B2B.....did I make a mistake?

[girliesj]

Due to pricing (sigh), scheduling conflicts (sigh), and not wanting to pull my kids out of school, we were left with VERY few options for using our OBB w/in 24 months to book our next cruise. SO. After hemming and hawing this AM, we booked a 4-night and 3-night B2B on the Dream.

Tell me I'm going to love it! Tell me I didn't make a mistake! We love our 7-night cruises, but I"m concerned it will feel strange and wasted "starting over" on day 4 of our vacay! Help!

 

[mathgeek]

I felt like I lost about a half a day with the turnaround between cruises. I did the 3-night first followed by the 4. As everyone else was rushing around at the end of the 3rd night, it was nice knowing that I still had another 4 nights on the ship and didn't have to pack or make sure I had everything I wanted in the shops. The two stops at Castaway was really nice too!

Not something I would do again most likely, but it was neat to do once.

 

[jrabbit]

yep it's a reset - kinda. But you should be able to get back onboard early (I have no idea about the logistics). It sounds to my like you are going in the Summer, or Spring Break or around the Christmas holidays. Its a good bet that the weather will be very nice (winter will be cooler). So you are back on board and can spend a lot of time around the pool without so many people.

And then there's the two embarkation buffets and two sail away parties. And two fireworks shows!! Sounds OK to me.

 

[Cackyschmackers]

I'll be following this post! LOL We were in the same boat as you (pun intended). We couldn't afford the 7-nt, the schedules didn't work out for us anyhow, so I booked a four-night then completely regretted it, so tacked on a three-night to the beginning! This August on the Dream! Since it will be our fourth and fifth DCL cruises, people here made me feel better by pointing out because I didn't want a port heavy (too many excursions) cruise anyhow, and we are already familiar with what DCL has to offer, this is a good thing. We can never seem to relax on the seven and eight nights. So we will be forced to this way! Lol I wish us both luck!

 

[Soontobegoodsell]

I was nervous as I was thinking the same thing! I'm doing a 3-N then a 4-N with family. But, the 3-N it'll be somewhat of a business trip.

This is what I've gathered so far from my research on it:

PROS
- It's not a short vacation at the end of your first cruise, you get to get back on.
- You're on board earlier than others.
- You can have your same serving team and they already know what you love - that's a plus.
- Same menu for food. I love this because if I want to try multiple items but don't want to stuff myself or waste food, I know I can look forward to it on the second cruise.
- Same activities. Also a plus, what happens if I want to relax one cruise or do something but it was at the same time as another item of choice? Now, I can do them both and not have to worry about missing something.
- 2 stops at Castaway Cay - CANT BEAT THAT!

CONS
- You have to pack and get off the ship - packing is different if you are in different staterooms. Easier if in the same stateroom.
- Same menu for food (also a plus - see above)
- Same activities (also a plus - see above)


I'm excited about the B2B. I hope to meet some other B2B guests as well! Should be a great time and you saved money, plus plus!

 

[DCLDVC1]

You're gonna love it!! You can't beat two stops at Castaway Cay and the 3 night will be very relaxing because you did most everything you wanted on the 4 night. I've actually enjoyed my 4nt/3nt B2Bs more than the 7 night cruises I've been on.

 

[shoes99]

We just finished a B2B on the Magic out of Miami, it was a 5 + 5. We have also done a B2B on the Dream 4+3.
We love the longer cruises. Posters are right that you sort of lose a day on the second cruise, but since you
are allowed back on to the ship early it is good. DH had a ECV so he rolled back to the cabin and he took a
nap while I roamed around. I went back to check on him around 1:25PM and the ropes were still up. Some folks look at me
but i had no bags and I just said, going to check on a disabled cruiser. No one had a problem with that.
Since the shows are the same, and the menus are the same you have a little flexibility of missing a show. We went to
Palo on both sailings so we did miss a rotational dining. Have fun!!

 

[girliesj]

yep it's a reset - kinda. But you should be able to get back onboard early (I have no idea about the logistics). It sounds to my like you are going in the Summer, or Spring Break or around the Christmas holidays. Its a good bet that the weather will be very nice (winter will be cooler). So you are back on board and can spend a lot of time around the pool without so many people.

And then there's the two embarkation buffets and two sail away parties. And two fireworks shows!! Sounds OK to me.

