Hi there - I just came back from my first
Disney Cruise (the REPO cruise from LA to Vancouver) and I had a few tips to share:
* If you plan on bringing something for the characters to sign at the greetings and it's not a book, bring something hard for them to sign it on. At the character breakfast, the character "handlers" kept telling us to bring our pillowcases to guest services to have it signed since it was harder for the characters to sign. We borrowed a clip board at the princess greetings and that worked great.
* If you are a first timer and don't get a lanyard with a holder for your Key to the World, consider bringing a small travel purse to carry. I lost my key on the first day. After that I brought a very small bag around and used it to hold the pillow cases, permanent markers, the Navigator and my key.
* We didn't realize until halfway through the trip that we could've eaten breakfast and lunch at Tritons most of the time. This was a much more relaxing experience than the buffet in my opinionm though a much smaller selection.
* We were able to book a reservation at PALO onboard, even though it was full in advance.
* I wasn't terribly impressed with the Princess Tea - we signed up for it right away at Guest Services and got tickets. There were only two princesses and the whole experience was 20 minutes (they served apple juice and one cookie), though the kids did get to take photos with the princesses.
* For the main princess greeting in the lobby, get their EARLY!!! Like 30 minutes early if possible. The last people in line were in line for well over 2 hours.
* Our little one is over 2 1/2. We were able to get her into the Oceaneers Club - they asked her questions to make sure she could communicate, and they checked with us to make sure she was potty trained. Our little one is VERY independent so we thought she would be bored at the nursery and would prefer the club. In the end, she didn't care for the Oceaneers Club and we brought her once or twice to the nursery which she loved. The Oceaneers Club can be pretty overwhelming for the little ones.
* I wish I had brough more activities for the kids to do in our stateroom. The weather wasn't great and there wasn't as much to do during the day for our kiddos that was age appropriate as I had expected.
* Next time I will bring a cheap digital camera for my 5 years old to take her own photos. On one of the port days, she held onto my iPhone all day and took a ton of pics - I am going to make a photo albulm of the pics she made.
* I didn't realize how many kids would wear their character costumes for most of the trip. Our kids wore theirs at least 1/2 the time.
* If you plan on doing laundry, bring travel size amounts of detergent and dryer sheets. For the detergent, send away to Tide for a free sample. Much better than what they did onboard. You can keep the embroidered laundry bag in the room for a $5 charge to your stateroom. I took ours and plan on getting our name embroidered on it.
* I made a magnet for our door by designing something on the computer, getting an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper laminated and putting magnets on the back. Much cheaper than printing on magent paper and it looked nice in my opinion.
* I was suprised how many people used bags instead of fish extenders outside their door. I delayed signing up for it (and missed the deadline) because I was overwhelmed by the idea of making a fish extender, but so many people just used a Disney bag.
