Turkey Day Gang 2009

[Mickeyhugger]

Pizza at Palo....

 

[ICEMANPAD]

Is there a special password to join the Turkey Gang? This is our first Disney trip/Cruise ever and we are so excited! We = Me, my DH, #1 son is 8 yrs. old and #2 son is 5 yrs. old. Had seen some postings with people 5-8 yrs kids. Just looking to connect before the cruise. I am so glad there is a posting group here, I tried to start on on Passport's website, but who knew you were all here. Has anyone done the Eastern cruise before (I know a dumb question) --what are the best excursions? What is the Thanksgiving menu like? I was excited to find out the ship will be decorated for Christmas--is that true?

Welcome to the gang!! Our DS will be 10 at the time of the cruise. If your 8 year old is interested in the lab activities...he will see our DS!!! We have done one other Eastern. Our favorite excursion was the 12 meter regatta in st. maartin. However, our ds stayed on the ship.

The Thanksgiving menu is semi formal night. They offer traditional thanksgiving options and lobster!! Yes, the ship will be decorated for the holidays!! Lots of photo ops!!

Lisa

 

[ICEMANPAD]

Hope you guys have a GREAT Labor Day getaway !!! Staying at Saratoga Springs????

We have met several great family through the Boards and have kept in touch over many years.....

W

Thanks!!! We were actually able to get in at vwl. We are looking forward to the getaway!!

We hope everyone enjoys a long weekend off from work/school!!!

Lisa

 

[sherreis]

I go out to dinner, come home and watch football and there are 4 more pages than this afternoon! Whoa! Keep up the great work!


My favorite tip --- never seen it posted though. Sign up for Dis Meet group even when others have known each other for awhile. Believe me – I was leary at first. But, so glad I posted.

Chuck, Lisa, & Mason – have a great weekend at the land of the mouse. Say hi to Mickey for us.

Welcome Scullysiz! This is our first ever cruise and we’re all so excited. Glad you found us over here. Welcome to the Disboards! Be careful – it’s quite an addiction.

 

[sherreis]

Lynn – I know what you mean about the excitement. That was the worst part of surprising our boys last fall with our WDW trip. DH could care less that we’re planning a vacation so I had to post here a lot to share my excitement.

 

[dustermom02]

Wow!! I missed a few days and I'm 11pgs behind. Time is passing WAY fast for me. I know, there must be something wrong with me, everyone else seems to think its slow.

I hit the big 4-OH on Sunday and then went right in to closing the books at work this week. Worked an 18 hour day yesterday. Gotta love the comp time when you have a brand new job and a turkey cruise booked, right?? But I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend now. Oldest DD turns 12 on Tuesday so we have a party weekend planned.

Wendy & Chun the graphics are fantastic. Please sign me up for the class, I'm there!

Christine - I think our family is booked at 10:30 parasailing also. And congrats on your new job.

I vote chocolate souffle too. I think we're at Palos brunch sunday 10:30 & dinner Monday.

The kids have been too busy with school to check out the kids board but maybe this weekend. My son had enough time to ask me why I have snowflakes on my ticker - I thought they were boat steering wheels....

 

[The LK 4]

My "to do" list for this cruise includes riding bikes on Castaway Cay and seeing Serenity Bay.

I'm also looking forward to seeing my friends' faces as they take their very first cruise. I know they are going to be blown away!

 

[The LK 4]

Happy Birthday, Paula!

 

[sherreis]

Happy Birthday Paula!

 

[mickey squared]

We just decided to book this cruise since we're transplanted NYers living in Orlando now and figure MM would make good company for us. We're a family of 6 with 2 boys,14 & 9, and two girls,12 & 7. We've been on 4 disney cruises before but none since we moved here 1 year ago, so we figure it's time.

I will need to read some pages to get with the flow since it seems like it's a tradition for a lot of you. I have participated in the FE before and would like to do so again so I'll read up on that as well.

