When you embark on a Disney Cruise, you will be given a Key To The World Card. The card will not only unlock your stateroom but also uniquely identifies you to the crew. It has a lot of information embedded on the card as well. I'll try to breakdown the information as well to show you some examples of the card.
Wes Sauer of the DCL Dude Podcast, recently went on a 3-Night Bahamian Cruise on the Disney Dream. He originally posted this on his Facebook page, but was kind enough to let us repost it here! Wes and his wife are also Disney travel agents who specialize in Disney cruises. If you’d like a free, no obligation quote, send Wes an email at wes@mickeyworldtravel.com.
You can listen to his trip report here:
Well, we were finally able to take the trip I thought my wife would never agree to. We set out on a 3-Night Bahamian cruise aboard the Disney Dream on November 1, 2019…WITHOUT OUR KIDS! I’m going to do a test run posting our trip recap here, but if you read this, you have to promise to also listen to our trip recap podcast episode!!!
We flew in the morning of, which I don’t typically recommend, but we wanted to be away from our kids for as little time as possible. We took Disney’s Magical Express to the port from the airport. Check-in was quick and easy and we got VIP seating! They must have known the DCL Dude was coming!
We arrived at Port Canaveral around 11 am and were told that boarding would start around 11:30. That gave us plenty of time to check in, snap some pre-cruise photos on the outdoor viewing area, and be ready to board with Boarding Group 1. Seriously, don’t tell the kids we were there!
After our welcome onboard, we had lots of time to kill before our rooms were ready around 1:30. We wanted to change our dining time, but we had to wait until 12:30 to do it, so off to Cabanas we went. Cabanas is so nice when you’re onboard this early – no wait times in line and plenty of seating options. We typically like to eat out on the back deck, but it was a little too windy so we opted to eat inside.
After lunch, we headed down to deck 2, outside of Enchanted Garden, where they have tables set up for dining reservations at Palo and Remy, and also for those guests who wish to switch their dining time. This was the first time we have done this while onboard and they just gave us a new dining ticket and told us to present it at our first dinner and they would seat us at our new table.
That took -2 minutes as we were done by 12:28, which meant we still had over an hour until our rooms were ready. So we did some window shopping and went out to lounge on some chairs on deck 4 not realizing the chairs would be put away for the muster drill. You’d think I was a rookie! Instead, we settled for some chairs in the adults-only area on deck 13 Forward.
The lobby chandelier on the Dream is my favorite across the fleet and I take way too many pictures of it that all look the same. I won’t apologize for this.
Finally, it was 1:30 and we were excited to see our stateroom. I’ve said before that the Category 5E staterooms are my favorite and I will book them any time they are available and within budget. We were able to book a Category 5E about a month out with a GTY rate. This just meant that they would assign a stateroom for us and is different than the VGT rates with restrictions. We were assigned stateroom 9670, which is a corner cabin with a verandah that wraps around the side of the ship. We were SO excited to sail in this room and it did not disappoint.
We loved the size of the room and ESPECIALLY loved the size of the verandah, but if we had our kids we would have missed the curtain separator and the split bathrooms. But for the two of us it was absolutely amazing.
After we unpacked, we headed off to the DVC member presentation in the D Lounge. We always attend this on embarkation day just for the free drinks and a chance to win the onboard credit giveaway. We didn’t win and I think we are like 0 for 7 now.
Then it was off to the muster drill, which was in the Evolution lounge for us (another perk of the 5E cabins), and then off to the sail away party. We typically just hang around for the character appearances and then go off to wave to people out on the pier as we leave the port.
After the sail away party, it was back to the stateroom to prepare for our 5:45 dinner at Royal Palace. The dining time switch went off without a hitch and we were seated with a delightful older couple from the Orlando area. I attempted to take pictures of my food, but they are all terrible so I’m not sharing. iPhones continue to be the worst in low light situations. Real bloggers would be appalled at my attempts. I will share a picture, though, of the escargot that I tried, which I’m happy to report wasn’t terrible! I’m not a picky eater, but the thought of cooked snails has never been appealing to me. But one benefit of eating in the restaurants on these cruises is the opportunity to try things that you might not otherwise order in a restaurant. I still wouldn’t order it, but I liked it!
