Jey12
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2010
- Messages
- 1,074
As seasoned DCL cruisers, we took a 4 day cruise three years ago, my inlaws started asking us bunch of questions about taking a Disney cruise several months ago. The more they asked, the more I looked at the Galveston sale prices they were looking at, and the more I wanted to go. As a professional DCL site stalker I knew the prices for the end of the year sailings out of Galveston were great. As a Kansas native I was even more impressed by a warm cruise vacation where I didn't have to pay for airfare. So I thought how could I manage to convince DH to take an unplanned cruise for a week, when we already were planning a week long trip to the east coast in June? 
Basically I said hey honey.....your entire family is booking a DCL cruise out of Galveston in October. I think it would be fun to surprise them. He thought about it for 5 seconds and said let's make it happen. 
The IRS had messed up on our return, and were in the process of fixing it, so we should have our return here soon, we'll avoid budget issues and use the refund money for a cruise. It was May and the PIF date wouldn't be until Aug. Shouldn't be an issue. Haha! 
So DH and I decide to book, contact our TA and book.
I do the usual pre planning stuff, join the DIS group, join the facebook page and start thinking about returning to the beautiful Wonder for a week! 
We head east for a week in June and enjoy a wonderful time with my mother. July goes by and still we are waiting for our IRS refund. I start to panic and make phone calls pleading with them to do their job. Our PIF date is quickly approaching and I'm starting to panic. August rolls around, still no refund but I have at least been told I'll have it by the end of the month. Too late for our PIF date. 
What to do? We are not happy about it but we put the remainder of the cruise cost on a CC and the next day our return shows up. 
Cool, we're good to go!
During this painful wait for our cruise DH and I stuck with we were going to surprise his family. This included his DM, DF, DB, DSIL and our 2 nieces, DN2 and DN8. We also decided might as well add another surprise in and surprise DD7 as well! So DH and I plan this all out, meanwhile I'm helping the inlaws plan their cruise and laughing to myself because I know we'll be on the ship with them. I went as far as to send my DMIL Disney gift cards so she could book us a future cruise while she was on the ship. By the time it was all said and done I had told so many lies I wasn't sure who was getting on what ship or when. I kept bringing up the cruise to my DMIL and for awhile thought she knew our secret because she'd look at me funny. Turns out she felt bad we weren't going, she really wanted to take a whole family trip. Little did she know....LOL. As the date crept closer I realized keeping the secret from DD7 was going to be difficult. Especially when I asked her to pack. So I told her since she had a long weekend because of no school that we were going to surprise Daddy with a weekend trip. She was all for it! We decided we'd go spend the weekend in Galveston and enjoy the beach. Because she was 4 when we cruised last and we cruised out of Florida she just assumed when the rest of her family talked about cruising on DCL they would be leaving out of Florida, so she never put 2 and 2 together. 
So we "surprise" Daddy when he gets off work around 1am and show up at his work. DD7 jumps out of the back of the van and announces we're going to Galveston for the weekend! DH was super surprised! We go home, finish up packing and hit the road around 3am. It's 32 degrees when we pull out of our drive. 
After a long drive and some non Disney approved mutterings as we made our way through Houston traffic we arrive in Galveston around 8pm that night. Check into our hotel and get some sleep. Because we'll need our rest for a long day on the beach the next day. 
We tell DD7 that we're going to take a boat ride on the ferry and also we'll be changing hotels, so of course we'll need to load our luggage up and take it with us. DD7 takes the bait and is excited for a ferry ride. We wait in line excited to get on the shuttle bus to the "ferry" and DD7 notices we have new Disney luggage tags. Seriously? She notices this NOW? The family behind us also has the same Disney tags and are talking about the fun time they are going to have with Mickey. DD7 whispers to me, she thinks we're taking a Disney ferry aren't we? I finally can't stand the suspense any longer and tell her no we're not taking a ferry, we are going on a Disney cruise. The EXACT same cruise her grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle and 2 cousins are going to be on, but they don't know we're coming. She screams with excitement!
