Questions About The DCL

[Disney8704]

I have some questions that I hope someone can answer. For starters I never cruised before so I was thinking about doing the 3 night cruise just to see what its like. Now I would be going August 16th.

How is the weather in Nassau, Castaway Cay and at sea during the middle of August?

Also being a 3 night cruise do you actually get to spend maybe a couple hrs each day on the ship being able to do some stuff like before each port or after each port before it gets to late like 11pm. I was thinking maybe doing the 4 night cruise and having a whole day to do whatever but Im not really sure exactly what there is to do for me and my hubby. We dont go to clubs so thats out. We would love to do the movie and the show. And possibly just lounge around the pool for a couple hrs. I know we can stay on board but that wouldnt be to much fun and miss out on Nassau and castaway cay.

Now another question I have is I wanna also add a 9 night / 10 day disney world vacation to this. Now would it be cheaper to do them seperatly or do the 7 night land & sea (4 nights on land / 3 nights on sea) package and add 5 more nights for land. Also how are the inside staterooms, the oceanview stateroom and the navigators verandah.

If you do the 7 night land & sea can you get the package with dining for disney world?

Also for AAA, what do you save on for the cruises and how much?

And now I know at certain hotels you can be picked up from them to take you to the DCL. Is the AKL one of them?

 

[staceymerrill]

1) Middle August Bahamas is hot and sultry
2) You can spend as much time on the ship as you like....you can choose not to even leave the ship.....activities are not suspended on ship when it is in port.....
3) Unquestionably less expensive to book the land portion of your Disney vacation on your own.....while the majority on the boards here favor an "onsite" hotel, I prefer a hotel like the Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista.....although not on Disney property, this hotel is 5 minutes from the gates, offers a suite with small kitchen that blows away all but the most deluxe Disney rooms (nothing in the Disney moderate category can compare), free breakfast buffet (avg Disney breakfast $10.00 pp) ....true you dont have the shuttles back and forth from hotel to parks as frequently with the Embassy, but with the $ you save on breakfast every day you can rent a car and have tremendously more freedom
4) I would book a verandah if you plan on spending lots of quality/romantic time in stateroom, otherwise I recommend category 9 aft location, deck 2, preferably 2108-2124 or 2608-2624....not a big fan of Nav verandahs
5)not sure about your dining package Q , but I am sure you can do better $ wise overall by not booking land/sea package
6)I think you can do better with a discount TA who will give you a rebate or stateroom credit than AAA....compare pricing apples to apples among TAs by knowing your stateroom category you want to book in advance to avoid confusion.....make sure all quoted prices include all pp taxes and port charges
7)not sure about AKL