The time between dinner and the nighttime show is typically spent participating in our favorite pastime – checking out the merchandise in the shops. We like to look through everything and make a mental note of the things we’re interested in. On longer cruises, we’ll do this over and over until we’ve narrowed it down to one or two things. There was a lot less time on this cruise, so we had to expedite the process a little. Here’s a pro tip: if you see something on the first night of your cruise and there are limited sizes, buy it then. If you put it off, it will likely not last long. We’ve been burned a few times by this.
I really like the spirit jerseys with the ship stern characters and I really liked this shirt with the ship’s itinerary. I’ll definitely look out for these on future sailings.
We attended the Golden Mickeys in the Walt Disney theater that evening – a show that I have always loved and has a nostalgia factor for me. The cast was great and the performance was fun and had been updated a little bit since we last saw it. And Bob Iger hasn’t aged a bit.
We rounded out the evening in Evolution at the Match Your Mate show. My wife really wanted to go on stage and I was less enthusiastic about it, so I didn’t try overly hard when they were looking for a couple in our category. Ultimately we didn’t get picked, and afterward I was sad that I didn’t try harder. The show was hosted by the adult entertainment leader, Tisa, who was fantastic – so, so funny. They do an amazing job picking people for these roles.
The silent DJ party was after that, but we had a very early start to the day and opted for sleep instead.
Nassau tomorrow!
Full Trip Report – Boarding | Nassau | Castaway Cay
The DCL Dude Podcast is a show dedicated to all things Disney Cruise Line! They talk recent DCL news, share travel tips, interview guests, go over the best and worst (ok, mostly best) that DCL has to offer, share trip reports, and hopefully interact with their listeners!
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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!
When you embark on a Disney Cruise, you will be given a Key To The World Card. The card will not only unlock your stateroom but also uniquely identifies you to the crew. It has a lot of information embedded on the card as well. I’ll try to breakdown the information as well to show you some examples of the card.
| A | The dates of your cruise |
| The ship you are on | |
| C | Your name |
| D | Your Castaway Club status |
| E | Your lifeboat station |
| F | Your dining rotation:
Fantasy
Dream
Magic
Wonder
|
| G | Your dining time |
| H | Your check in line number |
| I | Indicates you have a Disney Visa Card as your credit card (entitles you to additional perks) |
| J | Your table number in every main dining room |
| K | Your Castaway Club account number |
| L | A for Adult, M for Minor |
| M | P for Disney Transportation to the Port, A for Disney Transportation to the Airport, R for Disney Resort, PA for Port and Airport, PR for Port and Resort, and RPA for Resort to Port to Airport. |
Here is our first card, which was for a cruise to Alaska. The only difference here is that we didn’t have any Disney Transportation booked, didn’t have Castaway Club status, and Disney had not yet started to indicate if you were using a Disney Visa Card.
On our second cruise, we had obtained Silver Castaway Club Status. We went on a Spring Break cruise on the Wonder.
On our third cruise, we got a star added to our card. This was to indicate that we had visited the Immigration and Custom Officials before the ship docked in Key West. This cruise was a four night Caribbean cruise on the Wonder.
Nothing new on this card for our fourth cruise. Although, it is interesting to note that there is no check in line number on this card. I think my Key To The World card got demagnetized on this cruise (and wouldn’t open my stateroom door), so it got reprinted while we were on board. This was a five night Western Caribbean cruise on the Wonder.
This was our fifth cruise and it was our first time on the Fantasy. This was a 7 night Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy.
