Disney Archives - asthejoeflies

Mar 04 2019

I can’t stop thinking about Disney Cruise Line…

If you know me or read this blog or listen to any of my podcasts regularly, you know that when I get into something I really get into it. While my current obsession is the wonderful country of Japan, I’m having this issue where I can’t stop thinking about Disney Cruise Line. I know, you either love it or hate it, but I love it so wanted to get some things off my chest about why I love Disney Cruise Line. These may not be the best things about Disney Cruise Line (to everyone at least), but they are things I love the most.

What got me thinking about Disney Cruise Line after returning from Japan was Disney’s announcement of Summer 2020 itineraries (Disney is going to Greece!). They’re bookable today, Monday March 4th, if you’re Platinum, March 5th if you’re Gold, March 6th if you’re Silver, and on Thursday, March 7th for the general public.

So, here are some reasons I think Disney Cruise Line is special.

Disney Cruise Line crew members take great care of guests

Obviously, if you work in hospitality, you’re expected to be hospitable. I find that Disney Cruise Line crew members are a notch above when it comes to taking care of guests and their needs. Regardless of whether you’re in the most expensive concierge stateroom or an inside stateroom down on the second deck of the ship, you’ll be treated like a VIP.

Across my two trips on Disney Cruise Line, I have yet to come across a Disney crew member that I wouldn’t give a 9/10 or above. Vacationing can often be stressful, but aside from the hectic nature of embarkation day, Disney Cruise Line just lets me relax. That’s in large part because of how hard the crew works to take care of my family and myself.

On both our cruises, our stateroom attendants were superstars. They always made sure we had what we needed (especially for the kids) and they also handled a variety of (self inflicted) cleaning issues we had in our cabins. It’s great to know that your room will be cleaned and when it will be cleaned. It’s even better to feel like you don’t have to worry about anything on your vacation.

Rotational dining takes the stress out of mealtime

Speaking of not worrying, Disney Cruise Line’s rotational dining system makes dining a pleasure. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept (which has since been adopted by other cruise lines), you have the same serving team rotate with you throughout your cruise. So you have the same servers every single night at dinner if you dine in the main restaurants.

Enchanted Garden Disney Dream baby — Meals were a breeze with Disney’s great food service team

While this works really well for your average family, rotational dining really shines when you’re dealing with food allergies. Not only do the restaurants do a great job handling allergies, but since you get to know your servers so well they can get you food faster and more efficiently. Again, this really helps with stress because you don’t have to worry about what you or your family is going to eat. You can even pre-order meals the night before.

And I, of course, am just happy that I have a Diet Coke sitting at my table when I arrive for dinner every night.

Disney Cruise Line’s entertainment options are awesome

One thing I love most about Disney Cruise Line is their onboard entertainment. For starters, you can have your fill of movies at pretty much anytime of the day. There’s an extensive on demand selection you can watch from your stateroom if you don’t want to leave your cabin. But there also are movie theaters and movies showing on the “Funnelvision” (a gigantic screen on the top deck by the pool). Best of all, movies release on Disney Cruise Line at the same time as they release in theaters so you can watch the latest films – especially useful for busy parents. Who of us hasn’t spent thousands of dollars to “save” $15 on a movie? 🙂

Disney Dream sunset — Disney entertainment is great, as is the view outside

Beyond the movies, there’s lots of adult entertainment and bars if you’re into that scene. But where Disney Cruise Line really shines is in their live entertainment. Disney’s shows, which are mainly based off of Disney movies (though many have stories of their own), are as close as you’ll get to Broadway without going to New York City. The singing and acting in my experience matches Broadway, but the sets come a little short. You’re on a boat, after all.

That being said, the more recent shows, Frozen and Beauty and the Beast, have done some really creative things with puppets to round out the experience. These shows are not to be missed and really enhance the overall experience of the cruise.

Your kids will be well taken care of on the cruise

Shockingly, Disney is pretty awesome with kids! From the kids clubs, to character greetings, to restaurants like Animator’s Palate where animation comes to life, your kids will not be bored on Disney Cruise Line. They’ve even been improving their options for older kids – we ran into a bunch of tweens who had become good friends on our last night (causing a ruckus, those kids! I jest).

Disney Cruise Line Nemo — There are great waterplay areas even for kids too young to swim.

I’ve waited until the back half of this post to talk about the family aspect of Disney Cruise Line, but for families, I think it’s something you should try at least once. And since you can use stuff like City National Bank or Citi Thank You points, the cruise can be more affordable than you might think. Also, if you’re a family of five like ours, you can’t even fit your whole family into a cabin on Royal Caribbean, so the cost difference gets a lot smaller.

