Christmas Activities/Decorations On-Board?

[bwallace]

we're looking at booking a cruise out of Galveston in the Fall/Early Winter.

My favorite time of the year to go to WDW is when the Christmas decorations are up.

So, I was wondering if the cruise ships do anything special during the Christmas season that might sway us more toward early December than October.

i found this

http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/cruise-new/cr-activities.htm#seasonal

any more recent, real world experience with Christmas activities in late November/early December?

Thanks in advance.

 

[kathi]

We have been on the Magic the week after Thanksgiving the past 2 years. I don't recall any Christmas activities, but the ship was decorated for the holidays. There was a lovely (and great smelling) gingerbread house by the guest services desk. There is a giant Christmas tree in the main lobby and lovely holiday decorations all over the ship.

 

[4407mark]

We were on the Dream for Christmas and had an amazing time! The decorations were beautiful and it was a wonderful time to cruise. As for anything special, we received a special Christmas lithograph, a box of chocolates, and Santa was in the atrium lobby Christmas morning. Beautiful ice sculptures, Christmas cookies galore - I would gladly go again!

 

[tyarbrough]

We were on the Dream this Christmas. There is a gingerbread house making activity. Go to guest services to get tickets when you first board. They had two times for us to pick from. It was one gingerbread house per stateroom (not per child) so I had to prepare the kids to share!

You can't take the gingerbread ship off the boat, so if you plan to eat it, schedule earlier in the cruise.

 

[Princess Sleepy]

Do they leave the decorations up through New Year's? We will be on a Dec. 28th cruise and I wondered if it would still be dressed for the holidays.

 

[kcashner]

The decorations go up before the Thanksgiving cruise and are taken down at the end of the New Year's cruise. If you board on January 3 or 5, they will be down.

Activities start mid December--gingerbread house making, etc. and increase the closer you get to Christmas.

 

[usafvet]

Do they leave the decorations up through New Year's? We will be on a Dec. 28th cruise and I wondered if it would still be dressed for the holidays.

To piggyback on this question, does anyone know if they'll still have activities like gingerbread house making after the Chrsitmas cruise. Like Princess Sleepy, I booked a New Year's cruise for our family that leaves out of Galveston on Dec 29th 2012. I understand that some Christmasy things will probably not be available after Christmas, but my family is the kind of family that celebrate Christmas past the 25th and into the New Year. If they opt to carry out some of those activities on the New Year's cruise I know my kids would be super thrilled.

 

[ForTheLoveOfDCL]

Ok so my Christmas time cruise is far away...normally we cruise Oct but we have decided with great friends to do a Christmas time cruise. We are going on the Fantasy Dec 14-21(I think..LOL) so basically the week before the xmas week. Will they have all the fun activities starting on that cruise? We can't go over xmas week due to my DH can't get that week off but so this is as close to spending xmas onboard that I get.

 

[rosermama]

here are a couple of pics of just some of the decorations

The large tree in the lobby of the ship

The gingerbread house

In the terminal

 

[disneydiva16]

Those are great pictures! I can't wait til my Christmas cruise

 

[ForTheLoveOfDCL]

Those are great pictures! I can't wait til my Christmas cruise

I can't wait!!! We are gonna have so much fun my friend!!!

 

[rosermama]

OK I found one more pic of the tree all by itself

 

[ForTheLoveOfDCL]

Loving the pictures, but can anyone tell me the events that go on that I shouldn't miss. For example, I make sure my girls and I do Tea every cruise, it's our tradition and special time together. Is there any other special only christmas time things on the navigator that are must do's or things that are ;limited so I should get tickets for it right away??