Standing in Lines

[adelle]

When are the times that one absolutely must stand in line for Disney cruise related things? We have never sailed on Disney before but have been to WDW and Disney in California many times. Over the last several years, we have sailed on smaller ships, such as the World and the Radisson ships. We did not have lines on those ships. I just read a post that mentioned getting ready and standing in line for dinner. Please tell me this is not so. Also must you stand in line for the pre-dinner shows? Are there enough seats for all late dining people, or if you wait until the crowd is gone, will all the seats be taken? Is there a line to get on and off the ship in ports? After reading posts about lines, crowded pools, and the decline in food quality, I am getting nervous. We sail October 2nd. I just hope our grandson will see many Disney characters, then it will all be worthwhile. Is it difficult to get autographs and pictures with the characters? What are best palces and times for characters?

Thanks,
Adelle

 

[Hygiene99]

Can If u Want To, We have Not.. Yes people do Line up To Be Seated At the dining Rooms...

Yes people Do line up to Get the Best seats For the shows

The Early Birds We have Found Arriving A Few minutes Later and U Can Walk in ... Yes there are enough Seat in The Dining rooms For ALL..


Can if u Want to.... Trust Me it Is A Great Cruise....

Dont Worry Be Happy....

HERE is a link to the thread with the other 100 or so people from this Board Going would love to meet ya...http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=447946

 

[SeaSpray]

Hi Adelle:

I'll try to answer a couple of your concerns! First of all, I am the type of person who is always a few minutes early for things, so when we'd go to dinner (we had the second dining at 8:30pm), they didn't open the doors until *exactly* 8:30pm. You'd think we would've learned after the first couple of nights and stopped going there a few minutes early. LOL So...just don't get to the restaurants before the scheduled time and you shouldn't have to wait in line. Once they opened the doors everyone moved very quickly to their tables. It's not like you have to worry about someone else sitting at your table.

As for the shows, we never had to wait in line to get in, and we didn't usually get there too early for those, and there were always extra seats.

We did see long lines for posing with the characters for pictures, and for posing for pictures with the different backgrounds. The good thing is, you have a few different times to choose from each night for having pictures taken since they leave the backgrounds up all evening, so that people from early to late dining have plenty of time to pose. When we saw the lines early before dinner, we'd wait till after dinner to get the pictures taken. Our sons are older so we never went to pose with characters, or for autographs so maybe someone else can say whether those lines moved quickly or slowly.

When you check in at the Disney terminal, if you get there before they start boarding the ship you will have to wait in line for at least a little while. The good thing is that only 1 person from your party has to wait in line, everyone else can walk around. We sent our sons off with the digital camera so they could take pictures of the large model of the ship, while my husband and I waited in line.

Sometimes there are lines to get off the ship at the ports but I don't remember any lines being very long.

 

[CM_Mom]

Let's see if I can answer some of your questions.

Yes there are occasionally lines but they go fast and usually are for stuff that you choose to do such as Princess Signings or Professional Pictures or Pictures with the Characters.

Dinner lines are just because folks get to the restaurant before it opens (like 8:15 for the 8:30 seating) and have to wait till they open up again at 8:30.

We had the 8:30 seating on a full ship and often got to the show within 5 minutes of the start time and never had a problem getting a seat. I'm sure it was the same for the other seating.

FYI, the major shows are performed twice, at 6:00 and at 8:30 so everyone gets a chance to see the show. You go to the one opposite your dinner seating.

We didn't go to the family entertainment in Sessions or Diversions or Beat Street so I can't tell you how crowded they are. They're on the agenda for next cruise.

The only way your grandson WON'T see lots of Disney Characters is if he wears a blindfold the whole trip! The Characters have scheduled appearances and then there are times that they just roam around the ship. They also make special appearances in the Club and Lab. There's a number you can call from your stateroom to find out about Character schedules and their schedule is also shown on a monitor in the Atrium. They are also part of several of the shows in the Theater.

Sometimes there are more people around the Characters than other times but I think NOT seeing Characters is the LAST thing you need to worry about.

Yes there's usually some kind of line to get on and off the ship at the ports but that's because they swipe everyone's Key to the World (KTTW) card as you leave and board the ship so they always KNOW who is on and off the ship. They also scan everything you bring back on board the ship in a scanner like at the airport for security. These lines move pretty quickly and I would rather wait a little for the security it provides.

There's a line in the Terminal because folks get there early and then have to wait till they start boarding. But there are also characters in the Terminal and a really neat model of the ship as well as TVs showing Disney cartoons to help you pass the time.

The lines you will encounter are NO WAY like the long lines you find as WDW if that's what you're worried about.

 

[Footnotegirl]

I have to agree with everyone else about the dinners. You don't have to wait in line if you don't get there before the doors open. After that the line disappears quickly. And since you have a set table, of course they can't/won't run out of seats!
The character picture sessions that were scheduled always seemed to have a long line, but not having kids we could avoid that. And there were always plenty of other chances to be around characters, and of course the character breakfast.
We did get our posed formal pictures, but we found the secret to that is to look around. They do them in more than one place! Several, actually, and we found one pretty easily that had no line at all even when the one by Lumiere's had a huge line.
We waited on a short, /fast/ line to get our dinner reservations changed our first night. There was no line for Palo reservations (you took a number and they called you up). I don't know about the spa.
The only lines we had to wait on that had me at all frustrated or annoyed were at the pizza and hot dog stations, and that was mostly because it seemed like the people in line ahead of us could never seem to pick what they wanted /before/ they got to the front which would cause delays, or as happened on two occasions, mom or dad or grandma would get to the front of the line and suddenly the ten kids with them (Okay, exagerrating a bit, but there was a group of 6 kids) showed up and did all their orders seperately.
So, in other words, not Disney's fault or a bad CM. Just rude people.

