First Cruise - Length of Cruise?

[mickey2mom]

Hello. This will be our first Disney Cruise. We hit WDW for a week last December and the kids had a blast. So i thought this year we would try a cruise. I would love to do a 7 day cruise but will this make future shorter cruises too rushed.
Family would also like to do a land and sea package but the FD is only good for 6+ days so that makes for a long vacation (and days away from school.)

I just can't decide. BTW we are looking at a Caribbean cruise sometime between November 2014 and February 2015.

Thank you.

 

[DSNY MJK]

Last year we went on our first cruise...It was a 3 day and it was fantastic...This year we are doing a 4 day with a week in the park...I think 4 day would be great to try...Plenty to do...

 

[bobbiwoz]

I would do a 4 day cruise as a first cruse. I would pick one with a day at sea to experience it.

 

[harrisb1964]

We did an awesome 5 day cruise on the Wonder this past Feb. to the Western Caribbean. We had a great time. We have a 7 year old and he loved it. The weather was perfect and the rates were lower than other times of the year. It was our first cruise. I think if we had done a shorter cruise we wouldn't have had the time to figure out the layout of the ship, enjoy the wonderful sea days and basically have time to just relax and take advantage of all the boat and ports had to offer. I think it was the perfect amount of time for our first cruise. But, I will admit none of us wanted to leave when the cruise was over. So our next cruise will be a 7 day . I can't imagine doing a shorter cruise. I would think you would feel rushed , and by the time you were relaxed and enjoying the cruise, it would be over. It was awesome to wake up and realize, "wow we still have three more days!"
BH

 

[Kim&Chris]

For a first cruise, I'd recommend a 4-day.

The 7-day cruises are wonderful, but may be a bit much for a first timer. The 3-day cruises are also great, but everyone may feel a bit rushed.

Just my opinion, but I've always thought the 4-day voyages were just right.

 

[Shuherk]

Hello. This will be our first Disney Cruise. We hit WDW for a week last December and the kids had a blast. So i thought this year we would try a cruise. I would love to do a 7 day cruise but will this make future shorter cruises too rushed. Family would also like to do a land and sea package but the FD is only good for 6+ days so that makes for a long vacation (and days away from school.) I just can't decide. BTW we are looking at a Caribbean cruise sometime between November 2014 and February 2015. Thank you.

Our first cruise was this year and we did 7 days on Fantasy. A little apprehensive at first but it worked out well for us an 2 boys 7&8.

Fantasy is a huge ship to explore and it seemed to take a few days to learn our way around and get into our dinner and show routine at night. By day 3 and 4 we were settled in and really began to enjoy the cruise experience.

 

[DahliaRW]

We did a 7 night for our first cruise and I do not regret it at all. If anything we wished it were longer! I chose 7 night after recommendations here and because I wasn't sure if I would ever convince DH to cruise again, so might as well go for it! Plus the longer cruises have more interesting ports.

 

[Four Swampers]

Hello. This will be our first Disney Cruise. We hit WDW for a week last December and the kids had a blast. So i thought this year we would try a cruise. I would love to do a 7 day cruise but will this make future shorter cruises too rushed.
Family would also like to do a land and sea package but the FD is only good for 6+ days so that makes for a long vacation (and days away from school.)

I just can't decide. BTW we are looking at a Caribbean cruise sometime between November 2014 and February 2015.

Thank you.

It sounds like your concern is not as much this cruise, but rather making future cruise feel too rushed. If that is the case, I would say go for the 7 day cruise. It will be fun, and it seems to be what you want to do. Then in the future you can decide if you want to do a shorter cruise or not.

We started with a three night, just because I did not want to cruise; I was doing a quick cruise for my girls. Loved it so much that our second cruise was an eleven night. Since then, we have done a three night, a five night, several sevens, and a twelve.

The nice thing about doing a seven night now is that you won't have to feel rushed to "do everything" on this cruise. With seven nights, you get to do a lot (never everything, but a lot). Then you can come back in the future for a three or four night cruise and not feel rushed, because you will know the lay of the land. Some things you will have done, so you will be able to skip one thing to try another.

