You'd Think We'd Won the Lottery!?! - PTR 11/8/14 (Fantasy WC)

[smpowers77]

My name is Stacy (37) and will be traveling with Dustin (38) and my daughter Peyton (7); these will be ages at time of the cruise.

I can't recall what prompted me to consider a Disney cruise for a family vacation but I liked the idea of feeling like I was getting a 2-for-1 in a single vacation. We could enjoy great time as a "family" but there would also be times that I am anticipating DD being in the kids club and Dustin and I getting to enjoy adult time. That was at least how I sold it to Dustin.

I had reached out to a co-worker who travels and cruises regularly for advice regarding which itinerary would potentially be better with a younger child. We knew we didn't want to travel (or pay premium) during peak season so after considering work travel and consulting my daughter's father we selected the November 8-15 7 Day Fantasy Western Caribbean Itinerary C. Her father isn't thrilled about missing school (since he's a teacher) so having Veteran's Day in there helped pacify him.

We booked on November 20, 2013, and although we haven't waited as long as those who booked opening day it has felt like a long time and we still have 233 days to go....but who's counting?!? The irony for me is that I didn't do much research leading up to booking the cruise (didn't know about this website) but it has more than consumed me since we booked.

Let me take a few minutes to introduce each of us!

Stacy (Me): I grew up in SoCal approximately 20 minutes from DL so I have been there more times than I can recall. I now live in Pacific Northwest. I am in finance/accounting by trade so details and planning are my kind of thing. I am a lover of information which is why I stalk the forums daily and keep record (spreadsheets) of anything I think might be valuable. This includes: expenses, excursions, what to bring, etc. I have been on one cruise before as a tag-a-long with my parents and their friends to Alaska on a Princess cruise. It required nothing of me except to show up and meet them in Vancouver, BC at port and enjoy the adventure.

Dustin: Lets be honest; he is along for the ride. He wasn't all that excited (at first) about taking a cruise for a vacation. He enjoys Disney and traveled to DW 3 years ago for a week and I took him to DL with my daughter and I last year at this time but the idea of being "stuck" on a ship would have never been his idea. Once he watched the DCL Planning DVD (by force) he realized there was a lot to do and agreed to do it. He enjoys being spontaneous so trying to be excited about a vacation a year in the making is not his thing.

Peyton: She is a typical 6 year old who is obsessed with Disney Princesses. Each year at Halloween I have the easiest job with costumes because I just take her to Disney Store and let her pick a princess to be. Last year she picked to be Elsa (before Frozen was released) just because it was the prettiest costume of them all. Frozen DVD was pre-ordered from Disney Store and I purchased Anna costume yesterday with $20 voucher. She has also been Sleeping Beauty, Ariel and Belle. My family still lives in SoCal so she has been going there each year since she was less than 2 years old. We are a tall family so I'm proud to say her first time on Space Mountain was when she was 2.

So that's who we are..

I was going to add a picture here but I'm new to this whole thing so not sure how to add images or "smiles". Sorry this first post appears a little dry.

The whole reason I decided to start at PTR is that I LOVE talking about our upcoming cruise but as I previously mentioned Dustin is not READY to be excited with me as its too far away and I don't want my friends and co-workers to kill me by talking about it all the time! I hope you will follow me on this adventure.

Next post I will include more details of what we have booked, stateroom info (changes) and other fun updates since booking! I'm hoping that I will be able help anyone else out traveling on their first Disney cruise as well as the veterans continue to provide me with their wealth of knowledge to help me as there are still many unknowns.

 

[smpowers77]

As I mentioned in previous post, we booked the cruise through a travel agent on 11/20/13. I knew very little about categories, best location on ship, etc. This was great because it caused very little stress as we booked. The only things Dustin I wanted were 1) a verandah room. My thought was it would make the room seem a bit larger and it would give Dustin a place to escape and relax when he was done with the crowds at the pool or just being around people constantly. As the booking window had been open for approximately 6 months, the least expensive category verandah room available was a 5D. Ok great. 2) Late Dining. The idea of the Dine and Play was very appealing as the thought of my 6 year old DD sitting through a long dinner with multiple courses didn't seem reasonable plus this could be some of the adult time that we could factor in to the vacation. Since we live on the West Coast, and with three hour time difference, it seemed like a great option for us. Time to book

I called the travel agent and booked the following:

Category 5D/Stateroom 6536 with a midship location (starboard) on Deck 6.
Late Dining

So excited Now there were so many other things that I (we) needed to decide. I knew that I wanted to fly in the day before the cruise since we are traveling almost 3,000 miles. I wanted to eliminate as many issues as possible with flight delays, BUT airline reservations were not available 358 days before travel so I had to WAIT. For people that know me, this is not a strong point of mine. That's why these DIS boards have saved me. Its a place to facilitate my time and energy for the cruise even if it doesn't involve making any imminent decisions about the cruise.

