Cheapest way for a family of 5 to do a Disney cruise?

[eeyorepixie]

Well like all things Disney it seems once you have the 3rd child you suddenly have to pay a whole lot more.

I am trying to figure out how we could do this in 2011??? All advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[heatherwillmom]

We are a family of 5. Although we haven't done a cruise yet,(planning on it in 2011), I have done a lot of research here on the boards as well as other sources. The cheapest way with plenty of room is 2 connecting inside rooms. It depends on the age of the kids.

 

[eeyorepixie]

are you guaranteed connecting rooms?

 

[heatherwillmom]

I was told that you could be. My kids are teenagers so we are getting rooms across the hall so we can get a verandah

 

[kcashner]

We have been told that there will be more options for larger families on the Dream which launches in 2011. IF you book a situation where you get to choose your cabin number (NOT a gty booking), you are assured that you will have connecting rooms (provided you or your TA names them that way at booking!) They can note it on your reservation that you must have connecting rooms so that if you are lucky enough to be upgraded, you'll only go to another set of connecting cabins.

 

[heatherwillmom]

A catagory 4 actually sleeps 5 but it would be a tight fit.

 

[minnieandgrumpy1]

I am cruising with my family of 5 in 2011. It is cheaper to book two rooms. We were able to get adjoining rooms. You do pay 1st and 2nd price in both cabins even though the kids are minors. You have to book one adult in each room. Our TA checked both ways and we saved by going with two adjoining rooms and we have two bathrooms and more room. The other thing we have done in the past is if you are traveling with another party and they only have three, you can book a child with them. We did that before because we were traveling with friends who only had one child the same age as my oldest son and we saved a ton and he slept in the other room but we kept all his stuff in our room but it worked out.

 

[ACDSNY]

I'll be trying the new category 8C family oceanview cabins on the Dream in Nov 2011, they state they'll sleep 5.

 

[HallsofVA]

Well like all things Disney it seems once you have the 3rd child you suddenly have to pay a whole lot more.

I am trying to figure out how we could do this in 2011??? All advice would be greatly appreciated!

The cheapest way is to take advantage of a Kids Sail free promotion! However, they may not have one of those for the Dream any time soon. Short of that, the Dream has two categories, Cat 8 Oceanview and Cat 4 Verandah, that sleep 5 in a single room. Cat 8 would be the cheapest option for a single room. But price out options for two rooms, either connecting (especially if your kids are young), or across the hall from each other if they are older and you want to have at least one window or verandah but don't need two of them. The Connecting room option is nice, since you can put the kids in one room and the adults in the other, and it's like a mini suite. The Dream has quite a lot of connecting rooms in almost every category so there could be lots of options depending on the date you are looking at.

 

[eeyorepixie]

First I want to say thank you for helping! I love the DIS

so for me the dream is not my priority, cheap is

Any Disney cruise ship will do and I would prefer to de everything myself...I guess I have control issues

so when do they offer the kids sail for free offer? and is it available ever in the summer?

When are the cheapest times to sale...do they have a value season?

 

[eeyorepixie]

First I want to say thank you for helping! I love the DIS

so for me the dream is not my priority, cheap is

Any Disney cruise ship will do and I would prefer to de everything myself...I guess I have control issues

so when do they offer the kids sail for free offer? and is it available ever in the summer?

When are the cheapest times to sale...do they have a value season?

 

[lmhall2000]

so for me the dream is not my priority, cheap isAny Disney cruise ship will do and I would prefer to de everything myself...I guess I have control issues
so when do they offer the kids sail for free offer? and is it available ever in the summer?
When are the cheapest times to sale...do they have a value season?

A mom after my own heart! (Okay you may be a Dad, can't really tell! )

We are a family of five and just took our first ever cruise. I think we probably booked pp cheaper than anyone...we invited our parents along so we got 7 for $630 pp for a 10 night cruise in the Mediterranean (granted that was only the cruising part and airfare was not as nice as it had been in the past but you're asking cruise questions)

We got this b/c like another diser stated you can take advantage of kids sail free offers...so per paying adult you get one child free...so in your case you'd need to pay for 2 adults and one child (do the younger one and let the older ones go free..)