 

[tvguy]

Only line we encountered was getting off the ship on the final day. Line stretched from the gangway, all the way back into Parrot Cay and circled around in there. We were in line 45 minutes to get off the ship. Once off the ship, finding our bags, clearing customs and immigration, checking the bags in, and getting on the DCL buses took less than 15 minutes.
People comment how great their disembarcation system is, well it IS inside the cruise terminal. But they really need to go with the systems other lines use to decide who gets off and when.
On HAL, you were assigned a public room to wait in until your group number was called. Group numbers were assigned based on what time your flight left. Group 1 had the earliest flights out, group 27, the last group was made up entirely of people who didn't need to catch a flight by a specific time.
Granted, we were on the 12-27-03 packed New Years Eve cruise.

 

[CM_Mom]

I think the debarkation line depends a LOT on when you leave the ship. We weren't trying to be the first off and I don't remember a line at all. We went to Topsider's for breakfast and I think we left the ship between 8:30 and 9:00. We just walked off, got our luggage and straight through customs and boarded the bus for WDW. If I remember correctly, we were at the Coronado Springs by 10:30 or so.

 

[NJ Cruisers]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Please don't make the Disney Disembarkation like other cruises!!!!! I've been on 20+ cruises and disembarkation was horrible on all of them except the Magic.

Sitting (sometimes standing) in a public area for hours (once it was over 3 hours!!!) is such a bad end to a great cruise. I would much rather stand in line for 45 minutes moving toward my goal than sitting around for hours. BUT, on our last cruise it wasn't even 45 seconds. We had early breakfast, finished quickly (we don't linger), went back to our rooms to grab our carry ons (it wasn't 8:00 yet) and walked off the ship. Such a pleasure!!!!

Diane

 

[adelle]

Thanks everyone for your reassurances. Sounds like lines will not be a major problem. We are so excited. I can hardly wait to see the look on Nicholas's face when he sees Mickey! We will all have a wonderful time, I am sure.

Adelle

 

[tvguy]

I don't know why ours was such a mess. I've been on 7 cruises, this being my first Disney cruise, and this was the worst I have ever seen .
We had late breakfast, so didn't line up until 8:30. Took until 9:15 to get off the ship.
Other lines like HAL have you head to a specific public room where they have coffee, juice and pastries waiting for you.

 

[musicgirl]

We didn't do any of the formal pictures, although we did attempt to. We finally had someone take our picture and it came out great. We watch the family in front of us while we were in line, it took them at least 30 min. to make it to the front of that line.

A great place to watch for the characters is on deck 4 (I believe that's right, my memory is starting to fade, I must go back!) above guest services (deck 3) near the top of the steps. The characters are led down to the atrium via this staircase. They will only stop briefly, but are usually pretty good about having a quick picture taken with you. But be quick!!!!

edited: I just wanted to clarify the location. It is on deck 4, near Studio Sea on the same side of the ship as Shutters.

Lorie

 

[NancyDVC]

Lines? Yes at check in. But once they opened check in they went quickly. (My Mom is 79 and has that we can't be late attitude which translates into we have to go everywhere at least 30 minutes early. )

Debarkation? No lines. We walked off after our late breakfast. A brief line for the elevator (we had a wheelchair). A line again for customs but our porter, Beverly, had our luggage and helped us a lot. A line for the airline check in at the bus, but even that wasn't bad and was a lot shorter than the ones at the airport.

Picture lines? Yes but manageable. We took 2 on formal night one with the captain and one with the ship and railing. Both lines moved along well. I think that is because when there are formal portraits there are 3 or 4 backgrounds to choose form and they also did formal portraits on several nights and listed the location and background in the navigators each day! So you could choose when and where to take the pictures you wanted!
other than that we found the ship to seem relatively uncrowded. And except for CC or the Mickey pool I never noticed hoards of kids!
No big lines gettin on or off the ship but we didn't get off as soon as the ship was cleared and got on well before all aboard. (We did watch one couple get driven back to the ship by a security golf cart in Nassau 15 minutes late!)

I had worse lines on my last Celebrity cruise from check in through debarkation!
Don't worry about lines! They are nothing like WDW in high season!

 

[MrsMork]

We have been on 5 Disney cruises. 3 with kids, 2 without. Lines have not been a problem. There were lines for autographs and photos with characters, but they moved very quickly. There also was a bit of a line in the spa for reservations, but they too moved quickly. We have walked off the ship all 5 times at disembarkation with no lines at all. We do have late dinner, and therefore late breakfast so the early group is already gone. Last cruise we were off the ship, met our van, made a grocery stop of 15 min, checked into OKW, caught the bus and were at MGM before 11:30.