Disney Cruise Tips For First Timers

everything you need to know to go on your first Disney Cruise all right let's go so first I want to tell you some things that you need to know even before you get on the cruise ship this is just about booking cruises those sorts of things then I'll talk about checking in how do you get your Port activities then I'll talk about things you need to know on embarcation day uh then things you need to know when you're actually on board the ship and then things you need to know when you leave and right now I am on the Disney Magic and uh we are just pulling into enata Mexico but let's go ahead and start with things you should know before you book your cruise first let's talk about actually booking your cruise there's two main ways to book your cruise you can book it on the Disney website disney.com or you can book it through a travel agent it's going to be the same price either way uh I booked on the Disney website cuz it was easy it was self-service I could pick my rooms people like to book through travel agents because sometimes you can get a little bit of like a kickback or onboard uh like money or funds to spend if you book through a travel agent now the earlier you book your Cruise the cheaper it's going to be and the better selection of cabins you're going to have this Cruise were on two night cruise to inston Mexico from San Diego sold out by the time like a week or two before we booked 5 months out and we paid $2,200 for a deluxe Ocean View State room for two adults and one child 3 years old uh Disney Cruises are probably some of the more expensive Cruises out there heavily themed for kids they know that they can charge a premium for Mickey and and they do now how early will you want to book your cruise out well they book out uh even like they open up even more than a year in advance in November of 2023 they were just releasing dates for early 2025 sailing now for that $2,200 what's included in that well uh all the food the basic food the basic drinks the shows um the activities on board the ship those are really included what is not included well premium food so there's a premium restaurant you can eat at called Paulo that cost more money to eat at the whole restaurant even in the regular restaurants um there's like smoothies or alcohol you can order that costs more even popcorn at the movie theater cost more I was amazed at the number of up charges on the ship for things so don't expect that what you pay uh that you won't be paying more there is some more drip pricing for more things on board the ship uh and certainly if you're doing Port excursions those are going to cost you more too oh and this is an American Cruise Line and so the staff does appreciate tips tips are not included in that price uh they do have a way that you can like pay it early ahead if you just want to pay your tips with your credit card when you check in uh or bring a few dollars with you when you're on board the ship also the kids clubs to um have your kid have a good time uh check them in while you're doing some adult things most of those are free the one that's not free is the nursery the one for kids 6 months of 3 years age they do charge hourly for that it's like about 9 bucks an hour so not too expensive but one more fee okay now your price just isn't dependent on number of people it's also dependent on the type of room that you pick so Disney Cruises have 10 different types of rooms broken down into four different categories starting from the least expensive is the inside room these rooms are going to be the smallest and they're going to have no windows then you have the ocean view rooms these have a pretty big port hole pretty big window to look out through then you have the veranda rooms these are the rooms that have balconies and then finally you have the concierge rooms which are going to be the biggest most luxurious and give you access to the Concierge Lounge special place to eat and drink just for concierge guests also you get special privileges to board and get in line if you book The Concierge Pro tip on selecting rooms if you get seasick or motion sick from the motion of the ocean book a room in the center of the ship on a low floor the lower you get in the more Center you get the less it moves the further uh back or forward you are or in this case the further forward or back you are those go up and down and then the higher You Are The Ship sways more so low and Central now after you've booked your cruise the next date you're going to want to put in your calendar is 75 days before the cruise as a new Cruiser that's when you're going to be able to reserve your activities on board and your shore excursions people who've cruised more they get to reserve theirs ahead of time but you was the first time 75 days before that opens at midnight Eastern Time 75 days before so if you want to go out in inata and go to the blow hole and you want to book the bus well you got to do that before everybody else does if you want your kid to go to the bib bobbly Boutique and get a makeup you got to book that there if you want Nursery time definitely book that ahead of time you can do it on the Disney website or you can do it on the Disney Cruise Line navigator app the app that they um make you use when you're on board the ship we're going to talk more about that later all right your next Milestone is going to be 30 days before your cruise midnight eastern time that's when you're going to want to check in and you're