Our recent cruise and tips that worked for us!

[scriv2]

I loved how you told your children! That is awesome!

 

[Macysmom32]

Yay!! We are booked on the Wonder in Sept for our very first cruise, and I just wrote down all of your tips! THANKS - I put stars by the over the door organizer, awesome tip!!
Which Eastern cruise did you pick - Tortola, ST martin or St Croix??

Happy sailing!!!

 

[mickeysgirl17]

Thanks so much for all your tips! I'm hoping to do my first Disney Cruise in 2009 and your tips are helping so much.

 

[Lynda Silk]

I just wanted to ask about Happy Limo and why they changed your time. I want to book a town car through Happy Limo so that we can get to the port early but I was concerned when you mentioned the time change. Was the change your choice or Happy Limo's?

And great Christmas pic! You have a beautiful family!

 

[lenny44]

These tips are WONDERFUL. Many are so very simple (I wish I would of thought of many of them) but will save so much time. Nice job !!!!! Can't wait for January 1, 2009 to arrive.......... we will be on our way.

Lenny

 

[ibouncetoo]

The 'tastings' do have a fee ($12 ish) and you book them in advance.

One tip for that is: when you get on the ship go to Guest Services and ask "What's going on that I have to sign up for?" Then you can go ahead and reserve spots in any of the on-board activities that will be coming up during the week.

Tinkermom, so glad you had a wonderful trip. Isn't the DIS community a great place to help you plan?

 

[DisneyMomforLife]

The 'tastings' do have a fee ($12 ish) and you book them in advance.

One tip for that is: when you get on the ship go to Guest Services and ask "What's going on that I have to sign up for?" Then you can go ahead and reserve spots in any of the on-board activities that will be coming up during the week.

Thanks for the info!!

kat

 

[Kewz1]

Thank you for the info!!

Kristen

 

[AQW]

Very helpful - thank you for posting!

As for the floats on CC, I plan to bring a few lengths of ribbon to tie the floats to our chairs if we step away. It won't necessarily keep them from being taken, but it will at least eliminate that "Well I thought they were abandoned" issue. If you have to untie a float to walk away with it, you're stealing it. Don't fool yourself.

 

[Tinkermom3]

Can you tell me more about this?

We are on a 7 night Eastern in April and I was wondering about this. Do you show up to it or do you need to sign up in advance? Is there a fee? How do you find out what day it's on before the navigator the night before? is it on a set day??

sorry for all the questions!!!

kat

You need to sign up for the martini tasting in advance. The cost was $15 per person. We found out about it the night before when we read the navigator for the next day. The martini tasting was on an "at sea" day. We got 4 small martini's. One was a plain gin martini (DH's favorite, not mine), and appletini (yum!), a pomegranate cosmopolitan (another yum!), and a chocolate martini (a big YUM!). Have fun!

 

[Tinkermom3]

I just wanted to ask about Happy Limo and why they changed your time. I want to book a town car through Happy Limo so that we can get to the port early but I was concerned when you mentioned the time change. Was the change your choice or Happy Limo's?

And great Christmas pic! You have a beautiful family!

Happy Limo called me the day before we were to sail and just said that their schedule was very "tight" and asked me if I would change from a 9:45am pick-up to 10:30am. I had ordered a white stretch limo and they offered me an excursion limo if I would change the time. I really did not feel I had a choice so I agreed. The next morning at 10:20 as we were walking down the hall with the bell-hop and all of our luggage I get a call from the driver telling me he is running behind and would not get to our resort (Animal Kingdom Lodge) until at least 11:00. I was so mad and DH was furious. We really wanted to get to the port as early as possible. DH called Happy Limo's office and told them what happened and they said they had no idea and were very apologetic. DH explained that we were using them instead of DCL so we could get to port early. They said they would send a driver within 10 minutes. They sent us the Hummerzine, the Hummer stretch limo!!! My kids were in heaven! There were laser lights, 4 tv's, and it was stocked with sodas. So even though I was not thrilled with changing the time Happy Limo did go above and beyond to make us happy!

 

[bubba's mom]

They sent us the Hummerzine, the Hummer stretch limo!!! My kids were in heaven! There were laser lights, 4 tv's, and it was stocked with sodas. So even though I was not thrilled with changing the time Happy Limo did go above and beyond to make us happy!

Sorry to hear you got 'bumped'...but sounds like Happy Limo tried to make it up to you

We actually rented the Hummerzine a couple years ago...and, I will agree....it is a SWEET ride!!

 

[Tinkermom3]

Love the Christmas card - great picture!
We have made ressies for Xcaret too, DS13 can't wait for this. Is lunch at the buffet there included, are lockers available, did your DD6 enjoy the underground river? We also have a DS6, this excursion is the reason for the Western crusie, I hope DS6 enjoy Pirate night and can stay awake. We also have main seating dinner.
I would love to see pictures of Xcaret.

Thanks for your tips, great advice.

Lunch is included at Xcaret. It is not a buffet though. You get a choice of a hamburger, hot dog or salad (I think) and a soda/water. You are given a coupon for your lunch.

