christineD186
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2014
Hello everyone!
My name is Christine and I am so excited for my family vacation aboard the Magic in January. My sister, mother and nephew will all be sailing in January with me. A little bit about us... My mother, sister and myself own a dance studio in our town. We are celebrating our 30th year in business. We have been on two 3 day cruises aboard the Wonder and this is will be our first experience on the Magic.
When we booked this cruise we were excited that we would be on the newly reimagined Magic. I've read a lot of conflicting reports on whether people enjoy sailing on the Magic or not. It seems to be you either love it or much prefer the larger boats. We had near perfect vacations on the Wonder. We love the size, the CM's, the entertainment, the food... Everything! We were considering the Eastern Caribbean sailing aboard the Fantasy, but we decided we liked the itinerary of the Western just a bit better. We have a Verandah which my sister cannot sail without!
We booked this cruise using DVC points. We love being DVC members. It has given us the opportunity to stay places we never would have dreamed and go places that would never have been vacation destinations for us. We were able to do a family vacation of 12 to WDW all on points. It really is a great value and gives you everything and more for your money!
Booking was super easy with DVC. Within minutes we had both our cruise and 2 night stay at OKW booked! Now it feels real! No going back now! I didn't realize how much there is to plan on a cruise! Excursions, extra dining experiences, classes that might interest you, trying to squeeze in everything that everyone else wants to do.... the list seems never ending! But to be honest, I love planning! It makes the waiting exciting!
We decided to take our nephew who is 13 with us. He lives a bit away from us and we hardly ever get to see him. We spend so much time with our other niece and nephew (pick them up from school everyday, dinners on weekends, and everything in between), that often our other nephew feels left out. We thought this would be a great opportunity to get to do something special with him!
We scheduled a call from Mickey and Minnie and took him out to dinner for his birthday. He got the call but didn't understand what it meant.
We gave him a letter explaining the cruise. He couldn't believe it! He didn't really comprehend what was happening until about half way thru dinner! He turned to me and asked if he would get sea sick. That's when we knew it was sinking in! 
We were so excited to tell him and now it officially seems real!
Now onto my FE gifts!
Question: Has anyone taken a 13 year old with all adults? Did they make friends in the teen club or hang out with you the whole time? Nick is pretty outgoing and friendly so making friends won't be hard but were your kids happier hanging out with you?
My name is Christine and I am so excited for my family vacation aboard the Magic in January. My sister, mother and nephew will all be sailing in January with me. A little bit about us... My mother, sister and myself own a dance studio in our town. We are celebrating our 30th year in business. We have been on two 3 day cruises aboard the Wonder and this is will be our first experience on the Magic.
When we booked this cruise we were excited that we would be on the newly reimagined Magic. I've read a lot of conflicting reports on whether people enjoy sailing on the Magic or not. It seems to be you either love it or much prefer the larger boats. We had near perfect vacations on the Wonder. We love the size, the CM's, the entertainment, the food... Everything! We were considering the Eastern Caribbean sailing aboard the Fantasy, but we decided we liked the itinerary of the Western just a bit better. We have a Verandah which my sister cannot sail without!
We booked this cruise using DVC points. We love being DVC members. It has given us the opportunity to stay places we never would have dreamed and go places that would never have been vacation destinations for us. We were able to do a family vacation of 12 to WDW all on points. It really is a great value and gives you everything and more for your money!
Booking was super easy with DVC. Within minutes we had both our cruise and 2 night stay at OKW booked! Now it feels real! No going back now! I didn't realize how much there is to plan on a cruise! Excursions, extra dining experiences, classes that might interest you, trying to squeeze in everything that everyone else wants to do.... the list seems never ending! But to be honest, I love planning! It makes the waiting exciting!
We decided to take our nephew who is 13 with us. He lives a bit away from us and we hardly ever get to see him. We spend so much time with our other niece and nephew (pick them up from school everyday, dinners on weekends, and everything in between), that often our other nephew feels left out. We thought this would be a great opportunity to get to do something special with him!
We scheduled a call from Mickey and Minnie and took him out to dinner for his birthday. He got the call but didn't understand what it meant.
We gave him a letter explaining the cruise. He couldn't believe it! He didn't really comprehend what was happening until about half way thru dinner! He turned to me and asked if he would get sea sick. That's when we knew it was sinking in! We were so excited to tell him and now it officially seems real! Now onto my FE gifts!
Question: Has anyone taken a 13 year old with all adults? Did they make friends in the teen club or hang out with you the whole time? Nick is pretty outgoing and friendly so making friends won't be hard but were your kids happier hanging out with you?
To say I am getting excited is an understatement! 12 days until we can check in and schedule our excursions. We are looking forward to a duck tour in Grand Cayman, a Jeep excursion in Cozumel and swimming with the stingrays in CC. I think we are going to just relax and play it by ear in Key West. My nephew wants to swim with dolphins so we may look into that. Does anyone else have any recommendations for excursions? Is there something that we absolutely can't miss? This is our first trip to any of these places and definitely want to see as much as we can. Does everyone book through Disney? How else can you book? 
This is definitely a fun idea and gets our whole family involved and excited. Plus it gives us something to do while we are leading up. 
