*Sept 10th 2011 WB Transatlantic* From Spain to Space Mountain - Part 3

[karentan]

welcome aboard for sure
i'm karen and i'm cruising with my DH gary.

i've taken the question mark off my master list and it'll update on the front page next time i update the list.

 

[Tod&Copper]

Well I have been reading and trying to catch up on the posts. We weren't sure if we would be able to make the WBTA cruise after all but everything is set and we will be on the boat. I don't have enough postings to be able to send a PM so here it goes:

We can officially have the ? removed from our group( we will be 4 adults: me, husband and two children)

We would like to take part in the lanyard/badge holder group

We are arriving on Fri 9/9 and staying for that night at Hilton Diagonal Mar
I will add more info as I catch up on the threads

aboard We are Mary and DH Stevie from Scotland. Great you could join us all

 

[Tod&Copper]

Hi All

DH has just been looking at the forecasts for the exchange rates for later this year (i.e. September) and it looks like the good rate we have at the moment is going to start dropping.

Just so we don't get caught out and lose too much in the exchanges, we have contacted our TA for our June and August cruises and pre-paid the gratuities and the wine packages in advance so that we get it at today's rates rather than whatever is applicable on the day.

Unfortunately, as we booked direct with DCL and used the MEO UK resident's discount rate and the cruise is priced in £s rather than $s, we can't pre-pay the WBTA

Just a tip for any UK cruisers who booked with a TA, there may be a wee bit of a saving if you pre-pay gratuities and wine.

 

[karentan]

you could always buy the dollars now for the gratuities, then use them to pay for the tips at guest services once on the ship?

 

[Aurore]

Hello there !

This is my first post on the Dis and it will be my first Cruise ever!!
I'm so excited!!

(a 14 nights transatlantic... what a cruise!!!)

My husband and I will celebrating our 3rd Anniversary on board
We can't wait to be the 10th of september...!!

I have join the facebook fan page, and I hope to getting you know all before the departure!

 

[susie2]

hi, glad you made it here, this is also our first cruise, but we have learnt a lot on here, susie

 

[birkner]

Hello there !

This is my first post on the Dis and it will be my first Cruise ever!!
I'm so excited!!

(a 14 nights transatlantic... what a cruise!!!)

My husband and I will celebrating our 3rd Anniversary on board
We can't wait to be the 10th of september...!!

I have join the facebook fan page, and I hope to getting you know all before the departure!

Welcome aboard Aurore and your DH!! We are Noel and John and this will be our 5th cruise on DCL. Our last cruise was the 2010 WBTA so if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask or PM me.

Please check this first page link of the thread to orient yourself about the cruise, DIS members on the cruise and all the activities planned.

To help you with all the activities that are planned, here is some information to help you decide if you want to participate:

01. If you are interested in participating in the Fish Extender Exchange (FE), please PM Pat (PFlamingo) with the following details:
Send her your stateroom number, Disboard name, first name of each person in the stateroom, realtionship to you (DH, DW, DD, DS, etc) ages and gender of children. You can cut and paste the format below.
Stateroom #:
Disname:
First name:
Age:
Disname:
First name:
Age:

02. If people are interested in being in the same area as other DIS'ers to send Dan (Cliffy97) a PM with Lead Passenger name, your booking number and if you are Early or Late seating. Dan was told by Disney today that this is all they need to put folks together. .

03. If you are interested in the Candy Swap, please PM Jacqueline (goofieslonglostsis).

04. If you are interested in Secret Mickey Exchange, please PM Karen (karentan).

05. If you are interest in getting a WBTA lanyard, please PM Noel (birkner). See this lanyard link for example of the previous 2010 WBTA lanyard.

Hopefully, a group of DISers will volunteer to underwrite the lanyards as they did last year so they will be free to the rest of the DISers. We already have several people offering to be part of the lanyard underwriting group. If you wish to join, please send Noel (Birkner) a PM. If we get enough members, the cost should be $10 or less per member.

06. If you are interested in a WBTA lanyard pin, please PM Noel (birkner). See this pin link for example of the previous 2010 WBTA pin.Cost will be approximately 4,5 or 5 Euros per pin.

07. If you are interested in purchasing a WBTA t-shirt printed with a variation of the cruise meet logo, Karen (Pixie_Dust_For_Me) has kindly offered to organise this for our cruise. Price will be approximately $7 per t-shirt, and sizes range from Youth XS (size 2) to Youth XL; Adult S to Adult 4XL.

08. If you are interested in participating in a Mickey Mouse Club night, please check out this Mickey Mouse club post.

09. I am thinking of organizing the same tour I did last year in Madeira. Here is the Madeira link to a PDF file that gives more information about the 2010 tour. If you are interested, please send Noel (birkner) a PM.

