It’s been a busy few months. So, it came as a surprise to me when I clicked on my Disney cruise app to discover we’d broken the 300 day mark. We are, in fact, at 296 days before our next Disney cruise to the Panama Canal aboard the Disney Wonder.
I HAVE SO MUCH WORK TO DO BEFORE THEN!
Like so much in life, planning the details of your Disney cruise adds tremendously to the overall enjoyment and value of your trip. Over these next months, I’ll share my tips and tricks with you.
The first question for most is: when is the best time to book a Disney cruise? Of the main popular cruiselines, Disney is definitely expensive. We’ve found the Disney line to be worth the extra cost, but that’s a decision for each individual family to make. There are ways to cut costs, and I’m going to help you figure those out.
We’ve cruised several other lines (Princess, Carnival, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean) and have found that there’s one major booking difference between Disney and these other lines.
For most cruiselines, prices rise and fall drastically from the time the itinerary goes live to just before the sail date. Many variables factor into this: popular rooms (sometimes you can get a balcony cabin for cheap because the inside rooms are booking up), how full the ship is (low bookings = sell offs to fill cabins), time of year (hurricane season and times when school is in are typically less popular), loyalty programs (how many times you’ve sailed with a particular cruiseline).
Disney’s different. Their ships nearly always sail full, so it’s much more difficult to get a “bargain”. They don’t need to cut prices to fill their cabins. Prices rarely – if ever! – drop as the cruise date nears. To get the best deal, book as close to the release dates as possible. Opening dates for booking depend on your status with the Disney Cruise Line (DCL). Platinum, Gold, Silver, and folks looking to book their first Disney cruise will all have different opening dates to book.
For example, we booked our Panama Canal 2019 cruise (14 nights) on our opening day (May 23/18). We had some additional perks (onboard credit, placeholder discount) that I’ll discuss in a future post, but basically our cruise would’ve cost a DCL first-timer $9,795 USD for two adults, one child in a 05C balcony. That very same room would have cost us another $814.88 USD more if we’d waited till September 2018 to book. And by, October 2018 there were no comparable cabins left.
Other potential savers: Resident offers (do you live close to the port?), Canadian offers (the Canadian dollar is ridiculously low and Disney sometimes runs offers to help make these cruises more affordable), and military discounts. There are also some loyalty discounts and breaks available
There’s lots of information above and it doesn’t address every scenario and variable. Again, I’ll delve into more detail in future posts.
More in this series:
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