You’ve booked your Disney Cruise — now it’s approaching your check-in day and you wonder what will happen. The most important thing you need to know before checking in for your cruise is that you must be paid in full before you begin the check in process. Once you have paid in full for your cruise, you can start checking in. Your check-in date will depend on how many Disney Cruises you have taken. If this is your first cruise, your check-in day will be 75 days from your sailing date. If you have taken 1-4 cruises (this makes you a Silver Castaway Club member), your date will be 90 days out. If you have taken 5-9 cruises (this makes you a Gold Castaway Club member), your date will be 105 days out. If you have taken 10 or more (a Platinum Castaway Club member), your date will be 120 days out.
Checking in isn’t nearly as important as booking your activities. You aren’t competing with other people for activities, adult dining times, or meet and greets with characters. You do want to get this important information to Disney Cruise Line, but you can do it after you book your activities.
Once you reach your check-in date, you will want to go to the Disney Cruise Line website at https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/.
From the My Disney Cruise Menu option, select My Online Check-In.
Once you have logged in, you should see a listing of all of the cruises you have booked, but haven’t taken yet.
Right next to the cruise you are checking in to, you will see the Online Check-In: Closes <Date> and then the words Check In in blue. You will want to click on “Check In”.
This will take you to the “My Online Check-In Overview”. The first panel just confirms that the sailing as well as the passengers in your reservation. Select Begin Now to start.
The first panel you will fill out with be the Guest Information Panel. This will include the Home Address and Emergency Contact Information. You can fill this information out for the first guest, then copy it to the remaining guests if it is the same. It is possible this information might be pre-filled for you if you’ve sailed with Disney Cruise Line before. Select Save at the bottom to move to the next panel.
The next panel will be the Identification panel. Each guest will have to have proper identification to board the cruise as well as to get off the cruise ship. For most people, this will be a passport. There are some other types of documentation you can use for certain cruises, but we’ve always used our US Passports. For more information, contact Disney Cruise Line to see what is acceptable. Make sure you go through each guest to ensure their passport information (or other identification information) has been entered. Select Continue to move to the next panel.
The next panel will gather information about your pre- and post-cruise travel plans. You can enter in whether you are flying or driving to/from the cruise area. If you are flying, you can enter your flight information as well as how you are arriving at the port terminal (taxi, Disney Cruise Transfers, etc). Another note here, if you are flying home after your cruise, your flight information will help to determine when you leave the ship. If you have an early flight, you will be leaving the ship before passengers with later flights. So, if its important you be at the airport early, make sure you enter your flight information when you check in. People that are driving home or staying close to port will possibly be assigned later times for debarkation. Once you enter the information for one guest, you can copy this information for all the guests in the reservation if it is the same. When you have entered in your travel information, you can select Continue to move to the next panel.
After entering in your travel information, you can now enter information for settling your onboard account once you leave the ship. Everything on the ship is charged to your room. As your room account accumulates charges, Disney will periodically charge your credit card on file. If you have selected to settle your account with cash, you will have to pay the bill before you leave the ship. I don’t know how much Disney will allow you to have charged to your room if you choose to pay with cash. They will charge your card once you reach $500 in charges (at least they did with ours). You can select the same payment method for everyone in your traveling party as well if you would like (or enter in different payment methods for them). You can also grant or deny charging privileges for members of your party. Once you have filled out this information, select Continue.
The Port Arrival Time Panel allows you to select the time you would like to arrive at the Port. This keeps the port from being overwhelmed with passengers while they wait for the ship to be ready. Some of the times may not be available to select and will be greyed out. It is possible the Port itself won’t allow you to enter if you arrive before your Port Arrival Time. The earlier times get you onboard the ship sooner. The later times allow for a less hectic arrival and boarding process. The staterooms aren’t ready until 1:30 PM, so if you are hand carrying a lot of items on the ship, it might be a good ideal to select a later boarding time so you can head directly to your room. Once you have selected your time, you can also select if you would like to receive your cruise documentation or just your luggage tags.
You will also be presented with your Cruise Contract, which you must review and select that you agree with the Contract. If you disagree with the contract, you won’t be allowed to board the vessel. The contract gives the terms of the cruise and Disney liability. We won’t go over the details of the contract, but Disney basically says they can alter the length of the cruise, the stops, and anything else they want to for safety purposes.
The last part of the check in process is to Print your Port Arrival Form. Once you have printed the form, you can select “Complete My Online Check-In”.
Congrats, you are now just a few weeks away from your cruise!
If you return to your cruise reservations, you will see that you have completed the check in process. You can always go and update the information if it changes though.
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!