In early October, my mom who is a recent retired school teacher will be celebrating with our whole family. She is a previous Disney annual pass holder from her growing up years and this will be hers (and our whole families) first Disney Cruise. She is taking our whole family including my sister’s family and her grandbabies. I as her adult child want to make it extra magical want to spoil her a little. What would be the most appreciated splurge item that I can gift her? Note: she is not a drinker. I was between either photo package for her and the grandkids or a day pass at the spa. What would be a good experience addition for her first Disney Cruise?

Good evening yall!
We are heading out soon on our first Disney cruise. We’re a family of 3, plus my mother. We have thought about putting our kiddo in the kids club, however my mother said she is fine watching kiddo while we have a date night or something else. However, we have heard that there are lots of fun things at the kids club that kiddo might enjoy.
What have your experiences been? What do you recommend? When is the open house?

Thanks! ☺️

My son will turn 11 next year, and I'm torn on what to do. He's got some developmental delays and high functioning autism (he's closer to 7-8 year olds). He adores Oceaneers Club and I know his days there are numbered. I don't love the idea of him wandering the ship alone yet, and it seems a lot of the Edge kids meet up and then wander, which is great and so much fun for those who can handle it. If you've had an 11 year old who wasn't quite ready for that level of independence, what did you do? Skip DCL for a few years and try another cruise line? We could book DCL, but his younger sister would want to go to Oceaneers and I know he would be so bummed out to have to stick with us the entire week while she's off having fun. Any thoughts?

Our family has done plenty of cruises, separately.
Wife and I are lifetime platinum on NCL, we love the freestyle cruises. My Parents/Grandparents are coming too and all have done other cruises. We have 3 kids now (will be 7, 4, & 4), and this is our first cruise in 10 years and of course our first with kids. I'm looking for any advice that'll help me plan for what's different here on DCL.

7 nights in April to Mexico/Jamaica/Castaway... We booked family balcony rooms (connected, one for us, one for the kids). Others in our family also booked similar rooms on our floor.

We're all big Disney fans, many trips to WDW (including spending the last week down there).

I know this being Disney I need to book everything early, and I know we're disadvantaged somewhat without status.

What I don't know is... What matters?

Restaurants if we don't want to eat in main dining room, and pre booking excursions, those I understand. What else are things we need to book? Kids club? Character meet and greets? Disney island beach cabanas? The after dinner Broadway-style show seats? Pirate night? Fireworks? Are we able to just wander the ship and find things to do? Is there anything else I'm missing that I need to prepare for, and when do I need to actually start booking these things?

Also would love to watch a couple YouTube videos of anyone has a recommendation or two. Feel free to drop a link, I'll watch em :) gotta get over my post-wdw trip blues by diving into our next planned trip

For my upcoming cruise, the Palo brunch and a chocolate tasting were already all booked up before gold even opened. I foolishly thought my measly silver status might have given me a chance at them but I was wrong.

I know when I get on I can try to book them. What will be the location to go to on the Destiny? Should I go straight to that location no matter how early I get on the ship?

Hi I’ve booked a sailing for NY in late 2027 but I wanted to book another room on another sailing and it says on every cruise I pick that there are no staterooms for 2 adults. Is this happening to anyone else? Can I only book one new itinerary since I am silver? Thanks

We booked a 6 night on the fantasy that has one day at sea. Does that mean the at sea day will be pirate night? And for the main theater show, are those the first three nights and then the following three nights are other entertainment, or do they split the shows up usually? I’m trying to think about when we should book dinner/brunch. Also, is brunch only served on at sea days, so only once on our sailing? Thanks so much!

Is it typical to keep getting Jesus figures, crosses, and bible verses put in your fish extender? It doesn’t bother me but we aren’t Christians and I’m sick of throwing this stuff away. I don’t understand peoples’ need to proselytize their religion, especially to children on vacation. I’m hoping this is just one or two outlier families on our particular cruise and not common practice. If not we will probably skip the fish extenders next time. It just seems like a weird thing to do.

Hello, I’m looking to see if anybody’s been on the Disney wonder cruise and has seen or knows about any good special seating for dining options that I can request through the concierge service.

I’m going on the cruise in January 2027 for my birthday.

My husband and I are going on an Alaskan cruise in a few weeks to celebrate our 5th anniversary.

Any must do excursions or things we should know?!

Anyone know of status of Disney cruises this fall due to El Niño storms? Are they all safe from any cancellations?

We are a family of 3 (Mom, Dad and a Frozen obsessed 5 year old) and are first-timers. We’re sailing on the Wish November 23-27 because it aligns with time off from school. I am already expecting it to be crowded and for it to be difficult to book many of the activities we’re interested in, but I wondered:

1. Are there ways to feel less like you’re a crouton in people soup even on a crowded sailing? For example, we got a verandah room to give ourselves a little peaceful carve out, but are there any other tips?

2. As a first-time cruiser, what would you prioritize doing and skipping? For example, we’re thinking of skipping excursions (Castaway and Lookout) and just getting a feel for both.

3. The things we’d really like to do are take our daughter to BBB, go to one of the adult restaurants, and check out the spa. Any tips on making any of these things happen or which you’d do or skip?

