Northern Sights and Mickey's MAGICal Delights-1st Baltic Cruise-June 12,2010-Pt 2

[cquick]

Thanks for reminding me Gydell. I keep meaning to ask you what date you wanted. What information do I need to give them? Party size, etc? Do I need to book it in my name? I've never booked the big room before so this is completely new to me.

Could I be invited? Connie

 

[gydell]

Hello everyone,

I know I haven't posted much but we are still on this cruise. So much has been going on in my life I have not been able to do much planning for this trip. I've had alot of life changes recently.....mostly good, but some not-so-good. Luckily (and hopefully) the bad stuff is all behind us now and we are looking forward to totally enjoying this cruise. We do finally have our flights but have not been able to take a look at the excursions yet. I just noticed that we are no longer on the cruise list. Even our photo has been removed. I dunno, maybe we were taken off for not posting????????

Anyway, the company I used to work for no longer exists and I am presently unemployed, so I expect I will be able to keep up with this thread a little better in the future. Looking forward to getting reacquainted with you all......

I'm heading to Cary on Thursday. Heard you got snow last weekend.

Thanks for reminding me Gydell. I keep meaning to ask you what date you wanted. What information do I need to give them? Party size, etc? Do I need to book it in my name? I've never booked the big room before so this is completely new to me.

I think you just give them a couple of dates and they see if they are available. The room only holds 12(I think). Then we ask on here if anyone wants to have brunch. You can not have a private brunch and a group brunch so whoever signs up for this can not do brunch my themselves. I don't know if you have to put itin your name or can put it in the group name. Thanks!

Could I be invited? Connie

Yes you can! If we can't get the room we can try and get the same time and sit together anyway!

 

[jeanneg]

I'm heading to Cary on Thursday. Heard you got snow last weekend.

Yes, about 5-6 inches Friday night into Saturday and schools are still closed today! I know our neighbors to the north and midwest are laughing about that. Major roads are all clear so your trip to Cary should be uneventful.


Regarding our hotel plans: we will fly in the day before and are staying at the Heathrow Hilton. The plan is to freshen up a bit and take mass transit into London for a day on the town. Then the next day all we have to do is catch the DCL bus from the airport. Coming home we will do the same in reverse. Our choices were to either overnight in JFK or spend another day in London and catch a non-stop the next day. London won out.

 

[rotary2808]

Back in July, when we tried to book pre-cruise nights in London through DCL, we discovered that only one property - Park Plaza County Hall - had rooms that could sleep 3. DCL didn't have any more rooms available there, so we wait-listed with Disney and made a reservation on the hotel website as a back-up. When I did that, I discovered that my web reservation was considerably less expensive than the price DCL was quoting.

Last month, I made a business trip to England. Spent a Saturday in London between meetings in Glasgow and Winchester. Collected lots of maps & brochures and came home convinced that 2.5 days in London was just not enough for DD16's first trip there. Fares haven't changed as much as you'd expect since we booked our air last summer, so Bill & I started talking about changing our flight to go a few days earlier, even though we knew it meant paying a hefty change fee to the airline.

The budget couldn't support the change fee and Park Plaza County Hall's rates for 5-6 nights, so made a reservation at a Marriott near Marble Arch using my corporate rate, which saves us quite a bit. Park Plaza doesn't have a corporate rate for my company - wish they did! Figured we'd transfer to County Hall for the last night so we'd be there for the transfer to the port.

This weekend, as I was looking for something else on the DCL site, I stumbled on the page that listed the three pre-cruise hotels. I was stunned to discover that Park Plaza County Hall has been replaced by Park Plaza Westminster Bridge on the list. I asked Kelsie at Dreams to investigate. Turns out Disney has replaced Park Plaza County Hall with Westminster Bridge, which is a new hotel opening in March that's practically next door to County Hall. When they changed hotels, Disney cleared our waitlist, but they never told Dreams about either.

DCL's rate on a standard room with standard view that sleeps 3 is $497 a night including VAT. I can get a studio room (sleeps 3) with breakfast on the Park Plaza website for about $150 less. We'd been told before that I could use a hotel/port transfer even if I booked a London hotel on my own, which Kelsie reconfirmed this week. Yes, you can book the Disney-designated hotel on your own. In fact, apparently you can use hotel/port transfers even if you book a London hotel other than one of the three designated by Disney.

We thought about staying at the Marriott for the entire stretch, but decided we'll pay the extra to stay at Park Plaza Westminster Bridge night of June 11 so we can eat breakfast there and be ready to catch the bus for Dover whenever it's time to do so without worrying about a transit across town.

I'm not impressed with the way Disney handled the hotel switch or the profit margin they seem to be taking on the rooms, but Kelsie at DU has been wonderful about sorting it all out. I think we finally have it all straight - just in time for the final payment deadline next week.

My father says the planning is part of the adventure. No kidding!

Laura

I don't know why I didn't think to mention that on here. I just noticed the hotel change on DCL's website last week. It looks like it will be a really nice hotel though.

I'm heading to Cary on Thursday. Heard you got snow last weekend.

