1st Disney Cruise-Help!

[LuvMinnie]

Just booked our 1st Disney cruise! We are going May 2018, so I have lots of time to plan! Any advise and info is greatly appriciated! We have a 7 year old, 6 year old, a 3 year old and 6 adults. Doing the 4 night Bahamian on the Dream.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Just booked our 1st Disney cruise! We are going May 2018, so I have lots of time to plan! Any advise and info is greatly appriciated! We have a 7 year old, 6 year old, a 3 year old and 6 adults. Doing the 4 night Bahamian on the Dream.

The biggest piece of advice is - don't try to do everything. You won't have time, and you can't. Just plan to enjoy the things you can accomplish. Remember a vacation is supposed to be "down time". You'll be better off than those who try to cram 7 nights of cruise experience into 4 nights.

 

[Skittlesmom]

Arrive at your port the day prior to cruise departure...will avoid the risk of losing luggage and give you more time to relax. Research excursions and ports for activities to do. Research the ship and enjoy the cruise! Follow the DIS discussions for more tips. Enjoy your cruise!

 

[tink1970]

Yes to both of the above Sunscreen if you have a preference (they sell Coppertone on board but that's not my favorite). You can order Mickey bars for dessert at dinner, chocolate chip cookies and milk from room service and remember you don't have to do everything with everyone in your group...it's your vacation, enjoy it

 

[Dug720]

Yes to both of the above Sunscreen if you have a preference (they sell Coppertone on board but that's not my favorite). You can order Mickey bars for dessert at dinner, chocolate chip cookies and milk from room service and remember you don't have to do everything with everyone in your group...it's your vacation, enjoy it

You can also order Mickey bars from Room Service!

 

[Laundress]

Read a few posts here every day and you will have lots of info in no time. When packing take out half of it from your luggage and leave it at home.
When you finally board your ship relax and enjoy yourself

 

[dragynally]

Disneycruiselineblog.com has been a big planning help for me. But mostly just relax. I find my favorite thing about cruising is how little I have to think.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

Make sure you know how to link your reservations so that you can all dine together and book excursions together.

If you are all first time cruisers, I would say, try to familiarize yourself with the various activities available on board so that you can start talking ahead of time about who wants to do what.

Also, since you have so many adults and several kids, I strongly recommend you each have the Disney App (if you have Smart phones or ipods with WiFi access). That way different people can do different things and still meet up often and switch off groups. We had 9 people and we were often changing up who was with who, by letting people know where each other was via the App. It is free to text each other with it.

 

[Tulip2796]

We did our 1st disney cruise in July (7-nights) and only booked 2 weeks out. The best piece of advice I got on these boards as I was trying to figure it all out was not to try to plan everything and not to try to learn about everything - to just allow myself to be surprised. After reading that, I stopped searching old posts and just let myself be excited. It was amazing to experience everything without prior knowledge of all the details. We also did not try to do everything, we enjoyed things as we went along and didn't stress trying to squeeze every last drop out of the cruise. Lastly, we cruised with 2 children including an almost 3 year old that still napped. I did NOT skip the nap. This prevented meltdowns throughout and kept our son from becoming overtired towards the end of the cruise. It wasn't always great for one parent to have to stay in the room while he napped but sitting on the verandah in the quiet was really enjoyable. We did do some excursions at every port but kept them short and it was just enough for our 2 (our older son was 6).

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We did our 1st disney cruise in July (7-nights) and only booked 2 weeks out. The best piece of advice I got on these boards as I was trying to figure it all out was not to try to plan everything and not to try to learn about everything - to just allow myself to be surprised. After reading that, I stopped searching old posts and just let myself be excited. It was amazing to experience everything without prior knowledge of all the details. We also did not try to do everything, we enjoyed things as we went along and didn't stress trying to squeeze every last drop out of the cruise. Lastly, we cruised with 2 children including an almost 3 year old that still napped. I did NOT skip the nap. This prevented meltdowns throughout and kept our son from becoming overtired towards the end of the cruise. It wasn't always great for one parent to have to stay in the room while he napped but sitting on the verandah in the quiet was really enjoyable. We did do some excursions at every port but kept them short and it was just enough for our 2 (our older son was 6).

I've often said that I'm soooooo glad I didn't know about this or other cruise boards before our first cruise. Otherwise I'd have been a basket case worrying about how to fit everything in and bummed that I can't do everything on any given cruise.

Doing research on things that could be important (what to do about allergies; or whether a specific excursion would work for someone, for example) is good. But over-thinking every little detail really takes all the surprise (or pixie-dust) out of things.

 

[LuvMinnie]

Thank you all so much! I think i'll relax and not worry about it so much. Our 1st trip to Disney, I had no clue and we had a great time I think that's why we all love Disney so much!