going to want to check in as soon as possible like right on the dot of midnight eastern time 30 days before because the earlier you check in the earlier Port arrival time you can select meaning you can get on the ship earlier Port arrival times generally range from 11:00 a.m. to 3:30 : p.m. but if you're one of the first people to get on the ship you have your run of everything from restaurants to pools and so it's really good to try to be early you have to make it all the way through the check-in process to then select the boarding time which means you need to upload pictures of everybody's passport on your reservation and also like a head shot photo of everybody as well so if you want to expedite that check-in process make sure you have pictures of the entire passport the not the all the pages but the picture page and the signature page and then make sure you have head shots of everybody so you don't have to go finding it to the check-in so it doesn't take you longer and then once you get to the end of the online check-in process you can check that Port arrival time the earlier the better I think it took me like 10 minutes to complete the online check-in right at midnight Eastern and I got a 12:30 um Port arrival time so there were many people that did it faster than 10 minutes that got the earlier ones all right well once you've checked in you know pretty much the next thing to do is embarcation day the day of your cruise well at least in 2023 the time I'm recording this they are still making you do like a health survey the day before they make you answer like three questions in your email about whether you have a cough or things like that and then you show up and get on board so when you're coming to the Disney cruise and it's embarcation day you have that Port arrival time it is a 15-minute window that they let your group in um in San Diego they put out lines for three different boarding groups at once about 45 5 minutes before they board so don't get to the port any more than 45 minutes before your boarding group otherwise you'll have no place to stand in line they let our 12:30 group in starting in at about 12:15 but I think that depends on just how fast the traffic is coming and going with security and all that stuff now in the port you'll have to go through security so um x-ray inspection of your carry-on luggage uh if you have checkin luggage they will have mailed you some of these luggage tags and if you already have those then you can actually leave your luggage before you get in the security line and that will come to your room later we'll talk more about that um in a little bit but that is nice because you don't have to like stand in line that really check your luggage there are just people that you can kind of like drop your luggage off before you get in the actual security line if for some reason you didn't get those tags printed uh earlier you didn't put them on um there are people that can help you do that why would you want to check in your luggage well because your state room isn't going to be ready right away if you have an early um check-in time so generally the state rooms are ready around 1:30 or 2:00 p.m. and if you have a boarding time of 11:30 you don't want to be lugging your luggage around the ship and so you want to check it and then have them deliver it to your room later if your Port revival time is after 2 p.m. then you might not want to check it in because you'll have it with you you could just go straight to your room that's in entirely up to you uh but then when you finally like complete the check-in process in the port show your passports last thing before you get on the ship is they'll tell you what time your room's going to be ready and then they'll tell you that your room keys they're not going to give to you right away they're going to be in a little envelope on top of your room number and that's where just where you go find it in an envelope I think that's an interesting way of handing out keys but that's how they do it and then uh in our case the room's already at 1 :30 that's when they like unlock the doors to all of the state room areas and then uh around 2:30 our luggage was delivered to our room now you know their guarantee is only by 4:00 when they CU it could be for the whole different parts of the ship now they don't actually deliver the luggage into the room they deliver your luggage right in front of the door to your room so make sure you don't have a bunch of valuables and anything you check um because you know I mean I guess cruises are fairly safe but yes somebody could come up and just wheel that thing off to another part of the ship so but if it's just full of you know clothes that only fit you who's going to want that anyway okay so when you do get on the ship if your room's not ready what are you going to do well lunch uh lunch is open first thing many of the restaurants are open first thing the buffets generally open first thing the pools are open first thing the best time to use the pool on a Disney cruise is like right as you get on the ship because it's just less busy right as you get on the ship if you want to do that consider where weing your um swimsuit under your clothing or pack your swimsuit in your day bag um so that you can change either in the bathroom or in your room if it's available earlier cuz your luggage that you've checked in might not have been here we did that um and we were able to go on like the water slides and things like that without any weight