Final Thoughts

This is sort of a silly post since if you read to the end, you’re probably already interested in Disney Cruise Line. And if you’re not interested, you probably closed the post immediately. But, thanks for indulging me, I really enjoy writing about Disney Cruise Line. If you’re on the fence, I definitely recommend it and I’d recommend getting in early if you’re thinking about summer 2020. My daughter enjoys Disney Cruise Line more than Disney World itself and my wife prefers it too. If you enjoy Disney but don’t enjoy the stress of Disney World, maybe DCL more fits the bill.

If you’re interested in getting a better feel for what Disney cruises feel like, I’d highly recommend the DCL Podcast – one of only two Disney Cruise Line podcasts that I know exist and the only one that releases content regularly. And note I didn’t even mention Castaway Cay, Disney’s amazing private island. You get a lot of great experiences on DCL!

Do you have experience with Disney Cruise Line? I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Feel free to tell me why I’m wrong. 🙂

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Featured image by David Roark courtesy of dclnews.com

Feb 23 2019

Tokyo DisneySea in eight pictures

When we decided to visit Japan for our ten year anniversary, my wife and I made a compromise. We decided to go to Hokkaido for the majority of our trip but I also got to drag her to Tokyo DisneySea for a day. I plan to write a full review (spoiler alert: loved it). In the meantime I thought I’d share eight pictures to give a feel for the park. Hopefully they give a good sense of why this park is so uniquely wonderful.

The first thing to note about Tokyo DisneySea is that the crowds are real. We only had one day we could go, and according to this DisneySea crowd calendar (which isn’t in English) it was a pretty crowded day. This is what the morning rush looked like:

Tokyo DisneySea crowds — Politely walking with a gigantic crowd during rope drop

Crowds didn’t really die down until the evening. However, the extreme politeness of the Japanese made it feel less crowded. The Japanese seem very polite about queuing, which is a good thing, because there are often long queues at Tokyo DisneySea, like for the amazing Big Band Beat show, one of my favorite experiences at DisneySea.

DisneySea Big Band Beat queue — Big Band Beat is an excellent show, and the queue reflects that

Although the attractions can have long lines, Tokyo DisneySea offers Fastpass. Note it uses a paper Fastpass system, not an electronic system like Disney World in the United States.

Speaking of attractions, DisneySea has some of the best I’ve ever been on. One of my favorites was Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage. In a way, it’s like It’s a Small World, but the animatronics felt much more impressive. There’s an attention to detail in all the attractions at Tokyo DisneySea that are really special.

DisneySea Sindbad's Storybook Voyage — Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage boasts wonderful animatronics

Another simple but surprisingly fun attraction is Aquatopia. We enjoyed this so much we rode it twice. Here’s a picture of it during the day with the volcano of Mysterious Island in the backgroom.

Like almost everything in this park, Aquatopia really shines at night. While the beautiful theming of Tokyo DisneySea is striking during the day, at night it takes things get taken to a whole other level. Here you can see the American Waterfront (which really nailed the feel of my hometown of Boston) in all its glory at night, with the SS Columbia on the right and Tower of Terror on the left.

DisneySea American Waterfront — The American Waterfront at night is a sight to behold

Mermaid Lagoon is a world unto itself and since it’s “underwater” it always feels like nighttime down there.

DisneySea Mermaid Lagoon — Under the sea

Of course, we can’t end this without talking about the food. I enjoyed the popcorn but it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it’d be. Tokyo Disney’s souvenir popcorn buckets, however, did not disappoint. Here’s the relatively new Steamboat Willie bucket.

Hopefully these pictures give you a taste of what Tokyo DisneySea has to offer. I’ll be getting to a full review in the future, but I think you can already tell I thought it was well worth the trip!

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Feb 06 2019

Quick Hits: A positive change to Disney World rider switch implementation?

Mark this one under developing (since I don’t know if it’s a temporary or permanent change), but a friend of mine just tipped me off that Walt Disney World might possibly have made rider switch a little easier again. Rider switch, or child swap, is a system meant to ensure parents don’t need to wait twice in a line if a child is too young to ride. This used to really help out with Fastpass+ planning strategies. However, last year Disney made a change – they made it so rider switch was only available for an hour or two after the first parent rode. You can check out those changes here (the post was for Disneyland but the same system applied at Disney World).

I had no reason to think rider switch was operating differently until I exchanged some texts with a friend who I helped out with a trip this week. I knew he had a 10:25 AM Flight of Passage Fastpass+ reservation and he planned to get a rider switch. What surprised me was when he texted me at 3:30 PM saying he was just then using his rider switch – way longer than an hour or two after he asked for the rider switch!

