When you are planning a Disney Cruise for the first time it can be hard to navigate the do’s and don’ts, the rights and wrongs, and generally having the overall feeling of ummmmmmm. Believe me, I know. Our first trip was fun but if we would have known a few essential tricks, it would have been much more fun. This post is not a like the regular tip style post, but more of a story of the first time we cruised Disney. Toya and I were already familiar with cruising but we had never cruised with children. All of our trips were BK (before kids). We had been playing with the idea of going on a Disney cruise but kept dancing around it because honestly, it was expensive! When we finally found the courage (and the finances) to do it, I went online, created a login, put in the date, selected the Disney Dream for 3 days and no cabins were available. Wait!? What!? No room, how can this be??? We had always booked a cruise last minute and found a cabin. The eternal optimist, my wife thought there must be a glitch on the site so I decided to call. Hey ummm, your site must have a glitch because it says you have no cabins, not even below the crew deck. The kind Cast member replies, “yes, it is sold out”. I know I said this is not a tip post but here is one important tip-if you decide to take a DCL cruise and you can only do it during a specific time, especially during peak travel times, do not wait until two weeks before. You may get lucky, but I did not!  Good thing the cast member was very helpful. She told me that if I went online on a specific date at midnight any cabins that had not been paid in full would be back up for grabs. So, at midnight over the next 40 minutes and several thousand page refreshes one popped up. Eureka! My apologies to the other family for sneaking up and snagging the cabin but let’s face it-I was desperate. 

Fast forward to two weeks later…Hey y’all we on a boat! Now what? The Disney Dream, like all ships, seemed hard to navigate at first. We passed things like the Art Gallery, Shops, Kid Clubs, Restaurants, and something called Midship Detective. There were kids lined up at this kiosk and I had no idea why, but those kids did! I should have known they were cruise pros based on the gold lanyards they had. (gold means you have been on 6 or more cruises) but I knew nothing. We should have stopped and taken in what it was but we didn’t know what we didn’t know. We ended up doing it on a later cruise and said we should have done this the first time! It was so much fun and it took us all around the ship. 

Our biggest mistake as first time cruisers was not having our girls try out the Kids club. We convinced ourselves they would not like it, they were going to cry the whole time, someone is going to bully them, etc etc. We were a little overprotective (did someone say helicopter???). Our kids had very limited formal daycare or school at that time, in fact they were starting pre-k and kindergarten the day after our trip ended. On the last day of the trip we gave in to the girls’ request and decided to try it. We were further motivated by the desire to go “clubbing” in the adult lounges for a little. That is funny story you can read here. We agreed to one hour, dropped them off, and reluctantly headed over to the clubs. When we got back they did not want to leave and had huge smiles on their faces. Where were the sobbing eyes filled with crocodile tears, the quivering lip full of separation anxiety, the expected accusatory scolding of “why did you leave us??”. Nothing, nada!  Just happy hearts full of a magical Disney experience in the Oceaneer’s club.  If you are hesitant about letting your kids go, visit the open house as a family and get familiar with it. Your family will experience how much fun it is and it will also give you a level of comfort. The counselors are great and it is fantastic atmosphere. Man I just gave another tip, I guess I can not help it!  

 Now I would like to talk about Castaway Cay. We finally made it to the famous private island along with the remnants of a tropical storm. Yikes! When we got to the island it was very windy and wet but not raining. As we started walking to the tran car stop, here comes the rain. We thought it would pass pretty quickly and we was wrong. We walked part of the island trying to find some sort of shelter. We came across a small water sprinkler area that we later learned was Spring A Leak. By this time it was pouring. Eventually the kids did not care. Out in the rain they went playing in sprinklers. Guess they thought we going to get wet anyway. We finally decided to start heading back to the ship and the sun comes out. Come on! Really?! The one thing I wished we did was decide to go back to the ship earlier. The ship is right there and you can get on and get off all you wanted while it was docked. We had true fomo (fear of missing out) while on the island but next time we will surely head back. In fact now we do not even get right off as you can see here.

The last thing I wish we would have taken advantage of was using our own camera. The characters are all around and ready for photo ops. Many times there is a professional photographer taking professional photos for purchase and a cast member managing the line who will take photos with your camera. Our BK (BK= a time before kids, in case you forgot) cruises on other lines made us think we had to pay for professional photos and not use personal cameras. I have seen another cruise line staff member almost tackle someone to prevent them from using their camera. So we were a little scared to use our phones to take the photos and ended up buying a whole lot of photos at the end of our cruise. They were all beautiful but got kind of expensive. The cast members managing the lines were ready and willing to take a photo for you. We did later learn about the photo package option that can be purchased before a cruise and we now generally prefer to purchase the package in advance. 

Well that is a little snippet of insight into our first time cruising Disney. If you end up making the decision to set sail, gather as much info as you can here or on other sites. There are a lot of helpful tips that can help you manage and prep for your vacation.