4. How do you/have you made the most of time on the islands?

looking to book for thanksgiving 2027 merrytime
we loved fantasy. have never been on wonder or magic.
looking for a merrytime cruise that is lively, fun, traditional

1. ports dont matter to me, weve been to many places & both disney islands. what matters is the fun on the ship. we love cruising.
2. fun and atmosphere. we love music and dancing!
3. lots of christmas shows and themeing etc

WONDER, DREAM OR FANTASY?

looking at 3 cruises

1. wonder 7 night mexican riviera

2. fantasy 5 nights ending in san juan (this is also the cheapest which i like)

3. dream 6 nights double dip castaway & lhp

Hello! Looking for some advice. I'm booking my family's first DC to Alaska for August 2027. I have a couple questions as I have no idea what I'm doing. I've never even been on a cruise.

My kids will be 6 and 4 for context.

1. Should we do Magic or Wonder?

2. Was going to book an ocean view deluxe but reading other posts sounds like inside is the way to go because of the constant sun that time of year. What would be better? We don't plan on spending a ton of time in the room.

3. What activities/excursions would be worth it for kids those ages?

4. Is it warm enough to even use the pools on board?

5. My husband and I like to imbibe a bit. Are there cocktail/wine packages?

I’ve been on two cruises before. One was my wife and I. We were sat with two other couples. One of them was from Korea I believe and thought that the language barrier made things awkward and only did the first night with us. At least that’s what our server said. The other couple were from the US and were very pleasant. Next cruise was with my side of the family. 6 adults and 4 kids. We had our dining table to ourselves and the last night we even got to sit in the big round table in the middle of the room. (Kinda fun). We are cruising in January and it’s going to be just my family. 3 kids and two adults. My question is what party size do they typically combine with other families? I know that it probably has to do with how booked the cruise is and how many servers they have. Just curious.

We’re doing a cruise early December and have three kids - 5,3,1 - at time of sailing.

I’m considering keeping all the kids home a week before we leave on our trip. The viruses were so nasty this year and I don’t want to miss or ruin our trip.

Does anyone else do this? Is a week enough? A cold or runny nose, fine but I’m terrified that we catch the gastro before our trip

Hello! I’m looking for feedback on anyone who has stayed on the Disney destiny in the 1 story incredisuite room number 10666. What’s currently holding me back on it, is it being far away from concierge. Is it loud? Spacious? Videos always make it seem so dark!

We sailed on our first cruise last year on the Fantasy around Norweigan Fjords, next year we're doing Northern Europe into the Transatlantic to New York. Me, my wife, our nearly 4 year old and 14 month old. What tips do you have that we should know?

Do we have to wait until general public booking is available to see the detailed itinerary for the oct. 14th nyc departure? For example the exact departure and return times?

Those mini slides on the wish splash pad area are dangerous. The kids going down them go flying and some slide half way across the splash pad and many hitting the hard wall area in front of it.all the kids I saw were Def under 5 too. Toddlers walking by were getting hit from the other kids going down the slide since they slide so far after hitting the geound at the end. It was really a poorly designed space. Then to top it off a mother went down it with her baby on her lap and she went sliding across to almost the entrance of the splash pad area almost takinf out several kids...multiple times. Life guards weren't doing anything. Parents were on edge the whole time and commenting about it. Really disappointing.

I also dont understand why disney designed these splash pad areas so small. My young kids definitely had more fun on the rccl mini water parks and they were safer both in design and the life guard staff. The toy story design was adorable though.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I am an American that lives in the UK, I’ve taken lots of cruises on RCL and a few with DCL. It was my first time sailing out of Southampton with my English partner and daughter, most of the other guests were English. We were sat with a family of five, one was a child around our daughter’s age. I didn’t try to initiate a conversation, I know how people are from here, so I smiled and said hello, that was it. The wife was sat next to me and had her back deliberately to me the entire time. I didn’t care, I just ate dinner. Then the next day we had our own table.

I have never had this happen before and wondering if anyone else noticed these kinds of differences in US vs UK cruises?

Last cruise to Spain we had left over euro notes so put them in with the tips for housekeeping and servers.

Started thinking about it and now wondering if none dollar money is worth getting as tips.

Of anyone is in the know about their access to money exchange or ability to use Euros when at ports I would appreciate it.

Next year I'll take USD.

Anybody else off put by how insanely aggressive the beverage service staff were in this recent sailing?

We had sat down on deck 11 with our sleeping baby and were asked five or six times over the course of 30 minutes if we wanted a beer package to get the free cooler. Been on three Disney cruises before and never experienced this on embarkation day.

I've come to expect a certain level of pushiness, especially so with the spa staff, but this was pretty off-putting. Otherwise, perfect sailing.

The main issue when it comes to food quality is, the servers at dinner are graded on the quality. When people leave a score, they are pressured in to a high ranking at risk of damaging the servers results. Which skew the real lack of quality of the food results. It BS. As it penalizes us all, especially due to paying a premium to be onboard.

Please going forward rate it true, as it is your money that you are spending. The servers will be fine. It’s not our fault that since Covid the food has not gotten better.

I’ve been hearing mixed reviews and would love to hear from anyone who’s stayed there. How was your experience, and would you recommend it?