Once we agreed to fly in the day before the next thing to decide was where to stay prior to the cruise. After reading the threads and considering the options I realized until I booked flights I couldn't really make a hotel reservation. Another thing that had to WAIT. ugh! But I did decide that if we arrived early enough in the day we would make our way to Cocoa Beach on the front end of the trip, but otherwise we would most likely stay at the Hyatt for convenience and use DCL ground transfers to travel to the port. Since there are three of us there wasn't any cost savings to be realized using private transfers and I didn't want to deal with the extra hassle of a rental car.

So we started enjoying the holiday season with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years passing without making any big decisions about the cruise. At some point in there I found DIS boards and became obsessed with reading all the trip reports, pre-trip reports and information forums. I also found our cruise meet link and joined that as well as the Facebook group. Its been great "meeting" several people who we will be traveling with and learning where we are coming from and such! I decided early on not to join the FE exchange. I really struggled with this decision because I hate missing out on things but I ultimately decided that it would cause me more stress than I wanted to take on for our first cruise. I'm not creative at all and then figuring how to make room in suitcases traveling on an airplane was giving me anxiety so I decided it was best to bow out. I decided to take the advice of so many people that stated, you can't do everything so just relax and remember its a vacation!

In January, flights were released for the dates that we travel with several airlines so I began obsessively checking the airline websites directly and the larger travel sites for best flight times and prices. One thing I realized in my search was that round-trip options were not necessarily the best priced fares. So I started looking at one-way flights. I had researched Jet Blue and Southwest (because of free baggage) even using dummy dates but they didn't have great options (layovers) and the prices seemed higher compared to the other airlines. So United and American appeared to have the best options. I was checking these sites multiple times per day including in the middle of the night if I happened to wake up since my iPad is conveniently located on my night stand. Yes, I'm that BAD! Ultimately, we booked American for the outbound flight the morning of November 7th with a 2 hour layover in Dallas arriving at MCO at 10:30pm. The price was very reasonable and it left at 10:30am PST which meant we wouldn't start our vacation lacking sleep. We only live 20 minutes from PDX so we wouldn't need to leave home until 8am. Also, a 2 hour layover created a buffer in case our first flight ran a little late and would give us a chance to eat dinner before our connecting flight. I had decided that we would catch a flight the same day as we disembarked because I'm one of those people that once vacation is over then I just want to be home. This would also give me a day at home to catch up with the laundry, grocery shopping, etc before returning to work. So we have a 5:30pm departure on United with a 2 hour layover at LAX and arriving at PDX at 11:30pm. We got these flights for $365pp. I was pretty proud of myself!

With flights booked it was time to decide on hotel. With a 10:30pm arrival and 9 hours of travel I decided on convenience and booked a room at the Hyatt. I had considered Embassy Suites but I just didn't want to add a shuttle to the hotel and back to MCO to take DCL transfers to port. Sometimes I'll pay a few extra $ for the convenience. I also booked a day pass at MCO for the day of our flight home just to have a place to hang out since our flight isn't until 5:30pm. I figured it wasn't enough time to go to DTD or anything but didn't want to feel stuck at the airport for 8 hours either.

Next up: excursions, and surprise (they found out!)

 

[spandullo76]

Hi my name is Stephanie. We will be on the cruise too . My husband, I and Roman (will be 4 by the cruise). This is our 3rd Disney cruise and LOVE it! . Our two previous have been on the Wonder (1st out of CA the 2nd out of TX). The Wonder is one of the smaller ships so we are so excited to be on one of the bigger ships . If I remember you haven't cruised with Disney yet? Not sure if you know that you can carry on a case of water and alcohol if you would like . If you have any other questions please let me know . We are so excited to go .

 

[spandullo76]

Oh and also there will be a pirate night . We didn't know about it our 1st cruise and were so excited to dress up for our second cruise

 

[smpowers77]

Hi my name is Stephanie. We will be on the cruise too . My husband, I and Roman (will be 4 by the cruise). This is our 3rd Disney cruise and LOVE it! . Our two previous have been on the Wonder (1st out of CA the 2nd out of TX). The Wonder is one of the smaller ships so we are so excited to be on one of the bigger ships . If I remember you haven't cruised with Disney yet? Not sure if you know that you can carry on a case of water and alcohol if you would like . If you have any other questions please let me know . We are so excited to go .

