NEW March 3-10, 2012 - Western Caribbean with the Magic!

[erineab]

Hi all!
Now that the holidays are over, I have become quite obsessive about our upcoming cruise and Orlando stay afterwards. I just found these boards a few days ago and have been reading like mad!
My name is Erin and I am from the Toronto area, Canada. I'm travelling on this cruise with my husband (who is a huge Disney resistor, but I do all the vacation booking so he just putters along), my 5 year old son and almost 3 year old daughter. We cruised multiple times on other cruise lines before having kids, and then took a 3 night cruise on the Dream last year. That was just a tease!
Anyway, I have been posting lots of questions on the main forum, and I hope to follow along on here as much as possible over the next few months. I am soooo excited!
I posted this question in the main forum, but thought I'd ask here as well. Do you think my daughter (who turns 3 officially on April 5th) will be permitted to use the Kids Club when on board? I have heard that Disney is cracking down on this type of thing, but she is just soooooo close to that 3 year old mark and I know she would love it! Fingers crossed!

 

[bledsoedoc]

My fish extender came in and it is beautiful! But does have a grammatical error...The Foley's instead of the Foleys...but I am going to just live with it. Other than that, she did a great job.
Word of warning...I have no time for craftiness but I have ordered a few local items for my FE gifts. And a few disney things...
Welcome Erinaeb! This cruise is going to be great. I have heard it is not sold out which means good things for us on board...Make sure to join the fish extender gift exchange on the very first post of this thread. It should be alot of fun!
Our little man still does not know...but I don't know how. We have accidently said things in front of him but luckily he was in his own little world!

 

[erineab]

I'm trying to decide about the FE exchange...I am sooo not crafty and wouldn't want to disappoint anyone lol. I haven't had a chance yet to go through the masses of posts about it to get ideas. Once I do that I'll be able to decide if I am up for the challenge!

 

[Shoopdeedoo]

YAY! I'm back. Couldn't for the life of me remember my password. Thought about writing to the admin...but then, wouldn't that be admitting defeat? So I kept trying, and cracked my own code tonight!

Hi everyone!

We are getting very excited for the cruise! I ordered my FE from ebay, thanks to the pp who posted the link.

For excursions, we are doing the CityView Trolley in Key West.

Still looking into excursions for Grand Caymen, it will be Stingray City and something with snorkeling probably. Really, really looking forward to this port. We were on a cruise two years ago, and the stop in Grand Caymen was cancelled due to rough seas. Not sure if we are booking through Disney or something local.

The last time we were in Cozumel, we went to Paradise Beach. The sea was rather rough that day, but we still had fun. I don't need to go back though, it wasn't stellar.
Our stop in Mexico is my birthday Do I really have to tell you guys what age I'm turning? We, too, thought about staying on the ship that day and enjoying the quiet. But then, I thought about taking the kids (ds age 12 and dd age 8) to the Mayan ruins and what an educational excursion that would be. Nachi Cocum sounds dreamy, too.

For Castaway Cay, I ordered two mats for the kids. Nothing else yet, although dd 8 insists she wants to try parasailing!

 

[jenleon]

Hi all!
Now that the holidays are over, I have become quite obsessive about our upcoming cruise and Orlando stay afterwards. I just found these boards a few days ago and have been reading like mad!
My name is Erin and I am from the Toronto area, Canada. I'm travelling on this cruise with my husband (who is a huge Disney resistor, but I do all the vacation booking so he just putters along), my 5 year old son and almost 3 year old daughter. We cruised multiple times on other cruise lines before having kids, and then took a 3 night cruise on the Dream last year. That was just a tease!
Anyway, I have been posting lots of questions on the main forum, and I hope to follow along on here as much as possible over the next few months. I am soooo excited!
I posted this question in the main forum, but thought I'd ask here as well. Do you think my daughter (who turns 3 officially on April 5th) will be permitted to use the Kids Club when on board? I have heard that Disney is cracking down on this type of thing, but she is just soooooo close to that 3 year old mark and I know she would love it! Fingers crossed!

erineab, Is your daughter potty trained? From what I've heard, they definitely have to be potty trained to be in the kid's club. My husband said last Feb. that we couldn't go on a Disney cruise until our son could be in the Kid's Club. Well, he trained in a month and we just had to wait until he turned 3 which he did in November. I hope they let her in.

 

[Shoopdeedoo]

Also, the route we ultimately took:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-Pocket-Mi...764?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aadfd363c

Her name is Tiffany, she does each one to custom order, and it came out great!

This is where we ordered ours. Thanks for sharing that link! Her pictures are great and I'm really excited to see how ours turns out!

