Thinking of booking a disney cruise

[theriviera]

Hi!
I posted this on disboards but I would love the expert advice of BBB mamas!

Hi,
We are thinking of taking advantage of the KSF or SoCal resident rates for the 3/4 sailing to MR. We have 2 DDs, and they will be almost 3 and 9 months on this trip.

What is the best type of room to book? My main concern is what we will do while the kids are sleeping. My oldest will not sleep anywhere but her crib (or pack n play while traveling). The little one is so little so who knows how she will be.

Is it better to get a family suite with a verandah (cat 4b) or 2 connect 9b rooms on deck 2?

What did other parents do after their kids went to sleep?
theriviera is offline Reply With Quote

[HallsofVA]

Hi!
I posted this on disboards but I would love the expert advice of BBB mamas!

Hi,
We are thinking of taking advantage of the KSF or SoCal resident rates for the 3/4 sailing to MR. We have 2 DDs, and they will be almost 3 and 9 months on this trip.

What is the best type of room to book? My main concern is what we will do while the kids are sleeping. My oldest will not sleep anywhere but her crib (or pack n play while traveling). The little one is so little so who knows how she will be.

Is it better to get a family suite with a verandah (cat 4b) or 2 connect 9b rooms on deck 2?

What did other parents do after their kids went to sleep?
theriviera is offline Reply With Quote

We did our first Disney cruises when each child was 2. We were lucky enough to be able to upgrade at the port to a suite on both of those cruises, and it was wonderful to have the extra room while the little ones were napping. But even then we found we didn't use the verandah enough to warrant the extra cost, so we've booked mainly oceanview rooms, except when the price is relatively the same.

Our very first cruise we booked the Cat 4 room, thinking the extra space normally used for the murphy bed would give us the extra room to put the pack n play for the baby to sleep. We were lucky in that we were able to get our youngest out of the crib just in time for the cruise, since they wouldn't sleep in a PnP (and we weren't looking forward to a week of sleepless nights) but it sounds like you could be using 2 PnPs. For that reason, I'd consider booking the Cat 4 since you could use the extra floor space. However, they put a very high premium on those rooms, especially on the older ships, since they are the only non-suite rooms that sleep 5, but might be affordable given the kids free offer.

Under the kids free offer, you don't gain anything by booking 2 rooms, since you'll pay full price for the kids (unless you have extra people with you), but that may be where the so cal discount comes in. We actually booked 2 rooms for our 2nd cruise, but ended up upgrading to a suite, which left us throwing away one of the rooms (since DCL doesn't give you any credit for a 2nd room.) From that experience we haven't booked 2 rooms again, since it didn't get us quite the savings we'd hoped, and as the kids get older, it becomes more concerning about keeping them in the room, since there is no way to lock the rooms from the inside to keep someone inside from getting out into the hallways. So now we sleep in 1 room!

On our 2010 transatlantic cruise, were were actually upgraded to what's now a Cat 4E room, which was great. The room we got, 8594, was listed as a metal walled verandah, but was actually 1/2 plexiglass and 1/2 metal which was great for us, since the kids could look out and we could look out as well. (8090 should be the same way.) I wouldn't pay extra for a higher cost Cat 4 room if there is something cheaper than the 4b since the difference is location, other than the 4E rooms. But given you could probably use the room for 1 or 2 PnPs, I might consider the Cat 4 room over the window room, at least at this age.

You could take your chances, and book the oceanview room and try to upgrade, but given their efforts to fill those sailings via all the discounts available, plus that fact that you're in the spring break season, I'm not sure how good your upgrade chances will be. Make sure you book a room you'd be comfortable sailing in, and don't assume you'd be able to upgrade.

[HallsofVA]

I neglected to answer the 2nd part of your question - what to do while the kids sleep?

That depends on your kids of course, and how you utilise the nursery onboard (if you choose to), since your kids will be too young for the kids clubs.

We tried to keep our kids to their regular schedules as much as possible, so we planned time in each day for the kids to nap after lunch, and we put them to be right after the evening show (if it was one of the musicals or movies that we took them to - skip the variety acts at that age!) While the kids napped, either DH or I would remain in the room, while the other went walkabout or ran errands, took the other kid to the characters, looked at pictures, booked future cruises, went shopping, etc. We did the same thing at night, though we'd close the curtains and dim the lights until the kids were asleep, then we'd turn the TV on and pull it behind the curtain to the main side of the room so we could see it from the bed without bothering the kids. That was always my time to go look at the photos and take care of errands, since DH was usually tired and liked the quiet time before the TV. Then it was my job to gather snacks (drinks, late night snacks from outside the adult clubs, etc.) and bring them back to the room (unless we were ordering the cheese plate and BLT from room service!) Honestly, we were always so tired from the day that we never ended up staying up too much longer after the shops closed.

We only used the nursery twice with each child, usually on the sea days when we had Palo brunch and/or spa treatments booked. We luckily had grandparents onboard to watch them at night when we had a Palo dinner booked, but would have used the nursery for that as well if we'd needed to. There are others who use the nursery much more, but since you pay extra for it, we didn't go that route.

[theriviera]

Thank you! We decided to book connecting rooms. I cannot wait!