Cabin for a family of 5

[mccarch]

My family is considering the 7 day Disney Cruise but we are very concerned that the cabins will be too small for us. Our boys are 11, 7, and 5. Please let me know what experience families of 5 have had. I would appreciate information on which specific rooms in Category 4 are the biggest. Also, is Category 4 big enough or should we upgrade to 3, 2, or 1?

Thanks.

Cheryl

 

[goofysgirl]

We sailed cat 4 with 11,9, and 6 yr old girls. The cabins are big enough, but we never spent much time in the room together unless we were sleeping. We did two 4 days cruises with these accomodations and were very happy.
We did book the 7 day in October this year and we actually downgraded to adjoining cat 10 secret port hole rooms. This way the girls will have their own place and we will have two showers when necessary. Their grandparents are coming with us, and their cabin is on the other side of the girls' leaving them sandwiched in between us.
We found we never spent alot of time in the rooms, but found them to be big enough for our needs. Happy sailing!

 

[dianedisney]

I have cruised on the Disney Magic 7nt cruise and I had the Category 4 cabin. I was real surprised how much room it had and 3 of the beds are hidden so they are only out at night. One bed is the sofa (the back lays down), the room steward has a key to open the other two ( one in ceiling one in wall ). I loved the bathroom set up separating the toliet from the shower/tub. If you choose to do Category 3, 2 or 1 just know these are hard to get and most of the time have to be booked way in advance as there aren't too many on the ship. Have a Disney Day!!!

 

[Towncrier]

On our first cruise as a family of 5, we opted for the Cat4 room. It was plenty large enough for us. The one negative thing that we encountered was that DW Sue's mom was the one who slept in the Murphy bed and my dear MIL likes to sleep a bit longer than the rest of us. Normally this would not be a problem, but Sue (the earlier riser in our bunch) envisioned heading out onto our verandah early in the morning to read. She found that she could not get to the verandah if the Murphy bed was down. So much for that plan.

We are cruising again in two weeks and this time opted for adjoining Cat10 rooms. This way we will double our bathroom space and have a bit more room to move around. And the kids are bunking with MIL.

 

[my3kids]

We are a family of 5 also. We opted for 2 connecting cat. 10's instead of the cat. 4. If you do go to the 3, book of the more centered cat. 3 suites. The others are smaller and the 5th bed is in the bedroom with the parents. I liked the idea of 2 connecting rooms for the extra bathroom, the extra space and the privacy.

 

[mog]

We just went in December in a cat. 4, 7 night with 5 of us. We had cruised before (not on Disney) and were pleasantly surprised at the size of the cat. 4 rooms. There was plenty of room for us and our stuff. The split bathrooms were great. We were even able to get out to the veranda after the kids were asleep, because our 3 year old was in the Murphy bed - since she didn't take up the whole thing, we just stepped over the bottom of the bed and went out. The only problem we had was that we had all the kids' clothes stored in the "sea chest" dresser at the foot of the murphy bed and you couldn't get it open when the bed was down. That meant we either had to plan ahead and have all the clothes out, or stick our arm in the little opening and dig around for something!

 

[dizneykids]

our first cruise was cat 4 with our 3 boys (at that point...6, 5 and 4 months). with the baby, we had a port-a-crib, so there was a bit more room than if we had to use the murphy bed. our only complaint was the lack of storage space for the luggage, stroller, car seat, etc. ended up tucking the stroller into one of the cubby areas in the hallway. fortunately, we had no problems in doing so.

our next cruise, we did a cat 3 1br. the bedroom itself was huge and so we had plenty of room for the port-a-crib (youngest was just over one at that point) in the corner of the br. two older ones slept on pull-out couch in living room. plenty of room for all our stuff that time.

dh and i did a "adults only" cruise in cat 8 following disneyana last year. except for the back-up of exhaust into all the midships staterooms and the ensuing nausea, we had no problems with the size of this room, but would not be feasible if we had all our boys with us.

finally, over this past thanksgiving, we did cat 1 walter e. suite with all three boys and mil. PLENTY of room there, but frankly a waste of money for only 3 days. but it did give us a nice teaser for our trip in march on the magic in the walter e. suite. i'm getting so excited about this cruise...prolly more so than for our first. no mil this trip , so will have LOTS of room (and better time). only problem we foresee is the boys arguing over the top bunks! i'm already working out a schedule!