Northern Sights and Mickey's MAGICal Delights-1st Baltic Cruise-June 12,2010-Pt 2

[NejTheLion]

I been avoiding showing me face here....

First off, thank you all very much for the gifts! Everytime we went back to our room there was something new on our door and I got that look from my wife that said, "How come you didn't tell me were supposed to do little gifts for your DIS friends?!" I just had that blank, unknowing look a man will get when he knows he messed up becuase he missed the details or did not read the directions.

Anyway, I am sorry we did not provide any gifts to the other DISers. You guys are so artsy and creative! Thank you all so much! It was so fun to see all the creative ways you guys came up with to make memorabila for the cruise.

Sorry we missed the meet/greet thing with the DIS folks. My wife is the social brains of the outfit and since she is not a DISer and I am mostly asocial...

Thanks again for the really cool gifts and I'm sorry we did not reciprocate.

~Mike

No worries, Mike! I think giving FE gifts is even more fun than receiving them. There are plenty of people who don't know quite what to do the first time, but now you should have lots of ideas in case you want to take part on your next cruise.

I took a bunch of new photos on the Magic this time around for future scavenger hunts, but my next two cruises will be on the Wonder and the Dream - firsts for me on both counts - so I'll have to come up with a different idea for those.

 

[NejTheLion]

We had the help of several cruise staff, one of whom was so interested in it that we dropped off an extra copy for him to stump the rest of the crew!!!

Also, wonder if anyone else noticed that at the goofy pool there are two of the signal designs that are different from the others. Just curious if anyone knew what they meant....

Actually, I wanted to ask if anyone had ever seen the scavenger hunt photos before that were included on the last page of the navigator a few times. We'd never seen them do that before, and they seemed to start about halfway through the cruise. I wondered if maybe the crew saw you guys doing the scavenger hunt and decided to do there own.

 

[MJGirl]

Can I add my thanks for all the wonderful FE gifts and the gifts from my Secret Mickey. It was a fantastic cruise and I met so many nice people. Can't wait to cruise with you again in the future. For some, it will be sooner rather than later.

 

[bigAWL]

Okay completely random and sorry for buttin' in but, I saw the picture of the swim pool and I was wondering how much the kids swam. My DH was thinking we might pack there short wet suits so they could spend more time in the water. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

My kids (two of them in that photo) wanted to swim every chance they got. The pools are heated so it's great while they are in. But when they get out, it could be COLD, espcially if the ship is moving - lots of wind. Actually, we had gorgeous whether most of the time, so it was perfect after getting back from an excursion before sailaway. But yeah, mostly it was pretty empty.

 

[Toocoolmom]

Did anyone on the first cruise get a upgrade at the cruise terminal? If so how and what level? How much did you pay?

Thanks again for all the great reports.

Sarah

 

[gydell]

Did anyone on the first cruise get a upgrade at the cruise terminal? If so how and what level? How much did you pay?

Thanks again for all the great reports.

Sarah

Cat. 10 to cat.6 for $750

 

[Toocoolmom]

Cat. 10 to cat.6 for $750

This is only our 2nd DCL cruise so how does it work? Did you ask when you where checking in?

 

[3princessMommy]

Did anyone on the first cruise get a upgrade at the cruise terminal? If so how and what level? How much did you pay?

Thanks again for all the great reports.

Sarah

Cat 11 to Cat 9 for $350.

 

[gydell]

This is only our 2nd DCL cruise so how does it work? Did you ask when you where checking in?

Get to the port EARLY and be 1 of the first to check in and tell them you want to see about upgrades. They will tell you which counter to go to.

 

[Toocoolmom]

Get to the port EARLY and be 1 of the first to check in and tell them you want to see about upgrades. They will tell you which counter to go to.

It would be nice to have an upgrade. What time did you get to the port? We are staying in Canterbury the night before so we only have a short drive.

 

[WeLoveABD]

We upgraded at the port terminal--was pretty easy and quick. We were on deck 2, porthole and went to deck 8 veranda for $1200, approx. (This was our 5th cruise, so we weren't yet "gold" members--not sure if that makes any difference in pricing for upgrades).

 

[gydell]

It would be nice to have an upgrade. What time did you get to the port? We are staying in Canterbury the night before so we only have a short drive.

We were standing in line at 9:30am and there were people already there.

 

[bigAWL]

This is only our 2nd DCL cruise so how does it work? Did you ask when you where checking in?

