It has been a busy month. . .in the best way. We went on 2 back to back vacations. That never happens! In February we had a 4 day weekend and went with the family and friends to Mexico and then for Spring Break we went on our first Disney Cruise. Spoiler alert. . . we LOVED it! Also, prepare yourself for a huge photo dump!
** I was planning on making this 1 post, but after I wrote it it was way too long! I decided to break it into 2 posts so you didn’t have to read a novel and look at 100 pictures ;)**
I am typically a huge planner, but we waited very last minute to book a Spring Break trip and we got super lucky because it worked in our favor this time! We were planning on going to New York for Spring Break, it is a trip we are dying to take our family on, but when we went to book (a week in advance) we looked at the weather and realized it was going to be terrible. I didn’t want the kids first NY experience with bad weather! Cold and rainy is not a fun way to walk around the city. Then we were looking at Hilton Head and a few other places we want to take the family and the weather was pretty much terrible across the US the week of our Spring Break. So. . .I was like . . .what about a Disney Cruise!
We had booked a Disney Cruise during Covid and had to cancel. It is a trip we have been dying to take, but typically on something like that I would book a year in advance, have everything planned out, done all my research, ordered matching t-shirts. . .you know, the whole thing. Well, with a weeks notice I just couldn’t do that. I didn’t even think it was going to be a possibility, but I looked it up online, saw they had a cruise going the exact dates we needed, contacted my Disney planner and less than an hour later we were all booked and leaving in less than a week for our Disney Cruise!
Lorie, our Disney Planner, was so amazing. She got us everything we needed and took away all of my stress on planning this trip, especially so last minute! We booked the 4 night Disney Dream cruise that left from Florida’s Port Canaveral and did 2 stops at Disney’s private beach, Castaway Cay. It was perfect. We flew in to Florida the day before to make sure we didn’t have any issues with delays, etc and miss the cruise. We were originally going to stay at the airport hotel, but after seeing the prices we realized we could stay at a Disney property for about the same price and have way more fun! This was a great decision! Same thing happened on the back end. We were planning on flying out Fri the same day we departed the cruise, but it cost over $500 more to leave that day. We decided to stay an extra day back at a Disney hotel and fly out on Sat and had 1 extra day of our trip for less money!!
So Sat March 6 we flew to Florida and got in around 1. We took an Uber to Pop Century resort at Disney World. The Uber was around $60 for those looking to do this trip. Pop Century is one of Disney’s value resorts (lowest price) and honestly we LOVED it! Disney does everything so well. We knew we would only be there 1 day so we weren’t looking to stay at the nicest hotel. The resort was fun, colorful, clean, so many details, had 3 great swimming pools, a food court and everything we needed. Pop Century is all about the decades from the 50’s-90’s so it was fun looking at all the things around the resort. The 50’s side pool was a bowling pin, the 70’s pool was a flower and the 90’s was a laptop computer. All the decor was around decade stuff like Yoyo’s, Play-dough, etc. We arrived to the hotel about 2, went to our room to freshen up, explored the hotel and then took the bus to Disney Springs for an early dinner.
**How cute was our bowling pin pool right outside of our room at Pop Century Resort!
Last time we took the kids to Disney Avery was 7 and Braden was 4. We love walking around Disney Springs. There is just so much to see. We had dinner at The Boathouse which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND! It is such a cute restaurant. I felt like I was in Cape Cod. The floating docks in the back were open seating so we were able to sit immediately which was amazing because T-Rex had a 2 hour wait!! The atmosphere was incredible and we all loved it! After dinner we walked around more, took lots of pictures, I got an amazing Churro and just enjoyed the incredible weather (we were lucky. . .Florida weather got terrible later that week). Then we went back to the hotel and off to bed.
All the photos above were taken at The Boathouse Restaurant. Yall have to go there!
Since we didn’t eat at T-rex we explored there instead (much better idea). . .
Back to the hotel for night time exploring and bed!