Back on the Wonder for our sixth cruise, where we changed to Gold Castaway Club Members. We also don’t have a check in line number for this cruise, but I remember that we did upgrade our stateroom in the cruise terminal. This meant that our card got reprinted in the supervisor’s line. This was another five night Western Caribbean cruise on the Wonder.
For our seventh cruise, we returned to the Fantasy. We also paid for Disney Cruise Line transportation from the airport and the port, so the card has a PA on it. We also used a Disney Visa Card for the default credit card for this cruise, so they added the DV to this card. We didn’t actually use the credit card, since all the charges were paid off using Disney Gift Cards. This was a seven night Eastern Caribbean Star Wars Day at Sea Cruise.
Our eighth cruise was our first cruise on the Dream. We again paid for round trip Disney Cruise ground transportation and used our Disney Visa Card. This was a three night Bahamian Cruise on the Dream.
On our ninth cruise, we went on the Magic for a Very Merrytime Cruise. We drove to and from the Port of Miami, so no annotation about Disney Transportation. We used our Disney Visa Card as the default credit card for this cruise. This was a 5 Night Very Merrytime Western Caribbean Cruise on the Magic.
On our tenth cruise, we went back on the Magic for a Sprint Break Cruise. We drove to and from the Port of Miami, so no annotation about Disney Transportation. This was a 5 Night Bahamian Cruise on the Magic.
Our eleventh cruise, where we were Platinum for the first time, was another cruise on the Fantasy. We drove to and from Port Canaveral, so no annotation about Disney Transportation. This was a 7-Night Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy.
On our twelve cruise, we went back onboard our favorite ship, the Wonder, for a Spring Break Cruise. We left from San Diego on a 5-Night Baja Cruise. This was the first time we had been on the Wonder since its refurbishment that added Tiana’s Place. Disney Cruise Line changed the way the dining rotation was specified on the card to add two letters for the name of the restaurant so there was no confusion with Tiana’s and Triton’s. We actually didn’t sit at Table 57, as we discussed in the trip report, because we wanted to sit with our favorite crew member. Since we took an Uber to and from the port (we had additional vacation days before and after the cruise), we didn’t use Disney transportation.
During some recent cruises, our daughter was old enough to go to the Vibe. When the kids check in to the Vibe, they get new Key To The World cards printed on this special card to indicate they are allowed in the Vibe. If they don’t have this card during a “Card Check”, they will be asked to leave the Vibe. Our daughter indicated they do this check every so often.
Some friends sailed in a Concierge Cabin and were kind enough to share their Key To The World card with us. As you can see, they had Port/Airport transfers and also used their Disney Visa Card as the default payment. The card is gold because they were Concierge guests and had access to the Concierge Lounge. There are two interesting items to note with this card. One first is the Concierge check-in desk number “993”. The second item is the crossed Mickey Keys in the bottom left, which also indicates a Concierge guest.
We just added some information on how you can store your Key to the World Card as well, talking about Lanyards available from both Disney and Amazon.
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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Planning
The end of the school year is dangerous for us, mainly because it has us thinking about vacations. Such was the case in May of 2016. We were still a month or so away from our great Hawaiian vacation and Disney Cruise Line had just announced the fall/winter sailings for 2017. After scanning through offerings, I noticed a 5-Night Western Caribbean sailing out of Miami on the Magic. It would leave on December 24, 2017. The prices were really high, but that’s to be expected with a holiday cruise. We had a placeholder available from our Spring Break 2016 sailing, but it appeared that this cruise was blocked out from receiving the 10% discount. This left us having to pay full price for the cruise if we wanted to take it. The itinerary was one we have done a few times before. Departing Miami, there would be a sea day, followed by a stop in Cozumel. The sailing would then have another sea day followed by a stop at Castaway Cay, then return to Miami.
