*Sept 10th 2011 WB Transatlantic* From Spain to Space Mountain - Part 4

[birkner]

I am really trying to get our pre-cruise hotel figured out but I feel like I am going in circles trying to decide between all the hotels.

Sarah, I saw on a hotel thread that you loved your stay at Praktik Rambla, but I noticed you are not staying there this trip. If it's not too personal can I ask why? It is one that we are considering.

Anyone that has already been to Barcelona and enjoyed their stay in a hotel, I would love to hear some recommendations.

We stayed at the Marriott Renaissance and Le Meridien last time. For a one night stay, the Marriott is perfect and Le Meridien is much better for sightseeing.

 

[Chirpee]

Well that's us packed

One sleep till Barcelona and two sleeps till we board the Magic

What am I saying, sleeps...... there is absolutely no way I will sleep over the next 2 nights with the excitement

Wish me luck that we manage to get an upgrade, we're going to the port for 10 am to try and get one. The ship looked pretty full by the time they closed off for bookings a couple of days ago.

I've just had a quick check on the DCL site for those of you with your reservations opening up in the next few days - quick Palo update:-

High Tea - Days 6, 9 and 13 are gone for High Tea slots
Brunch - availability every day
Dinner - availability every day

Good luck everyone and I hope you get the slots that you want

Bon voyage, Mary; hope you have a fantastic trip! I'll be thinking of you in Pompeii while we are at the Canadian Grand Prix. We'll be sure to take lots of pics of the race.

Thanks for the update on the availability for Palo Now just need to work out when we want to go there...decisions, decisions...

 

[Chris&Jeremy]

Game for whatever. I actually started planning this as a day time event. I was thinking 1130ish to 4/5ish which is how I have always done them in the past.

My initial thought was to have it in the daytime hours as well - are there any objections from the larger group?

 

[MandyGirl]

Have a FABULOUS cruise, Mary!!

 

[Namsupak]

As far as luggage goes we have the samsonite F'lite. It weighs 8 lbs for a pretty huge bag. Very basic inside but we can pack so much. That's probably why we can share a suitcase. This trip though we plan on bringing 3. I'm so excited though that DH agreed to using travellite for shipping our diapers and wipes to the ship. That would take up a lot of room and weight allowance so totally worth the extra money IMO. With the pre-trip to DLP I know we'll have a bunch of souvenirs. We might pack a totebag inside one of the suitcases to get some extra stuff home. I'm sure that I will want to bring back everything I see

Mary- Have a great trip! I can't wait to hear all about it

Those people that stayed at the Barcelona Marriott in the past... did you do a tour on the way to the ship? How did you get to the ship? We're trying to figure out what we're going to do.

 

[njmom23grls]

Just wanted to pop in and say Hi! I was booked here and switched to the EBTA - had soooo much fun on the EBTA and such a great cruise that I'm another one who decided to "do it again" -Have some catching up to do and look forward to getting know everyone!

Lisa

 

[birkner]

Just wanted to pop in and say Hi! I was booked here and switched to the EBTA - had soooo much fun on the EBTA and such a great cruise that I'm another one who decided to "do it again" -Have some catching up to do and look forward to getting know everyone!

Lisa

Welcome aboard Lisa!! 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.

My DH John and I have created a website for you view other cruisers and sign in with your information. If you want to add your picture, you can send it to us at nbirkner@yahoo.com

WBTA Website

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:

Cutoff date for joining the FE is August 1, 2011.

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 participating in a Mickey Mouse Club night, please check out this Mickey Mouse club post. Plans are to do this event on Monday September 19 at both early and late seating dinners. We will all wear our Mickey Mouse shirts and ears!!

08. 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.

09. 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.

10. 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.

11 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.

12. 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.

13. Claire (Pinky166) is organizing a Ladies High tea at Palo's. If you are interested, send her a PM for details. Ladies High Tea is planned for September 13 at 3:00 PM.

14. Squitty (Michelle) is oganizing private Mixology and Mojito tastings. If you are interested, send her a PM for details.

15. Karen (Pixie Dust For Me!)is organizing a stateroom tour, but we can't do it without you! PM me with your stateroom assignment and room number and we will tour as many staterooms as possible. It would be great to get one in every category!

When: Definitely on a sea day....stay tuned for which day!
Time: TBD
Where: You will be given a list of participating stateroom numbers and categories the day after we embark (to account for all those upgrades, don't you know )
Refreshments: Optional per discretion of stateroom participant.

16. If you want a designed DIS tee shirt for this cruise, follow the instruction in this post. DIS Tee shirt

17. Cliffy 97 (Dan and Bruce) are organizing a typical English pub crawl with a date TBD. Info so far is as follows:
On a sea day those who were interested would meet in one of the bars for ( Traditionally a half pint pounded, I would suggest a drink of your choice) and then visit (Crawl) every other bar on the ship at least once.

As we do not have to worry about anything closing or how we are getting home, I would I would imagine we can spend 20-30 min at each location versus the 5-10 min you have on the monopoly pub crawl in London.