So, for the time being at least, when you ask for a rider switch you’re given a “Multiple Experiences” Fastpass+ reservation good until the end of the day. It’s what Backside of Magic likes to call an “anytime fastpass” – the dream. I asked my buddy to grab a screenshot of his rider switch for Soarin’. It indeed was a Multiple Experiences Fastpass+. Although he actually used it on Soarin’, maybe he could have used it on any ride?

He later did the same for Test Track. In fact, they grabbed the rider switch as his wife went into the standby line and she left the line five minutes later. Interestingly, although he received the rider switch in My Disney Experience immediately, it didn’t become active until an hour later. Perhaps it’s because she went through standby not Fastpass. Regardless, it again said “Multiple Experiences” on his app. The description at the bottom of his “Multiple Experiences” reservation was for Test Track, however.

So to summarize:

At the very least, it seems that they are no longer giving out timed rider switches presently
It seems like your rider switch is “timed” in the sense that it doesn’t appear on your My Disney Experience app until an hour after the other party rode
It’s possible the rider switch might be able to be used on other rides?

Anyway, obviously this is just three datapoints from one family, so it’s tough to speculate that this is a permanent change. But my guess is it’s possible the timed rider switch was a little bit too complicated and Disney World has switched to this system. At the very least, this has happened twice on two rides in two different parks. If you have any other datapoints, I’d love to hear them!

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Oct 16 2018

Walt Disney World Ticket Changes – What you need to know

As of today, Oct 16, 2018, Walt Disney World ticket changes are in full effect. They have a newly implemented dynamic pricing model. This means that the amount you pay for tickets will vary depending on when you take your trip. Travel during peak season will result in more costly tickets while off season will be cheaper.

Here’s what you need to know about the changes.

Your ticket price now depends on your trip dates

For the most part, the ticket buying process is the same. If you’re buying from Disney, navigate to their website and “theme park tickets”. At that point, you choose what type of ticket you want (regular, park hopper, or park hopper plus). The thing that’s changed is after THAT point, you’re directed to a calendar. The calendar displays the average per day price of tickets for trips starting on a given day.

In the example above, a 4 day Magic Your Way ticket for a trip start date of 2/3 is $94 per day on average, while a 4 day Magic Your Way ticket starting on 2/17 is $99 per day on average.

I’m guessing these prices are dynamic, meaning they may change with availability and demand. What this means is if you’re going during off times you’ll save money compared to going during peak times. In the past, you’d pay the same for your tickets regardless of your trip dates.

Honestly, for the average user, Disney made this fairly straightforward. Pick your ticket length, pick your trip start date, and buy your tickets.

Tickets for off peak dates are cheaper than they were last year (and peak times are more expensive)

While this new system definitely has resulted in ticket price increases, for off peak dates they are actually cheaper in some instances. Take a 4 day Magic Your Way ticket starting on 2/3 as in the example above. Those tickets cost about $397 now, under the old system they cost about $404. So a $28 savings for a family of four.

Peak dates, however, will run you more. The absolute busiest time at Disney World is the week of Christmas and New Year’s. A 4 day Magic Your Way ticket where your trip starts on Dec 25th will set you back $462, almost $70 more! So it obviously pays now to visit during off peak times.

How do you determine off peak times? Avoid holidays and when the kids are out of school, basically! But another ancillary benefit of this ticket change is you can now figure out what times will have lower crowds – if the Disney ticket price is lower the crowds will be lower.

There’s no cost to change tickets but you CANNOT get a refund if you move to a lower ticket price

From Disney’s ticketing terms and conditions (bolding mine):

You can make changes to your tickets, including your ticket dates, prior to midnight ET of the day before your ticket’s first valid use date, XXX. There’s no change fee to modify, but an additional cost applies for dates with higher ticket prices. No refund or credit is given for changes from dates with higher prices to dates with lower prices.

This means that while changes are free, if your ticket price goes down (whether dynamically or because you choose new dates), you will not get a refund. But if you buy more expensive tickets you’ll get a credit for the value of the original tickets you bought. Something to bear in mind.

Tickets now have shorter expiration dates after first use

It used to be that if you bought a multiday Magic Your Way ticket, you had 14 days from first use to use up all your days. That means even if you bought a 4 day ticket, you could use your 4th day on day 14 of your trip. People would use this to their advantage and swing by Universal Studios or other local attractions while extending their time in Florida.

Disney has officially cut down their expiration dates. Basically, they’re building in some “off days” into your vacation, but you get a lot fewer. In fact, the only multiday ticket that still expires 14 days after first use is only the 10 day one! And remember, now when you buy tickets you have to state the first day of your trip, so you’ll have a hard “use by” date (Disney will tell you when you check out).

