Before we left for our Disney Cruise, I searched online for Disney Cruise Tips and Tricks. I was hoping to find some little known items that might enhance our trip. There were two things that I read about most often – you can leave an item at guest services for all of the characters to sign, and you can decorate your room door with magnets. The first we did not do, but the second we did.
You can see our Fish Extender up close here, but here it is actually hanging on the fish! And the other picture is how we decorated our door. It was really useful in identifying our room in the long hallway of rooms, and the Fish Extender exchange is something I recommend to anyone considering a Disney Cruise. You can join a group on disboards.com or through Facebook!
Here are some of the gifts we received from our group:
Here are some more of my Disney Cruise Tips and Tricks:
– Definitely do the online check-in on the Disney Cruise website. Although waiting at the port to board did take time, we did not have to wait any further after we checked in, being that we had registered for a boarding time on the online check-in program.
– There are Disney characters in the port building. After you check in, if you do have to wait to board, head to the back of the room behind the escalators. We found Minnie Mouse there.
– After you get on board, visit guest services. We got our tickets for the Disney Princess Tea Party that way – this was not publicized as an event and we wouldn’t have known about it ourselves, but Dave read something about it online before the trip. So I’d suggest asking right away if there are any character breakfasts, meals, or events that you can get tickets for before doing anything else!
– Your suitcases will board the ship separately and will be delivered to your room by 5:30 PM. However, you probably will be on board many hours before that. If you think you’ll want to use the pools that afternoon, carry on a bag with your swim gear! You might also wish to carry on a change of clothes for after swimming – we did not do that and had to wait for the rest of our things before we could shower after our swim.
– When it comes to meeting characters, if you can wait, you should. The daily schedule clearly told us that the princess meet and greet would happen again later in the week. The wait the first day was very long. When we did it, it wasn’t long at all! It also is worthwhile to get to the character meet up place before the character is scheduled to arrive. Then you get to be close to the front of the line, plus see the character arrive!
– Don’t skip the shows. The Golden Mickeys, Toy Story the Musical, and Disney Dreams were all worth seeing.
– Make use of the kids’ areas. If your kids are nervous to go without you, there is time on the first day, as well as other times throughout the cruise, when parents can attend the programming in the club with their kids. After our kids checked out the area on the first day, they were excited to go back. We had times where Simon didn’t want to go, but the others did, so we let him stay with us. It was also nice to have some time just with him! If you register your kids in advance online you will save time when you get on board.
– There is a movie theater on board. If a new Disney movie has come out recently, it’s likely it will be playing on board. Frozen, Planes, and Saving Mr. Banks were playing often on our cruise. Dave and I got to have a date to see Saving Mr. Banks! We both enjoyed it!
– There are phones in your room that are called Wave Phones and can be used on board to contact each other. They are used by the kids’ clubs to reach you if your kids need you. We didn’t end up using ours, but even so, it is important to keep these phones charged. Otherwise, when they start to run low on battery power, they beep. Ours did that while we were watching Saving Mr. Banks! Oops.
– Don’t forget medicine if you get seasick. The medicine actually helps me – if I remember to take it! There were two nights where I didn’t feel very well because I hadn’t taken the medicine before it wore off. Once it kicked in again, I was fine.
– If your kids need potty seats or bed rails, just ask. We didn’t realize we could ask for bed rails, and we probably would have if we’d thought of it!
– There are postcards in the desk drawer of the staterooms. I was excited to find them!
– But don’t take things out of your room. I was going to warn against taking the large pillow off the bed, because the cost on disneystore.com is $189.95! However, no one would really think they could take the pillow. We did take a cloth laundry bag though, and seem to have been charged $10 for it! We’re still waiting to find out if that’s actually the charge we received! (They have told us that they do charge $10 for these laundry bags).
If anyone else has any tips and tricks to contribute, please feel free!