Before embarking on our Disney cruise, I searched for every tip you could find on Pinterest and Cruise Critic. They were helpful, but everybody mostly told you the same thing. Here's what we did and we had a wonderful and relaxing time with our daughter who turned four on our second day on the ship.
4 Night Disney Dream Double Dip (2 days at Castaway Cay) tips:
--Packing: Pack as little as possible. I packed way more than I needed simply because during the day we wore our swim suits and wore our clothes for the evening. No regular clothes during the day.
--Princess dresses and pirate costume. We brought two dresses for Vivian. An Elsa dress for her to wear to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and Snow White for the princess and Elsa/Anna meeting.
-- Gratuity. As soon as you walk on the ship, walk over to the guest service desk to change your gratuity, if you want. This way you can choose the amount to tip verses DCL setting the price. Also, there are no ATM's on the ship if you forget to get cash like we did. Thankfully they were able to cash a check. BK never carries checks in his wallet, but my Dad use to tell me to keep a few on hand if I ever needed one. Guess what, I saved him a lot of money on gratuity by having a check on me.
-- Head to the pool deck while you wait until you can enter your room at 1:30pm (our luggage actually arrived in our room before 2pm). Vivian was able to ride the Mickey slide multiple times before going to our room then headed to the O.C. open house.
-- Check out the Oceaneer's Club during open house. We spent about an hour checking out each station. You will be charged $12.95 for the child band, but they will refund your money if you return the band back to the club on the last day of the cruise. Honestly, the only time we used the club was our last day when we went to return the bracelet. Vivian played for 30 minutes while B and I had a drink. Between being on the island, pool deck, character meetings, nap and bedtime, we didn't need to use the club. Plus, the point of the vacation was spending it together as a family, especially with young children. I can totally see using it more with older kids.
-- Stateroom. We stayed in a verandah room (room #8538) which was the best decision if you have a little one. Just a heads up, the murphy bed and couch bed is right next to the door to the balcony. The curtain in front of the sliding door has to be open at the head of the beds. If you have a light sleeper, that may wake them if you are going in and out of the balcony. We let Vivian sleep in the big bed and I slept on the murphy bed, BK on the couch bed. There is a curtain divider between the big bed and bunk beds which was nice. We were able to go out on the verandah and watch tv without disturbing her. Our room had the view of Castaway Cay while docked and we were able to watch the firework show from our balcony. They recommend not watching from your room, but the fireworks aren't set off until 10:30pm and Vivian was asleep by 8:30pm. There were many other families out on their balcony as well watching.
-- If you drink, buy the Disney Cruise cooler. They have different alcohol packages...imported beer and/or wine. They bring it to your room later, not when you purchase the cooler, and you can carry your cooler anywhere on the ship and on Castaway Cay. We bought the 24 imported beers for around $120. You can also bring your own beer and/or wine for each guest who are of age that you are suppose to drink only in your room.
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| Second day at CC, the day after Pirate Night |
-- Castaway Cay. Our first day at CC, we got off on the 2nd stop with the water slide. The water was extremely salty which meant Vivian only did the water slide once. She was content playing on the beach and keeping her head above the water. Our 2nd day at CC we got off at the 1st stop, the family beach. Very few people were on the beach that morning because the night before was Pirates Night.
-- Nassau. There aren't many excursions offered for little ones. You can of course visit Atlantis which is ridiculously expensive...I've stayed at Atlantis before so we opted out. We've also been to Nassau several times. We stayed on the boat and a lot of other families did as well. The pools are full and there are lines for the slides. Not too bad, but don't think the majority of the people are getting off the ship.
-- Character Meetings. They have all the times where each character will be if there's a certain one you want to see. We met all of them except for Stitch. We saw him walking, but missed his time. There are lines and you will have to wait. I think the longest wait was 30 minutes.
--Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. It is small, long and narrow. Definitely bring your own dress unless you want to pay $$$ on a dress from their store which isn't a lot to choose from. We got a cute Elsa dress off Amazon by Relibeauty for the fraction of the cost.
--Pixie Dust. Be sure to talk to the employees because they may be a character. While standing in line to meet Princess Tiana, Vivian had just left the boutique all dolled up with her birthday sash on. The girl that asked for our room number to give to the photographer asked Vivian if it was her birthday. She told her it was and that she was four. The girl asked me what her name was and told be she was absolutely adorable. After meeting Tiana, we walked over to meet Chip and Dale. While waiting the girl came back over to talk to us. She asked Vivian if she liked Elsa since she had Elsa's dress on. She then asked if we were going to meet Anna and Elsa the next day. We said of course, but she was going to dress as Snow White for the princess meeting. She wished Vivian a 'happy birthday' and wished us a great vacation. After dinner, we went back to our room and our steward said he had a surprise for Vivian. He turned the couch bed down with Frozen bed sheets, a cake made out of towels and a hand written letter from Elsa. What a wonderful surprise for our birthday girl! The next day to meet Elsa, it was the girl we met the day before. She remembered Vivian's name and asked her how her birthday was and what she had for dessert. Such a special moment. Also, Goofy and Pluto knew Vivian already as well. So it may have been the same girl or someone else we talked to.
-- Food. Nothing spectacular. Even the chocolate chip cookies weren't amazing like others raved about. I thought the food at dinner was 'OK', not great. Your best food will be the soft served ice cream 😊 I knew going in we shouldn't be 'wowed' over the food.
-- Dining Seating. When we booked our cruise a few months before leaving, only late seating was available. I called DCL and asked to be on the wait list for early dining. The lady tried to encourage us to keep late dining, but I declined. When we received our tags and booklet, we were listed for main dining which worked best for us. We actually skipped dinner twice (night one and our last night), grabbed food from the pool deck and went to a show instead.
Overall, we had a wonderful and relaxing time. Vivian still talks about the trip which was a month ago. It was great not having to load up in the car every time we wanted to go somewhere or decide on where to eat. We couldn't have asked for a better vacation with a kid in tow.
More on our cruise, you can read here.
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