Finally we're at the terminal, she's seen the ship and we're all bouncing with excitement as we make our way through the line to check in. Inlaws are nowhere in site and I'm frantically checking their facebook pages to see if they'll post when they arrive. We get our boarding number, 3! Hopefully we can sneak onto the ship before we're spotted. About that time I spot DMIL rounding the corner to check in, so we hide and they call boarding group 1. As the inlaw are walking towards where we are group 3 is called and we were up and on the ship before we knew what happened! I'm not a fan of shutters so in the interest of hiding out we skipped past the boarding pic line and were one of the first people on the ship. I run to guest services, drop off my things to be signed and grab Princess Tea tickets for the ladies in the group.
Finally the moment arrives, and we hear the rest of our family's name announced as they enter the ship for their first time. Thankfully it's quite overwhelming to them and as they are welcomes this little girl comes up and grabs DFIL's leg and yells SURPRISE! He looks down, pats her on the head and turns to DMIL and asks "who is this kid?" DMIL looks down, shrugs her shoulders and says she doesn't know. About half a second later she looks again and realizes she does in fact know, it's her missing grandchild and then sees DH and I waving from the piano area. 
Everyone is surprised and happy. 
Then I ask if I can get my gift cards back because I'm probably going to need them. Thankfully they hadn't forgotten them. Unfortunately in all of the excitement I didn't take any pics of the surprise, but no worries I did take a ton of other pics. It's time for a few....
Our first look at the Wonder as we pull into the port.
DD7 waiting to board the ship she just found out about.
Loved our boarding number!
Meeting with the Mouse again!
Here we go!
Basically I said hey honey.....your entire family is booking a DCL cruise out of Galveston in October. I think it would be fun to surprise them. He thought about it for 5 seconds and said let's make it happen. The IRS had messed up on our return, and were in the process of fixing it, so we should have our return here soon, we'll avoid budget issues and use the refund money for a cruise. It was May and the PIF date wouldn't be until Aug. Shouldn't be an issue. Haha! So DH and I decide to book, contact our TA and book.
I do the usual pre planning stuff, join the DIS group, join the facebook page and start thinking about returning to the beautiful Wonder for a week! We head east for a week in June and enjoy a wonderful time with my mother. July goes by and still we are waiting for our IRS refund. I start to panic and make phone calls pleading with them to do their job. Our PIF date is quickly approaching and I'm starting to panic. August rolls around, still no refund but I have at least been told I'll have it by the end of the month. Too late for our PIF date. What to do? We are not happy about it but we put the remainder of the cruise cost on a CC and the next day our return shows up. Cool, we're good to go! During this painful wait for our cruise DH and I stuck with we were going to surprise his family. This included his DM, DF, DB, DSIL and our 2 nieces, DN2 and DN8. We also decided might as well add another surprise in and surprise DD7 as well! So DH and I plan this all out, meanwhile I'm helping the inlaws plan their cruise and laughing to myself because I know we'll be on the ship with them. I went as far as to send my DMIL Disney gift cards so she could book us a future cruise while she was on the ship. By the time it was all said and done I had told so many lies I wasn't sure who was getting on what ship or when.
