*Sept 10th 2011 WB Transatlantic* - From Spain to Space Mountain - Part 5

[PFlamingo]

This is precisely why I suggest buying your currency at Travelex. See site for details. I understand you can also use AAA who uses Travelex

I looked into that a couple of weeks ago. Turns out the nearest store is 100+ miles away, and the shipping or pick up fee if we wanted to get it at MCO is the same as the bank charges. The "free transaction coupon" might be okay for buying it back, but I have the feeling the hassle involved to get to a store (or another trip to the airport) would offset any advantage there. It would probably be easier (and about as economical) to apply the cash to our on board account.

I guess I just long for the days when banks gave you little perks like that.

 

[binkytell]

We will turn her into the most beautiful princess! After all that won't take much as she is already beautiful!

I live about a mile from Sam Moons... so I have lots of sparkle hair bling...lol

If you booked a GTY it is usually a very restricted reservation, not allowing for any upgrades at port. The only possible upgrades are "usually" if DCL upgrades you when they give you your cabin #....



I have a visual of this
But someone has to sprinkle Fairy Godmother magic...



Yes.. the invite will be at your room.

successful shopping trip today, i got sparkly hairglitter, sparkly eyemakeup and glow in the dark wands for the fairy godmothers to do there magic

 

[karentan]

Hi everyone, new thread is almost ready, just sent PMs to the remaining 3 organisers. Once they've posted their placesavers the new thread will be open once we get to 250 pages on here, which at the rate we're going, will be about two days!

 

[poohluv2u]

I'm joining this thread, bear with me, I'm new to this posts and all.

Welcome Monica, glad to have you join us

I think I just finished our magnets. FE are half done. Tshirts are about to be printed to iron-on. And I have no clue what we are going to do in Barcelona. Any suggestions for a family of four??

I think we want to get a T10 and use the metro as we are staying by Placa Catalunya and arriving Thursday morning. I'd like to see the main attractions. I need help. This is the only part of the trip I am still unsure of. I have pulled this from others I have read online. Overkill? Crazy with kids? (And you remember I'm the one who loves hiking and sleeping in tents...)

Day 1 - Thursday - Gaudi
Arrive about 7:30 AM, Aerobus to hotel, hopefully drop off bags
Some sort of food
metro to Sangrada Familia!
Then to a market to get lunch and onto Parc Guell - metro stop Lesseps and bus 24
then bus 24 or metro Diagonal, walk down Passeig de Gracia and see Casa Mila and Casa Batello
My guess is we will be exhausted then, check in, shower, nap.
Dinner: Ciutat Comtal - TripAdvisor top 30 restaurants, great tapas and house wine apparently. Go early since we have kiddos.

Day 2 - Friday
Walk to Las Ramblas
see Palau Guell
shop at the market -Mercat Boqueria
Visit the Placa reial
then Hard Rock 6:30, after dinner up to the magic fountains for 9:30 show, metro Espanya and then walk up the road

Saturday:
Show up at port early to see who the heck chartered the Magic on Sept 3
No seriously... 10:30-11:00 port arrival time is what we have.

Thanks for posting your plans Mandy, our first day looks very similar to yours, and it just helps to know someone else is thinking along the same lines

(I actually NEVER carry cash in my daily life if I can get away with it - I'm one of those people that uses my debit card to pay for a fountain drink at the gas station!)

Same here Chris my debit card

 

[TxMermaid1]

successful shopping trip today, i got sparkly hairglitter, sparkly eyemakeup and glow in the dark wands for the fairy godmothers to do there magic

Sounds delightful..... Can't wait to put some magic in our Princess's day! Ohh the joy of being a fairy god mother!

 

[TxMermaid1]

WBTA Jounals

Several of you have asked to see the journals I am making. I have finally posted the pics of them. I do have a few left if anyone is interested in one for your child or yourself. You can PM me. I hope this link works... it is posted on FB in our WBTA group.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1939320369379&set=oa.198867686843740&type=1&theater

 

[STLUCIELADY]

That was my original plan... so we could rest when needed... but Curt's uncle thought we could manage metro (and Curt though we could save money)

If we arrive and are just exhausted, it is my Plan B. Ask a tired hubby with two cranky kids, and $$$ won't be an issue then

.

We looked at doing the HOHO bus, but after seeing the horrible lines to get on the bus especially at Sagrada, we opted for the Metro. I would put an app on your phone for Spanish translation though. Most people riding the Metro did not speak English at all (really didn't expect them to either). Getting directions was pretty difficult. Very nice people but not much English outside of desk clerks etc. As someone else mentioned, the walks underground are very very long between lines and connections. No big deal for my daughter and I because we just go with the flow, but my husband would have probably cracked and found him in the corner crying especially with the jetlag! Do not take a nap! Jetlag will be so much harder on you! Oh and get to bed early the first night, have a great healthy breakfast, drink OJ or those fabulous juices from the Bouqueria, get an early start and do the things you really want to see that day. The day you get in will be a bit of a daze so go easy on yourself. See ya around town!