 

[Shoopdeedoo]

welcome rob, christy and emily! glad to see more people joining this sailing....

quick question for those of you with children is this considered spring break season? my husband works in public school system and this is not during theirs....just wondering when that "season" starts for everyone....

I know you asked this question several months ago, but wanted to put in my .02. We don't really get much of a spring break. Just a few days off around Easter. Never a full week.

 

[bledsoedoc]

I know you asked this question several months ago, but wanted to put in my .02. We don't really get much of a spring break. Just a few days off around Easter. Never a full week.

Our winter break is mid-february and spring break is at Easter.

 

[Shoopdeedoo]

Thanks Cathy I'll have to look into that. We're both very excited for our first cruise. She's a huge Disney fan so this was a no brainer when we were deciding what to do for our honeymoon. We got engaged at Disney World almost a year ago in front of the castle. The wedding is in two months, can't believe the day is almost here. Then we get to relax and get settled in for a couple months before enjoying our honeymoon. We decided to not leave right away to save some money and cut down on the stress of rushing around right after the wedding.

You guys are very smart to do that. We did the same thing Got married in September, and did our honeymoon cruise in November. Figured it would feel much more like a honeymoon, knowing that we had all of those thank you notes behind us!

 

[erineab]

erineab, Is your daughter potty trained? From what I've heard, they definitely have to be potty trained to be in the kid's club. My husband said last Feb. that we couldn't go on a Disney cruise until our son could be in the Kid's Club. Well, he trained in a month and we just had to wait until he turned 3 which he did in November. I hope they let her in.

Hi! My daughter is fully potty trained, so that won't be a problem. I have booked some time for her in Flounders though, just to be on the safe side (I want to have at least a few kid- free hours!). I guess we'll just have to wait and see what they say once we board! My parents are coming as well, so we will have a few extra pairs of hands to help out when needed!

 

[hotdiggetydogs]

erineab - When we were on this cruise last (March 2010), DS was 2, almost 3 and DD was 1. They had no issue letting DS into the kids club so we registered him for that. Even though he was in daycare and used to seeing lots of people, he was very shy and didn't like being alone in the kids club. He LOVED the kids club but didn't want to be there by himself. The crew had no issues with letting us put him into flounders with his sister for our Palo night or any other night for that matter, to see if he would do better there. The crew gave me the feeling that they understood that if my kids were happy, I was going to be happy. I was really happy with how they handled it.
As far as the FE is concerned, March 2010 was our first ever cruise and we did the FE. I'm really glad we did. The kids loved finding new things everyday. We received such a variety of things. The kids loved receiving suckers, balls, little toys, pens, paper, stickers, tatoos, marti gras necklaces, etc. Our kids were young so we had to supervise them with some of the things like the necklaces we received but that was fine.
Tip: The only issue I had with that FE was that I forgot to bring little bags and labels. I got through it but will definitely bring bags and labels this time. They can be goody bags, ziploc bags, or whatever you want. No one is judging you.
Hope you have a great time on the cruise!

 

[hotdiggetydogs]

erineab, Sorry, forgot to mention that DS was 2 and potty trained, that's why they didn't have an issue letting him into the kids club. The potty training was the main concern for them.

 

[FoxFMX22]

We are now officially married! Now a couple more months for the honeymoon. Just got a call from guest services at Disney World that our royal room at Port Orleans won't be done because construction is behind schedule so we are getting a free upgrade to the Grand Floridian! What a nice wedding present.

 

[kungaloosh]

Ryan, (FoxFMX22),

Congratulations!!!!!!!!

That's got to be one of the best wedding presents ever.

Cathy

 

[Keurigirl]

Wow Ryan, that is so awesome!!!

 

[Shoopdeedoo]

We are now officially married! Now a couple more months for the honeymoon. Just got a call from guest services at Disney World that our royal room at Port Orleans won't be done because construction is behind schedule so we are getting a free upgrade to the Grand Floridian! What a nice wedding present.

Congratulations!

I heard about the rooms at PO being behind schedule. On the main Dis boards, someone posted about her PO room not being ready, and that Disney was moving her over to the Poly. She seemed pretty upset about it - she didn't like how it looked in pictures

Your GF upgrade is a wonderful present, indeed!

 

[yucaipagal]

That is awesome Ryan!!!

 

[bledsoedoc]

What a great thing for Disney to do! Someone being upset with a free upgrade to the poy is crazy! I looove the poly!!!! The gf is awesome too!

 

[aberrydisneygirl]

Congratulations Ryan!! I hope it was a magical day for the 2 of you!!

 

[Micknminni]

Congratulations! What a nice surprise to be upgraded to GF!