Wonder in Alaska!!! May 27, 2013

[Brumbie13]

Welcome to our cruise! Thanks for joining up with us! We look forward to meeting you guys.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Hi everyone! We will be joing this cruise and very excited.
I'm JorDan (29 at cruise time), husband Chad (34) and Graysen our 3 1/2 yr old son. We are from Utah. This will be my 6th DcL, chads 3rd and technically Graysens 3rd too haha.

Welcome on board.

Corinna

 

[COASTIEandMATE]

Hi everyone! We will be joing this cruise and very excited.
I'm JorDan (29 at cruise time), husband Chad (34) and Graysen our 3 1/2 yr old son. We are from Utah. This will be my 6th DcL, chads 3rd and technically Graysens 3rd too haha.

Welcome! I hope you plan to join in the FE fun, I always like to add something special for the kids! Looking forward to meeting you, ALOHA, Karen and Ron

 

[Brumbie13]

Hey all,

Just wanted to pop in and say I'm still excited!

 

[dolphingirl47]

Me, too

Corinna

 

[BigHugsForEeyore]

Me three!

 

[Brumbie13]

Ha! You guys are great! I just like to keep the thread alive, and if I see it hasn't been posted to for a while, I've gotta give it some love.

I'm looking forward to all the planning and discussing that will happen as we get closer to the sail date. My last DISgroup was so much fun. I enjoyed meeting everyone, and it was cool to see people we "knew" randomly around the ship all week. I look forward to that again as well.

 

[dolphingirl47]

I am having acute withdrawal symptoms. We have done a lot of special cruises (5 night double dip on the Magic in 2008, Med in 2010, WBTA in 2010, Panama Canal in 2011 and Hawaii in 2012) that had very active threads. I feel utterly lost at the moment.

Corinna

 

[jilljill]

Sorry, I'm having fun in FL for the summer. I'm not on the boards as much when I'm in FL as when I'm at home, even FL is a second home.

 

[SpeedFigure]

I'm all for chatting up the cruise!
My first 3 DCL cruises were year after year with my family and this family we met on our first cruise.
Then I finally got my husband to go and we met a group on his first DCL that we became very great friends with (we fly to visit each other) and cruised again with them 3 years later (after babies were born) this past May. We'll do another cruise all together in 2014, we are the only ones from our group going on this one. There is 35 of us that are friends for the DIS boards.
BUT-- this last cruise we all joined the boards and basically got pushed out of the new DIS group. It was sad. They didn't like that we were already friends and felt like we were taking over.
So I'm a little apprehensive about new groups, but you all seem very nice so far. I can't wait for the FE, I already have my gift idea ready. Also, we always bring gifts for the crew and we took time to talk to them about the gifts. Our server had been with DCL for 9 years and never once got a gift. It's a nice touch to say thank you. But they told us stuff they would love to have. So if you guys would like ideas to give gifts, let us know.
Anyways I'm getting excited to cruise. Less than 1 year, this is going to come up quick!

 

[jilljill]

I'm interested in hearing what types of things they say they would like to have. So many threads about crew gifts with no real (current) info on what they would like to receive.

 

[annichan]

I am having acute withdrawal symptoms. We have done a lot of special cruises (5 night double dip on the Magic in 2008, Med in 2010, WBTA in 2010, Panama Canal in 2011 and Hawaii in 2012) that had very active threads. I feel utterly lost at the moment.

Corinna

I can see how that would have been totally different! I have had a look at first posts in some of the meet threads for 14-night cruises, so I sort of know what you mean. So many activities! (Especially the pink champagne girls meeting sounded like lots of fun )

I would really like to do one of these really long cruises some day, with all the diffrent shows and menus - but until now, it wasn't to be ... I was wanting to do the West-bound Transatlantic next year but it looks like there will be none, then I had my eyes set on the Panama Canal repo but DH wasn't impressed with the many sea days and quite lackluster ports. So here we are now! And I hope that we really will get to do these (b2b) cruises, since (as I've posted on the other cruise thread) I might not get time off work for both of them, and DH has already started saying it won't be worth doing the long Transatlantic flight for a shorter vacation

Anyway, IF we get to go, I'm all for planning some activities together with all of you guys!

