I’m sorry our posting hasn’t been very frequent lately, but we just got back from a whirlwind trip to Walt Disney World and a Very Merrytime Christmas Cruise on the beautiful Disney Magic. Here is a copy of our cruise documentation that we received a while ago!
There is nothing better than coming home to this in the mail box! This means your cruise is less than 45 days away! (And it sure beats getting bills).
All of the documentation is enclosed inside a booklet. Here is the cover for ours.
On the inside flap, you will find the name of the passengers as well as the luggage tags. There is information inside the booklet that indicates when you should put the tags on your luggage.
There are two luggage tags for each person on your reservation. We’ve never used them all, but I’ve seen plenty of passengers that do.
The first page just sort of confirms what you already know, that you are going on a Disney cruise. It does confirm the ship, the number of days, and the departure port.
Turning the page will review the Table of Contents as well as the cover page for the “Vacation Checklist”.
The vacation checklist does have some good information on it, but most of it can actually be found on the Disney Cruise Line website. The information about how to reach you on the ship as well as packing a day bag (because your luggage doesn’t get delivered until later) is useful. There is also information about downloading the Disney Cruise Line Navigator App.
The next pages of the Vacation checklist describe the dress code on Disney Cruises. It also lists the prohibited items and the alcohol policy.
The next page is a list of Embarkation Information for the ship, including the time the ship leaves as well as what constitutes proper documentation for boarding the ship (and for getting off the ship once you return to port). I’ll briefly summarize by saying that passports are always accepted and we don’t leave home without them. On certain cruises, you may be able to get away with a birth certificate if you return via the cruise ship, but we would never take a chance on something happening in a foreign port and trying to return without having our passports.
The next page continues the list of acceptable documentation for boarding.
Now we are getting to the good stuff. The vacation summary lists the sailing details, the guests, travel dates, how you are getting to the ship (flights and/or Disney transportation), and whether you have purchased travel insurance and/or prepaid the gratuities for the hard working crew. On this particular cruise, we drove a rental car from Walt Disney World to Miami and parked at the port, so Disney didn’t have or need our flight information and we didn’t purchase ground transportation from Disney. We did purchase travel insurance, but didn’t prepay the gratuities.
The next page lists all the pre-selected port adventures, adult dining, meet and greets, salon treatments, and anything else you’ve selected via the Disney Cruise website.
You also get a listing of the Sailing Itinerary which includes the dates and ports for each day of the trip.
The onboard airline check-in program is detailed, along with how the Gratuity program works. We’ve covered airline check-in, but not Gratuities. You are basically charged $12 per person for each day of your cruise. That money is automatically charged to your room and dispersed to your Server, Assistant Server, Head Server, and your Stateroom Host. The Server and Assistant Server wait on you each night in the main dining room. They also help out during the day at various dining places on the ship for breakfast and lunch (even if you skip the main dining rooms for dinner). The Head Server manages a large number of Server Teams in the dining rooms and can be called upon for assistance in case something goes wrong. We’ve had a number of them go out of their way to get to know us and to take care of any little issues or dietary requests. The Stateroom Host (or Hostess) is the person that keeps your stateroom super clean. They are always working cleaning the rooms and hallways.
The next few pages are cards that you can leave with anyone that might need to contact you while you are on board.
There is an order form for gifts and amenities. We never used this form though.
Here is a bunch of boiler plate legal stuff about how Disney Cruise Line deals with your information.
The legal information continues, along with a form for the onboard airline check-in program that you can fill out to drop off with Guest Services (you will get enrolled in the program).
A form is also available if you would like to add ground transportation to your cruise (if you were flying into the nearby airport and didn’t want to arrange transportation to the ship on your own).
Disney is also nice enough to give directions to the embarkation port so you can find the ship on your own.
That’s pretty much it, except for the back cover.
If you have enjoyed this article, please be sure to check out our Disney Cruise Line information page, which has useful hints in addition to our cruise trip reports!
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