If you are excited for a seven night cruise, go for it!

 

[rentayenta]

We just took our first Disney Cruise, 5 nights on the Wonder to CC and Cozumel. 5 was perfect for us. We had two full sea days; we boarded at 11:30 am on the first day so that also felt like a full sea day. By day 3 I was ready to get off the ship and explore Cozumel. Of course vacation is generally better when its longer but I found 2 1/2 sea days to be perfect.

 

[bumbershoot]

Our very first cruise was a 7 night one. It was fine.

Our second one, 10 years later, was 3 nights. Next, 4 nights. Next, 7 nights. (future: 5 nighter followed by a 4 nighter, different lines by one right after the other)

All have been fine.

 

[Maddysdaddy]

Another vote for the 7-day. I think it was either Newton or Einstein who posited the formula LC > SC (where LC is a longer cruise and SC is a shorter cruise) - who are we to try to challenge the laws of physics???

 

[SuperRob]

My wife's first cruise (my second) was a four-night. Our only complaint was that it was too short. Luckily, we had nine more nights in Walt Disney World to drown our sorrows.

But seriously, I don't know that I've ever heard anyone say, "The cruise was great, but I wish it had been shorter" with the sole exception of someone who gets sick on board.

I would say that I would consider four nights to be the minimum I would want to cruise, particularly when airfare is involved, and I'd definitely make sure I had some land based part of the trip before or after. Even our upcoming seven night cruise we plan to tack five land nights onto as soon as we can get a room booked on our DVC points.

I will say that the one advantage to shorter cruises is that you can rack up Castaway Club rank faster, particularly if you do back-to-back cruises. They really should do that by number of nights sailed, but that's a whole different debate.

 

[squirrel]

My first cruise was a land/sea package. I added a few extra nights at WDW at the beginning and we did 4 nights on the Wonder.

Four nights felt short, I would not have enjoyed 3 nights for a first cruise.

I would do a min. of 4 nights as your first cruise. If you can do longer-great.

 

[mickey2mom]

Thank you for all the comments. Decisions....decisions.......

 

[KalamityJane]

Our first cruise as a family is going to be 14 nights

 

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

Normally I'm a super huge fan of Land & Sea vacations. We did a 3day Dream last year that was UNREAL but went fast (but it was a spur of the moment with 1 park hopping day prior) so 4 days of Disney AWESOME magic.

So we decided we loved the cruise and wanted a sea day and part of our group wouldn't go longer than 4 days. So we did a 4 Day Magic and added 1 day at DisneyQuest/DTD (poured and poured rain but our friends had a great day at MK anyway), and a base day at Hollywood studios, than had our 4 day cruise, on debarkation day Friday we went to SeaWorld and the last day Saturday we went to Epcot.

I should caution that while I thought we did everything we were looking to do on our 4 day cruise, so that length of cruise was fine for us (plus we were excited to go back into the parks so the trip wasn't over), I will caution that thanks to Disney's new FAST PASS PLUS system, we had a VERY difficult time fitting everything in that we wanted at the parks. Every single line was stupid ridiculous and the Tier system means you now have to choose Rockin Roller Coaster OR Toy Story Mania. That meant while we could fast pass the one, we had no less than an 80 min wait on the other (and that was at 7:45 at night!) We also didn't hop at all, and the parks WERE ridiculously busy because it was just before the Star Wars weekends (although there was still Star Wars stuff going on? So not sure how it wasn't the weekends but they were warming up or something?) and because of cheer leading competitions and SeaWorld oddly had school kids EVERY WHERE!!!!

So I would now caution that splitting our week into part Sea part Land is probably not a good option anymore. You almost need a solid week or like 5 park days now thanks to their new roll out. Who knows, maybe they will get it right. But I have NEVER seen anything like it, even Figment at EP has 40 min waits! I asked a CM what was up with all the lines EVERY where and without hesitating one second, he said it was the new fast pass system.