Nice to "meet" you Stephanie! Are you on the FB group or DIS meet group?

 

[smpowers77]

After booking cruise, flights hotels and deciding on DCL transfers...what else could I potentially book to keep this planning rolling....EXCURSIONS! By this time, I had spent countless hours on the DIS forums and had even extended my research to include cruise critic and trip advisor websites. We are on the WC Itinerary C so we will have Falmouth, Jamaica as a stop. This has been difficult to research as its a new port for Disney. Early on, I knew that I wanted to do a dolphin swim with DD. Other than that I was unsure of what types of activities, if any, we would want to plan for off the ship. So of course I ask Dustin what he would like to do. His response, "Can't we just decide when we get to the port?" As I want this to be a vacation for ALL of us to enjoy I'm asking the ?, how much room is there for last minute decision making when it comes to port excursions? Here's what I'm considering as of today

Cozumel: BOOKED (non-DCL) Dolphin Swim for DD and I at Chankanaab Park. Will purchase a ticket for entry to park for Dustin when arrive. After swim, we will probably hang out at park for awhile until we are bored and head back to ship.

Grand Cayman: I'm considering this being an adult-only day. Maybe just walking around the port and heading out to one of the less crowded areas of Seven Mile Beach. My concerns are that Dustin isn't one to just sit and lay out for very long. He prefers to be a bit more active. Also, although I'm hopeful that DD will enjoy the clubs I'm hesitant to book anything that isn't kid friendly in case she doesn't enjoy the kids clubs and wants to hang out with us instead. Any ideas??

Falmouth, Jamaica: I'm considering booking a day pass directly to the Hilton Hall Resort in Montego Bay. This hotel has received good reviews (for the most part) and has a waterpark attached to the property including a lazy river. I feel like this would give us a lot of flexibility for everyone to do what they want and it would be active enough to satisfy Dustin. My other thought is to just stay on the ship and enjoy a relatively empty ship and get most of what I'm looking to accomplish at the resort for FREE (or included cost). My concern about this is not taking advantage of seeing Jamaica at all and that Dustin will just want to get off the ship since the next day is a sea day. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I wonder if we could reserve a day pass with resort and make a decision after getting on the ship to keep reservation or cancel. Any of the veterans have recommendations about this? One other thought was to do a river tubing adventure through Chukka tours. That was something Dustin mentioned he would like to do. I was worried about DD6 though and that it would be a bit too adventurous for her. If anyone has done this I would love to hear about it.

Anyway, any recommendations regarding excursions based on our ports of call are welcome.

Next up: Our vacation just got hijacked!

 

[spandullo76]

I didn't know about the FB page. I did join the meet if it's the same one and posted last week saying I'd like to do the FE exchange but have had no reply saying that I've been put on the list.

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[taswira]

I am on your cruise also and am on the cruise meet thread and FB group.

Looking forward to more of this pre-trip report! I'm curious about how your "vacation just got hijacked."

spandullo76 - I think the person organizing the FE said the list is only updated once a month. I'm not sure, as I'm not participating in that.

 

[spandullo76]

Smpowers77. We have not done this itinerary before. I know a lot of times when you get off ship there are usually a lot of locals trying to sell you the same type of excursions that you could usually book through Disney and with the locals you can do some haggling with the price. I have done the dolphin swim (in Mexico & loved it). We have also done a glass bottom boat tour. In the past we've waited to book until we got off of the ship incase we wanted to stay on the ship or just wonder around the island ourselves.

 

[spandullo76]

What is the name of the FB page?

 

[smpowers77]

So it was about a month ago when I received a call from my brother inquiring about the cruise. He still lives in SoCal. After a few short conversations he decided that he wanted their family to do the cruise too. So he talked to his wife and she agreed to go for it. They are currently a family of 4 expanding to 5 in mid-June. Kids ages will be 9 and 7 at time of cruising. Lets digress for a moment for some personality traits that are very different between my brother and I! As can be seen in the short description so far I'm sure you can tell that I am a detail-oriented person who prefers to know as much as possible before making a decision. On the other hand, my brother is a very impulsive person who makes decisions with a lot less thought; lets call it spontaneous. Both traits have their pros and cons. Anyway, back to the cruise.

