Just booked a Disney cruise!! Looking for advice & must-do's

[stinkyfeet]

Is there anything you wish you had known or had done differently? Things I should do ahead of time? Things I should bring?
im sooooo excited!

[countthestars]

Yay! Are you traveling with kids?

Here's my recent post about our trip (we just got back!): pandce.proboards.com/thread/525800/disney-cruise-trip-recap-long

and here's another where people have given some input, including links to @dcrunnergrl52's blog posts from her cruise pandce.proboards.com/thread/526399/disney-cruise-newbie

Any specific questions?

[stinkyfeet]

Apr 25, 2016 21:03:10 GMT -5 countthestars said:

Yay! Are you traveling with kids?

Here's my recent post about our trip (we just got back!): pandce.proboards.com/thread/525800/disney-cruise-trip-recap-long

and here's another where people have given some input, including links to @dcrunnergrl52's blog posts from her cruise pandce.proboards.com/thread/526399/disney-cruise-newbie

Any specific questions?

Yes, 10 and 7 year olds. 
Thank you for the posts... I'm off to read them now!

im just scared I'm not going to know about something I need to do ahead of time and my kids will miss out.  Any fantastic excursions or shows that I need to prebook?

[leeba25]

I'm doing my first cruise this year too, and I'm not sure what I need to book ahead of time either.

[dcrunnergirl52]

What's your itinerary and when are you going?

[stinkyfeet]

Apr 26, 2016 9:13:33 GMT -5 dcrunnergirl52 said:

What's your itinerary and when are you going?

January 14th on the Fantasy with the StarWars day at sea!!!! It's the eastern Caribbean itinerary 

[sparksfly]

If you are going on the 7 day cruise, I highly recommend Dunn's River Falls in Jamaica! When I was on my cruise in 2014, we did that one and LOVED it! I know you are traveling with kids, but there were kids on the excursions with us and they had no trouble handling the climb. Everyone helps each other make it up the falls. I would do this one again in a heartbeat! After we climbed the falls we took a short bus ride to go bobsledding and lunch was provided there.

In Cozumel, we did a highlight tour of the area including ruins with lunch at the cultural center and a stop at a Mexican Chocolate manufacture.

On Castaway, we swam with the stingrays and went Parasailing. But were amazing! I could have stayed with the stingrays all day. 

[juliej]

Check in online as soon as you can – if it's your first Disney cruise, that's 75 days from your sail date. Port arrival times are assigned based on first-come, first-served order of check in, and you'll want to get an early time so you can get on board earlier and have time to eat, swim, etc. before departure. It's basically an extra day on the boat. And with early arrival in mind, I'd plan to travel to Port Canaveral at least the day before your sailing, so you don't have to worry about travel delays or getting to the port on sailing day. Also, there are some character appearances you'll need to get tickets for because they're so popular (Anna and Elsa, for instance; I think the Star Wars sailings also have additional ones), so you'll want that early boarding to snag tickets.

During online check-in, you'll also be able to book excursions as well as make reservations for Remy and Palo. These fill up fast, so if you want to do them book them now. Check-in also lets you register for the kids' club. It's not a big deal to do it at the port or even on the ship, but doing it ahead of time is one less thing to do.

Bring a refillable water bottle for each person. I saw people bring cases of water bottles with them, but you can just refill your own on deck 11.

Also, bring a little LED puck light or some other kind of battery-powered travel light – those cabins get dark when there's no lights from shore outside the windows to brighten things up.

Join the Facebook group for your sailing (just search around – they can be hard to find) to start connecting with people. Also, I recommend signing up for a fish extender group. It's like little gift exchanges throughout the week; we really enjoyed it on our last sailing.

Try to register for a mixology class – $20 gets you six or seven mixed drinks, and in our class we poured them ourselves VERY generously. Best deal on alcohol for the whole trip. There's also less-publicized but interesting things to do, like taking a galley tour. Guest Services can set it up.

I'm sure there's a ton more that will pop into my head.

[sparksfly]

Apr 26, 2016 14:09:59 GMT -5 juliej said:

Try to register for a mixology class – $20 gets you six or seven mixed drinks, and in our class we poured them ourselves VERY generously. Best deal on alcohol for the whole trip. There's also less-publicized but interesting things to do, like taking a galley tour. Guest Services can set it up.

In addition to this, look for the different tastings that are available. Our cruise had a wine tasting, a whiskey tasting and martini tastings. 

[juliej]

Apr 26, 2016 15:05:53 GMT -5 sparksfly said:

Apr 26, 2016 14:09:59 GMT -5 juliej said:

Try to register for a mixology class – $20 gets you six or seven mixed drinks, and in our class we poured them ourselves VERY generously. Best deal on alcohol for the whole trip. There's also less-publicized but interesting things to do, like taking a galley tour. Guest Services can set it up.

