First cruise - Traveling with 8 - advice?

[ChristyBey]

My parents, my sister, my two teen boys, a teen girl and my husband and I are going on our first Disney cruise, three nights on the Wonder. Couple of questions - we are planning on heading down a day early and staying at Shades of Green. Any advice about most cost effective way of getting to the ship? Also, thinking about doing a character breakfast before heading out that morning. Does anyone know if Shades of Green transports to other Disney resorts? We loved the breakfast at the Polynesian with Lilo and Stitch. (We haven't been to Disney since 2009!) Any advice about traveling with a wide range of ages, interests, and first timers?

 

[Carrie in AZ]

Three night cruises are so short, my best advice would be to try and get the earliest boarding time possible and start enjoying the ship and your cruise!

Are your teens asking to go to a character breakfast? There is lots of character interaction on the ship. Maybe relax in the morning rather than race around to another resort and then back...that sounds like a hectic way to start off.

Good luck and have so much fun!

 

[jdb in AZ]

My parents, my sister, my two teen boys, a teen girl and my husband and I are going on our first Disney cruise, three nights on the Wonder. Couple of questions - we are planning on heading down a day early and staying at Shades of Green. Any advice about most cost effective way of getting to the ship? Also, thinking about doing a character breakfast before heading out that morning. Does anyone know if Shades of Green transports to other Disney resorts? We loved the breakfast at the Polynesian with Lilo and Stitch. (We haven't been to Disney since 2009!) Any advice about traveling with a wide range of ages, interests, and first timers?

For a group of 8, the cheapest transportation to the ship would be a rental car. Depending on how much luggage everyone takes, you might need two rental cars. With the rental(s) you could drive to another Disney resort. Just for fun, you could also get an online quote on limo service from Happy Limo.

 

[lanejudy]

I agree with PP who says that morning could be hectic with a character meal. Unless the teens are early risers and you plan an early ADR, I'd skip it and relax at Shades of Green that morning. I always plan that a character breakfast will take 1.5 - 2 hours, depending on how quickly we are seated (and Ohana breakfast is more often running late unless you are an early ADR). Most cruises out of Port Canaveral have the terminal open at 10:30am and I'd aim for early with a short 3-night cruise. If you really want to do the breakfast, I'd do rental car(s) so you can depart directly from the Poly after breakfast.

I do not believe Shades of Green offers resort-to-resort transportation. I don't believe Shades of Green participates in ME transportation from MCO, either, so you might just want to get rentals to get everyone to the resort and then on to the port.

Enjoy your cruise!

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

We did a group of nine and rented two cars. Gave good flexibility before and after too. In terms of where you eat, and if anyone needs to stop and get things from a store, etc. For a 3-day cruise, keeping one set of cars the whole time, might be cheaper, even when you add on the cost of parking the cars at the port. We did two, one-way rentals for our 7 day cruise, but then we had to pick up and drop off twice. No big deal, but keeping one car the whole time would have been easier. We rented one sedan and one mini-van. Two large sedans would have been cheaper. (They always charge SO MUCH MORE for a mini-van). Depends how much luggage you have and how you feel about having luggage in the car with the people if needed. It is about an hour drive from Orlando to the port.

 

[Pagosa Springs]

We are doing a 3 night cruise in 2 weeks and staying at the all stars the night before. We are traveling with a family of 8 also. I get a good deal thru work at National Car rental. There is one on property and will pick you up. I am renting a 12-15 passenger van for $80 and dropping of at Port Canaveral. Check the rates and see. You have to call them the day prior to rental to schedule pick up.

As far as breakfast, Shades of Green is right across the street from Poly. You could walk over to the Poly. As others said, it is pushing it to do that much on the morning of the cruise. If you PAT is 11am or after then i would do it if you could get a 8am or earlier breakfast.

 

[PurplePencil]

Are the teens planning on going to Vibe (the teen club)?
Since you are first time cruisers, nobody will receive a lanyard. Lanyards are very convenient to carry your KTTWC in, so I highly suggest purchasing a lanyard at some point (or a least for the teens, since its very easy to set your card down and walk away from it)

 

[PAGA2003]

We just did a 3 night on the Wonder and did breakfast at Ohana before we headed to the port so I would totally recommend it! Since you will be finding your own transportation and don't have to worry about DCL buses it should really be very easy. SoG is an easy (15-20 minute) walk to the Polynesian or you could even head to breakfast at one of the other monorail resorts just by hopping on at Poly, obviously Ohana would be easiest though! We had a reservation for 7:30 and were seated around 7:40. We didn't rush at breakfast at all but were easily done in an hour. Both times we've eaten at Ohana they have been very fast with getting food out and the characters all came around in a very timely fashion. We had the earliest PAT (11:00 for our sailing) so we hopped on the monorail to walk around the Grand Floridian (since we had so much time to kill) before heading back to our car and leaving for the port around 9:45. We were parking at the port at 11:05.

Even before our first cruise we had a 7:45 reservation at Kona Cafe that morning and again had plenty of time. Both times we drove to the Polynesian from another Disney resort and we still didn't feel rushed. We enjoy starting the morning with a table service breakfast before heading to the port