Top

Adventureland Girls

Sharing our love of all things Disney

Disney Cruise Line: Preparing to Book

A Disney Cruise is a wonderful vacation option for several reasons:

  • Amazing Broadway style shows
  • Excellent food (included) in your booking fee
  • High quality standards you expect from Disney service
  • Characters! Details! Disney Magic!
  • Awesome destinations including their private island in the Bahamas

… and most of all: EASY to plan! If you want to take a cruise with Disney you can log on, book, and be set in minutes! Of course we are more planning obsessed (it’s our hobby!) here so we dive in deep with the details. In this post we’ll chat about how we pick an ideal cruise, and a few basics you want to know getting started. We filmed a short YouTube video (here) in addition to writing our getting started basics down here.

Step #1: Get to know the basics. Disney has 4 ships at the time of this article. They cruise to their private island in the Bahamas year-round and it is included on many itineraries, but trips to Europe, Alaska, and other destinations are seasonal. Cruise their website for info on the ships, dining, details, and more.

Step #2: Where do you want to sail, and about how long? View current offerings for an idea of when they offer sailings, as well as what times of year it is offered. For example we LOVE their Mediterranean itineraries and have been keeping an eye on them for a few years now waiting to save up and have it be the right time to book. We’ll set sail in 2018!

Step #3: When? When we did the sailing these photos are from we did a 3-night trip that had a sea day and a day at Castaway Cay Disney’s Private Island in November. The weather was great (80 degrees at most), it was after the storm season, the waters still warm, and it was a wonderful way to kick off a trip to Disney World.

Step #4: What kind of room? We found the verandah mid ship on a deck with only rooms both above and below us to be quiet, centrally located, and ideal all around. Depending on your own preferences (near restaurants or pool, concierge service, least expensive possible, adjoining, handicap accessible, etc) you can quickly find room(s) that will suit your needs. We enjoyed having the private space to be outside with our verandah, but there are plenty of public spaces to enjoy on decks as well.

Step #5: Price it out, and book it early. In most cases Disney cruises sell well, and prices only go up from the day they are released. Example: the Mediterranean cruise we booked is already 20% more expensive for the same room type/deck than it was when we booked a few months ago!

Tip: Price the cruise out on your own even if you’re going with a travel agent to book. Know the pricing! Some places the price is more than direct, other times you gain stateroom credit or other bonus feature and it is a better deal with a reputable agent.

There are a few other things to consider of course – here are a few tips to end today’s post:

  • If flying, arrive at least one day early and don’t risk a delayed flight!
  • Book the dining time (main or late) based on when you normally like to eat. We would be MISERABLE sitting down to a late meal, as we eat early at home. For others the opposite is true!
  • Make note of your online check-in date and be ready! You can book excursions, character meets, and more and you’ll want to get first dibs right when it opens.
  • Get an early check-in at the port time. Not only were we among first to check in and get on the ship – we enjoyed a nearly empty ship! We had a buffet lunch and the kids rode the water ride/slide a dozen times with no lines, we put all our belongings away in our room, and toured the ship all before the mandatory drills/info prior to sailing. We got a real full day in, and more value for our dollar.

We’ve got so much more to share, as well as looking forward to sharing future trip reports. We are counting down the months left until we sail away in Barcelona, Spain…

Disney Treasures by Funko: Haunted Forest box

Purchasing a box full of unknown treasures is a risky proposition. What if you don’t love it? What if you dislike some of it? That said, it’s also rewarding because you get exclusive products, new things, and possibly the coolest stuff you ever imagined. When I (May – aka mom) saw a Facebook ad for a Disney “Haunted Forest” treasure box I knew we had to take the risk. The ad featured Maleficent and thinking of Haunted Mansion, Halloween, and wanting some new treasures to decorate our filming area (more on that soon!) we made the group choice to go for it.

This box promises well more than the $30 (MSRP value) in product, as well as being all exclusive products. It included one large and one small Funko figure, as well as the ghost figure in the box, a pin, a patch, a sticker, and a bag (not shown) perfect for Halloween candy featuring Zero the dog.

The ghost in the box is my personal favorite – probably because I love the Haunted Mansion so very much! That said, we were all three pleased with all of the products in the box.