Further complicating the decision was our plans to eventually get Walt Disney World Annual Passes again. A quick scan of the school calendar showed that school would let out on December 15, 2017 and come back into session on January 2, 2018. That gave us about 17 days for potential travel. Surely there was enough time to get in a decent trip to Walt Disney World and a cruise! Since we had the time, we could even drive down to Florida and save on airfare. We could drive to Orlando, go to the parks, then drive to Miami, park the car in the port garage for the duration of the cruise, then retrieve the car to return to Orlando for a few days before driving home. We would save money on flights and rental cars, plus get in a land-sea vacation over Christmas.
The first step was the family discussion. I had not even completed the words “land and sea” before everyone was on board. They were not excited about driving down though. We would also be getting an oceanview room instead of a verandah because of costs, but that didn’t seem to bother them as much. We would also be staying offsite at Walt Disney World in order to save money. We had a number of Hilton Honors points that would get us some free nights as well as Hyatt points we could use.
Cruise
The first thing we did was to book the cruise. Our initial price was $6,034.52, including the trip insurance. It did not include ground or air transportation since we planned to visit Orlando first and drive to the cruise terminal. We reserved stateroom 2512, which is on the starboard (right) side of the ship, all the way forward. This would also be our first time on the Magic! I would normally have preferred a verandah but those staterooms were $1500 more. We have sailed in an oceanview stateroom before and found them to be more than acceptable. We thought we might try to upgrade when arriving at the port, but we would still enjoy the room if upgrades were not available.
Our first change to this plan arrived with Hurricane Matthew. Hurricane Matthew impacted the Florida area in October of 2016. Nancy and I had planned a 20th anniversary cruise on the Disney Dream for October 7, 2016. A couple of days prior to the cruise, we were notified by Disney Cruise Line that it would not take place because of Hurricane Matthew. We were refunded the entire cost of our cruise, plus an additional 20% off a future cruise if we took it before the end of 2017. When we found out about the future cruise discount, we reached out to our travel agent to have it applied to the December 2017 cruise. It was great that we were able to apply this discount, because holiday cruises are ineligible for onboard booking discounts due to blackout dates. We ended up saving a significant amount of money on this cruise because of it, with savings close to what we had paid for the canceled October cruise.
Transportation
We had originally planned to drive down on this trip to save some money. The drive from the Washington DC area to the Orlando area takes us about 14 hours with stops for breaks and lunch. About nine months out, I started thinking about how the drive back up would work out. We wanted to stay at Disney through New Year’s Eve, so we would only have New Year’s Day for the return drive. This meant we would be on the road with everyone else that was attempting to get home on that day. Plus, if we stayed up till midnight, that would mean we would either get a late start on New Year’s Day or we would be tired while driving.
We decided to look for some cheap/free flights to get us down and back to Florida. We had a 45,000 United miles and a larger number of American miles. The relatively small number of United miles we’d saved limited us to a free one way flight to or from Jacksonville, which only costs 10,000 miles per person. We’ve flown into Jacksonville several times in the past and consider it a hidden gem when it comes to Orlando travel. Luck was on our side as we found some early morning flights leaving Dulles on the morning of December 16 at 8:20 am — the day we’d planned to start our trip. We would arrive in Jacksonville at 10:21 am, where we could pick up our rental car and head on to Orlando.
I couldn’t find a free flight back, but we did find a flight back from Jacksonville on New Year’s Day for $120 per person, which isn’t too horrible. The flight left Jacksonville at 2:00 pm and landed in DC at 4:00 pm, which was pretty good. We wouldn’t have to rush to get to Jacksonville, and would get home relatively early in the day.
We used Costco Travel to get a rental car from the Jacksonville airport. We kept checking in after we got the reservation and rebooked it several times to get a lower price.
Walt Disney World Hotel
We would be visiting the parks from December 16 through December 23. We would have to leave the afternoon of the 23rd to get down to Miami in order to get on the ship on December 24. Staying onsite was definitely a consideration for the first week we would be there since we we would qualify for a few different specials they were offering. The problem was that as we got closer to Christmas, the room rates really started climbing. We had a number of Hilton points saved up, so we decided to use them to stay at the Hampton Inn & Suites Orlando-South Lake Buena Vista, which is right outside the south end of the Disney Resort area. We have stayed there before and really enjoyed it.