Last year, with single rider lines (which they closed when we were there because 'it was too busy', how can it be too busy for single rider lines?!) and old legacy FP-s, we were able to hop to ALL the parks AND have dinner. This year, we couldn't even get everything we wanted in ONE park on ONE day!

So I'm no longer looking to split the trip up, although it WAS my favorite way to experience Disney (so I'm glad we did it two trips in 2013 before the FP+ roll out). I'm now looking to get a great deal on a Disney Cruise and ONLY do a Disney cruise at somepoint. But I don't feel like I ABSOLUTELY MUST go on another Disney cruise after the Magic, (not like I did after the Dream, I was a psycho about it!) so I feel like I have experienced what I needed for Disney cruising just for now. I didn't feel have any regrets and miss anything on board. For that, I say a 4 day is probably a GREAT bet.

On the other hand, I'm left already MISSING WDW because while the 4 Day Magic allowed us to do just about everything we were looking to do on the Disney cruise, we definitely felt like it was unfinished business in the parks! But I won't be back to WDW until they figure out to get rid of the stupid tiers and can work out their crowd management which is horrible! Instead, we will fly out to DisneyLAND where we have since found they have all our favorite rides PLUS new ones and NO FAST PAST PLUS system! Thank goodness. Hoping for a purely PARKS Land Trip next November but I can't even start planning it because airfare and hotels aren't out yet.

REALLY excited about going out there for the first time. It won't have World Showcase, but we did get that this year. Otherwise, WDW can keep FP+ and their stupid 40 min lines on Spaceship Earth!!! (I do LOVE SSE, but 40 mins?! When did THAT happen? When FP+ started!)

I used to think Land and Sea was the STUFF, but what I'm seeing now is that they really ARE better for the most part in two separate trips. Than you make the most financially of where you are (either on the cruise or putting all the time and financial resources into a great parks vacation.) We might even try to stay on property or a Disney sponsored property, whereas I was getting major hotel deals because we were paying for a Cruise AND a land trip.

In the future, I wouldn't combine it (other than like a day at Ep just before the cruise or something when you come in early.)

I have really changed my tune based on our experience this trip! WDW, why oh why? I did TWO Land & Sea trips in 2013 and never thought I would change my opinion about that!

 

[jetskigrl]

What kind of experience do you want? A long weekend type vacation or a full week vacation?

While I have done 2-night and 3-night cruises, I wouldn't recommend them if you want the feeling of a real vacation. They are more in line with a weekend trip (kind of rushed, hurrying to do as much as possible in a short amount of time, etc). I get off of those cruises feeling like I need a rest

If you want a vacation where you can split time between relaxing, touring new places and enjoying a bit of night life, then do the 7-day.

But if time or money is an issue, or you just don't want to commit to the 7-night, I recommend at least a 4-night with one sea day. It gives you a better idea of what the 7-nights (with more sea days) are like.

Best of luck with your decision

 

[harrisb1964]

We took a 5 day cruise for our first cruise. Perfect length. Enough time to actually relax and enjoy the ship. I will say none of us wanted to leave the ship the last day. So our next cruise will be 7 days. I would not recommend anything less than 5 days. You want time to relax, not feel rushed with the trip ending so quickly. We liked the 5 day for both the number of ports and the awesome sea days.

 

[Chernabog1940]

DW and I did our first cruise [ever] to the Baltic on the Magic. It was 14 days. We enjoyed that so much that the next year we did the WBTA. Again 14 days. When we did the B2B LA to Vancouver, then the Alaska cruise to Seattle, we again spent 14 days on the Wonder. However, the 2 shorter cruises seemed more hectic to us than the longer cruises.

 

[cruisecrasher]

Out first cruise was three nights, even with no point of comparison it seemed rushed.
Seven nights was much better.
Then four nights seemed short
Eight was lovely.
Then we had a long time until our next cruise.
It was four nights and seemed rushed, not for squeezing in everything as if we missed something we know we'll get to it next time, but that everyone onboard seems rushed. There's less time to do the activities so they seem more crowded. The servers have less long to get to know you and in general everything seems more hectic.