DREAMing of Christmas
We have been talking about making sure that we focus more on experiences and less on material things. For us it also works out that one of the few weeks we can guarantee a vacation will work for my husband is the week of Christmas. While we love the magic of Christmas morning. Waking up and seeing the tree and the kids excitement as they discover the treasures that arrived overnight. That part was fun. However, the rest of the day was spent mostly on cooking and cleaning up. Unfortunately, that was how most holidays were shaping up for us. We love hanging out with our family and we love eating. But when we have limited time off together we wanted something different out of our holiday celebration. We decided that for Christmas more than anything we wanted time together and experiences.
This does not mean that we are Grinches out to steal the Christmas joy, it just means that for us we wanted more than one day of cooking and eating. Taking into account my husbands unpredictable work schedule I set to work to find something we would all enjoy. We finally settled that we were going to do something “different” in October. I started hunting about for ideas.
They Make it Easy
We had done a Disney Cruise (ok I’d done 5, my husband 1, the boys 4) and the boys constantly ask when we are going on a Disney Cruise again. To my shock in my searching I found a Florida resident rate for a trip out of Port Canaveal, Fl on the Disney Fantasy for December 21-28. My husband liked the idea, but a DCL cruise hadn’t been first on our list for Christmas as we live in Florida and for him he wasn’t sure about a “beachy” cruise. The itinerary was:
- Day at Sea
- Cozumel
- Grand Cayman
- Day at Sea (Christmas)
- Castaway Cay
- Castaway Cay
Other ideas we considered were Iceland, Ireland, Germany and a National Park in the US. After many discussions we picked the cruise. Primary reasons for picking the cruise were ease of getting there, no flying for us, ease of planning and hopefully good weather. I booked through a travel agent, Jill Martin at Mickey Vacations, which made it even easier.
Rolling the Dice
The Florida resident discount gave us a good price, especially considering we booked less than 90 days before the sail date. However, the discounted rate meant we would not be picking our stateroom on the ship. Some cruisers would never consider not such a thing. The location of their stateroom is too important to them.
Disney has a number of “categories” of Staterooms. At the most basic there are four types of staterooms, Inside Stateroom, Oceanview, Oceanview with Verandah, and Concierge. Then within those categories there are a few different options. Our booking was a GTY room in category 5E. This guaranteed us a stateroom that was at least a 5E (Oceanview with Verandah) but Disney could upgrade us. They could not move us to a category below 5E.
Winning
Learning about the different categories can be a bit confusing. I found the descriptions by MouseSavers.com to be helpful in understanding the system. Essentially the category numbers go from 11-4, with 11 being the least expensive category and 4 the most expensive of non-concierge rooms. From there letters are used by Disney which indicate in most cases how desirable the location is. The letters go from A-E, with A being the “most” desirable location and E the “least” desirable location.
Category 5E rooms are at the aft of the Fantasy (and Dream) and rather than having clear plexi glass all the way down they have a partial white wall at the bottom. We were comfortable with the category and the price was right. Our stateroom assignment was actually an upgrade to category 4E. We really had no idea how amazing this would be until we were on board!
If you are looking for what we thought was a great room and location on the Dream and Fantasy our room was 5154 and it was fantastic.
Telling the Kids
I had a FANTASY about surprising the kids by just driving to the port on the morning of the cruise. However, as Christmas approached and my 9 and 11 years olds kept telling me about all the things they would do over the holiday break I was getting a little nervous. While they had been begging to go on another Disney cruise I was concerned the reveal might not have the MAGICal effect I was hoping for. After much debate, we ultimately decided to tell the kids about a week before the cruise.
We set up a scavenger hunt and it ended with them opening a package telling them about the cruise. It was hilarious in that it took a minute (or more) for them to figure out what was going on. My 9 year old was mostly WONDERing as to why I took a magnet off the refrigerator for him to open. It was a magnet that was a door decoration on our first Disney Merrytime cruise. Once they figured it all out they were very excited.
Tough Choice
If your decide to surprise your kids with a cruise you may not get the over the top happy reaction you are expecting. Think about your kids, the timing of the cruise, and how they feel about things. Some kids are great with a surprise the day of, others need some time to process. Ours were excited and happy, and maybe a day of cruise surprise would have worked. I’m glad we did it ahead of time as it was fun looking forward to the trip together for that last week.
