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Thank you Chictravel227, I just made it official and paid for the cruise. I'm locked in now! And moki'smommy, thanks for the info on paying tips...we went ahead and prepaid. I can't believe we actually booked! Thanks everyone.

Moki'smommy, thank you so much for the great tips! I will issue the same threat to my kids about the soda! You have been so incredibly helpful. Thanks again! ljandgb, thanks for your input and I understand about pulling the kids out of school. We have only begun homeschooling really and only have one year under our belt, but it does have great advantages for travel. Thanks again!

Thank you for the great advice, Moki'smommy. I will be sure to NOT book the insurance with DCL and I will certainly check out the other companies you mention. I have learned so much from you. In fact, I never considered the 14 day Panama Canal cruise until you mentioned it. So, do you have any insight into our rooms? We are on the Wonder and are in two side by side rooms 6103 and 6105. I don't expect much and will be happy to just be on the ship, but do you know if they offer a pull down bunk? One of the rooms will have 4 of us while the other will have 3.

Thank you all for your tips, replies, and insight! Moki'smommy, we did look and the MTO is the cheaper deal by about $600 for both rooms total. We are nervous because it is still a lot of money for us but twice the number of days convinced us and we called tonight to book. I was set to pay but they put a courtesy hold for us instead while we decide whether or not to include the insurance. Either way, we are paying for it tomorrow (unless some amazing new sale comes out)! We are very excited!!! The only thing is that they didn't have adjoining rooms but the rooms are side by side. That is no biggie but that does mean that my husband and I will be sleeping separately. :( Thank you all so much for all of your help! You have all really helped a bunch.

I should also clarify that we thought we would only be bringing 4 of our 5 kids but now we know that we would be bringing all 5 and guess what? So, the pricing I detailed includes all 7 of us.

Ok, so we have to make a decision today because the MTO rate for the Panama sailing has to be booked by today. This is what I posted on another site and since I am too lazy to re-type--I am copy/pasting. :)

Hello all. I have a dilemma that I am hoping you all could give insight to. We have been holding out for a year hoping for an MTO on the Sept 5 or Sept 19 sailing of the Fantasy to the Caribean. It will be a surprise for our kiddos, who have fantasized about a Disney Cruise for years. We have 5 kids so we would need 2 rooms. This would be a first cruise. Anyhow, as you know, there hasn't been an MTO listed for those sailings and we aren't sure what to do. Keep waiting and hoping and lose our chance? Go crazy and spend $9,000 and just do it!? Or take advantage of the MTO rate for the October 23 sailing for the Panama Cruise, which would basically cost us the same amount of money but for a vacation that is twice as long? That might seem like a no brainer thing to do. Same price for 2 times the amount of cruise! Here are our hesitations....(1) the ship. My one daughter got us all excited about the Fantasy ship. (2) the ports of call. We really wanted to experience Castaway Cay or Key (not sure of the name). (3) Wifi being reliable. We homeschool our kids but they do an online school that requires use of the internet. For a 7 day cruise we could adjust their schedule so that they can just kick back and not do school for those 7 days. However, for a 14 day cruise plus a day earlier for travel etc. I'm not sure if we can not do school work for that amount of time. If my high school aged son could do at least a couple of hours of online work while on the boat, that would make it doable. I know that you have to pay for the wifi but does anyone know how reliable it is?

Any insights are appreciated.

Moki'smommy, thank you for such a great description of your trip! It sounds amazing! I find it funny that the geography teacher had a problem. Go figure! My one daughter will actually be learning about the canal this year. Perfect timing. Oh, and Roy Disney!!! That is so awesome! He sounds like a fantastic person and I love stories of good people. It sounds like your experience was made extra special with the people that were a part of it all. We will need to make up our mind by Sunday. Thanks for your insight.

Moki'smommy, chance of course. We are now considering the Panama Canal cruise! The airfare doesn't seem so bad. We were really excited to try Castaway Cay, but the Panama cruise doesn't go there. However, 14 days is amazing. There are several days at sea on that cruise. Can you elaborate as to how that was for you? I you enjoy this cruise?

Sorry for the delay in my response but wanted to say thank you for the replies and advice. The Panama cruise sounds awesome but I think the airfare would kill us. We can drive to Port Canaveral, which saves us a bit of money. For now, we are watching and waiting. Thanks again, all. I enjoy reading the posts and learn a lot from this community.

Actually, I just did a search and found the answer. Where do I look to see if there are any GT rates being offered?

Thank you for the tips all. Perhaps I should start a new thread but can anyone tell me what a GT rate is and how it works?

14 days would be incredible. I never considered it. Lots to discuss with my husband. Thanks Mokismommy.

Thank you, Meatloafsfan. That does give me a lot of options.

