Hey there!
I got married while sailing on the Disney Magic in 2016. When getting married with
Disney Cruise Line you have two options: you can get married somewhere on the boat, or you can get married on Castaway Cay (Disney's Private Island) if that is part of your cruise's itinerary. I got married on Castaway Cay.
-I booked my cruise through Disney Fairytale Wedding directly. Travel agents are great, but for my wedding trip I didn't want to have to be trying to go through an agent if I needed to change anything. That being said, others on this board will probably have used a
travel agent and loved it!
-When dates are released varies, I know I booked my wedding about a year in advance, and I booked our current cruise about 15 months in advance, if that gives you any idea. You can go to the
Disney Cruise Line board on this site and join an itinerary watch thread and set up email alerts on it, so you'll be notified when someone posts and you can see if itineraries are out. There might be a way to do this with
DCL too, I'm not sure since I usually don't book on opening day.
-I'm going to let someone else answer the price change questions, this is only my third cruise and my first was in 2006 so I'm not too confident I know enough about price changes. I can tell you that my Feb 2016 cruise booked 1 year in advance cost around $600 per person and my Sept 2018 cruise cost about $700 per person booked 15 months out.
-So as far as what happens I'll walk you through booking through your wedding day. Keep in mind I got married in 2016 so some of these things may have changed or may change before your wedding:
I called Disney Fairytale Weddings and told them I wanted to book a wedding on Castaway Cay. I told them what sailing I wanted to book for and I was put in touch with a representative. I had to put a deposit down that day to reserve our cruise and our ceremony (I think it was about 20% of the total cost of our wedding and cruise fare for DH and I, so a little over $1,000).
After that I was assigned a wedding coordinator. As a cruise line bride, I had two coordinators, a land coordinator (took care of everything until the day I boarded the ship) and a sea coordinator (did not speak with or meet her until the day we set sail, she took care of everything on the boat).
The land coordinator emailed me within a few days, introduced herself, and emailed an attachment to me which was basically a welcome packet with slots for me to choose options for things like flowers, music, cake design, photography package choice, etc. I had a lot of time to complete this, I think they needed it about 2 months before the sailing date.
Then... you wait! There's not much to do on the cruise line end so this is the period where you'd get your dress, arrange travel and honeymoon, etc.
2 months before you fill out your packet and send it in. Be forewarned, the options are more limited for a cruise line wedding than for a wedding at, say, Walt Disney World, just because there's a limit as to what they can bring onboard for things like the cake and flowers.
My coordinator called me about a month before our cruise just to touch base with everything.
When we boarded, we were given a card inviting us to meet our sea coordinator at 3pm to do a final lookover of the itinerary. We were also offered complimentary steaming of our weddings attire (for bride and groom only, not including wedding party).
We met with our coordinator and double checked everything- it was all perfect. We were free to enjoy the ship for the rest of the day as any other cruise guest would.
The next day was our wedding, I had previously made an appointment for my hair at the onboard salon. I got there early (8am) and had my hair done. Then I went back to my room, got dressed, and my sea coordinator met me and my MOH at my stateroom and escorted us to disembark onto castaway Cay. They had a private golf cart waiting for me and took me straight to our ceremony, where DH and family were already waiting (they had been instructed to meet in another location the day befre and were taken to the venue by another cast member).
Then we had our ceremony and while our guests were taken back to the ship to the cake and champagne celebration at Palo, DH and i took pictures all around the island.
Then, we were taken back to the boat for the cake and champagne celebration. Here we had our first dance, made speeches and cut and enjoyed cake, champagne and the company of our guests. We had about an hour for this, since the restaurant had to prepare to serve dinner that night, but it felt like plenty of time.
At this point we went to enjoy the island as any other cruise guest would. That night, we had dinner at Palo compliments of Disney! : )
It was the absolute picture of perfection from start to finish. People have had mixed results with Disney Cruise Line's onboard photography, but my wedding pictures are amazing. They look like something out of a magazine. Our wedding was perfect, they were on top of everything from beginning to end and we had several people stop to ask us if this was a real wedding or a commercial (best feeling in the world!)
Good luck with your planning!!
