Almost 75 days out, have some questions

[love disney]

Hope someone can help. We are almost at the 75 day out period when I can make my shore excursion reservations and boarding time choice and have some questions.

1) What is the earliest that you can reserve for boarding? We will be driving to Port Canaveral that morning from Disney and want to make sure we give ourselves plenty of time.

2) Am I correct in my understanding that the shore excursion I reserve is paid for after the cruise, not at the time I place the reservation? (I am fine either way, just curious)

3) Being as this is our first cruise we can't make these reservations until 75 days out...what do you think the chances will be for us (just two of us...our honeymoon!) to get a good dinner time at Palo for the last night of a 4 night cruise? If there aren't good times, any suggestion on a different night we should try?

4) What time can I log on at day 75 to make reservations?

5) Last but not least, anything else I should know about or that I might not have thought of?

Thanks!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Hope someone can help. We are almost at the 75 day out period when I can make my shore excursion reservations and boarding time choice and have some questions.

1) What is the earliest that you can reserve for boarding? We will be driving to Port Canaveral that morning from Disney and want to make sure we give ourselves plenty of time.

2) Am I correct in my understanding that the shore excursion I reserve is paid for after the cruise, not at the time I place the reservation? (I am fine either way, just curious)

3) Being as this is our first cruise we can't make these reservations until 75 days out...what do you think the chances will be for us (just two of us...our honeymoon!) to get a good dinner time at Palo for the last night of a 4 night cruise? If there aren't good times, any suggestion on a different night we should try?

4) What time can I log on at day 75 to make reservations?

5) Last but not least, anything else I should know about or that I might not have thought of?

Thanks!

1) 10:30. That's not your boarding time, that's your arrival time to the terminal. Many people will arrive before that, the doors usually open around 10:00, sometimes earlier.

2) Your shore excursions are charged to your stateroom account. So they are essentially charged at the time you cruise.

3) With just two of you, there's a chance. Be online at midnight to try! Don't log in until 12:00 or it won't work. If you can't get it, board as early as possible and hopefully you won't have any problems. They do hold some back for the day of boarding.

4) Midnight Eastern time.

5) You sound ready!

 

[love disney]

1) 10:30. That's not your boarding time, that's your arrival time to the terminal. Many people will arrive before that, the doors usually open around 10:00, sometimes earlier.

So in effect we reserve an arrival time and not an actual boarding time? I know this is a new system for them (plus it's our first Disney cruise!), so I just wanted to make sure I understand this process.

2) Your shore excursions are charged to your stateroom account. So they are essentially charged at the time you cruise.

3) With just two of you, there's a chance. Be online at midnight to try! Don't log in until 12:00 or it won't work. If you can't get it, board as early as possible and hopefully you won't have any problems. They do hold some back for the day of boarding.

If they don't have good times for that last night, would it be best to make reservations for another night and then try and change it when I board? Or is that frowned upon and I should just wait until I get there (though hopefully I will get a decent time to start with!)?

4) Midnight Eastern time. haha, I am an early riser so I was hoping they would keep people locked out until 6am, guess I will be staying up late that night!

5) You sound ready!

Thank you so much for your help! We can not wait...right now we are at the point where we wish we could just skip the wedding ceremony all together (but still be married of course!) and get straight to the honeymoon! Four days at Disney followed by a four night cruise! So excited, and so happy that I was able to get it all paid off a few months ago! Oh yeah, the only expense (other than shore excursions and dinner which we have already accounted for) are the annual passes we will be buying! Those are our wedding presents to each other

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Thank you so much for your help! We can not wait...right now we are at the point where we wish we could just skip the wedding ceremony all together (but still be married of course!) and get straight to the honeymoon! Four days at Disney followed by a four night cruise! So excited, and so happy that I was able to get it all paid off a few months ago! Oh yeah, the only expense (other than shore excursions and dinner which we have already accounted for) are the annual passes we will be buying! Those are our wedding presents to each other

:lol: I think most people reach that point during the wedding planning process!
Those are awesome wedding presents!

Yes, you are letting Disney what time you would like to arrive at the port. Right now, they aren't enforcing arrival times and you can arrive whenever you would like.

After you go through security and get in line, you will be given a boarding number. The earlier you arrive, the lower your boarding number should be.

Disney has toyed with it affecting your boarding time. For instance if you had an arrrival time of 1:00, you were given a higher boarding number even if you were amont the first to arrive at the port. That's not the norm though.

Around 11:45ish they will start calling boarding numbers.

They don't mind you changing Palo times at all. They will just open that time up for someone else. No problem.

