In our opinion the cruise is even better than the parks just because there are limited people on the ship, lots of character time, lots of family time and time to just sit and unwind without a lot of running around like you do in the parks! It is nice to go and have EVERYTHING included (minus tips and excursions of course) but to not have to worry about if we can afford to eat that at this restaurant or having to get PS like you do at the parks. It is nice to have alot of options of things to do and the clubs are great for the kids! The spa is really nice as well and very relaxing!!!
We are a family of 5 going on the May 1 cruise to the E. Carrib. We booked through DU and got 2 connecting cat 8 cabins with an oceanview for 5500 not including transfers, airfare or insurance. We saved about 1100 dollars booking a few months ago with dreams over booking with Disney direct and dreams has given us amazing service each time we have booked with them. Also you only have to give a deposit now of $250 per person and then the balance is due 60 days out from sailing. We make payments every single month on our account with DU and it makes it so much easier at the end when the balance due comes up. We figured out if we payed to stay at a nice WDW hotel for 7 nights, admission to the park for all 7 days, eating out at the hotel or WDW itself it would cost us as a family of 5:
7 nts at Poly for 5 of us is 383.56 x 7 = 2684.92
Park Passes for 5 of us is 5 day park hopper is 217.00 x 2 for adults = 434.00
and 5 day park hopper for the kids is 172.00 x 3 = 516.00
so as of now the rate for the room and the passes is a total of
3634.92 and that is without any food or "entertainment" type things that you might get on a cruise!
Figure that if you only spent 150 per day for food x 7 = 1050.00 that makes your total trip 4684.92 which is only 900 less than the 7 day cruise and that is if you only spent $150 on food for the whole day including drinks, snacks, breakfast, lunch and dinner. We ate at LEAST that much last time but I was going light on the amount! For a few hundred dollars you get a cruise to different islands and
Castaway Cay which is amazing!
Just thought I would break it down. I know what it is to feel it is too out of the price range to do it...but if you figure it out per day for like my family of 5 it came to 158.00 per person per day roughly! Pretty good price when you think about all you get!
2005 if you book soon you will get pretty decent rates on since you are over a year out...and then you are right you can save for that year!
Heidi
You are not obligated to buy that cruise. Just get an idea then exit out without clicking "book now"
to make sure we are getting the best deal. Our early booking of our cruise in January seems to have saved us money on the cat 6, but not much difference on the cat 11.