Also, we're surprising the kids. It's sort of a tradition for us. Get in the car and guess where we're going!!

Looking forward to meeting you all.

Now, my work starts!!

 

[bigeskimodog]

Welcome Mickey Squared!

I am also a newbie to the Turkey Gang and a late comer like yourself. But the folks here have been wonderful and treated me like family already.

Being in the West Coast it's hard to surprise my son. The "Getting on a plane to Orlando" and "we're packing all the Disney cruise stuff but we're not going on the cruise" speech just doesn't work on my 7 yr old.

BTW, there's also a dining list that Chuck is putting together so all the Gang can sit in close proximity. If you are 2nd seating, check it out.

Chun

 

[ratt1345]

Rob, I say the stollen bread. Did I spell that right? It sounds like I'm stealing bread!!!

Talk about being excited for the cruise. I don't think my soon-to-be wife understands how excited I am. After the cruise, she will!!!! As soon as we made the reservation back in January, the anticipation started. I'm glad for that reason that I don't have kids. I couldn't keep the secret for this long!!!

Do I have a cruise tip? I guess it would be the same as the one I have for the parks, WDW that is never been to the left coast. I'd say don't make an iron-clad, written-in-stone itinerary, just enjoy yourself. I know there are excursions that run on a schedule. That's not what I'm talking about. You've seen the families running around Disney World and you hear them say that we've gotta go here and we've gotta go there. And you see the rest of the family is just soooo tired. Look at it this way, you can't do everything. There's always another cruise you can book and go back to do the things you didn't get to do the crusie before!!!!

Charlie

 

[izma]

Another tip...

Highlighter markers... We all have our own color and pick up copy of the Navigator so we can mark the activities we like to do.

We to this too but I coordinated our markers

DD= pink
DS= blue

SO they highlight the activities on the navigator that they will attend and if they are both at the same one...PURPLE. That way we know where they are.

We also use the different coloured highlighters to write notes...so we always know who wrote them!

 

[izma]

Others may have a better description but it's like a fruit/dessert pizza probably similar to what they have at Pizza Hut, but a whole lot better!! I had gorged myself on the sticky buns and they loaded me up with a huge plate to go! I ended up cancelling my dinner reservation for Palo last time and I'm not sure if I'll go this time. I'll be happy with another brunch. I also loved the chicken parmasian and the blue cheese and grape pizza.....I told you I had a food obsession!!

Where is the blue cheese and grape pizza?!?!!?!

It sounds marvelous!

 

[Pixie Dust for Me!]

Welcome to our new members!!!!

So, in a nutshell, here's what you need to know:

1. We have a FE blog. You can go here to view and enter your family in it: http://112109.blogspot.com/ How we do the FE is up to you! You can go 1 item, one time, items everyday, items for kids, etc... It's strictly up to you.

2. Chuck (aka Icemanpad) is going to link us together for purposes of dining. He did this for us 2 years ago and all of us that had late seating wound up sitting in a group which was a ton of fun.

3. I am coordinating t-shirts for the gang. We got some printed 2 years ago and all wore our shirts on the first day of the cruise. It made it easier to spot those who were on the Disboards with us (and made everyone else wonder who we were!).

3. Chun (Bigeskimodog) and Wendy (Tinkerbellmom99) are both terrific at designing door magnets, signs, etc. They've posted some great ones!

4. If you have kids...there is a kids thread where some of the kids have been yakking about what they want to do on the ship and just getting to know each other a bit. I think it's called Turkey Day Gang 2009 Kids Thread. It was started by my son Andrew (he's 11) under his user name "TheDuckStopsHere".

And finally, though some of us have cruised together before, we welcome all the newbies! We caution you that the Disboards can become addictive and that some of us are very excited about this cruise...and some of us are perhaps more excited than our children are....please don't hold that against us!

