2nd timer

[jalapeno_pretzel]

We're cruising for the 2nd time next year. The first time around we weren't too sure about it, but we decided we would give it another try. I wanted to get some tips on how you plan your days out ... do you just wake up, look at that day's Navigator, and decide what you want to do? Or do you kind of have a game plan in mind already? Or just do whatever you feel like at the moment and not plan ahead much? Obviously we'll plan any port excursions ahead of time, but I mean for the rest of your time on the ship?

And, it seems like there are a number of things to run around and reserve as soon as you get on the ship ... mixology class, if you want to sign up for any exercise class, getting a rainforest pass, certain character meets that are reservation only, adults only meal reservations. Do you all do that on the first day? And how do you even find out about all of those options? Are they listed in the first Navigator? Or are they given in some information sent out in advance ?

Thanks!

 

[lklgoodman]

You can now sign up for mixology classes, adult only restaurant meals, and princess/Frozen character meets when you do your on-line check in, 90 days before your cruise since this will be your second cruise. They will be listed as onboard fun, or something like that. I think you can also buy the rainforest pass before you get on the ship, but not certain since I haven't gotten one before. I also don't know about the exercise classes. I look at the Navigator the night before to see if there's anything I "must" do, then just do whatever I feel like as the day progresses.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We're cruising for the 2nd time next year. The first time around we weren't too sure about it, but we decided we would give it another try. I wanted to get some tips on how you plan your days out ... do you just wake up, look at that day's Navigator, and decide what you want to do? Or do you kind of have a game plan in mind already? Or just do whatever you feel like at the moment and not plan ahead much? Obviously we'll plan any port excursions ahead of time, but I mean for the rest of your time on the ship?

And, it seems like there are a number of things to run around and reserve as soon as you get on the ship ... mixology class, if you want to sign up for any exercise class, getting a rainforest pass, certain character meets that are reservation only, adults only meal reservations. Do you all do that on the first day? And how do you even find out about all of those options? Are they listed in the first Navigator? Or are they given in some information sent out in advance ?

Thanks!

We look at the Navigator the night before (the room host leaves one for you the next day at evening turn down). Just we have an idea of what we might be interested in for the next day. Use a highlighter to mark the things you'd be interested in. You can mark more than one thing at at time, if there are a couple of things you'd like to do.

Even if you mark a whole bunch of things, you don't have to do any of them, if the desire to just sit and watch the sea go by is stronger.

Adult dining, and ticketed character meets can been booked when your excursion/onboard activities window opens before the cruise. You can check once onboard if there are any openings in these, if you are unable to book ahead.

 

[clten]

We are NOT planners. We play it by ear which is why we enjoy DCL so much more than WDW these days. But here's what we do - when our booking window online opens (as a previous poster indicated as a Silver Castaway Club member, yours would open at 90 days before the cruise) we book our excursions and onboard activities. Less than one hour of pre-planning and I'm done!

You will get your first Navigator when you check in at the port. That gives you a lot of information about where you make reservations that you might not have made in advance or changes to the ones you did make. And then throughout the cruise we like to review the Navigator the night before to see what activities are upcoming for the next day. Gives us an idea but we usually play it by ear.

What we also find useful is the DCL Navigator app (download it before you get onboard). As we are sitting at our first lunch, we will look at the activities offered throughout the cruise and mark the ones that interest us as favorites. That way when they are about to happen, we get a reminder on our phone and can decide if we are more interested in what we are doing or if we want to pack up and head to that activity. That way, if we miss an activity, it was because we made a choice, not because we didn't know it was happening.

 

[CamColt]

I look at the Navigator, usually the night before if I'm not too tired, and if I see something I want to do, then I make it a point to get to it. Otherwise my plan is sitting by the pool most days, dinner, then the adult entertainment at night. With all the planning involved in WDW now, I'm loving cruising more and more. It's nice to have a laid back vacation.

 

[FSU Girl]

We sort of wing it except for a few things. We book excursions, specialty dining and mixology classes ahead of time. Those are the only things we know we have to show up on time. Then every night we get the navigator and look through it to see if there is something we want to do. Sometimes we don't make it, but we try and have a relaxed attitude on a cruise, like enjoy pool time, relax on the balcony, stuff like that.

 

[cadien]

What we also find useful is the DCL Navigator app (download it before you get onboard). As we are sitting at our first lunch, we will look at the activities offered throughout the cruise and mark the ones that interest us as favorites. That way when they are about to happen, we get a reminder on our phone and can decide if we are more interested in what we are doing or if we want to pack up and head to that activity. That way, if we miss an activity, it was because we made a choice, not because we didn't know it was happening.

That's what we did too. Worked great. We certainly skipped a lot of things, but it was good to have reminders for when we were still in the mood to do them.