Thank you ,dexddd. I will look into that one.

chictravel227, I contacted one other travel agency (not sure if I am allowed to name them), but they had a higher quote, mostly because there were no inside staterooms available for the 5 September sailing.

Halloween is not a deal breaker for us, anymore. We are open to it after reading some posts here on the topic.

We are now open to other fall cruises. I am just getting antsy. I know this sounds ridiculous but my one daughter is soon to turn 10 and this would be a dream come true for her. She is the one who talked us into considering it to begin with. I think that because she is turning 10, I am in a rush to make her dream come true. before she gets even older. She still likes the princesses and I can only imagine that in one more year, this young phase will be a distant memory. Crazy, right?

Thanks for your help.

Thank you all. I guess we will wait. We were choosing that date for a couple of reasons. We also thought that date would be good as the kids usually start school around then, so we thought we would have better luck of catching a sale. I homeschool my kids so we don't need to worry about that. We also wanted that date because of weather. We went to WDW last December and froze on a couple of the days. We also didn't want October because we were attempting to avoid Halloween, but it seems that Halloween is unavoidable. We don't want May-August because of the heat. And, on a childish level, we wanted to go soon because we have been waiting for a year already (insert whiney voice). Anyhow, I checked the fall prices and the 2016 prices and perhaps I am missing something but I don't see a big price difference.

We will likely wait though until we see a deal or book a new booking for much later.

Thanks, all.

Good morning,

I need advice because we made a poor decision. We have been saving and hoping for a Disney Cruise (our first cruise ever) for over a year. The problem is that we have been holding out hope for a military discount. There were plenty of military discounts when we began looking and now there haven't been any listed for a long time. We want to go on the Sept 5 sailing of the Fantasy and it looks like we held our breath for too long. We went ahead and got a quote and a reservation hold on the very last two inside staterooms from DCL directly, just to see. The big mistake on our part was to wait so long to book. I have learned that booking at the earliest possible time is the ideal way to go. We waited and waited and now may book. We got a quote for $3886.51 per room (2 rooms). We are a family of 6. So, my question is, should we book it? Is this a decent quote? Are we out of our minds to pay that price? We want to go so badly to make a dream come true for our kids and yet, we don't want to be foolish. Any advice please? We also were concerned about it being decorated for Halloween but we decided to try it anyway.

Thanks all!

Thank you all for the great replies. Mividjap, I will certainly look up that video. You've all given me lots to consider.

Thank you for the reply. That is good advice. We actually love Christmas and would be fine with those decorations. The problem is work schedules and also high season. Is November or December a lot more expensive than September? I had heard that September was the best time to go in terms of price.

I read on another post that the dates we were planning on going on our first DCL will be a Halloween cruise. We haven't booked yet but I wanted to know if it is easy to avoid the Halloween activities? My 3 year old was terribly frightened when he saw a picture of the Halloween tree that is apparently displayed in the atrium (I believe?). Is this tree something we would have to walk past daily? I would hate to spend thousands of dollars on 4 rooms (big family) to have my kids walk away with nightmares instead of great memories. I realize that most would find this concern absurd, but my kids are easily scared. September is truly the only time we would ever sail and if we can't avoid Halloween, we won't be sailing with Disney at all. I'm really bummed because we have been wanting to go for quite some time and we were really looking forward to surprising our kids. I guess it is good that we hadn't told our kids we were going. But, before we make our final decision, I figure I should at least ask if it is easy to avoid any scary or Halloween type activities and decorations. I mean if the tree is frightening to my kids, am I in for a terrible time?

Thank you for any advice.

I'm glad I read this post because I never imagined that Halloween would be celebrated in September. In fact, that is why we were choosing to sail in September. I also didn't see anything advertised about Halloween at all when going to the booking website. We have never sailed on DCL before and so we are obviously new to this but I was shocked when I read this post. My 3 year old saw the one picture of the pumpkin tree that someone posted here and started to hide his face saying that the tree was creepy. After reading this thread, I did a google search to see where the dates were relayed and I did find them but they are NOT listed on the booking website. I feel this is wrong and I am so discouraged. Thankfully, we hadn't booked yet. Thank you to the original poster.

Host Mick, that is a perfect idea! I love it! Thank you so much.

Ok, not what I wanted to hear but good advice. Thanks so much.

Oh and we are planning to leave from Port Canaveral. But, we may look at Miami- never considered it before. We live in Georgia so Port Canaveral is a lot closer to drive.

Modern_Viking thanks for the idea for surprising my kiddos. I like it! My daughter has wondered if we could go and just look at the ships before, so that was a good idea. Moki's Mommy, we do plan to get two connecting rooms. Do you know if every cabin has the ability to connect? I am worried that if I wait for a deal, there won't be any connecting rooms available but if all cabins have a door between them, I don't need to be concerned.