Nov.1 2009 on the Wonder! it's never too early to chat!the

[eyes4mickey]

Hi Judy,

Thanks for doing the FE Exchange!!! I will PM our information. We were on the Magic in November, it was a lot of fun. My kids couldn't wait to check the FE's Each day.

They had enough people in the group to divide it up as 3 familys each night. People fill the FE's at different times throughout the day so, there seemed like there was always something in there.

Kim

 

[WeNeedKetchup]

Hi Kim & Sheryl!!!!

Sheryl, I have a 9 year old Boy, we're from NJ too. I'm hoping the board gets busier too. I'm sure that as it gets closer to the cruise things will pick up.
We can't wait.

Kim

Taking advantage of "Jersey Week"? We have the whole week off of school this year, some years we only have the Tues, Thurs & Fri off. I thought I'd see a lot more NJ people on here.

We're doing the MNSSHP also, but I haven't told the kids about it yet. I'd like to surprise them with it when we are there. We'll see if I can wait that long!

Sheryl

 

[WeNeedKetchup]

Hi Judy,

Thanks for doing the FE Exchange!!! I will PM our information. We were on the Magic in November, it was a lot of fun. My kids couldn't wait to check the FE's Each day.

They had enough people in the group to divide it up as 3 familys each night. People fill the FE's at different times throughout the day so, there seemed like there was always something in there.

Kim

Kim,

How is the weather on the cruise ships in November? We've been to Disney in November, but never on a cruise ship - does it get pretty chilly?

Sheryl

 

[tjbaggott]

Taking advantage of "Jersey Week"? We have the whole week off of school this year, some years we only have the Tues, Thurs & Fri off. I thought I'd see a lot more NJ people on here.

We're doing the MNSSHP also, but I haven't told the kids about it yet. I'd like to surprise them with it when we are there. We'll see if I can wait that long!

Sheryl

I WISH we had kept the whole thing secret from our Children! I booked the trip last September, I could have saved myself a ton of money on Christmas Gifts if I had given them the Disney World Part of the trip as a Christmas gift, then leave the MNSSHP and the Cruise as a Bigger surprise once we get there. I think I was just TOO excited myself to keep it quiet!

Oh yes, how were the temperatures on board the Magic last November?

Judy

 

[eyes4mickey]

Gotta love Jersey week!!! We have 3 days off so, the boys will only miss 2 days. We'll fly out on 10/30 right after school.

We re-booked while on board last year to take advantage of the extra discounts. The boys got the cruise for Christmas, it was their big gift.

We had 2 rainy days, one in Grand Cayman and the other at sea Last November. The temps were really perfect, not too hot but, great to sit out in. The rainy day at sea we were able to enjoy all of the onboard activities and the kids still went swimming in the pools, that day but it was a little chilly. The rainy day in Grand Cayman was still really warm and we still swam at the beach but, cut the day short.

It seemed like I was alway chilly from the A/C on the ship so, definately bring a sweater or light jacket. My kids and Husband didn't seem to notice but, they do keep it cold.

Castaway Cays Weather was perfect, sunny and hot, no humidity. We did the snorkel Catamaran excursion there and Parasailing.

 

[WeNeedKetchup]

Gotta love Jersey week!!! We have 3 days off so, the boys will only miss 2 days. We'll fly out on 10/30 right after school.QUOTE]

We planned on leaving right after school on the 30th. Our flight was Spirit Air out of AC at 5:55 - the timing was perfect. I felt bad that I was making the kids miss trick-or-treating at home (which is why I'm surprising them with MNSSHP), but at least they would have their Halloween parties & parades at school. Well, Spirit e-mailed me a couple of days ago saying our flight was moved to 3pm, which means I now have to pull the kids out of school at 12. I thought they would be really upset & I'd have to tell them about MNSSHP, but they all took it rather well. I guess it's not like I'm making them miss everything for a trip to the dentist! And, on the upside, we'll make it to Disney a few hours earlier!

Sheryl

 

[eyes4mickey]

Your kids might still make their parties if they're in school til 12. I forgot about the parade, we have one too. We're flying out of Philly so, I need to leave here by 2. We're flying SW out of Philly. They get so much candy at MNSSHP that they wont miss trick or treating at all!!

 

[tjbaggott]

My DS5 (who turns 6 next week), occasionaly lets me know he's mad at me for not letting him go trick or treating here at home! LOL He will miss his class party (if they have one) as we are leaving Ottawa on Oct. 27th for the two day drive down. I've tried explaining how MUCH MORE exciting trick or treating in WDW will be, But, he is only 5 and doesn't seem to be able to comprehend that yet.
As far as taking my kids out of school, my two teenagers teachers and guidance cousellor know and support us pulling them out for this trip, have even fixed up a lighter course load for them for the first semester. But my almost 6 and almost 12 year olds, their teachers don't know yet and won't know about it till School starts again in September. I hope we get the same support for them.