 

[Quellman]

Like many others, we just sort of wing it. I find it easy to look at the paper navigator and highlight anything that looks interesting to us, then I mark it on the app, so we won't forget it is going on. Then we just sort of do what we want. I spend a lot of time on the pool deck watching my son on the yellow slide. (Probably why they have a bar near by!) Then we will usually skip the shows to ride the aquaduck with hardly any lines. Totally worth it. We try to do at least one craft activity on board as a family too.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

Definitely book anything ahead of time which can be booked ahead of time, if you are sure you want to do them. remember, you can cancel them until three days before you sale at no penalty, so might as well reserve them ahead of time.

On board, there are a couple of things you may need to do right away. We used a divide an conquer strategy, where either one person signed up the whole group for X (like mixology) while another did Y (like Palo) for the group. Or you can leave all the carry-on bags with one person (and a nice lounger) while the other person or persons go and sign up for things. Then meet back to discuss.

As for daily activities, we found checking the paper or App Navigator at dinner for that evening and the next day was an exciting and effective way to plan who wanted to do what. The App lets you favorite things too, so you can see who in your group is interested in what.

Even then, we still did plenty "spur of the moment" things, but this way we had our "high priority" items plotted ahead of time so we wouldn't miss them, and it also let us easily see when we had big blocks of unscheduled time to kick back and relax.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

Dittos on all of the above. With highlighter in hand I scan the Navigator for interesting thing I want to do the night before. My DH is the veranda king with Nook and binoculars in hand.

Congratulations on Castaway Silver. So when is your next cruise? You'll probably overwhelmed when you booking time opens for the next cruise and all the excursions, tastings, spas, and exercising classes are thrust upon you.

When the time comes, start another thread about 120 days out from your cruise date and we all will be here to help you out.

 

[MomOTwins]

All the stuff that people run around to book the first day can be booked online (in your case because you are now Silver status, 90 days before sailing), except Rainforest passes must be booked by phone at the phone number for in-room gifts and amenities. We did all our booking in advance and it was super easy.

 

[YawningDodo]

General agreement with the others--I prebooked mixology and a couple ticketed character meets when I did my online check-in and chose not to do Palo, so my first afternoon on the ship I didn't have to go book anything. It sounded like there was a second mixology available that I'm not sure was listed online, though, so if you miss the window for pre-booking you do have a chance of getting things onboard. I'd glance over the paper navigators when I got them the evening before, but mostly I used the app and went through it during breakfast to mark my favorites for the day (you can view the entire cruise's worth of events on the app as soon as you get onboard, but I didn't like planning that far ahead). You can set it to give you alerts when something you wanted to do is coming up so you don't miss things.

There was one big exception for me in my lackadaisical planning, though: Marvel Day at Sea. As soon as I got the navigator for MDAS, I combed through it and made certain that I could get to all of my "must-do" events that day--most things are offered at least twice, but if you're not mindful about your priorities and which time slot you attend which event (and when you know you have free time for character meets, versus when you don't) you can run into scheduling conflicts that might prevent you from doing everything. I imagine Star Wars Day at Sea is the same way. So there were some things that were "must-do's" for me but that I didn't do until a later time slot in order to be able to fit other things into my morning schedule, where if I'd winged it I might have just gone to my favorite things first and not realized until later that I'd messed myself up.

If you're not doing MDAS or SWDAS, though (or if you are but you're not as invested as I was), unplanned days are great.

 

[ninergrl6]

We look at the Navigator the night before (the room host leaves one for you the next day at evening turn down). Just we have an idea of what we might be interested in for the next day. Use a highlighter to mark the things you'd be interested in. You can mark more than one thing at at time, if there are a couple of things you'd like to do.

Even if you mark a whole bunch of things, you don't have to do any of them, if the desire to just sit and watch the sea go by is stronger.

Adult dining, and ticketed character meets can been booked when your excursion/onboard activities window opens before the cruise. You can check once onboard if there are any openings in these, if you are unable to book ahead.

Yes to all of this. I'm a planner! Like PrincessShmoo, I bring a highlighter with me, and part of my nightly ritual is going through the navigator and marking all the things I *might* want to do/see the next day. Also, if you use the DCL app, when you get on the ship you can look ahead to all of the days' activities. It's like getting all of the Navigators all on day one. I loved that! Not everything is listed in the app, but most on-board activities are. It was a great help for me to see when there would be repeated ship tours or movies or other events.

 

[codygirl5150]

First time cruiser here and Uber planner! I checked out previous navigators and added things DD and I would maybe want to do to my ridiculous spreadsheet. Then once on ship I’ll check the current navigators to see what we should hit. Booked excursions of course and a mixology class for myself. Have fun!

 

[cadien]

All the stuff that people run around to book the first day can be booked online (in your case because you are now Silver status, 90 days before sailing), except Rainforest passes must be booked by phone at the phone number for in-room gifts and amenities. We did all our booking in advance and it was super easy.

We tried, but there was a lot that filled up immediately and never reopened. Like Palo brunch, which did nevertheless have openings on day 1. Definitely prebooked what we could though.