November 13, 2011 Mexico on the Wonder

[stampinshauna]

This cruise is only 51 weeks away (we'll be getting off the ship a year from today) so it is definitely time to get a cruise meets thread going.

Who will be joining us on this cruise? We've got 2 rooms booked, one for me, DH and the kiddos and one for my mom. This will be DCL cruise #7 for us and our third time on the Wonder. I'm excited to sail to Mexico because it is somewhere we haven't been before.


Cruisers so far:
stampinshauna, DH, DD4, DS0, DMom
lucky1, DH, DMIL, DD9
NedvedMom, 16 total extended fam
Adie's Mama, DH, DS5, DS1, DParents
dpygrl3, DH, DD4, DInlaws
lise maltais, DD12, DD10
KMan34, DW, DS4, DD4
dsinger44, DH, DS7, DS4
lee122668, DD13, DD10
nat1914, DH, DD13, DS10, DD9, DMom, DInlaws
brens, DH, DD8
curtisclan
TeamMason, DH, DS7, DS5
livedallovercanada, DH, DD7, DS4
Namihos, DH, DD4, DD2
Namihos's friend, DH, DD2
Lucille 1963's Mom, Dad, DS4
Welcome aboard! If you'll be sailing with us come and say hello!

Fish Extender info: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=42099786&postcount=143

 

[IrishCowboy]

I have added your thread to the cruise meet list

 

[lucky1]

Hi, we will be joining you on this cruise.

myself, DH, DMIL and DD9. This will be my DH's birthday cruise!

 

[jacobsDISNEYmama]

Hi there! We will be joining as well, and this will be our first cruise. So far its DH, DS3 and DD1, my mom, and mother in law. Might be traveling with another family as well!

 

[stampinshauna]

Welcome lucky1 and jacobsDISNEYmama! I'm glad to see that we won't be the only ones on the ship (although that would give us a good chance to get upgraded ).

jacobsDISNEYmama--feel free to ask any questions that you may think of. I know I had a TON of questions before our first cruise, and then a TON more when we went on our first cruise with kids. DD has cruised when she was 1 and 2. She'll be 4 this time and DS will be 1 in Dec.

Happy planning everyone!

 

[jacobsDISNEYmama]

Thanks!! Yeah I'm definitely a DCL newbie and so overwhelmed by all the info. I'm from San Diego and could make half a guidebook on Disneyland but I almost feel helpless with the cruise. lol

Thankfully I borrowed the Passporter from the library (it's coming from another branch so I'll get it tomorrow). I didn't want to buy the old one since I saw a new ones coming out soon, yay!

Edited: Found out about the fish extender!

 

[stampinshauna]

Thanks!! Yeah I'm definitely a DCL newbie and so overwhelmed by all the info. I'm from San Diego and could make half a guidebook on Disneyland but I almost feel helpless with the cruise. lol

Thankfully I borrowed the Passporter from the library (it's coming from another branch so I'll get it tomorrow). I didn't want to buy the old one since I saw a new ones coming out soon, yay!

Edited: Found out about the fish extender!

I'm sure you'll find a lot of good info in the Passporter, but don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions.

Fish Extenders are a lot of fun. We've done them on our past two cruises. As we get closer to this cruise, and have more people on this thread, we should definitely discuss this. I coordinated it on our last cruise and would be willing to do this again.

A few things that I learned when I had a 1 year old on the cruise...

Don't worry about packing baby food (if you 1 year old still eats it). The servers will make you purees if you want them to, or they will finely chop veggies and such to make them 1 year old friendly.

We took a cheap umbrella stroller with us and it was nice to use around the ship. DCL has some jogging strollers that you can borrow (with a deposit that they put on your account, and then take it off when you return it) so we borrowed one at port.

You can ask your stateroom host for a diaper genie to keep in your room.

You can also have your stateroom host take away the coffee table in the room so that there is more space for the pack-n-play crib in the room.

 

[NedvedMom]

We are excited to finally be going on a Disney Cruise. Friends of ours have been on several and it's finally our turn. We are going with my extended family so there is 16 of us. Any advise you can give us is great. Look forward to hearing more about the cruise.

 

[stampinshauna]

We are excited to finally be going on a Disney Cruise. Friends of ours have been on several and it's finally our turn. We are going with my extended family so there is 16 of us. Any advise you can give us is great. Look forward to hearing more about the cruise.

How exciting to be planning your first Disney cruise. Have you been on any other cruise lines or is this your first cruise? I'm sure your friends will likely give you some tips and advice, but I'm happy to help answer any questions that you might have. Will you be cruising with kids? Have you heard about Fish Extenders? I think we'll get a group together to do them and they are a lot of fun. Basically they are a little gift exchange. As we get closer to the cruise we can have people sign up if they want to participate and then we'll have a list of everyone's staterooms so that you can leave a little gift in their fish extender and we all go home with some fun surprises. The kids love this, but we adults have really enjoyed it as well.

Is anyone else doing a pre-cruise stay at Disneyland? I think we will fly in a couple days early and go to the parks.

 

[lucky1]

Shauna -

I know my DD will not let us pass up on doing FE this trip. She has so much fun, checking for them and helping deliver. We have done it our past 2 cruises and would not want to pass it up again. Since we are going to be driving to the port it will be much easier to get the gifts there now.


Have you done the MR before? I think what we are going to miss is Castaway Cay. So nice to be on a private island.

Glad to see this meet become more active, I haven't checked in a while.


Laura

 

[stampinshauna]

Shauna -

I know my DD will not let us pass up on doing FE this trip. She has so much fun, checking for them and helping deliver. We have done it our past 2 cruises and would not want to pass it up again. Since we are going to be driving to the port it will be much easier to get the gifts there now.


