Disney Cruise Adventure

If you haven’t figured it out by now, our family is partial to Disney and the services they provide to everyone. It really started when my sister had her first baby and I was still single (wasn’t momming yet). It was an exciting time for us as my niece (the first grandchild) was turning 2 and a few years prior we lost our dad. My sister and I thought it would be nice to go on a family trip with our mom to remember the good times we had with our dad. And so we did…and we haven’t looked back since. In a way, you can say our Disney trips are in honor of him and keeping him alive.

By the time my sister had her second child and I’m newly married, my mom suggested we take a Disney cruise. First thought for us was - “Mom, that’s pretty expensive for all of us to go.” Needless to say, she was a mom just momming and convinced us - the Disney cruise line did not disappoint!

Here are list of things we learned based on our own experiences.

1. Choosing the ship, duration and destination is important!

Disney Cruise lines have quite a few ports and ships (Disney Dream, Disney Fantasy, Disney Magic, Disney Treasure, etc.). We have been on Disney Dream a few times and last year, we went on Disney Wish. Out of the two ships, we prefer the Disney Dream. Both were a 3 night cruise , went out of Port Canaveral, stopped at Nassau and Castaway Cay. However, Disney Wish took over Disney Dream’s route last year so it was an opportunity for us to try the newest cruise ship. Therefore, Disney Dream is now going on a different path and I believe longer duration.

If you are not sure which one to book or you’ve narrowed it down - I would recommend watching a few YouTube videos on your preferred ships to see what it looks like and find which one is appealing to you and your family.

2. Is it worth the money?

YES! I cannot emphasize that enough!! I know the price ticket to go on this cruise line is a pretty penny, but if you are able to save up and go (easier said then done…I get it), I would highly recommend going. We have been on other cruise lines and by far Disney exceeded our expectations. Disney Cruise caters to both adults and children. The first time I went on the Disney Dream, my husband and I were newlyweds. Our expectation was low and our thoughts were “okay, we are going to be surrounded by kids and families…it will be rowdy, and full of children activities. BUT! We are here for the family and will make the best of it.” Yeah - we were wrong! We had a fantastic time and very pleasantly surprised by how much fun we had! The food options on the Dream were amazing, the shows were Broadway worthy, and Castaway Cay (Disney’s private island) was just as relaxing. Let’s talk about service - the top notch service is what to be expected for Disney. We did not have an ounce of bad service from any of the ship cast members, BUT we did run into a few rude families on the ship. It really boils down to - treat others like how you want to be treated. You paid all this money for the trip but I also don’t believe it gives you the right to be mean to cast members and other families. That’s just my take. All in all - the service was great!

3. What are some things you can do on the boat?

There’s so many activities on the ship for adults and children. On the Disney Dream and Disney Wish, during the day - there are pools, splash pad area for younger kids, AquaDuck (Dream) and Aqua Mouse (Wish) tubing, sports area to shoot hoops, running/walking track, there are movie theatres to watch the latest movies (we got to watch End Game on premiere night!); there are evening shows in Walt Disney theatres that put on a great production for families to enjoy (like I said, Broadway type of shows!)…these are just to name a few! Here’s something that is really exciting for everyone - there will be PLENTY of opportunities for character meet and greet. Each day, there’s a schedule of characters and where they will be around the ship - you can line up and have pictures taken! Fair warning, if you want to take pictures with Princesses or Elsa/Anna, you will need to book a time for this to happen. I’ll share this on my next blog post.

My daughter got to meet Anna and Christoph during Arendale dining night!

For adults, there’s wine tastings, spas (my mom and I enjoyed this especially), and club lounges on each of these boats. Oh! Did I mention that there’s even an adults-only pool and adults only beach area??? Yessir, there are adults-only areas when you go on Disney Cruise as well. As I said, Disney knew how to cater to everyone!

Oh, and by the way, you can get room service every night…and get this, you are not charged for the service! You will get charged for alcohol, as expected, but most of the room service foods come with your package! Needless to say, every night we took advantage of this and got warmed cookies, ice cream, and other late night snacks…yuuumm!!

Here’s one of our room service nights!

4. So I convinced you to go - What happens after booking? (Yay for booking your trip!)

This is where the fun begins! You will get communication on when you can start booking onboard activities. When you have exactly 30 days before your port date, you will need to login right at midnight (yes, you read that correctly) and start inputting all of your documents and information to complete your registration. You will need to do this for ALL of your party members. This is probably the first stressful part as other people are doing the same thing - and we learned very fast that people are very quick to enter in their information to get the port arrival time and dining time they want. If you don’t care about when you get on the boat or when you eat dinner, then these may not apply to you but for us, we wanted to make sure we got on the boat early to start enjoying the amenities! I will have a blog post on our experience of what we had to do once we booked our Disney Cruise trips.

Until then, I hope this helps you make decisions as you look to plan your travel and vacation with the family!