The Secret Cruise Blog of Perdita X (Dream, 09/14/2015)

[perditax]

Okay, it's not really secret.

My user name comes from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. I'm not really named Perdita.

I know there’s a right way and a wrong way to do these things and I’ll probably be doing it wrong.

Timeline:

1980s-early 2000s: Grew up in Florida during the Epcot and WDW boom. Many many trips, but not a Disney fanatic per se.

Mid-2000s: Left Florida with a sigh, vowing never to return. (Long stories.)

Mid-2010s: Got over a lifelong fear of flying. Started traveling. Financial/career situation improved, mostly ‘cause I am now oldish and have been working in the same field a long time. Got divorced. Obtained new boyfriend. He’s not so new now, but still around. We will call him BF.

2013, 2014: Vacations in New Orleans (we like food and live music).

2015: Had enough of New Orleans. We’re kind of stumped as to where to go next. We have the money to travel but we’re both pretty … untravelled. I’m not ready for anything long/adventurous, not sure I’m up for multi-hour flights so West Coast/Vegas/Europe is out. New York still seems imposing. I randomly suggest we could spend a weekend in Orlando since I know it like the back of my hand (used to live there in fact) and BF has never been.

Jan 2015: Start planning. Find the Disboards, which I remember from when I used to go to Disney a lot (90s/early 2000s). A ‘lounge around in the hotel’ weekend turns into ‘…and go to MK’. While I start reading on Disboards, I come across lots and lots of cruise posts. (I like to attack forums by clicking “New Posts” and reading everything everywhere.) Cruising sounds appealing. In fact it begins to sound more appealing than WDW itself.

Feb 16 2015: After weeks of reading, have pulled the trigger and booked our first cruise, Sept 14 on the Dream, 4-night Bahamas. Oh God! What have I done? Buy lots of DCL cruise guidebooks.

Feb 27 2015: The previously arranged trip to WDW. Not an unqualified success; it’s crowded and rainy and far more walking than I even remember. However, BF assures me that I was way more stressed than he was, and that we should go ahead with the cruise. Return from trip and immediately go back to reading about cruises.

First week of March 2015: Spend most of it sick (the guy on the plane next to me to Orlando was hacking and coughing), and reading about cruises. Agonize a bit over whether we should cruise DCL or try RCCL or HAL or something. Read lots of trip reports for other cruise lines. Nothing seems ‘perfect’ for us (no kids and enjoy quiet; we both get a bit queasy in very large crowds). But DCL seems to be at the top of reviews even on non-Disney-centric forums. Read some more DCL trip reports, including a couple of Concierge-specific reports. Hmm, this concierge thing sounds nice: skip a few lines, rooms are close to the adults-only areas (which we plan to utilize a lot), concierge lounge nearby to fulfill our frequent caffeine requirements, a complimentary internet service perk, and a few other items that seem appealing. We’d stayed CL at AKL for the weekend trip, but the lounge there was crowded, a very long walk from the room, and frequently understocked. Trip reports about DCL don’t mention these problems.

March 8 2015: Log onto DCL site for thousandth time, only this time I click on the ‘Concierge’ rooms. One of the cat V00 rooms available is … one of the famous ‘bump-out’ verandah rooms. On deck 12 (same deck as the CL lounge). On starboard side (which I hear is frequently the side with a nice view of CC).

!!! What to do !!!

I think about it for a few hours. Finally, at the end of the evening, I decide to go for it. Except … disaster! The room is no longer available. This is the part where I find out that if you click around on DCL’s site, even without making a reservation, you can temporarily take the room out of availability. Well, I don’t figure it out at that exact moment; instead I spend some time watching it appear and disappear, and being unable to do anything about it because my trip is through Costco. But by the next morning, a Costco TA has (despite my clicking and meddling) managed, with the help of a Disney rep, to upgrade my prior deck 7 cat 4C (I think) to a deck 12 cat v00, the exact room I wanted!

…and since Concierge deposits are non-refundable, we are now *really* committed (barring disaster). And I’ve bought trip insurance.

So: I love to research. Love love love it. Not so much into super-granular planning the way some people are (other than things like restaurant reservations), but I get hooked on a topic and then spend weeks on it. Since I’m in the middle of that now, I figured I’d use this thread to list interesting info I’ve discovered, link cool TRs I’ve found, discuss stuff I’m thinking of buying for the trip (clothing/luggage/etc), recommend books and podcasts, that sort of thing.

In short, it’ll be more of a (b)log of my obsessive tendencies (and a way to keep me from overloading BF with details) than a traditional PTR.

