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

[cliffy97]

OK guys there is interest in the Crawl around the Magic! Chris (Chris&Jeremy) and I will be leading this crawl and we will provide some more info shortly.

I will be working on the date and signups and Chris will be working on the Tshirt design and we will both be working on the route of the crawl and perhaps a theme for each stop.

If you are intersted in joining, please just send me a PM. There is no cost associated with the crawl other then your drinks that we will each pay for on our own.

I know some of you say that you don't drink or don't think that you can keep up. That's cool! In my mind the crawl is more about us all being convivial (I don't care what Bruce says its a real word and has a real meaning) and getting to know each other better. However, this does not mean that a few of us may be crawling at the end.


Look forward to seeing all of you.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Sarah, it sounded like you did your port sight-seeing on your own at the first stops. Was there any Disney excursion that you wished that you had taken?

Thanks so much, everyone,
Karen

Hi Karen
It wasn't difficult sight seeing under our own steam .... we just wanted to wander around and absorb the atmosphere in Gibraltar and Madeira. In Gibraltar we just would have liked to have gone up the cable car but at the time it was closed, but again we would have done this ourselves. Everywhere is easy to walk to. In Madeira we wished we had done Noel's tour when everyone said how good it was, so we will be doing that this time

Last September we had 2 Sarahs, both from Wales and that did cause problems!!

and I was one of them

Sounds like a normal evening our for me

SW

Be careful what you wish for

 

[KrisannB]

Thanks for all the welcome messages!

I've been reading Sarah's trip report from last year--I'm up to page 11--silly job, sometimes I have to work.

A few questions for "experienced" TA cruisers:

Due to luggage restrictions, I didn't plan to bring pirate dress. The pictures look like almost everyone got pirated up. Will we feel strange if we just wear pirate tees?

I also don't plan on different dresses for every night. How did you ladies manage to bring such amazing wardrobes with you?

Does anyone remember if there was some kind of price break for internet usage on the cruise? Was it a set fee for unlimited usage? I'm afraid that Kevin will go into serious withdrawal if he doesn't have internet!

Sarah, it sounded like you did your port sight-seeing on your own at the first stops. Was there any Disney excursion that you wished that you had taken?

Thanks so much, everyone,
Karen

What we do on long cruises (well short ones too) is to wear white shirts and jeans and we have the mickey pirate hats - they take up very little room in the suitcase and do not feel out of place yet we still have some "pirate" stuff.

as for dinner the name of the game is mix and match. We do wear jeans to dinner on casual nights, and wear our dinner clothes several nights each. This cruise we each had 3 pairs of pants - one jeans, one kaki, one capri for me/white linen for DH - we would wear them to dinner, then go change - had different shirts with them - works great for us. For this cruise (really thinking we will be on it) we are most likely not going to do the major dress up for formal night like on the EBTA

We are thinking we will spend 2 weeks before the cruise in Germany hidden away in a farm house, not tourist, just relaxing, and doing an emersion of life there so all the extra clothes will not be an option for us.

Internet for the largest package is $150 for 500 minutes - it is not fast but that is the nature of satelite - I go into knowing that, but I do download my mail and check in somethings. on the ebta this year we did not have internet hardly at all for the first week.

In gilbralter they have some internet cafe's but we found this one really quaint quiet restaurant called Salsa something (can't remember the rest of the name) that is in the back corner from the glass blowing place (same row just oppisite end) and the fish and chips were good, kids got free refills on drinks, and free wifi. The only thing in hind sight is we would have split a meal as the fish was really big - the kids did split a pizza.

On the WBTA last year we learned that the terminal at St. Marten has free wifi.

 

[MandyGirl]

Can you imagine a line of us waiting at the door for the place to open then rushing in an grabbing stuff off the shelves, it'll be just like Supermarket Sweep!!!!

SW

Yep! Then we can enjoy the dolphins and later excursions without worrying about making it to Morrison's on time or waiting in a long checkout line.


FYI - Don't get glued to the idea of liking your assigned seats on your airlines. Just received the auto email on our flight to New York that our flight changed, and seats were rebooked. Of course me, my (currrent) 4 year old and (current) 11 month old are not sitting together now with this new flight (whereas we were booked all three together previously since we booked 330 days in advance - as soon as the schedule opened). When calling the airline, due to blocked seats (referred to as "airport controlled".... aka frequent flyer seats...) the reservation agent could do absolutely nothing to re-seat us together. We have to ask at the airport when checking in, and hopefully someone will be coerced to trade seats.