We all make plans, and sometimes adjusting to changes in those plans can be hard. I knew the kids would have fun on the trip. However, I also recognized that they might need time to re-frame what they thought Christmas and the winter school break would look like. They were talking about spending time with Nanny, Papa and Uncle Mike before Christmas and how none of us would go anywhere AT ALL on Christmas day.
Embarkation Day!
We live about 2.5 hours from Port Canaveral. We decided to drive in that morning rather than getting a hotel. If you are flying it is highly advisable to fly in the day before your cruise. The ship will not wait. I actually had car trouble earlier in the week and didn’t get my car back until Thursday. This made me a little nervous but we built extra time into the schedule for traffic etc. We figured if the worst happened and the car broke down again we could have the car towed to the nearest shop/dealer and Uber/rent a car to finish the trip. That would have been stressful, but we were not going to miss the ship. The drive to the port was smooth sailing.
We arrived at Port Canaveral around 10:30 and waited in a line of cars to drop our bags and go park. Disney assigns a “Port Arrival Time” (PAT), the time you should arrive at the port to check in. This helps in managing crowds in the terminal. We had a PAT of 11:30, we tried to time the drive but were obviously a little early. We found a spot to park on the 3rd floor of the garage which was nice as we were right by the pedestrian bridge to the terminal. Then we waited in line to go into the terminal. This was the longest wait of the entire trip. Once in the terminal, we had time to go to the restroom and get all checked in.
Almost There!
In the terminal they have Disney cartoons playing and character picture opportunities. We were thrilled to get a picture with Goofy dressed for the holidays. The wait for the picture was only around 10 – 15 minutes and boarding had not yet begun. We found a spot to sit and they started calling boarding groups. Right about noon our vacation really began as we boarded the ship. We skipped the picture as went up the ramp to the ship. My crew is not big into lines or pictures. I cut a deal with them that if we did the character picture in the terminal we could skip the boarding picture. Our plan was to take into consideration what everyone likes and make sure we all had a good time.
Ahh…Vacation Begins
As we waited to board the ship I could feel myself relaxing and I was filled with anticipation. The crew announces and welcomes each family by name. As soon as we boarded my husband and the boys headed up to the buffet, Cabanas, for lunch. Upon check-in you pick up a “Navigator”. The Navigator tells you what is going on that day and some highlights for the week. The Navigator also has the very important information of where you can get lunch. Or at least this is always important for us.
Cabanas is always open on embarkation day and offers a buffet, there will also be a Main Dining Room (MDR) open for a sit-down option, and the pool side food stops typically open a little after Cabanas. We like to eat at the buffet and then the kids hit the pool. While they started filling their tummies I went to try and snag a brunch reservation at Palo, one of the adult specialty restaurants.
Planning and Changes
You can book a number of experiences before the cruise after your check-in date. We booked our trip a little on the late side, so a few things we wanted to do were all booked up. If you were unable to book a tasting, brunch, or dinner in advance of the cruise this is the time to try. You can also check later in the cruise as guests do sometimes cancel reservations, but frequently the best chance you have is embarkation day. When I arrived at the designated location there were a few groups ahead of me for dinning changes/reservation at the two adult only specialty resturants, Palo and Remy. They were opening for changes/additions starting at 12:30 and I arrived at about 12:15.
I was fortunate in that they actually got going about 12:25 and I was all set and on my way to lunch by 12:35. I was one of the lucky ones and was able to snag a Palo brunch reservation for the next day. Palo and Remy brunch are only offered on sea days. Our sea days were the 22nd and 25th. We didn’t want to do brunch on Christmas as we wanted to enjoy the morning and day with the kids. I then headed up to Cabanas to join my family.
Play Time!
We finished lunch, the boys changed and were off to the AquaDuck and pools. We hung on the pool deck and when the room was ready we all headed that way so we could put the carry-on bags down. Until the mandatory muster drill we enjoyed the pools, checked out the ship, and took in all the holiday decorations. We visited the various kids clubs during the open house and briefly went to a meet-up organized by the Facebook group for our sailing.
For almost every Disney sailing there is a group on Facebook. This is a great place to learn some tips and see what might be going on during your cruise. This was my 6th Disney cruise and I still learned things in the group. My kids didn’t really meet any of the the other kids as I was hoping they would. I think they were a little overwhelmed and didn’t really stay long enough to meet anyone.
Muster Drill and Sailing Away!
Every sailing of every cruise line is required to do a muster drill. Think of it as a fire drill from school. If something does go terribly wrong on a cruise and they have to evacuate the ship knowing where to go and what to do is critical. The best way to make sure everyone knows what to do is by conducting a drill. Your stateroom’s “muster” location is determined by your stateroom location.
