May 5, 2010 Magic of Barcelona

[lmperrault]

I've been looking at the other boards - May cruise's mostly. Way busier than ours but that's okay with me, I wouldn't mind not having a full ship.

Anyway are we planning on meeting onboard at a certain time/place? Since we don't have to be onboard until 4:00 and then for us with early dinner we eat at 5:30 so Wed might be hard.

I was thinking maybe sometime on Thursday in the mid-morning at the Promonade lounge. Then we could all meet and the kids could meet up wiht each other too.

Any thoughts?

Lara

 

[lmperrault]

I was thinking it might be fun if the kids could have an e-mail exchange where they could "talk" about what they are looking forward to, intoduce themselves to each other etc.

I know my kids love to get e-mail that's for them. My kids do have e-mail that comes into our e-mail box (so we can kepp an eye on it) I was thinking we could start an e-mail where it would go to any of the kids that want to participate with a blind carbon copy as a group e-mail.

Any thoughts or takers? I'll be happy to set it up.

Lara

 

[lmperrault]

I hope the strike will be over soon and not impact our flights. I'm getting a little nervous about it but there's not much we can do about it.

Lara

 

[lmperrault]

I know we have to be onboard the ship by 4:00 but I'm wondering if anyone knows how early we can get on?

Thanks,

Lara

Oh and you really should check out the April repo board my gosh they are up to like 750 posts and have a PJ night, a Bunco Night, Lanyards etc, wow...

 

[disney-lover]

I think we're going to bring some pins to trade on the cruise. I'd like the kids to be able to trade fro some of the Med pins as their souviniers.

Lara

My kids will be taking their pins. We are going to Disney (Orlando) tomorrow so they will hopefully have loads of nice new pins to trade on the Cruise

 

[disney-lover]

I hope the strike will be over soon and not impact our flights. I'm getting a little nervous about it but there's not much we can do about it.

Lara

In the UK we are being told that there is obviously the 3 day strike on at the moment and then there will be another one next week and that is it. Hopefully that will be it and no more strikes will take place. It is crazy that they are striking, they are the best paid trolley dollies in the industry but they want more! And shouldn't they just be thankful that they have got a job now, considering BA was going under 6 months ago and they would have all been on the dole queue!

Sorry rant over! Anyway I am sure your flights will be fine

 

[strawberryblonde]

I've been looking at the other boards - May cruise's mostly. Way busier than ours but that's okay with me, I wouldn't mind not having a full ship.

Anyway are we planning on meeting onboard at a certain time/place? Since we don't have to be onboard until 4:00 and then for us with early dinner we eat at 5:30 so Wed might be hard.

I was thinking maybe sometime on Thursday in the mid-morning at the Promonade lounge. Then we could all meet and the kids could meet up wiht each other too.

Any thoughts?

Lara

Is early seating 5:30pm? All this time, I thought it was going to be 6pm. I really hope so, 5:30 is a bit too early for me. I went with early, because 8:30 is too late for me.

I would enjoy meeting up on Wed. if it is possible to swing it for everyone. Allows us to put faces to names as early as possible. The sooner the better is my motto !!

 

[strawberryblonde]

Fingers crossed on the flight situation. Hope that is all resolved soon so no one goes through extra stress.

 

[strawberryblonde]

I know we have to be onboard the ship by 4:00 but I'm wondering if anyone knows how early we can get on?

Thanks,

Lara

Oh and you really should check out the April repo board my gosh they are up to like 750 posts and have a PJ night, a Bunco Night, Lanyards etc, wow...

I believe the port opens 10am ish and boarding begins by 1pm ish. We plan to be there before noon. We have a few nights in Barcelona at the end of our cruise and the kids are going to be chomping at the bit to get on the ship!

Those activities sound like a lot of fun.....they have about 6 nights at sea, so plenty of time to plan those in. Our cruise is quite port intensive and only 2 sea days, not sure where we could squeeze in a bunco night. I would enjoy the martini tasting, it would be nice if some of our group show up for that, it would make it more fun .

 

[strawberryblonde]

Pin trading ....our family of 4 enjoys that!