 

[LindaBabe]

I definitely don't want to be like we have with some families --- arrive, one says "what do you want to do", the other replies I don't know what do YOU want to do"... and precious time is wasted because nobody can figure out what to do (or where to eat...). That drives me crazy!!

Need to break out the map....

EXACTLY! And i'm not good when tired, hence the advance planning so all we have to do is "plug and play".

We also never carry cash, but when we were in St Maarten on our last DCL cruise, we really wished we had cash to pay with. I think they used the credit card machines where they swiped it with the carbon copy. We plan to pay with cash in places like that from now on! I've heard people have had identity theft problems there, luckily we didn't, but it really made us uncomfortable!

How about a prepaid visa card in a limited denomination ? We can buy 'em at our local grocery store.

I would LOVE to have room numbers - WITH them, it's easier to surprise people with unexpected birthday / anniversary celebration cards, months after they've mentioned it in passing on the boards. At the very least, the scrapbook ladies need to let us know their room numbers when they get them. (I've never seen such a pile of TBAs at this late date! It's CRAZY!)

 

[RubyBlue]

We are not forgetting the boys. The will also be nice dressed. And I love to share your prince with you. I wish I had this could done with my son when he was on that age. We went for the first time to Disneyland Paris when he was 7 years old. And since then the disney virius has got us. So now I can do it a little bit over with your son.

Liesbeth,

I am thinking as you are thinking. I wish I had done more things like this when my children were younger. It is so nice to have all these little princes and princesses on the ship so we can "do it over again" with them, and see the excitement in their eyes! And then I can also look forward to grandchildren at Disney.

 

[auntlynne]

...Does the invitation for the Princess and Prince tea party get delivered to your state room? I know that the RSVP needs to returned to the gift shop but I was just curious to how we got the invite....

Ours was delivered to the stateroom (this has been a few years ago); another post says that's the way it was done, also.

Does anyone know how long it takes to see Sagrada Familia? We have a very short time to sightsee and are only planning on looking at a couple places. Not even sure if we will get out and go inside Sagrada Familia, but if we do, we definitely don't have time to wait in line. Sometimes if you are with a tour guide, as we will be, they can skip the lines....

I booked the Audio tour & it said it takes 1.5 hours then after you can continue exploring on your own if you want. You can also just buy a general admission ticket so I suppose it's as long or as little as you want. Hope that helps.

We just viewed the outside; that was enough for my 17 yo niece. When I visited Notre Dame in Paris, we did a walk through - no more than 5-10 minutes. In London, St Paul's, we didn't pay the entrance fare, just viewed what you could see from the vestibule.

If you know your own routine for visiting cathedrals, I would plan for that amount of time. (But we can spend an hour or more visiting a French chateau - but then again, more rooms, more furniture and decorating styles).

... If you booked a GTY it is usually a very restricted reservation, not allowing for any upgrades at port. The only possible upgrades are "usually" if DCL upgrades you when they give you your cabin #....

Is this the policy for these new restricted GTY categories? I haven't really looked for info on this, as they just started them this year. The old Cat 11C GTY - the cheapo rooms - did allow for paid portside upgrades.

...(I actually NEVER carry cash in my daily life if I can get away with it - I'm one of those people that uses my debit card to pay for a fountain drink at the gas station!)

We used to write checks for $0.79 at the McD's drive-thru in college.

...As someone else mentioned, the walks underground are very very long between lines and connections. ...

I was thinking their subways don't seem to have the nice intersections for changing lines. Thanks for confirming that.

...How about a prepaid visa card in a limited denomination ? We can buy 'em at our local grocery store....

The ones I see state they are accepted anywhere in the US where the credit card can be used. May want to verify they are okay overseas before purchasing.

 

[Chris&Jeremy]

We used to write checks for $0.79 at the McD's drive-thru in college.

 

[TxMermaid1]

This is what Disney has on the website about the restricted GTY fares... includes IGT OGT and VGT

When booking this restricted-fare category stateroom,
please note the following:

You are reserving a stateroom within the selected stateroom type: Inside, Oceanview or Verandah.
Disney Cruise Line will assign your specific stateroom at a later time, based on availability.
Full payment is required at the time of booking for all Guests and is non-refundable.
Sail date and stateroom category changes are not permitted.
The stateroom offer cannot be combined with any other discounted or promotional offer.
Full legal names of all Guests are required at time of booking and no name changes are allowed.