Perhaps we can make tshirts up too.

Stay tuned for more details.

17. 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.

 

[RubyBlue]

As you can see from the post counter, we literally just found the DIS boards and then by lucky happenstance, this thread.

Will PM all the appropriate folks to join FE, SM, and the other fun things you all have cooked up. This will add a "magical" dimension to the cruise. Can't wait to meet many of you on these boards and have a chat before sailing!

BTW, Sarah (TotallyAngelic), your trip report and photos made for a heavenly evening two nights ago as my DH and I sat together transfixed and read every post and enjoyed each pic as we dreamed about the 2011 WBTA on the Magic. Thank you for all the trouble to post as it really got us planning and then led us to this thread!

 

[Chirpee]

Hello everyone

Just subscribing to this thread, first time cruisers so there will be plenty of questions to follow

Aw, thanks everyone! And if I missed someone here, whoops! Cake for all! .

Hi! It's my first post, but I just wanted to say thanks to PFlamingo for the link to marinetracker.com. I was using a different tracker, but this one is so much better.

BTW, I'm JessicasMom's other half. Can't wait to meet everyone onboard.

Just wanted to pop in and say Hi! I was booked here and switched to the EBTA - had soooo much fun on the EBTA and such a great cruise that I'm another one who decided to "do it again" -Have some catching up to do and look forward to getting know everyone!

Lisa

all! This is our 4th Disney cruise, but first TA. There are quite a few people on this cruise who have done either the EBTA or WBTA before, which must mean we're going to have a great time!

 

[RubyBlue]

all! This is our 4th Disney cruise, but first TA. There are quite a few people on this cruise who have done either the EBTA or WBTA before, which must mean we're going to have a great time!

Hey Chirpee, our "4th and 1st" too-- I can't believe I get to spend 2 weeks onboard-- no rush to pack and unpack and pack again!

 

[Chirpee]

As you can see from the post counter, we literally just found the DIS boards and then by lucky happenstance, this thread.

Will PM all the appropriate folks to join FE, SM, and the other fun things you all have cooked up. This will add a "magical" dimension to the cruise. Can't wait to meet many of you on these boards and have a chat before sailing!

BTW, Sarah (TotallyAngelic), your trip report and photos made for a heavenly evening two nights ago as my DH and I sat together transfixed and read every post and enjoyed each pic as we dreamed about the 2011 WBTA on the Magic. Thank you for all the trouble to post as it really got us planning and then led us to this thread!

Glad you found the thread and welcome! You'll find we are a very chatty group! BTW, you need to have submitted 10 posts before you can send a PM,but they can be short one liners to get you quickly up to the magic number

 

[RubyBlue]

Literally just discovered that fact! So I will reply all over the place or re-test my sig to get there! Thanks

 

[birkner]

As you can see from the post counter, we literally just found the DIS boards and then by lucky happenstance, this thread.

Will PM all the appropriate folks to join FE, SM, and the other fun things you all have cooked up. This will add a "magical" dimension to the cruise. Can't wait to meet many of you on these boards and have a chat before sailing!

BTW, Sarah (TotallyAngelic), your trip report and photos made for a heavenly evening two nights ago as my DH and I sat together transfixed and read every post and enjoyed each pic as we dreamed about the 2011 WBTA on the Magic. Thank you for all the trouble to post as it really got us planning and then led us to this thread!

Welcome aboard!! 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.

Be sure to tell us about you and your family!

My DH John and I have created a website for you view other cruisers and sign in with your information. If you want to add your picture, you can send it to us at nbirkner@yahoo.com

WBTA Website

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:

Cutoff date for joining the FE is August 1, 2011.

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 participating in a Mickey Mouse Club night, please check out this Mickey Mouse club post. Plans are to do this event on Monday September 19 at both early and late seating dinners. We will all wear our Mickey Mouse shirts and ears!!

08. 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.

09. 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.

10. 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.

11 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.

12. 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.

13. Claire (Pinky166) is organizing a Ladies High tea at Palo's. If you are interested, send her a PM for details. Ladies High Tea is planned for September 13 at 3:00 PM.

14. Squitty (Michelle) is oganizing private Mixology and Mojito tastings. If you are interested, send her a PM for details.

15. Karen (Pixie Dust For Me!)is organizing a stateroom tour, but we can't do it without you! PM me with your stateroom assignment and room number and we will tour as many staterooms as possible. It would be great to get one in every category!

When: Definitely on a sea day....stay tuned for which day!
Time: TBD
Where: You will be given a list of participating stateroom numbers and categories the day after we embark (to account for all those upgrades, don't you know )
Refreshments: Optional per discretion of stateroom participant.

16. If you want a designed DIS tee shirt for this cruise, follow the instruction in this post. DIS Tee shirt

17. Cliffy 97 (Dan and Bruce) are organizing a typical English pub crawl with a date TBD. Info so far is as follows:
On a sea day those who were interested would meet in one of the bars for ( Traditionally a half pint pounded, I would suggest a drink of your choice) and then visit (Crawl) every other bar on the ship at least once.

