Illuminations Cruise?

[Dano13]

Can someone fill me in on the illuminations cruise? How do you book it? How much is it? Is it worth it? In 2 weeks we will be going down to celebrate the birthdays of my wife and mother and my son and I are trying to come up with something nice as an additional surprise.

 

[Robo]

Can someone fill me in on the illuminations cruise? How do you book it? How much is it?

http://www.wdwinfo.com/recreation/fireworks.htm

http://allears.net/btp/illum.htm

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/recreation/specialty-cruises/

 

[Dano13]

Thanks for the links Robo.

 

[lynn46356]

We love the Illumination Cruise. I just booked one this week for our upcoming trip Thanksgiving weekend. It's not cheap but I still love it. I suppose many have a guilty pleasure and it's mine! Good luck securing one if you decide to book.

 

[bluezy]

My family did an illuminations cruise last June (it was a Christmas gift from our son). We really enjoyed it. It was a nice relaxing evening for our family. The kids loved all the drinks and snacks on the boat and the adults enjoyed the scenery and conversation with our captain. The reality is that you can get an equally good viewing spot for Illuminations if you just stake out your spot early enough. But the cruise meant we got a good spot without having to do that. And the nice thing is, if it's raining, they can park the boats under the bridge so you don't get wet.

While it's not in our budget to do the cruise on every trip, I really hope we can do it again sometime. It is a great memory from that trip.

 

[*pixie*dust*]

Call right away if you want to book one, OP. They can be hard to get since there are only a few pontoons available. Good Luck!

 

[bluezy]

If you call and there is nothing available, don't give up. Keep calling every day. When my son booked our cruise, he actually booked a cruise on 2 different nights of our vacation just in case the cruise was cancelled on the first night because of bad weather (it wasn't). He cancelled the second cruise while we were waiting to board our boat and there was another family that had done the same thing and they were cancelling as well. I can't remember if the cancellation policy is 24 or 48 hours, but either way, there could be last minute availability.

 

[Dano13]

Thank you for the information and advice everyone

 

[lynn46356]

Also, you don't need park tickets since it boards at the Yacht & Beach Club. We were touring Epcot on a Saturday and a cruise wasn't available for that day so I booked it on our HS day so we'll just walk or boat over to the Y&BC. I can't remember if that's been mentioned already.