On all of my other Disney cruises my muster location was located inside, this time we were going to be outside. The day was very mild so it was actually pretty nice being outside. The drill was well run and over quickly. The crew did a great job and everyone showed up on time (Yay!). I did bring a couple of activity books that they boys did until they got going with the drill. This helped keep them occupied while all the guests were checking in.
Disney does a nice “Sail a Wave” party, we skipped it this go around. The boys find it loud and we decided to hang on our Verandah drink some sparkling wine and ordered an “All Hands on Deck“. We sailed away and the boys wandered back and forth to the stateroom in between doing Midship Detective Agency adventures.
Disney Entertainment
Disney offers two seatings for dinner in the Main Dinning Rooms (MDR). the Main seating which was at 5:45 pm and the late seating which was at 8:15 pm. On this cruise we were part of the second seating which allowed us to attend the first show of the evening typically at 6:15 although that varied a bit depending on how long the evening’s entertainment was. The Disney shows are great! We were treated to the following Disney produced shows:
- A Fantasy Come True (Night 1)
- Aladdin (Night 2)
- Frozen (Night 5)
- Disney’s Believe (Night 7)
In addition to the Disney shows two special groups performed and we had one movie:
All That! Percussion Dance Group (Night 3)
StarWars: The Rise of Skywalker (Night 4) – a PremEAR
The Jumprope of Flight Crew (Night 6)
Top Notch
All of the Disney produced shows are Broadway style and we loved them! If you have to miss an evening show to make room for another activity I would try really hard to not miss the Disney shows. We attended all the Disney Shows and Star Wars. We did skip out on the other two shows as we were busy enjoying other options on board.
If you twisted my arm and made me pick a favorite show of the cruise it is a really hard call between Aladdin and Frozen. Ultimately, Aladdin wins out because you just can’t beat the Genie. The vivacity that he brings is spectacular. You can feel the energy pulsing through the audience.
PremEAR
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker premiered right before our cruise started. As a result we were treated to a showing of the movie in the main theater on the 4th night of the cruise. My husband watched it that night and the next day (he skipped Frozen) in 3D. According to him the crowd was way more into it the first night it was shown. If you are looking for a special movie experience, try to catch a recently released movie the first time its shown on-board. PremEARs occure when a movie premiers during the cruise. They treated our evening showing of Star Wars as a PremEAR and it definitely added to the experience.
Disney Dinning
Each Disney ship has three main dinning rooms (MDRs). On your cruise you rotate through those dinning rooms and your servers go along with you! This allows you to build a relationship with your severs and they are better able to meet your needs since they get an idea of what you like/don’t like. On the Fantasy the three MDRs are:
- The Royal Court
- Animator’s Palate
- Enchanted Garden
Each dinning room has a theme and the menu is different ever night. On Pirate Night and Christmas the menu was the same in all of the dinning rooms.
Dinning with Strangers
A scary part of the trip for me was if we would be paired with another family for dinner. This was the first time we were doing late dinning which starts at 8:15. My kids are generally close to bed by that time. We weren’t sure how late dinner would go for us, and what would happen if we had to eat with another family. However, I never made a request to sit on our own and we were paired with another family. At first my husband was like really?? He didn’t know what to think about this situation.
Sharing a table actually turned out to be part of what made the trip so much fun. Both families had 9 and 11 year old boys and the boys had a great time together. They were practically inseparable. It was lovely watching the boys make friends. The adults got along well too and we even went for drinks and enjoyed some music a few times after dinner. Making the boys even happier was their new friends stateroom was just a few doors from ours!
Success
Our table pairing worked out great, but we learned that late dinning just is not for us. Dinner takes 1.5-2 hours. Our kids were wiped out before dinner even started. They were troopers because our servers Milton and Viry were AMAZING and quickly learned to get their food out fast. We found on a number of nights they needed dinner before dinner or they left to go to bed before dessert. Not the end of the world, but earlier dinner would be better for us.
Like I said our servers were AMAZING. One night my younger son ate a burger in the kids club before dinner in the MDR. One of our rules for the trip was that we had to eat dinner together. So he came to dinner with us even though he wasn’t hungry. He did decide he wanted green beans and apples. Our servers brought him a bowl of each, which made his night. He happily munched on those and we were happy because he was with us at dinner.
Still Want to Dine Alone?