 

[COASTIEandMATE]

I am having acute withdrawal symptoms. We have done a lot of special cruises (5 night double dip on the Magic in 2008, Med in 2010, WBTA in 2010, Panama Canal in 2011 and Hawaii in 2012) that had very active threads. I feel utterly lost at the moment.

Corinna

I know what you mean! We went on our first ever cruise last year, the Wonderful West Coast Repo, and since everyone said that after your first cruise you really just want to get back on the ship and cruise again we added the Inaugural Alaska so we could do just that!! We so enjoyed the threads leading up to the cruise, did the Champagne Ladies, Scrapbooking meet, Disney Pins 101, and of course the FE! Since we live in Hawaii we were able to see the Wonder arrive in Hilo and hear that special horn here in Hawaii! We subbed on your thread and still keep in touch with some Disers who did all three cruises. Made some great friends on these boards! I would love to help plan a Champagne Girls get together on our cruise, anyone interested? ALOHA, Karen

 

[dolphingirl47]

I know what you mean! We went on our first ever cruise last year, the Wonderful West Coast Repo, and since everyone said that after your first cruise you really just want to get back on the ship and cruise again we added the Inaugural Alaska so we could do just that!! We so enjoyed the threads leading up to the cruise, did the Champagne Ladies, Scrapbooking meet, Disney Pins 101, and of course the FE! Since we live in Hawaii we were able to see the Wonder arrive in Hilo and hear that special horn here in Hawaii! We subbed on your thread and still keep in touch with some Disers who did all three cruises. Made some great friends on these boards! I would love to help plan a Champagne Girls get together on our cruise, anyone interested? ALOHA, Karen

I would definitely be up for this. On the Panama Canal cruise we had a more structured Champagne Girls even which DCL run more along the lines of the tastings they offer and this was my favourite of the three Champagne Girls events that I was lucky enough to attend. They just charged $15 per person participating to the stateroom account.

Corinna

 

[Brumbie13]

BUT-- this last cruise we all joined the boards and basically got pushed out of the new DIS group. It was sad. They didn't like that we were already friends and felt like we were taking over.
So I'm a little apprehensive about new groups, but you all seem very nice so far.

I'm sorry that happened to you.
Sometimes people are too uptight and have to be in control, and if something that comes in and throws off what those people expect, they can take it personally.

I don't know about other people, but I hope that our cruise group doesn't end up excluding people.
I certainly have no desire to make anyone feel left out.

One thing I want to say is that, the person who organizes the FE (I think someone already expressed interest) might want to consider keeping everything tightly in the group. In our last FE group, we were pretty open about posting our room numbers and the info on the boards, but we came across an issue when someone wanted to join the FE group about 2 weeks before sailing, when we had made the cutoff about 6 weeks before the sailing. We politely told her it was too late, and she was mad about being excluded and swore she was going to take our info that we had posted and sabotage our FE group. I reported the post, and got a response back from jilljill (the first time I'd ever talked to her) who recommended that, in the future, we keep the info more private, and communicate through PM's and such to prevent something like that from happening. So again, whoever is organizing the FE, that's something to keep in mind.

 

[Brumbie13]

I am having acute withdrawal symptoms. We have done a lot of special cruises (5 night double dip on the Magic in 2008, Med in 2010, WBTA in 2010, Panama Canal in 2011 and Hawaii in 2012) that had very active threads. I feel utterly lost at the moment.

I think it's just because we're so far out.
I don't know about other groups, I've only ever been on one cruise.
On that cruise, when I joined the forum and the group in early Nov. 2011, the thread had about 8 pages. In 2 months we went from 8 pages to about 45 pages. So I think that things will pick up as we get closer.

