Obviously my family are solid converts from the parks & resorts to the cruises.
YES, I think the cruises are awesome vacations. I think Disney cruises are KILLER Disney vacations! It's all the fun & excitement of a parks trip but in a different way. There's just as much to go & do or you can walk a few minutes back to your stateroom for some relaxation. It's like the best of both kinds of vacations to me. There's definitely adventure to be had in new-to-you places. I love love love going to new places, doing new things, seeing stuff we never dreamed we'd see with our own eyes, and all of it with the awesome-level that Disney travel brings.
Just got off the Fantasy a week ago today. I was sick the whole trip and we didn't have the best weather when we wanted it most. That said, we still had an amazing time. We played with swarms of stingrays on a sandbar and snorkeled a coral garden in Grand Cayman. We drank drinks in a bar on the beach in Costa Maya/Mahahual with our 16 & 17 year olds (surreal having a drink in the public with your own kid for the first time) then standup paddleboarded in the rain. My brother had a Mexican cabbie who spoke maybe 3 English words doubled-over laughing when he rattled off the list of words he knew in Spanish....which all happened to be obscenties or otherwise non-family-friendly words. Embassador! We drove Xrail buggies thru the jungle, swam in a cenote, and held a golden eagle in Cozumel. We did stuff we never would've done if we hadn't gone and that's even with being sick the entire time! And, if the cruise was a flop, I don't suppose the husband and I would be choosing a do-over of the same ship on the same itinerary for our 20th anniversary in September! Right?! We left too much undone on the ship. So much we didn't get to do. We're going back to do it again!
I've sailed with Disney 5x now. Twice has been with verandah rooms and 3 times in concierge suites. I love love looooove concierge but it's a LOT of money. You don't have to spend that to have a fabulous time, trust me. Depending which sailing you're looking at there may be the possibility of scoring an upgrade the day of sailing at the port. September tends to be a slower time of year. You'd just need to keep an eye on your sailing on the DCL website, stay up-to-date on the availability of the concierge rooms. Book what you will be happy with then upgrade as a bonus if possible. Don't book something counting on the upgrade because you don't want to start off your cruise stuck in a room you didn't want. You know? If you upgrade at port, tho, you will not pay as much as if you booked it from the start. The higher the stateroom category you upgrade to, the deeper those savings can get. I've done port upgrades twice and the savings both times were really substantial over rack rate.
Don't forget to book another cruise while you're onboard! You'll get 10% off the base fare, 10% deposit (vs. 20%), and onboard credits for spending when you sail again. Even if you don't know when or if you want to sail again for sure, ask for a "placeholder". The agent onboard will find you the cheapest short cruise waaaaay out in the future that they can find and you'll pay the deposit for that. My family of 4 just booked a "placeholder" for a whopping $148 deposit.
Then, when you figure out when you want to sail again you can have your placeholder moved keeping the benefits and paying the difference in deposit if any. Believe me, that 10% can save you some money! We moved an old placeholder to the 15-night Panama Canal next May and saved almost $900.
Plus, an $1800 deposit would've been brutal! Yikes!
What sailing you looking at? We're just waiting to pull the trigger on the 9/14 Fantasy Western!
