May 18, 2013 Magic EBTA Part Two - From Tejas to España

[woody73]

We just returned from a cruise to Hawaii. I only have around 20 pages to catch up. Yikes!

Woody

 

[SophiaMax]

We bring wine all the time in our luggage-- several bottles. We have been doing this at least 4x a year for about 7 years-- never had a broken or leaked bottle. If you are worried, Brookstone has a 12-pack wine carrier that you can buy to transport wine as luggage. That should do it for the trip!

Love the tip about the Brookstone wine luggage! We were trying to figure out how to get our wine. We fly into Bush, then have a Disney transfer. How do you get the wine onto the boat after your flight? Is the 'wine luggage' carry-on size?

 

[SophiaMax]

OMG are we the only ones who are daring to try to fly in on the day of??? I am getting nervous....

We fly in the same day, that is why we need to bring our wine with us! No time to stop anywhere before boarding.

 

[MandyGirl]

Love the tip about the Brookstone wine luggage! We were trying to figure out how to get our wine. We fly into Bush, then have a Disney transfer. How do you get the wine onto the boat after your flight? Is the 'wine luggage' carry-on size?

Hi there! Yes - place your wine into your carryon luggage when boarding the ship. Here is a link to the official DCL alcohol policy

 

[MandyGirl]

We just returned from a cruise to Hawaii. I only have around 20 pages to catch up. Yikes!

Woody

It's been movin', Woody!! I hope you two had a wonderful cruise!!

 

[WonderTwinsMom]

Hello all,

Anyone planning to go to Disney Paris after the disembarkation on June 1? Have you found any reasonably priced hotels? If so, which one? Thanks.

Cheers
Teri

 

[StephenKay]

Morning,

Whilst I have only been to Disneyland Paris a handful of times, however I have stayed in a number of the good neighbour hotels, which are about a mile from the entrance of the parks and the Disney shopping village, these are the closest apart from the Disney owned hotels. The hotels have a round robin bus service which is quite frequent and makes the distance much closer than many we have stayed at in WDW. Some of these are, the Dream Circus, Kyriad, Explorers, Dream Castle and the Ibis Montevrain which is not on the bus route, however it is 50 yards from the local train, which takes you into DLP within a couple of minutes with the frequent trains. The Kyriad is basic with a good breakfast and the Dream Castle and Dream Circus are the better quality hotel with a good breakfast.

The best thing to do is shop around for prices, use european search engines for the hotels and also trivago. You would be better posting this on the DLP board for more qualified information. I know of someone on Dis called "Steamboat Will" a really helpful and knowledgable, who has been over 80 times, you could PM him, he knows Disneyland Paris better than most.

If you are getting the train in from Charles DeGaulle Airport, it's easy simply go to the TGV in the airport and connect straight to DLP, it took about 20 mins by train and you can use the Good Neighbour Hotels bus to take you to the hotels, it's easy.
When at DLP, just remember that for about 10 euro you can get a ticket into Paris with use of the Metro for a day, and a great way for kids to get a taste of Paris.

Hope this helps.

 

[kaseyC]

We just returned from a cruise to Hawaii. I only have around 20 pages to catch up. Yikes!

Woody

Welcome back! How was your cruise to Hawaii?

 

[kaseyC]

Love the tip about the Brookstone wine luggage! We were trying to figure out how to get our wine. We fly into Bush, then have a Disney transfer. How do you get the wine onto the boat after your flight? Is the 'wine luggage' carry-on size?

If you are planning to carry just a few bottles, I absolutely swear by these Wine Diapers.

http://www.amazon.com/Diaper-Reusab...65077208&sr=8-1&keywords=wine+bags+for+travel

We use them to carry bottles with us as well as use them to bring back bottles we have purchased during our trips.

 

[NancyIL]

We just returned from a cruise to Hawaii. I only have around 20 pages to catch up. Yikes!

Woody

Welcome back, Woody!

 

[MandyGirl]

Welcome to Page 100 (One HUNDRED!!) of Thread Two!!

 

[ThePedersonFamily]

Hello all,

Anyone planning to go to Disney Paris after the disembarkation on June 1? Have you found any reasonably priced hotels? If so, which one? Thanks.

Cheers
Teri

Hi Teri!

We are heading to Paris on Sunday morning!! We checked lots of hotels and found the prices were outrageous!! Even the French military accomodations were almost $400 a night...it was crazy!! We ended up booking a lovely bed and breakfast about a 15 minute train ride from the city center for around $200 a night and that includes breakfast for all 4 of us!! I can give you her info if you'd like...there were also several other B&B's closer to the city center that looked lovely! bedandbreakfast.com has a very comprehensive list. I would find one on there that looked like a contender and then check it on trip advisor. Good luck!! Melissa

 

[woody73]

I hope you two had a wonderful cruise!!

Welcome back! How was your cruise to Hawaii?

Welcome back, Woody!

Thank you for the greetings. The cruise was great.