At check-in we asked about upgrading, and the nice lady told us we had to wait until we boarded. Then on board they said, "oh you should have done that in the terminal." We had to wait until a bit after we set sail before they could help us - finally got into the new room after 7 or 8 pm. I believe the place in the terminal to do this is the desk marker "Supervisor." Maybe some else can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[WeLoveABD]

You are right--it was the supervisor desk, in the far left corner. Note of caution: your bags may still end up outside your old stateroom, but let your room server know and he/she will get them delivered to your new room. (We got impatient--so much going on when you first arrive on board--so we went and got them ourselves!) ALSO: we left a note on our door indicating our new room, so that the Disboarders knew--otherwise your various disboard gifts will be left at your old stateroom...

 

[Toocoolmom]

Just finished putting all my paper work together and was looking at excursions. We are scheduled on the DCL Norwegian Adventure but, I am thinking about going DIY. Is it worth an extra $160 to stick with DCL? Anyone have any thoughts? Is this an easy DIY? Anyone do DIY in Oslo out there?

 

[pixie3]

What a great trip, but I'm glad to be home!

Sorry I missed the meet. I had a spa appointment at that time!

I want to thank everyone who left us a fish gift. I left a carry-on bag with all of my fish gifts and fish extender at the check-in counter at my home airport in Pittsburgh! It was upsetting because I hand made a lot of gifts and put initials on some of them! (Grrrr) Fortunately, they kept it at the counter and let my mother pick it up! I called her cell during my layover at JFK and she happened to be at the counter at that point! They had her ask me what was in the bag! "Ummmm....150 Hershey bars, 300 Twizzlers, hand made post-in note covers, 30 boxes of crayons, books on London, Denmark, Norway, Germany, St. Petersburg, Sweden and Finland" "ooooookaaaay, this is it"!

A special shout out to Debbie who gave me a fish extender so I could get rid of my sorry DCL laundry bag! Thank you thank you!

 

[Arizona Rita]

Hi Everyone!
We walked through the door about 8pm last night.
We were in Paris and DLP until yesterday.
We really enjoyed meeting and putting faces to names of those we did get to meet, all of the FE gifts and the Secret Mickey's. Thank you to all of you for making this an even more awesome trip!

 

[Rogillio]

Just finished putting all my paper work together and was looking at excursions. We are scheduled on the DCL Norwegian Adventure but, I am thinking about going DIY. Is it worth an extra $160 to stick with DCL? Anyone have any thoughts? Is this an easy DIY? Anyone do DIY in Oslo out there?

I think of all the ports on this cruise, Oslo is by far the easiest to DIY. Everything is w/i walking distance (and many in eyesite) of the ship. The biggest tourist stops are Akershus Castle (litterally a stone's throw from the ship), the Fram, Viking and Kon Tiki musuems which are just across the bay. There is a shuttle boat that run every 15 or 20 minutes that is about a 5 minute walk from the ship.

~Mike

 

[Lynn G]

I think of all the ports on this cruise, Oslo is by far the easiest to DIY. Everything is w/i walking distance (and many in eyesite) of the ship. The biggest tourist stops are Akershus Castle (litterally a stone's throw from the ship), the Fram, Viking and Kon Tiki musuems which are just across the bay. There is a shuttle boat that run every 15 or 20 minutes that is about a 5 minute walk from the ship.

~Mike

We also did Oslo on our own, we got some good maps from the tourist info site, and a day transportation ticket that got us on the ferries, busses and trams. Things are well marked, and it is easy to find your way around. Everyone we ran into spoke English, so there was not a language problem.

 

[MickeyWatch]

We are finally back in Chicago and somewhat recovered from our jet lag. I wanted to thank everyone for the wonderful and creative FE gifts. My daughter loved finding them in our FE every time we returned to our staterooms.

I am not sure if anyone brought this up but Don "Duckie" Williams was on board the ship. My DD literally ran into him at the hand sanitation station the third night on board and our waiter confirmed that it was indeed Duckie sitting 2 table away from us. I know that he personally signed the inaugural lithographs that appeared in our staterooms one night but I don't know if he made any other appearaces on board in an official capacity.

We had a great time at Wimbledon on Friday and Margaret got autographs from Justine Henin and Leyton Hewitt and was within touching distance from Rodger Federer before he stopped signing autographs.