September 22, 2007 -- WESTERN

[cmctammyg]

Hi Marshmelo! I am an infrequent poster, but welcome aboard!

We are celebrating our 20th anniversary this year (July), but not on the cruise per se. My friends that are going to be joining us are coming on this cruise for their 10th anniversary - so I guess this is the anniversary cruise.

Chelsea hasn't heard from Alexis...then again she hasn't checked her e-mail in a couple of weeks. I think us running into you in the MK that time was just bizzare too. Out of all of those people and Chelsea just kept insisting she saw Alexis...and sure enough! We had a great time that night at MNSSHP!

I also have a ds who is 9 who would love a friend too!

We may try the 7-mile beach at Grand Cayman. We would also love to go to Tulum, but not sure I am up for the great bus ride for a short tour. I know our friends will probably choose the snorkel/diving excursions.

They changed to the H20 products the week after we got off last year. They had them for purchase in the shop that week though, and they were nice. They also changed the Pirate Party from the one we had in 2005. I was a bit disappointed, but I guess it is more aligned for small children now. It was great...just different. Lots of changes, mostly for the good.

I notice we have several scrapbookers on here too...there will be some photos to share when we get home I hope!

 

[scrapperjill]

Photo sharing..I hope so That's always fun. Although I'm not even sure if I ever finished shipping my photos of our last cruise to a couple people ....Kathy did I ever send you a disk?

I'm not sure if Alexis has gotten around to sending her an e-mail yet. Maybe I'll PM you with Alexis' e-mail address so Chelsea can make the first move. I know Alexis has been SUPER busy with school and all...moving up to Jr. High was a big step and a big change...but so far it's worked very well. Alexis has shot up her grades so she getting all A's ..but she really works hard at it...staying up late just about every night doing "extra" work/details to improve her grades...and make sure she keeps the A's.

I would have loved to seen that wildlife show with the stingrays....that would have been cool.

Seeing that I've never been to GC...I've never been to Hell...But I'm really not sure it's somewhere I'd want to go anyways.

 

[papa]

Welcome Marshmelo, good to have you aboard with us. Hope that everyone has a great day and we are looking forward to seeing everyone on board. Mike

 

[Marshmelo]

Thanks for the new welcomes For the other scrappers on here...I also love to scrap. This will be my first cruise with a digital camera, so I'm excited about that. Sharing sounds like a great idea. Hopefully we can arrange something. I can't believe all of you are choosing excursions already! I'm so behind! I'm still trying to figure out the differences between the 7 night and 4 night, since I have experience with the 4 night. I'm thinking maybe I should do Palo's dinner on Monday (formal) night since we will already be dressed up. I wonder if I will be missing out on a good main dining menu though?

 

[2canadianfans]

Mike..great picture..sharon

 

[papa]

Thanks Sharon, we are proud of them. Mike

 

[Bareacuda]

Great Pic Mike... It takes a wide angle view for a pic of my grandkids... I have 14 !!! .

 

[American Scrapper]

Yes, I am also a scrapper. Sandi - I am so behind on sending my discs out too. I did not get yours, and I know you did not get mine I will get it to you before September! LOL!!

Marshmelo, the weekend I go to Indianapolis is for a Scrap Weekend. It is through Dream Events. If you have never heard of it, and are interested, I can send you the link. It is usually the first weekend of October, but for some reason they moved it to June this year. Also, between Scapperjill and myself, we have tried to sail two other times to the Western Carribean, so planning isn't too difficult (seeing as we have been planning for 3 years now!)

cmctammyg, my DS Anthony will have just turned 11 when we sail. He is pretty outgoing. Last time we cruised he made friends with a group of boys that he hung out with.

GO BEARS!!!

Kathy

 

[scrapperjill]

HOLY COW ...Bareacuda...14 grandkids I bet the holidays are CRAZY around your home. Crazy and fun

Kathy...I'm so bad I think I got every one except you, Stacy and the group around here disks of my photos sent off. I kept putting it off because I with the other I was more selective and didn't send alot of the ones of all of us....BUT I was "planning" on sending you all ALL of my photos. I know my parents every now and then say something about "not" having any of the pics. I promise...I WILL get them off (sometime ).

