2006 DVC Member Cruise - SSMC06 - October 22, 2006

[iluvdisney]

Hi everyone! A quick check in from Caif.

Gail and Cindy - have a great cruise - and I want details when you get home Gail - I have to try that cruise line sometime too. Have fun!

Curt - congrats.

Stacy - good luck with your house offer.

Julie - sorry to hear about Chips.

Steve - wow, I'm sure the truck will be a beauty!

Erin - say it ain't so - not the "four letter word" - I have to head back eventually to get ready for my Florida trip.

 

[MaryJ]

Curt...A belated congratulations on your promotion!

Stacy...good luck with the house! I hope you hear good news soon!

Cindy and Gail....have a great time on your cruise! Is it RCCL that you're sailing on? We sailed with them in 2004 and had a great time. Hope you do too! Maybe they'll play YMCA and Gary and John can show off their moves!

Julie....so sorry to hear about Chips.

Temperatures are getting colder here too. It's especially hard for me now that we've just returned from FL. But the trees are pretty. Going to have lots of people here for Thanksgiving, so I have lots of getting ready to do.

Stay warm, everyone! (Not you, Diana. We KNOW you're nice and toasty in FL!)

 

[rsschneck]

Gail and Cindy have fun on your cruise!

I know I am ready for our cruise coming up next month!

 

[chipscinderelly]

BON VOYAGE Cindy, Gary, Gail, John and families!!! Have a blast - we cannot wait to hear about it when you return.

Stacy - woo hoo fingers crossed on the offer acceptance!!!!

Thanks so much for the kind words about Chip - he's doing well and looking forward to a few days at the kennel

 

[cgcw]

I hope all of you have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

[fireplug]

Back from New Orleans. Yesterday was busy going to HOOTERS and getting signature on my calendar! I will share those later BUT here is the new truck

Squid

 

[fireplug]

Bon Voyage to Gail's and Cindy's families. May you have smooth sailing throughout your trip!

Squid

 

[Stitch#1]

Back from New Orleans. Yesterday was busy going to HOOTERS and getting signature on my calendar! I will share those later BUT here is the new truck

Squid

OOHHH!!! AAAHHHH!!!
It's so nice and shiny!!! So when to you get to test her out to see how she runs? Will you get to show her off in a holiday parade or anything like that?

 

[fireplug]

I rode in it and drove it today It is real comfy to drive.
They do have a holiday parade but I am not sure if it will be in service by then.

Squid

 

[crzy4dals]

Happy Belated Thanksgiving. I hope everyone had a great visit with family and friends.

We enjoyed our trip Thanksgiving trip. 3 resorts 1 vacation.

Bonnet creek was nice - but If I am going to be in "Disney" we would much rather be on property. Rich and I both agreed that on property definately gives us the warm fuzzy feelings we like even if we do not go to the parks each day.

OH MY !!!!! The castle looks spectacular!

Animal Kingdom Villas - WONDERFUL...... I can see us staying there and spending quite a bit of time just at the resort enjoying all the activities that they offer. - I cant wait to hear Cindys report from her post cruise visit here too. We had a studio this trip with savannah view. WOW!!!!

Then on our trip home we stayed at HHI Friday night. OK - I really want to take a complete vacation here. We found a great dinner spot where the locals go - way off the beaten path. And then we had breakfast at Signes YUMMMIE. It was too chilly for much beach walking but the kids of course do not "know" cold. So they all grabbed shells and wadded in the water.

Now we are home and have the post vacation blues.... no Disney until the Cruise

Stacy - any new news on the offer?????

Have a great Sunday everyone.

 

[fireplug]

Anybody home?? Or are you all out shopping still?

Squid

 

[tinkerbelle77]

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to everyone! Hope that everyone had a woderful time wherever you were!

 

[chipscinderelly]

Erin - sounds like an amazing trip!!!

We're back from Matt's parent's for the holiday and had a great time.

 

[cgcw]

We're back! Exhausted but home. The kids are sleeping in this morning, catching up on all that lost sleep. Lucky them!

We LOVED RCCL!!! Absolutely loved it. I honestly don't see us doing another Disney cruise, unless it's for a special occassion like Christmas next year.

We couldn't get Walker out of the clubs. Cameron had a great time with the teens -- one in particular so I hear . Gary & I enjoyed spending time with Gail & John and their friends Dean & Donna. We loved the ship. It's much bigger than the Wonder and offered so many more options as to where to hang out. I loved the fact that we went to dinner each night in the same dining room, in the same restaurant, at the same table. I love the adult pool area as it was much more adult orientated the Disney and truly secluded from the younger kids. The pools, although salt water, were bigger and there were more hot tubs available. The ship had some many different adults bars, that there was never a problem finding some place to go. We had a D1 room which I'd say is pretty comperable to a cat 6 on the Disney. We spent more time on our balcony than on other cruises, so it was nice to have. We were able to do a pre-booking with no date in order to get a stateroom credit on a future cruise. They only required a $100 deposit per person, but they suggested that I put the reservation only in my name, therefore, the deposit was only the $100 rather than $400 for the 4 of us.

