This trip started as I idly looked at weekend cruises leaving from CA ports and discovered a 2 night Disney cruise, that was actually over a weekend and not weekdays. The price seemed high, but I’ve always wanted to sail on DCL and week long cruises are really pricey! Living in CA, we generally would have to fly anywhere to take one, plus the price of the cruise itself. We also have three kids, which meant more expense! But, we are essentially empty nesters now (one young adult moved home for a year long internship, but we'e not responsible for her anymore) and our youngest is in his final year of college. So we are cruising a lot more now.
I suggested we sail for dh’s birthday and his response was that the cruise seemed pricey and why didn't we just go to DL for the weekend and stay at the Grand Californian? I looked at hotel rooms at the Grand Californian as well as passes and it was almost double the cost of the cruise! And that didn’t include food! Epic fail for his suggestion!!!! That meant, yes, we were sailing on Disney!!
Our fare was $518 per person for a double inside cabin, category GTY for 11C, which means we will be given a stateroom chosen by Disney. Basically 11C is the very cheapest inside cabin. I figured for 2 nights, we could handle anything and I wanted to keep the costs to a minimum. Taxes, fees and port expenses are $198.64 for the two of us. I tried very hard not to anticipate what would be the absolutely worst room on the ship, in terms of location and noise, because you know that’s what we’ll get. (I’m the person that gets into the shortest line at the grocery store and end up standing there forever, because the person in front of me is paying in pennies, or they’re arguing the price of ice cream or other such things)
After I booked I was telling a girlfriend about the trip and she decided to come along. She’s been on three Disney cruises and even married recently on a Disney cruise! She’s flying to San Diego on Wednesday to have an extra day before the cruise. My dh and I are flying in early TH evening and we have a 1pm boarding time for the ship on Friday. I took the first time available to me, because I want it to seem like a longer trip!
I considered just staying on the ship on Saturday, but we had an amazing wine tour in Ensenada over Christmas so I wanted to go again. So we can have a leisurely breakfast and then get off the ship. Disney offers a tour for $41 per person, for 4-5 hours. It goes to L.A. Cetto Winery and Casa Doña Lupe and then drops you off for some shopping. This is the same tour that Carnival offers (and I’m sure other cruise lines as well). Shore Excursions Group also offers the tour for $39 per person (a sale, price per their website...normally $49). However, typically when we cruise we plan our own tours and this trip is no exception. We booked with The Wine Route (wineroutebaja.com). Eugenie and Luigi are the guides. They will customize a tour for you. At Christmas we had a crazy eclectic group and they managed to come up with a great itinerary, as well as including wineries I wanted to try.
For this trip I requested Misiones de California and Entre Santos Bodegas de Santo Tomás and requested a surprise for the third winery. I also requested a simple easy place for lunch, because with less time I didn't want to be spending too much time on a meal. Our time in port is shorter than our 4 night Carnival Cruise, so we will visit three wineries this time.
We have been assigned cabin 2011, so deck 2 at the far end of the ship. It appears we might be right below O’Gills Pub, so I am hoping it isn’t too noisy. But as I said above, we went as cheap as we could and our expectations are super low in terms of our room.
We are flying Southwest Airlines for San Diego and staying in Old Town on Thursday night. We plan to Uber over to the cruise pier Friday morning.
I was told that there will be a Pirate Night on Friday night and a Halloween Party on Saturday night. We ordered matching t-shirts for our group of 4 from Etsy for Friday. I will admit it’s a little cheesy but we are “all in” for this cruise and plan to enjoy ourselves. They are from FunCreationsWorld and the total for the 4 shirts plus shipping was $61.80. There were many choices on Etsy, but many had a week or two lead time before shipping (if not more). This seller can have items ready to ship in 1-3 days. We ordered on a Monday and received our order Friday. I was pleased with their promptness!
For Saturday, we are dressing up as well. We tried to find something that could be a group of four, but didn’t find anything we’d be happy with it. So my girlfriend and her husband are Captain Hook and Peter Pan and my husband and I are Bert and Mary Poppins. I ordered a costume from Amazon and my husband’s was a DIY. My costume was quite wrinkled and I’ve been steaming it to get them out. I’m not sure how to get it to San Diego unwrinkled. I don’t feel I can iron it at the hotel and I know I can’t carry on a steamer, even a small travel size. I’m hoping by steaming it well at home, packing it with tissue and then maybe spraying it with wrinkle release will work well enough,
Despite costumes, I’m a “travel light” kind of gal, so am not bringing much. I am using my Travelpro carry on, rather than a lightweight tote, but only because I plan to ship wine home in my suitcase and need a sturdier bag. I utilize a packing strategy called "Base 5". Basically you start with 5 pieces: 2 bottoms, 2 tops and a sweater/jacket. Then for every day of travel, add one item, up to 10 days worth. Then I give myself an extra item or two if the trip has special circumstances (like multiple events, or in this case, packing costumes!). No swimsuit, because I don’t think we’ll have enough time to bother. I wear sketchers much of the time as they are comfortable and look a little nicer than sneakers.