10. We are also going to do a Champagne Girls meet. The Champagne Girls event originated on the WBPC cruise in 2008. Women get together dressed in pink to drink champagne or non alcoholic bubbly and chat. Pictures of the first meet are in this post and pictures from the last WBTA are in this post. Please PM (Clare)Pinky166 to add you name to the list.

11. If you would like to join in the Scrapbooking Exchange, please PM Clare (Pinky166) with your name and room number. The idea is to give your fellow exchangers some scrapbooking embellishments for use in your scrapbooks after you return home! For more info check this post.

12 Join us for a Pajama breakfast on September 18 at 10:00 AM at Lumiere's. We will meet outside Lumiere's at 9:50 AM to take group pictures. If you are interested, please PM Mandy (MandyGirl) with the number in your party.
Here is the picture from the PJ breakfast on last years WBTA.

13. Sarah (TotallyAngelic) is organizing a Gibraltar Dolphin Watching Expedition if you are interested in joining. Please PM Sarah with the number in your party if you are interested.

14. Mandy (MandyGirl) is organizing a Tortola Excursion of a private day sail on a power catamaran to Jost VanDyke with Tortola Charters. Please PM Mandy with the number in your party if you are interested.

15. We hope to organize a Stateroom Tour of all the SR categories but we do yet have an organizer. Stay tuned for more details!!

16. If anyone wants to organize a postcard exchange, please feel free to start one. What we did las year is bring a postcard from where we lived and left in each other's FE. It is best to limit the number of participants no more than 25 as cost and weight to bring become an issue

 

[binkytell]

Hello there !

This is my first post on the Dis and it will be my first Cruise ever!!
I'm so excited!!

(a 14 nights transatlantic... what a cruise!!!)

My husband and I will celebrating our 3rd Anniversary on board
We can't wait to be the 10th of september...!!

I have join the facebook fan page, and I hope to getting you know all before the departure!

good to see you made your way here

be warned the DIS is highly addictive

 

[granmaz]

Hello there !

This is my first post on the Dis and it will be my first Cruise ever!!
I'm so excited!!

(a 14 nights transatlantic... what a cruise!!!)

My husband and I will celebrating our 3rd Anniversary on board
We can't wait to be the 10th of september...!!

I have join the facebook fan page, and I hope to getting you know all before the departure!

Hi Aurore, I have just replied to your post on FB not long ago. Welcome to our Dis group. It is just me and my husband John. What is your name?

 

[binkytell]

Well I have been reading and trying to catch up on the posts. We weren't sure if we would be able to make the WBTA cruise after all but everything is set and we will be on the boat. I don't have enough postings to be able to send a PM so here it goes:

We can officially have the ? removed from our group( we will be 4 adults: me, husband and two children)

We would like to take part in the lanyard/badge holder group

We are arriving on Fri 9/9 and staying for that night at Hilton Diagonal Mar
I will add more info as I catch up on the threads

aboard, it must be a great feeling to know you are joining us for sure

we are sarah and brian and this is our first disney cruise

 

[binkytell]

Hi Aurore, I have just replied to your post on FB not long ago. Welcome to our Dis group. It is just me and my husband John. What is your name?

i thougt aurore was aurore's name, even though i keep picturing/saying it as aurora aka sleeping beauty

 

[Aurore]

Whaww !! Thank you so much to welcome me like this!!
I really appreciate !

Thank you Noel for all this informations!
I'm already considering to join the Champagne Girl's Meeting
But before I will read all the links you've kindly suggested to me

Granmaz my real name is also Aurore (Yes I have a Princess name, it was destiny lol)
My husband's name is Iestyn (he's also french but his mother comes from Wales )


ps: I will probably make some mistakes as english in not my natural linguage, but I really like to chat specially with Disney fans, so I hope you will be patient with me

 

[auntlynne]

Thanx for info lynne, I had seen on boards that you could still book for length of stay, but good to know people are still looking out for others to get best deal : )

which resort are you staying at lynne??

Very tricky how they say "for stays beginning xxx through Sep 24" - I found out about this long ago during Food and Wine Festivals. The last day to check in on a discounted price is quite often the day before a festival begins.

My usual, the Pop Century. The tax rate is oh-so-slightly lower at this value resort than at the All-Stars. Can't remember if it has to do with when it was built (it was the last resort) or if it is actually in a different county. I think it is the former. Would love a moderate or deluxe room, but can't justify the expense when there's only me. And when there are four of us (all adult-size people), we still stay at Pop Century and give each of us our own double bed (and improve the person to bathroom ratio).

We did the Wilderness Lodge one year - loved it - but don't particularly like having to share a bed with anyone else.