Also, if you buy the Park Hopper Plus option (includes waterparks) you get an extra day or two. You can also pay more for “flexible date” tickets, these basically are the old tickets with no start date and 14 day expirations.

Here are the new “use by” expiration in terms of days until expiration:

# of days on ticket purchased	# days you have to use tickets	# days you have to use tickets (Park Hopper Plus)
1	1	2
2	2	5
3	5	6
4	7	8
5	8	9
6	9	10
7	10	11
8	12	13
9	13	14
10	14	15

Parking and Annual Pass price increases

Also of note, parking at the parks now costs $25/day (up from $22). Annual passes have also increased in price, from $904.19 after tax for a Platinum Pass (the one without waterparks) to $952.11 after tax. The Platinum Pass Select (includes waterparks) now costs $1058.61.

I will update my Annual Pass Savings calculator soon, though for the most part it should work okay. You’ll have to account for whether you are traveling on peak dates or not, if yes, then it will make annual passes look more appealing on the whole for cost effectiveness.

Thoughts and analysis

Overall, I guess it could have been a lot worse. Time will tell how dynamically Disney prices (will prices drop/increase daily depending on demand, for example). For travelers who like to or can only visit Disney during peak times (when school is out), they’re going to need to pay more for tickets. For visitors who visit during off peak times, they’ll probably save a few bucks.

I should also note that in general, I give Disney IT, specifically the website and mobile app, a hard time because generally Disney IT is pretty bad. (Or, alternatively, they aren’t given the resources they need to make the website, you know, work.) But the website ran smoothly with no hiccups, at least as far as tickets were concerned, in all my searches today.

Like all things Disney, people who plan their Disney vacations far in advance will probably come out ahead on the whole while people planning last minute might get burned. If you need help with planning Disney vacation, feel free to check out my Disney planning podcast Disney Deciphered or the new site Miles to the Magic for miles and points savings opportunities.

Will the ticket changes affect your ticket purchasing plans? Or is it much to do about nothing? Let me know in the comments!

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Oct 03 2018

7 Tips for taking a Disney Cruise with a baby

If you want to take a cruise with a baby, it doesn’t get much better than a DISNEY cruise with a baby. Disney Cruise Line caters to families and babies are no exception. The ships are designed to be family and baby friendly and cast members do so much to ensure you have a smooth sailing. We loved our recent cruise on the Disney Dream, so I thought I’d put together some tips for how to best enjoy your Disney cruise with a baby.

One important note: babies need to be a minimum of six months old to cruise with Disney. On some select cruises they even need to be one year old, so be sure to check the age requirements before you book your cruise. Also, since children use the nursery on DCL up until the age of three, we’ll consider 0-3 year olds as babies for this post! Be sure to check out Disney’s guidelines for traveling with a baby, too.

Disney Dream at Sea — The Disney Dream (Photo Credit | David Roark, dclnews.com)

1. Get as much equipment as you can for your baby from Disney Cruise Line

Disney Cruise Line provides almost any piece of large equipment you think you might need for your little one. You should definitely request a Pack-n-Play and a diaper genie before you even embark. (You can do this by calling Disney or your travel agent). If you forget, you could also ask at Guest Services or even just ask your stateroom host. You don’t need to bring a high chair either, they are all over the place in every restaurant.

If you’d like, you can even skip bringing a stroller. Guest services provides a limited amount. We actually regretted bringing our stroller on board, we never used it. Our baby was ten months at the time of sailing so she was small enough to be in our Beco carrier (affiliate link) the entire time. An 18 month old might need a stroller though. If you don’t borrow from Guest Services, make sure you bring a small umbrella stroller. Don’t be like that family we saw that had to leave their double stroller in the (already) tight hallway!

Finally, when you’re on Castaway Cay you can borrow a complimentary wagon which is sure to be a hit with your baby (or your older kids). Disney also provides bottle warmers and sterilizers on request.

Disney Dream Stateroom with a baby — Staterooms on Disney cruises have curtains to help divide the space – great for families (Photo Credit | Matt Stroshane, dclnews.com)

2. Find the stateroom that works best for your family

Choosing a Disney Cruise Line stateroom can be stressful. I think with a baby, space probably matters more than things like having a balcony, etc. A couple notes for you to consider:

Getting two connecting cabins can be a great way to travel with a baby, especially if there are siblings. We paid about $1000 more than we would have for a single room but the extra space was invaluable. This also prevented us from having to breakdown the Pack-n-Play everyday (great for naps).
Get an idea of the entire ship layout. If you book a stateroom above the movie theater, like we do, you might hear large explosions late into the night (luckily, we’re heavy sleepers).
If you’re looking to save money, you can save by booking “guaranteed staterooms”. You’ll basically book a certain class but can’t choose your cabin. Touring Plans does a good job of releasing what last minute deals are available weekly.
If you’re worried about getting seasick, staying towards the middle of the boat and on the lower levels minimizes the effects.
All staterooms have a heavy light blocking curtain both by the window/balcony and in the middle of the room to provide some separation, useful for your family.