In addition to this, look for the different tastings that are available. Our cruise had a wine tasting, a whiskey tasting and martini tastings. 

And the cooking class series, Anyone Can Cook. They're not hands-on, so not terribly exciting, but they have samples of the food at the end and there's usually a wine pairing. Free wine always tastes better.

And if you need to fill time, the DVC group events typically also have free grown-up beverages.

[leeba25]

juliej, that's all great advice. Thank you for posting all that!

Quick question, I thought alcohol was included? Maybe it's only with dinner or something...?

[juliej]

Apr 26, 2016 19:05:44 GMT -5 leeba25 said:

juliej , that's all great advice. Thank you for posting all that!

Quick question, I thought alcohol was included? Maybe it's only with dinner or something...?

Nope, alcohol isn't included. All you can drink of water, milk, soda, etc. and you'll perfect your soft-serve cone technique with the free ice cream on deck 11, but all alcohol is extra.

Things like the tastings and classes can temper the costs, and the mixology class was a SCREAMIN' deal and I recommend it to everyone (some people do it more than once). They also have alcohol packages (six beers get you a free cooler to haul them around in, etc.). If you plan to drink a lot of wine at dinner there's a package you can buy that follows you for the entire trip; you just choose the number of bottles. And each day there's a "drink of the day" that's at a slight discount. If you buy one of their souvenir cups on the first day, you can use that for refills any time you get a drink, and it's a couple more ounces than a typical pour in a disposable cup. So if you're going to do significant drinking, that also helps. 

Each person over 21 can bring two bottles of wine or a six pack of beer on board at each port (so, embarkation *and* anyplace else the ship stops), but there's a corking fee to bring the wine to dinner with you. They used to allow you to bring hard liquor on board, but no longer. 

All told, the alcohol prices aren't that bad compared to anywhere else. We had a few mixed drinks on embarkation day and at Castaway Cay, and ordered a bottle of wine to share at dinner a couple nights. By far, the cost of alcohol was dwarfed by the tips at the end. The crew totally deserves the tips, but it was a much larger number in total than what we spent on booze.

[dcrunnergirl52]

Bring costumes for any Stars Wars Days or Pirate Parties. It is so fun to dress up. On our cruise, 99% of people had on pirate constumes or at least some part of a costume for pirate night.

Eat as many mickey-bars as possible. So good!

Visit the adult deck when your kids are in the kids club. It's so nice and relaxing there. I still dream about laying out there, sipping iced coffee, reading my book, while my kids were being taken care of my someone else.

We loved having door magnets. If you search on Etsy, you should be able to find lots of people who make Disney cruise themed door decorations.

[bronxgirl]

I haven't done a Disney Cruise since 2012 so I have no idea if this is still relevant. They had a tea party with Alice on the at sea days, but you need tickets and it's not well advertised. I learned about it on Disboards. The tickets go fast so get them from guest services as soon as you get onboard. (unless this doesn't exist anymore)

[juliej]

Apr 28, 2016 17:55:27 GMT -5 bronxgirl said:

I haven't done a Disney Cruise since 2012 so I have no idea if this is still relevant. They had a tea party with Alice on the at sea days, but you need tickets and it's not well advertised. I learned about it on Disboards. The tickets go fast so get them from guest services as soon as you get onboard. (unless this doesn't exist anymore)

They used to do it on the Magic and the Wonder, but I don't think they do it anymore. But they do have a Royal High Tea Party with some of the princesses on board the Fantasy; you can book it through online check-in.

[stinkyfeet]

Thank you all for the fantastic suggestions!

[tiffany81]

Register your cruise and sign up for a reminder call as it gets closer. It was awesome when Mickey called my son to tell him about the cruise beforehand.

You can bring a pillowcase and pack of colored sharpies to the guest service desk the day of checkin and the last night when you go and get it, all of the characters will have signed it. we just put everything in a ziplock bag when we handed it over.

You can buy wine packages when you board. They also will serve you your own wine for a charge. So you can bring on booze. They will serve it each night at dinner if you don't finish the bottle. Soda is free. We brought the large 24oz Tervis tumbler cups with lids and filled them with soda and then went back to our rooms and added rum/vodka.

[juliej]

Apr 30, 2016 22:17:26 GMT -5 tiffany81 said:

Register your cruise and sign up for a reminder call as it gets closer. It was awesome when Mickey called my son to tell him about the cruise beforehand.

You can bring a pillowcase and pack of colored sharpies to the guest service desk the day of checkin and the last night when you go and get it, all of the characters will have signed it. we just put everything in a ziplock bag when we handed it over.

You can buy wine packages when you board. They also will serve you your own wine for a charge. So you can bring on booze. They will serve it each night at dinner if you don't finish the bottle. Soda is free. We brought the large 24oz Tervis tumbler cups with lids and filled them with soda and then went back to our rooms and added rum/vodka.

Too many people started doing this, so they don't do it anymore.