Land/Sea or Separate

[ac_roo]

Hi! We've decided to combine a WDW vacation with a cruise. We would like to arrive on Friday...have a good 5-6 days in the parks and then take off for a cruise on Thursday to complete the vacation.

If I do the land/sea with transfers, will they pick us up on Friday at the ariport?

Would I be better off booking separately?

Also, with a family of 5...I either book 1 room Category 4 or 2 rooms Cateogry 10...any thoughts?

If I do book the land/sea, do I add extra nights with the package?

With the land/sea, they do the ultimate park hopper pass..length of stay...can I just do a park hopper?

ANY HELP would be appreciated! Thanks

 

[Michelle]

Unless you want do the standard number of nights with the land/sea package I highly recommend you book them separately. If you add on land days to your land/sea package you would do so through DCL with no chance for any of the various discounts available for the land portion, and it's much cheaper to book separately in that situation.

With land/sea package the type of passes included are Ultimate Park Hoppers, and you cannot deviate from that. If you want just Park Hoppers you would have to book the land separately.

As for your stateroom, tough call, if your kids are older I'd definitely gof for the extra room with two Cat. 10s, but you're giving up the verandah to do so.

Enjoy!

 

[confal1]

That is exactly what we are doing in Nov. We booked it separately because I have some days left over from a previous trip. You can add on the nights if you do the combo but we were able to upgrade to the concierge level at the B.C. with the new codes for the same price as the waterview. We are staying 5 nights at the B.C. then doing the 4 night cruise. You can still get transfers if you want but with the number of people in your party it may be cheaper to do a limo. Good Luck.

 

[lpursell]

I have booked reservations for next January and if I had it to do over again I would book them totally separate, you can buy the transfers separately if you want. I have the 7 day Western Cruise with a 3 day pre-cruise land pkg. This is what I have learned:

You are charged for Ultimate Park Hopper tickets for every "day" you are staying at WDW. If you are staying 5 nights you will be charged for 6 days worth of UPH tickets. We will be flying to Florida from the west coast all day the first day and I don't want to spend $350 on park hopper tickets for that first day. So I have booked a separate "room only" reservation for the first night before we start our pre-cruise pkg. We may have to change rooms because they are two different reservations. Oh, by the way, there is some discrepancy on whether you can buy UPH tickets a day at a time or whether you must buy at least three days worth. I got different answers each time I spoke to someone.

I am not convinced that adding on a pre-cruise pkg. is the "deal" my TA says it is. According to my numbers it is costing me $50 per room more ($150 total) for a 3 day pre-curise pkg. than if I had booked it separately. I have decided it is probably for the use of WDW on Saturday before we go to the ship.

The bottom line is that you'll have more flexibility booking WDW yourself. You can possibly get a discount posted on Disney.com and you'll be able to buy the hopper tickets that you want. What if you don't want to spend all 5 days in WDW? Hope this helps.

 

[BeanoC]

I have always booked things seperately because of the flexibilty, and I know it hasn't cost me more money. I don't use DCL transfers so I book my resort through CRO, use Tiffany or Cartier for towncar/limo transfers, and I use DU to book my cruise!

This year we will be at the Poly for a week before the cruise (Got a KILLER deal there because our original ressies were at CBR!)

I have Cartier booked this year for limo tranfers from MCO to Poly, Poly to Radisson at port, and Port to MCO, all for 300 bucks.

DU booked my cruise for me so I have a $200 CC on-board credit and also got DU's $200 rebate!

I think seperate bookings is the only way to go!



'Beano'

 

[lpursell]

Beano,
Why are you going to the Radisson before the cruise? I thought I would just go from CBR to port on Saturday afternoon. I planned on booking with Tiffany.