I know a lot of people enjoy being in the Disney bubble, but it doesn’t bother us too much to stay off property. We already had a rental car because we were coming from Jacksonville and had to drive to Miami for the cruise. We wouldn’t have to pay for parking at the parks because of our Annual Passes that we activated in the summer. The rental car also gave us the opportunity to head offsite to pick up snacks and drinks as well as eat some meals outside the parks.
Miami (Pre Cruise) Hotel
We needed to get a room in Miami for our pre-cruise stay. Fortunately, because of our IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card, we had a free night that we used to book the Intercontinental Miami, one of our favorite places.
Walt Disney World (Post Cruise) Hotels
Once we got off the ship, we would also need some hotel stays in the Walt Disney World area for the days before New Year’s. We used our free nights from the Hyatt Credit Card to book two nights at the Hyatt Place Orlando/Lake Buena Vista, which is near Disney Springs.
New Year’s Eve Hotel
Our final hotel stay of the trip would be for New Year’s Eve. We knew we could see the New Year’s Eve fireworks at Magic Kingdom on December 30, so we wanted to take advantage of that as well as seeing another park’s NYE fireworks. We decided to spend New Year’s Eve at Epcot, as we did at the end of 2015. The only part of the evening that we didn’t enjoy that time was attempting to exit the parking lot at the end of the night. We didn’t leave the parking lot until 2:30 am. All the parks pretty much let out at the same time, which really clogs the roads up. In order to avoid all this, we booked a room at the Dolphin for the evening, paying full price with cash to do so. The cost was fairly significant (in my eyes) at about $430. Still, that was a good deal cheaper than the prices for other Disney rooms in the surrounding area (that were in walking distance).
That completed all the planning for the trip, except for a few minor changes to the flight time or rebooking the rental car to save some money.
Here are the other parts of the trip:
Planning | Travel | Hollywood Studios | Magic Kingdom | Epcot | Animal Kingdom | WDW Part 2
Some friends of ours booked a cruise on the Disney Magic for February of 2018. It was a Marvel Day At Sea Cruise. With their permission, we are sharing their Cruise Documentation.
When opening the inside flap, you will find the names of the passengers as well their cruise luggage tags. There is information inside the booklet that indicates when you should put the tags on your luggage.
The first page just sort of confirms what you already know, that you are going on a Disney cruise. It does lists the name of 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. There are some useful tips, such as information about how you can be reached on the ship and the suggestion to pack a day bag (because your luggage doesn’t get delivered until later). 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, our friends did elect to use Disney transportation.
The next page lists any pre-selected Port Adventures, adult dining, meet and greets, salon treatments, and any other activities that 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 flight information is listed if you selected airport transfers.
The rest of the flight information and ground transportation is also listed.
The onboard airline check-in program is detailed next.
You are charged $12 per person for each day of your cruise for gratuities. 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 one of the three main dining rooms. You might also see your servers working at breakfast, lunch, or on deck, since they often have shifts at other dining locations during the day. Each 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 have 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).
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!
Of course, the highs of being on the cruise always come crashing down on Disembarkation day. We decided to carry our bags off the ship with express walk off, but still enjoy breakfast. We left our room and headed towards Animators Palette, which is where we had dinner the night before. Since we had late dinner, our breakfast was at a reasonable time.
After breakfast, we collected our bags and headed off the ship to wait in the Customs line. We were through Customs rather quickly, then onto the bus to head back to the airport. We handed over our bags to the bus driver, who placed them under the bus. The ride back to the airport was uneventful and we collected our bags again once we got to the airport.