Marshmelo...I think going to Palo on formal night would be a good pick...UNLESS you were scheduled for dinner in AP. Cuz you'd miss the 'light show bit'. But you've probably already see it....so it may not be any biggy missing it.... (that is only if you were scheduled in AP that night). I always have the hardest time trying to pick which night to do Palo....cuz I don't want to 'miss' anything . We did Palo on Pirate night our first cruise...and that was a mistake Personally I really enjoyed the Pirate night menu in 2005...the dinner was a tad rushed...but good. Anyhow I also think semi-formal night is a good night for Palo. One because you can order lobster in Palo if you REALLY want it...and two because your already dressed up. I say the whole lobster bit...because so many people want the lobster they serve in the dinning room on the Captians night (aka semi-formal night). On our last cruise we picked the very last night on the ship for Palo...which also worked out well. I don't have a clue as to when when we'll do it this time around. Anywho the planning bit and knowing what excrusions were wanting to do...Kathy was right we have had a head start planning this Western cruise just because we've been planning it since 2004 (early 2004 at that).

Papa...CUTE photo

 

[Bareacuda]

Christmas is a hoot around here!
Add to that 4 of them have birthdays! A good reason why we're doing 3 weeks on the Magic... buying Christmas presents
Grandkids ages range from 17 to 2 !
And I swear Im not that old!!!

BTW... Im still working on scrapping my PC cruise from 2005

 

[CustardTart]

Mike, that's such a fab picture!

I find it so hard to put a scrapbook of our holidays together - I just never seem to find the time! I did one for my niece as we took her for her 1st WDW visit last summer - why I didn't just do one for myself at the same time I don't know! My DD did one for me as a souvenir of our last Girls Only trip in May 2005 and that was wonderful - she gave it me for Christmas 2005 and I confess I shed a tear...

On a different note, I'm hoping to get a plain cushion cover, take it along on the cruise and get it signed by the characters whilst on board - that should make for a nice reminder once we're home...

I can't get my head round when to make the Palo reservations for! I definitely don't want DH to miss AP and I don't want to miss Lumiere's or Pirate Night so...

 

[eva]

I sounds like I scrape more like you Karen. I tend to do it only for specail occasions , like anniversaries and graduations. I have boxes and boxes of photos that I keep planning to put in a scrapbook or photo album. Maybe I will get around to it some day. After we went digital, its become even worse. We rarely print the photos anymore. I have a number of those new frames that will store hundreds of pictures digitally. They are great and much easier to transport that books.

I'm having a tough time deciding what night to do Palo also. If we get the 8:30 seating (that I requested), we should rotate L, AP, P. And from what I have read the 3rd night is formal night. Yikes! I can't decide. I'm leaning a bit towards the 3rd night. I'd rather be in Palo than Parrot Cay on formal night. But then again, if we don't get that rotation, I will be scrabbling around to change the reservation. I have also thought about going on Pirate Night. With an 8:30 seating, it may be tough to get out to the party in time. So I thought maybe we would go to Palo around 7:00 or 7:30 that night and then head to the party a bit early. I don't know. It can be so confusing. Then again, going the last night might be nice too...............

 

[CustardTart]

...I have a number of those new frames that will store hundreds of pictures digitally. They are great and much easier to transport that books...

DD bought DH one of those for Christmas for him to have in his office - only trouble is she and I won't allow him to put any photos on it without our approval so it's taking a while to fill up...

 

[Marshmelo]

I don't want to miss the AP light show. I have seen it, but still enjoy it. So, they don't do the light show on your second night at AP? I think I recall hearing that somewhere before, now that I think about it. Something else to worry about now I think I will just reserve it for formal night and hope that we would be at PC that night. We also requested the 8:30 dining time. I did finally start looking at the excursions and saved a few to my favorites. Here are the ones I saved....has anyone done these or heard anything about them or have better suggestions?

