Who's Cruising the Wonder? 2/1/09 (4day)

[choco_latae]

Ok guys, Ive been playing on the computer again. Here you go.

 

[Mndisneygirl]

Ok guys, Ive been playing on the computer again. Here you go.

Oh that is so cute!! I am NOT creative at all. I haven't been around on this thread too much lately. I did just call and make sure we qualified for the fall bounceback 3 day cruise. We did!! We are planning to go in December and add a few days at the parks to see all the Christmas stuff. To answer the PP question about how do people manage this with time/money: This is one of the few things we spend a lot of money on. We really don't drink, gamble, smoke - any of the expensive vices. We have a pretty low cost of living and splurge on Disney. Both my DH and I work for government, and are able to take a lot of time off per year, so that helps. We tend to spend more money on our kids' activities but that's about it. I LOVE BARGAIN SHOPPING! So that's how it works for us. This two trips in one year is definitely an exception. Usually we do one big Disney-type trip and maybe a small road trip to visit relatives each year. We cruised with another line last January and haven't left home since for any other trips, saving up for this next one. Christmas is going to be VERY small this year and our kids have been warned. Fortunately we have a small family and don't buy gifts for everyone. I do a lot of baking and take food gifts whenever we go places or to coworkers. Thankfully, they seem to like the treats!

 

[choco_latae]

Thanks mndisneygirl , I like doing these pictures when I have time. Though I dont have much these days. Oh neat, so your going on another cruise too. We also qualify and dont know when we will go again. My DD and DSon-in-law provide us with our cruises. My hubby has been out of work since May. Nice that we get to go on cruises while he is out of work. Well who knows we might see you then too.

 

[kath1210]

Never mind.

 

[Josiah]

Hi everyone!

My name is Danielle and we just booked this cruise this morning. It will be me, DH Derek, DS11 Keegan and DS7 Brennan.

This will be our 8th Disney cruise. I saw the fall bounceback offer and decided it was way too good to pass up!

Hi, Danielle,

I was so excited to see your post for two reasons:

1. You seem to have more cruise experience than most of us, and

2. You're the first one I've seen w/an 11 year old boy, like us. Whoopee!

 

[Josiah]

Ok guys, Ive been playing on the computer again. Here you go.

This is wonderful work, Choco. How do we go about getting a copy, or would you prefer we don't?

 

[choco_latae]

This is wonderful work, Choco. How do we go about getting a copy, or would you prefer we don't?

I dont care if you want it.It makes me feel good that you like it. The easest way is to right click on the picture (the first pict that I posted, not the copies) and click save as. Just remember where on your computer that you put it. If you want it any other way just let me know and I can email it to you.

 

[Mndisneygirl]

I'm getting so excited to go on this cruise!! I copied the picture. Maybe I'll get my act together and make it into a magnet for the door!
We're planning on doing the bounceback and going in December again too. Do you think that it will be hard to book in April when we are allowed? I'm concerned about room availability. Although we don't care too much, we're in an inside room anyway. It's so crazy, all these trips and planning going on!

 

[choco_latae]

I'm getting so excited to go on this cruise!! I copied the picture. Maybe I'll get my act together and make it into a magnet for the door!
We're planning on doing the bounceback and going in December again too. Do you think that it will be hard to book in April when we are allowed? I'm concerned about room availability. Although we don't care too much, we're in an inside room anyway. It's so crazy, all these trips and planning going on!

This is my first cruise too , so I dont know but since its not in the hight of the season, seems like that would be ok. You could always call or email them and ask.WE will probley be going on a couple more in the yr too but not sure when yet. I do know we have this one and the one in May, Plus another one sometime after that.Probley in Nov or Dec.

 

[Hanover]

I'm getting so excited to go on this cruise!! I copied the picture. Maybe I'll get my act together and make it into a magnet for the door!
We're planning on doing the bounceback and going in December again too. Do you think that it will be hard to book in April when we are allowed? I'm concerned about room availability. Although we don't care too much, we're in an inside room anyway. It's so crazy, all these trips and planning going on!

I just made magnets for our December cruise and left off dates so I can reuse them. I had some of the people on the Creative DISign thread do some for us and they turned out great.

As far as booking the new bounceback cruise, I looked at the availability of category 6's on the cruise we wanted to go on and saw only 8 category 6's remaining. I was afraid it would be like getting free dining and no ADR's to actually eat so we went ahead and put a deposit on the cruise. My TA said she also feared rooms not being available and DCL said if that's the case we'd have to pick a different cruise. We really want that one so we're hoping in April to quickly cancel/rebook for the same date/room. We did had to put $400 down, but we figure we'll be spending that anyway for the 4 of us plus tips, tax, etc.

 

[camarks1234]

I'm so glad I found this. The Disney boards are so vast I wander around lost and don't know where I am half the time! LOL

We are booked for the Feb 1-5 cruise too and are super excited! It will be our 1st cruise ever and it's a Make A Wish trip for my 8 year old boy, AJ. We also have a 13 year old son, Austin who is very excited. (we all are). I have more info in my pre-trip report that's in my siggy.

I'm looking forward to this and a lot of what is in this thread is greek to me... the fish exchange and stuff. But I'll have to do some research and learn.

If anyone has advice on trip excursions, etc. I'd love to hear it. We have planned on doing the Atlantis aquaventure in nassau already.

