Greetings to all. You have all been so welcoming, we couldn't help but book this cruise! Now all we have to do is get over the guilt of taking DD7 out of school for 4 days. She's always been fine with it but this year is second grade and they have already ramped up the homework.
So I guess I'm officially a wild turkey or a dancing banana. How will i know?
We did the booking but not without the usual drama that surrounds anything we do. Usually in November we have a short school break around Veterans Day when they have inservice days and we usually use our DVC points to go to the Beach Club. With our other cruise, we forgot to even try to get the booking. So today as we were saying "BCV or Cruise..." and leaning heavily toward cruise, I said, let me call just to check on availability as I'm sure they are sold out by now. Of course they were for both the early and late November dates. So I asked about banking my points.
I've never done this before and as a relatively new member of DVC I had NO idea of all the rules Shame on me for not paying attention, but the nice lady at DVC told me that I basically would lose 1/2 of my points since I missed our banking deadline. Huh, there's a banking deadline? Yes, I didn't have a clue.
So DW called back to see about using our points for the cruise (we don't have many but figured we could pay for a part of it). It worked out great that we were able to use points for the two DDs and pay cash for DW and I. "PHEW" didn't lose those points, thank goodness and got a nice break on cash outlay. Even kept our onboard credit and at least part of the 10 percent discount we got from booking on board, even though we had booked a 4-day and had to change it to 7.
Trying this one without a verandah (per my trip report that I thought it was unnececessary) but now that push has come to shove, I'm questioning myself. We're on Deck 2 in a Cat 9. Maybe Santa will send an early present and we'll get upgraded.
Now I have to go back and read 136 pages of posts (yikes you people have been busy). And I'll be getting our info to Shell as well.
I really can't believe we're doing this again so soon. But WOW it's fun to plan it this fast. Now I have to hope we can get some things reserved when the never-cruisers have their chance. We were lucky on this last cruise to get Palo (twice) just by booking on board and I got 2 massages the same way.
Woo hoo and I guess we are now:
