7 day land/sea questions

[khawk]

I want to plan a disney cruise, it wont be until june of 2006. The trip will consist of me, my 2 DD's (who will be 12 and 14 in 2006) and my parents. We want to do the 7 day land and sea package, 3 days at WDW and 4 days in the bahama's. If we fly to orlando do we need to provide our own transportation to WDW? What about getting from WDW to port canaveral and then back to the airport after the cruise? Also, my dad wants to do the WDW thing but he also wants to go to Universal, sea world and busch gardens. I dont think we will have time to get it all in. Unless we schedule that seperately and spend more time down there. I was hoping that someone who has done the 7 day land/sea plan would let me know how it went and give me any tips that you think might be useful. Especially tips about how to handle transportation. I was thinking about renting a car and staying offsite and doing universal, sea world, and busch gardens and then heading over to WDW to start our 7 day plan. This could get expensive to do it this way. also, me and my kids would get our own rooms and my parents would get there own room. Also, is june a good time for a cruise? expensive this time of year? I need to go when my kids are out of school but I dont want to go during peak hurricane season either. I was thinking 3rd week of june. thanks.
Kim

 

[yvettpal]

You can purchase DCL transfers which will provide transportation from airport to resort, resort to port, and port to airport. Or you can arrange your own transportation, which may be cheaper.

On our land/sea vacation, we used a towncar service to get from the airport to resort. Since we arrived a day early, we couldn't use DCL transfers, but the towncar was less. We used DCL transfers from the resort to the port and we rented a car after the cruise to get to the airport. We had a late flight so we decided to rent a car from Avis and went to Downtown Disney and then returned the car at the airport.

 

[NCRedding]

With 5 people, it would be the cheapest route to rent a car, more than likely, especially if you are interested in seeing Universal, SW, etc. I would think that you would want to add days onto the trip, either before or after. We did the 7 night in October of 2001, only we did the 3 night cruise. We found it was cheaper to rent a car for the full week, and park it at the port, than to deal with transfers, especially since we can't go to Orlando and not do some outlet shopping. We spent our first night at POR using a code rate, before checking into the Poly the next day, early, to get full use of the park passes included in the package. You will find that June is one of the more expensive times to cruise. Some people have found that it is more expensive to book the land/sea than booking the cruise, and getting rooms on site. For us, it was cheaper to book the land/sea. Good luck planning--it is a great trip for 3 generations.

 

[RKB]

We went on the land/sea last summer. I am going back on the Western January 2004 - rates are much cheaper, but my kids have an unusual school schedule so it works. I would say that the Disney parks would probably be more than enough to keep you entertained. I got a guidebook that listed what rides to go on first, etc... strategies for seeing the most. My inlaws thought that I was crazy, but me and my two children saw everything that we wanted (MK, Animal K, Epcot, MGM). There is no way we could have done one more thing before we left. If you want to see those additional parks you would need to arrive earlier. That all might be overkill unless you are all very energetic and have no really young children. As for transportation - ours was arranged by Disney because we did their flight plan so can't help you there. I would say no matter what you do plan, plan and plan. That really helped me. In fact I am now booking my own shore excursions now that I found out that you can do more on your own for less money! www.shoretrips.com. Good luck!