Seriously?? I've worked for an airline before and have flown standby hundreds of times, but if I had wanted us to fly where we weren't seated together, I would have done standby for this trip (taking whatever seats were available) instead of booking actual tickets almost a year in advance!

Okay. Vent over. At least we will be arriving in New York earlier!

 

[granmaz]

Yeah that IS a bit annoying guess you could explain the situation that several folks have other activities planned for the day and that changing the time might cause some of them to have to back out, then hopefully they will honour the time they offered previously.

Well the time previously offered was for a certain number of clients. Could be that they don't have the extra boat at that time for the extra guests. Could be that boat is doing a DCL excursion, or one booked by another private group.

 

[tojam]

Does anyone have a site where the excursions for our cruise can be reviewed or is that only possible upon your registration date, which for us is 6/12? Excited to see what options exist.

Thanks

 

[Chris&Jeremy]

tojam - go here:

Port Adventures

You can choose the ports from the dropdown menu and see cost, etc.

 

[karentan]

Great Idea so count me in. Your have to teach me how to order a half though, because I have never done that before and I might get confused

love it! i'm not used to halves either. might have to go for full ones instead

Thats it, I give up. I don't know what else to try to get a ticker to work. I added the ] that was suggested and nothing. I'm just no good with computers. I will stick to buying on ebay.

sue, send me a PM with what ticker design you want, what slider, what text and what date and i'll email you the link you need to copy and paste into your signature

Can you imagine a line of us waiting at the door for the place to open then rushing in an grabbing stuff off the shelves, it'll be just like Supermarket Sweep!!!!

is anyone going to have the perma orange tan a-la dale winton?!

However, this does not mean that a few of us may be crawling at the end.

count me in for the crawlers!

Does anyone have a site where the excursions for our cruise can be reviewed or is that only possible upon your registration date, which for us is 6/12? Excited to see what options exist.

Thanks

if you go onto DCL website, click on cruises and destinations at the top, on the drop down menu click on port adventures. you can then click on the port and it'll tell you the excursions available

 

[goofieslonglostsis]

FYI - Don't get glued to the idea of liking your assigned seats on your airlines. Just received the auto email on our flight to New York that our flight changed, and seats were rebooked. Of course me, my (currrent) 4 year old and (current) 11 month old are not sitting together now with this new flight (whereas we were booked all three together previously since we booked 330 days in advance - as soon as the schedule opened). When calling the airline, due to blocked seats (referred to as "airport controlled".... aka frequent flyer seats...) the reservation agent could do absolutely nothing to re-seat us together. We have to ask at the airport when checking in, and hopefully someone will be coerced to trade seats.

Seriously?? I've worked for an airline before and have flown standby hundreds of times, but if I had wanted us to fly where we weren't seated together, I would have done standby for this trip (taking whatever seats were available) instead of booking actual tickets almost a year in advance!

Actually, this has been policy with like 99,9% if not 100% of the airlines. Eco, business, first, nobody gets any seat guarantee. You're lucky to get an update, but most of the times that does not work. If it does work they tend to be............. much later then when the change was first made. This is one of the many reasons we always advice our friends and relatives to check up on their booking every once in a while and more frequently about a couple of months out (schedules will be tweaked when they can predict loadnumbers) and closer to departure. That way you can quickly catch up on changes and be one of the firsts to have things edited if need be (I have switched onto many other more favorable flights this way)

As far as the seating goes; don't sweat it. All airlines block of seats for both these types of situations, frequent flyers and people with disabilities. As long as you check in (do it online!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) a.s.a.p. you should be able to find you seats together. As check in opens they will open up all seats incl. most blocked (some airlines do not release the bulkheads until at the airport), which would allow you to sort this out at home already. The only times I've seen groups seated apart (and yes, they'll do their stinking best but even children aren't guaranteed anything) has been when the party themselves had an attitude about it and showed up very late for check in and even later for boarding.

If check in hasn't already done the trick either at home online or at the airport; make your way to the gate early and talk to the gate agents. They have a bit more leeway sometimes than checkin agents do.

