Who else is on the May 10, 2003 Western?

[Bbgrizzle]

Is anyone else scheduled for the late dinner seating? We requested it because people said it was better because you don't feel so rushed. Now I'm wondering if my kids will really want to eat that late.

rmbreset: Glad to see you back. I sent you a PM.

 

[WDWLVR]

Bonnie,

I can only give you my personal opinion. DH and I have always done early seating but wanted to try late seating on the SS Member Cruise. In my opinion it was too late. I'm a morning person and at home I'm usually in bed by 10 pm as I get up at 5:30 for work.

With eating at 8:30 I found I wasn't as hungry and we didn't end dinner until after 10 and so we pretty much went back to the room.

It did give us more time in the evening to get ready etc. but for us I'm glad we went back to early seating for the May 10th cruise.

Hope this helps.

 

[Mommypoohbear]

Bbgrizzle,

We are scheduled for the late seating also. We booked in January, so the early seating was full, we did put ourselves on a wait list for the early seating.

We also have young children and I am a little concerned that 8:30 pm will be too late for them. DD 5 and DD 3 (just about 4)

I was told that you can request an early seating on some nights. So if your kids look like they won't make it to the late seating you can request the early seating. They will ask someone who has Palo res. if they would not mind if you use there table for the night.

 

[Bbgrizzle]

WDWLVR: You convinced me. I called today and got put on the waiting list for early seating. I doubt I'll get it though, because she said our cruise is full. You never know though.

When DH and I cruised alone, we really liked the late seating. Maybe it was because we are in the Pacific time zone and it just felt right to be eating later, since that's what time we would be eating at home. I know my two older Dd's would be fine, but the baby is the one I'm concerned about. She can get really cranky when she's tired!

Mommypoohbear: That's a great idea about asking to take people's table who are dining in Palo's. I hadn't heard of that, thanks! Oh well, at least if we both get rejected, maybe we'll see you in the late seating. Since we both have young kids we might both get the APL rotation.

 

[Minnee]

I think you can change your late dinner seating to an early one once you we get on the ship. They have one of the night club areas set up for dinner changes. Just go there As Soon As You Get on board ! It's worth a try ! I wouldn't hold my breath on the waiting list, I had a CM tell me you are better off calling every day or so. Especially at the time the payment in full is due, and people cancel. Good Luck changing, I'll keep my fingers crossed ! We debated that back and forth when we made our reservations, the TA suggested to go early, it was easier to change to late if we changed our mind.
.... It's getting closer !!!!!!

 

[Bbgrizzle]

rmbreset: sent you another PM yesterday and forgot to tell you.

Minnee: Sent you a PM too. Good suggestion about the dinner seating; I will start calling when the payment deadline arrives and hope some people canceled.

Hope everyone has a happy Valentine's Day!

 

[gfolchick]

Bump...
Anyone new joining us?
Final payments due soon (ok we have 3 more weeks). It's getting close! How's everyone on the East Coast surviving all the snow and cold weather? I don't know about you, but I've had enough. Bring on the Magic!!!!

 

[Minnee]

Time is getting closer!! 80 days seems like nothing when you book over a year early!!!!
I feel for all of you on the east coast, I lived in upstate NY and remember it well ! Hope you all are safe and WARM ! Just keep thinking about the MAGIC ! It will be here before we know it...

Anyone make any new plans? Before the cruise, excursions, after the cruise ? We're still trying to figure the excursion thing our, I'm sure our DD's would like to swim w/dolphins.

 

[two4ruff]

Minnee-
We have booked the dophin swim in Cozumel. It was a Christmas gift for our two boys. Also going with Captain Marvins and the stingrays.

Sounds like a episode of "Wild Kingdom" for our family!

Final payment?? Yikes, guess I tried to forget about that!

 

[TChrist05]

Hello all.....greetings from SNOWY New York.....only 23 inches of snow today so to say we are snowed in is an understatement....anyway....we have been watching the airfares from NY to Orlando for the cruise....almost booked the other day when it was $212. each...but today I checked and it was $154. round trip from JFK....flight leaves at 7:30 in the morning...we get in at 10:08....so that works out great....and the nice thing is there is a 10:30 flight also just in case something happens.....and we booked 2 nights in Disney World after the cruise....9 glorious nights in Disney.....7 on ship....2 in the World....life is good! Anyway, we are under 12 weeks....and yes...final payment real soon.....doc's will follow soon after that.....time is just flying by....looking forward to seeing you all....get the lime green ribbons ready......
Tom

 

[WDWLVR]

I put through the final payment this past week. Might as well get it over with. Now we have to look into excursions.

Wanted to share something with all of you that I learned from doing the DVC Member Cruise Feb. 2-6. We did a Dis meet at Sailaway like the plan is for our May 10th cruise and let me tell you it was very hectic. I think for us on the short 4-day cruise it was the best time. Once you get up on deck and the party starts below it is really hard to hear (they really crank the music up) and it is really hard to truly meet people. We were lucky in that we had a meet at the Radisson the night before and we did buttons for the DIS folks so I got to meet a lot as we were passing them out. Many of them wore them the rest of the cruise so that's when we really got to know everyone.

If you guys still want a deck 10 meet at Sailaway we'll do our best to be there, but I thought I should warn you that it can be loud and disorganized. I'm wondering if it would be better to try and do a mini meet at Sailaway and then a quieter meet where everyone can really talk say Sunday morning before we get into Key West. Just my 2 cents.

