Time for DCL and need some help.

[Iluvjo]

Hello all,

This is my first time on DCL forum. I have spent a many a night looking, reading,and just plain day dreaming under RCCL forum. I have learned so much from fellow travelers.

A little about us, wife and two girls 7 and 9. We have been on 13 RCCL ships sailing out ofthe east and west coast ports and one on Carnival. We are just off a wonderful trip two weeksago where we spent two days at Disney World (Magic and Animal Kingdom) and thensailed Oasis of the Seas for 7 days. Allwonderful and we had a great time. Ithink what is attracting me now to DCL is that we have seen most of the showsthat RCCL offers and it would be nice to experience a Disney Cruise with newsights and shows while are girls still believe in magic.

Here is where I need your help, if you are up for a challengethat is 😉.

Few questions

1. What is the best for you, to book your trip througha travel agent or Disney Cruise Line website? Personally, I have always found what I want on RCCL’s website and thencalled the RCCL reservation number and booked my trip.

2. I would like to book travel in early summer of2019 to the Caribbean after school lets out. I live in Virginia and would prefer to travel out of Florida. Are there better ports as far as price isconcerned? I am would have answered thisquestion myself however, Disney’s website is undergoing an upgrade andunavailable until tomorrow.

3. For those that have sailed both RCCL and DCLwith children, what wowed you the most with DCL?

 

Thank you for taking the time in looking at this post. I look forward to reading your responses.

 

Leo

[Elka]

The time that you would like to book is one of the most expensive times in the year for DCL. The itineraries for Summer of 2019 are already out. Don’t expect a discount even from travel agents. Research as much as you can, there are other sites besides this one where almost any question is answered. The ships that leave from Florida during the summer are the Dream and Fantasy. The only other advice I can give is, don’t try to do everything, relax, this is supposed to be a vacation and enjoy yourselves!

[gometros]

To add to the above. The Wonder will be doing Alaska and the Magic Mediterranean itineraries summer of 2019. Bothe the Fantasy (7-day Eastern/Western with a few longer cruises thrown in) and the Dream (3/4-day cruises) both sale out of Port canaveral summer 2019.C

[alaska_planner]

as others have mentioned, there is a good disney fan forum that has a disney cruise line page with tons of information..

 

also, another thing you can do is look at personal navigators from prior cruises...

the navigator is disney's version of royal's cruise compass.....the activity schedule..

 

you can find many past navigators at this website

http://disneycruiselineblog.com/personal-navigators/

as mentioned, since you're interested in florida in the summer of 2019, just look at the navigators from the disney fantasy and the disney dream..

 

.

[Iluvjo]

Thank you all for responding. Great tips and tricks, thank you.

Leo

[kodesthemoose]

DCL almost never offers any discounts, but what you can get through a TA is either on board credit, or with something like Costco, you get a cash back gift card after the cruise. You can transfer a reservation that you make with DCL to a TA within 30 days of making the reservation. I have never sailed RCCL, but with DCL, the prices go up and up and up, rarely ever down. Summer is definitely a very pricey time to go. To give you an idea, we were originally booked for a 7 day caribbean (Fantasy) in August 2017, which I booked on opening day. When fall itineraries came out, I moved our cruise to November, resulting in a savings of around $2,000.

 

We have cruised Carnival, NCL, and Princess. My kids loved DCL, but honestly they are happy on any cruise line. The DCL kids clubs can be very unstructured - I am not sure that my kids learned any names of kids club staff for the whole week nor did any staff learn their names. However, they had a blast - they participated in some of the structured activities but also loved the free play including on the ipads, sigh.

 

Disney does a lot of things well, the service is excellent and the character interaction is great. Lots to love, but the price can be a bit hard to swallow.