I will try to be as detailed as possible as we decided to plan and go on the 7 day Disney cruise.
The cast of Characters:
Myself - 37, Compulsive planner Disney Nut
DW, A year or two older coming along for the ride who knows I am Nuts!!!!
DS - 12
DS - 9
After reading as much information on the boards since June of 2000 (approx) I felt I was prepared for our vacation of a lifetime.
IMHO if you want to get the most out of your vacation you need to plan for it, even if it is minimal planning. I tend to take things overboard when it comes to planning since I am not fond of surprizes. We starting thinking about a cruise after the person I was the best man for in a wedding at WDW came back from his 4 day cruise. He said after getting sick the first night it was the best vacation he had ever had. At the time Disney did not have the 7-day cruise and I had mentioned to my wife that if Disney ever extended their cruises and started to make them longer, say 7 days we would look into that. Not 2 weeks later Disney announces the 7-day Eastern Carribean cruise. DOH!!!
I contacted MyTravel.com/Cruises Only and spoke to Jeff Frigon who was wonderful. He was able to help us with everything and we booked the cruise fro 12/15-12/22. He said it was not unusual for somone to book a cruise this early. We started out with the secret porthole room but were talked into a verandah. More on the verandah and the pros and cons for our family.
I started planning right away and started to look into buying books about everything. BIG MISTAKE!!!! Everything I needed to know about our vacation was on the DIS board and on the MAGICAL DISNEY CRUISE GUIDE. What a source of information.
After 9/11 we had some doubts about taking our vacation and staying home. Our DS' were already not fans of flying and now we were going to ask them to fly after seeing everything that happened. We all talked about it and decided that we were not going to let a group of people put the fear in us enough to stop us from taking our vacation. Life is too short to be worried about postponing things you want to do today.
We booked a flight on Delta for the day before our cruise, only to be refreshed and ready that day. Boy did that make a difference. Our flight was changed which because of everything was changed 3 times. We finally settled on a flight leaving at 2pm since my wife had to work for half a day. She ended up going to work at 6:30 in the morning to be able to get off at 10:30. I believe I speak for her when I say she will never do that again. (She works in banking and they have something called cut-off which requires her to be there around the 15th of the month.)
We were also able to book the Boma resturant and Chef Mickey's after the Cruise as we have never stayed at WDW around Christmas. We also booked Avis at the port while booking the Radisson (ask for a room that has a view of the port) for the night before. We also pre-booked the Golden Eagle Catamaran for the day in St. Maarten. It appears we have made all the plans and are ready for the adventure.
Volume II - 12/14 Flight day and the stay at the Radisson, Kelsey's next door and please don't pack your monogrammed cuticle scissors in your carry-on up next.
The cast of Characters:
Myself - 37, Compulsive planner Disney Nut
DW, A year or two older coming along for the ride who knows I am Nuts!!!!
DS - 12
DS - 9
After reading as much information on the boards since June of 2000 (approx) I felt I was prepared for our vacation of a lifetime.
IMHO if you want to get the most out of your vacation you need to plan for it, even if it is minimal planning. I tend to take things overboard when it comes to planning since I am not fond of surprizes. We starting thinking about a cruise after the person I was the best man for in a wedding at WDW came back from his 4 day cruise. He said after getting sick the first night it was the best vacation he had ever had. At the time Disney did not have the 7-day cruise and I had mentioned to my wife that if Disney ever extended their cruises and started to make them longer, say 7 days we would look into that. Not 2 weeks later Disney announces the 7-day Eastern Carribean cruise. DOH!!!
I contacted MyTravel.com/Cruises Only and spoke to Jeff Frigon who was wonderful. He was able to help us with everything and we booked the cruise fro 12/15-12/22. He said it was not unusual for somone to book a cruise this early. We started out with the secret porthole room but were talked into a verandah. More on the verandah and the pros and cons for our family.
I started planning right away and started to look into buying books about everything. BIG MISTAKE!!!! Everything I needed to know about our vacation was on the DIS board and on the MAGICAL DISNEY CRUISE GUIDE. What a source of information.
After 9/11 we had some doubts about taking our vacation and staying home. Our DS' were already not fans of flying and now we were going to ask them to fly after seeing everything that happened. We all talked about it and decided that we were not going to let a group of people put the fear in us enough to stop us from taking our vacation. Life is too short to be worried about postponing things you want to do today.
We booked a flight on Delta for the day before our cruise, only to be refreshed and ready that day. Boy did that make a difference. Our flight was changed which because of everything was changed 3 times. We finally settled on a flight leaving at 2pm since my wife had to work for half a day. She ended up going to work at 6:30 in the morning to be able to get off at 10:30. I believe I speak for her when I say she will never do that again. (She works in banking and they have something called cut-off which requires her to be there around the 15th of the month.)
We were also able to book the Boma resturant and Chef Mickey's after the Cruise as we have never stayed at WDW around Christmas. We also booked Avis at the port while booking the Radisson (ask for a room that has a view of the port) for the night before. We also pre-booked the Golden Eagle Catamaran for the day in St. Maarten. It appears we have made all the plans and are ready for the adventure.
Volume II - 12/14 Flight day and the stay at the Radisson, Kelsey's next door and please don't pack your monogrammed cuticle scissors in your carry-on up next.