 

[perditax]

The Book Post

Books I've purchased in the course of my research:

The Unofficial Guide to the Disney Cruise Line - by Len Testa et al. This was my first cruise-book purchase, an impulse buy that was exta-impulsey because it is available in Kindle edition. I really liked the UO Guide to WDW, and found it well-written enough that I read sections in it that had nothing to do with my life (such as WDW with children). That book had a chapter on DCL which was intriguing. The full UO DCL book isn't as interesting as the UO WDW book, and there is some repetition of info (such as restaurant listings that are repeated for each ship), but it's up-to-date and a good reference.

P.S.: The UO Guide/touringplans folks have an associated podcast here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/unofficial-guides-disney-dish/id452620851?mt=2. Episodes 49 and 50 cover the history of DCL and are fun to listen to despite a sound quality issue (I believe they were recording at CC and it was windy). Despite growing up in FL, I never knew that there was an 'official' cruise line of WDW before the Magic and Wonder. Did you? Lots of other fascinating tidbits I'd never run across before. (I should have more podcast stuff in another post, but the one seemingly big cruise podcast I found only covers DCL very infrequently, and the podcast host makes a point of mentioning he's never cruised DCL (it sounds like unspoken is: "and I never will".))

Passporter's Duide to Disney Cruise Lines and Its Ports of Call - by Dave and Jennifer Marx. Hopefully I won't get in trouble with possible contributors here, but this one didn't do it for me as much. It's fun to flip through, but the lack of kindle version was disappointing (I understand why, it's very graphical and blog-y, I just like ebooks). A lot of the book is dedicated to ports of call, so in that sense it would be a good buy if you're doing longer itineraries. Info seemed organized a little strangely, cutesy font and lots of faux-highlighted passages.

Rick Steves' Northern European Cruise Ports - Okay, this one has nothing to do with my upcoming cruise, I just dream of visiting Europe one day (and doing it on a cruise ship sounds nice) and I like the way Rick Steves writes.

Note to mods: No Amazon links above contain referral codes. Please don't hurt me.

 

[kaoden39]

Hi!

I did the same thing on my Kindle app. I found some of the information interesting. I think I've found more information online than in the book. But, it is helpful.

I'm looking forward to following along as we are cruising on the Dream in December.

 

[perditax]

The Shopping Post

First of all, I have a conflicted relationship with the idea of swimwear.

I was a fat kid and a fat adult ... until about age 35, when I finally figured out how to defeat my genetic tendency to be obese (lowcarb). So now I can buy bathing suits without feeling completely tortured.

I'm not really a beach person. I don't like being hot, I burn kind of easily, and direct sunlight hurts my eyes from too much time spent indoors on computers. But ... I absolutely love swimming.

So for the first time in ... ever, I am shopping around for bathing/swim stuff. First of all, in the years since I had cause to research this kind of thing, they've started selling swimwear and beachwear rated with "SPF" ratings. This is new to me. BF and I will both need this stuff (we are both pale IT workers).

Looking at something like this for him:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ADJE7JS/

And a cover-up like this for me:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007EFM2FA/

I've also technically already bought a bathing suit, but I don't know if it'll be the final purchase. I bought these separately:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IHVTCOE/

(The black one, not the pink one.)

http://www.amazon.com/Sport-Sonoma-V-Neck-Black-Small/dp/B00IHVT3UC

(They call this one a 'bra' but it's swim/activewear material.)

The combo of the two is a comfortable set that gives some support for the girls and doesn't make me feel too overexposed. I also sized it up because it runs small according to other reviewers.

Other stuff: On our last trip a few weeks ago, two of our pieces of luggage finally gave up the ghost (busted zippers or rolling handles). I'm not sure what to replace them with. These only lasted me about three years and I don't travel much. They came from Kohl's and I think the set was about $100. I'm wondering if it's time to spend a little more money on something that will last longer. But what? I've been looking into the hard-shell cases on ebags and Amazon. Have some time to think about that.

There's also the Kyss beachbag: http://www.kyssbags.com/

This seems to get a lot of buzz with cruisers. The idea is you lock up the bag and then chain it to something while you go swimming, and I guess hope that a thief will move onto a slightly harder target. I was surprised to see that this product really doesn't have any mainstream competitors. I guess you could theoretically rig your own with a cheap beachbag, a padlock, and a security chain. But I have to question how much time I'll really spend on the beach. I'll also likely only be at CC, and I doubt I'll bother hauling my electronics along. So a neat idea, but probably not a must-have.

