To anyone going between 8/8 and 8/23

[BostonDisneyKid]

In order to get an illuminations cruise, you usually have to call at exactly 90 days out, 2 mins before the lines open. They use to be more popular when they were cheaper but they are still hard to get because of the reduction in then number of boats as Deb & Bill had said.

We normally have 3 people calling simultenouslly at the -90 day mark and often get 2 booked (when this occurs, we coordinate cancelation/reservation of 1 of them with another dis/dvc'er). We (8 of us) will be trying to get an illuminations cruise between 8/16-8/22 and hopefully will be successful in securing a reservation. We have done many of these (including the original breathless - wow what a boat that was !!!) and have also done a few wishes cruises as well. I am unceratin which size boat or date we will get, if any, but if we should get a 12 passenger, we would be happy to share it with fellow dvc'ers (party of 4) on a 2/3 - 1/3 split + capt's tip.

 

[Debi]

Yes, this will be a solo trip for me, so count me in as a party of 1. Do we have an exact date in mind yet for this?

 

[rutgers1]

Debi....I think we just have a week or two in mind. At this point, we are just trying to see who is interested so we can start partnering people up and then calling in when the window opens in a few weeks.

BostonDisneyKid....Thank you for the insight.

If there is anyone out there who doesn't check this site regularly, please send me a message with your email address in it. I will send you an email right before the booking window reminding you to check this thread for the latest pairings, etc.

 

[nappingbeauty]

I know they are stating on the website that they will allow ten people... but we did the pontoon rental for illuminations two summers ago.... it was wonderful but I can't really imagine ten people sitting comfortably and enjoying the show.... maybe with children ... but ten adults?

 

[rutgers1]

We've gotten some great replies here, as well as a few people sending messages to my inbox. We'll keep this thread going for a couple more days and then try to divide into groups that will work.

If anyone else wants in, please post a message here.

 

[rutgers1]

Hello Everyone....I just woke up and realized that my window of ordering opened, so I called and booked an 8 person boat, which was the only available, for a Wishes cruise on August 10. It is a one hour cruise approximately, and you watch the fireworks from the boat. We have availability for 8, which means that we need another group of 4 to round things out. The total cost is $266.25, which I put on my credit card. So, if we split it, the cost would be about $133 per family.

Please send me a message if you are interested in joining us. Our group consists of mom, dad, son age 7 and son age 9. Also, for others planning a Wishes cruise, please post your plans here so you can hopefully team up with another family.

note: I originally started this thread by referencing the Illuminations cruise. That appears to be booked, at least for the dates I checked. Therefore, we hopped over to Magic Kingdom for the Wishes cruise. The boat leaves from the Grand Floridian about 30 minutes before the start of the fireworks.

 

[Debi]

I'll miss you by 3 days! Darn it. Enjoy the cruise, and give us a full report after the cruise!

 

[BostonDisneyKid]

We (4 of us simultaneously) had called this morning to reserve an Illuminations Cruise for 8/21/09, Friday night, 8:30 Illuminations show (yes, Illuminations at 830 not a typo/error; new Friday hours for the summer I was told... ?), departing from the Beach/Yacht Club Marina at 8:00 PM. Anyway, we were successful in getting our desired illuminations cruise, very successful, in that we actually got 2 of them reserved for the same date and we only need 1 (8 of us).

We are going to cancel one of them and I wanted to inform anyone who is interested in an Illuminations cruise for that date (8/21), which was unable to make this reservation, should you wish to try to coordinate the cancellation and potential reservation of this simultaneously. These cannot be transferred or I would simply do that but that is not an option. Obviously there is no guarantee it will work, but in the past we have done this successfully when we made dual reservations and cancelled one of them. So if you are interested in trying to coordinate this, please send me a PM.