It really is very unlikely for a flight to have so many FF's on them that they'll take up all the seating blocked for them (and them wanting to sit there) unless it's a typical business flight on a typical business hour. Honestly, nowadays all US legacy carriers block loads of seats for their FF and will have left out of those to release into the general public at check in.

 

[karentan]

tojam, chris beat me to it! and gave you a link too

 

[Pinky166]

Sounds like a normal evening our for me

SW

Well make sure you pack them, have you got a pink tu-tu aswell? You could be the Champagne Girls mascot.

Can you imagine a line of us waiting at the door for the place to open then rushing in an grabbing stuff off the shelves, it'll be just like Supermarket Sweep!!!!

SW

Hahaha....it will be trolley dash carnage, all racing to the booze aisle.

Ok who's going to be Dale

Michelle, are you volunteering Neil for the job?

We can buy him a bottle of the most orangey fake tan we can find.

 

[karentan]

We can buy him a bottle of the most orangey fake tan we can find.

now THAT would be funny!!

claire, did you get a PM from jackie about the quiz? dying to find out who won, but i didnt get a PM so guess i'm not in the running

 

[karentan]

sue and michelle - mickey tshirts are in the mail

 

[Pinky166]

now THAT would be funny!!

claire, did you get a PM from jackie about the quiz? dying to find out who won, but i didnt get a PM so guess i'm not in the running

You may have come 1st! She hasn't posted the results yet....I have got a PM so I am one of the 3 fighting for 2nd place. Totally crazy question for the tie breaker, have you seen it?

 

[karentan]

Yeah I saw it, it's crazy hard, no clues in the photo either! Actually kinda glad I didnt have to answer it! Don't think I did well enough for first but good luck to you

 

[Pinky166]

Yeah I saw it, it's crazy hard, no clues in the photo either! Actually kinda glad I didnt have to answer it! Don't think I did well enough for first but good luck to you

Thanks hun......I am just going to send a random guess, that photo could be absolutely anywhere on property.

 

[kthomas618]

Thank you all for the warm welcome wishes! We are Tom and Kathy from Connecticut (USA). This will be our "gold" cruise and second TA. We're really excited but hate to wish the summer away.

I just have one request...leave all the chocolate chip cookies for me!! They're so yummy!!

 

[tojam]

Thanks to each of you for pointing me in the right direction. I am embarrassed that I did not locate that before!

You all ROCK!

 

[Beauty & the Best]

FYI - Don't get glued to the idea of liking your assigned seats on your airlines. Just received the auto email on our flight to New York that our flight changed, and seats were rebooked. Of course me, my (currrent) 4 year old and (current) 11 month old are not sitting together now with this new flight (whereas we were booked all three together previously since we booked 330 days in advance - as soon as the schedule opened). When calling the airline, due to blocked seats (referred to as "airport controlled".... aka frequent flyer seats...) the reservation agent could do absolutely nothing to re-seat us together. We have to ask at the airport when checking in, and hopefully someone will be coerced to trade seats.

Seriously?? I've worked for an airline before and have flown standby hundreds of times, but if I had wanted us to fly where we weren't seated together, I would have done standby for this trip (taking whatever seats were available) instead of booking actual tickets almost a year in advance!

Okay. Vent over. At least we will be arriving in New York earlier!

That is complete garbage and I totally understand why you would be pissed. Just so I know not to book them in the future, what airline are you booked on?

My husband and I have flown international lots in the past 3 years and have always had assigned seats that remained the same from booking to flying - I guess we have just been lucky?

Hugs to you I'm sure that the airline isn't thoughtless enough to seat your children with other guests and hopefully it will all be worked out upon checkin. In the meantime, it doesn't sound like there's anything you can do so don't worry about it too much.

 

[goofprincess]

Aloha. Leaving for Oahu in the morning. My brother in law and his wife are on a 40 plus day cruise and we are house sitting for two glorious weeks I am enjoying the freedom retirement offers---spontaneous travel. All we are having to pay for is flight from CA and rental car, etc.

Basically DH and I will be non tourists and checking out island life--aka shopping at Costco, cooking our own meals which isn't too hard especially when dieting. Yes ladies......it's June 1st and I have joined the diet patrol.

I'm bringing my iPad and DH his laptop so we will be in touch. I checked the signs-ups last night and still lots of slots for Palo dinners and brunches. It did say $20 per person so that's another increase since we last cruised.