All the cabins on Disney ships are pretty great (and suites on the concierge level are even better of course). You can’t really go wrong, but still I like to choose my cabin strategically. Won’t be staying on top of the movie theater again!

3. Trust your cabin attendant and restaurant servers

Disney Cruise Line crew members are some of the best service industry professionals I’ve ever worked with. Use this to make your Disney cruise with a baby easier for yourself.

Your cabin attendant takes care of all your stateroom needs. If you didn’t receive any of the aforementioned free of charge baby items, definitely ask them. They can also help you set up the room as you like and turn down your room while you are at dinner. Our cabin attendant was especially helpful as we had some wet bed incidents; he was very understanding and we felt bad he had to deal with it, even though it was minor. He even got us extra pens, haha.

Our head waiter at dinner was even better. Disney uses rotational dining, meaning you will stay with the same wait team for your entire trip. Like all Disney, they handle allergies spectacularly. But I was even more impressed with how they handled food for the baby. We received avocado, berries, banana, and more on request. Even better, after the first night, our waiter asked us to “order” what we needed for the baby the next day and we’d show up at the table with food already prepared for her. That really made traveling with the baby easier and it was great not to stress about what to feed her every night.

4. The nursery and kids club are great, but don’t count on them

Both times I’ve sailed on Disney Cruise Line, I’ve told myself I’d get free time because the kids would be in the kids club or nursery. Both times that backfired! The nursery and kids club are both great, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re great for your kids. So don’t count on them and be prepared to have your little ones with you.

The kids club is included in your cruise price but the nursery costs a modest $9/hour. The nursery covers children 0-3 years old, so it is a pretty diverse age range. Still, the crew members are great and there’s a lot for your child to engage with.

But your kids might not want to go or you might not feel comfortable dropping them off last minute. So it’s a great option, but be ready to be flexible if the nursery or kids club doesn’t work out for your children.

Disney Dream nursery baby — The nursery is great but doesn’t work for all kids so it’s good to be prepared (Photo Credit | Preston Mack, dclnews.com)

5. Take breaks

Just like taking a baby to Disney World, it’s important to schedule in breaks. This is especially important when you’re at a port of call. The baby will get hot and tired quickly. Make sure you have a plan for getting her rest!

For us, that meant my leaving Castaway Cay before lunch. I enjoyed a quiet date with our 9 month old daughter at Cabanas before putting her down for a nap. We also made sure we tried to get her a nap every single afternoon. Having quiet time for the baby (and the older kids) really helped us to combat exhaustion. There’s a ton to do on a Disney cruise and if you don’t slow down you’re liable to burn out.

6. Don’t feel pressure to do everything

On that note, don’t feel pressure to do everything. The cruise is set up so you can find something to do at any minute of the day. Watch a movie, go meet characters, play trivia, do arts and crafts, play bingo, swim – the list is endless! You’ll never do everything a Disney cruise has to offer (not on one sailing at least!).

So don’t feel pressure to do everything. Every day we like to choose two things that will be priorities. We schedule around those two things and let go of the rest. That’s not to say we don’t do anything else, we just didn’t put pressure on ourselves to make sure those things happened. For our family, that usually revolved around the shows and swimming at the pool. As long as we got those things done, our kids were happy and we were happy.

Disney Dream Pirate Night — Pirate and parrot

7. Take turns

Finally, my best advice is to take turns. Both my wife and I spent time in our cabin just relaxing with the baby while the rest of the family was off gallavanting and having fun. It works for us at home and it works for us on a Disney cruise. Taking turns helps to prioritize the babies needs while also helping us to meet the needs of the other kids. (Mostly, their need to have fun and make memories). I’m getting to the age where I no longer experience FOMO as intensely. I don’t need to do activities as much as I just need quality time with the kids. So if that means chilling in the stateroom with the baby, so be it.

Final Thoughts

We had a blast on our Disney cruise with a baby. Sure, we had to change things up a bit, but that didn’t mean we had any less fun. These tips definitely worked for us, but I’m curious what others do to enjoy their cruise with a baby. Let me know in the comments!

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