Karen

 

[bigeskimodog]

Rob, I say the stollen bread. Did I spell that right? It sounds like I'm stealing bread!!!

Talk about being excited for the cruise. I don't think my soon-to-be wife understands how excited I am. After the cruise, she will!!!! As soon as we made the reservation back in January, the anticipation started. I'm glad for that reason that I don't have kids. I couldn't keep the secret for this long!!!

Do I have a cruise tip? I guess it would be the same as the one I have for the parks, WDW that is never been to the left coast. I'd say don't make an iron-clad, written-in-stone itinerary, just enjoy yourself. I know there are excursions that run on a schedule. That's not what I'm talking about. You've seen the families running around Disney World and you hear them say that we've gotta go here and we've gotta go there. And you see the rest of the family is just soooo tired. Look at it this way, you can't do everything. There's always another cruise you can book and go back to do the things you didn't get to do the crusie before!!!!

Charlie

Amen to that!!!

One of my best memory on DCL was we were just walking around in the afternoon and end up playing a game of pictionary in the Promenade bar. Me being the most artistic in the family (not saying much) was given "tractor" to draw. I had a brain fart and kept trying to draw a crane instead. (I blame it on the dramamine and lack of sleep from prior night dancing) Well they didn't get tractor nor crane. In the year following both DM and son would still constantly point out a tractor to DAD!

Chun

 

[Morgey24]

Hi everone!
Just checking in.

Ok, trying to capture some thoughts:

1. I (emphasis added) am the most excited one for this cruise! DD is cool with it, but not overly excited (been there/done that) and this will be DexH's first cruise so he doesn't know what to except and is a bit negative that it's going to be on DCL...

2. The grape & cheese pizza at palo! In fact, all of the "stinky" cheeses at Palo brunch and the fabuous seafood extravaganza. I never made it to any of the entrees and I packed a plate of desserts to go since I don't eat sugar and I felt bad leaving DD when I went (I wasn't breaking the rules, IMO, I brought her the ones I would have eaten if I did eat dessert.. not as if I ate a whole plate and then took some.)

3. The loungers outside of the Cove Cafe face directly out at the sea and are padded and lovely and have a sidetable to put your cup of coffee on... just heavenly...

4. Appletinis at the Captain's reception are a favorite though they only bring them out sporadically

5. Making a fool of myself dancing at the Rockin' bar D Good thing DD can't see that or she'd be even more mortified by dear old mom than she already is.

6. I want/need to make magnets again but can't personalize them with first names because DD doesn't know her Dad is going... But I love the magnets. So festive and fun.

7. the "older" Disney stuff -- the whistle while you work kind of tunes (not necessarily the "new" Disney stuff, if you know what I mean.)

Ok, as far as tips go, done them, used them all a gazillion times. Here's a few more:

1. cheapie dollar store ponchos for those pop up showers in the Caribbean
2. pop up hamper (already mentioned)
3. a small plastic bottle with my unscented detergent (because Tide is too harsh for me)
4. little bottles of Purell for shore excursions
5. a Bandana -- which I tie from the pole on my beach umbrella at Castaway Cay so that DD (or even me!) can identify our "spot" easily when coming back from Cookies with ice cream!
6. for ladies - one small evening bag (I actually just use a little Vera Bradley quilted wristlet) for carrying your KTTW card at night. I don't mind wearing it in my lanyard all day but at night I prefer a little purse to keep it in.)

Have an awesome day,

 

[ICEMANPAD]

Since I saw comments about it, current dining group is posted on page 120

Man, make a facetious comment about hitting 5000 posts and see what I stirred up...actually it was 2005 when we topped, I think it was 6000...Rob i think was part of that.

Anyway, we are heading out of town shortly so i am sure there will be 15-20 new pages to read when we return on Monday.

Chuck

 

[bigeskimodog]

Chuck,

Are you raising the bar to 6000 posts now!!?

 

[bigeskimodog]

And we barely make #2200 (Finally) today!