at all because nobody else was in the pool first thing some other things you might want to do first thing if you were hoping to snag a reservation for something that you couldn't get online try to do that first thing so if it's dining go find dining reservations and try to make that dining reservation if it's Nursery time in the Small World nursery try to go to the Small World nursery and get that right away some other things that are open right at arrival time the kids clubs are open for tours so you can go in any of them and just look around uh up until the safety drill time so safety drill time comes on your embarcation day 4 p.m. for our cruise that's when uh everything shuts down on the ship and you have to go line up basically on the deck um by the lifeboats so that they give you this drill and tell you how to wear your life vest yes everybody needs to be accounted for and everybody needs to bring their key to the world card that's your room key card that they're going to scan when you get to that safety drill something I forgot to mention about luggage earlier uh on Disney Cruises you can bring up to two bottles of wine with you and you can bring up to a sixpack of beer you can bring all of the bottle water soda tea and package snacks that you want they just have to be packaged and unopened uh ostensibly when we went through security they didn't look through our stuff or check that they weren't you know maybe if you have a whole case of water they're going to start looking um but we brought on some water some tea um like potato chips and things like that and it was uh all good okay so now that you've gone through the safety drill you're officially on board and the ship is into full swing uh there will be a sail away party where Disney and a crew of dancers will like wave and sail you away it is at uh one of the pools that they cover up and turn into a stage that's fun if you've got kiddos with you and they do that and then after that is when the ship pulls out of port at this time you might be wondering okay well Chris when do I eat uh you will be assigned one of two eating times there's a early eating time which is around 600 and there's a late eating time which is around 8:00 p.m. um when you did your 30-day uh checkin that's when it'll tell you what your eating time is actually I think it'll tell you that uh 75 days out when you've done your um activity selections if you want a earlier or later time you can wait list for the time that you didn't have in our case we were assigned the late eating time which really doesn't work with a three-year-old and so we wait listed for the early eating time uh and that was given to us now there are a few different re restaurants on board the ship and generally for dinner you'll rotate through them so uh if there's three restaurants you'll rotate through the three restaurants on our case cuz we had a two-day Cruise there were dinner in two of the restaurants and then uh breakfast in the third restaurant on the third day just so that they made sure everybody made it through the restaurant sometimes the buffet also operates as an additional restaurant uh in our case uh the buffet was open for breakfast and lunch but the buffet on this Cruise was never open for dinner now it turns out these restaurants uh they each have a different menu and they each have a different theme um definitely our favorite on the Disney Magic was animator palette it had like a cool little animation show that goes through there I won't entirely give it away for you cuz you want to see that show um probably our least favorite was lumieres because it was just like this French themed uh contemporary restaurant that didn't have much like kid theming and with a three-year-old our daughter likes more kid theming though we really did like this sule for dessert at lumier that was probably our favorite thing that we ate on the cruise uh if I were to go back again I would order like two sus each person for dessert our daughter really liked the Mickey Mouse ice cream bar and interesting um process for ordering if you have kids in your party they will come and take the kids orders first and then they will bring the kids food first and then they will bring then they will take the adults orders and then they'll bring the adult food uh if you are an adult and you want to order something off the kids menu more power to you you can eat that as well now there's another high-end eating option uh on this ship it's called Paulo on some other ships there might be a couple of them but um basically it's an upcharge it's a fancer adult only restaurant uh and so if you want that you need to reserve that when you did your selection 75 days out or when you get on the ship to check to see if there are any like same day cancellations or bookings that you can snack other things to eat on board um there are a bunch of options like around the pools you can get like burgers you can get pizza you can get ice cream you can get fruit they have really weird hours in my opinion and so make sure you do pay attention to those hours cuz I found there were certain times when I wanted to get food or snacks and not all these things were open all the time the food options that are open all the time 24-hour drink station that you can get soda teas and coffee you can also order room surf most hours of the day Pro tip for you if you want to save time on breakfast order your breakfast's room service in the desk in the room they'll have the room service menus