So...we took our first Disney Cruise. As a disclaimer, I have to admit that it would be considered an understatement to say that I'd recommend Disney Cruise Lines. However, when I post, my intent is to help others, so also keep that in mind. We enjoyed our experience and would definitely do it again, but there are many people who have never travelled on a cruise or on a Disney cruise before and I hope my experience can help inform them and others. I will use a question and answer format for this post.What happens if there is a storm in the area of my itinerary?
First of all, let me recommend that you buy the insurance for a cruise if you are planning to set sail during hurricane season. While it is rare, there is always the possibility that a cruise may be cancelled and you are only guaranteed your money back if you purchased the insurance. That said, you'll probably never have to worry about this, so you can make your own decision regarding this. Now, I can answer this question from experience because this is exactly what happened to us. A hurricane developed in the Caribbean in the area of our cruise itinerary. I was worried about how this would affect our cruise. Obviously, we would prefer to avoid rain and rough seas. However, Disney contacted us by email, by phone and on their website three days before we were to sail to inform us that they were changing the itinerary to avoid the storm. If you choose a cruise based solely on the destinations, this might be a problem for you. However, we chose to cruise on Disney first, the destinations were secondary for us. Therefore, my next recommendation would be to avoid any attachments to your destinations until your ship actually sets sail.
Is the food/drinks free?
Basically, you can eat from before sunup to well after sundown and all of it was included. We only paid for two drinks the entire time. I never found a time when food on board was not included. However, drinks are not always included. If you order alcohol, it will never be free. Fortunately for us, we aren't big on drinking alcohol. However, bottles of water are also extra and expensive. They can be bought on board, but I would not recommend it. This is not a problem if you plan ahead however because you can take water on the ship. We packed an entire case of bottled water in our luggage. Think you won't need the water? Perhaps not, but we drank the entire case over the week even with water free at all the buffet and drink station on deck 9. Perhaps you can avoid taking water on board, but it is a lot easier carrying a bottle of water ashore for your excursions than it is trying to carry a cup of water with a lid from the drinking station.
How does rotational dining work?
Rotational dining is a rather fun and interesting method of crowd control. Basically, they can't have everyone on board decide to go to the same restaurant for dinner, so they assign you to which restaurant you will eat in on which nights. The only exception to this is if you choose to make a reservation at one of the adult only restaurants like Palos.
Now, while this solves the problem of crowd control pretty effectively, it does NOT end the concept of rotational dining. It is more than just rotating between restaurants. In fact, that technically isn't what it is about at all. Rotational dining is that your servers (waiters, whatever) rotate with you. That way, you always have the exact same servers helping you. This allows them to get to know you and your family a bit and they learn your preferences as well. In fact, after 2 days of a 7 day cruise, we no longer had to order drinks, they were brought to us when our servers first came to our table. Of course, we occasionally threw a wrench into that by changing it up a bit, but the staff was very professional and this didn't faze them a bit.
I suppose this could be difficult if it turns out that you do not enjoy your servers, but Disney makes every effort to make you comfortable, so there is probably a way around that as well, if it turned out to be the case, but I doubt it would.
What about tips?
Tips are not left with anyone during the cruise itself. Tips are paid for when you are settling your bill. There is generally an "accepted" minimum for tips and you are expected to pay that. So, do not expect that you can eat all over the ship and use the services, etc. and then not pay the tip. You probably could make this fuss, but that speaks more about you than it does the service received. At any rate, the total bill amount will include the tips at the end. Therefore, PLAN FOR THIS! One of the biggest complaints I've heard and read is that people didn't plan for this reality and so felt surprised by it at the end. I had done my research and so I was expecting it and planned for it. In addition to the base tips, you can choose to provide additional tips. If I recall, we could provide additional tips to four people, our two waiters and the two people who made up our rooms each day. We chose to tip extra, but this extra tip is entirely voluntary.
Are port excursions worth the money?
Is the cruise worth the price you pay?
How does the kids areas on board work?
Palos or no Palos?
Should we buy photos on board? If so, when?
Things I didn't know before getting on board?
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