Of course the planner in me took charge. Fortunately, my brother was happy to let me take the reins and run with it. One thing that did have to be decided was what kind of cabin did they want to be in. After some discussion with his wife it was decided that they wanted a room with a verandah as well. Once that decision was made, it made the most sense to me to try to get connecting rooms. My thought was we would add one of his children to our reservation and add a new reservation for the remaining four members of his family. So I went to our TA to inquire. In the 3+ month since we had booked our cruise category 5D rooms were no longer available. I asked our TA if it was possible to upgrade our current reservation (any category 5 room) to allow for connecting rooms. She found connecting rooms on Deck 8 (5B). So we put a 24 hour hold on that room and booked the change for my room. We were now in room 8160. I was a little bummed because I liked the idea of having a midship room on the starboard side from several reviews I had heard. The room on Deck 8 was port side and was closer to aft of the ship; although still considered midship. BUT I thought it was worth it since my niece would most likely be sleeping with us and would still be close to her brother (and sister) and parents. OK great. Well, maybe not. The 24 hour window came and went and my brother didn't pay his deposit. Now I was just getting annoyed. I don't want to get into family history but lets just say this wasn't surprising and was some of my reluctance to get involved in the first place but my desire to control things and get them done in what I think would be the best way took over. (my bad!) So then he came back and said well I think mom wants to come to. Ok. Well that changes everything! At least one of us will need to switch to a family oceanview room with a verandah. So before contacting the TA I looked into the pricing on DCL website and realized it wasn't that much more for me to switch to a category 4 room. So I went back to TA and asked about connecting rooms for Category 4. She was able to find connecting rooms on Deck 6. Ok. So once again, I changed my reservation (6142) and created a 24 hour hold for my brother's room (6144). It took a few more days but he FINALLY paid his 20% deposit. I had decided in the mean time that no matter what we would just keep the Category 4 room even if they didn't come on the vacation. I had secretly been hoping that we would be upgraded before our cruise, and, if not, I would inquire about a cruise upgrade at port. Knowing that neither of these were guarantees by any means the incremental price difference for the upgrade was worth it. I think it was about $250 (exclusive of additional passenger).

So how its booked now is we have 4 people on our reservation; 3 of us plus my brother's soon to be arrival. Side story: when I contacted the TA about the change in reservation she misunderstood and thought I was going to be having the baby so the reservation says "Baby Wilson" which is my boyfriend's last name. Dustin thought it would be funny to forward to his mom and jokingly ask them if they wanted to join us and see how long it would take her to realize the "addition" on the reservation. Ultimately we didn't do it but we got a good laugh about it. We put the baby on our reservation as it was the cheapest.

My brother has 5 people on his reservation including him, his wife, his son and daughter and my mom.

Although when it comes to sleeping arrangements I imagine that it would make the most sense for my mom to sleep in my room as well since they will have a pack and play and then my mom doesn't have to be worried about being woken up in the middle of the night if the baby wakes up. All of this is flexible though since we have connecting rooms which was part of the appeal as well.

So that is why I consider our vacation hijacked. What was going to be a getaway for just the three of us has turned into a vacation for a family of nine. I don't want it to appear that I'm not excited about it; its more that its just an adjustment from the original expectation. Plus, as I stated earlier my brother is spontaneous and doesn't necessarily think through everything so until the PIF date comes and his vacation is paid off lets just say all this is rather hypothetical. In fact, I'm not telling DD that the extended family is coming because I'm scared if I tell her and they aren't able to come that all the effort and $ spent to have a great vacation will be somewhat spoiled by the fact that her cousins didn't come. At this point I'm hoping it can be a huge surprise to her when we fly in to Orlando and they are there. In some ways I'm super excited!! Since we live about 1,000 miles apart the cousins haven't spent a ton of time together over the years. Eight days will be the most time they have ever spent together at one time. As a parent, it will be so much fun to watch and enjoy that. I'm already considering booking a BBB appointment for the two of them. I purchased each of them Anna dresses last week since I had a coupon after pre-ordering Frozen from Disney. By the time I got on at 3pm PST Elsa was already sold out. I made it my niece's birthday gift and thought I would include for DD as part of her Easter basket.

The part of me that is less excited is that there are just that many more people to take into consideration as we are planning excursions and activities on the ship especially one of them being a five month old. Dustin just says we'll do our vacation as we originally intended it and they can be apart of as much or little as they choose to be. Although I appreciate his optimism I don't think it will be that simple. That's probably the over-thinker and over-planner in me.