 

[Pinky166]

At the very least, the scrapbook ladies need to let us know their room numbers when they get them. (I've never seen such a pile of TBAs at this late date! It's CRAZY!)

Linda

Here is the final list for the scrapbook exchange (from the 1st page), we are only waiting for two room numbers - Heather & Deb.


Pinky166 = Claire, #6507
Birkner = Noel, #8024
Dgentrysim = Deb, #GTY
LindaBabe = Linda #5020
LovingtheMouse = Caroline #5020
Namsupak = Lauren, #8086
Pixie dust for me! = Karen, #7631
Poohluv2u = Karen, #7129
HazelandAnnie = Hazel, #6101
Donaldcp98 = Tabitha, #6592
HeatherlovesMickey = Heather, #GTY
Sorceror-Mickey = Natasha, #6020

 

[STLUCIELADY]

Dennis and I were discussing how much money we should get in Euros and GBPs, and I started wondering aloud about something. He said, "How will you find out about that?" and I said, "I'll ask on the DIS. They'll know." So here it is.

If we have "leftover" Euros and GBPs, is there any real disadvantage to applying them to our on-board account - like, lousy exchange rates?

When I checked with my bank about buying foreign currency, they said they'll only buy it back in units of $250! They also charge a fee to buy it in the first place, which totally sucks b/c I've had accounts there for ages. So I was thinking, if we don't spend it all at the European ports and Barca, and we can't sell it back to the bank, we might as well spend it on the ship. Thoughts?

I'm not sure if this has changed but last year on the Med cruise, we bought AND sold our Euros on the ship. We just kept our receipt and when we sold it back to them, there was no charge. But like I said, that was last year...things change

 

[*Flower*]

Hi Everyone-

We've established that the first time change doesn't occur until the night that we leave Gibraltar, so there is a 6 hour difference between the east coast the ship.

As the first jet hit at 8:46, I'd like to start gathering at around 2:30 roughly. We're still open to suggestions as to where to meet. However, if everyone would prefer to remember it on their own, it whatever way they'd like- just let me know.

Thanks again to everyone for all thoughts posted about the anniversary.

 

[nick262]

Attention Scuba Divers​

Unfortunately, Jill has had to change her plans for the Shark Dive in St Maartin. I will now be coordinating for those that would still like to do it. I have three confirmed and 3 unconfirmed. Please let me know ASAP as we need to book it with at least 4 divers as soon as possible to hold the date.

Confirmed:
Nick262 Nickole
Dom262 Dom
Chirpee Paul

Those that need to confirm:
Thepicketts Damian

Please feel free to PM me with any questions.

Thanks,
Nickole

Hello All,

Has anyone heard from Damian or knows him outside of the DIS? He has not posted on the boards since June and I need confirmation from him if he is still on the cruise. Any help would be appreciated.

If anyone would like to join, we need to know asap to book this. We have three confirmed and need four in order to do this dive. Please PM me with any questions.

Thank you,
Nickole

 

[birkner]

I looked into that a couple of weeks ago. Turns out the nearest store is 100+ miles away, and the shipping or pick up fee if we wanted to get it at MCO is the same as the bank charges. The "free transaction coupon" might be okay for buying it back, but I have the feeling the hassle involved to get to a store (or another trip to the airport) would offset any advantage there. It would probably be easier (and about as economical) to apply the cash to our on board account.

I guess I just long for the days when banks gave you little perks like that.

You may want to see if you can buy them at the airport your going to be flying out of and then if you have any to return, you can return them at the same place.

Just my thoughts...

 

[birkner]

Attention all Madeira Tour Members

Answer to the question about the Cable Car and Blandy's from Estubia:

The cable car accepts credit cards and I'm almost sure Blandy's does too, but I'll call them on Monday and then I'll let you know.

 

[PFlamingo]

You may want to see if you can buy them at the airport your going to be flying out of and then if you have any to return, you can return them at the same place.

Just my thoughts...

Do you mean instead of ordering ahead? Hmmm... that could work. They don't have a store in Orlando, but they have locations at the airport. Is there a difference between airport locations and "stores"? This may be a stupid question, but do they usually have the currency on hand? We have to wait 2 or 3 days to get it from the bank.

We'd still have to make an extra trip to MCO after we get back from the cruise. We're only flying to Barca from there. We're driving to Orlando and back home again. But I guess that could be done.

 

[nick262]

:Thanks for posting this, we are thinking of doing this too. One question we have is; where does the ship leave from, is it the same port the Magic docks in?

The Santa Maria departs from the same dock that we will be at. It is a five minute walk from The Magic to there berth. You can reserve online at that link and pay and pick up at the dock. Let me know which tour your decide on. Sarah and her DH and me and my DH and DD will be on the morning tour departing at 10:30.

Thanks,
Nickole