to cruise with disney, or not to cruise, that is the question

[alicia1506]

so... the other night i'm commencing my disney trip research, checking prices and so forth and costing out our big mickey trip. 5 nights at dlr, 5 nights at wdw, 5 nights at wwohp. while researching wdw, to which we have yet to pay a visit, i see a link for disney cruise.

i should first of all annouce.. i hate boats. i hate being above water. sitting in a dinghy is my idea of personal hell. i have a fear of being suspended about water (like on a jetty), glass bottom boats seem like torture to me, and the idea of cruising brings to mind things like titanic and death by drowning. i have a phobia and it's all about boats sinking and me drowning. i have no idea where this came from, or why. i'm a very strong swimmer and love being in the water. just hate being above water or on a boat.

so anywho.. i digress. disney cruise. they make it all seem so awesome. and wonderous and why wouldn't you want to go on a cruise. they have the new ship (the fantasy) launching in 2012 and our trip is in 2012 and the fantasy will take us on a western carribean cruise to mexico and key west and castaway cay and all kinds of wonderous locales. and all your food is included with your cabins, and there's so much to do, and our next trip is all about the indulgence and the relaxation and so on and so forth... so.. why not? surely a giant super-sized disney boat is safe, right? i don't get seasick and neither does carlo but still... it seems silly for a grown woman to ignore an awesome experience due a little phobia, right?

so... we're contemplating adding the cruise. so, so far, our trip is looking like this -- and my question is: to cruise or not to cruise on our super-mickey trip?

day 1 - bne-lax-mco (o'night stay at mco)
day 2 - board cruise at port carnaveral on board disney fantasy
day 3 - cruise - at sea
day 4 - cruise - grand cayman: cayman islands
day 5 - cruise - costa maya: mexico
day 6 - cruise - cozumel: mexico
day 7 - cruise - at sea
day 8 - cruise - castaway cay
day 9 - return from cruise, check in to wdw - coronado springs
day 10 - wdw - magic kingdom
day 11 - wdw - relax day
day 13 - wdw - epcot
day 14 - wdw - other lands
day 15 - check in to royal pacific resort at universal studios
day 16 - IOA & wwohp
day 17 - IOA & wwohp
day 18 - universal studios
day 19 - universal, ioa & wwohp
day 20 - fly mco - lax, shuttle to dlr, check in dlr
day 21 - dlr & dca - fantasyland, toontown and iasw
day 22 - dlr & dca - tomorrowland, frontierland
day 23 - dlr & dca - dca all day
day 24 - dlr & dca - free day
day 25 - shuttle to lax, lax to bne

this would basically involve 4 weeks off work, so a big stretch of time, but gives us a lot of time at each place to fully relax and enjoy each park, the location, the scenery etc. and the cruise takes us to the ruins in mexico, some great shopping, and would be a great experience, for relatively few $$.

decisions, decisions.

 

[battymum]

In my opinion - 5 nights at WDW is not enough - you havent included Animal Kingdom or Hollywood studios in your itinerary - these are well worth including - also the water parks are great, for a lazy pool day.

As for the cruise, only you can decide if you can conquer your phobia -

We did the Royal Carribean Freedom of the Seas - and to be honest it was probably the highlight of our holiday - I've heard that for a couple with no kids - Royal Carribean is better, (they have better entertainment and a casino on board) I havent been on Disney so cant compare- but certainly cant fault Royal Carribean, (and their prices are much cheaper!!!)

Freedom alternates between a 7 day Western and Eastern Carribean route leaving from Port Canaveral - right next to the Disney port.

If you are ever contemplating a cruise you should do it from Florida - so much cheaper than cruising from Australia - and much better ships!

Just my opinion!!

 

[WAMUMOF4]

if you are contemplating i say book whilst you decide the cruise we are doing in August 2012 went up $2000 in price in the 2 weeks i took to decide if we would do it or not.
We haven't cruised at all yet but are doing this as a lead up to our 2015 one i get seasick and am hoping i will not on a big boat so i totally understand your fears. Good luck with your decision but i definitely vote yes for the Disney one the DCL forum is now my second now where i read the most apart from here

 

[alicia1506]

battymum - we are only doing wdw for a short while this trip, as we intend to go back in may 2013 for a much longer, completely dedicated trip at wdw only, to incorporate star wars weekend, and to see the majority of the sights then.

this trip, we really just want to dangle our feet in the pool of wdw so to speak, it is not our intention to do all of wdw, as i don't think even 2 weeks in wdw would let you do all of it.

and the cruise we are looking at taking is the 7 night western carribean cruise on the fantasy at port canaveral as i mentioned in the OP

wamumof4 - good advice regarding the book now, decide later option. we shall have to make a decision pretty quickly, although to be honest, it's really not that much more of an expense to add it on... if we add on the cruise, it's really only going to add an extra $2500-3000 to our overall trip cost, so .... it's pretty do-able.

 

[Ms. Shuttergirl]

I agree that you haven't given enough time to WDW, although I appreciate what you say about just wanting to get a "taste" for now. You have dedicated 4 days to Universal/WWoHP which I think is way more than you need. I would give a day or so of that back to WDW. I genuinely think you will feel frustrated that you didn't give yourself more time here.

