My Mom Loved This Gift

[virginiab]

We had a family cruise before Christmas. After we all met up at the hotel in Miami the night before the cruise, I gave my mom a 1/2" 3-ring binder which announced our gift to her. On the cover, I used a Carnival magazine ad with the gift-wrapped ship on it, and added "Family Cruise, December 2006, Carnival VIctory.

 

Inside I used a commercial set of 8 dividers with a colorful title/contents page which I decorated with a picture of the ship and a copy of the itinerary map (both from the Carnival website). Frankly, I used 8 dividers, rather than some other number, because I had that set on hand. So I needed to come up with 8 things to put in the notebook. Here's what I used:

 

1. Our Christmas gift: With a couple of photos of an outside cabin and 32-point type (my mom has very poor vision), I explained that we had bought an upgrade from inside to outside for them. (One of the pictures showed a woman sitting in on the window ledge and my mom told me that she made her roommate take a photo of her in that same pose!)

Then I added a page that told her that we had also gotten $120 onboard credit for her and the same for her roommate.

 

2. Cabin numbers (in big print) for all of us, under a ship photo and a diagram that labels each deck on a ship profile. I drew arrows from each cbin number to its location on the ship

 

3. Itinerary -- copied the map and daily itinerary from the website and blew it up to fill most of the page.

 

4. Deck plan-- I scanned these from the catalog, trimmed excess stuff from the edges and blew these up to make a two page spread. Then I used the website to hand copy the names of the public areas onto the pages.

 

5. Dinner menus -- I copied the menus that Serene56 had posted and pasted them into my word processor, where I increased font size and added a little color. My mom will often settle for the first thing that sounds okay on a menu, rather than "bother" someone who is reading the menu to her, so I figured that having menus ahead of time would let her think about what to eat first, then we could review it at the table.

As it turned out, the menus changed a bit by the time we sailed, but they were mostly right and still helpful -- ans a lot of fun.

 

6. Sample lunch menu -- Okay, I was really just filling space with this....

 

7. Kids' menu -- Sometimes my mom can be a picky eater, so I thought this might be useful.

 

8. Room service menu -- greatly increased in size.

 

Well, she loved the cabin upgrade AND she loved the book and has been showing it to all her friends at home. When I was visiting at Christmas, I saw that she had used a page protector to insert her boarding photo into the front of the book.

 

Maybe this idea will be useful to someone else.

[Hawaii697]

Good idea. This sounds like the book I give to my annual group. (I'm the group coordinator) I call it "Did You Read the D@mn Book". Full of the same information you had plus airport, port, execursion information. Also information of what is better to do on your own or through Carnival, how to dress each, tip information, etc. The first time I gave out the information book, during the entire week of the cruise, everyone would come to me with questions (the answers where in the book). At first I didn't mind, but after a while I was like, "did you read the d@mn book"??? Hence the new title. Book/binders like ours are now a Godsend!! :D

 

Happy cruisin'

[truecruiser]

very nice. when we bought my in-laws a cruise for christmas last year ('05, not '06 -- they travelled in '06), i put every type of marketing info in a gift box, w/ pics, ship specs, stateroom specs, etc., as well as a bunch of documentation from the tourism offices of the ports they'd be visiting, print out of shore excursions, blah, blah, blah.

 

BUT, what I really wanted to get was one of those Gold ships w/ the red ribbon on it that they had been showing on their commercials. Never did have luck finding one for sale. Does anyone know if these are available for sale anywhere?

[crazycruzer68]

Good idea. This sounds like the book I give to my annual group. (I'm the group coordinator) I call it "Did You Read the D@mn Book". Full of the same information you had plus airport, port, execursion information. Also information of what is better to do on your own or through Carnival, how to dress each, tip information, etc. The first time I gave out the information book, during the entire week of the cruise, everyone would come to me with questions (the answers where in the book). At first I didn't mind, but after a while I was like, "did you read the d@mn book"??? Hence the new title. Book/binders like ours are now a Godsend!! :D

 

Happy cruisin'

\

 

 

 

I too and in charge of our "group" cruise, I would love to see some examples of you D@amn book do you have any copies?

[SORIANO]

We had a family cruise before Christmas. After we all met up at the hotel in Miami the night before the cruise, I gave my mom a 1/2" 3-ring binder which announced our gift to her. On the cover, I used a Carnival magazine ad with the gift-wrapped ship on it, and added "Family Cruise, December 2006, Carnival VIctory.

 

Inside I used a commercial set of 8 dividers with a colorful title/contents page which I decorated with a picture of the ship and a copy of the itinerary map (both from the Carnival website). Frankly, I used 8 dividers, rather than some other number, because I had that set on hand. So I needed to come up with 8 things to put in the notebook. Here's what I used:

 

1. Our Christmas gift: With a couple of photos of an outside cabin and 32-point type (my mom has very poor vision), I explained that we had bought an upgrade from inside to outside for them. (One of the pictures showed a woman sitting in on the window ledge and my mom told me that she made her roommate take a photo of her in that same pose!)

Then I added a page that told her that we had also gotten $120 onboard credit for her and the same for her roommate.

 

2. Cabin numbers (in big print) for all of us, under a ship photo and a diagram that labels each deck on a ship profile. I drew arrows from each cbin number to its location on the ship

 

3. Itinerary -- copied the map and daily itinerary from the website and blew it up to fill most of the page.

 

4. Deck plan-- I scanned these from the catalog, trimmed excess stuff from the edges and blew these up to make a two page spread. Then I used the website to hand copy the names of the public areas onto the pages.

 

5. Dinner menus -- I copied the menus that Serene56 had posted and pasted them into my word processor, where I increased font size and added a little color. My mom will often settle for the first thing that sounds okay on a menu, rather than "bother" someone who is reading the menu to her, so I figured that having menus ahead of time would let her think about what to eat first, then we could review it at the table.

As it turned out, the menus changed a bit by the time we sailed, but they were mostly right and still helpful -- ans a lot of fun.

 

6. Sample lunch menu -- Okay, I was really just filling space with this....

 

7. Kids' menu -- Sometimes my mom can be a picky eater, so I thought this might be useful.

 

8. Room service menu -- greatly increased in size.

 

Well, she loved the cabin upgrade AND she loved the book and has been showing it to all her friends at home. When I was visiting at Christmas, I saw that she had used a page protector to insert her boarding photo into the front of the book.

 

Maybe this idea will be useful to someone else.

 

Hi, I was on the same cruise that you're talking about, and I have a problem, I wasn´t able to buy the DVD (the travelog). If you have it please answer me, I need it, it's very important, I wish you can help me, please!!

Thanks, I'll wait for your answer...

[Hawaii697]

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I too and in charge of our "group" cruise, I would love to see some examples of you D@amn book do you have any copies?

 

I sure do, feel free to email me at dford697@hotmail.com; I'll be happy to forward you my sample.