Ditto what Susie said

Hope you all have a wonderful day.

Michelle - those labs are so sweet! just want to hug one of them. Now you need to make more posts so we can see them more often.

Well I have been reading and trying to catch up on the posts. We weren't sure if we would be able to make the WBTA cruise after all but everything is set and we will be on the boat. I don't have enough postings to be able to send a PM so here it goes:

We can officially have the ? removed from our group( we will be 4 adults: me, husband and two children)

We would like to take part in the lanyard/badge holder group

We are arriving on Fri 9/9 and staying for that night at Hilton Diagonal Mar
I will add more info as I catch up on the threads

- Well, that was enough stuff to make about 4 more posts - you can make a post just a sentence - that will will speed you along.

- You'll be among new friends at the Hilton - several of us are staying there - I'm checking in on Thursday.

Did you read that we can do DCL check-in in the lobby of this hotel?

I need to give you a BIG "thank you"!

We had read the offer as if our entire stay had to fall within the period.

So we just booked 14 days with free dining.

(I am "Just love Eeyore"'s husband - this is my first post, but I have been lurking for a long time).

You're welcome. And you are Welcome.

14-night TA + 14-night WDW = 28 nights of WOW!

Hello there !

This is my first post on the Dis and it will be my first Cruise ever!!
I'm so excited!!

(a 14 nights transatlantic... what a cruise!!!)

My husband and I will celebrating our 3rd Anniversary on board
We can't wait to be the 10th of september...!!

I have join the facebook fan page, and I hope to getting you know all before the departure!

Whaww !! Thank you so much to welcome me like this!!
I really appreciate !

Thank you Noel for all this informations!
I'm already considering to join the Champagne Girl's Meeting
But before I will read all the links you've kindly suggested to me

Granmaz my real name is also Aurore (Yes I have a Princess name, it was destiny lol)
My husband's name is Iestyn (he's also french but his mother comes from Wales )

ps: I will probably make some mistakes as english in not my natural linguage, but I really like to chat specially with Disney fans, so I hope you will be patient with me

Bienvenue! (I don't speak French) and Welcome

English is NO ONE's natural language - too many rules and just simply memorizing how to pronounce so many words.

And then there are the DISers from UK who post - and we Americans are going when they use their own slang.

 

[Chris&Jeremy]

My usual, the Pop Century. The tax rate is oh-so-slightly lower at this value resort than at the All-Stars. Can't remember if it has to do with when it was built (it was the last resort) or if it is actually in a different county. I think it is the former. Would love a moderate or deluxe room, but can't justify the expense when there's only me. And when there are four of us (all adult-size people), we still stay at Pop Century and give each of us our own double bed (and improve the person to bathroom ratio).

Our last two trips to WDW we stayed at Pop Century as well. The biggest "pro" to me is the fact that you basically get your "own" bus to and from the parks - no multiple stops. We are never in the room much so it doesn't make sense to spend a ton of $ on the resort.

That said however, we wandered over to the brew pub at the Boardwalk resort on the last trip while visiting Epcot. I think we may want to stay there next time - much quieter and nicer than Pop Century!

As an aside, we are jealous of those of you folks that are:

1. Retired and can travel as much as you want
2. From the UK and/or EU and get much more vacation than we Americans.

It would be nice if the US would catch up to the UK and the EU in regards to amount of vacation time that we get. Spending some add'l days at WDW once we get back would be nice but we have to get back to work.

I remember seeing that one of you is going to WDW, New York and then sailing back to the UK on the Queen Mary 2 after the WBTA. Now THAT's a vacation!

 

[goofieslonglostsis]

2. From the UK and/or EU and get much more vacation than we Americans.

We need something to offset the flight expenses, jetlags and not having a proper Disney within our own continent (yes I've said it, I'm one of those that believe in having to earn the D of Disney -dives down the desk before getting head bitten off-)

Seriously though, the grass is always greener on the other side. Even having "365 days a year to travel" isn't all it seems/seemed to be when it's out of reach.


For Rasmus Faber and others from the EU; check out disney UK website before hitting the final payment date when wanting to stay at WDW onsite. Depending on the resorts that appeal to you and partysize, it can be a lot cheaper to book through them if using the free dining + 42% discount at SSR and OKW. Mostly works for those in "larger" parties (read; more than 2) and comparing moderate and above resorts. Apart from renting DVC points, that promo, the US free dining or the US 30/40% room only discounts tend to be the best promos around for our WDW time.

Aurore; welcome aboard!


