Welcome to the first edition of my new Reader Questions series! I’m not sure how often I’ll do this, but from time to time I will ask for any cruise-related questions you may have and try my best to answer them. If I don’t know the answer, I will do my best to direct you to a resource that will help.
A huge thanks to all of the readers who sent in questions! I received a lot of great ones, so let’s get started!
I am taking my very first cruise ever next year, a Western Caribbean on the Fantasy,9-30/10-7-17. What do you wish you had known before your first cruise? What tips and tricks do you have?
It is myself and my husband (no kiddos), with a large group of friends. We are apart of a cruise wedding.
My husband and I have cruised twice without kids, and I was surprised at how much there is to do for adults. We spent a lot of time at the adult-only pool, and at Castaway Cay, we spent the day at the adult-only beach, Serenity Bay, which was like heaven on earth! Don’t miss it! There is also an area of nightclubs/bars/lounges that is just for adults in the evenings, and there are alcohol tastings and mixology classes which I’ve heard are fun. Before my first cruise, I wish I had known a couple of things. First, how crazy and chaotic Cabanas (the buffet restaurant) can be for lunch on the first day after boarding. From now on, I either time it so that we are there after the big rush (say after about 1:30 pm or so), or we go to the main dining room that is serving lunch that day (Enchanted Garden on the Fantasy). It is still a buffet, but you are shown a table and a waiter brings you your drinks. This can be very helpful if you are juggling carry-on luggage. I also wish I had taken care of everything at Shutters (the photography store) before the final night of the cruise (i.e. making purchases, checking to make sure that all your photos are in your account). The last night and final morning are a zoo at Shutters (think shoulder to shoulder people) and if you need assistance with anything, you will have to wait a while and be very patient. I know that during the cruise you are very busy and may not want to stop and deal with photos, but I have found that it is just better that way. These are the two things that come to mind first. There is tons of other information on my blog so be sure to poke around there and find everything that may be helpful to you. Enjoy your cruise!
My daughter and I are ‘selective’ eaters. We are going on our first cruise in March 2017 and I am concerned that at dinner one or both of us may not like anything on the menu. Do we just not eat at the restaurants or can we order off the menu and how do we know what kind of selections there are?
There are several things that you can do for your situation. First, you can look at the menus ahead of time. You can see menus online from prior sailings of the itinerary you will be sailing on (check out www.disneycruiselineblog.com/menus for a large menu selection), and the menus should stay the same for the most part. If you are not sure which menus to expect on your sailing, look at Daily Navigators from previous sailings of your exact same itinerary (www.disneycruiselineblog.com/personal-navigators) to find out. There may be small changes here and there, but overall it should give you an idea of what you can expect. Also, once you are on the ship, you can view the actual menus for your sailing by either visiting the restaurant earlier in the day (there should be a dinner menu posted outside) or by downloading the DCL app, which also lists all of the dinner menus (note that the app won’t work until you are on the ship). Most of the dinner menus have some type of “plain” items, like steak, roasted chicken, baked potato, etc. The waiters are also VERY eager to please, and will gladly have something off the menu prepared for you, if it is within reason and providing that they have all of the ingredients available. You can even place special requests with your wait staff the night before, which would allow you to get a special order faster on the following night. You could always avoid the main dining rooms for dinner (the alternatives would be either room service or the counter service places on the pool deck), but I would discourage this as dinners in the main dining rooms are, in my opinion, a great experience and fun for our whole family. If you do choose to not go to the main dining rooms for dinner, tipping the staff is still expected as they are working elsewhere on the ship for breakfasts and lunches and you are presumably using their services then.
Any hotel suggestions for leaving from Port of Miami? I am planning on flying in a day ahead of the cruise and then possibly staying in Miami one or two days after. Also, any navigating suggestions for the Port of Miami?
I have never sailed out of Miami before so I am going to have to refer you to other resources. One place that I try to find specific information like this is on the cruise section of the Disboards (www.disboards.com/forums/disney-cruise-line-forum). If you can’t find the information there already, you can post your specific question and should get a lot of helpful responses. You can also look in the trip report section and see if you can find a trip report from the port of Miami which should hopefully provide some advice. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful!
Are there diagrams of the ships and where you can find everything online to view before your cruise?
