Disney Cruises
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Anonymous
| Our 2 year old had a blast! |
Anonymous
| Disney cruises are the best. Highly recommend |
Anonymous
| NP here. We are considering the 7 night Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy. Is this a good one? Any reviews? |
Anonymous
| Yes, the Fantasy is my favorite of the Disney boats (and we have been on them all). This is a lovely trip. |
Anonymous
Pp, you should also look at the disboards cruise section for all the information and reviews you could ever want (and then some). The Fantasy is consistently voted the best large cruise ship in the world. It is beautiful and you will have a great time. I assume you are hitting on this itinerary St Thomas, Castaway Cay, and either St Martin or Tortola. These are all great stops. |
Anonymous
Yes, that's the one, with Tortola. Is 7 nights too many for a "first" cruise? |
Anonymous
| Our child is under 2, and we were considering a cruise (we'd gone before, just as a couple), but the logistics of it all seem very difficult, not to mention pricey. For those who have gone, have you all booked a suite or something with 2 rooms? How do you deal with bedtime - does one adult stay in the room at the time with the child, while the other explores the ship? |
Anonymous
It's perfect. The shorter cruises will make you feel rushed, and you don't have as much time to relax. How old are your kids? |
Anonymous
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We did a five night on the Wonder as our first cruise, and I felt like it was plenty of time. Keep in mind that you will need to fly down a day early.
To pp re: cabins - The disney cabins have a Curtin to separate the main sleeping area from the secondary sleeping area (sofabed). To pp re: exploring the ship - you take the baby/kid with you...it's disney, so kids are welcome. |
Anonymous
They will be 5 and 8 by the time we'd go. We are cautiously excited but slightly fear the unknown. I've been to the Caribbean lots of times but never on a cruise and never with kids. |
Anonymous
This was us. Our kids were roughly that age when we took our first Disney cruise on the Fantasy. We travel to the Caribbean over most spring breaks, to Aruba, Cayman, Turks, St John/Thomas, and the like, and our kids like the cruise as much as our other beach trips. Disney was great--we requested to, and did, sit alone at dinner with just our family, there was never a shortage of things for the kids to do. We've cruised on all the ships--the Fantasy is the nicest, followed by the Magic, then the Dream, then the Wonder. We did one Bahamas cruise, didn't like it or the Wonder, and much prefer the Caribbean trips on the Fantasy and Magic (and the Mediterranean trip on the Magic was the best of all--great trip to Venice, Olympus, Athens, Rhodes, Mykonos, and Ephesus, and a great way to introduce the kids to Europe). |
Anonymous
Thank you for this. I think our biggest concern is we will observe early bedtimes in our family, even on vacations, and many people have told us this is not compatible with cruising, because of the night activities and one-room sleeping arrangements. But our kids don't/won't sleep in so they end up with a huge sleep deficit if we keep them up late more than one night. So our plan is for me to put the 5 yo to bed by 8, and DH will bring the 8 yo back by 8:30 for bed, and we'll either take turns staying with them or just sit on the balcony together. We are okay missing some of the "action." Do you think this is feasible? |
Anonymous
| I can't remember what time the evening shows end, but I suggest you go to the shows. Reserve the early seating for dinner and then head to the show afterwards. With the curtains, the rooms will be very dark. I get your kids will end up sleeping in a little bit. Ours did. |
Anonymous
It is feasible; you can employ a number of different scheduling approaches on the ship, and observe early bedtimes if you prefer. A lot of people do that. We tend to the opposite--we are naturally a late bedtime family, and always have done the second dinner seating--at 8;15--even when our kids were very young (4 and up). That allowed us to go to the shows at 6/7, and then have dinner and use dine and play. Dine and play works like this -- at 9, the counselors for the kids clubs come to the dining rooms, pick up the kids, and escort them to the clubs, where they can play games, play generally, watch disney movies, or nap until the adults are done with dinner (this is organized, there are not just sleeping kids sprawled all over the place). Just tell your wait staff you want to do dine and play and they will bring the kids' food out sooner and alert you when the counselors are ready for pick up. Our kids loved to do this on some nights when they were young. We would pick them up after dinner. If you do the early seating, you go to the late shows, after dinner (around 8), and there is no dine and play. Our kids always preferred to be wide awake for the shows, at least when they were young; now they are inclined to skip some of them altogether. This schedule also allowed us to come back from whatever we did in port that day without feeling rushed to dinner. And don't forget, there is always a non rotational dining option, where you can go any time for dinner, regardless of whether you have first or second seating. |
Anonymous
Thanks, PP. I was the one who wrote about the room question, and wondering what people did. I also was curious about the cost. But I believe these are rather pricey trips. Also, as another PP wrote, I would wonder what to do once bedtime comes. We could not leave our child alone in the cabin. |