you can fill that out and hang it on your door the night before and you can select a 30 minute window that they'll deliver it to you in the morning that's a great way to not have to slep anywhere for breakfast not have to wait in line uh the all of the things that come to the room are cold other than coffee so it's like breads pastries Donuts cereal um cold C drinks and then hot drinks but no eggs omelets waffles things like that delivered room service for breakfast now there is a bunch of food and drink that costs more on the ship like what so there's this uh Cove Cafe which serves coffee the regular coffee is free but if you want the fancy coffee like the espresso based coffee then that's going to cost you money soda's free but if you want smoothies that's going to cost you money all alcoholic drinks are going to cost you money if you're at the movie theater and you want to buy popcorn that's going to cost you money uh if you're at the sit down restaurants and you want some of the premium drinks at the sit down restaurants those are going to cost you money too and so definitely Beware of the extra upch charges shopping on board the ship there's tons of places that you can buy stuff the shops are generally only open when the ship is out of port so if you're at a c day the shops May ver will be open the whole SE day but if you're going into various ports then you can expect the shops to only be open in the evening once the ship has pulled out out of any ports if you've got kids they're sure to enjoy the character meetups on board the ship uh they're not ticketed or reserved or paid for they are included in the all-inclusive pricing you will find the times listed in the Disney Cruise Line navigator app and so this is where I'm going to plug this app again they don't post schedules anymore instead the entire schedule for the ship is in this app it's available for Apple and Android you're definitely going to want to download it how do you use it if you don't have internet on board the ship well uh they've got you covered when you connect to the ship's Wi-Fi just the Disney Cruise Line navigator app works within that app you can also message your friends or family on board the ship there's kind of like a messaging capability in there and then if the ship has anything to communicate to you they will use that app to communicate to you so you will definitely want to make sure you have that app downloaded and you're logged in before you get on your Cru that's also how you're going to know um like what uh major show times you should go to and things like that we've been like the restaurant menus are on the app we've been Consulting that app probably hourly to help us determine where we should go at any given time now speaking of other reservations also if you've got kids um in addition to doing the character meet and greets you just show up and take a photo by the way they'll take a photo with the Disney photographer that you can buy a photo pass to get those photos they will also take a picture with your camera if you give it to them they'll have the pro photographer and then they'll have the other Disney cast member to take a picture with your phone um we didn't buy any of the photos that they took but the photos uh that they took with our phone were pretty great memories and our three-year-old daughter really enjoyed meeting Mickey and Donald and Goofy and Minnie and the characters that she was able to meet the lines for character meet and greets definitely less busy the earlier in the cruise uh like if you can get some right in that time before the safety drill those going to be clutch cuz the lines are going to be almost zero uh later on we waited like 30 or 40 minutes to meet Donald so uh there's a lot of people that want to take pictures with the characters it's um it's it's serious business on these Disney crew the things other kids might enjoy is the bibid Bobby Boutique um where they'll either dress kids up as a prince or a princess or if they're doing a pirate night then they'll have dress up for pirate night uh so in our case that's what we had on board the base pricing is I think about $40 just for makeup somewhere around $80 if you want to get a costume like $100 if you want to get the premium costume uh but your kids do get to take the costume home with with them after the cruise on the selections if you buy the costumes another thing I'm sure you're wondering is about towels this is always a thing like do you have to bring the towels from your room to go to the pool um know there are tons of towels available by the pool and actually if you're up at the adults pool which is actually where I'm sitting right now in addition to towels they also have blankets that you can use to cover yourself if you're here late at night if you're going on a longer cruise and you need to do your laundry good news Disney Cruise Line has you covered they've got self-service laundry that includes washers and dryers you'll find them on a few different areas of the ship now it turns out there's a ton more to do on the ship other than just eating and swimming in the pool a couple of things you definitely don't want to miss are the Broadway style stage shows on our cruise there was two tangled the story of Rapunzel and Disney Dream which had a lot of classic Disney songs and characters both great included in your price so make sure you get over to see the shows while you're on the cruise there's also a big movie theater if you want to see some