Whenever I need to see the layout of one of the ships, I go to www.cruisecritic.com. They have great drawings of all of the levels of all 4 ships. Here are the links to each ship:
Keep in mind that the Wonder will undergo a major renovation during its dry dock in Oct/Nov 2016 which will affect many of the spaces on the ship, so if you will be sailing on the Wonder after the dry dock, the plans on the link above will not be completely accurate for your sailing.
I have some silly questions. We’re going on our first cruise in January 2017. Can moms wear a princess dress on semi-formal night? Have you ever seen anyone over 10 in a princess dress while on the cruise? I’ll probably do it regardless, but I was curious if other moms dressed up too.
And I saw your blog post about princess dresses for little girls… any idea were I can get good quality prince apparel for my kids? I have all boys!
Not silly at all! You will see lots of little girls in princess dresses on both formal and semi-formal night. I can’t specifically remember seeing an adult dressed as a princess, but I’m sure it has been done before! I say go for it! One of the things that I love about Disney cruises is how most passengers are in vacation mode, happy, and ready to have a good time. Most fellow cruisers will probably love seeing an adult dressed up and having fun! As far as prince apparel goes, I have all girls so I don’t have any personal experience with this. My first 2 thoughts would be either Amazon or a Halloween costume store. Not sure of the quality, but you can click here to see some of the options I found on Amazon.
We have our first cruise scheduled for this November but have already booked another for next Summer. Will we be able to apply the discount onboard on the cruise that we already have booked for next year?
The onboard booking discount only works for new reservations, so you will not be able to apply it to your existing reservation for next summer. But, here’s what to do to get around that…..While onboard, book a new reservation for the same sailing and same stateroom category as your existing summer reservation, pay the new deposit, and then once you get home, cancel the old reservation. Since you are not yet in the penalty period for the summer cruise, you can cancel and get your deposit back in full (unless your summer reservation is for concierge, in which case the deposit is nonrefundable and this tactic wouldn’t work, but concierge rooms aren’t eligible for the 10% onboard booking discount anyway). The only thing about this method is that you may or may not be able to get the exact same room, if this is important to you. If you want to try and get the same room, your best bet is to call DCL when you get home from your November cruise (or have your travel agent do it if you are using a TA), and ask them to cancel the old reservation and then immediately switch the newer reservation to that same stateroom once it becomes available again in the system. It may work, but there is always a chance that someone else could grab that room in the few minutes it takes to complete the process.
My husband surprised me with a Disney Cruise as an anniversary gift. It tied in nicely together as 2017 is a big year for me, I turn 40. The cruise is for my husband, myself and our daughter who will be 20 months old. I’ve said in conversation that although she may be too young – our daughter is our life and the experience with her will be the biggest gift to me. No other way I would want to celebrate my 40th than with my little girl by my side. So my question in, since she is so young do you have any advice? I’ve been on a cruise before my husband has never, honestly he hasn’t taken a vacation in 5 years so I want this to be the most amazing experience for all of us.
I have never cruised with a child younger than three, but I can try my best to give you some good advice. There is a nursery onboard for children under 3 (reservations required, $6 per hour) if you want to try and get some kid-free time with your husband, or if you find that the dining rooms are too difficult for her to handle. You can make reservations online through “My Cruise Activities” within your advanced booking window or, once on board, by visiting or calling the Nursery. Also, you can request a pack & play for your room at no extra charge, either before your cruise (by calling DCL) or after you board. One thing that I think a lot of people do not realize is that children in swim diapers are not allowed in the pools and the lifeguards strictly enforce this. But, all of the ships have a splash pad area for toddlers that she can play in. I think as long as you try and stick as closely as possible to her nap and eating schedule, then you will have a wonderful time!
We’ll be on our first cruise on the Magic for seven nights during Halloween. I’ve made reservations for Palo Brunch but I’m worried about missing other fun things going on during our days at sea. Is this a smart addition to our schedule considering we’ve never cruised before?
I think you should do Palo Brunch as most people (myself included) love it and would gladly choose it over the other activities happening on the ship. Maybe you won’t love it, but at least try it out and see so that on your next cruise you know whether to reserve it or not. Brunch can move as slowly or quickly as you like, so you could be there for as little as 1 hour or as long as…..well I guess until they close! All of the sea day activities usually happen more than once during a cruise, so there shouldn’t be anything that you will miss that you can’t squeeze in later. If it would make you feel better, try to get a reservation for the earliest time slot available (I think 10:30?) since there is less stuff happening on the ship during the morning hours.