With the addition of them I'm also considering changing our pre-cruise hotel and travel arrangements. The Hyatt MCO and DCL transfers made sense when there were just three of us but I don't think it makes as much sense for 9 of us. Now I'm considering changing our hotel to the Embassy Suites (I'm a Hilton Honors member) and booking a limo for all of us to the port. I think we can save some $ that way. Plus we can even make a stop at the store for snacks/alcohol that we want to take on board with us.

Also, we had already booked our flights and our homebound flight has a layover in LAX so I thought it would be perfect if they booked that flight as well and we could all travel back together giving the cousins one additional day of hang out time. Shockingly, they haven't booked it but these are just some things I'm learning to deal with. Just because I think its a perfect plan doesn't make it happen. As I hear "Let it Go" playing in my head.

I'll keep you updated as we make progress towards our cruise. Happy planning!

 

[plannermom]

Reading along...

I think your plan to wait to tell your daughter is brilliant. I have a mom who is similarly "spontaneous" and we have learned that same lesson the hard way!

Just keep humming, "Let it go..."

Also, wanted to add re: Falmouth, someone on my cruise page said they are opening a new Margaritaville right in the port and it will have a pool, slide, etc. This may be worth considering as an easy way to get off the boat without a big commitment.

Thanks for posting the pre-trip report. I am obsessed and need lots of reading material!

 

[taswira]

>>>Also, wanted to add re: Falmouth, someone on my cruise page said they are opening a new Margaritaville right in the port and it will have a pool, slide, etc. This may be worth considering as an easy way to get off the boat without a big commitment.

http://www.margaritavillecaribbean.com/welcome-falmouth.html

 

[smpowers77]

212 days and counting!!!

Thanks for posting about Margaritaville. I have only been to the one in Las Vegas. I will definitely check it out. Funny that you mentioned that as I logged in to ask for advice on excursions.

I know that I still have plenty of time but I just can't help wanting to come up with a plan for our time in port.

As I have mentioned previously, my initial thought was to do an adult-only port in Grand Cayman and then consider a family friendly option for Falmouth.

I'm just worried there are more activity based options in Jamaica that Dustin would enjoy. He had mentioned wanting to do something like river rafting. I may have said in one of my earlier posts Dustin's idea of a good time is not laying out by a pool for hours on end several days in a row. I'm not sure if there are things in Grand Cayman that are "active" enough for him OR do I switch the Grand Cayman port to a family friendly activity and do the river tubing or something like that in Jamaica.

Here's where I'm struggling:

In Jamaica, I think Dunn's River Falls are a significant ride from the Falmouth port. By the time we got out there and did the activity and got back to the ship we would have been away from DD most of the day. Plus, I thought she would be really excited about going to the water park/resort in Montego Bay and that is something ALL of us would enjoy.

What excursions did you enjoy with a 6 year old? I really want to enjoy the ocean in Grand Cayman as I have heard/read that its absolutely stunning. I have DD6 in private swim lessons now so I anticipate that she will be a good swimmer by the time we sail.

 

[smpowers77]

Today is 197 days until cruise!! So excited to be less than 200 days. Once summer hits I'm sure it will fly even quicker. We have lots going on.

 

[smpowers77]

On Sunday night, I booked the Hyatt Regency at Orlando Airport for the preceding night of the cruise. I booked thru lastminutetravel.com. The room was $146.86 compared to $191 when I booked directly with Hyatt using my AAA discount. Its one less thing left to do comparison shopping with as the first night's charge is non-refundable. Woohoo!

Thanks to my phone app, 171 days and counting!!

 

[smpowers77]

Yesterday I booked the Hilton Hall Resort Day pass direct thru hotel website for $180.70 for three of us. I was surfing thru the DIS boards forums and found out how to do it online. The key is to do a search for the actual hotel and not the Hilton.com website. Once on the website enter the same check-in and check-out date and it will bring up the day pass rates. You have to pay up-front but can cancel with a full refund up to 3 days prior to arrival.

I texted DisBF and told him I booked an excursion. I gave him no other details as he's still not ready to engage in vacation planning for November. He just started sending me emails regarding our mini-vacation next month! I'm still debating between this excursion and the Chukka Thrill Seekers pass. Once he's ready to finalize plans we can re-evaluate. I always just feel better to have a plan even though I'm completely fine with changing it after the fact.

135 days to cruising!

 

[lexismommy04]

I am looking forward to hear all about your cruise. I am in my planning stages as well because I am going in 2016. So did your brother book his airfare?

 

[smpowers77]

I am looking forward to hear all about your cruise. I am in my planning stages as well because I am going in 2016. So did your brother book his airfare?

He hasn't made any additional reservations since booking. PIF date is 45 days away so we'll know very soon.