some question froms a first time cruiser from Holland

[hans_jeanette]

Hello to you all,

I first want to say that this Disney Cruise Line Forum is really great. There's so much information on this board. Thank you all for that !

But still, I have a few questions...

My girlfriend and I will be on the 03-may-2003 7-days eastern cruise and we are really looking forward to this (our first) cruise.

Can anybody tell us how the weather is then in Florida and one the islands which will be visited?

We have booked a standard insite stateroom using the Disney site. We did get room 7627. Is this a room located on a good deck/place?

We will also be in Orlando the week before and after our cruise. In one of those weeks we want to visit some of the disney parks. Can you advice if we should visit those parks before or after the cruise?

Are there any others around here who will also go on the 05/03/03 cruise?

We hope also to trade some pins on this cruise. We started trading them this year after visiting Euro Disney.

Already thanks for your answers.

Greetings from Holland,

Hans

 

[snelsonbrown]

Hello Hans,
When I saw you was from Holland, I had to drop you a note - I had a pen pal for over 50 years from Holland and then unfortunalty we lost touch - I have learned so much about your country and the beauty of it -
anyhow my name is Shirley and I live here in Cape Canaveral, Florida - If you will send me a manilla envelope with about $3.25 and self addressed, I will make sure you have a lot of information not only about Orlando but here in Brevard County also - the weather is May is pretty - it is not that sweaty hot yet and the rains that came in April bring May's flowers (unfortunalty the bugs too)
You can email me at snelsonbrown@aol.com if I can be of further help -
I have no doubts that everyone that can answer your questions, will do so.
Have a wonderful time getting ready for your trip over.
Always
Shirley

 

[Viking]

Hi Hans,

the location of your stateroom is okay: You will be in the aft part of the ship above the restaurants Animators Palate and Parrot Cay and below the Topsiders. You won't feel much of the ship's movement. Your meeting point for the lifeboat drill will be the Animators Palate. We're also always in this area.
Funny fact: If you had cruised last year, your Captain would also have been Hans from Holland. He's a very decent chap and a great captain, but he is no longer with DCL.
You will not meet many Europeans on the ship. Last time we cruised, there were about 20 or so, which is about 1% of the passengers.

Talking about the parks: If you have never been to WDW before, you will need about a day per park to do just the major attractions. I don't know about the crowds and the weather in May, because we always go in September.
Will you stay on site or outside Disney property? I recommend staying on-site, as "The Magic" can only really be felt then.

If you need more info or have special questions feel free to mail me, use this link: Mail to Viking
You can mail me in English or German.
I'm a Disney veteran as I've been to WDW five times since 1988 and cruised twice and can perhaps give you some infos with a "European" point of view.

 

[disneyholic family]

while it's true there are only a handrul of european passengers (and most of them seemed to be from the UK on our cruise) there are of course the CMs who are almost all foreign......the stateroom hosts seem to be mostly from the far east, while the dining staff seemed to be mostly european (lots of eastern europeans but also some from western europe).....
and the crew (captain et al) were european....
our second in command was from the Netherlands.....a wonderfully nice man....

by the way, our server made a point of introducing us to the one server on board from where we live.....it was very sweet....so at all the meals she came over to talk to us (since we're fluent in her native language it was fun for her too).....

as to whether to go to WDW before or after...
well.....many people find WDW to be very tiring, so they claim that it's better to go to WDW first, totally wipe yourself out and then get on the cruise for total relaxation.....
that could be true...
this past summer we spent 3 days in WDW before our cruise and then 3 weeks in WDW after our cruise......so....i can't really say which is best....well...i can....best would be to live in WDW year round....

the reason we did 3 days before the cruise in addition to the 3 weeks after was because i was afraid of not getting to orlando in time because of strikes or unforeseen circumstances (since we have to travel so far to get to WDW - also crossing the atlantic but flying even farther than you have)...
so i wanted to have a big buffer of time in case there were airport/airline strikes.....once we got to JFK i figured we could always get in a rental car if it came to that...
normally i'm not worried about this, but with the cruise, you HAVE to be in port canaveral in time....so i wanted that extra cushion of time...
in the end we made it to orlando just fine, and with time to recover from the LONG trip and enjoy a few days in WDW (without question, our favorite pleace on earth....ok....our favorite place in the universe.....we go there every summer for 3 weeks....and regularly try to convince my husband that we should live there)...

 

[Hygiene99]

hans i sent u a pm , the weather has been fine , last year of corse i would se about upgrading to a deluxe inside stateroom
on deck 5 cat 10 they r called secret porthole rooms
u can view this room at www.castawayclub.com great site
with alot of anwsers from barb and tony they have been on 23 or 24 cruise ? peter

 

[my3kids]

Ypour room towards the back of deck 7 shoul be perfect. There is a public deck at the back of the 7th deck with sun loungers and almost never any people. You have an inside stateroom with an almost private deck right there! The back staircase will make it easy to walk up to the 9th deck where the pools and Topsiders ae located.

We just got home from the 7 night Eastern. We had a great itme and are going back to try the Western 7 night next school year.

 

[Viking]

Hans,
I just forgot: On our first cruise we had an cat 11 inside stateroom in that area. I can send you pics of it, if you like.
We did a three-day-cruise then and didn't spend much time in the room. On oor seven-day-cruise last year and for our seven-day next year we booked a Cat 7 with a navigators-verandah.

 

[Dave_from_Marietta]

Hello, Hans. Welcome to the DIS Boards.

Originally posted by hans_jeanette

Can anybody tell us how the weather is then in Florida and one the islands which will be visited?

Averaged over 9 years:

At Cape Canaveral (the <i>Magic's</i> home port):

Minimum: 21.5° C (70.8° F)
Maximum: 27.6° C (81.8° F)
Mean: 24.6° C (76.2° F)


At Sint Maarten:

Minimum: 25.2° C (77.3° F)
Maximum: 30.2° C (86.4° F)
Mean: 27.7° C (81.8° F)


At Saint Thomas:

Minimum: 21.6° C (70.9° F)
Maximum: 26.9° C (80.4° F)
Mean: 24.6° C (76.2° F)


In addition to www.castawayclub.com, I have a site that you may also find helpful. It's www.dcltribute.com.

Have fun with your planning.

 

[hans_jeanette]

Hi to you all,

I want to thank you all for the great and kind replies. More then ever I look forward to our 'disney' (cruise and WDW) vacation in May.

Best wishes,

Hans