 

[dolphingirl47]

I think it's just because we're so far out.
I don't know about other groups, I've only ever been on one cruise.
On that cruise, when I joined the forum and the group in early Nov. 2011, the thread had about 8 pages. In 2 months we went from 8 pages to about 45 pages. So I think that things will pick up as we get closer.

Your are probably right. As to the FE thing, that is such a shame that somebody was so bitter that they wanted to spoil it for everybody else. It will be a shame if this is all done by PM. I had to promise my husband after the last cruise that I would not participate in any further Fish Extender exchanges as we had over 50 pounds of gifts and this cost us a lot of money in excess charges. However, I make jewellery as a hobby and a cruise is normally an excuse for me to get the work box out and think up some new designs. I knew that I would miss this and was actually planning on still making gifts and dropping them off just because I can. Of course, if this is all done in secret then I won't have that opportunity.

Corinna

 

[Brumbie13]

As to the FE thing, that is such a shame that somebody was so bitter that they wanted to spoil it for everybody else.

Yeah, it really was.
As far as I know, that girl never did do anything to anyone's FE stuff, but still, the fact that she even threatened was so surprising to me.
I tried to add a bit of humour to the situation and tell her that if it was so important to her to get stuff, she could have my stuff. Here was my response.

If Karen is really so desperate to participate, she can have all of the stuff we get, I honestly don't care, it's not like I need more things on my shelves.

Honestly Karen, I know that you've got a dream to participate in our FE programme.
You can have whosits and whatsits galore from my FE.
You can dig dig dig dig dig dig, dig the whole day through my FE.
You can consider all of the things in my FE as your very merry unbirthday present.
You can spin my FE topsy turvy to make sure you got it all.
You can have a whole new world of my knicknacks and candies.
Every day you can pop by to see if there was something there that wasn't there before.
You can use any of the bear necessities from my FE if it makes you rest at ease.
As you take it all, you can proclaim "Mine Mine Mine!"
Just, take only my stuff, don't threaten to be trashin' the camp.


It'd be pretty messed up for an adult to come along and sabotage someone's kids just because they were upset at the adults.
They're kids... they're innocent... Everything on the cruise is magical to them. Don't mess that up just to get even with their parents.

Of course, if this is all done in secret then I won't have that opportunity.

I'm pretty sure that you can be included in the secret PM list if you'd like.

Again, I'm not even saying that's what we have to do, it's just a suggestion to the FE organizer. It's probably very rare that someone actually wants to sabotage a FE. I'm just putting that out there from experience.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Yeah, it really was.
As far as I know, that girl never did do anything to anyone's FE stuff, but still, the fact that she even threatened was so surprising to me.
I tried to add a bit of humour to the situation and tell her that if it was so important to her to get stuff, she could have my stuff. Here was my response.

I'm pretty sure that you can be included in the secret PM list if you'd like.

Again, I'm not even saying that's what we have to do, it's just a suggestion to the FE organizer. It's probably very rare that someone actually wants to sabotage a FE. I'm just putting that out there from experience.

Of course if somebody really wants to cause trouble, they can just wander along the stateroom corridors and check were the Fish Extenders are. However, I can see the merit of keeping the details private for other purposes. If somebody is that determined to cause trouble, I would not want my info in the public domain and I am sure it would be even worse for people with kids.

Corinna

 

[COASTIEandMATE]

I would definitely be up for this. On the Panama Canal cruise we had a more structured Champagne Girls even which DCL run more along the lines of the tastings they offer and this was my favourite of the three Champagne Girls events that I was lucky enough to attend. They just charged $15 per person participating to the stateroom account.

Corinna

Sounds great!! Please look into it as we get closer and I will be glad to help in any way I can. Also I will be bring Macadamia nuts from KAU where I live to taste along with the Champagne!! Looking forward to meeting you Dolphin Girl