First time DCL cruiser, all activities already sold out for Fantasy this February?

[Sbunit]

Hi all

Seasoned Disney world vet here but first time Disney cruiser sailing on the Disney fantasy western carribean star wars day at season this February. As a first time cruiser our booking window just opened up this morning for onboard activities. While I’m thrilled we were able to snag a reservation for Remy, just about everything else was sold out ( tastings, sports simulator, pirate makeover for the boys and Jedi training). Is this accurate that everything is indeed sold out? Do they open up more reservations later or are there any tips/suggestions more seasoned cruisers can pass along? I’m kind of bummed out ( I don’t mind planning and putting in the effort as I always do with our wdw vacations but I feel almost helpless here trying to book activities only to find everything sold out). Thanks for any help in advance

 

[Marc D]

Things will open up before bookings close a few days before your cruise, since guests change plans all the time. You can stalk the site to snag something between now and then. If you missed something, they hold on to tickets for most activities. Go to guests services first thing when you board (the earliest, the better) and you should be able to book most things, except maybe the Jedi training.

As a seasoned cruiser, all I can add is that, while those activities are fun, you can have a blast without doing any of them. We never did a tasting, did our first Palo lunch on our 8th cruise, do not dress up for Pirate night and we loved every minute of our cruises anyway.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Things will open up before bookings close a few days before your cruise, since guests change plans all the time. You can stalk the site to snag something between now and then. If you missed something, they hold on to tickets for most activities. Go to guests services first thing when you board (the earliest, the better) and you should be able to book most things, except maybe the Jedi training.

As a seasoned cruiser, all I can add is that, while those activities are fun, you can have a blast without doing any of them. We never did a tasting, did our first Palo lunch on our 8th cruise, do not dress up for Pirate night and we loved every minute of our cruises anyway.

Funny you say that. I was kinda bummed because we are gold members now and I was all excited about the extra activity booking time ahead of other members. Then I realized that there was nothing we wanted to book. Nothing at all. So that Gold did me a lot of nothing.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

They do hold back some bookings for onboard, but pirate makeovers on pirate day I well believe are gone. Jedi also tends to not be held bcak.

Tastings tend to be added later. Your cruise Meetup group may do private sessions if you join them.

 

[Sbunit]

Well that is somewhat reassuring. Disney should really consider coming up with a better system so as not to totally penalize first time cruisers. I feel very disadvantaged here. Again, I'm not saying this is the end of the worl, and like the PP mentioned, I'm sure there will be other opportunities to have fun. But there should be a different system in place that doesn't leave people with scraps after all the concierge rooms book what they want.

 

[Trera]

Well that is somewhat reassuring. Disney should really consider coming up with a better system so as not to totally penalize first time cruisers. I feel very disadvantaged here. Again, I'm not saying this is the end of the worl, and like the PP mentioned, I'm sure there will be other opportunities to have fun. But there should be a different system in place that doesn't leave people with scraps after all the concierge rooms book what they want.

It not just concierge. There are platinum and gold that get an early jump on bookings. I am not sure what the percentage of repeat cruisers to first time cruisers are on these ships but I would think it would be relatively high.

 

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

Well that is somewhat reassuring. Disney should really consider coming up with a better system so as not to totally penalize first time cruisers. I feel very disadvantaged here. Again, I'm not saying this is the end of the worl, and like the PP mentioned, I'm sure there will be other opportunities to have fun. But there should be a different system in place that doesn't leave people with scraps after all the concierge rooms book what they want.

Though I agree with you about how I think it should be done, the fact is Disney does it this way on purpose.

It's an additional incentive to book additional cruises, and also to justify the high cost of concierge.

Carnival, for instance, manages its booking system encourage earlier commitments, everything is first come first served. (Except check in time which was recently changed)

 

[Marc D]

It not just concierge. There are platinum and gold that get an early jump on bookings. I am not sure what the percentage of repeat cruisers to first time cruisers are on these ships but I would think it would be relatively high.

The percentage varies A LOT from cruise to cruise. On our British Isles cruise last year, around 50 % were Gold or Platinum. On our Galveston cruise in 2016, around 40 % were first-time cruisers. The few dozen Concierge cabin do not make a lot of difference when half the ship has a two-week priority.

DCL as no incentive to modify the booking window policy. Due to the scarcity of the rooms and the massive demand, they can justify having one of the least generous fidelity program of the industry. The biggest perk they give is having the ability to book cruises or activities first.

 

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

Hi all

Seasoned Disney world vet here but first time Disney cruiser sailing on the Disney fantasy western carribean star wars day at season this February. As a first time cruiser our booking window just opened up this morning for onboard activities. While I’m thrilled we were able to snag a reservation for Remy, just about everything else was sold out ( tastings, sports simulator, pirate makeover for the boys and Jedi training). Is this accurate that everything is indeed sold out? Do they open up more reservations later or are there any tips/suggestions more seasoned cruisers can pass along? I’m kind of bummed out ( I don’t mind planning and putting in the effort as I always do with our wdw vacations but I feel almost helpless here trying to book activities only to find everything sold out). Thanks for any help in advance

How is availability of port adventures?