I’ve not been able to find a lot of examples of boy costume makeovers. Have you seen the Captain Mickey make over? We are definitely doing the Knight makeover for formal night! Any insight on those experiences? I can’t find much about them.
This is another question where I am going to have to refer you to other resources since I only have daughters. Here are some links that I found that have a little bit of information about the knight makeover, although some of them are a few years old:
http://www.disboards.com/threads/bbb-royal-knight-package.3137970/
https://www.wdwhints.com/2012/07/a-knights-tale/
http://www.mouseketrips.com/whats-a-boy-to-do-the-knight-package-at-the-bibbidi-bobbidi-boutique/
I could not find anything about the Captain Mickey makeover. So sorry! You will have to come back and tell us all about it!
We’ll be on a cruise with a Port Canaveral stop to Disney World. How do those bus trips usually go? I’m worried about tired kids. Are cartoons or movies shown?
I have never had a port stop at WDW on a cruise, but have heard from a few people that have. And, you are right….the number one thing I have heard is what a long and exhausting day it is. I think if you expect it ahead of time and prepare, then you can probably manage it just fine and have a great day. As far as I know, they use the standard DCL buses which do have TVs and I would assume they would have shows playing for the bus rides. There are also bathrooms on the buses. If I were going, I would make sure I had plenty of snacks and drinks for the kids as well as try to sneak in some “rest periods” during the day, if possible, to recharge the kids and keep them happy.
First of all I love your blog and I was wondering if you have done any excursions outside of Disney’s. I have heard they are great but would like to know where to start and how you find them. We will be going on our 3rd in January and we are so excited!
I have done both DCL and non-DCL excursions. I think both have their advantages and disadvantages, but overall I prefer the non-DCL ones. I have some blog posts dedicated to this topic which I think you will find helpful:
Shore Excursions: Ship Sponsored or Independant?
We’re spending a couple of days at WDW after our cruise. We signed up for roundtrip DCL bus transfer service. We’re staying at the MCO Hyatt the night before the cruise, and taking the DCL bus to the port the next day. Sounds super easy and convenient! However, I’ve read that taking the bus transfer service from Port Canaveral to WDW is taking longer than usual now. The bus isn’t leaving until later and then the bus makes multiple stops (more so than the Magical Express bus). Have you ever used a private town car or shuttle service to WDW from Port Canaveral? If so, which one?
The only car service I have used is Happy Limo, and we hired a town car to take me and my husband (no kids) from MCO to Port Canaveral the night before our cruise. We would have stayed at the MCO Hyatt, which we prefer, but they were fully booked. Our driver was on time, polite, and friendly. I have nothing but good things to say about our experience.
Have you ever stayed concierge level on a DCL cruise? If so, how much do you tip them? Do you tip the team as a whole, or do you have a concierge person assigned to you that you’d tip?
Yes, I have sailed concierge 4 times, twice on the Magic and twice on the Wonder. On those ships, there are 2 concierge hosts and one of them will be your assigned host. I believe that one host takes the port side rooms and the other takes the starboard side rooms. However, the unassigned host will still help you if your assigned host is unavailable or if you happen to see them first when you have a request. I have always handed our tip to our assigned host, but I am pretty sure that the tips are split evenly between the 2 hosts. On the Fantasy and Dream, there are 3 concierge hosts and I think they pool the concierge tips as well. As far as amount goes, this is a hard one to answer. DCL gives no suggested amount like they do for the other tipped positions, and that frustrates me. I can only take that to mean that there is no amount which is considered “too small”, although I do think you should compensate them fairly for how much they did for you. I imagine there are some concierge guests who don’t utilize the hosts at all, and some who ask a lot. Depending on how much you ask of them, I think you should look at how much you are tipping your stateroom host and servers (who tend to your needs at least once or twice a day) and use that as a guideline for how much to tip your concierge host. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but I really just don’t know how much people normally tip and if our tips are considered small, average or large. You could do an internet search and probably find some instances of people who have been willing to share how much they tip, but if you do, consider the length of their cruise and how it compares to yours.
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I hope at least some of you found those answers helpful! I’m not sure when I’ll do another Reader Questions post, but you can email me anytime with Disney cruise questions at disneycruisemomblog@gmail.com and I will do my best to help!
ETA: I have since done a second Reader Questions post – click here to see it!
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