I think you just give them a couple of dates and they see if they are available. The room only holds 12(I think). Then we ask on here if anyone wants to have brunch. You can not have a private brunch and a group brunch so whoever signs up for this can not do brunch my themselves. I don't know if you have to put itin your name or can put it in the group name. Thanks!


Yes you can! If we can't get the room we can try and get the same time and sit together anyway!

I'll see what I can work out for the room.

 

[TammyAlphabet]

Could I be invited? Connie

Can I come too?

 

[wickesy]

As more people are starting to think about excursions now I thought I would post this invitation again for those who aren't going to Berlin:

Dad and I have booked a tour with Friends of Dave Tours (as recommended on the Cruise Critic boards) that takes in Warnemunde and Wismar - full details can be found here - I have booked number 1 on the list 'Complete Hansa'. The price is 115 Euros per person no matter how big or small our group ends up being and includes the tour, admissions, transportation, morning snack, lunch (with 1 beverage), an afternoon drink, and all taxes.

If anybody is interested let me know and I can provide Dave with your details.

 

[seaulater]

Good work, Laura! We finally booked our air, we even thought about doing Disney transportation. But I like to know which airline I'll be traveling on and I want to know if it's non stop. I sure don't want to have to fly to JFK or Dulles to get to London! So we did our own on Virgin Atlantic. We have flown with them before. I still wish we could spend more time before the cruise, but we have to remember that we're lucky to even get to go!

Wish we could be so lucky....

Haven't booked our air yet, but will be flying roundtrip from Salt Lake City in and our of Heathrow. Going over we will fly in and then transfer over to another airline to catch the ship in Gibraltar. Then will most likely take the DCL transportation post cruise tour of Leeds Castle and then stay in London for a couple of nights. Then fly home on Saturday or Sunday. We want to hit the plays in London. Waiting to hear the reviews on Andrew Lloyd Webbers sequel to Phantom of the Opera which opens in March in London!

We love going to the theater. So we will see what happens!

 

[skipper709]

Hi David,
Just to let you know that we are booked on that same tour with Dave. Look forward to seeing you then.
Skip

 

[wickesy]

Hi David,
Just to let you know that we are booked on that same tour with Dave. Look forward to seeing you then.
Skip

That's great, we'll see you there.

 

[sbell111]

I sure am glad that I'm not on the 7/18 cruise.

 

[gydell]

Can I come too?

If we get a room then you're on the list. If not come with us.

 

[gydell]

If you have a ressie at the Best Western in Dover - it's closed......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...nt/8486110.stm

 

[carolmb]

I sure am glad that I'm not on the 7/18 cruise.

Why?????

 

[TammyAlphabet]

If we get a room then you're on the list. If not come with us.

Thanks!!!! It will just be Layla and I on this leg of the cruise, so I would love to have meals with some friends!

 

[cquick]

Yes, about 5-6 inches Friday night into Saturday and schools are still closed today! I know our neighbors to the north and midwest are laughing about that. Major roads are all clear so your trip to Cary should be uneventful.

.

My son ( who was raised in northern Illinois) is now going to Duke Law. He said the whole town was shut down because of the snow. I guess he must have known that would happen, he went to the store the day before!

 

[cquick]

Why?????

yeah....WHY?

 

[cquick]

As more people are starting to think about excursions now I thought I would post this invitation again for those who aren't going to Berlin:

Dad and I have booked a tour with Friends of Dave Tours (as recommended on the Cruise Critic boards) that takes in Warnemunde and Wismar - full details can be found here - I have booked number 1 on the list 'Complete Hansa'. The price is 115 Euros per person no matter how big or small our group ends up being and includes the tour, admissions, transportation, morning snack, lunch (with 1 beverage), an afternoon drink, and all taxes.

If anybody is interested let me know and I can provide Dave with your details.

Thanks, we'll look at the tour. It sounds good! Connie

 

[epcotrulz]

That's great, we'll see you there.

We're on that tour too!

(Friends of Dave in Warnemunde)

 

[cquick]

Wish we could be so lucky....

Haven't booked our air yet, but will be flying roundtrip from Salt Lake City in and our of Heathrow. Going over we will fly in and then transfer over to another airline to catch the ship in Gibraltar. Then will most likely take the DCL transportation post cruise tour of Leeds Castle and then stay in London for a couple of nights. Then fly home on Saturday or Sunday. We want to hit the plays in London. Waiting to hear the reviews on Andrew Lloyd Webbers sequel to Phantom of the Opera which opens in March in London!

We love going to the theater. So we will see what happens!

that sounds really cool!

 

[4boons]

Waiting to hear the reviews on Andrew Lloyd Webbers sequel to Phantom of the Opera which opens in March in London!

The ads for "Love Never Dies" were all over the underground stations when I was in London on business in January. That is the show DD16 wants to see as she's a huge fan of "Phantom of the Opera", so we're eager to see the reviews too. If it's not too much trouble, please send a PM if you run across something about it. I'm travelling on business so much, I might miss a post on the thread.

Laura