

[Meig]

Hey everyone, it's getting clooooooooser! I've been busy with life in general, haven't been on the boards. Of course, now that things are getting closer, here I am again

I just finished booking my air, hotel, and rental car. I am soooooooooooooooo mad though! I was on Midwest Airline's website and they had airfare for $178/pp. I was in the process of booking it, but had to wait for my husband to find his credit card. 18 minutes after I pulled up the page with the airfare, I hit the button to book the fare...and it had increased to $241/pp! I was LIVID!!! It wasn't even like it had passed midnight or anything, it was 3 minutes past 10pm. Arrrgh! So, I booked with American instead, for a little more, but at least now we are on the same flights as my parents (who are cruising with us). Just SO aggravating.

I hope everyone had good holidays!

 

[Meig]

I just signed up to swim with the dolphins on Cozumel. I did the Royal Swim for myself and the Encounter for DH and the boys (the boys are 5 and 8 and they don't swim well enough to do a swim, and Gage isn't old enough anyway).

I think at Key West we're going to a glass bottom boat tour. Key West is not my favorite port :/

Grand Cayman, we're thinking about the Atlantis submarine. Besides the stingrays, what else is fun to do there? It's the one port on this itinerary that none of us have been to before. I'm loking for something not too active, as my parents aren't up to it.

 

[Dawn414]

I have it on my calendar when I have to submit the final payment. I can't believe that is in a couple weeks!

Getting excited, but it's been so busy in the real world that I haven't had a whole lot of time to even think about this trip. Winding down in my current job and starting a new one on 2/1. Same company, just different role. Pretty dang happy about it too! Will probably start getting excited in April. I feel your pain on the airfare thing. I was on the Spirit site one day and the rate went from a really cheap $21 one way to a lot more...was seriously bummed. For this trip, we managed about $155 p/p thanks to a partial credit we had (Spirit out of Atlantic City).

For excursions, we haven't booked anything as yet, but our plan at this stage is...

KW--do our own thing probably

GC--submarine w/ the kids in the AM and snorkeling (me and DH) in the afternoon w/ kids at OC

Coz--DH doing Ruins tour. Me and kids shopping.

Castaway--tube and maybe banana boat...looks like fun. Would love to do the parasailing, but just can't bring myself to pay the fee for 5 minutes in the air.

DH and I did the dolphin excursion in the Bahamas and LOVED it. But with that and the stingrays, I don't want to pay that much money for the kids (who will be 5) to freak out. So...we stay with the mild stuff for them.

Be well all!

Dawn McG

 

[LJC1861]

Lesa,

What time is your Dolphin Swim? We booked the Royal Swim for our group at 12:00. It would be great if another DIS'er was booked at the same time.

Linda