We did stay at AKL Sunday night. We didn't get into our room until late and then when we did, I was surprised that it wasn't the same as the model in our local mall. The room we had was a 1 bedroom villa but only with 1 bathroom. The bathroom had a soaker tub which has a very high side to it. Anyone who has problems with their knees or climbing into/out of a tub, this is not the kind of room for you. There was a separate area for just the bathroom part, but in order to get there, you had to walk through the dressing area and the tub area. Not the best design we found out when Cameron was in the shower and Walker needed to go to the bathroom. It would have been nice to have that extra 1/2 bath we were thinking we were going to have.

We did have a savannah room -- at the very end of the hallway. It reminded me a lot of Boardwalk, except for we couldn't do that walk outside because of the savannahs.

The inside of the room still reminds me of Hilton Head. Speaking of which, Erin you have to let us know what local restaurant you found while there. We now try to avoid the more tourist restaurants there and go to the ones recommended by the resort. Signes Bakery is a definate MUST!!

I hope all is well with everyone!

 

[chipscinderelly]

Welcome back!

I'm excited to hear that you loved RCCL and I can't wait to see some photos when you get back to normal!!!

We're debating where to stay on our next trip and with our luck we'd have an AKL room at the end of the hall... we always do at the Boardwalk

 

[tinkerbelle77]

Welcome Back Cindy!!! Glad to hear your trip went so well and that you enjoyed yourselves so much...We have a 1bdrm booked at AKV for December, and I was so looking forward to 2 bathrooms, oh well!!! Thanks for the tip ahead of time!

 

[MaryJ]

Welcome back Cindy (and Gail too wherever you are!)

I was wondering how you would like RCCL. We sailed with them in 2004 before we ever did DCL. Our impressions were that food was better on RCCL, but we like the unlimited soda station on DCL. As far as entertainment goes, DCL win hands down! Glad you had a good time!

 

[chipscinderelly]

I think the AKL issue might be that the rooms in the main building don't match the ones in the demos or what the new DVC building will be because they converted them from regular rooms???

Wonder if those will be fewer points eventually?

 

[crzy4dals]

WELCOME BACK CINDY AND GAIL!!!!!

Glad to here you had a great time.
Nice to hear Cameron and Walker had a wonderful time in the kids areas. Was there more things for them to do than Disney?
I thought about you guys alot last week. I would have loved to been on the cruise with you guys. Only going to EPCOT and 2 hrs at Magic Kingdom wasnot enough of a FIX for me.

AKL - we had a studio 5531 savannah view and it was pretty far down the hallway too. The thing that ticked us off was they would not let us use the luggage cart - for "security reasons" so you have the valet guy who takes the luggage and places it on the cart and walks it to bell services. Then bell services will take it to your room later...... Can you say ASKING FOR TIPS!!!!!!!.... We could take our luggage ourselves - all 3 of us in 1 bag.. but we had leftover groceries and our friends are not travel gurus and each packed a suitcase..... (Just thought of a pic I forgot to take the 7 of us in a minivan and all of the luggage.)

Our Hilton Head find was Captian Woodys..... yummy grouper bites, great fish sandwiches, seafood pot pie... He crab soup.... The CM at the Merchantile told Rich about it. We thought we were way off track when we went there.

 

[cgcw]

Walker found many things to do other than the kids club. I can't tell you how many games of minature golf Walker played. It was especially challenging when we were out in the middle of the ocean and it was windy for Walker to chase the ball and hit it into the hole. Ironically, he forgot how to count, because it went something like this 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, okay, Mom, that's a 3. Heck, he was playing against himself, so what did his score matter anyway??

Walker also loved the rock climbing wall and the inline skating. Their hours are limited, but only once did we find the line long for the rock wall. The inline skating area closes when it's high winds, so it wasn't open ever that we saw when we were outside of the port area. They also have ice skating, which neither of my kids chose to do, although I know Deanna did. Maybe Gail can share about that.

The arcade is HUGE compared to Disney. Cameron spent his fair share of $$$$'s in there. I should have known he found something (or someone ) to occupy his time as his spending in there went down as the week went on. It's much bigger and has a lot more games than on the Wonder.

The one thing we were disappointed with was Johnny Rockets. We had the sloppiest burgers in there. The milk shakes were good, but because we sat outside on a sea day, Gary said he couldn't eat his with a spoon without it flying off the spoon and onto him. We'd do it again, just not order the burgers. I can't even put my finger on what made them so sloppy but they really were bad.

We were on deck 6 and the promenade was on deck 5. It was a quick walk to get a drink, pizza, sandwich, or ice cream. We bought their soda package, which was $166 for the duration of the cruise for the 4 of us. We got these nicely shaped cups to use which fit great in my hand to hold onto them. I know we used it enough to get our money's worth. You didn't need to have the cup with you, just your sea pass card which they put a sticker on. I can't tell you how many shirley temples Walker drank.

Captain Woody's.....we'll have to try that come July. Easy enough to remember, as our friend Scott, the dolphin cruise guy, dog is named Woody and my kids have enjoyed playing with him many times.