Cruise during Spring Break

[sm4987]

My husband is a teacher so he has all those holidays off. I am looking at taking the cruise the third week of March in 2004. It will be our vacation, but it will also be 2 weeks before our 10 year anniversary. I was wondering what special things Disney does for special occasions. I was also wondering about the staterooms. Our kids are coming with us (I don't want them to miss this cruise) and I wanted a rather luxurious room. Any suggestions?

 

[MBD1215]

depends on the budget. 3,4,or 7 day cruise?age of children?

 

[sm4987]

We are taking the 7 day cruise and my children will be 4 and 8. Budget is a consideration. We are looking at $5000 and under. During that week after checking prices, they are extremely reasonable.

 

[MBD1215]

we just came back from 4 days on the wonder, booked a cat. 4 room for $3200., 2 adult, 2 kids 17,13. air fare from newark was $800., spending money on boat $800., upgraded to cat 3 at port for $598.tips $200.,Parking at airport $80., odds and ends $200.
total about $5800. room was outstanding, stayed in cat 6 back in 2000, if we did cat 6 it would have been about $800.less,room was fine back then kids were a lot smaller, but 6 was great for younger kids. the only thing that I think is a must, is a veranda room, (cat 6 and up),once you have the veranda it would be hard to take anything else.

 

[floridaminnie]

MBD1215 how did you get away with only spending $200 on odds and ends. Between the spa, drinks, excursions and photos I'm still scared to look at our bill from this past July!

 

[my3kids]

I am just back from 7 night and rebooked for the same week you are looking at...3rd week of March '04. The Eastern trip was great and now I'm excited to get to try the Western.

All the rooms are pretty much alike unless you book a suite. We got connecting category 10 rooms so we could have a room to ourselves and the children were in the connecting room. That worked out great. You'll pay more than everbody in one room, but it provided privay, a couple of bathrooms, etc.

For us(family of 5) $5000 would have been more than enough last time and will be this next time as well. Putting everyone in 1 room will cut the costs tremendously, even if you get a verandah stateroom. Suites......way more, but beautiful, I'm sure.

Cruises Only has offered the best discount for me this time. Last time Costco was the cheapest. Ask for the REF code on your reservation. That will provide a $50 shipboard credit(and it is per cabin if you booked 2 rooms)

 

[MBD1215]

didn't do any excursions this time, did do mud bath at spa. $200.00 a day seemed to be the number, trip in 2000 bill was about $1000. when we got off boat.this trip it was 8 and change.first trip did blue lagoon excursion. we didn't skimp on anything on either trip, did what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it.

 

[Padre Disney]

?MY3KIDS
Did you tell DCL ahead if time that you would be putting the kids in one room and you and Dh in the other? We have the same thing booked for March. (2 connecting cat 10's) I was told they charge the first 2 guests as adults no matter what the age. Is that correct? We want to do the same thing. Put the kids in one room and us in the connecting room. I thought I read somewhere that DCL used to make sure that an adult was in each room. Our oldest will be 17 when we cruise. I just want to make sure that when we request one room set up for the kids and one for us that no one tells us we can't do that. Do we need to keep it a secret or not?

 

[tecdavidt]

DCL will charge the first two in a room as adult pricing and the following are based as person no. 3 rate and so forth. We always had two rooms with the children (they were teens) in the room by themselves. DCL always put one parent in each room. After arriving we would go to guest services and have them switch it so that the parents would be in the same room. No problems. Kathy

 

[my3kids]

padre:

No secrets.....we had to book an adult in each room, but even DCL reservations said they don't do bed checks! The only problem, and I wouldn't even really call it a problem, was the key issue. My oficial KTTW card for charging was the second room number, the one I was booked in but not the one I was sleeping in. I asked at guest services and they printed 2 blank KTTW cards....no names or charging information printed on them, for my husband and me. That way I had a key to the room I was sleeping in and he had a key to the room the kids were in. The door connected internally, so he really never needed to use his "blank" key, but I used it all the time. One tip for these connecting doors. I had packed a roll of clear packing tape just because you never know when you'll need clear packing tape. It goes on every vacation along with zip lock bags and permanant markers.....but I digress.....Anyway, that was a miracle product to have. I taped the locks open on both internal doors so we just had to pull the handles to move back and forth between the cabins. Very convenient, and very quiet too. We didn't hear the kids and their late night TV fest! And 2 showers were a Godsend!A great solution.

Oh, and yes...By getting 2 rooms, we paid for 4 adults and 1 child, even though all the children were 12 and under. Surprisingly, it was still less than 1 category 4 cabin.

 

[Padre Disney]

Tecdavidt.
I know who you are. Have you figured out who I am yet?
I can't wait for March.

Myskids.
Thanks for the tape idea. I had not thought of that one. I read about a bungie cord but I didn't want the door open all the time. We had 2 cat 6's last time and the door was terrible.
We had 2 other adults traveling with us so we had 2 adults and 2 kids in each room. This time it will be just us with our 4 kids. We liked the verandah but only used it maybe an hour out of the 3 day cruise. Not worth the extra money IMO. But we loved the split bathroom and wanted it again for our 7 day. Since we loved the 3 day and wanted a 7 day we picked a cat 10 which we are told is the same as the cat 6 with out the verandah. I hope the info we have got is correct.
Thanks for the KTTW info.