I think the cruise sounds lovely and since you do seem rather excited about the idea I'm sure you will be fine. I say go for it!!!!

 

[shadowblue]

Background on our cruise booking...

We booked ours through DCL's website. In fact WDW accommodation, tranfers, ME (all except the flights) through them.

One of the triggers for that was Flight Centre, who did the flights, had suggested / held an off-site resort which I found had consistently terrible reviews on Trip Advisor. At the same time I was trying to convince DW about a "short cruise" and showed her... "what about this ship?" The rest was all there.

It all worked like a... Dream On-line check-in. Documents and baggage labels Fed-Exed. One phone-call to arrange pre-paid gratuities.


Sorry about the delay getting a TR done. It'll come, just busy

I would wholeheartedly endorse doing this as part of your trip (and am insanely jealous!) Our trip was compacted into 2 weeks (or just 11 USA nights - all WDW or the cruise) due to DW and DD17's school commitments.

The Dream was my high point of the trip. She is a beautiful ship - by far the nicest I've experienced (with over 100 ship-days in the South Pacific, Australian coastal and Asia over the last 20 years) and it was special to sail on her in her first year of service - something I'll probably never do again.
3 nights was too short to fully appreciate her (but I gave it a bloody good shot) but infinitely better than none. 7 days on Disney Fantasy and as you say exotic locales would do it for me!

I agree that you haven't given enough time to WDW, although I appreciate what you say about just wanting to get a "taste" for now. You have dedicated 4 days to Universal/WWoHP which I think is way more than you need. I would give a day or so of that back to WDW. I genuinely think you will feel frustrated that you didn't give yourself more time here.

I think the cruise sounds lovely and since you do seem rather excited about the idea I'm sure you will be fine. I say go for it!!!!

I agree about Universal/WWoHP. A must do, of course but we had them well covered in 2 days (initially tried to do US/IOA it in one, from rope-drop to close but not enough) and one night in Citywalk could do too. (Note that we commuted from POFQ).

You can also do a park on disembarkation day. We were checked in back at WDW by 9:30a.m. and at DHS from 10:30 until close...

 

[alicia1506]

to everyone that has commented -- thank you. i think we are definitely going to incorporate the cruise on our trip.

re: universal/ioa and wwohp. we have been to ioa/universal/wwohp previously on our recent trip. we were there for 4 days and we loved it, hence we are going back for 4 more days. it's not a matter for us of having 'done' the whole park in less than 4 nights but of taking that time to redo our favourite rides, really chill out and relax and take our time. previously we went commando style touring and loved it, but we want to take that amount of time here to really explore and enjoy.

re: wdw -- i know this will probably offend some, but we have no intention of doing all of wdw. it's huge, and it has a lot of extras that dlr doesn't, but we really only want to visit epcot and magic kingdom on this trip. no water parks, no animal safaris, no hollywood studios etc. we only want to visit for a few nights, familiarise ourselves with the set up and just see magic kingdom and epcot. we have a may/june 2013 trip planned where we will be spending at least 10, possibly 12 nights on site at wdw only, and that is when we will be exploring to our heart's content.

re: disneyland - does anyone know if the christmas decorations will be up by then (nov 13) and whether the xmas fireworks and mickey's christmas party will be up and running by then? we had hoped to incorporate a few nights at dlr prior to the cruise for the halloween decorations and so on and so forth, but it just doesn't work out time wise

 

[Mum from oz]

I'm glad you're doing the cruise. We spent 3 nights on the Dream and it was the highlight of our trip. We are doing a 7 night Eastern On the Fantasy in May and cannot wait! We are ending more nights on the cruise than WDW but we're happy with our decision.

 

[alicia1506]

hey mum from oz -- we have heard so many good things about cruising, and we're looking at doing the 7 night western from carnaveral. carlo has changed his mind about the order/what he wants to do on this vacay...

so now it's looking like 8 nights at dlr (including mnsshp & probably including a side trip to san diego & up to hollywood) then 5 nights at wdw, specifically only to see epcot & magic kingdom, then 7 night western carribean cruise then 2 nights in dlr again just to see the xmas decorations & parades etc, then back home.

we're looking at travelling from 28 oct to 19 nov, so a full 3 weeks in the usa this time.

we're really looking forward to it

 

[Mum from oz]

So you're missing US/IOA?? You're new plans look pretty good. If it was me I would do 5 nights in DLR, 8 nights at WDW and keep the rest. But if you are doing side trips to San Diego and Hollywood your itinerary makes sense.

I feel like I am doing trips opposite yours. We are going in May 2012 to WDW for 7 nights, 7 night Eastern cruise and 4 nights/d says in San Fran. Then we are planning a trip in Oct/Nov 2013 to DLR and WDW probably with a cruise thrown in to do Halloween.

It's so exciting to sort your plans out.

 

[PrincessInOz]

4 week vacay sounds good to me right now.

I like your plans...except I'd spend less time in LA/Anaheim and more time at Florida. Even if you only want to spend 5 days in the WDW area, you might want to consider seeing a bit more of Florida.....beach....Cape Canaveral...Miami....Florida Keys....everglades.....