What Activities will already be booked up...

[tarheelz]

...when the 75 Day window for first timer cruisers opens?

a.k.a. What are the hottest ticket items?

I figured this would have been asked before but I came up empty in a search of the DCL forum. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and insights.

 

[JWG]

The only thing I hear that is consistently booked or hard to get are Cabanas at Castaway Cay. If that's important to you, do that first.
Otherwise, most things tend to be available if you're flexible.

If you're tied to wanting to do something specific (Palo, meet and greets, etc.) on a specific night or time, then I'd focus there. Obviously on board activities are more popular during at sea days since no one goes ashore.

 

[cmph]

I think that's going to depend a lot on the length of the cruise, really. A shorter cruise means fewer repeats of activities, and during school breaks - I would imagine character tix go fast. Lots of people on the boards haven't been new in a really long time, since before you booked these things online, so I'm sure that's why it's not a common question!

For us, it was a 7-day on the Wonder, which I'm sure offers more slots than a shorter Dream cruise. We had plenty of Palo brunch options, so that was easy; didn't try for dinner but that should have been an even easier get. Character tix were probably half-booked-up but still plentiful. We weren't picky about the day/time. Things that were mostly booked included prime appointments at BBB for pirate night, which I understood, and one particular sea day was fully booked for the Princess m&g. For that one, I can only guess that people took advantage of it being a full day at sea and had BBB in the morning with the m&g in the afternoon... it might have been on semi-formal night? because we ended up with afternoon tix another day and it wasn't a problem. who knows!

Yeah, cabanas = long gone. But every other excursion/rental was available for all our ports.

I guess if I were you and you want all these, my order of booking priority would be Palo brunch then character tix then character breakfast then excursions. That's pretty much what I did; I just didn't do a character breakfast - but it was available, plenty of options. A lot of people book excursions elsewhere, so that doesn't seem high priority to me.

 

[Dug720]

For a Bahamas cruise (assuming here as your signature is Dream) almost 100% chance of being gone is a Cabana. Other things that could well go fast - Sea Lion encounter, Palo brunch and/or dinner, Remy seems to sell out less frequently but it can happen, and maybe dolphins at Blue Lagoon. Princess and/or a Frozen gatherings usually go quickly as well.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

Remember 2 other things about "full" activities:

If you request 4 of something and it says "not available" that just means there aren't 4. Try 3then 2, then 1. I know, you want 4 (for example) but that brings me to point 2:

If they don't have what you want (or enough spaces) take what you can get, and keep checking back. Most of these things require no deposit, so people will reserve them just in case, or as an alternative to something else, which also might become available. So if you keep checking, you may well find you get enough slots eventually, and if you can't get enough, you can cancel the ones you have at no penalty, thus opening them up for someone else.

We needed 9 slots for a certain excursion, got 5 at 75 days, and the rest within the next few days.

 

[wilkeliza]

For CC stops usually the cabanas are it. I've never seen anything else fully booked but we only have a party of 2 so much easier to do.

 

[Chemist]

For us the full day excursion to Virgin Gorda was fully booked. We didn't have a problem getting tickets for The Baths, though.

 

[CarlaT]

Hope you don't mind me asking, but how do you book the cabanas at CC? My booking window opens in 3 weeks. I can't seem to find any info on Disney Cruise Line website.

 

[Dug720]

Hope you don't mind me asking, but how do you book the cabanas at CC? My booking window opens in 3 weeks. I can't seem to find any info on Disney Cruise Line website.

IF there are any left they will be under Port Adventures on your Castaway day.

 

[tarheelz]

Thanks, everyone! Good info.

 

[cmph]

Oh, and one other suggestion would be to ask people in your meet group (here or on FB) for the scoop after the silvers check in. You should be able to find someone who will tell you what stuff is booked up the most, and then you can go in with a plan on your date.

 

[Kaleea]

The Royal Table Tea Party booked super fast for the sea day.

 

[tarheelz]

Oh, and one other suggestion would be to ask people in your meet group (here or on FB) for the scoop after the silvers check in. You should be able to find someone who will tell you what stuff is booked up the most, and then you can go in with a plan on your date.

Genius. Thanks.

