Having a hard time deciding- disneymoon vs. cruise?

[singingpixie]

Hi everyone,
I realized I'm going to get slightly biased opinions here, but I'm really torn. DFi and I are trying to decide on a honeymoon location, and at the moment the frontrunners are Disney (hopefully AKL) and a western caribbean cruise (want to do Cozumel, Mayan Riviera, Belize, etc). A disney cruise isn't in the running because in order to do it the way we'd want, it would cost too much.

We had a wonderful time last year at Pop Century on a major budget, but a honeymoon trip would be the chance to splurge a bit on accomodations, some really nice meals, recreation, etc. It would definitely be a different kind of trip than our last one, but part of me thinks we should do something we've never done before on our honeymoon.

Neither of us has cruised, or been any of the places we'd cruise to, before. Lots of the shore excursions I've researched seem exciting and are things I've always wanted to do. We're history freaks, so the Mayan ruins sound awesome, as do a lot of the rainforest canopy tours, and swimming with the dolphins! The thing is, the cruise option doesn't seem to have the "magic" factor. When I think of a disney honeymoon, I get all tingly if that makes any sense. Thinking of a cruise gets me excited in the way any normal vacation might.

What do you think would be our best option?

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Can you do both? I'm getting married mid-week and the cruises usually don't sail until Saturdays and Sundays. That gives you time to do both. I'm looking into cruises too. The port at Cozumel does let you see the mayan ruins, but you'll have to do some research. I've read by the time you get off the ship and take a bus to the ruins, you might only have about an hour at the time before you have to take the bus back to the ship.

 

[Malibelle]

Why don't you go to disney for a few days and take a cruise from Port Canaveral. You could do 3 days at Disney and a 4 or 5 day cruise. I know there are a few cruise lines that leave from there other than disney. If you want to stay at a nice resort @ disney consider renting DVC points to stay at a DVC resort. Many people rent thier points and its cheaper than paying the price disney charges. We went last october and stayed in a 2 bedroom villa at OKW for $1200 for 5 days.

You could get the best of both worlds.

 

[Summer-Caitlin]

Can you not do a split? I know you were wanting a longer cruise, but combining a Disneymoon with a Disney Cruise for 3,4 or 7 days. I was in the same boat(no pun intended) My Df and I have never cruised, nor have we been to WDW. Origianlly we settled on a 3 week Disneymoon, however I loved the idea of a Disney Cruise as I always wanted to spend part of our honeymoon in the Caribbean. As I love Disney I thought our first time should be on a Disney Cruise. So we are going on a 3 night Cruise with DCL. It didn't exactly go in the order we wanted either, but hey, it's the way it goes.

Here's our itinerary
7 nights CBR
7 nights AKL
3 nights DCL
4 nights Crowne Plaza Universal
then home

 

[disneygirl_wdw]

My DF and I are doing both. We are getting married in Disney and staying a few days at AKL until our cruise departs from Port Canaveral. We are doing a 4 day DCL. What time of the year were you looking at? Certain times of the year are really cheap such as Januaury when I am going or other off seasons. We went on a 7 day cruise last year to Costa Maya, Grand Cayman, Castaway Cay, and Key West. That cruise turned out to be pretty cheap in January.

 

[JonetteA]

We managed to take the Disney cruise for the 7 night western and loved it! Really it was great to cruise and we met wonderful people that we are still in touch with to this day! In fact we are planning to cruise again with them next year. For some reason after the stress of the Disney wedding it was wonderful just to leave Disney and get away on the cruise. Where my cell phone would not work and family and friends would not call us. Look around for good deals, I am sure that there are some out there. If you can't do a Disney cruise, what about Carnival? I have heard wonderful things about that!!!

 

[JandJ]

I love Disney (obviously) and I'm fortunate that we live so close that we can go very often, but staying over is a treat. For our honeymoon we stayed at WL for 3 nights and then took a Royal Caribbean cruise out of Port Canaveral for 3 nights. DH won't do a Disney cruise until we have kids! We booked through Cruise Value Center (on-line) and got an amazingly cheap deal I must say, I LOVE cruising!! Our honeymoon was our first cruise ever (to the Bahamas and their private island) and it was wonderful! For our first anniversary we took a 7-night cruise on Holland America Line out of Tampa to Grand Cayman, Jamaica, and Mexico and it was the BEST vacation of my life! I've traveled a lot, including 2 months in Europe after college, but this cruise was completely magical - it was so fun, romantic, and adventerous - it was just amazing!! So, I'd have to vote for the cruise, but like others have said, maybe you could split your stay? Honestly, if we hadn't gotten married in Disney we would have just done a longer cruise, we're in Disney quite often, but it was really special to be able to do both!