You will be up late! Just FYI, choosing your arrival time is the last step in the online check in process. Lately that hasn't been showing up until sometime in the middle of the night. Around 3 AM the last time I checked.

If it's not there, don't worry or stay up until 3! Just do it first thing when you wake up.

 

[love disney]

Thanks for the great information and help Disneyfalcon, I really appreciate it! Looks like it will be a late-night, or I guess actually a super-super early morning for me on the 19th! Fingers crossed that I get a good Palo reservation and an early arrival time! I'm sure I will be so excited I will post and let everyone know. haha!

 

[Disneyfalcon]

Thanks for the great information and help Disneyfalcon, I really appreciate it! Looks like it will be a late-night, or I guess actually a super-super early morning for me on the 19th! Fingers crossed that I get a good Palo reservation and an early arrival time! I'm sure I will be so excited I will post and let everyone know. haha!

Fingers crossed!!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

When I did our online check-in...or attempted to...at midnight on our 75th day it didn't work. I don't know what the deal was. I stayed up until like 1:30 or so in the morning trying & never could get in. I was thinking maybe it was that the website was jammed with other people trying to do their check-in. Who knows. :shrug: Eventually I gave up and went to bed. My hubby woke me at like 7:30 the next morning asking if I got the check-in done. I jumped up & tried again and got it done right away. So at 7:30 on our 75 day mark I got our port arrival time for 11:00 which was the earliest of my choices. I'm actually hoping Disney starts enforcing arrival times. This would make things so much less stressful. I won't feel the need to get up at zero-o'clock to get to the port early to score a good boarding group number. Ya know?

There's been word that as of August 2nd the port won't be opening to incoming passengers until 10:30 or 11 (can't remember the exact time...I'm so horrible with remembering numbers). There's been rumors that they'll start enforcing the port arrival times. I've seen where people have been told if you arrive before your time the CMs at the gate will suggest nice places in the area to go pass the time before they can allow you to even park your car. I don't know if that will happen. It's hard to envision, huh? Just think of all the po'd passengers. Eek! I don't think any of that will apply to the folks coming in on Disney's bus transfers which **could** act as a perk to paying the $$ to use their transfers. It's kinda a wait-n-see thing right now. I'm watching it closely as I'm sure Tammy and all the KK team are. If/when changes come to fruition I'm sure that info will show up here pretty quickly. :wave:

 

[Disneyfalcon]

There's been word that as of August 2nd the port won't be opening to incoming passengers until 10:30 or 11 (can't remember the exact time...I'm so horrible with remembering numbers). There's been rumors that they'll start enforcing the port arrival times. I've seen where people have been told if you arrive before your time the CMs at the gate will suggest nice places in the area to go pass the time before they can allow you to even park your car. I don't know if that will happen. It's hard to envision, huh? Just think of all the po'd passengers. Eek! I don't think any of that will apply to the folks coming in on Disney's bus transfers which **could** act as a perk to paying the $$ to use their transfers. It's kinda a wait-n-see thing right now. I'm watching it closely as I'm sure Tammy and all the KK team are. If/when changes come to fruition I'm sure that info will show up here pretty quickly. :wave:

I am definitely watching this! It will be something if this really happens! We will see!

 

[ChuckElias]

what do you think the chances will be for us (just two of us...our honeymoon!) to get a good dinner time at Palo for the last night of a 4 night cruise? If there aren't good times, any suggestion on a different night we should try?

I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that they hold a few dinner slots for people who don't make the reservation before they board. You can usually go to Studio Sea as soon as you board and try to make a Palo reservation (or change your dining rotation, etc.). They should be able to help you.

If you can't get a reservation for the last night of your cruise, then I would suggest the first night of your cruise. On a 4-night cruise, you eat in the same restaurant on the first night and the last night. So if you eat at Palo on the first night, you will still get to experience all 3 rotational restaurants.

A DCL honeymoon??? I'm so jealous!!!

 

[love disney]

Well, I was able to get the 11am port arrival time (earliest one they offer), got our Atlantis aquaventure port excursion reservations, but was unable to get a Palo reservation for the last night of the cruise (I even tried calling Disney Cruise Line to see if there were some reservations they could give out over the phone. haha! no luck there either). Guess I will keep checking on-line in case something opens up, and if not will ask when we board. I went ahead and got a good time for the second night of the cruise. We figured if we will be eating dinner with other people the entire cruise it would be nice to meet them the first night. And if we have to eat at Palos the 2nd night and miss dinner at whatever restaurant we had scheduled that night we will just make sure to head there for lunch one day. Thanks for all the advice everyone!