BTW if any of you would like to read about the SS Member Cruise I posted a number of posts on the trip report board.

We've done the Wonder now we're ready for the Magic!

 

[Bbgrizzle]

Discount codes are out for the WDW resorts--Woo hoo! I just booked us at the Wilderness Lodge for Wed thru Sat. morning (cruise day).

WDWLVR: Hope you had a great cruise! That's a good point you brought up. We should schedule another meet for a time when it will be quieter. What does everyone think? I do think we should at least have a mini meet at sailaway the first day though, so we can make friends right from the start! My kids are so excited to meet the other kids their age.

I feel for all of you back east; I saw the news coverage. Brrrrrr!

 

[jeanelain]

does anyone know if anything special goes on during the cruise on mother's day?? taking my mom with me..

 

[DVC Minnie]

Hi everyone,

DH and I are cruising too! We have done the eastern and are so looking forward to trying the western.

The DIS meet idea sounds great. I do agree with WDWLVR's opinion that sailaway can be very hectic and may not be a great time for us to meet. On our last cruise we did our big meet on Sunday and used the aft area on deck 7. Some of the DIS group who wanted their kids to get to know each other at the beginning of the cruise set up a small get together before sailaway. This worked out really well.

We need your opinion: On Grand Cayman we were thinking of doing the DCL Stingray City and snorkeling at 7:30 a.m., go back to the ship to clean up and have a quick roomservice lunch, then tender back to grab a cab to Hell and the turtle farm. Are we nuts?? Do you think we can make it back before the last tender?? We thought about doing the excursion that includes Stingray City, Hell and the turtle farm but that seemed too much to do in such a short period of time.

WDWLVR: We are DVCers too. We read you trip report of the SS Member Cruise....fantastic! We wanted to be there so bad but DH's schedule just didn't allow it. Hope we can make the next one.

 

[WDWLVR]

DVC Minnie,

Glad you liked the report on the member cruise. It was a blast. I think it has really spoiled us. We definately want to do that again!

Of course now we have our eyes set on the May cruise on the Magic! Plus I'm back to a veranda. To save points we booked a porthole room which was fine for 4 days, but on this one we are doing a Navigator Veranda and I'm looking forward to being able to sit out in the fresh air!

We are going to do the DVC excursion that includes Stingray City, Hell and the turtle farm. Barb and Tony did this on thier first Western and from what I read on their site it seems there is enough time for everything. Hell is really a quick tourist stop and the turtle farm is pretty small. They have a web site and to us from that it looks like 1/2 hour would be plenty there. I think a lot of it depends on how long you want to be in snorkeling. I'll be happy with enough exposure to say I did it but not spend tons of time in the water..

 

[WDWLVR]

Bonnie, are you keeping a list. I just did a quick count and it looks like we have 53 adults and 29 kids cruising from the DIS. That's even more than we had for the SS Member Cruise!

DH and I organized the meet for that and let me tell you it wore me out a bit (but in a good way). We did up buttons for everyone and ended up with 30 some bags of buttons (we had a lot of couples and very few kids on that cruise).

I love Peter's suggestion of Palo's brunch for everyone. Peter do you know who was able to set it up ahead of time?

The Deck 7 aft area is also great - especially if it is while cruising. I found on our May cruise last year that it can get very hot out there when the ship is docked, but I think it would be nice while the ship is moving (which it would be Sunday morning).

Have you thought about having a deck 5 meet on Saturday for those with kids (I'm saying Deck 5 since that is where the club and the lab is). Maybe at 3pm or so (after lunch but before the drill).

I agree that a mini meet at Sailaway can be fun - just wanted to let everyone know it can be hectic - especially with so many people. You see other people think they can use the same area I even had one person come up to me and ask me for one of the buttons we had and she didn't know anything about the DIS - just wanted something free!

To any of you getting in early the Radisson is a great place for a mini meet as well. We did that out by the pool. It was a little cold, but still fun. Should be much better in May. We're flying in the morning of the cruise so we'll miss that one

Well enough rambling - its getting late. Just wanted to share a few thoughts.

 

[Bbgrizzle]

Mary: You're scaring me! I sent you a PM

If anyone else has suggestions on a better time and place for a meet, feel free to pipe in! Also, is anyone interested in doing high tea?

 

[WDWLVR]

Bonnie - didn't mean to scare you. I sent you back two PM's (it wouldn't all fit in one).

High Tea is wonderful. DH and I plan on doing it and it would be nice to do that as a group if we could. I know my in-laws won't do it as they didn't care for it last time.

 

[Hygiene99]

hi all we r no longer going on this cruise , we have switched to october dues to a bunch of concerns ..... u all have a great cruise peter

 

[DVC Minnie]

WDWLVR: Thanks for the sending me to Barb and Tony's trip report and your info about Hell and the turtle farm. DH and I enjoy snorkeling, sailing and being out in the water.....so we may just do the 7:30 a.m. excursion and if time permits, go to Hell and the turtle farm on our own.

I spent some time looking at the sample western navigators on Barb and Tony's site. How are we ever going to schedule in DVC member celebration, Castaway Club social, spa, Palo brunch and high tea, etc. with only 2 1/2 days at sea.

I have done High Tea twice (once with DH and once with a group of ladies). DH would prefer to skip it for our May 10 cruise but I would be very interested in a group High Tea.

What's everyone doing in Cozumel? We are thinking about the Fury Catamarran and Beach Party.

What about Key West? We are planning to do the trolley tour on our own.