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.
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.
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.
We usually plan our travel 18 months or so in advance. We look at school calendars, compare prices, and then book a trip. In the case of our February 2017 cruise on the Disney Dream, almost none of this happened (we did look at the school calendar). Here is how our cruise came together.
Our 7 Night Eastern Caribbean Star Wars Day At Sea cruise on the Disney Fantasy didn’t start out as one of our normal cruises. As we discussed in our post about planning an off season cruise, we had originally planned to book our standard spring break cruise for 2017, but finances got in the way. We instead picked a different destination for spring break, and in October 2015 we booked what we thought would be a standard 7 night Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy. In January 2016, Disney announced new Star Wars Day At Sea cruises for 7 night sailings on the Disney Fantasy — and in March 2016, we received notification that our cruise had been switched to the Star Wars theme. Interestingly, the price of the cruise almost immediately went up by 50%. We weren’t upset that it got changed, but I probably never would have booked it for that price, even with the Star Wars addition.
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