Woody

 

[p17blo]

Apologies if this has been covered before, but can anyone recommend (and recommend being the key word, I much prefer to use companies you are happy with) a private transfer from IAH to the port? I've been quote $150 from limos.com but I don't know who they will use and even if anyone will be there to meet me.

Much prefer to have a private transfer at it means I'm not holding others up or vice versa. After long travels I just want to see someone with my name on a board and let them take over

Paul

 

[p17blo]

For those disappointed that your mixology/tasting class is not being run I highly recommend going along and speaking to one of the bar managers when you get on board. They have ALWAYS been most accommodating to me in the past. Never tried to sort a group think before and costs maybe the issue (I'm not sure if they have the authority to go off menu with the pricing) but it's worth a go.

Paul

 

[woody73]

. . . can anyone recommend (and recommend being the key word, I much prefer to use companies you are happy with) a private transfer from IAH to the port? I've been quote $150 from limos.com . . .

I haven't used the company you mention.

But I would avoid Z Limousine, which also uses goes by All Memorial Limousine Service. They are undependable.

Woody

 

[StephenKay]

Apologies if this has been covered before, but can anyone recommend (and recommend being the key word, I much prefer to use companies you are happy with) a private transfer from IAH to the port? I've been quote $150 from limos.com but I don't know who they will use and even if anyone will be there to meet me.

Much prefer to have a private transfer at it means I'm not holding others up or vice versa. After long travels I just want to see someone with my name on a board and let them take over

Paul

Evening Paul,

I was looking at the same problem, having already taken a 5 hour bus journey to the UK airport then a Edinburgh to Heathrow flight - then the 10 hour to Houston the last thing I needed was a transfer when I got there, having queued for customs baggage etc. With the lack of car rentals and public transport to Galveston, I decided the best thing to do was to "crash" in a hotel near IAH Bush Airport then take the free shuttle back to the airport in the morning and then take a transfer to Galveston. I am using Galveston Limousine Service for the 2 hour transfer, which arrives at 12:30pm, I can then do some pre-cruise shopping and take in a Flight museum.

 

[padalyn]

Disappointing, but what can we do?

Anyone have experience with this tasting? Do they do Tequila straight? Or always mixed in something. DW and I are not straight Tequila fans.

very disappointing - we are out - no tequila (to kill ya) for us...I did one of these on the first TA, they served 6 glasses (three different levels of tequila from two different producers I think). I barely tasted any of them...eeewww.

BTW - If you haven't flown into Hobby yet - small airport and easy to get in/out of.

Thank you for this info!! We land at midnight, have to hike to get the car then drive to galveston (taking our GPS for sure!)

Anyone doing Iceland Air that wasn't able to book their seats before because it was too early? I was just able to "request" my seat assignments. Fingers crossed we get what we asked for.

We were able to arrange them the day we booked - almost a year ago!

I swear someone posted something about hop on/hop off buses in Barcelona, but I cannot find it.

Does anyone have a recommendation? Is there even more than 1?

And while I'm asking questions, any suggestions on the best route to the airport from a hotel on Las Ramblas when we leave? What might a taxi cost or is public transportation better?

There are two that I recall - both are good. One has at least 3 loops and I thought was the better one. Be sure to bring your own headphones - the ones they gave out were pretty lousy!

Keep Calm and carry a towel.. Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

love it!

Has anyone seen the thread on the main board about the 4 year old drowning on the Fantasy yesterday? He has been airlifted to hospital with his family. What an absolutely horrendous thing to happen, my thoughts are with him ad his family and I hope he pulls through.

Things like that really put things into perspective.

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/state/...rowning-4-year-old-boy-pulled-from-ships-pool

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...isney-fantasy-disney-cruise-line-cruise-liner

They were still in port - ground EMS took the child to the closest facility then the patient was airlifted to a childrens hospital later on. Nothing further online yet. Read the second article - seems the parents left the child unattended in the pool. ouch.

This was a NEAR drowning - which means the child was found unconscious in the water, had pulses and breathing. May have aspirated some water into the lungs. Pneumonia is the worse thing now. Unless the child was without air for more than 4 minutes - should have a full recovery. (just a little insight on this stuff).

Final reply from alma at dcl


" sorry, not offering mojito tasting".


That was it, no reason or explanation, just straight to the point. I must say I'm really surprised by this none customer service, you have 30 people willing to pay $20 for a tasting on a 14 day cruise with 11 sea days, doesn't seem to me too much of a problem to arrange, I'm a little mystified

seems odd - but they do make decisions based on the skill sets of the folks on the ship for the specific sailing!


On other notes:
I posted on FB about our packing list - I sent it to a few folks who expressed interest. If anyone here (who didn't see the post there) would like a copy - PM me your email address - I will email it to you. I use Excel and have it on google docs as well.

Cayla

 

[JenDen]

Yes, I will be there with bells on.

 

[JenDen]

Sorry we have been MIA for the last few week. Our 23 year old niece was admitted to OSU intensive Care unit on 3/25 for acute liver failure. Unfortunately, there wasn't a liver found before she died on 4/2.

So if we have missed rsvp's for various things, please PM us, so we can get caught up.

Thanks, JenDen