Most of our pins, are from 2002-2003. My daughter was just looking through our collections, trying to decide what to take for trades. We each just have one pin bag, not large collections. Still, too heavy to bring the entire thing I fear. I've read conflicting reports on the status of pins on the ship. DD plans on buying a few new ones, not sure if there will be anything "good" to trade for or not. Sometimes the CMs have nice ones on their lanyards and other times they are only full of "junk".

 

[everafter1]

Ok, so I just got off the phone with the DCL air desk and I'm not happy. They booked us on a flight arriving in Barcelona at 3pm on embarkation day and leaving Barcelona at 10am on debarkation day.

I've always had amazing service from DCL... but the flight people were downright rude. The first girl I talked to wasn't going to help me at all and basically told me to be quiet. I asked to speak to a manager and she said none were in right now and they'd have to call me back, so I asked to speak to someone else. This CM was at least a little more helpful and told me she'd look into it and call me back, but said she probably wouldn't be able to do anything.

I booked my air with DCL because I thought it would be easier. I could have booked better flights for less and saved myself the argument. I was annoyed over the flight times, but the lack of customer service with the air people is what really bothers me.

 

[strawberryblonde]

I would not be happy either, I'm really sorry you were given such tight flights and rude service

 

[downtick]

Wow, thats some crazy flights. I was told if I wanted disney cruise insurance I had to make sure my departure was after 12:30 as I would not be covered otherwise. I would be more concerned over the arrival than the departure. One delay somewhere and you miss the boat. How can disney do that? You should change your arrival to 1 day early and stay at a hotel near the port just to be safe. If not, I hope you have cruise insurance. I don't think there will be a problem, but that is just way to close to call! The disney sales rep was freaking me out on the phone too. My original departure was for like 10:30am. She was telling me there can be all kinds of hold ups at the port, or mechanical issues etc and strongly advised me to take a later flight out, so I did. How Ironic is that now that disney is putting you on a flight that I was told to avoid!!

 

[sabrecmc]

Wow, thats some crazy flights. I was told if I wanted disney cruise insurance I had to make sure my departure was after 12:30 as I would not be covered otherwise. I would be more concerned over the arrival than the departure. One delay somewhere and you miss the boat. How can disney do that? You should change your arrival to 1 day early and stay at a hotel near the port just to be safe. If not, I hope you have cruise insurance. I don't think there will be a problem, but that is just way to close to call!

I agree...that's so bizarre, after they told everyone not to schedule flights until 12:30. I would definitely see about flying in a day early. 3pm on embarkation day is crazy...one flight delay and you or your bags may not make it. By the time you get to the ship, you'll basically have to thrown down everything and head to the lifeboat drill. I'd much rather have some relaxation time. I don't know, maybe its just me, but the stress of it would make paying the one night hotel cost worth it. I'm sorry the air people at DCL aren't being helpful. I'm surprised you don't have "final approval" or something before air is booked. Sounds like they just found the cheapest flights and put you on it without a lot of consideration.

Getting excited! Spent most of the day planning our pre-cruise tour of Barcelona. We are staying at Hotel Regina. Where is everyone else staying? Really looking forward to some of the sites here like Sagrada Familia and the other Gaudi sites. What is everyone else looking forward to in Barcelona?

We're staying at the Le Meridien. I think we'll probably do the hop-on/hop-off bus the day we arrive and maybe try to make it to the Aquarium. I've heard great things about it and its open until 9pm, so that's a possibility. Mostly, I want to see the Sagrada Familia again, the Cathedral and maybe Parc Guell. My mom will probably go off and do her own thing while my daughter and I go to the Aquarium. I wish DCL would let us sign up for their Barcelona excursions, but they are only for the TA cruises. Can't believe Disney won't take my money!

We will also be taking our pins (though we only have a few, but my daughter likes the whole trading thing). She's only 4, so doesn't have an email yet, but we would definitely like to get to know the other kids a bit. She's a big time joiner and loves older kids.