Cozumel: Cozumel Ruins & Beach Tour
Mexican Cuisine Workshop & Tasting

Grand Cayman: Island Tour & Butterfly Farm
Island Tour & Snorkeling w/ Stingrays
Shipwreck & Reef Snorkeling

Key West: Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory Key West w/ Aquarium

 

[papa]

For those of you ladies and gentlemen that are going to do the Palo brunch the at sea days for our cruise will be Monday the 24th, and Thursday the 27th. I do not remember when pirate night is. I think that it will be the 27th, but do not hold me to that. I know before when we were on the western route we had a Mexican night when we were in Cozumel.

When we did the stingray tour in Grand Cayman the water was only knee deep to waist deep in spots.

Something to think about also is alternative ports of call if diverted due to hurricanes. You might want to look at St. Thomas, San Juan and other ports that might be interesting to you. Mike

 

[CustardTart]

For those of you ladies and gentlemen that are going to do the Palo brunch the at sea days for our cruise will be Monday the 24th, and Thursday the 27th. I do not remember when pirate night is. I think that it will be the 27th, but do not hold me to that. I know before when we were on the western route we had a Mexican night when we were in Cozumel.

Good point, Mike - I don't think I could do the Palo brunch and the Palo dinner in one day so maybe we will opt to dine at Palo's on the final night...

From a schedule I saw on www.castawayclub.com it seems the Pirate Night is on the Wednesday evening...

What I'm not sure about is if we dine in L, AP and PC in rotation on the themed evenings?

 

[scrapperjill]

I think from what I read...It sounded like Pirate night was on the same night that were in Cozumel. The sea days/nights are filled with Formal and semi-formal night I believe. When planning Palo you can also consider booking it early or late (depending on what dinner time you have) and go to both your regular dinning time AND Palo. Of course I wouldn't suggest eating a FULL meal at both...but heck your on vacation so if you can why not

I totally agree with Papa...be prepaired with alternative plans in case you don't make it to the ports were scheduled for. Or at the very least bring something like your passporter so you can check on what there is to do/see in other ports. This year I'm comming prepaired!!! I'm trying to find a good book about Ports of Call in the Caribbean. I was looking a while back (while Christmas shopping) and found a good one at Boarders...BUT of course I waited until the new year to purchase it...and found they'd gotten rid of ALL of their 2006 guides once 2007 was hear....and wouldn't ya know they didn't make one in 2007. So now I've got to research all over on which one to purchase. DCL does provide information on what excursions they're having and from what I can remember they also do the informational/shopping bit for the new ports the day before as well.....so you'll at least have some info. And there's always the internet cafe'.

 

[papa]

Sandi, the main thing is not to stress and just go with the flow. Things will work out as long as you just stay mellow.

This is a time to relax, watch the water rush by and be pampered with someone else doing the cooking, cleaning and worrying is left up to the captain and crew. Mike

 

[eva]

Well, I am prepared if they do an Eastern instead. We were booked for back-to-backs originally. If that happens, it will be the 12-Metre Regatta in St. Maarten (if possible) and stay on the ship in St. Thomas. Now if they go to other ports, I will be in trouble. But I am not too worried. Steve and I pretty much go with the flow. Since we have already been on the Eastern, I am hoping that we don't get diverted. But we will have fun no matter what happens.

 

[scrapperjill]

Yep...I learnd the "go with the flow" idea on our first cruise. I planned...and planned and planned some more before that first one...thinking I was prepaired for ANYTHING But I soon learned I wasn't prepaired for an iteniary change You see I quickly learned that with an iteniary change comes changes on the ship...formal night on a diffrent night, pirate night on a diffrent night (the reason for our Palo dinner being on the same night as Pirate night ) in the end all my planning and picking and making the 'perfect' reservations when poof...anyways I no choice...I had to go with the flow. And you know what...We had a GREAT time. Since then I've learned...go with the flow is the only way to go about it. Formal night in PC is just as good as formal night in Luminers...and going to Palo on Pirate night or any night is good.... Take it as it comes and just have a good time.