A couple of questions for my just booked 2nd Disney cruise!

[ebtbmom]

I just booked my second Disney Cruise! I haven't been on a Disney cruise in 11 years but I wanted to do an interesting trip for my son's high school graduation, and he wanted to go back to Disney World! We compromised on a Disney Cruise to Northern Europe! He seems very excited and I am happy that we have a destination that I can start saving for!

We are on the May 28 2017 sailing from Copenhagen, it's looking like the weather may be too cool for swimming? Are the pools heated like at the resorts? I have most recently been on a RC cruise and the adult pool had a retractable roof, does Disney offer this?

What is the wifi situation on the ships? Is it still unreliable and very costly? I'm not going to lie, we are internet junkies and really like being connected when possible!

Has anyone else cruised with an older teen on Disney? He will be 19 but just graduated from an early college high school. I'm encouraging him to check out the college age activities as he will be college age, even though technically just graduated from high school, but with a 2yr associates degree also, so kinda both??

I appreciate any advice or tips!

 

[saxmangeoff]

Pools should be heated, but no roof.

There is an "1820 Society" for 18-20 year olds, since it's an age that's older than the teens, and not yet 21. I don't have any experience with that, maybe others can report, but you can look online at Navigators from other cruises to get a feel for activities offered.

 

[cgolf]

I am an internet junkie too, but find that unplugging from the world is refreshing and removes a lot of stress and frustration from our lives, it reminds us that there is life beyond our screens. Our DD was 19 on our last cruise and she had a blast, but she is more of an introvert so she didn't join any of the groups of college age kids that formed up. She did some shows and activities with us and some stuff on her own. From what I have heard about the 19 to 21s is that they meet up on the first day to plan what if anything they want to do together the rest of the trip.

 

[ebtbmom]

I am an internet junkie too, but find that unplugging from the world is refreshing and removes a lot of stress and frustration from our lives, it reminds us that there is life beyond our screens. Our DD was 19 on our last cruise and she had a blast, but she is more of an introvert so she didn't join any of the groups of college age kids that formed up. She did some shows and activities with us and some stuff on her own. From what I have heard about the 19 to 21s is that they meet up on the first day to plan what if anything they want to do together the rest of the trip.

My son is very introverted so I'm afraid that he'll chicken out lol! But he's one of those introverts that wants to meet people and hang out but then at the last minute gets nervous and won't go for it. Hopefully he'll be ok hanging with me if that's the case, it's often just the two of us at WDW and we have a blast!

I suppose I'll survive the "unplug". My Netflix addiction is pretty severe so maybe I need a 7 day detox.

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

My son is very introverted so I'm afraid that he'll chicken out lol! But he's one of those introverts that wants to meet people and hang out but then at the last minute gets nervous and won't go for it. Hopefully he'll be ok hanging with me if that's the case, it's often just the two of us at WDW and we have a blast!

I suppose I'll survive the "unplug". My Netflix addiction is pretty severe so maybe I need a 7 day detox.

I completely second what @cgolf said about unplugging. I use my phone for pictures and for the on board app that allows us to text each other and have access to the Navigator. I look forward to unplugging more than anything now. Since my last cruise I actually disconnected my work email from my phone and life is so much better now.

 

[janiebubble]

We're on the same cruise! I'm anticipating almost any type of weather and going to pack accordingly. What I would say about Internet is that we're visiting 4 capital cities. We have just spent a week in one of them, Stockholm, and if that is anything to go by there was plentiful free wifi ... All the museums, the hop on hop off buses and boats and restaurants and cafes. You should be able to keep in touch for most of the cruise. My experience with on board wifi on the Magic in the last 2 years was it worked fine but can burn through data fast if you're not careful with your device settings. And yes, it's not cheap

 

[PrincessShmoo]

My son is very introverted so I'm afraid that he'll chicken out lol! But he's one of those introverts that wants to meet people and hang out but then at the last minute gets nervous and won't go for it. Hopefully he'll be ok hanging with me if that's the case, it's often just the two of us at WDW and we have a blast!

I suppose I'll survive the "unplug". My Netflix addiction is pretty severe so maybe I need a 7 day detox.

It's very important, if your son wants anyone to "do stuff" with, that he attend the 1820 Society get-together on the first night. That's the night they meet with the DCL CM who will facilitate (set up) the activities they want to do during the cruise.

If no one shows up, or only 1 or 2, nothing gets planned and the group never gets off the ground.

He can just go and "sit in" on that meeting, or actually participate in setting up the schedule. And he doesn't have to participate in all (or any) of the activities, if he doesn't want to.

I can report our newly 19 year old on our cruise, we only saw at dinner and most shows during our cruise. They had about 12-14 people in their group and seemed to always have something going on.

 

[cgolf]

My son is very introverted so I'm afraid that he'll chicken out lol! But he's one of those introverts that wants to meet people and hang out but then at the last minute gets nervous and won't go for it. Hopefully he'll be ok hanging with me if that's the case, it's often just the two of us at WDW and we have a blast!

I suppose I'll survive the "unplug". My Netflix addiction is pretty severe so maybe I need a 7 day detox.

I have a hunch you will do fine with unplugging from technology. I think you will find more than enough to keep you busy on board.

I think your son will find plenty to do, between shows, pool, movies, entertainers, etc. I would suggest he go to the initial 18-21 get together, he may find someone he gets along with. Not knowing the itinerary, is this a port intensive trip? That could help him out too, because the ports will keep you plenty busy.

 

[kiford]

I wouldn't count on being able to swim. We did the Baltic cruise last July and while daytime temperatures in the ports were in the mid-70's, it was way too cold on deck to swim. Never hit the pool once and I had really wanted to try to Aquadunk. Most of the time sitting on deck we had blankets over our shoulders. Beautiful and sunny but with the cooler air temperatures and the speed of the ship, the wind was just too cold. However, even though we needed blankets, we sat out nearly every day for a couple of hours after getting back to the ship. It was just that the wind was a little too much. Not many other people in the pools either.

Internet is definitely not good enough for Netflix, not to mention the cost. We did check our mail every day. If you sign up the first day, you'll get 50MB free. DH did that when we were still docked in Dover and then said he was going up on deck to take pictures. I was in the Cove Cafe reading and realized after about 1/2 hour he wasn't back yet. Finally comes back a little while later and told me he'd run through the 50MB by having 3-way Skype conference call with work. Said it worked like a charm. We also found that a number of the ports had free wifi in the port buildings. We'd come back from our excursion and since we usually had quite a bit of time before all aboard, we'd sit in the port and download our app updates and check mail.

 

[SanDiegoSteph]

My son is very introverted so I'm afraid that he'll chicken out lol! But he's one of those introverts that wants to meet people and hang out but then at the last minute gets nervous and won't go for it. Hopefully he'll be ok hanging with me if that's the case, it's often just the two of us at WDW and we have a blast!.

We are traveling on your same cruise to Northern Europe with another family and they have an 18 DD and 20 DD that are also pretty introverted. So, maybe we can have them connect before the cruise however kids do that these days...text? That way they'll at least kind of know someone else at the first 1820 meeting.