Also on the list: sea-bands. I'm somewhat prone to motion sickness, although I've been on boats before, including small boats (all when I was younger). I've also had bouts of vertigo. So I'm going to be trying/bringing EVERYTHING. I figured I'd order the seabands ahead of time and see if they make any difference in car situations.

UPDATE MARCH 13: Okay, there are a HILARIOUS number of items on Amazon designed solely for smuggling booze onto cruiseships. e.g.:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71XsRqhmYFL._SL1469_.jpg

Also, torn between Delsey and Rockland luggage for new suitcases.

 

[kaoden39]

I love that bag!!


I was reading that if you take ginger pills/capsules that they will help with the seasick. Just make sure to start them a few days before the cruise.

 

[perditax]

I love that bag!!


I was reading that if you take ginger pills/capsules that they will help with the seasick. Just make sure to start them a few days before the cruise.

Thanks! I'll be bringing EVERYTHING so I'll add that to the list.

I don't know about the Kyss bag thing, it's kind of weird! I looked at the site again and even though I've seen the bag talked about a lot on forums, the site looks so cheap and I don't know why they don't have any professional photos of their product. There's the weird little homemade videos and then the drawings. It seems like they'd sell even better if they put a little emphasis on marketing. But maybe they're so popular they don't have to? Don't know.

 

[kaoden39]

I see what you mean about the website. As my daughters might say it looks sketchy.

 

[perditax]

A Quick Post About Money

One of the reasons I went ahead with the Concierge upgrade is because I've been able to save some money on the cruise the following ways:

1) I signed up for a barclay+ arrival credit card back in January. This is a travel-based rewards credit card, and it works a little differently from the way most bonus points, but basically you spend the money on travel with the card, and later you redeem points against those transactions for statement credits. They were offering a $400/40,000 point signup bonus. I have good credit and I'm careful not to run too many open cards at once, so I went for this one. You had to spend x amount of money in the first three months (I think it might have been $3000) for the bonus. I ran some large purchases, a few work purchases (just lucky, my work CC was expired, although they don't care too much about reimbursing for stuff I buy with my own cards anyway), and as much everyday spending as I could, and it didn't take long. So far I've 'redeemed' $460 worth of points against my initial cruise deposits (so in other words, I got all that money back) as well as a car rental for the weekend in WDW last month. I keep making payments on the cruise and then redeeming points against the payments as I go and as I get more points. (And every time you redeem, they give 10% of those points back to you.) You get 2 points per dollar across the board on all spending, but you get more rewards for redeeming against travel purchases made on the card. (If I'm not explaining it well, there's a video on the site.)

Chase Sapphire is another travel rewards card worth looking into, and they are a bit less strict than Barclay about what qualifies as 'travel'. With Barclay arrival+ it's really only worth it for direct travel expenses (flight/resorts/cruises, and so far all disney cruise expenses have qualified). I think at the time I signed up for the Sapphire, their signup bonus was about $500, it's probably a bit lower now that the economy is recovering. If you split up your payments on an expensive cruise between these two cards, you could reap a lot of rewards. But be careful, the trick with rewards cards is not to carry a balance or get caught paying interest. They WANT you to charge up a lot and then carry a balance, don't fall for it.

2) I transferred my trip to Costco. (You can either book through a TA like Costco directly, or transfer it within 30 days of booking.) When I first booked the cruise, I didn't know about this. When I looked into it, DU travel was only going to give me a $50 OBC because my cruise was under $2000, but Costco would give me a $140 Costco cash card. I went with Costco. (Since the room upgrade, my cash card is now up to $230.)

Total saved: $690.

 

[cashe]

try ebags.com also, i don't know who you fly through but we are advantage members through AA and I use their aa advantage eshopping website and when you click the links through their site and purchase, they give you advantage miles. It's sort of like ebates.com

We like the Delsey hard sided bags. They aren't fancy or couture but we choose bright suitcases so they are easy to spot on the conveyer belt and no one usually wants a bright hard sided suitcase! ha!

 

[cashe]

Thanks! I'll be bringing EVERYTHING so I'll add that to the list.

I don't know about the Kyss bag thing, it's kind of weird! I looked at the site again and even though I've seen the bag talked about a lot on forums, the site looks so cheap and I don't know why they don't have any professional photos of their product. There's the weird little homemade videos and then the drawings. It seems like they'd sell even better if they put a little emphasis on marketing. But maybe they're so popular they don't have to? Don't know.

I don't think you'll need it if you get the cabana, there's a safe in there.

