How to make this work...

[CrusingFamily4]

Hi everyone!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. We are looking at booking a Disney Cruise on opening day. This is our 6th cruise, so we are now Gold. We will be traveling with the grandparents (silver) and the brother and their family (2A2K). We are also 2A2K. We are hopeful to get 3 rooms beside each other and were told the best way to do this is to put one of our kids in each room.

However... this seems pretty complicated and I am not sure if it is worth it.

In room one we can have my husband and myself
In Room 2 we can have the grandparents with a child from each family
In Room 3 we can have a child from each family

However, how does it work in the case of an emergency? I understand that Disney does not care where people actually sleep... but would my parents be in charge of the 2 kids listed in their room? Or because we are the actual parents... do we get the final say? (I trust my parents, but just curious how it works). Would they be in charge of signing them in/out of port?

Would my parents and brothers family be able to book activities online for them and their kids in the other room?

Thanks!!

 

[Weedy]

The children are only allowed to get off the ship with the adult in the cabin they are assigned to. But when you board go to Guest Services and have them sign a paper allowing them to get off the ship with you.
Question 2. I’m not sure if this is what you’re asking but .. the status in the cabin (gold, silver) is by the person with the highest status. So if you put one of your “gold” kids in each cabin everyone will be able to book as Gold status.
If you link all the reservations you can book all the excursions at the same time.

 

[Rob1872]

First issue: My understanding is that you cannot have 2 kids registered in a room alone; there must be adult.
In case of emergency, they grandparents would be responsible for the kids in their stateroom. On our first cruise, we had connecting inside rooms with an adult and kid registered in each room. My wife and youngest son had a different lifeboat station than myself and oldest son even though we were all a family.
In your case, you'd need to have room 1 registered with you and room 3 registered with your husband, and each having a kid.

 

[CrusingFamily4]

First issue: My understanding is that you cannot have 2 kids registered in a room alone; there must be adult.
In case of emergency, they grandparents would be responsible for the kids in their stateroom. On our first cruise, we had connecting inside rooms with an adult and kid registered in each room. My wife and youngest son had a different lifeboat station than myself and oldest son even though we were all a family.
In your case, you'd need to have room 1 registered with you and room 3 registered with your husband, and each having a kid.

Sorry... there would be 2 adults in the last room. I just meant they would have one of their own children... and one of ours

 

[CrusingFamily4]

Thanks for clarifying this... while in theory it sounds great, I do not feel it is worth the hassle. Much appreciated.

 

[CrusingFamily4]

I just spoke to a rep from Disney and he said we could head to the check in booth at port canaveral and switch things up prior to boarding???

 

[SirDuff]

I'm confused. You say you want to do this so that you get three rooms next to each other. Just book three rooms next to each other. Unlike a hotel, you actually choose your room on the cruise (unless you book when only gty are available - but you say you're booking opening day). What am I missing?

 

[GatorMomInNC]

I was confused also, not too hard to get 3 rooms together. I think maybe he wants to book all on opening day and each room to be able to book excursions, etc., at the earliest time, but only his family is gold?

 

[Dug720]

I was confused also, not too hard to get 3 rooms together. I think maybe he wants to book all on opening day and each room to be able to book excursions, etc., at the earliest time, but only his family is gold?

That's how I read it.

 

[FigmentSpark]

It's also possible he wants to book on GOLD opening day for all three rooms and is worried they will be snapped up.

 

[CrusingFamily4]

Sorry for the confusion. Yes, we are the only Gold family. My brother has never sailed. A friend had mentioned that I would just need to book a kid in each room and then we could all book excursions, pick our rooms, etc at the same time. It adds a hiccup that we will book our room on Tuesday and then wait to see if everyone else has success booking beside us.

 

[Deb T.]

The biggest issue is the lifeboat stations, as mentioned above. I would think/hope that you'd be able to move everyone around during port check-in so that each family is together again, but I don't know that for sure. If the cabins could be resolved during port check-in, then everyone's KTTW cards would reflect the new cabins, lifeboat stations, and charging privileges. Good luck with your decision!

 

[darnheather]

I would have a TA deal with this. They'll be able to get everyone in the right rooms for the initial booking. Once, onboard go to guest services and reassign the children to the proper rooms/parents. You need to do this because even in a non-emergency they won't be able to get off the ship except with the people they were originally booked with.

 

[dcassetta]

To help cut down on some of the issues, you might just see if you can't get rooms that are on the same Muster Station. This thread shows the Dream and Fantasy, there's a similar one for the Wonder and Magic.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/dream-fantasy-muster-stations.2639344/page-15#post-53632552

 

[ForMyBoys]

We did this on our Alaskan cruise. My in-laws had never sailed so we mixed us all up. They did not fix our assignments pre-boarding because they said it would cause excursions to un-book but they did give us all copies of the room keys so we could access the right rooms. In the end however it was a pain and overall I don't think it was worth it. It confused my in-laws, tickets for my family were in other rooms, and it was a pain filling out all the paperwork allowing people to take my kids off the ship and out of the kids clubs. If you are booking on opening day chances are you will easily be able to get rooms in a row. And I'm guessing you can even find great excursions. In any event it worked out fine for us but was probably more of a pain then it was worth.

Personally I think if you are gold you should be able to book friends/family together when you book. They don't give a ton of perks and it seems this would be a common sense one.