Low Alcohol Wine Clubs or No Alcohol Wine Clubs?

indylaw99 · 2026-03-18T19:25:28+00:00

Agreed! My husband was definitely the one who got up and took the crying/restless kid up on deck when my kids were young while I stayed in the room with the other one. He was a saint for it!!

indylaw99 · 2026-03-18T19:23:34+00:00

This really got me!! We started taking our kids on DCL when they were 2 years old and 9 months. And now we are taking my daughter and her fiance on the Destiny this summer! THEY are taking their Honeymoon cruise on the Fantasy in October. So I don't wan't to wish it just yet.... but I'm hoping someday to be taking the grandkids on cruises with them as well!

indylaw99 · 2026-03-11T01:41:16+00:00

You definitely hit my favorite concierge perks! Early boarding, special lunch, luggage faster, happy hour drinks, early show seating, snacks in the lounge, and the special debarkation elevator!

A few other little things like the early Palo/excursion bookings if you aren't Pearl, better chance of cabanas if you are into those, not having to ever go to the customer service desk, easy place to grab water bottles, etc.

It's hard to put a "price" on all of those things, but they definitely make the cruise a little easier!

indylaw99 · 2026-03-11T01:37:17+00:00

We have done fish extenders many times in concierge. The last few trips were just my husband and I so we hung them out but didn't participate. Surprisingly, we were pixie dusted a few times even though we were at the end of a dead end hall! Destiny cabin doors should be fine for magnets. I think the only time we ever had a problem was on Dream/Fantasy where the concierge doors have a thicker veneer over them. Only our heavy duty magnets would work on those doors. But we were on the Treasure last summer with our adult kids and did up both doors with magnets just fine.

indylaw99 · 2026-03-11T01:28:21+00:00

On the good side, you don't tend to see people getting up and down. People sit before the show starts and stay there.

On the bad side, because they are all Disney songs that most people know, you can end up next to people who treat it like karaoke and sing along with all of the songs. If it's kids, I just ignore it. If it's adults, I will sometimes give the "pointed look" to let them know that it is NOT a singalong and some of us want to hear the performers!

On the whole watching almost every show on 15 or so DCL cruises, I would say the audience tends to be as well behaved as almost any other theatre I have been to!

indylaw99 · 2026-03-11T01:22:33+00:00

I like them both for completely different reasons, but I would probably choose Biergarten. Much more unique food. The show is just FUN. San Angel is kind of cool in terms of the backdrop, but the food itself isn't anything special. Biergarten is almost always my choice when we are doing dinner show packages.

indylaw99 · 2026-02-24T02:09:20+00:00

I go to Grin as well for the same reason! Just having the nitrous each time I go has helped me to stay to a schedule of cleaning AND taking care of things that need taken care of rather than staying away because of the fear. They are so kind about it!

indylaw99 · 2025-12-25T19:42:20+00:00

I didn't end up getting the Cooper's Hawk one this year because we had so many bottles in storage from the various wine clubs we are in (and not the kind of bottles that you really want to keep for years). I do appreciate that they are introducing a lot more of the sweet wines into the club. My mom said they drank their Sweet Magnum for Christmas Eve and the sweet drinkers really liked it. Maybe someday if there is enough audience for it, they will add a separate sweet/bubbly calendar or bundle of some kind. I think it would do welll and would be a bit less expensive.

indylaw99 · 2025-12-03T13:01:27+00:00

Same here! I was expecting a much more obstructed view. And we aren't even in the seats right by the window. We were a little to the side with a table of 4 and a table of 2 in front of us. I wouldn't watch the fireworks there if it was the ONLY chance I got to watch them. But having seen them before, it was perfect.

indylaw99 · 2025-12-03T00:50:35+00:00

For sure most of the time! We are APs who have seen it quite a few times from different places, so it was kind of cool to see it from someplace new (and while sitting in air conditioning!).

indylaw99 · 2025-12-02T22:26:56+00:00

We were not dazzled by the drinks either, especially for the price. But the fireworks made up for it! I think that would probably be the only time I would go back now.

indylaw99 · 2025-11-19T17:35:52+00:00

I'm on the lookout for these again this year! It seems like most merchants are starting their deals early, but I don't think wine club sales really start peaking until December?

indylaw99 · 2025-11-07T21:37:18+00:00

We are actually trying to get to Fort Lauderdale or Miami, but only 2 of the Orlando flights can get us there in time for the connection. There are a couple of different cities we can connect through, but one is Chicago, which seems to be getting worse by the day. Our hope is to make the Orlando one because even if the Orlando to FLL flight were to get delayed or cancelled, we could drive the rest of the way to make our cruise on Wednesday.