 

[perditax]

try ebags.com also, i don't know who you fly through but we are advantage members through AA and I use their aa advantage eshopping website and when you click the links through their site and purchase, they give you advantage miles. It's sort of like ebates.com

We like the Delsey hard sided bags. They aren't fancy or couture but we choose bright suitcases so they are easy to spot on the conveyer belt and no one usually wants a bright hard sided suitcase! ha!

BF was working as a consultant for most of 2013 and flying across the country other week. We are still spending those points (Southwest). I think barclay has a similar shopping / miles portal thing (actually SW may too), I just have to remember to use the dang thing. I always look at ebags but then it seems like the same thing ends up cheaper on Amazon.

...pause to google ...

Oh wow, the Delsey line looks like it might be perfect. And yeah, we were talking about that when we went to WDW a few weeks ago and had a hard time finding BF's generic black samsonite each time. (I have this kind of eggplant color but it's the crappy Kohl's set I mentioned, and it's headed to the dumpster.)

 

[perditax]

Ooh, ahhh:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...fashion&field-keywords=Delsey+luggage+purple+

 

[cashe]

Ooh, ahhh:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=fashion&field-keywords=Delsey+luggage+purple+

omg we might be sisters separated at birth ... that's the one i ordered for my DD and it's in the garage as i type now! lol. I had to replace her old Bric's one. Oddly enough, the delsey has lasted us the longest. I have the Delsey Helium Pink, black and blue. They are awesome!

 

[perditax]

Not much new to report. (Typing while I have some downtime at work.)

I have a whole "Travel" wishlist on Amazon now with little items like luggage tags and pop-up hampers and such. At some point I'll update the Shopping post with links and create an index in the first page.

I've been flirting with the idea of a further upgrade (to a Cat T), but there are a few blockers:

1) No attractive cat Ts are available right now (just one HA stateroom with no bathtub).

2) $800-ish price increase. Not the end of the world, but would push us up near $4000 for a four-night cruise. My original cost was about $1800 for a cat 4C (I think--the deluxe family w/verandah), so doubling that is still mentally difficult. I tend to price everything mentally in terms of electronics cost (because that's my most common big-ticket item purchase). $1800 for a cruise = a pretty nice gaming laptop. $2900 (for concierge) = a completely tricked out MacBook Pro. $4000 = I no longer have any context unless I switch to work-related/enterprise hardware.

That said...IF the right cabin becomes available, OR there's a price drop (seems really unlikely), OR we get some kind of unexpected windfall/good news/etc, AND I pass a difficult technical exam I'm currently studying for...might go for it.

 

[perditax]

Oh, I did forget one thing:

Was chatting with BF last night and he commented that he really did enjoy the WDW trip and would like to go back sometime. Our WDW weekend was a little weird (very very rainy, tons of walking, tons and tons of screaming kids--none of it unexpected but it was all just a little 'more' than I remembered), and while BF didn't complain I thought he was just being nice about it. No, apparently he actually had a good time. So I pointed out that since we're flying a day early (on a Sunday) for the cruise, we could do something else around Orlando. He seemed keen on the idea. So now I'm flirting with maybe flying in Saturday and staying somewhere cheap but onsite (value resort (maybe, but okay, probably not) or POFQ (more likely), and doing one day at Epcot, or spend some time at DTD or something like that. I don't know, if we do that we definitely wouldn't be upgrading to Cat T, since 'one day' at WDW is about the most expensive thing you can do if you don't already have tickets/APs.

Alternately: maybe fly in early Sunday and see Kennedy Space Center.

 

[cashe]

Oh, I did forget one thing:

Was chatting with BF last night and he commented that he really did enjoy the WDW trip and would like to go back sometime. Our WDW weekend was a little weird (very very rainy, tons of walking, tons and tons of screaming kids--none of it unexpected but it was all just a little 'more' than I remembered), and while BF didn't complain I thought he was just being nice about it. No, apparently he actually had a good time. So I pointed out that since we're flying a day early (on a Sunday) for the cruise, we could do something else around Orlando. He seemed keen on the idea. So now I'm flirting with maybe flying in Saturday and staying somewhere cheap but onsite (value resort (maybe, but okay, probably not) or POFQ (more likely), and doing one day at Epcot, or spend some time at DTD or something like that. I don't know, if we do that we definitely wouldn't be upgrading to Cat T, since 'one day' at WDW is about the most expensive thing you can do if you don't already have tickets/APs.