As we do not have to worry about anything closing or how we are getting home, I would I would imagine we can spend 20-30 min at each location versus the 5-10 min you have on the monopoly pub crawl in London.

Perhaps we can make tshirts up too.

Stay tuned for more details.

17. 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.

 

[RubyBlue]

Noel, your post has been a huge help as I've tried to sort out whom to contact regarding each activity! As soon as I reach the magic 10 post number I will begin the PM's. Really appreciate you having all that info in one spot.

We are cruising to celebrate DH's upcoming 50th; it's our first Disney cruise without children. They are now 19 and 22 and will join us on another in the future, I am certain! We love cruising and travel in general, but have never made it to Europe, either, so at least we are getting our feet wet in Barcelona. We have signed up for a cooking class (cookandtaste . net) on the 9th of September, and look forward to joining the DIS folks at the Hard Rock that night.

Yay, another post toward the magical "10"-- I can't even post the link to the cooking class properly until I hit it!

 

[birkner]

Noel, your post has been a huge help as I've tried to sort out whom to contact regarding each activity! As soon as I reach the magic 10 post number I will begin the PM's. Really appreciate you having all that info in one spot.

We are cruising to celebrate DH's upcoming 50th; it's our first Disney cruise without children. They are now 19 and 22 and will join us on another in the future, I am certain! We love cruising and travel in general, but have never made it to Europe, either, so at least we are getting our feet wet in Barcelona. We have signed up for a cooking class (cookandtaste . net) on the 9th of September, and look forward to joining the DIS folks at the Hard Rock that night.

Yay, another post toward the magical "10"-- I can't even post the link to the cooking class properly until I hit it!

I am glad to help!!

Someone on last year's WBTA took some cooking classes in Barcelona but I am not sure it was the same place. If you are interested, I will inquire.

Barcelona is a great place to start your trip in Europe. We enjoyed spending about a week in that area last year.

See you in September!!

 

[RubyBlue]

Noel: If you remember who took the cooking class I'd love to know to find out how they liked it. TripAdvisor has it listed as # 1 on things to do.

To all: Has anyone done the canyoneering excursion in Madiera?

 

[karentan]

Enjoy every Magical moment and don't forget we want a full report and photos when you get back

i second that thought! have a great time mary, and plan a day off for when you get back to catch up on the loads of pages on here you'll have missed by being away! we're steaming along now!!!

Definitely not this Karen

My initial thought was to have it in the daytime hours as well - are there any objections from the larger group?

i dont think it was ever mentioned specifically but i kinda assumed it was a daytime thing though.

Just wanted to pop in and say Hi! I was booked here and switched to the EBTA - had soooo much fun on the EBTA and such a great cruise that I'm another one who decided to "do it again" -Have some catching up to do and look forward to getting know everyone!

Lisa

welcome back lisa! for some reason i still had you as a maybe on here despite you leaving, so i just took the question mark back off the cruiser list!

Literally just discovered that fact! So I will reply all over the place or re-test my sig to get there! Thanks

no need to dummy post, you'll hit ten in no time just chatting along! welcome aboard!!

We are cruising to celebrate DH's upcoming 50th; it's our first Disney cruise without children.

if thats a current photo on your avatar, your DH does NOT look like he's about to turn 50!

 

[RubyBlue]

It's a current photo. I don't know whether to be pleased or jealous that he ages so well!

 

[birkner]

Noel: If you remember who took the cooking class I'd love to know to find out how they liked it. TripAdvisor has it listed as # 1 on things to do.

To all: Has anyone done the canyoneering excursion in Madiera?

I checked my email and found a post by my friend Valarie of Valbob here on the DIS. When you can PM, pm her and say I said to ask her about the class.

From the DIS boards:

For those coming in early to Barcelona. A friend of mine was recently in Barcelona and recommended a hands-on 1/2 day cooking class. She said the cooking class including, gazpacho, omelette, paella, and crema catalonian. Would any of you be interested in attending this class on the 16th? If so, I'll contact the school and see if they could could do so. Here is some info I found on the web:
Cook & Taste - a traditional local cooking workshop
ALL SESSIONS CAN BE HELD IN ENGLISH, FRENCH OR SPANISH.
COME IN OUR KITCHEN AND ENJOY A HANDS-ON COOKING CLASS FOLLOWED BY A COMPLETE WONDERFUL MEAL
You can start with a walking tour around the famous Boqueria market, getting plenty of tips on picking local, seasonal products, continue with the cooking experience and finish the adventure enjoying the menu prepared in a friendly and casual atmosphere.

Half-day cooking class each day: 11am
Price per person: 72€*
*Rates are inclusive of cooking class, meal with Spanish wine and a booklet of translated recipes.
valerie

 

[goofprincess]

Welcome to Karen and Stan

Tony and Sandy here from Northern California sailing for 7th time on DCL