Today was the last day of our cruise, disembarkation day. We arrived back in Seattle very early, but we still had quite a long time to go before we would get off the ship. We had arranged to stay over in Seattle an extra day so we wouldn’t have to rush off to the airport. Once we’d given this information to Royal Caribbean, they gave us the latest disembarkation group.
One of the downside sometimes of getting free flights is that they tend to happen at odd times. In this case, our flight to Seattle for our Alaska cruise was scheduled to leave Dulles at 7:00 am. The night before our flight, I got an alert from United that our flight would be delayed by 30 minutes. The message said that we should still show up on time, so that is what we planned on.
For the summer of 2019, we had originally decided on a 10-night Mediterranean cruise on the Disney Magic. As we got into the Summer of 2018, we came to the conclusion that we couldn’t make the cruise work with our schedule and our budget. We already had a few cruises in the books that we had to pay for as well as a lot going on that would make it hard to plan a Europe trip. Canceling that cruise was a huge burden lifted off our shoulders.
The travel day for our Spring Break cruise quickly approached. Our flight on United Airlines was leaving Dulles at 8:15 am, so our scheduled taxi picked us up at 6 am. We arrived quickly at Dulles ready to check in for our flight (really just drop off the bags since we checked in online). The ticket area was really busy, probably because of Spring Break travelers like ourselves. We got our bags dropped off and headed for the TSA Pre Check line. The line was slightly backed up, but we managed to clear it without anyone getting pulled aside for additional screening, which might be a first. On the way to our gate, we stopped for a free breakfast using our Priority Pass from our Hilton Aspire Cards. We ended up pushing up against our departure time, so we had to cut breakfast short so we could get to our gate before boarding. We walked over to our gate (which was nearby) and boarding started ten minutes later.
The Disney Cruise Line Spring 2019 Itineraries were released at the end of October 2017. While scanning through the list, we decided either the Magic or Wonder 5 night cruises would fit within our budget. The Magic would be on a 5 night Western Caribbean leaving Miami on April 14th, 2019 with stops at Cozumel and Castaway Cay. The Wonder would be on a 5 Night Baja cruise leaving San Diego on April 14, 2019 with stops at Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada.
We originally booked our 7 Night Eastern Caribbean Cruise in August 2017. We were looking at scheduling trips around our WDW Annual Passes that we had just activated. While looking at dates, I noticed we would have some time between when school started and when our annual passes ended. What better way to end the summer than with a trip to the Disney Parks and a Disney cruise?
I initially covered the planning for the cruise in our post about our 2017 Christmas trip, but I’ll summarize it again here. In May 2016, 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.
After our Christmas cruise was done, we headed back up to Orlando and Hollywood Studios. We noticed it was a bit cool when we got off the ship in Miami. Once we arrived in Orlando, we realized it was a lot colder than we had anticipated. A cold front had moved in between the time we had left on the ship and when we returned. Unfortunately, having come from the Caribbean, we weren’t prepared (or dressed for) cool weather. We didn’t want to let it interfere with our visit to Hollywood Studios, but it definitely helped convince us to spend a shorter amount of time there. We used our three FastPasses that I had setup for the afternoon. We also spent some time in the Star Wars Launch Bay, mainly trying to stay warm. When we headed to Star Tours to use our fast passes, Nancy headed over to the Baseline Tap House, which is in the old Writer’s Stop location, and got a flight of beers and cider.
During a recent Christmas trip to Walt Disney World, we needed a hotel for two nights. We were returning from a Very Merrytime Christmas Cruise and were planning to visit the parks for three additional days . One of the nights (New Year’s Eve) would be spent at the Walt Disney World Dolphin so we wouldn’t have to drive after the fireworks at midnight.