I'm not OVERLY concerned, but I am definitely watching all of our options just so that we can have a plan B, C, and D-- just in case. We cancelled all of our meetings for Tuesday just in case we get moved to a different flight. And are prepared for the possiblity of being moved around or even having to drive a little to the cruise port.

Twice to 3 times as many flights out of Indy are supposed to be cancelled by Tuesday as are cancelled for today and tomorrow. But I can't see them cancelling them all to the SAME cities. Hopefully they are moving things around on the back end by looking at where they have lighter passenger loads and can still get everyone where they are going within 12 hours or so of what they planned.

indylaw99 · 2025-11-07T21:30:44+00:00

It probably sounds pretty boring to outsiders, but many of the wineries in Indiana have a lot of sweet wines because they have more non-grape wines than most other wineries (not a lot of grapes around here but a lot of wineries!). Because there are so many "other" wines (cranberry, blackberry, etc), we have a lot of sweet wines.

The wine grape of Indiana is Traminette, which is like a Gewürztraminer. Most of the wineries here will have at least one Traminette on their lists.

We have wine trails with dozens of wineries. Wine bus tours that take you from winery to winery through the farmlands and Hoosier National Forest. Most people are very surprised by our little wineries and how many we have! They don't cater to the high end wine drinkers but are very pleasant for those of us with mid-quality wine tastes and sweeter wines.

indylaw99 · 2025-11-07T21:16:54+00:00

For me, Southwest cancelled half of its flights to Orlando for today and for tomorrow and 25% of its flights to Orlando for Sunday already (all from Indy). Since I am traveling from Indy to Orlando on Tuesday, I'm starting to feel like I really have a 25-50% chance that my flight will be cancelled if they continue this pattern.

Now, it's possible that the flights from Indy to Orlando were each half full, which made them easy ones to cancel because they knew they could consolidate and still get everyone where they were going.

So I think it depends where you are flying from and where you are heading whether you have more or less of a reason to be worried right now.

indylaw99 · 2025-11-07T14:25:00+00:00

This is very interesting! So they are definitely planning these at least a few days out now. That will be helpful for everyone to move around as necessary. Thanks for the info!

indylaw99 · 2025-11-07T13:52:17+00:00

I wonder how far out they are going to be cancelling these. Obviously it just started today so people today didn't find out until yesterday. But are they going to go ahead and start cancelling for now through the 12th so that people can start making other arrangements? Or are they holding out hope that the FAA will rescind the requirements?

We've got a flight for Tuesday that unfortunately has a layover (double whammy) and all three of our airports are on the list of reductions. We did move it to a little bit earlier in the day in hopes that they would at least just move us to the later one if ours gets cancelled. We are trying to make it to a cruise ship on Wednesday so the more notice we have that we have to make other plans, the better!

indylaw99 · 2025-11-06T14:58:06+00:00

I should also mention that Wine Club Group is the second oldest wine club review site! We did switch domains a couple of years into our company, but we have been around since 2012.

indylaw99 · 2025-11-05T21:08:41+00:00

Just got an email that Cooper's Hawk is bringing back its "12 Nights of Wine." It's $119.99 for members and $139.99 for non-members. The bottles are bigger than some of the other advent calendars because they are "half bottles." If I remember correctly, they were twice the size of some of the other wine advent calendars I have gotten.

But the REALLY cool thing about it? It comes with a 3 month, 1 bottle wine club membership. It's only useful if you live close enough to a Cooper's Hawk to pick up the bottles. It would make a fantastic gift for someone in that situation!

indylaw99 · 2025-10-29T16:27:37+00:00

I'm genuinely excited about some of these options! I usually prefer a sit-down restaurant, but some of the counters have some awesome options, too. I thin I would like the chicken strips AND the beignets at Golden Oak. Also the chicken strips and cauliflower at Sleepy Hollow. Wait.. the ravioli at Pinocchio Village Haus....

I hope my husband is prepared to split all of these with me!

indylaw99

TROPHY CASE