I kept bringing up the cruise to my DMIL and for awhile thought she knew our secret because she'd look at me funny. Turns out she felt bad we weren't going, she really wanted to take a whole family trip. Little did she know....LOL. As the date crept closer I realized keeping the secret from DD7 was going to be difficult. Especially when I asked her to pack. So I told her since she had a long weekend because of no school that we were going to surprise Daddy with a weekend trip. She was all for it! We decided we'd go spend the weekend in Galveston and enjoy the beach. Because she was 4 when we cruised last and we cruised out of Florida she just assumed when the rest of her family talked about cruising on DCL they would be leaving out of Florida, so she never put 2 and 2 together. So we "surprise" Daddy when he gets off work around 1am and show up at his work. DD7 jumps out of the back of the van and announces we're going to Galveston for the weekend! DH was super surprised! We go home, finish up packing and hit the road around 3am. It's 32 degrees when we pull out of our drive. After a long drive and some non Disney approved mutterings as we made our way through Houston traffic we arrive in Galveston around 8pm that night. Check into our hotel and get some sleep. Because we'll need our rest for a long day on the beach the next day. We tell DD7 that we're going to take a boat ride on the ferry and also we'll be changing hotels, so of course we'll need to load our luggage up and take it with us. DD7 takes the bait and is excited for a ferry ride. We wait in line excited to get on the shuttle bus to the "ferry" and DD7 notices we have new Disney luggage tags. Seriously? She notices this NOW? The family behind us also has the same Disney tags and are talking about the fun time they are going to have with Mickey. DD7 whispers to me, she thinks we're taking a Disney ferry aren't we? I finally can't stand the suspense any longer and tell her no we're not taking a ferry, we are going on a Disney cruise. The EXACT same cruise her grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle and 2 cousins are going to be on, but they don't know we're coming. She screams with excitement! Finally we're at the terminal, she's seen the ship and we're all bouncing with excitement as we make our way through the line to check in. Inlaws are nowhere in site and I'm frantically checking their facebook pages to see if they'll post when they arrive. We get our boarding number, 3! Hopefully we can sneak onto the ship before we're spotted. About that time I spot DMIL rounding the corner to check in, so we hide and they call boarding group 1. As the inlaw are walking towards where we are group 3 is called and we were up and on the ship before we knew what happened! I'm not a fan of shutters so in the interest of hiding out we skipped past the boarding pic line and were one of the first people on the ship. I run to guest services, drop off my things to be signed and grab Princess Tea tickets for the ladies in the group.
Finally the moment arrives, and we hear the rest of our family's name announced as they enter the ship for their first time. Thankfully it's quite overwhelming to them and as they are welcomes this little girl comes up and grabs DFIL's leg and yells SURPRISE! He looks down, pats her on the head and turns to DMIL and asks "who is this kid?"
DMIL looks down, shrugs her shoulders and says she doesn't know. About half a second later she looks again and realizes she does in fact know, it's her missing grandchild and then sees DH and I waving from the piano area. Everyone is surprised and happy. Then I ask if I can get my gift cards back because I'm probably going to need them. Thankfully they hadn't forgotten them. Unfortunately in all of the excitement I didn't take any pics of the surprise, but no worries I did take a ton of other pics. It's time for a few....Our first look at the Wonder as we pull into the port.
DD7 waiting to board the ship she just found out about.
Loved our boarding number!
Meeting with the Mouse again!
Here we go!
The coffee table made it so we couldn't even walk in. I immediately asked our stateroom host what we could do about that and he removed our table. 
Not that I'm a towel animal snob, nor am I trying to poke fun at our room host. They were wonderful and we were very willing to add a little extra to our tip at the end of the cruise. But many nights I wondered and it became fun to find out what in the world would be on our bed at night. 
We arrived 10 minutes before the show started and the theater was already full. Only odd and end seats and from the back we could not find 3 together. We were told to wait until the show started and then we could head down to the front and look for seats. As soon as the show started a mad rush headed that way and all seats were gone. I was in no mood or had the ability to stand for the entire show. So DH stood with DD7 in the back. Thankfully our inlaws had gotten there a bit earlier and my sweet DFIL saw them in the back and let DD7 take his seat and stood with DH. I went out to deck 4 and to be honest I pouted for awhile. My best guess as to what happened from conversations I heard after the show let out was many of those with the 1st dining rotation had decided to skip their MDR that night and go to the 1st show instead of 1st dinner. Same thing happened on the night they had Dreams, so we showed up 30 minutes early that night and got seats. I'm not trying to point any fingers or stuff, just pointing out the issue and if you have 2nd dining and it's a popular show plan time to get there super early. After my pout on deck 4, it didn't last long because the view was amazing and I was the only one out there since everyone was either eating or watching the show, we headed off to dinner. 
but at least you will have a reason to book another cruise. 
