Is an extended veranda worth $800 for a 4 day cruise?

[gr8tdame]

This will be our first cruise.. we booked 10166 on the dream because of the extended veranda and aft elevator for dining.
Disney now announced 25% off for a Guaranteed Veranda with restrictions.
if we cancel our 5E and switch to VGT we will save at least $800.
Don’t know what to do as we have never sailed before.
Told I have until 3 pm today to cancel with no penalty and rebook
we are paid in full , including insurance and DCL transportation.
What would you do? Party of 3 adults.

 

[sethschroeder]

Are you going to use the veranda that much? That is a bunch of savings.....

You would lose anything you booked as well so did you book things like kids clubs that are a must or palo brunch?

Also you could get "upgraded" to a Cat 4 and end up with a bigger room even though the veranda is not as big.

 

[KVH]

For 4 days? Probably not worth the cost unless you are going to spend hours and hours per day out there.

 

[CamColt]

For myself, I couldn't justify that. $800.00 is a lot of money! I generally book a 7A as I am just happy to have the outside option. However I have never had an extended veranda so I may feel differently if I had one and loved it.

 

[insureman]

If this is your 1st cruise I would get the VGT rate only because I don't think you will be using it that much anyway. It's only four days and my thinking is you'll be spending time exploring the ship and doing what ever activities that you may want to try. Either way you'll have fun.

 

[jrabbit]

I will agree with the others, unless you are going to spend a lot of time out there, I would go for the savings.

The Biggest reason for YOU not to get the larger veranda this time is that you said that this is your first cruise. I don't think that you will be spending that much time in your room. The biggest veranda on the ship is deck 4 - the Promenade ... and it's free for the price of the cruise. It has comfy recliners and a great ocean view. Again your cruise is only four days and you will be spending a lot of time just walking around the ship - there is amazing art work (if you love Disney ) And I assume that there will be some of the normal activities taking place.

Reasons for keeping the veranda - you're an early riser and you have kids that sleep in. You can go out and enjoy the veranda while they are still sleeping. Worse case reason - you or someone in your family gets sick and has to quarantine (happened before COVID) ... then again you could go outside on your verandah (but I don't know what the health protocols were or are for this situation).

 

[tweety38]

I booked one of these when it was a 7 day cruise and it is so worth it, however now it is a 4 day cruise with 2 days at CC I don't think it is. We will be spending most of our time on the beach and not even on the boat.

 

[Sophie Weaver]

I'll be another and say on a 4 day cruise, I'd save the money. We opted to go from Oceanview to VGT because the rate was cheaper on our 4 day and the verandah was useful with 3 grown adults and a teenager. However, we would have made it work in the oceanview as we just really weren't in the room that much! On your first cruise, you will spend a lot of time exploring and enjoying the ship, especially when you only have 4 days.

Save the money and use it for anything else special you might want to do on the cruise, or to allow yourself some extra money to splurge when you normally would not have done so! Enjoy!!

 

[cvjw]

I would go with the VGT - we paid extra last week for aft verandah cabin 10658 on the dream. For 2 cruises. It was so hot on the verandah that we couldn’t use it. The sun was always beating down on the aft of the ship and there was never a breeze back there. We would never get an aft verandah in the summer again.

 

[mzspaz]

For our first cruise on the dream, we were in room 12008 which had the bump out balcony. I was all excited at the thought of that extra space and planned on catching some rays in one of the lounge chairs on the balcony.

Turns out we didn't use it all that much. There were just 3 of us and my son spent most of his time in the kids club. So it ended up just being my husband and myself. We honestly didn't notice the extra room as when we were out on the balcony, we were busy watching the scenery or the activity.

For $800, I would take that savings and book an excursion or another experience that you will enjoy far more.

 

[jrapps]

I would go with the VGT - we paid extra last week for aft verandah cabin 10658 on the dream. For 2 cruises. It was so hot on the verandah that we couldn’t use it. The sun was always beating down on the aft of the ship and there was never a breeze back there. We would never get an aft verandah in the summer again.

Oh no! This is the exact room we have for our cruise tomorrow!

Did you enjoy the balcony at all?

 

[Drewsdad]

We have only done one Disney cruise and it was worth the extra for the veranda

 

[johnkerryP]

For me personally, id save the money. But, I will also say, when you book the guarentee, you could end up with a less desirable balcony. So are you willing to also take the gamble with deck chair noise, more boat swaying, an obstructed view, etc.