For those that own at OKW; apart from taking the boat, is there a walkway from OKW to DTD like there is at SSR? I don't really care about distance (not as if I'm doing the walking anyway ) but just have been spoiled rotten with the easiness of walking to DTD after our last years 3 week stay there. Love the freedom of not having to wait for transportation, esp. with WPE being one of my main foodsuppliers . Also it is great being able to walk back to the room after just popping off of the Lynx bus at DTD after a day of hardcore shopping.

 

[PFlamingo]

Im "retired" from the USAF. I hope they will have the Military deal again on this cruise.

I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed for this, too!

FYI - In February, DCL changed the rules about rebooking with military or interline rates. You now would have to pay the penalty if in penalty period as opposed to them just starting a new reservation at the lower rate with no fees as they did in the past (one of the big draws for us booking with DCL last fall before this change). I had been hoping interline rates would come out prior to penalty period, but learned of that change in January I believe. Emailed and called DCL to confirm, and yes, that's the new rule. So it is very possible that with penalties, it won't be better to cancel and rebook depending on the rate and category you have.

Definitely have to crunch the numbers on this! If they offer the same percentage off that they did on the EBTA, it would still be worth it for us even if we're in the 89-45 day range, where we only lose the deposit. We'd still save something like $1500. Beyond that, it wouldn't be worth it. I'm still hoping they'll offer it in the next couple of weeks. June 12th is D-day (as in Deposit day). Like I said above - fingers and toes crossed!!

 

[Chirpee]

Well I have been reading and trying to catch up on the posts. We weren't sure if we would be able to make the WBTA cruise after all but everything is set and we will be on the boat. I don't have enough postings to be able to send a PM so here it goes:

We can officially have the ? removed from our group( we will be 4 adults: me, husband and two children)

Hello there !

This is my first post on the Dis and it will be my first Cruise ever!!
I'm so excited!!

(a 14 nights transatlantic... what a cruise!!!)

My husband and I will celebrating our 3rd Anniversary on board

We can't wait to be the 10th of september...!!

I have join the facebook fan page, and I hope to getting you know all before the departure!

to Christannj and family

to Aurore and DH - what a nice way to spend your anniversary!

We are Lorraine and DH, Paul, from Ottawa in Canada. This is our 4th Disney cruise, but the first without our kids.

(I am "Just love Eeyore"'s husband - this is my first post, but I have been lurking for a long time).

Congratulations on your 1st post and to the thread
My DH often reads the posts too!

We made our final payment today We also added on the DCL transfer from PC to Orlando airport. Made more sense to do that than rent a car as our flight is at around 1 pm. Now just need to wait until June 12 th to make our cruise activity bookings!

 

[Namsupak]

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes with my thesis. I have to have it defended and submitted by June 30. We also have to get Lorelei’s passport pic. Tried a few weeks ago and she freaked out that someone else was going to take her pic. So now we’re going to have to try and do it ourselves. Thank goodness I left one room in my house with white walls.

Pat- I’m getting my masters in endodontics. Yes I'm the person everyone hates to go see, even more than the gyno. At least that's what someone told me the other day. So I already got my dds but decided to specialize and have to do a masters thesis with it. 2 years with a full load of courses and a full schedule of patients hasn’t left me much time to devote to the thesis part. So I’ve had to make time the past few months for the experimentation. Finally met with the statistician on Thursday and now just have to get the dang thing written. That’s the absolute worst part for sure!

Sarah- The hummingbird bakery looks delicious! Thank goodness there isn’t one near me or my diet wouldn’t have a chance.

Binkytell- how exciting to get so many things done for the cruise! I’m so jealous. We just haven’t had the time yet but I guess we’ll have to make time soon.

Christannj- glad to hear you guys can make it for sure. And we only have a few more months till the cruise. It’s all so exciting!

Aurore- Welcome aboard! So glad to have you. We are Lauren, James and Lorelei and this will be our 6th cruise and first time in Europe. Definitely check out the 1st page for all the info and PM me your hotel info once you get enough posts to PM.

 

[JessicasMom]

As an aside, we are jealous of those of you folks that are:

1. Retired and can travel as much as you want
2. From the UK and/or EU and get much more vacation than we Americans.

It would be nice if the US would catch up to the UK and the EU in regards to amount of vacation time that we get. Spending some add'l days at WDW once we get back would be nice but we have to get back to work.

I remember seeing that one of you is going to WDW, New York and then sailing back to the UK on the Queen Mary 2 after the WBTA. Now THAT's a vacation!

DITTO!

to the new folks...great to have you aboard.

Hope everyone's Mother's Day was wonderful ...but if it was a difficult day for anyone, for whatever reason, consider yourself .

 

[Tod&Copper]

you could always buy the dollars now for the gratuities, then use them to pay for the tips at guest services once on the ship?

That's plan B now