Impossible to get a cabana?

[Mousemommy1]

DH and I were doing some more research in preparation for our 1st cruise in April! We will be on a 4 night on the Dream with our 3 children.

We stumbled upon information on the cabanas and DH wants one sooooo bad!!! It looks like they are pretty difficult to get though.

Any tips or suggestions to get our best chance at scoring one?

 

[Trera]

check the site as soon as your booking window opens but since this is your first cruise and it will be around spring break, your chances of getting one (unless you are concierge) will be nearly zero.

But then check every day after that until your sailing (maybe multiple times a day) because if someone cancels theirs, then it will show back up on the site available for anyone to book.

Good luck.

 

[lorimay]

Like the above poster says, keep checking online daily, one could pop-up.
But also go to Guest Services when you board, they have a waitlist and people may cancel and one could become available.
We scored one once this way.

Good Luck.

 

[Iamaplanner]

You could join your cruise meet group. Last year someone was cancelling their cabana and gave the heads up to our group by posting that it would be available. Someone snagged it before me, but I was minutes away from getting it.

 

[El Cid 94]

DH and I were doing some more research in preparation for our 1st cruise in April! We will be on a 4 night on the Dream with our 3 children.

We stumbled upon information on the cabanas and DH wants one sooooo bad!!! It looks like they are pretty difficult to get though.

Any tips or suggestions to get our best chance at scoring one?

Please allow me to give you a bit of free advice (but remember you get what you pay for... ha ha). We are very fortunate to have had a Cabana 4 times on 4 Dream cruises. On our double dip last month, we decided to not use our cabana for the 2nd day at Castaway and released it. Our family had activities that we wanted to do on Castaway that we had never done before since we always wanted to utilize our Cabana to the fullest extent. I felt like a junkie going through withdrawals the the night before our 2nd day because I thought "Castaway won't be as special without a cabana". I was wrong. There is so much to do on Castaway and yes, cabanas are really nice, but the island is special regardless. My advice... don't let the cabana become an obsession. Its not worth letting that get in the way of the most special cruise you will ever go on... your first Disney Cruise.

 

[ladyofthetramp]

Cabanas are awesome, but like the poster said above, you will have a wonderful time regardless. We snagged one by a random check and it was available. I went through the is it worth the $$ and will my husband agree to it? LOL. If it is meant to be, it will show up, if not, I hope you have an amazing cruise!

 

[Crystal O_o]

It's very very hard to get one. I think all the cabanas on my Sept cruise sold out with the gold club. By the time silver club opened up they were gone.

 

[phinz]

You never know if somebody on your cruise group would be willing to share and split costs too.

 

[anricat]

We're silver and just did online check in for our October cruise a couple weeks ago. All Cabanas were gone. It's okay, CC is plenty awesome without one and I couldn't really cough up the extra $600 anyway.

 

[squirk]

Yeah, that's a tough one. Spring break season, and you won't get even a crack at the cabanas until after Platinum/Concierge, Gold and Silver CC members have had a pass.

I would suggest planning on not getting the cabana and save yourself the stress. I was in the same position as you on my first cruise, and I obsessed about trying to book at 12:00 a.m. exactly when my booking window opened, and checking several times a day to see if someone cancelled and opened up a slot. I didn't realize how stressful it was until I stopped.

After that first year, I will now check twice - once when my booking window opens, and again with Guest Services when I get on board. Four cruises later, I still have not been able to book a cabana, but I am not stressed about it; Castaway Cay is still pretty awesome without it.

 

[Corgidogs]

We are Gold members... and to be honest have never even thought about booking one of the cabanas. Maybe I should check them out.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We are Gold members... and to be honest have never even thought about booking one of the cabanas. Maybe I should check them out.

While the cabanas are nice, you can still enjoy Castaway Cay without one. I'd rather save my money for an excursion in another port.

 

[jjgarv]

In 14 times at Castaway Cay, we've had a cabana once (in 2011, I think)...primarily because both sets of grandparents were traveling with us. While it was a nice 'extra', we do not find it necessary for us to have a fabulous day at CC! We end up doing many other things with that $600.

 

[Corgidogs]

While the cabanas are nice, you can still enjoy Castaway Cay without one. I'd rather save my money for an excursion in another port.

I was really surprised at the price someone quoted above... yikes!!! You can do a lot on the cruise for that amount!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I was really surprised at the price someone quoted above... yikes!!! You can do a lot on the cruise for that amount!

That's all I'm sayin'

 

[lpizzuro123]

We are planning on wave runners and parasailing on Castaway Cay. This should cost 2 of us around $400.00. Have never done a cabana but we are looking forward to enjoying the island.

 

[TestingH2O]

Just got back and had Cabana 4. We are all pale people who have been land locked our whole lives. I cannot imagine that we would have spent as much time at Castaway had we not had a Cabana. We also had no interest in any of the excursions at the other ports. Depending on your itinerary, it may be THE thing that you choose to do. We used Nassau day to enjoy a less crowded ship. If I can get a beautiful beach day at Castaway and the comfort of a cabana, I don't need to pay extra to go to another beach at another port. YMMV

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Just got back and had Cabana 4. We are all pale people who have been land locked our whole lives. I cannot imagine that we would have spent as much time at Castaway had we not had a Cabana. We also had no interest in any of the excursions at the other ports. Depending on your itinerary, it may be THE thing that you choose to do. We used Nassau day to enjoy a less crowded ship. If I can get a beautiful beach day at Castaway and the comfort of a cabana, I don't need to pay extra to go to another beach at another port. YMMV

Well, I don't pay extra to go to a beach on an excursion. We typically take excursions aimed at learning something about the port/country we're in.

 

[Corgidogs]

Just got back and had Cabana 4. We are all pale people who have been land locked our whole lives. I cannot imagine that we would have spent as much time at Castaway had we not had a Cabana. We also had no interest in any of the excursions at the other ports. Depending on your itinerary, it may be THE thing that you choose to do. We used Nassau day to enjoy a less crowded ship. If I can get a beautiful beach day at Castaway and the comfort of a cabana, I don't need to pay extra to go to another beach at another port. YMMV

Same here... we usually don't spend a lot on the excursions. And I can see how the cabannas would be nice, just seemed pricey to me. The best excursion we had was on a Western Caribbean. The turtle farm.. that was great fun! And we got to hold all different sizes of sea turtles.

 

[jackie721red]

we are sailing sept 28,2015 and have cabana 21 the grand cabana booked for sept 30th, would love to share cabana and cost if anyone is interested...there are only 3 of us and its huge