So it begins – First Disney Cruise
What is the absolute first step of any vacation? Updating the countdown app of course! I love to do this for multiple reasons. The first and most obvious is just to keep track of how close you are to vacation. The second one is to keep track of how close you are to various deadlines related to your trip, paid in full, excursion booking day, can you still order stuff from Amazon, etc. With the date in the countdown app, it was time to start planning our vacation.
I will say one of the most exciting parts for me on any Disney vacation is the upfront planning and booking for dining, events, meet and greets, etc. Now I am sure not all of you enjoy up front planning but consider this, you are either planning in advance or you are planning while you are on the road. I prefer to have the big events of the day planned ahead of a schedule, leaving more time to enjoy the day. With the cruise we had several items we needed to book ahead of the actual cruise. These three main things are, dining, on board activities, and shore excursions.
Dining time is the first item we needed to select. On a Disney Cruise there are two choices for dinner, early or late. As mentioned in a previous post we try to stay on a similar schedule on vacation we have at home, so for us this meant early dining. Unfortunately, by the time we booked the cruise the only option was late dining. We talked it over and figured we could work around it easy enough. What I would recommend everyone do if they want a different dining time (or have any issues) is to call Disney. You can get on a wait list and as people change their dining times around you could score the time you wanted. Three cruises later we have always been able to get the dining time we wanted.
On board activities can be just as fun and exciting as shore excursions, and the best part is so many are at no additional cost! For us the primary purpose of our vacations is to spend time together as a family, so we try to book activities with that in mind. However, this does not mean you do not deserve some alone time. We were able to get tickets for a Frozen meet and great, but the Disney Princesses was already sold out (more to come on this). The other activity that looked fun and required a reservation was an adult only dining experience at Palo. Disney has an amazing child care system from infant to teenager. The nursery is amazing and we were able to get 2.5 hours of time during our Palo dining. There were other on board activities, but we wanted to also allow for plenty of time to just hangout and relax.
I forgot to mention what our cruise itinerary actually was. We booked a four night cruise starting from Port Canaveral, Nassau, Castaway Cay, Sea Day, and finally back to Port Canaveral. We always book our excursions directly through Disney. We do this for a couple reasons. First it is much easier. Second there is some security as far as reimbursements are concerned if you miss the excursion due to Disney and security getting back on the ship if the excursion is running late. I would highly recommend doing additional research if you plan on booking outside of Disney, or even with Disney. The other thing you will often find is the age restrictions are more strict when booking through Disney. We appreciate this conservative approach, though it can limit your choices. For Nassau there was really only one excursion which looked appealing it was a half boat-half submarine ride through some corals. At Castaway Cay we just wanted hang out at the beach and play in the water, so no booking was needed. With excursions booked we were one step closer to a Dream vacation.
Johnny’s Words of Wisdom – Research: One of the only things I would have done differently on our first Disney Cruise was do more research. There is so much to do and plan on this type of trip it can seem daunting, but you do not have to go through it alone. If you are even considering a Disney Cruise I would start by joining the Disney Cruising Facebook page. The Admins and cruisers are full of so many tips and and trick and it is a judgement free zone. I am not saying you have go out and spend days doing research, but a little up front work can make your experience so much better.
Traveling Through The Ages 