Next morning we woke up, had breakfast at the Pop Century food court (Mickey waffles for the win) and then boarded the Disney Transfer bus over to Port Canaveral and the cruise ship! Everyone was so excited! (One thing to note, since we booked so late we had a later boarding time for the cruise, but since we took the Disney transfer bus we were able to board among the first groups!! This is a good little tip. Since we were able to get on the ship first we were able to go to guest services and change our dinner time, etc. It basically made it so we got everything we would have signed up for if we booked a year in advance!)
Once we arrived at the Port we went through security, etc and then had to get a Covid test. I will talk about this because I know there were lots of questions on this topic. This is an ever changing thing, so if you are looking to go check updated rules. For us when we were in Florida and Disney World there were zero mask rules. For the cruise. . .there were. We all had to be vaccinated, and we had to get negative Covid tests before boarding the ship (they do them at the port). It was really easy and they let us put the swab thing in our own noses so that was nice. After your test, you wait about 30 minutes for your results, and once negative you can board the ship! We had to wear masks on the shuttle, and inside the cruise with the exception of while eating. In a perfect world, there would have been no masks, but it wasn’t a huge deal. We were outside most of the time or eating! Honestly, I don’t understand this rule, bc the only way to get on the ship was with a negative test so seemed like the least likely place to catch Covid, but it is what it is. Since this was our first Disney Cruise I didn’t notice a difference vs pre Covid times, but I am sure there were differences. I know you couldn’t hug characters and you had to register for time slots at the kids club. Also there was reduced seating at the shows. All and all this didn’t really affect us. I think lots of people don’t want to cruise right now due to Covid or Covid restrictions so our cruise ship was not overly crowded! This was a perk to me. I will wear a mask to have a smaller crowd. All this being said we were the last cruise with the mask restrictions. The cruise that left the day we disembarked was not required to wear masks! It changed while we were aboard the ship! So if you are considering a cruise I believe you don’t have to wear masks as of now!!
Ok, now that we covered all of that! The kids were so excited to explore the ship! Braden had never been on a cruise before! Avery had, but she was like 3 years old and barely remembers (well Braden technically has been on a cruise, I was pregnant with his on the Cruise Avery was on). We boarded, went and had lunch and then explored until our room was ready. The ship was gorgeous, the food was amazing! We were off to a great start of our vacay!
The had this cute little ceremony when you boarded the ship where they announce your family and then Mickey & Minnie welcome you. I think this is to replace the sail away party on top of the ship they used to have pre Covid. It was really cute!
Straight to lunch!
then ice cream! Best way to kick off a vacay! Yall, that ice cream was crazy good! I am still missing it!
Exploring the ship led to some mini golf…
and watching Donald wave to a passing Cruise ship!
We ended up getting into our room around 4, got ready for dinner and went to a game show. It was a Disney triva show. WOW, there are some people who know their Disney! I mean holy cow! We did terrible ;)!! I mean, I love me some Disney shows, but I have no idea what Minnie’s nieces are named! haha. Anyway, it was really fun and after that we went to dinner for our first night at the Royal Palace. Dinner was delicious! I had Chateaubriand and wow!!
After dinner we went to another show and then headed to our room. We had a balcony room and it was great. Disney is so smart with everything they do. There are 2 bathrooms! 1 with sink and toilet and 1 with sink/shower. I was shocked how spacious the shower was. We have been on Royal Caribbean cruises and there is only 1 bathroom. Disney is so good about always keeping families in mind. I was also shocked how much storage there was in the room. We all had plenty of space. My kids thought the bunk beds were the coolest and loved the little towel animals on our beds each night! We put on a Disney show and were all passed out immediately and ready for our first stop at Castaway Cay!
I will share part 2 of our Family Disney Cruise next!
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This was such a helpful post. How old are your kids? We want to take our seven grandchildren and their parents on a Disney cruise in three years for our 50th wedding anniversary. The grandchildren will be ages 5 to 9 at that point.
Awe thank you. My son is 7, daughter is 10. Your grandkids will be the perfect age! That will be such a special trip! How wonderful!! Congrats on 50 years!!!