November 13, 2011 Mexico on the Wonder

[stampinshauna]

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.

I was just thinking that our thread has been quiet for a while and was going to come and post today after reviewing my reservation.

We are DVC members and are going to stay at the Grand Californian (in the villas) before the cruise. The port is a big shipping port with only a few cruise terminals, so I don't know if there are a lot of stay and park options available, although it is worth looking.

 

[lucky1]

I was just thinking that our thread has been quiet for a while and was going to come and post today after reviewing my reservation.

We are DVC members and are going to stay at the Grand Californian (in the villas) before the cruise. The port is a big shipping port with only a few cruise terminals, so I don't know if there are a lot of stay and park options available, although it is worth looking.

I heard there are a couple of hotels that have Stay, Park and Cruise packages... Double Tree and crowne Plaza. I know the area isn't the best. Have a few months to look into it.

We are currently PIF for this cruise, but will have to watch the calendar to know when to book Palo's and port activities. DH and I were just talking wondering if things will calm down in Mexico by Nov. Hoping for the sake of their tourist industry.

 

[stampinshauna]

I sure hope things calm down in Mexico soon too. We are PIF as well, DH was worried that they might implement a fuel surcharge because of gas prices and he wanted to be sure we wouldn't have to pay it (last time they only added it to reservations that weren't PIF yet).

DH just found out that the Wonder is doing a drydock in Vancouver in September, so the ship should be in great shape for our cruise--yippee! We seem to luck out a lot and have had a lot of post-drydock cruises, which really makes a difference. Things look clean and kept up. I wonder if they'll make any big changes.

 

[lucky1]

Yes it will nice to be on the ship right after dry dock and then even a few weeks after, so it shine, but all the paint has dried

I just looked at our short list of DIS travelers and realized we all have Mom's or Mothers In Laws traveling. This will be our first cruise with my MIL. We have done trips before. I have even taken her to Cancun a few years ago, just her and I...

We are going to WDW in May all together, so this will see how well we do for a week in tight quarters, since we decided to all stay in the same room.

 

[stampinshauna]

Our thread is mighty quiet except for us. Well, I guess you and I will know our neighbors well . Hopefully we'll have a few more join our thread before we cruise so we can set up a good FE list, if not maybe we'll want to do multiple FE gifts for each other so the kids can enjoy it.

I hope you have fun in WDW in May. We were there last May. That's kind of funny that we all have moms or MILs traveling. If JacobsDisneyMama would have still come they had both coming. My mom cruised with us once before a few years ago. We'll be celebrating her birthday on this cruise.

 

[lucky1]

Yes it has been pretty quiet here. Hopefully more people will find this cruise meet. On our last cruise, it seem as things got closer and they opened up Cat 12 (11c), people joined. We had a small list of rooms for FE, which was maybe only 9-11 families, so it was nice. I could not imagine doing 50 like some cruises meets are doing.

DH will be celebrating his birthday on the cruise on the last night. On our last cruise, I was surprised at how many people were celebrating their birthday. I think every night each table had a cake and Happy birthday. I guess it is a good reason to cruise.

 

[stampinshauna]

We've done FEs on 2 cruises with 10-20 rooms participating. That was very doable. I can't imagine doing 50. I'd hope that they'd just do 2 groups if there were that many. I'm sure we won't have the problem of too many rooms. I'm wondering if there are fewer DISers on this cruise since it is on the West Coast and maybe it is just a different market.

A lot of people do celebrate birthdays on the ship. I remember going on the galley tour and the pastry chef commented how many cakes he makes for birthdays and it was a huge number. I think a lot of people celebrate birthdays that are close to when they cruise, but not the actual day. We did that for DD a couple years ago because her birthday was a week earlier. We just lucked out this time with my mom, it was the most convenient week to cruise.

 

[lucky1]

Hi Shauna,

I see you are from Utah. I am from Arizona. Wondering if you are into scrapbooking since your screen name is stampin? I admire those with the talent to do it, but I just seem to purchase supplies and never get to it or if I do then it just looks terrible. I have been doing mostly digital photo books through picaboo.com


Hopefully more will soon join our little cruise meet. I am waiting to have them officially announce the new cruises and we will move our Dec 4 dummy cruise to one of the new locations. Maybe Alaska out of Seattle, since that is someplace we haven't seen.

 

[stampinshauna]

Yep, I scrapbook and stamp (I've done Stampin' Up! for the past 12 years). I do a lot more of stamping cards and such than scrapbooking, especially since I had kids. I've done a bunch of photobooks online as well, usually on Shutterfly. Maybe as the kids get bigger I'll have time to scrapbook more (but I'm not counting on it, it seems that there is always something to do).

Alaska out of Seattle would be a lot of fun. DH and I did a repositioning cruise on Princess from LA to Alaska, but we only had 2 ports in Alaska--Ketchikan and Sitka (close to Skagway). We didn't get up to the glaciers, but it was enough of a cruise to show us that we want to go back! We did go to Victoria and I loved it there and would go back in a heartbeat. We had a Dec cruise booked on the Dream but knew it would be a dummy date once we booked this one, so we just moved it to a week long cruise on the Fantasy in Dec 2012. Too many fun options out there.

 

[lucky1]

I am surprised at how quiet this meet is? I wonder if they will start reducing prices to get people on board? They did that for our NYE cruise. We got a room that we had priced at over $5K for $3K by just booking a cat 11c (12) and getting upgraded to the exact room we had priced out.

Is the market just saturated and no one wants to go to MR because of the warnings?

