Adventure In The Great Wide Somewhere

Disney Cruise Line Pronunciation /ˈdɪzni  kruːz  laɪn/ Noun 1.) A magical sea voyage, especially taken for the pleasure of enjoying a wonderful award winning vacation. 2.) A fantasy often appearing on a Disney fan's bucket list, right under "spend the night in the Cinderella Castle Suite." 3.) A dream come true.  A helping hand before you set sail on your first cruise! If you've decided to pull a fairy godmother and Bibbiddi Bobbiddi Boo this fantasy into being, let's start you off with a few helpful hints: What I wished I knew before my first cruise: Top Ten Things to Know Before Your First Disney Cruise Top 10 More Things to Know Before Your 1st Disney Cruise Another 10 Things to Know Before Your 1st Disney Cruise Embarkation Day 101 Everything that happens between hopping a shuttle to the cruise terminal and dinner the first evening. Debarkation Three different ways to exit your cruise, from the speed demon to dragging your feet. Wh...

One of the biggest advantages of a Disney Cruise Line vacation is that you can meet the princesses, enjoy water slides and soak up the Disney magic almost without waiting in lines. Almost. What if you wanted to avoid almost every crowd or line on your fantasy vacation?  Wow! Can I get my other two wishes, too? That dream can come true too!  1.) Timing is Key This is a simple tip of being where everyone wants to be (on the Aquaduck, visiting Mickey Mouse and boarding the ship) when all the other people are doing something else. Embarkation For boarding day, you select a port arrival time somewhere between 10 AM and 3:30 PM. If you show up with the crowds before boarding the ship begins (between 11 AM and noon) there can be a bit of a back up at the check-in desks and at the very least crowds. Show up before your selected port arrival time? I wouldn't recommend it. While Galveston enjoys plentiful seating, the terminal itself is bare bones. At Port Canaveral...

Looking back at all of the amazing, wonderful, impossible things that happened in the last year, I decided to go for broke when compiling my list of Disney New Y-Ears resolutions for the year. I'm going to try to do six impossible things this year, so please send pixie dust! Back to the Big Kid Rides Since my fearless princess is finally forty-four inches tall, she looks forward to conquering all of the big kid rides!  She has no fear, nor no one should. Impossibility: The possibility of having to take all of our family out of the chicken exits is very real. With possibly one child who wants to go on the ride coming with us. I am planning this trip down to the ride order rather than just the usual FastPass+, Advanced Dining Reservations and then letting the rest of the trip come as it may. Instead I've got all of our rides mapped out to slowly work our way up from the Great Goofini to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train before the scary rides a few days into the tri...

As I said the other day , I recently had reason to consider what I would want to know before my first cruise. Well, if something is worth doing it is worth overdoing. How about another ten? 1.) Do I Really Need A Passport? Assuming you don't need a passport to reach your port of embarkation (say heading to Barcelona for a Mediterranean cruise), is a passport necessary? Don't Leave Home Without It? Passports are recommended (as is trip insurance) although on a closed loop cruise, neither is currently required and I've cruised with friends who were perfectly happy to cruise on other approved forms of proof of citizenship. As always, things are subject to change. I wouldn't cruise without, but it's about your comfort level with risk. (The risk is if something happened and you needed to fly back to the states, how would you handle that without a passport?) So maybe you need one. 2.) Get The Pool and Slides To Yourself. If you pack swim...

How does a first day really go down? Do you need to eat lunch somewhere before you board? What do I need to do the first afternoon? What can my kids do? Are the clubs open yet? Come along on our typical embarkation afternoon to find out! The shuttle departs as the jubilant crowd moves onward, the sense of excitement nearly visible in the air. The majority of the luggage disappears rapidly and the vacationers tote day bags and paperwork into the terminal. Our family of four is down to a backpack of essentials . Paperwork, identification and some notebooks and crayons to keep the kids amused on the shuttle ride and during downtime. After slowly clearing security, more quickly clearing check in at the desks and retrieving the Oceaneer Club and Lab Mickey bands for children, we queue to meet Captain Mickey. While the kids peer at the model of the ship, I peruse the Personal Navigator to see where our afternoon will take us. The family of the day announced, the ...

Welcome to my very first trip report! I was so thankful to be able to set sail aboard the Disney Magic on DCL's first Thanksgiving sailing from the port of Galveston this last week, November 17, 2012. After a good night's rest, the kids shot out of bed predawn, much like on Christmas mornings while I tried not to forget any of the last minute odds and ends. They got out their little pre-cruise goodie bags so they were armed with sunglasses, pirate bandanas, lanyards and even some "My First Cruise" journals (some handwriting worksheets specific to our itinerary, coloring sheets off the castaway club website, car scavenger hunts for the way down, pirate bandanas, etc.) to hopefully keep them amused during the drive down to Galveston. I enjoyed the last of the free stateside Wi-Fi and 4G to do a little web surfing and found out something terrible on Facebook. My acquaintance Kathryn and her family were to be sailing with us (their first cruise ever) but she sent me a ...