Disney movies that's a great way to relax there are tons of clubs and bars around the ship from Jazz bars with live piano players to Irish pubs and even more in between there's clubs and lounges that are family friendly there's others that are 18 and up you can check the cruise line navigator app to see what's going on in all the different spaces when you're coming back on the cruise ship from your day in a port Adventure if your Port is anything like this port in anata they'll have some Port control where you'll need to show your passport and your room key card you needed to show your room key card to get off the ship you need to show that back on at this particular Port they've got like two ID checks one at the port and then a second one at the ship so make sure you have those two things with you all the time when you're off the ship so the next step getting back onto the ship is you got to go through some sort of security check where they X-ray and scan your luggage go through Mel detectors uh and then here in anata they were actually handing out ice cold towels oh this thing's so cold so nice uh and they've got cold drinks before getting on the ship where you show your room key card once again when it's time to do your Port Excursion and you're getting off the ship uh it might be in different places because they might have a you might get off on level two you might get off on level one so you got to figure out where you're getting off but here where we got off in insata it was on level one both at the front and the back of the ship and to get off the ship all we had to show was our room key card but to get back on the ship you'll need your passport so make sure you bring both of those and if you try to use someone else's key card cuz OC girl tried to use our daughter's key card and they were like nope that's not yours you don't look like a three-year-old cuz you uploaded a picture when you put this on and they see it as you get on the ship with your key card oh and if you're going out to a port stop or an Excursion where you're going to the beach no problem they'll have plenty of towels right by the exit as you go out now the final day of your cruise is going to be debarkation day the day that you depart the ship and you know it's kind of a zoo to get on a cruise ship and it's kind of a zoo to get off uh things you'll want to know about debar Day first is about food on debarkation Day room service for breakfast is not available on your final day instead it is at the restaurants that you would typically eat for dinner and also at the buffet pretty much everything else on the ship is closed quick surve restaurant the shops the pools they want you to eat and then they want you to leave on our cruise they asked guests to leave their room by 8 a.m. which in our case meant depending upon our breakfast time we might have needed to take our stuff to breakfast same for you depending upon how you want to do it but I'll talk through some of those options so you'll be assigned a time to eat breakfast at one of the full service restaurants on our cruise the times were 7:15 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. the buffet was open also as another option from 6:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. so that's what we did it wasn't very busy at the buffet cuz it turned out everybody was in line for the restaurants now the buffet itself was better the previous day on their Cruise they have less stuff and less food on debar day now if you want to check your luggage on your way off the cruise so that you don't have to carry it around with you the housekeeping staff they will put luggage tags in your room the night before that has a dis Disney character on it and you put that around your suitcase with your name on it you put it outside of the hallway your room by midnight they will pick it up and then it'll be waiting for you in the port in the morning the catch is that if you check your luggage you're going to have to wait on the ship until your luggage tag character is called over the overhead speakers before you head off the ship to go into the port otherwise your luggage might not be there yet on our debarkation day in San Diego the ship pulled into port at around 7:30 in the morning so people who were just carrying all their stuff they could leave at that point but if you had luggage checked they weren't calling the first groups until about 8:00 a.m. the actual Port process of getting off the ship is much easier than getting on the ship as you walk out of the atrium Lobby you show your key to the world card one last time to get off the ship and then in our case cuz we were coming into the USA we saw friendly Customs and Border Protection to show our passport and they took our picture and then V back to reality and the last thing to know is I've got more videos on this Disney Cruise and lots of other Great Destinations you can check some links up here in the screen or in the description below if you want to see all about our time and anata you can check that out right here or if you want to see the full walking tour of the Disney Magic you can check that out right here as usual I won't say goodbye cuz I'm going to see you over there

Channel: Yellow Productions

Views: 6,300

Keywords: Yellow Productions, disney cruise, disney cruise line, disney cruise tips, disney cruise guide, disney cruise line guide, disney cruise line tips

Id: AzOALE_8qKE

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 16 2023