 

[Kennywood]

People are saying that, because this is "only" a 4-day cruise, the extended verandah isn't worth the extra money. I say, that's exactly the reason WHY you should keep it.

This is your first cruise. Make it memorable! That stateroom is located in a VERY desirable part of the ship:


After a long day of activities, you will love going out on the verandah and watching the sunset, or the wake of the ship as it sails. You'll find yourself just resting your elbows on the rail and soaking it all in. You can take some wonderful pictures that you'll enjoy for years to come.

The first cruise my wife I took was for our 25th anniversary. We had stateroom 10158 on the Fantasy. It was wonderful. No, we didn't spend all day out on the verandah. But the view was simply unparalleled. I'm so glad we spent the extra money.

 

[cvjw]

Oh no! This is the exact room we have for our cruise tomorrow!

Did you enjoy the balcony at all?

Not much, quite honestly. We would go out around 7:00, while getting ready for dinner. It was just simply too hot to be out there during the day.

This was our first time on deck 10 and we decided it is just too noisy for us. Some mornings the chair moving at cabanas started before 5:00 AM. And there was this weird metal banging noise that would wake us up at 2:00 most mornings. We finally went to guest services and complained about the metal banging noise. Miraculously, it stopped after we brought attention to it, after they said they could not imagine what it was. So if you hear it, complain and they will put a stop to whoever is doing it.

Loved the interior of this cabin - so spacious. Loved being close to cabanas and deck 13. Loved the huge balcony, just wish it had been cool enough to use it. Didn’t love deck 10!

 

[jrapps]

Not much, quite honestly. We would go out around 7:00, while getting ready for dinner. It was just simply too hot to be out there during the day.

This was our first time on deck 10 and we decided it is just too noisy for us. Some mornings the chair moving at cabanas started before 5:00 AM. And there was this weird metal banging noise that would wake us up at 2:00 most mornings. We finally went to guest services and complained about the metal banging noise. Miraculously, it stopped after we brought attention to it, after they said they could not imagine what it was. So if you hear it, complain and they will put a stop to whoever is doing it.

Loved the interior of this cabin - so spacious. Loved being close to cabanas and deck 13. Loved the huge balcony, just wish it had been cool enough to use it. Didn’t love deck 10!

Oh well. Since we board in about 24 hrs not much I can do now but go with the flow. We've never done an aft balcony before. We had a 4A extended balcony booked but they had to move our room due to "maintenance". The huge balcony looked awesome.

I will definitely be on the lookout for weird noises.

 

[FWRR3]

Jrapps, I hope you will report back on this thread about your balcony experience. We just stayed in 10166 and it was great. Of course the sun is hot but not the shade, and the large balconies have both. It seemed breezy too. However, there was a lot of terrible chair noise in the mornings, but I don't think it was from above in Cabanas. It seemed to be from other balconies. People are too lazy to lift the chairs instead of dragging them.
Anyway, I'd love to hear the comparison between 10658 and our experience in 10166. Thanks in advance! (Oh, and we didn't hear the 2am banging. But I was surprised at the vibration when we left Castaway the last night at 21 kts.) Have a great cruise!

 

[jrapps]

Jrapps, I hope you will report back on this thread about your balcony experience. We just stayed in 10166 and it was great. Of course the sun is hot but not the shade, and the large balconies have both. It seemed breezy too. However, there was a lot of terrible chair noise in the mornings, but I don't think it was from above in Cabanas. It seemed to be from other balconies. People are too lazy to lift the chairs instead of dragging them.
Anyway, I'd love to hear the comparison between 10658 and our experience in 10166. Thanks in advance! (Oh, and we didn't hear the 2am banging. But I was surprised at the vibration when we left Castaway the last night at 21 kts.) Have a great cruise!

Will do. I read as many reviews as I could find before agreeing to the room change. Didn't see anything major negative that jumped out at me. Also from looking at the deck plans it doesn't appear that there are actually Cabana chairs directly over that room but sometimes it's hard to tell from a deck plan.

Either way I don't expect we're going to be sleeping in any morning given that we're going to castaway both days. I will reply back after the cruise and let you all know how the room was.

 

[maiyasgram]

I had all good intentions of booking the VGT rate this morning until I saw an Aft extended balcony available. It's worth the $$$ to me to not be assigned a cabin that I may not be happy with.

 

[mevelandry]

An extended balcony is very nice. With 3 adults, I would keep it.