Yep, you're right. Summer and Spring Break were our only options, and the $11,000+ price tag on the Summer ones (for the 5 of us) almost gave me heart palpitations. I've been able to pull my kids out of school for every cruise up to this point....but next year is a big year for my son and I just don't think I can swing it any more Plus work obligations for my husband knocked us out of the 7 nights over Spring Break....B2B was our only option.

 

[cruiser21]

Due to pricing (sigh), scheduling conflicts (sigh), and not wanting to pull my kids out of school, we were left with VERY few options for using our OBB w/in 24 months to book our next cruise. SO. After hemming and hawing this AM, we booked a 4-night and 3-night B2B on the Dream.

Tell me I'm going to love it! Tell me I didn't make a mistake! We love our 7-night cruises, but I"m concerned it will feel strange and wasted "starting over" on day 4 of our vacay! Help!

Can you book a b2b with one Obb or did you need two.

 

[Soontobegoodsell]

Can you book a b2b with one Obb or did you need two.

I believe you need two, at least I did with a concierge booking. If I'm wrong though, please correct me

 

[Trera]

Back to backs fit our family well because we love CC so much. We have one coming up in May this year and cant wait as we havent been on the Dream in about a year.

You can get lots of aquaduct slide time in at the beginning of the second cruise before it gets too busy. Love the stone crabs on the embarkation buffet.........so you get to eat those twice. As someone else said, you get fireworks twice.

 

[girliesj]

Yes...I used my OBB for the first one and paid regular price for the second. Also, we only got $100 state room credit because each sailing is less than 7 nights, even though we're sailing for 7 nights total

 

[dcassetta]

Can you book a b2b with one Obb or did you need two.

If you want benefits for both legs you must have two placeholders.

 

[shoes99]

Can you book a b2b with one Obb or did you need two.

We added leg #1 after we got home, so only OBB on leg #2.
We kept the same stateroom...

 

[jetskigrl]

We did B2B on the Dream before the Fantasy was put in service because we wanted to try the new ship and see CC (and it was too far coming from the West Coast to only do 4 nights). We did 4-night followed by 3-night. The turnaround day turned out to be the only day that we really spent by the pool because it was so nice having it all to ourselves (with the other B2B'ers). There were enough of us that they opened the Aquaduck early too (before general boarding started). We ate in the MDR all 4 nights of the first cruise but then only ate there 1 night on the 3 night cruise and spent the other two nights doing things on the ship with no crowds (Aquaduck, mini-golf, etc).

We didn't feel like we lost too much of the changeover day since we were only off the ship for about an hour. We were in the same room so we didn't have to pack our stuff or anything.

 

[Floridatinaherb]

- You have to pack and get off the ship - packing is different if you are in different staterooms. Easier if in the same stateroom.

If you are in the same stateroom you don't have to pack until the last night of the second leg There will be instructions on how your procedures will work in your stateroom.

We did a B2B 2 years ago and loved it. We don't normally do a lot in Nassau anyways (we normally stay on the boat) so going there twice wasn't a deal breaker for us.

 

[Quellman]

We did the Dream back to back. I'm sure if you browse my post history you'll find it somewhere. We enjoyed it, but the immediate repetition was a minor annoyance. Same food menu, same shows. But it did allow us more time to try other things. For us the Back to Back was cheaper than the 7 night on the Fantasy. Saved on parking costs too.

 

[girliesj]

We did the Dream back to back. I'm sure if you browse my post history you'll find it somewhere. We enjoyed it, but the immediate repetition was a minor annoyance. Same food menu, same shows. But it did allow us more time to try other things. For us the Back to Back was cheaper than the 7 night on the Fantasy. Saved on parking costs too.

I guess a plus for us will be that we have ended up missing some shows and wishing we didn't etc on our 7 nights because with small kids it's hard to plan out exactly how an evening will run....we missed BOTH Pirate Night and SWDAS fireworks on our last cruise because of tired kids. SO doing the B2B will give us a chance to see everything since it's repeated!

 

[melissajx3]

We did B2B last year and enjoyed it, we're doing another in a week! The crossover day didn't feel like a waste to us.

 

[Starwind]

We did a B2B on the Dream in december 2015. We enjoyed it.

The wait time in the terminal on switch day let us take pictures of a pretty much empty terminal The wait itself was not very long and not a big deal.

We liked the repetition of shows -- we planned out which one we were going to go to, so we weren't going to a show every night but got to see them all. This was GREAT ! ! it freed up our no-show evenings to do other things

Our serving team knew we were B2B and we decided to keep them for the 2nd leg. They were great and it was really nice having the continuity.

We would do it again.

SW