Since we'll be dressing up and have gotten "Photo Pass" on varied trip to WDW or DL, I looked into photo packages. But the package to get all the digital photos on an USB stick was $195!! Keep in mind we're not even on the ship 48 hours!! Ten digital images are $150. Needless to say, we're not doing either.
And that's my preplanning!
I suggested we sail for dh’s birthday and his response was that the cruise seemed pricey and why didn't we just go to DL for the weekend and stay at the Grand Californian? I looked at hotel rooms at the Grand Californian as well as passes and it was almost double the cost of the cruise! And that didn’t include food! Epic fail for his suggestion!!!! That meant, yes, we were sailing on Disney!!
Our fare was $518 per person for a double inside cabin, category GTY for 11C, which means we will be given a stateroom chosen by Disney. Basically 11C is the very cheapest inside cabin. I figured for 2 nights, we could handle anything and I wanted to keep the costs to a minimum. Taxes, fees and port expenses are $198.64 for the two of us. I tried very hard not to anticipate what would be the absolutely worst room on the ship, in terms of location and noise, because you know that’s what we’ll get. (I’m the person that gets into the shortest line at the grocery store and end up standing there forever, because the person in front of me is paying in pennies, or they’re arguing the price of ice cream or other such things)
After I booked I was telling a girlfriend about the trip and she decided to come along. She’s been on three Disney cruises and even married recently on a Disney cruise! She’s flying to San Diego on Wednesday to have an extra day before the cruise. My dh and I are flying in early TH evening and we have a 1pm boarding time for the ship on Friday. I took the first time available to me, because I want it to seem like a longer trip!
I considered just staying on the ship on Saturday, but we had an amazing wine tour in Ensenada over Christmas so I wanted to go again. So we can have a leisurely breakfast and then get off the ship. Disney offers a tour for $41 per person, for 4-5 hours. It goes to L.A. Cetto Winery and Casa Doña Lupe and then drops you off for some shopping. This is the same tour that Carnival offers (and I’m sure other cruise lines as well). Shore Excursions Group also offers the tour for $39 per person (a sale, price per their website...normally $49). However, typically when we cruise we plan our own tours and this trip is no exception. We booked with The Wine Route (wineroutebaja.com). Eugenie and Luigi are the guides. They will customize a tour for you. At Christmas we had a crazy eclectic group and they managed to come up with a great itinerary, as well as including wineries I wanted to try.
For this trip I requested Misiones de California and Entre Santos Bodegas de Santo Tomás and requested a surprise for the third winery. I also requested a simple easy place for lunch, because with less time I didn't want to be spending too much time on a meal. Our time in port is shorter than our 4 night Carnival Cruise, so we will visit three wineries this time.
We have been assigned cabin 2011, so deck 2 at the far end of the ship. It appears we might be right below O’Gills Pub, so I am hoping it isn’t too noisy. But as I said above, we went as cheap as we could and our expectations are super low in terms of our room.
We are flying Southwest Airlines for San Diego and staying in Old Town on Thursday night. We plan to Uber over to the cruise pier Friday morning.
I was told that there will be a Pirate Night on Friday night and a Halloween Party on Saturday night. We ordered matching t-shirts for our group of 4 from Etsy for Friday. I will admit it’s a little cheesy but we are “all in” for this cruise and plan to enjoy ourselves. They are from FunCreationsWorld and the total for the 4 shirts plus shipping was $61.80. There were many choices on Etsy, but many had a week or two lead time before shipping (if not more). This seller can have items ready to ship in 1-3 days. We ordered on a Monday and received our order Friday. I was pleased with their promptness!
For Saturday, we are dressing up as well. We tried to find something that could be a group of four, but didn’t find anything we’d be happy with it. So my girlfriend and her husband are Captain Hook and Peter Pan and my husband and I are Bert and Mary Poppins. I ordered a costume from Amazon and my husband’s was a DIY. My costume was quite wrinkled and I’ve been steaming it to get them out. I’m not sure how to get it to San Diego unwrinkled. I don’t feel I can iron it at the hotel and I know I can’t carry on a steamer, even a small travel size. I’m hoping by steaming it well at home, packing it with tissue and then maybe spraying it with wrinkle release will work well enough,
Despite costumes, I’m a “travel light” kind of gal, so am not bringing much. I am using my Travelpro carry on, rather than a lightweight tote, but only because I plan to ship wine home in my suitcase and need a sturdier bag. I utilize a packing strategy called "Base 5". Basically you start with 5 pieces: 2 bottoms, 2 tops and a sweater/jacket. Then for every day of travel, add one item, up to 10 days worth. Then I give myself an extra item or two if the trip has special circumstances (like multiple events, or in this case, packing costumes!). No swimsuit, because I don’t think we’ll have enough time to bother. I wear sketchers much of the time as they are comfortable and look a little nicer than sneakers.
Since we'll be dressing up and have gotten "Photo Pass" on varied trip to WDW or DL, I looked into photo packages. But the package to get all the digital photos on an USB stick was $195!! Keep in mind we're not even on the ship 48 hours!! Ten digital images are $150. Needless to say, we're not doing either.
And that's my preplanning!