We had afternoon flights, which caused us a slight problem at the Orlando Airport. We were flying on American Airlines and they wouldn’t take our bags earlier than four hours before our flight. We had arrived at the airport six hours before our flight, so we had to wait a while to check the bags. Fortunately, the Orlando airport has lots of great areas for sitting while you are waiting. We found one that had power outlets and just camped out for a while. Everybody had their phones to entertain themselves. Once a few hours had passed, we took the bags back and checked in for our flight.
We also made sure to get some lunch before we headed through the TSA Precheck lines. There aren’t many choices after the security lines in the Orlando airport. After lunch, we decided to go through security and head to our gate for our flight home. The flight home was uneventful. We picked our bags up and headed to our car, which we had parked in the daily garage at Reagan National Airport. We returned home and head to start getting ready for work the next day.
This cruise had been a replacement for our Halloween cruise that had was canceled because of Hurricane Mathews. We decided to take our children with us and eventually invited our friends as well. While I’m sure it would have been nice to go on a cruise as a couple, its always a lot of fun to have family and friends along! I thought a three day cruise would be too short, but we did manage to squeeze in a lot of fun in three short days! While I always want to stay on board as long as possible, a three day cruise was a nice break from work without missing too much time away.
Planning | Travel | Boarding | Nassau | Castaway Cay | Disembarkation
The travel day for our Disney Dream cruise finally arrived! We had decided to leave really early so that we could join our friends at the airport. We could easily kill time in the Admirals Club lounge at Reagan National Airport. We were going to get the girls from school around noon, then leave for the airport at 12:30, which should get us there at 1:00 pm. The flight didn’t leave until 3:00 pm, so we should have plenty of time to get lunch as well.
I thought we were getting a jump on the trip when we picked the kids up at 11:30 am. But, that quickly went sideways. Our youngest daughter had a slight medical issue that was going to require a trip to the doctor for some medication. Nancy took her and headed off to the urgent care, hoping that we would be able to make it on time. My wife was in and out of the urgent care in about an hour and a half, but that put us at about 1:15 pm. We still had to get her prescription filled and get to the airport. We loaded everybody in the car and headed to the drugstore. Nancy ran into the drug store and quickly explained our issue. It still took them a little bit to put the prescription together, but they definitely went above and beyond to speed us on our way. We left the drug store around 1:45 pm and drove like crazy to get to Reagan National. We parked in the daily parking and went inside. We found a relatively empty check-in line and checked our bags. Thankfully, we have TSA Precheck, which got us through security in less than 5 minutes. We arrived at the gate just as boarding started. Thankfully, our friends had grabbed us lunch so we got a chance to eat before boarding. They were life savers!
The American Airlines flight to Orlando was uneventful and we were soon on the little monorail from the gate to the main terminal. We headed down to baggage claim to pick our bags up, then headed towards the Hyatt Regency that is located in the airport. It is the same hotel we stayed at during our Star Wars Cruise. The Hyatt Regency is located right next to the Security Checkpoint for Gates 70-129. The lobby/check in for the hotel is actually located on the fourth floor, so we went there with our luggage.
We had originally booked this room using one of the two free nights from our Chase Hyatt card signup bonus for our canceled October cruise. Once Disney notified us that the cruise was canceled, we canceled the room booking and then re-booked the free night for this cruise.
We arrived on the fourth floor and were greeted by the hotel staff, who quickly checked us in. The room itself was the exact same room we had three weeks before! We dropped off our luggage and headed back into the airport for dinner. We were all pretty tired from running around, so we decided to have a quick dinner at the food court. After dinner, we went back to the room for an early bedtime.
We woke up early the next morning because it was time to go and get on the cruise! The Hyatt Regency offers a program where you can spend the night before a cruise at the hotel and they will send your bags in the morning to the ship. You just have to tell them you want to participate in the program and they will give you a letter than explains everything. You then put the Disney Cruise Line luggage tags on your bags and leave them in the room. The hotel will gather your bags and deliver them to the Disney Cruise Line luggage transfer people. We decided against doing this and just handled our bags ourselves.