Disney contracts a tour company that orchestrates this excursion. After getting off of the Magic we got on a ferry which was a very nice ferry and was right at the dock where the ship is. It was very large and air-conditioned with airplane-like seats. The water is a bit choppy and they passed around seasickness bags as well as free seasick medication (Bonine). Since 2 of us were already on Bonine we did not take any. We were all fine and I did not see anyone getting sick. The ferry ride is about 40 minutes. Once you get off of the ferry they line you up and walk you through the town (Playa del Carmen) and take you to a bus. The bus is also very comfortable with air-conditioning and comfy seats. The bus ride was about 15 minutes or so.

At Xcaret the tour company will gather you together and explain where to go. They encourage you to start in the underground river first. I think only 1 family decided not to do this. You are taken to an area to get a life-jacket (mandatory) and are given a large bag with a lock. You place all of your belongings in this bag and lock it and take the key with you. The key is on a stretchy band to wear on your wrist. Since there was 5 of us we needed 2 bags. Be careful with the key, DH lost his in the river, he thinks he caught it on something and it cost $10 to have them open our bag. You give your bag to the attendant and they transport it to the end of the river. Once you get out of the river you get your bag. There are lockers very near the end of the river if you wish to then keep some stuff in there.

As for the river, the water is a bit cold. They say it is 62 - 67 degrees. It was not too bad, you just have to jump in. It takes about 45 minutes to float through the river and that is with swimming a good bit. If you just float it will take longer. It really is beautiful and a cool experience but our 6 year old DD did not like that she could not get out. She got cold and tired about half-way through. I should clarify - you CAN get out at various points along the river and warm up or take a rest but they told us that you have to get back in and complete the river. I am not sure if that was totally accurate but we just stayed in the river until the end and had a whiney 6 year old.

Once we got out of the river we got our stuff from our bag and walked 2-3 minutes to the restaurant where we were told we could turn in our coupon for lunch. The restaurant is a beautiful open-air restaurant on the beach. You can order other food and pay for it if you choose. DH and I shared some fajitas and we each got a Corona. we also got our hamburgers. My kids got the hotdogs but did not like them. I tasted one and understood why. The hotdog was very different tasting, more like a bratwurst. Luckily I had brought some snacks from the ship. It started to rain while we ate so we ended up spending more time at the restaurant then I would have liked. We probably lost about 1/2 hour by doing this. After it stopped raining we went to the beach just outside of the restaurant and swam and snorkled. It is a really beautiful beach.

The only thing that bothered us is that there just was not enough time to do much at Xcaret. There are Myan ruins, animals (jaguars, monkeys, etc) as well shops, shows, and lots of other offerings. We only had about an hour and 15 minutes after lunch. Now, we would have had 30 minutes more if it had not rained. I do not know though if we would have done anything different. The park is huge. It is like a natural theme park. It took us about 15 minutes to walk (very quickly) back to the entrance from the beach where we were to be back for our meeting time for the bus to take us back to the ferry.

All in all it was a wonderful day. We all enjoyed the experience although I think the kids liked the beach even more than the underground river. The tour company that coordinated this excursion did an excellent job. We did not have to wait for the ferry or the bus at all. When it was time to go the ferry/bus were ready. I actually enjoyed walking through Playa del Carmen from the ferry to the bus (and back) and got some cool photos.

My husband is getting all of our photos online and I will post our Xcaret photos as soon as he has them up. We used a disposable water-proof camera for the river and most of those photos did not come out as it was too dark. I do have some good pics of the beach and such though.

This is probably more info than you wanted but I am a detail person. I like to know as much as possible before I try something. Hope this helped you some! Enjoy Xcaret and have an awesome cruise!

 

[sunnydaysahead]

Thanks you so much for all the details, it certainly is not more than I wanted. You covered everything that I was concerned about. My DS13 really wants to go here, this is one of the main reasons for the Western cruise but I guess we too will just get on with the whiney 6 year. Looking at the park map it looks like you can get out of the river to the paths to other areas (only if the whineing gets too bad!)
Thanks again for the info, we have made ressies on the DCL and atleast we will now be prepared for a BUSY day.

 

[DisneyMomforLife]

You need to sign up for the martini tasting in advance. The cost was $15 per person. We found out about it the night before when we read the navigator for the next day. The martini tasting was on an "at sea" day. We got 4 small martini's. One was a plain gin martini (DH's favorite, not mine), and appletini (yum!), a pomegranate cosmopolitan (another yum!), and a chocolate martini (a big YUM!). Have fun!

Thank you!!!! We are looking forward to it!!

Kat

 

[Lynda Silk]

Thanks for letting me know what happened re Happy Limo, tinkerbell3. Hmmm, I really want to be at the port early so that gives me something to think about. But at least Happy Limo tried to make it up to you. Thanks again!

 

[Lynda Silk]

Oops, sorry, I meant tinkermom3!

 

[fairfax]

Great tips! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Giefu]

I have to agree with the getting to CC early. If you want to do any snorkeling you need to get out there early because it gets stirred up really fast and the visibility goes down quickly. Even though we thought we got out there pretty early, it was still pretty murky by the time we were out there.

 

[Princess Tink]

Great TR Tinkermom3.
I wanted to echo getting to CC early. We were one of the families waiting at the ropes on deck 2, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Or at least DS and I were, DH was a slow poke that morning and was at Topsiders...he met up with us later. Anyhow, we walked fast all the way to the end of the family beach.....way down by the heads up bar. It was nice and quite there, got kinda busy after lunch but nothing crazy like it looked up by the play-gym. We were lucky enough to find chairs with an umbrella and a hammock. Oh, and we had a lovely view of the wedding taking place.