 

[kewlteacher]

We have 17 people (8 adults and 9 kids) for this cruise! We are very excited! Of course, as a teacher, I just may LOSE my job, but the DCL is worth it! lol

This is our 3rd cruise, one family's 1st cruise, and the rest second cruise. You won't miss us...bunch of very loud NJ kids!

 

[eyes4mickey]

Welcome!!!

We're from NJ too.

Just a little over 3 months to go!!

 

[disneynewbee]

My DS5 (who turns 6 next week), occasionaly lets me know he's mad at me for not letting him go trick or treating here at home! LOL He will miss his class party (if they have one) as we are leaving Ottawa on Oct. 27th for the two day drive down. I've tried explaining how MUCH MORE exciting trick or treating in WDW will be, But, he is only 5 and doesn't seem to be able to comprehend that yet.
As far as taking my kids out of school, my two teenagers teachers and guidance cousellor know and support us pulling them out for this trip, have even fixed up a lighter course load for them for the first semester. But my almost 6 and almost 12 year olds, their teachers don't know yet and won't know about it till School starts again in September. I hope we get the same support for them.

You guys are lucky that the kids still get to have holiday parties. We are in PA and they have a way of sucking all the fun out of school. The kids can no longer bring cupcakes to school for their birthday and there are no more holiday parties. We go to a campground near us and do trick or treating and it's usually a wk or more before actual Halloween so hopefully we won't miss that since it's always so much fun. We are in the country so we can't go door to door so we usually go to our fire hall for a pty on Halloween but it's never that great so my kids aren't sad about missing that. We aren't doing the 31st pty though because of prices we are doing the 27th.
How many days are your kids missing? I'm taking mine out and my youngest will miss 8 days and the oldest 9. I'm worried about the oldest one missing so much but we can't make the trip in the summer and can't afford the holiday times. After they miss 10 days they have to have doctors notes for any additional days so I sure hope we have a healthy school year.

 

[disneynewbee]

We have 17 people (8 adults and 9 kids) for this cruise! We are very excited! Of course, as a teacher, I just may LOSE my job, but the DCL is worth it! lol

This is our 3rd cruise, one family's 1st cruise, and the rest second cruise. You won't miss us...bunch of very loud NJ kids!

Hey Welcome! How old are the kids in your group? I see you have a 6yo dd, my dd is 6 and will be turning 7 on the trip 11/ 2nd.

 

[tjbaggott]

You guys are lucky that the kids still get to have holiday parties. We are in PA and they have a way of sucking all the fun out of school. The kids can no longer bring cupcakes to school for their birthday and there are no more holiday parties. We go to a campground near us and do trick or treating and it's usually a wk or more before actual Halloween so hopefully we won't miss that since it's always so much fun. We are in the country so we can't go door to door so we usually go to our fire hall for a pty on Halloween but it's never that great so my kids aren't sad about missing that. We aren't doing the 31st pty though because of prices we are doing the 27th.
How many days are your kids missing? I'm taking mine out and my youngest will miss 8 days and the oldest 9. I'm worried about the oldest one missing so much but we can't make the trip in the summer and can't afford the holiday times. After they miss 10 days they have to have doctors notes for any additional days so I sure hope we have a healthy school year.

If we leave on Tuesday Oct 27th, for the drive down, they will all miss a full 9 days. DH is now talking about leaving on the Monday, making it a full 10 days (two weeks), and says if they are already missing 9, whats one more? LOL. We plan on having them do some homework on the drive there and back, between sleeping and movies ect.... Hopefully they won't get too far behind if any at all.
As for Holiday parties. My kids attend a Catholic School. Ours lets the Jk and SK children dress up in costume, and Grades 1 to 6 although not allowed to dress in costume, have a Black and Orange day instead (dress in black and orange).

We too are not allowed to send in cupcakes on our children's birthdays (because of the number of kids with peanut allergies), but what I do at holiday and birthday times, is send in a little grab bag of treats (ie: usually a lollipop, fancy pencil and notepad, small toy ect. and all are themed to the event). The kids do a little Concert at Christmas time, and have an end of the school year Bar-b-q party event for all the kids, their parents ect....
Last month they had carnival games, blow up bouncy things and slides, popcorn, cotton candy, a Fire truck and Police car arrived for the kids to exlpore, it was AWESOME! Mind you, previous schools my kids have been too (we've moved twice since my oldest two started school) never did this kind of event. It really does pull the school community together and the teachers and parents are friends ect.... I said we are NOT moving again, because I love this school the best for my children!

 

[tjbaggott]

We have 17 people (8 adults and 9 kids) for this cruise! We are very excited! Of course, as a teacher, I just may LOSE my job, but the DCL is worth it! lol

This is our 3rd cruise, one family's 1st cruise, and the rest second cruise. You won't miss us...bunch of very loud NJ kids!

Welcome! What an awesome large group you have! We too, are getting so excited here about this trip, and this past weekend, we made two countdown chains, one for each of my two younger kids. My youngest has a Mickey head chain, using the Mickey head paint samples from Home depot.(Good thing about it, is it has reinforced my now 6 year olds counting (he can now FINALLY count to 100 with no issues along the way!) The older one's chain was made by another disboard member and each day has a different Disney Fact to read!