We met up with our friends in the airport in front of the Hyatt. We went to grab a quick breakfast and coffee at the nearby Starbucks. Here is a great tip that Nancy learned from an airport worker during our last trip. If you are looking at the Hyatt Regency, there is a Starbucks on the left. However, don’t go to that Starbucks if it has a long line. Instead, go down the steps to the left of the store. There is a smaller Starbucks down the stairs that is rarely busy. We never had a wait going to that Starbucks and the upstairs one had a line that was at least 20 minutes long. After a quick breakfast, we headed towards the B side of the airport (if you are looking at the Hyatt Regency, it is towards the right). We headed down the stairs and towards Disney Cruise Ground Transportation.
On the left hand side, you will see the Disney Cruise Line Luggage service. We went outside and the luggage handlers scanned the luggage tags, took our luggage, and loaded it into the truck. We then headed back inside and got into the line for the Disney Cruise Ground Transportation.
Once we got to the front of the line, they checked our cruise documentation, verified our passports, and sent us forward . We were then assigned onto the next available bus. Of course, we had to stop and take pictures of the bus!
We waited a bit until the bus was fully loaded, and then we were off to Port Canaveral. The trip took about 45 minutes and most of that time was filled with various videos that played. Some were advertisements for Disney Cruise Line and some were just cartoons to keep the kids entertained. The bus is equipped with a bathroom, just in case!
After about 45 minutes, we could finally see the Disney Dream! Unfortunately, I somehow failed to take any pictures in the terminal this time. I think it was because we spent most of the time talking with our friends, who had never taken a Disney cruise before. We got off the bus and headed inside. We had to stop for the security screening line, of course. We then headed to the check in line for the cruise. While waiting in the line, we got a health survey form that asked if anyone in our group had a fever or diarrhea within the past 72 hours. We filled the form out and turned it in when we approached the counter. A cast member looked at our cruise documentation, scanned our passports, and then issued us our Key To The World Cards and our Gold lanyards for being Gold Castaway Club Members.
We decided not to even bother checking for a stateroom upgrade on this cruise. Our friends had selected a stateroom that was in the same area as ours, so we decided to stay put. We grabbed a Navigator and settled in until our boarding group was called. Because we had an early port arrival time of 10:30 AM, we were in the third boarding group. Unfortunately, our friends were in boarding group 25. They insisted we go on board and just meet them on board. Soon our number was called and we headed onto the ship!
Planning | Travel | Boarding | Nassau | Castaway Cay | Disembarkation
January 13, 2017 finally arrived and it was time to head off for our Star Wars Cruise! Our plan was to pick the kids up from school, let them get changed, then head off to the airport. Once we had the house squared away, a friend drove us from our house to Reagan National Airport. We arrived at the airport really early (as we always do), around 5 PM. We dropped our bags off with American Airlines and headed through security. Our experience with TSA Security is usually fantastic thanks to having TSA PreCheck! Everyone has TSA PreCheck in our family except our youngest daughter (who now has Global Entry).
Since we had arrived at the airport so early, we decided to head to the Admirals Club Lounge, which we have access to thanks to our Citi AAdvantage Executive World Elite MasterCard. The card has a steep fee, but we always stop in the Admirals Club Lounges when we travel. We also take advantage of the free checked bags we received when fly on American Airlines. The Global Entry fee of $100 for our youngest daughter was also paid for with a credit from the Card.
The Admirals Club lounge at Reagan National was extremely crowded on this evening, but we managed to find some seats and settle in for a while. The kids each did the homework they were assigned for the 3 days of school they would miss the next week. We all got some light snacks and drinks and waited around. We had a celebrity sighting when I noticed Richard Kerr of Travel Hacking 101 in the lounge.