 

[cj'smom]

The one we got is by Homedics, I believe. It has the projection clock, which is great for the cruise b/c it puts the time on the ceiling. It was recommended in the Passporter guide. We've loved having it with us on trips. We got it at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

If anyone else is interested in getting one of these, I did find them at Bed, Bath and Beyond yesterday. The one with the projection clock was 29.99 but it seemed a little large and bulky for packing. There was also a smaller version with the sounds only at 19.99. Was surprisingly lightweight. A couple of the sounds (birds chirping, crickets) may be too distracting for sleep but the waterfall and rain both are pretty soothing and the volume can be turned up loud enough to mask any ship's noise. It runs on batteries as well as plugs in. BBB has coupons out regularly for 20% off.

 

[cj'smom]

Anyway are we planning on meeting onboard at a certain time/place? Since we don't have to be onboard until 4:00 and then for us with early dinner we eat at 5:30 so Wed might be hard.

I was thinking maybe sometime on Thursday in the mid-morning at the Promonade lounge. Then we could all meet and the kids could meet up wiht each other too.

Any thoughts?

Lara

Thursday would be good. Just need to work around Palo brunch and Palo tea times as many people have reservations for that day.

We are up for e-mailing other kids! Unfortunately don't have any pins to trade.

 

[cj'smom]

Ok, so I just got off the phone with the DCL air desk and I'm not happy. They booked us on a flight arriving in Barcelona at 3pm on embarkation day and leaving Barcelona at 10am on debarkation day.
QUOTE]

Those flight times would really make me nervous too! Not to add to your worries, but I've been told by friends at Delta to allow 3 hours check in for flights to the U.S. esp. now with increased screenings after the Christmas bomb attempt. I'm catching a 10:30 flight out that morning but am going to another country in Europe and have been told to be there 2 hours in advance. It's doable if we get right off the ship (but still makes me a little nervous if there are any delays arriving at port or docking).

If they can't change your times, can they change your dates to one before and one after? I would argue with Disney that they have violated their own policy and need to make the changes. Best wishes in getting this resolved.

 

[everafter1]

I agree and I'm definitely still annoyed. I just got off the phone with them and there's basically nothing they can do at this point. They can't deviate at all now and flying in early isn't even an option at this point. At least the CM I spoke to this time tried to help and her manager was very nice.

The manager told me that the reason those guidelines are on the website is for people who are booking flights on their own. Since they have no control over what people are booking and can't monitor independantly booked flights, they set those guidelines. She told me that they monitor the flights they've books for guests and are prepared to handle anything that comes up. She also said that the boat doesn't leave that evening until 9pm. She said she could guarantee that since we booked with them we would not miss the ship. I asked if I could quote her on that and she said, "absolutely!" She also said if we did miss any flights that we would be taken care of completely.

For the early debarkation She said that early flights with DCL air are given priority for debarkation and that while we shouldn't have a problem, if we did, we would be taken care of. My big concern there is that my dad has PLS (similar to ALS, but not as severe) and he is slow moving, so that could be a challenge if we are running late.

I have a friend at the Disney reservation center and he even tried to have it fixed for me and there was nothing they could do. He also said the same thing, though, that if you book through DCL they will make sure you get onboard.

The one thing they did get right are the connections. It looks like DCL gave us plenty of time to make our connections. Oh, and they gave us seat assignments and we are all together.

So, while I'm still really not happy about the flights, at least I feel a little better after getting some reassurance. I'm just annoyed that I had to speak to 3 different people to get it.

 

[sabrecmc]

So, while I'm still really not happy about the flights, at least I feel a little better after getting some reassurance. I'm just annoyed that I had to speak to 3 different people to get it.

That's great news (or at least good news!). I would definitely write that person's name down though! Most likely, everything will work very smoothly. I'm such a worse case scenario girl sometimes, lol.

 

[downtick]

They cannot guarantee that you will not miss the ship. They have no control over the airlines and if your flight is cancelled, do you think the boat will wait in port an extra day for you? I think she told you that to feel better, but I am sure they will compensate you in the event that happens and maybe even fly you out on a helicopter if that should happen, I have seen that happen before. I do not think there will be any problem, it's just the stress of that it "could" be a problem that is the problem! Well now we all know for the future do book flights ourselves. Also, did you buy the insurance through disney as well? Because if you did and there is a flight problem, they will certainly deny any claims. If you did, I think it would be wise to cancel that and buy it on your own.