Is this your 3rd cruise with Disney?

 

[disneynewbee]

If we leave on Tuesday Oct 27th, for the drive down, they will all miss a full 9 days. DH is now talking about leaving on the Monday, making it a full 10 days (two weeks), and says if they are already missing 9, whats one more? LOL. We plan on having them do some homework on the drive there and back, between sleeping and movies ect.... Hopefully they won't get too far behind if any at all.
As for Holiday parties. My kids attend a Catholic School. Ours lets the Jk and SK children dress up in costume, and Grades 1 to 6 although not allowed to dress in costume, have a Black and Orange day instead (dress in black and orange).

We too are not allowed to send in cupcakes on our children's birthdays (because of the number of kids with peanut allergies), but what I do at holiday and birthday times, is send in a little grab bag of treats (ie: usually a lollipop, fancy pencil and notepad, small toy ect. and all are themed to the event). The kids do a little Concert at Christmas time, and have an end of the school year Bar-b-q party event for all the kids, their parents ect....
Last month they had carnival games, blow up bouncy things and slides, popcorn, cotton candy, a Fire truck and Police car arrived for the kids to exlpore, it was AWESOME! Mind you, previous schools my kids have been too (we've moved twice since my oldest two started school) never did this kind of event. It really does pull the school community together and the teachers and parents are friends ect.... I said we are NOT moving again, because I love this school the best for my children!

Our school banned the cupcakes because they are on some movement in PA to make the kids healthier. We can bring in healthy treats for their birthdays (fruit and such) but no candy bags or anything. We are no longer even allowed to do candy, pizza, or cookie fundraisers. I get they have good intentions but really it's a parents job to police what their kids eat. And the holidays are not allowed to be celebrated because of political correctness. When we lived in MD they had a Halloween party and everyone got to wear their costumes and have a parade but the kids were not allowed to be dressed in scary costumes. Those kids who didn't want to participate for personal reasons were taken to the library where they could hang out in a bean bag and read. I would just like them to bring the fun back into the schools so that the kids enjoy school as much as we did as kids. Unfortunately with the downhill in the home value around here we couldn't move if we wanted to. So many of my daughters friends (highschoolers) are now started to do cyber school, even a few of my younger dds friends parents are starting them on it. They go to public school but it's not free for us we pay large school taxes to cover it. There are so many things wrong with the school system here. I'll probably get a letter threatening to fine me because of the time they are going to miss for this trip but honestly I don't care our family needs this trip this year.

 

[tjbaggott]

I'm not quite sure of our public schools policy here on the same issues, and our school taxes are paid out of our property taxes which total just under $3000.00 a year. I have friends who send their children to Private schools because of issues they have with the public school system.

That really sucks about your school's reasons for banning birthday edible treats and the cookie ect fundraisers! Those are special times of the year only, so don't understand how they think that would affect overall health? It's a treat once in a while.

I like your attitude about the trip with regards to school policy, they are your kids, your family and you know whats needed best! I feel that way too, and SO happy to have a High School Guidance Counsellor who agrees too, so will help work things out with the teachers!

Ohhh, just downloaded my pictures off my camera and have to share THIS! This past weekend was my youngest DS's birthday. Since we already had his party with his classmates two weeks ago, we celebrated by doing some Disney Shopping and the countdown chains.
PHOTO'S!!!!

Picked up our Disney Scrapbook album with a 50% off coupon at Michael's (also got our T-shirts there for iron on Transfers from the Dis boards here).

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Countdown Chain for DS6. (started at 106 days to go)

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And Countdown Chain for DS11 (soon to be 12).

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Excited? You BETCHA!

 

[WeNeedKetchup]

My kids will only be missing 2-1/2 days of school, even though we will be gone for 11 nights - and we have a day off after our vacation to recuperate.

Our school has been cutting back on the junk food (no foods that have sugar listed as the first ingredient, we no longer have monthly bake sales), but we still have parties with way too much junk food (the kids have 2-3 cupcakes / brownies at the parties, along with chips) and we can bring in food for birthday celebrations. I agree that school should be fun - the kids really look forward to their parties in school.

 

[WeNeedKetchup]

Even though I'm planning (and getting very nervous about) making my 90 day dining ADRs for our stay at Disney before & after the cruise, it didn't hit me that we are nearing the 100 day mark for our trip! I think I'll make a countdown chain today!

Sheryl

 

[Jilly8384]

Hi Everyone!

My name is Jillian and I'll be joining you all on the November 1st cruise!

This will be my first cruise, and I'll be celebrating my honeymoon! I'm getting married on Halloween, then getting up bright and early for the flight to Florida...

My fiance and I are very excited to cruise... neither of us have done this before and are a bit anxious, but know everything will be great!

Does anyone have any recommendations for excursions in the Bahama's? I'm not sure if we should plan something or just wonder around and enjoy the day!

Thanks!

 

[tjbaggott]

Welcome Jillian, and Congratulations on your upcoming Wedding. Married on Halloween! Different, and Awesome!