 

[stampinshauna]

Do you think that this sailing is just not filling up, or is it that there just aren't as many people sailing that are on the DISboards? I wonder.

We are excited to sail, but it still seems so far away. I guess it's 6 months from tomorrow. I'll have to keep my eyes open on the prices in case it makes sense to rebook.

Have you looked into shore excursions at all? DH wants to SCUBA and my mom and I and the kids want to go to a nice beach while he is diving, but I don't know much about the ports. I'm afraid that we're going to miss not going to Castaway Cay--it is so nice to just pull up to a nice beach.

 

[lucky1]

I was looking at some of my old information and we had booked this cruise back in Oct 2009 as an onboard booking but we could not book a SPH at that time... We then moved it to NYE 2011 cruise and then when they dropped the prices, we move it to April 2011 10 day MR cruise and booked NYE out of pocket with the price drop. But then decided we couldn't do the 10 day cruise and some how ended back at this cruise with a SPH and adding our MIL. Wow.. that was so round about. We are PIF, but if they drop the price we will snatch it up, but I think they will only offer 11C discount and keep the 10A and 9 as the higher price.

Not sure but maybe November before Thanksgiving isn't a high travel time. I know when we went to WDW during this week, it was relatively quiet and would just start getting busy the weekend before Thanksgiving.


We haven't started looking at excursions yet, but we know we want to do a beach day and will probably do that at Cabo. Haven't decided on anything else, I guess it will be determined if we stop do 2 stops in Cabo or add Mazatlan back in. I think we can start booking in August, so will need to spend some time looking.

 

[stampinshauna]

I got a message today from DCL saying that we won't be going to Mazatlan, but will have 2 stops in Cabo. I don't mind this, and it is nice to have the advanced noticed. That way DH can SCUBA one day and we can all spend some time doing something else the next day.

Since we're going to DL for a couple of days before the cruise, I hope it's like WDW was for you before Thanksgiving and that it isn't busy.

 

[lucky1]

I got a message today from DCL saying that we won't be going to Mazatlan, but will have 2 stops in Cabo. I don't mind this, and it is nice to have the advanced noticed. That way DH can SCUBA one day and we can all spend some time doing something else the next day.

Since we're going to DL for a couple of days before the cruise, I hope it's like WDW was for you before Thanksgiving and that it isn't busy.

We got the same message too and then a letter this past week. I guess they really want us to know. I am surprised they did not let our travel agent know. I guess I better start looking at excursions. We just got back from WDW last night and DH wanted to know how many days before the cruise do we want to be out at DL. I am thinking just one day right now. I really don't want to deal with crowds. Plus we have to let MIL know when to fly in as we will pick her up from the airport and probably take her back to the airport.

 

[lucky1]

Not sure if this will help anyone but Kids Sail free on this cruise, if you book a Cat 6 or above!

Unfortunately we are looking to keep cost down and to move up to a Cat 6 would cost us an additional $1k or more, even with the Kids Sail free.

I guess that means that Fall/Winter MR cruises are not selling as well and it his an opportunity to get the ship more full.

 

[stampinshauna]

My TA let me know about the Kids Sail Free yesterday. It was only $6.60 more than we are paying for our room, but then we'd loose our $275 shipboard credit and wouldn't get to be connecting with my mom's room. I didn't want to give up that credit and the connecting room with my mom, so we are staying with our 10A. Too bad the Kids Sail Free is only for verandah rooms. I had our TA recheck the price on our 10A and the prices have actually gone up by a few hundred. So, maybe the MR cruises are selling okay for the inside and oceanview rooms, just not for the verandah rooms.

We're probably going to book our airfare pretty soon now. Our only trouble is deciding how to get from the port to the airport. We wanted to rent a car so that we could take a late flight and have the day to spend in LA, but the car places near the port are closed on Sundays or else they would cost around $150 just for the day (because of the one way charge). We'll probably end up taking a cab and just go to the airport and have to wait around for a 2:30 flight. It is a lot cheaper to fly in and out of Long Beach, too bad because we could just do transfers if it was LAX, but we don't want to spend the extra $100+ per person.

 

[Adie's Mama]

We may be joining you all on this cruise! We are doing some number crunching, but with Kids Sailing free our 5B on the Magic we have booked for 11/12/11 is $1000 more than a 5A on the Wonder for the 11/13/11 sailing... figuring out all the transfer costs etc, and if it's worth it we're coming on the Wonder!!

 

[stampinshauna]

We may be joining you all on this cruise! We are doing some number crunching, but with Kids Sailing free our 5B on the Magic we have booked for 11/12/11 is $1000 more than a 5A on the Wonder for the 11/13/11 sailing... figuring out all the transfer costs etc, and if it's worth it we're coming on the Wonder!!

I hope it is worth it for you, we'd love to have more DISers onboard! Where are you from?

 

[Adie's Mama]

We'll be there!! Saved $1000... not too shabby! Just hope airfare doesn't kill us. We (Myself, DH, DS who will be 5 and DS who will be 22 months) will be sailing with my parents. We'll be in a Cat 5A on Deck 7... super excited!!!!! We were on the Magic Nov 6-13 2010, so it'll be neat to be on her sister ship 1 year later.

We are all from Chicago.

 

[stampinshauna]

Welcome! Did you do Fish Extenders on your last trip? We are planning to do a Fish Extender gift swap on this cruise. I don't think there will be a lot of us, but it will still be fun. Hopefully you can find good airfare. It seems crazy right now. We live in Utah and it is about the same cost for us to fly to CA as it is to FL, when historically CA has been a lot cheaper.