You can request to sit with just your family, but it is just that a request. While they will work to accommodate all requests, it is just that a request. However, I would give sitting with others a shot. It frequently works out really well. The first time we were paired with another family we really didn’t talk to the other group much, and that was fine. We all still had a nice dinner. It wasn’t awkward we just didn’t interact much.
You can put in a request for a family similar to yours, although from many posts I’ve read Disney does their best to do that anyway. Our table mates had actually requested to sit with a family that had an 11 year old and 9 year old boy. We were the lucky family that fit the bill and it truly added to the experience. As a matter of fact our kids keep asking to cruise next Christmas since their friends “always” cruise at Christmas.
Sea Days
Our first full day of the trip was a sea day. I LOVE sea days. I find that they allow us to really unwind as there is no rush to get somewhere. However, I can not break myself of waking up early. The good news was this let me get some miles in on deck 4 where there is a running loop before everyone else woke up. Want to know what it’s like running on a cruise you can read more about my running exploits on LoveRunRepeat. I did my run went back to the room and the rest of my gang was ready for breakfast.
What to Do?
There is always something to do! On our first sea day we made sure the boys had a hearty breakfast at Cabanas and we headed to brunch at Palo. The boys found their new friends and were off adventuring, hanging at Edge (tween club) and the Kids Club plus doing some Midship Detective Agency. Our brunch and adult time was fabulous. The kids had fun being kids. When we were done with brunch we hunted down the kids. This was even easier using the Wave phones provided in your stateroom. We enjoyed some family time.
We found time to enjoy the pool, ride the AquaDuck, and caught a showing of Frozen II in 3D. The AquaDuck is a water-coaster unique to Disney Cruise Line and can be found on the Dream and Fantasy. Based on height and weight you can go as single or double riders. For most of our cruise it was windy so it was double rider only.
Navigating Your Day
We used the paper navigator and Disney Cruise Line app to find things for us to all enjoy throughout the day. We also enjoyed watching the ocean go by from our Verandah, including some glimpses of Cuba as we sailed by.
Examples of things to do:
- Going to the pool
- Checking out the sports deck, mini-golf, basketball, etc
- Riding the AquaDuck/water slides
- Checking out the splash areas
- Watching a movie
- Playing Bingo
- Towel Animal Folding
- Drawing Classes
- Character Meet & Greets
- Gingerbread Decorating (Merrytime Cruise)
- Triva
- Craft time
The list could go on and on. On port days you can go exploring shore side or hang out on the ship. Even on port days there are options for on-board fun.
Highlights (as this is getting long) of the cruise were:
- Rio Secreto (Secret River) in Cozumel
- Frozen and Aladdin in the Walt Disney Theater
- Christmas Eve and Morning (I don’t want to spoil surprises)
Disney Service
Our dining team was outstanding! They were accommodating and made great recommendations. They were honest about what is great and not as good on the menus. Our room host took great care of us. We had a minor issue when we first got to our room. It was taken care of and everything was on point for the rest of the trip. No I didn’t make a stink and demand anything. Problem solved, great service delivered that was what I would expect.
We even ran into an Officer from our first Disney cruise, on the Magic in Northern Europe back in 2017! On that cruise she got my very overtired son hash browns at dinner when he was losing his mind.
Since this was a holiday cruise I ordered room decorations and they were a hit. The blanket is still my favorite and we used it a lot on the trip as there was a cold front the week of our cruise.
Disappointments?
- The weather – it was chilly and a little choppy throughout the cruise
- It rained both days at Castaway. Again, Not Disney’s fault but would have liked a little better weather.
- We did snorkel (1st day)
- I did the 5k on the first day (they actually did it both days but I didn’t realize this until I saw people walking back)
- The boys played for hours in the sand (1st day)
- We did the stingray adventure (2nd day)
- We walked to the observation point (2nd day)
- Cancellation of Grand Cayman due to weather.
- They did get a spot at Cozumel so we went there again.
- Lots of water excursions were cancelled both days due to weather.
- My husband and I ended up going horseback riding and leaving the boys on the ship. We had a lot of fun and it was better than we expected.
Was it Worth it?
The trip was magical. We went to mass on Christmas Eve and took the boys to a service in the morning. It was nice to still have that part of Christmas. We spent a lot of time connecting as a family and playing together. I rode the AquaDuck about 10 times, the boys even more. If you are looking for a different type of Christmas I highly recommend a Merrytime Disney cruise.