The best times to go are January, May and September (rate wise) it's all about supply and demand...many families can not travel these months due to school limitations..other months have exceptions because schools have fall breaks in October/November Christmas breaks in December and spring breaks starting in Feb-April....January is just not usually a good time to sail b/c of iffy weather...so shoot for May/September if you can.

Book 2 inside 12 category rooms...the only problem with your situation is you would need to put one adult in each room, my suggestion would be to put 4 of you in one room and one in the other because cat 12's only fit 3...if you put 2 & 3 then you might end up with cat 12's...but many times they will upgrade you especially if you have 4 in the room...and they try to keep you all together so the opportunity for a free upgrade might be better doing it the way I mentioned...we had 4 in one and 3 in the other and they moved us to a category 9 (big window, outside stateroom) adjoining room...it was wonderful.

Now if the economy still suffers..they are going to have a hard time filling slots on the Magic and the Wonder...most loyal Dis cruisers have already booked their Dream and the Fantasy is supposed to roll out the next year (2012?) So Magic and Wonder will most likely offer some very attractive deals...I thought we would really like the veranda and considered upgrading to a cat 4...but it would have cost us $1800 more at port and to be honest, having the two rooms gave us much more space not to mention two bathrooms and extra closet storage..

Hope this helps!!
Tara

 

[eeyorepixie]

A mom after my own heart! (Okay you may be a Dad, can't really tell! )

We are a family of five and just took our first ever cruise. I think we probably booked pp cheaper than anyone...




Now if the economy still suffers..they are going to have a hard time filling slots on the Magic and the Wonder...most loyal Dis cruisers have already booked their Dream and the Fantasy is supposed to roll out the next year (2012?) So Magic and Wonder will most likely offer some very attractive deals...I thought we would really like the veranda and considered upgrading to a cat 4...but it would have cost us $1800 more at port and to be honest, having the two rooms gave us much more space not to mention two bathrooms and extra closet storage..

Hope this helps!!
Tara

Tara you are a Mom after my own heart too! Cheap!!! or as my girlfriend tells me we are not cheap just discerning or shrewd but in my case it not being able to live the way a Queen should be able to live due to lack of funds...or at least as much funds as I would like

Thanks for the post and advice this is just the kind of info I am looking for, because I am trying to figure out my best strategy and I know I have to plan way ahead to swing this for my family.

I am hoping that with the launch of the 2 new trips everyone will want to book those ships and some bargains will come my way. I will be thrilled to be on any Disney ship!

 

[dxcspilk]

A mom after my own heart! (Okay you may be a Dad, can't really tell! )

We are a family of five and just took our first ever cruise. I think we probably booked pp cheaper than anyone...we invited our parents along so we got 7 for $630 pp for a 10 night cruise in the Mediterranean (granted that was only the cruising part and airfare was not as nice as it had been in the past but you're asking cruise questions)

We got this b/c like another diser stated you can take advantage of kids sail free offers...so per paying adult you get one child free...so in your case you'd need to pay for 2 adults and one child (do the younger one and let the older ones go free..)

The best times to go are January, May and September (rate wise) it's all about supply and demand...many families can not travel these months due to school limitations..other months have exceptions because schools have fall breaks in October/November Christmas breaks in December and spring breaks starting in Feb-April....January is just not usually a good time to sail b/c of iffy weather...so shoot for May/September if you can.

Book 2 inside 12 category rooms...the only problem with your situation is you would need to put one adult in each room, my suggestion would be to put 4 of you in one room and one in the other because cat 12's only fit 3...if you put 2 & 3 then you might end up with cat 12's...but many times they will upgrade you especially if you have 4 in the room...and they try to keep you all together so the opportunity for a free upgrade might be better doing it the way I mentioned...we had 4 in one and 3 in the other and they moved us to a category 9 (big window, outside stateroom) adjoining room...it was wonderful.