Alternately: maybe fly in early Sunday and see Kennedy Space Center.

ok first, the food and wine festival should be running then at epcot SO MUCH FUN!!!

second, that cat T keeps showing and going... I don't know if I would risk it to upgrade to an HA room. Even if it was on the 11th deck but WASN'T an accessible room, I think I would upgrade. That being said, the money you save on the upgrade can definitely go towards the cabana (so in my mind, you'd be ahead $300 and you could put that towards a spa treatment! But don't listen to me, DH calls me Rainman and makes fun of me b/c my math skills SUCK! LOL)

 

[perditax]

ok first, the food and wine festival should be running then at epcot SO MUCH FUN!!!

second, that cat T keeps showing and going... I don't know if I would risk it to upgrade to an HA room. Even if it was on the 11th deck but WASN'T an accessible room, I think I would upgrade. That being said, the money you save on the upgrade can definitely go towards the cabana (so in my mind, you'd be ahead $300 and you could put that towards a spa treatment! But don't listen to me, DH calls me Rainman and makes fun of me b/c my math skills SUCK! LOL)

Oh wow.

Okay, yeah, mini-WDW trip would definitely be Epcot then.

(We did MK during the one weekend. I had lots of good FP+ and we were in an out relatively quickly, even walked right into BoG, but the rain and crowds made it all a bit of a blur. A very sloshy blur by the end. I brought umbrellas because I grew up in Florida, but we were still both soaked by the time we got back to the resort.)

As far as the Cat-T: Yeah, I think it'll have to be a 'perfect storm' and a good deck-12 stateroom for me to upgrade at this point. On the bright side, I'm still REALLY happy with having snagged 12508, and whenever I have free moments at work I'm still constantly searching for 'disney dream concierge' on youtube/flickr/google image etc. Worst part is it's still SIX MONTHS AWAY. I'm so jealous of you going so much sooner.

 

[cashe]

Oh wow.

Okay, yeah, mini-WDW trip would definitely be Epcot then.

(We did MK during the one weekend. I had lots of good FP+ and we were in an out relatively quickly, even walked right into BoG, but the rain and crowds made it all a bit of a blur. A very sloshy blur by the end. I brought umbrellas because I grew up in Florida, but we were still both soaked by the time we got back to the resort.)

As far as the Cat-T: Yeah, I think it'll have to be a 'perfect storm' and a good deck-12 stateroom for me to upgrade at this point. On the bright side, I'm still REALLY happy with having snagged 12508, and whenever I have free moments at work I'm still constantly searching for 'disney dream concierge' on youtube/flickr/google image etc. Worst part is it's still SIX MONTHS AWAY. I'm so jealous of you going so much sooner.

I would still keep an eye on that Cat T though. I will bet you people move their rooms around or move cruises reservation date all together.

 

[perditax]

Note to self: you do not need a pirate wench dress/corset outfit for pirate night, especially since you are planning on going to Palo to avoid the pirate night menu. NO REALLY.

 

[perditax]

New development: I mentioned last week that it turned out BF has decided he enjoyed our (rainy, hectic) WDW trip quite a bit, which was a surprise to me. (It was his first WDW trip ever, and I'd kind of assumed the crowds and kids and miles and miles of walking had turned him off it, but I was so obsessed with the cruise by the time of the WDW trip that I wasn't too invested in him loving WDW and never pushed the matter or inquired much.)

Ok, so anyway, the new wrinkle is this: Disney mailed us one of those little printed souvenir lithographs of Mickey after the WDW trip, and it showed up a few days ago. BF saw it and ... got all misty-eyed. When I got back from the gym this morning, I discovered he had ... framed it and hung it on the wall. He might have muttered something like "d*** you, Disney, for making me like you".

I did not see this coming.

So I'm putting a little more thought into stopping at WDW before the cruise. Maybe. It's "maybe" because I forgot how hot it'll be in FL in mid-September. (I'd rather 50 degrees and rain than 90 degrees any day.) it's also maybe because we're just not that good at being away from the apartment and our cats yet (I know, I know), and usually by about day four of any trip we're both a bit homesick. Oh, and because paying for one-day park tickets will give me an aneurysm. (I used to be a Fl. Resident PAP holder back in the day. Paying $100 pp per park per day is painful.)

BUT, it's still a net positive because it means he will most likely enjoy the Disney way of doing stuff on board the ship, the theming and whatnot. And it opens up the possibiity of more WDW trips down the road.

Oh, speaking of the gym this morning, I discovered my 5K time is about an hour. (I'm a lifter, not a jogger...I'd been trying to work on the couch 2 5k program last year, but man does my body hate running.) Flirting with the idea of the CC 5K, even just walking it, but again I'm afraid the heat will knock me flat.