Disney Cruise Or Something Different?

My first Disney cruise was back in 2008.  I was a travel agent and we got a deal on a

Mexican Riviera cruise on the Magic.  I think I paid something like $400 for a 7 night cruise.  I shared the room with 2 other friends of mine.   My first cruise ever was way back in 1995 when Doug and I did a 2 night Princess cruise.  That is what got us hooked on cruising.

A Disney cruise is so different than other cruise when it comes to experiences.  The basic parts of the cruise is the same though.  Food is included, along with entertainment and your room of course.   What is different with a Disney cruise you ask? 

Well...the characters is one...you get to have your pictures taken with various characters.  You don't have to pay for pictures, you can just hand your camera to the Cast Member and they will take your picture with your own camera. 

Another difference is how they do their dining.  You have 3 restaurants that you rotate through and your servers come with you.  Each restaurant is themed and you will get your rotate schedule in your cabin when you first get on the ship.

Third difference is the pirate night deck party (except for Alaska cruises)...and that includes fireworks.  To me this is my highlight

for a Disney cruise.  I love the fireworks show.  I have seen it when it worked smoothly and I have seen it when Mickey Mouse get's stuck up in the zip line that he uses. 

One other difference is that soda is included in your cruise fair, but for the crazy amount of money they charge for the cruise, they better have something like that included.

Doug and i have been on about 35 cruises, but only 6 have been on Disney.  Why such a difference and not more Disney cruises?  Because Disney cruises are about double the price as regular cruises, at least the ones we do.   We do Mexican, Pacific Coastals and Alaska cruises the most and Disney has them, but they are expensive.  When we did our first Coastal cruise on Disney, we paid about $700US for a 6 night cruise, and then we did a few 4 night Disney coastal cruises...first one was about $500US, second one about $650

and now for the 2020 one...it is $900US for a 4 night cruise.  I can do a coastal cruise on Princess for about $400CDN.    Just in case you don't know...I have to add about 35% to any US pricing to convert into Canadian...so as you can see, Disney has priced us out of their cruises. 

We do a lot of Princess and Celebrity cruises.   We just love cruising so very much and I would rather do a couple of cruises on a non Disney cruise to one Disney cruise.   We might do a Disney cruise again, but right now, even their cheaper cruises are way too expensive and just isn't worth it to us as other than those three big differences, the other lines do cruising just as well.

We are DVC members and so we still get our Disney fix in when we do Disney World,

Disneyland and Aulani.  So it isn't as if we don't get our Disney fix in, and honestly, even on a non Disney cruise, we are over the top Disney.

What I love about doing a non Disney cruise is that we stand out as the Disney freaks.  I love the questions we get about our love of Disney and people always smile at us when they see our freaky Disney side.  When you do a Disney Cruise, you are just one of the crowd and don't stand out at all LOL.  All our clothes are Disney, and even my dressy clothes has Disney on it, so on dress up nights, we are still

representing Disney.  I make Disney magnets and put them on our door (and inside the cabin).  Mickey Mouse comes along too and he has a full wardrobe along.  So even if it isn't a Disney Cruise, we are showing our Disney side.

The food is fantastic on the lines I have done.  Sure there are hit and misses for items, but that is just personal taste.  You can eat so much and never go hungry on a cruise.  I think Celebrity Cruises has some of the best food.  I think Carnival is right up there too and personally I think both those lines have better food than Disney.  But honestly, if I don't have to cook or clean, I don't care what I get served.    Many of the Celebrity promo's right now include a drink package (including Alcohol) so that makes it even more affordable than Disney :) 

Cabins...well that varies from ship to ship.  We usually get inside or oceanview and so as you can tell, we don't spend a lot of time in our cabin.  It is a place to sleep.  When we do get a balcony, then we do enjoy it a little more and I just spend a bit of time researching which cabins might have bigger balconies.  Some are non advertised bigger balconies so you do have to do your research on that.  I think Celebrity and Carnival have some of the bigger cabins.  Disney does have decent sized cabins, and with their category 10 and up, they have that split bathroom which is nice, but again...for the crazy amount they charge, they better have something a little better.  But what i don't like about Disney is that their

main bed in the cabins don't split, and so if you are travelling with friends, you are kind hooped.    Our next Princess cruise to Alaska (4 nights) is in an inside cabin.  Our 15 day Trans Pacific cruise on Celebrity is in an oceanview cabin.  With 9 days at sea, we wanted to at least be able to see outside a little when we are in our cabin.  I found some oceanview cabins with bigger than normal windows so that will be nice.

Entertainment is the best on Disney, but considering they have the Disney name to back them up, it better be.  They do that so well.  When I do other lines, I just put aside my Disney entertainment expectations and enjoy the fact that I am getting a show that doesn't cost me anything.  I like Celebrity entertainment.  Carnival is very flashy but a little more iffy when it comes to outfits.  Princess is really good.  I have not been a fan of Holland American entertainment, but NCL was decent the two times I cruised with them. 

We love to just relax and enjoy the ship.  Even on port days, we tend to spend a few hours

off the ship and then come back on and enjoy the quiet of the ship.  Usually we like to choose a ship with a covered pool area so that if the weather sucks, we can still be sitting outside (sort of).  We like to have adults only areas, but that doesn't really matter too much unless it is on Disney...then it matters.  We love to sit in lounges with views to the outside.  We like to just sit and enjoy watching the world go by.  It is one of the reasons we actually love sea days.   For us, the ship is important for a cruise as we spend a lot of time on it.  We read, people watch and do a few of the activities offered, but it doesn't matter to us that much as we really do a lot of relaxing.

I am all about getting deals.  I watch pricing for whatever cruise we are booked on.  Even after final payment, I will watch the price.  If the price goes down, I will see if I can get an upgrade to something.  Cruiselines won't refund you money after final payment, but they generally don't mind upgrading you if you find a decent deal.  I used to be a TA and I always tried to get either a refund (before final payment) or an upgrade (after final

payment) for my clients.  I won't do non refundable deposits though.  I keep a very close eye on that when booking my cruises.   Our 15 day Transpacific cruise has 3 perks attached to it...free gratuities, free wifi and a free drink package.   The one thing good about other lines is that they offer promo's, where as Disney cruise lines sell so well, that they very rarely will offer any promo.  Picture is from one of our cruises where they had a glass blowing section on the top of the ship.  That was awesome. 

Everyone vacations differently.  If you are the type that only does a vacation every couple years, then I bet you would love to do the Disney Cruise.  But we love to go on vacations as often as we can, and so we would rather do the less expensive cruises and get our Disney fixes in when we either do the parks or Aulani.  I won't say our way is better because it isn't for everyone.  It is better for us.    Sure we could afford a Disney cruise if we only did it once every 3 or 4 years, but that would kill me only doing a cruise that little.  We didn't do a cruise last year and that was tough.  I won't complain as we did Disneyland and Disney World, but I noticed that we didn't do a cruise.