As the time got closer for our flight, we headed out of the lounge and down towards our gate. We grabbed dinner and sat to wait until boarding was called. The flight went off without a hitch: it boarded on time, the flight was fine with no issues, and we landed in Orlando in about 2 hours.
Once we landed in Orlando, we had to take the mini monorail from the gates to get to the main terminal, where we could collect our luggage. We then headed back upstairs to the Hyatt Regency. The Hyatt Regency is located right next to the Security Checkpoint for Gates 70-129. The lobby/check in for the hotel is actually located on the fourth floor, so we went there with our luggage.
We had booked this room using one of the two free nights from our Chase Hyatt card signup bonus, so there was no charge for the room. We were greeted warmly by the hotel staff and checked in quickly. Because the elevators were a bit busy, the gentleman who checked us in was kind enough to take us up to our room on the sixth floor in the service elevator so we wouldn’t have to wait. The room was comfortable and had plenty of space, especially considering were were only going to be in it for about 10 hours. At this point, it was about 11 PM at night and we wanted to be up and headed to the Disney Cruise Line Ground Transportation no later than 9 AM.
We woke up the next morning early! It was time to go and get on the cruise! The Hyatt Regency offers a program where you can spend the night before a cruise at the hotel and they will send your bags in the morning to the ship. You received a letter from them and tell them you want to participate in the program. You then put the Disney Cruise Line luggage tags on your bags and leave them in the room. The hotel will gather your bags and deliver them to the Disney Cruise Line luggage transfer people. We decided against doing this and just handled our bags ourselves.
We walked out of the hotel and had a seat on a nearby bench. I went to grab us a quick breakfast and coffee at the nearby Starbucks. Here is a great tip that Nancy learned from an airport worker. If you are looking at the Hyatt Regency, there is a Starbucks on the left. However, don’t go to that Starbucks if it has a long line. Instead, go down the steps to the left of the store. There is a smaller Starbucks down the stairs that is rarely busy. We never had a wait going to that Starbucks and the upstairs one had a line that was at least 20 minutes long. After a quick breakfast, we headed towards the B side of the airport (if you are looking at the Hyatt Regency, it is towards the right). We headed down the stairs and towards Magical Express.
On the left hand side, you will see the Disney Cruise Line Luggage service. We went outside and the luggage handlers scanned the luggage tags, took our luggage, and loaded it into the truck. We then headed back inside and got into the line for the Disney Cruise Line transportation.
Once we got to the front of the line, they checked our cruise documentation, verified our passports, and sent us forward . We were then assigned onto the next available bus. We waited a bit until the bus was fully loaded, and then we were off to Port Canaveral. The trip took about 45 minutes and most of that time was filled with various videos that played. Some were advertisements for Disney Cruise Line and some were just cartoons to keep the kids entertained. There was a bathroom on the bus in case anyone needed it for all the Starbucks coffee that they’d consumed.
After about 45 minutes, we got our first view of the Disney Fantasy. The excitement levels started to build. The bus pulled into the port terminal and we were allowed to get off once the driver had retrieved people’s hand carried luggage from under the bus. We were then directed into the terminal building so we could then pass through the security line. This consist of passing your bags through an x-ray machine and walking through a metal detector.
We then headed to the check in line for the cruise. While waiting in the line, we got a health survey form that asked if anyone in our group had fever or diarrhea within the past 72 hours. We filled the form out and turned it in when we approached the counter. A cast member looked at our cruise documentation, scanned our passports, and then issued us our Key To The World Cards and our gold lanyards for being Gold Castaway Club Members.
We decided not to even bother checking for a stateroom upgrade on this cruise. We thought there might be a chance at moving to a concierge room, but with another cruise coming up, we were already spending a good amount of money. We grabbed a Navigator and settled in until our boarding group was called. Because we had an early port arrival time of 10:30 AM, we were in the second boarding group.
After a short wait (around 11:40 AM), they started calling the boarding numbers. We scanned our Key to the World card and were soon headed towards the ship!
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