Have you done the MR before? I think what we are going to miss is Castaway Cay. So nice to be on a private island.

Glad to see this meet become more active, I haven't checked in a while.


Laura

We are excited to do the FEs again too. DD was only 2 last time we sailed so she didn't get that into it but I know she'll love it. I was going through some of our past cruise stuff when I was cleaning out a room before DS was born and I came across some of the FE gifts. DD loved the notepads, Disney washcloths, and little games and such that I found--so the fun lasted a long time after the cruise!

I haven't done the Mexican Riviera before, I hope it is great. I'll miss Castaway Cay too. I'm not sure what we'll do at the ports. DH will go SCUBA diving once or twice so I hope that there is a lot to do right around the pier and I hope that good beaches are easy to get to. I see in your signature that you're cruising in April. You'll have to tell us all about it so we know what to look forward to.

 

[lucky1]

I see in your signature that you're cruising in April. You'll have to tell us all about it so we know what to look forward to.

Actually I am lazy and haven't removed that from my signature. I guess I need to take care of that while I am on the system. We have moved that cruise to this one. We had to PIF in December, but our heart really wasn't in it for the April Cruise. After we got off the NYE cruise in January, we knew we wanted to go again but figured we would take MIL. We had a few days before the penalties would take effect, so we switched to this cruise. We are currently PIF on this won. With the Money we spent on the 10 night cruise for a Cat 11a (April), we were able to upgrade to a Cat 10a (Secret porthole) and add 1 more person and plus we got money back.

For our last 2 cruises we booked cat 12 (11c) and were upgraded to Cat 10a (SPH) or Cat 9a. I think because we book during the slow times.

I see that you cruised in 11/2009. We cruised in 10/2009 on the Magic.

Laura

 

[stampinshauna]

A With the Money we spent on the 10 night cruise for a Cat 11a (April), we were able to upgrade to a Cat 10a (Secret porthole) and add 1 more person and plus we got money back.

We have 2 SPH rooms on this cruise, so I bet we are just on the opposite side of the ship from you. That will make it easy for FEs.

 

[lucky1]

We have 2 SPH rooms on this cruise, so I bet we are just on the opposite side of the ship from you. That will make it easy for FEs.

We are in 5520! On the NYE cruise we had 5522. The view and location was great. I think what we will miss on this next cruise is the Steamer trunk, now with 4 people, but I am vowing to not pack as much.

 

[stampinshauna]

We are in 5520! On the NYE cruise we had 5522. The view and location was great. I think what we will miss on this next cruise is the Steamer trunk, now with 4 people, but I am vowing to not pack as much.

We had 5520 booked but then wanted to have a connecting room with my mom, so she is in 5522 and we are 5524. I know 5522 has a better view, but we are usually in an inside room and she likes to be able to look out (this is only her 2nd cruise and on her first one she had a veranda) so I let her have 5522. So, we are neighbors, I was thinking we were on opposite sides but nope, right next door! Do these rooms not have a steamer trunk? If not, oh well, we are getting better about not packing as much. Well, now that we have a baby that might not work as well as I thought and I'm sure we'll pack a lot again. I'll have the stateroom host take out the coffee table to open up the room a little for us, especially if DS sleeps in the pack & play.

 

[lucky1]

We had 5520 booked but then wanted to have a connecting room with my mom, so she is in 5522 and we are 5524. I know 5522 has a better view, but we are usually in an inside room and she likes to be able to look out (this is only her 2nd cruise and on her first one she had a veranda) so I let her have 5522. So, we are neighbors, I was thinking we were on opposite sides but nope, right next door! Do these rooms not have a steamer trunk? If not, oh well, we are getting better about not packing as much. Well, now that we have a baby that might not work as well as I thought and I'm sure we'll pack a lot again. I'll have the stateroom host take out the coffee table to open up the room a little for us, especially if DS sleeps in the pack & play.

Both your rooms have steamer trunks.. It is just the non connecting one that doesn't have a steamer trunk, that is why I am going to miss it. I did a review of 5522 on the Wonder if you go up to the staterooms on DIS.

We are pretty quite folks, so we will not be noisy... At least we don't have to go hunting for your FE

I am wondering if we will have the same stateroom Host that we had on the NYE cruise. He was from India and was going home when they went to Alaska, but then come back when they came back to California. I don't know if they keep them in similar assignments.

 

[stampinshauna]

I'm happy to hear about the steamer trunks. I wonder why your room doesn't have them, you'd think that with them being the same category that they'd all have one.

You shouldn't hear much noise from us either, especially since my mom is between us and the only way she'd be noisy is if both of my kiddos are in her room making noise.

 

[jacobsDISNEYmama]

Hi all, I'm sad to say we won't be on this cruise meet anymore. We were originally in SPH rooms 5022 and 5024 so I'm sure someone snagged those up already when we cancelled. We concluded that we will do WDW instead of the cruise and save up for a Med cruise when the kids are older to hang out in the Kids Clubs and such. Hope you all have a wonderful cruise!

 

[lucky1]

Hi all, I'm sad to say we won't be on this cruise meet anymore. We were originally in SPH rooms 5022 and 5024 so I'm sure someone snagged those up already when we cancelled. We concluded that we will do WDW instead of the cruise and save up for a Med cruise when the kids are older to hang out in the Kids Clubs and such. Hope you all have a wonderful cruise!

Sorry you won't be traveling with us. But understand the decision on wanting to wait until the kids are older. I know our dd loved it age 7.

 

[lucky1]

Is anyone staying the night before at the port or will be staying prior to the trip at DL?

We are still trying to figure out what we want to do right now? We will be driving in from AZ, so staying at the port with a Stay, Park and Cruise option would be great.

On of our party will be flying in and we have to figure out when.