Now if the economy still suffers..they are going to have a hard time filling slots on the Magic and the Wonder...most loyal Dis cruisers have already booked their Dream and the Fantasy is supposed to roll out the next year (2012?) So Magic and Wonder will most likely offer some very attractive deals...I thought we would really like the veranda and considered upgrading to a cat 4...but it would have cost us $1800 more at port and to be honest, having the two rooms gave us much more space not to mention two bathrooms and extra closet storage..

Hope this helps!!
Tara

Don't they book rooms based on double occupancy? If so then you would end up paying for a second person in the room with only 1 person booked. I have gone over this in my head, but we ended up booking 2 and 3 people in the rooms.

 

[starchef]

We are set for our third cruise next June, there are 5 of us and we have found it cheapest to book 2 adjoining staterooms cat 10 or 11, That gives us 2 full rooms and bathrooms, we link the reservations so all excursions are done together. We find the rooms on the DCL site and make deposit to book, then turn it over to DU for the stateroom credit and then get them to work on getting us the rooms that we want. We don't worry about being inside staterooms, as we only use the room to sleep and shower.
Yes, you have to book one adult in each room, with the adjoining rooms there is a door that joins the room and we prop it open. You don't have to sleep in the room that you book. Our stateroom attendants know what is going on and they actually help to make it work out for us, actually putting all the kids in one room and then me and the wife have the other to ourselves.
On our upcoming cruise we saved almost $2500 by doing this over a single room that would hold the 5 of us.

 

[Blanche_Neige]

A mom after my own heart! (Okay you may be a Dad, can't really tell! )

We are a family of five and just took our first ever cruise. I think we probably booked pp cheaper than anyone...we invited our parents along so we got 7 for $630 pp for a 10 night cruise in the Mediterranean (granted that was only the cruising part and airfare was not as nice as it had been in the past but you're asking cruise questions)

We got this b/c like another diser stated you can take advantage of kids sail free offers...so per paying adult you get one child free...so in your case you'd need to pay for 2 adults and one child (do the younger one and let the older ones go free..)

The best times to go are January, May and September (rate wise) it's all about supply and demand...many families can not travel these months due to school limitations..other months have exceptions because schools have fall breaks in October/November Christmas breaks in December and spring breaks starting in Feb-April....January is just not usually a good time to sail b/c of iffy weather...so shoot for May/September if you can.

Book 2 inside 12 category rooms...the only problem with your situation is you would need to put one adult in each room, my suggestion would be to put 4 of you in one room and one in the other because cat 12's only fit 3...if you put 2 & 3 then you might end up with cat 12's...but many times they will upgrade you especially if you have 4 in the room...and they try to keep you all together so the opportunity for a free upgrade might be better doing it the way I mentioned...we had 4 in one and 3 in the other and they moved us to a category 9 (big window, outside stateroom) adjoining room...it was wonderful.

Now if the economy still suffers..they are going to have a hard time filling slots on the Magic and the Wonder...most loyal Dis cruisers have already booked their Dream and the Fantasy is supposed to roll out the next year (2012?) So Magic and Wonder will most likely offer some very attractive deals...I thought we would really like the veranda and considered upgrading to a cat 4...but it would have cost us $1800 more at port and to be honest, having the two rooms gave us much more space not to mention two bathrooms and extra closet storage..

Hope this helps!!
Tara

Thank you for this info. it does help. We are a family of 5, going on our first 3 day cruise. Already planning the next one, trying to figure how we could afford a longer one.

 

[starchef]

One other thing is to look at using a TA as you might get a pretty good amount of an OBC as a result of booking with thru them. We book initially with DCL and them transfer over to DU. We got a good OBC with our 2 staterooms booking.

 

[webbede]

My family of 5 found category 8 on the Dream next October to be cheaper than booking 2 statements by a fair amount. www.*************.com will show you the cost of every category that is available on a particular sailing. That tool might be helpful to you.

 

[webbede]

That is All Seas Travel's website that shows the detailed pricing. It shows as ***** in my posting above.