Question on Reservations / Re-booking on Board to get the Credit

[MN Dis Fans]

My DW & I are booked on the Dec. 11 4 day Wonder cruise. We are leaving the 2x DS's 10 & 8 at home. As you can imagine, they're pretty bummed out by this.

So, we're already talking about re-booking whilst on board to get the 10% discount, and $200 on board credit. , and surprising them with a quick 3 day get away cruise end of January 2006. (just over a month later)

Question, do I have to wait to make the reservation, or can I book now and either cancel re-book on the ship, or just re-assign once on board? I'm worried that if I wait until December when we're on board, that the ship will be full or the stateroom type that we want won't be available.

Any / All help and suggestions appreciated.

Get this, we do not plan to tell them we are doing this cruise until we're on the way to the airport. Priceless!! Do you think they'll be surprised? I suspect though this will be a hard secret to keep.

 

[hbg4]

I'm in the same dilemma.
I gathered some info from the other sites on this board. I've actually booked and paid the deposit for my 2006 cruises directly with Disney while on land, picking out the cabins that wanted.
I've had conflicting advise from various CMs, but it appears that once you get on board, the travel rep there can either make some phone calls to link the reservations up, so you can get the on board discounts. Or you book on board with a new deposit and when you arrive back on land cancel the first one so that you can get the cabin you wanted on the new reservation. The only problem is that the price of the cruise may have increased by the time you board the ship, and the discounts may not be worth it.
Hope this helps.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the first option.

 

[MN Dis Fans]

hbg4, Thanks for the input. I'm concerned about it having to be option 2. Since we're cruising in December, and the cruise we would want to do is the next month. If I book now, would theoretically lose a part of the deposit, if they were not able to move the reservation.

I guess I'm just thinking I'll take my chances and wait to book on board. C'est la vie as they say. If we can't do it then, I guess I can always book one further into the future.