 

[Dug720]

Well that is somewhat reassuring. Disney should really consider coming up with a better system so as not to totally penalize first time cruisers. I feel very disadvantaged here. Again, I'm not saying this is the end of the worl, and like the PP mentioned, I'm sure there will be other opportunities to have fun. But there should be a different system in place that doesn't leave people with scraps after all the concierge rooms book what they want.

It's not penalizing first time cruisers. It's rewarding repeat cruisers. And we've all been first-time cruisers before so unless we felt the need to do Concierge (and book enough in advance to take advantage of it), we have all had last pick.

As others have said, you can have a perfectly amazing cruise without all the extras.

 

[Sbunit]

How is availability of port adventures?

Port adventures seems to have quite a bit of availability. I have a 5 and 3 year old so I wasn't looking into the more popular excursions however.

 

[Sbunit]

It's not penalizing first time cruisers. It's rewarding repeat cruisers.

I agree repeat cruisers should be rewarded, but the discrepancy in booking priority is still quite large even for 2nd time cruisers.

 

[Dug720]

I agree repeat cruisers should be rewarded, but the discrepancy in booking priority is still quite large even for 2nd time cruisers.

And we have all been there. We all work our way up. I'm still only Silver myself. Do I get everything I want? Nope. But I still have an amazing cruise because it's about the overall vacation and not one or two events.

 

[kiford]

You should also recognize that a lot of the onboard things that you can book, such as the sports simulator, can actually take away your time from just exploring if you're just a first time cruiser and so don't necessarily enhance your cruising experience. There's plenty of free activities. After 10 cruises, we don't always book a lot of things, other than some of the tastings but we've also done a lot of those already and some we aren't interested in repeating. On our last cruise with friends, a Caribbean cruise which we've both done a couple of times, we only got off at Jamaica and Cozumel where we did do port tours, got off at Castaway Cay just for lunch, and didn't bother getting off at Grand Cayman. We spent most of our time sitting on deck, watching movies and shows, going to the cooking demos, sitting in Satellite Falls, playing mini-golf, Aqua Duck, pool time, pirate party (said I wasn't going to go but did just like every other time I say I'm not going), Mid-Ship Detective game. None of those things required booking or extra cost. Our friends don't drink much so we didn't bother with any of the tastings on that cruise. We still missed trivia time, didn't manage to get to the piano bar, go to the dance bar (not that I think I could have managed to get DH there), missed some movies we'd planned to see, only did two of the Mid-ship detective games. Our days always seemed to be full.

You should still check back from time-to-time as people do cancel and rearrange activities. Check the Navigator when you check in as it will list where you can go to book tastings that have been added, Palo dining (they do hold some back and people also cancel plus there may be some spaces available after everyone has had a chance to book). You can also check and see if anyone has cancelled simulator time or if there are spaces held back. But there really is a lot to do without booking additional things. I always end up marking a lot of things in the Navigator that I plan for us to do and we end up doing about half of them because we somehow seem to be too busy.

 

[Sbunit]

Hey I noticed a bunch of character meets that have to be signed up for, specifically Star Wars characters. I noticed some other characters were missing (i.e Kylo Ren). Is he not on the ship?

 

[pezgirlroy]

Hey I noticed a bunch of character meets that have to be signed up for, specifically Star Wars characters. I noticed some other characters were missing (i.e Kylo Ren). Is he not on the ship?

I am assuming you are on a Star wars cruise. I do believe there is a special meet and greet for a couple of those. The only non Star Wars that you need to have tickets (free) for are the Princess Gathering (but keep in mind they are around a lot of other times) and Else and Anna.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Hey I noticed a bunch of character meets that have to be signed up for, specifically Star Wars characters. I noticed some other characters were missing (i.e Kylo Ren). Is he not on the ship?

There is no Kylo meet.

 

[eva2015]

Hey I noticed a bunch of character meets that have to be signed up for, specifically Star Wars characters. I noticed some other characters were missing (i.e Kylo Ren). Is he not on the ship?

The ticketed SW meets are C3PO/R2D2, Chewbacca and Darth Vader. They are available on multiple days not just SWDAS. They do not sign autographs, photos only.

 

[pezgirlroy]

The ticketed SW meets are C3PO/R2D2, Chewbacca and Darth Vader. They are available on multiple days not just SWDAS. They do not sign autographs, photos only.

And if I remember reading correctly, other star wars characters wander around on the SWDAS .

 

[NAB]

And if I remember reading correctly, other star wars characters wander around on the SWDAS .

Yes they do it’s pretty cool. The storm troopers were cool to me. My husband is the fan so didn’t know a lot of the characters.

They bring out Star War characters out on the deck too..all in the navigator on times and who. They had two guys ,sorry don’t know who they are writing tickets and taking people on the elevators away from family members. It was funny really. Also someone wanted to trade things with people, small things , people had.

Tip be in the atrium at 10 the night before the Star Wars day...it’s pretty cool and not listed in the navigator one of the officers told us about it .