 

[rox]

I was so excited to have made my final payment on our cruise three weeks ago. Then three days later my dad became critically ill and has been INOVA Fairfax for over two weeks now. His kidney's failed and he continues to be very sick. So I lost two weeks of work and finally had to go back to work. Then my husband's work is talking layoffs. He is safe at the moment, but if the housing/construction market doesn't pick up soon....So to play it safe I felt it necessary to cancel before penalties would incur. I hope everyone has a wonderful time on the cruise. We cruised in March 2008 for our 25th wedding anniversary and it was heavenly. So although we can't go as planned in February 2009, we did have our dream cruise last March.

 

[Mndisneygirl]

I was so excited to have made my final payment on our cruise three weeks ago. Then three days later my dad became critically ill and has been INOVA Fairfax for over two weeks now. His kidney's failed and he continues to be very sick. So I lost two weeks of work and finally had to go back to work. Then my husband's work is talking layoffs. He is safe at the moment, but if the housing/construction market doesn't pick up soon....So to play it safe I felt it necessary to cancel before penalties would incur. I hope everyone has a wonderful time on the cruise. We cruised in March 2008 for our 25th wedding anniversary and it was heavenly. So although we can't go as planned in February 2009, we did have our dream cruise last March.

I'm so sorry for all of your troubles. I hope that things will work out for you and your family and that you will be able to go on another cruise someday. I'm glad that you were able to enjoy one last year. Best wishes!

 

[Mndisneygirl]

I'm so glad I found this. The Disney boards are so vast I wander around lost and don't know where I am half the time! LOL

We are booked for the Feb 1-5 cruise too and are super excited! It will be our 1st cruise ever and it's a Make A Wish trip for my 8 year old boy, AJ. We also have a 13 year old son, Austin who is very excited. (we all are). I have more info in my pre-trip report that's in my siggy.

I'm looking forward to this and a lot of what is in this thread is greek to me... the fish exchange and stuff. But I'll have to do some research and learn.

If anyone has advice on trip excursions, etc. I'd love to hear it. We have planned on doing the Atlantis aquaventure in nassau already.

Hi! Sometimes I think these boards have too much information!! I don't have much advice, never been on Disney cruise before, but welcome to our meet! My oldest daughter will be almost 8 when we cruise. My husband wants to do something with Atlantis too - probably the beach excursion rather than the "big" water park one. We're getting excited, but we've recently been busy planning our WDW time first. We changed our plans from 3 days in the parks to the new deal they're offering - buy 4 nights, get 3 free. So we're spending the better part of a week (really 6 nights) at WDW first. We had been planning to stay at SOG, but to get the deal, we had to stay in a Disney resort, so we switched to Carribean Beach Resort!! The only down side is that we will be missing school and work for 2 weeks! I really didn't want to do that, but my kids are good students and quite young. This will be the last time we plan to miss more than 4 or 5 days.

 

[choco_latae]

I just wanted to say , Hi to all you Feb. cruisers.

 

[choco_latae]

Oh my gosh everyone, we only have two months left. This is so exciting.

 

[Josiah]

Hi! Sometimes I think these boards have too much information!! I don't have much advice, never been on Disney cruise before, but welcome to our meet! My oldest daughter will be almost 8 when we cruise. My husband wants to do something with Atlantis too - probably the beach excursion rather than the "big" water park one. We're getting excited, but we've recently been busy planning our WDW time first. We changed our plans from 3 days in the parks to the new deal they're offering - buy 4 nights, get 3 free. So we're spending the better part of a week (really 6 nights) at WDW first. We had been planning to stay at SOG, but to get the deal, we had to stay in a Disney resort, so we switched to Carribean Beach Resort!! The only down side is that we will be missing school and work for 2 weeks! I really didn't want to do that, but my kids are good students and quite young. This will be the last time we plan to miss more than 4 or 5 days.

We thought about some of these same issues and we decided to stay w/SoG. I'm not sure which way saves more $$, but it's a moot point for us; we are bringing two children, ages 11 and 8, and their parents do not want the children to miss more than four or five days of school, and rightly so, as the older one is in middle school. So, for us, it's one day WDW followed by the cruise, and then thee more days SoG. One may think that's more than a few days away, but not really. That last Friday in Jan is a half day; Feb 2 is a teacher training day, so it's just four and a half days.

 

[Josiah]

We got information from a book at our library. The book is Disney Cruise Lines. It gives lots of info and also reviews of each port of call. We chose the catamaran reef adventure because we think the children (11 and 8) would like to be close to the fish. We chose the StingRay adventure at Castaway Cay because it's only an hour long, and we know the oldest one wants to be near the stingrays. Also, we rented bikes for Castaway Cay for something a little different; we expect to use them for one hour.

One thing that was important to us was that we get off the boat early, which was a consideration in our choices. (we're more morning people) We chose excursions that were well rated and reviewed in the book for the ages of our children. I recommend you find this book in your library quickly. It's time to book excursions!

As it is, we didn't calculate 75 days correctly, and couldn't get Palo for brunch, which would have been our choice, but at least we got it for an early dinner, though it is on Pirate night. Dinner is at 6:30 and Pirate night starts at 8 or so, if I remember correctly. I remember it was later than I thought it would be; 8 or 9 p.m. (I called and asked.)

 

[camarks1234]

I got a passporter and it has been very useful.

I thought Palo sounded like fun, but we're not making ressies there because I'm not sure I want to leave the kids on their own for a night. I'm sure the oldest would be fine with it, but the youngest maybe not.

We can't wait though!!!! WOOHOO!

 

[Josiah]

CAMarks1234,

I was looking at one of your links, prayforaj. I saw the lovely pictures. It looks like someone has been doing fundraisers for a sick child, AJ. Would you like to tell us something about AJ? It's obvious he's someone very special to you.