 

[hanscarlet]

Meet and Greet tickets, BBB special events like Pirates League, the activity zone thing on goofy's sport deck, Palo

 

[trara1375]

Ok, so it's been awhile since our last cruise...by the time we cruise it will have been 9 years. Anyhow, I'm curious about prebooking...at that time, it was the cabanas, excursions, and Palo. It sounds like there's quite a bit more of prebooking now. Can someone fill me in on all the prebooking options? For what it's worth...we're not cruising until Sept. 2019 so I'm not even able to really start anything except getting ideas. Also, how do you make sure you don't book something at the same time as another activity you might be interested in-obviously, most shows happen in the evening; but I remember the Navigator being quite full and I'd be worried about booking something when one of the kids would want to do something offered. I seem to be having trouble posting...so this may come up twice.

 

[hanscarlet]

Ok, so it's been awhile since our last cruise...by the time we cruise it will have been 9 years. Anyhow, I'm curious about prebooking...at that time, it was the cabanas, excursions, and Palo. It sounds like there's quite a bit more of prebooking now. Can someone fill me in on all the prebooking options? For what it's worth...we're not cruising until Sept. 2019 so I'm not even able to really start anything except getting ideas. Also, how do you make sure you don't book something at the same time as another activity you might be interested in-obviously, most shows happen in the evening; but I remember the Navigator being quite full and I'd be worried about booking something when one of the kids would want to do something offered. I seem to be having trouble posting...so this may come up twice.

They have added a character meet and greet experience on the ship, it's a ticketed event and it's free. Typically there are two offered on each cruise, for non themed cruises it's the princesses and frozen or frozen and Disney Jr.... on themed cruises sometimes they will feature Marvel or SW characters.... these events would cause a mad rush to port adventures desk and guest services on embarkation day and so now they switched it to where you can pre book them online like you do with your other port excursions. I believe they offer time slots and you just select what is available and what works for you.... like anything else, whom ever gets earlier access to booking activities will have more flexibility in time choices for meet and greets.

I will say I always overbook and then cancel on the cruise.... this last time around we booked pirates league in BBB (Dress up with make up like a pirate) and it ended up coinciding with our character meet and greet that they offer to concierge guests so I had to move it to 6pm and then I ultimately canceled.

There is some sort of simulation thing on goofy's sport deck and I didn't know about it until well after new guests were able to book and there was only one time slot available - noon on Nassau day, I booked it but then decided once on the ship that I didn't want to do it because we had a port excursion at the same time, so I canceled....

Note: for all cancellations try and do them as soon as possible, for this simulation thing - they would have charged me a cancellation fee if I cancelled within the 24 hour time window... and BBB was going to charge me $10 cancellation fee but concierge got it waved for us because we didn't know about the special M&G.... I tend to overbook so I at least secure things but then cancel asap when I have decided what the plan is... I also try and plan my trip before I go by referencing similar navigators

 

[Elizakapeka]

I have 9 year old twin boys that LOVE sports, I had no idea the sports simulators were bookable and missed out on all the 60 minute slots.The only openings are for 30 minute slots that I already booked. if you have kids that might like this know you need to book early

 

[oakleycat]

Definitely keep checking back if something you want is booked up. I am guilty of booking excusions just to be safe and then cancelling for outside excursions, moving brunch/dinner reservations around and booking meets we later end up not wanting. I try to have everything cancelled within a couple weeks after checkin.

 

[Vness]

Can somebody help me out here! First timer so bear with me! When am I going to be able to see what activities and schedules of everything available to book (M&G's, character breakfasts, and the sports simulators mentioned above) and also when do we see a schedule in terms of when Pirate night, fireworks, shows ect take place! So confused!!

Thanks!

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

You won't be able to see the exact schedule for your cruise until 75 days before your cruise. However, there is a lot of info you can get before that. DCL's website has excursions listed by port, so you can see what is LIKELY to be offered on your trip (subject to change). As for Pirate Night, etc., it depends on which ship, and which itinerary (Western Caribbean, Alaska, etc.) You can probably look up old "Navigators" the paper schedules, from previous sailings of your itinerary to get a pretty good idea of what will be when. You can use the search feature here at DIS boards to find other people who have asked about your itinerary too. Also, if your cruise is less than 120 days from now, you might find someone on the thread dedicated to your sailing who is Platinum and thus can already see the activities. They can give you more precise info, if you ask kindly.