Disney Cruise Line, like all cruise lines, doesn’t always sail with a full ship. There are usually cabins available of every type before the ship leaves the dock. They are always willing to fill those cabins in exchange for more money. Here is how you can attempt to upgrade your cabin type.read more
Once you are onboard and enjoying a Disney cruise, you might want to find a way to get right back on board. Disney has an onboard bookings desk right there on the ship. If you book onboard, they will offer you a few discounts. The first is an onboard credit to be used next time you sail ($100 for cruises less than 7 days, $200 for cruises 7 days or longer). The second incentive is a reduced deposit for cruises 7 days or longer (requiring only a 10% deposit instead of the usual 20%). The last discount is a 10% reduction in price for *MOST* cruises. Disney has started to black out that 10% discount on a lot of the popular cruises (for example, Spring Break, Christmas Break, and special itineraries).read more
So, much to my horror, I discovered the other day that you can no longer purchase Disney gift cards from Target with a Target gift card. I tried two different orders and both got canceled right away. I was shocked, because it had always worked before. In fact, it was the primary method we used to reduce the costs of our Disney trips.read more
UPDATE: The ability to use Target gift cards with a Target Credit card to get 5% off is dead as of August 24, 2016. You can use your Target Credit card to get 5% off Disney gift cards, but you can’t pay with target gift cards which make stacking impossible…read more
We have a pretty good supply of credit cards we can use to earn points. We always try to spend in the bonus categories on the cards that make the most sense. (Note, when mentioning the number of points earned in each category, that is for each dollar spent.) Here are some of our main categories that we spend money in:read more
With the recent draw down in our hotel and airline accounts, we need a plan to replenish them. We have our travel plans set until December of 2017, so we have time to build our supply back up. We plan to continue spending on the credit cards we have right now in order to maximize their bonus categories. We also plan to sign up for some new cards, since we usually have lots of spending we can do in categories that we never get bonuses on.read more
We eagerly awaited the release of the 2017 Spring Itineraries from Disney Cruise Line. We’ve taken Disney cruises for our past three spring break vacations and have always enjoyed them. We haven’t been too adventurous with the spring break cruises: they have all been 5 night cruises on the Disney Wonder, with two sea days, and port days in Cozumel, Mexico and at Disney’s private Bahamian island, Castaway Cay.read more
It has been a quiet month here at Back To The Mouse. What have we been spending our time doing? We took a few trips, but basically have been earning and burning our airline and hotel miles.read more