The presentation and attention to detail was excellent – we loved reading the fun facts about the pieces as well as discovering what was included and seeing some of our favorite characters.

We thought the pin and patch being on top – and hiding the rest of the contents – was a really nice touch. Here is the video of the girls reactions and thoughts as they discovered the treasures inside.

Elizabeth’s favorite without question is the Maleficent dragon. It is SPECTACULAR! I have a feeling it’s going to be “borrowed” by her for her own room and soon. I don’t blame her one bit.

The one and only real problem that I had was I didn’t think it stuck enough to a theme. What do Jafar and Cruella have to do with a Haunted Forest? They seemed appropriate for a villain theme – which this was not. This didn’t actually bother any of us as we love both villains but I point it out because you could get something not really related to the theme you’re buying.

The way this worked for us: We pre-ordered this box about two months prior to its arrival. I had to (after ordering) “disable” the auto-renew so I don’t get a box every other month automatically. While that would be fun – we will really stick to subject/themes that are especially cool to us. Then we got a shipping notice and this box of fun showed up.

It is notable that they also have a Marvel and a Star Wars box subscription along similar lines. We have been tempted by Thor: Ragnarok box and the Last Jedi box currently available but decided there were too many characters we would NOT want from those to buy in.

Whether you love getting exclusive “Can’t find that in stores!” stuff, a good value, or perhaps if you’re looking for a gift for a Disney, Star Wars, or Marvel fan this could be a great choice. We will be watching for themes that appeal to us in future- or perhaps one of the girls will find a box under the Christmas Tree or as a birthday gift…

Find more info or sign up online at the Funko website here.

Where to begin: Planning your Disney vacation

Around here it’s Disneyland Paris planning time! Next year we will take our very first trip to Europe and to this park. Everything is wildly new and overwhelming and I had to finally step way back and remind myself that I know how to do this! I just need a good plan in place to plan the trip! (yes, a plan for planning)

This is a subject we will cover a lot here on our blog, but to start we thought we would share the very beginning steps that we take when planning a Disney vacation. The steps we follow are:

  1. If this is your first visit: log onto the Disney Parks website, watch a few promo videos, look over the map, and get a sense of what you’re dealing with. Depending on which location and what your experience level is with Disney Parks this will give you a glimpse at what you’ll be looking at.
  2. Punch in the dates you think you’ll visit and get a quote. Be prepared for sticker shock – this is just to gauge where pricing is vs your budget and get a baseline started.

Think of this as the background research. Disney puts so much detail into their resorts, and so spending some time doing your own research will ensure you have a great trip, don’t miss out on any special happenings, and book the best trip for your needs! One of the key components to our blog here is to help share all of the knowledge gained planning (and taking!) fabulous Disney trips.

Once you’ve got a baseline of knowledge (how many parks, resort options, staying Disney vs elsewhere, etc) you can start imagining a trip in general. How many days you can spend or that you think are optimal, where a good place to stay will be, and transportation are the big three that I begin with.

I could spend months on these just debating pros and cons, struggling with indecision, but the bottom line is this:

Once you have a timeline, budget, and other basic parameters laid out for the trip THEN the real planning fun begins! 

Oh, sure it’d be ideal in my mind to have three weeks in a suite at Disney World… but I have neither the time nor money to make that happen. Every trip has constraints – so once you know when you’re going, how long you’ll be there, and where you are staying then you can get to the fun part. The planning of where to eat, what to see, how to prioritize, and what are your “must do” items.

The real key is to break down the process so that you can plan effectively – and have a magical trip! We have years of experience and will be sharing our best tips and tricks and try our best to save you time and help you plan your very best trips. Stay tuned for MUCH more!

Welcome to our adventure

This is post #1 of many – exciting! My name is May (aka mom). I am the main editor/writer/producer of the content here, however my two sidekicks Elizabeth and Rebecca (aka my daughters) star in videos, write their own ideas, posts, and scripts, and come up with a LOT of content for this blog and for our trips in general. Heck – that’s how we came up with this crazy idea for a blog! I hope you’ll stay tuned and enjoy – we have a lot to share…