Countdown to summer in 3....2.....It's an EPIC summer kickoff!

Walt Disney World
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Hello, all! Trip is less than 2 weeks away so I figured I’d set up our TR now!

Who: Me, DH, DD14, DS12, DD10, and DD8 (turning 9!)
Where: DCL cruise + WDW + UOR!
When: May 16 - 26

Part 1

5/16 - Fly from DFW to MCO + Embarkation Day
5/17 - Bahamas
5/18 - Castaway Cay
5/19 - Debarkation Day + Transfer to WDW + DD8’s 9th Birthday!

Ok, so this trip started out as a rescheduled cruise. I booked this DCL cruise when the Wish was brand new, in the summer of 2021. I think I originally booked it for Fall of '21? Can’t remember for sure. But we rescheduled the first time due to COVID restrictions, the second time due to scheduling conflicts and here we are finally getting to go! We have never, ever taken a cruise so not only is this our first Disney cruise but our first cruise EVER!

Give me all of your favorite cruise and DCL tips! We are staying concierge in a Royal Suite. So fancy.

We have the Dolphin Cay Swim booked for our Bahamas day and a Castaway Cay Getaway Package booked for the second day. Can’t decide if the Castaway Cay package is really necessary? Someone weigh in if you’ve done it and found it unnecessary.

We debark on Monday, the 19th, which is our youngest’s 9th birthday! She was initially bummed to be out of town on her birthday but has since become quite excited.

She has spent a birthday at WDW before. When she turned five. Pic to cue my heart breaking at her tiny face.

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Part 2

5/19 - Birthday Girls Choice! Check in to BCV. Late breakfast at Boma, Dinner @ Sci-Fi, Late night milkshakes at B&C
5/20 - MK, LTT lunch, HEA Fireworks
5/21 - AK, Savor the Savannah
5/22 - Switch from BCV to RR, EP in the AM, HS for Woody’s R/U Dinner
5/23 - Transfer to Loew’s Royal Pacific

We’re staying at WDW on points. We added this in when we realized Epic was opening a few days after our cruise ended and we decided to stay to experience it.

DH and I had had to cut our stay at the Poly Tower two days in April so we had some extra points put into holding that we weren’t going to be able to use outside of this visit so I switched our last day to a 3 bedroom GV at RR!!

I am so very excited about this! I went back and forth on doing one night at the Bungalows but chose this option instead. After spending the last few trips on the monorail resort line I have decided the Epcot area resorts truly are my favorite.

I had wanted to book something special for DD8’s birthday and had initially planned to book WAT but it was all sold out so I settled with StS instead. I’m hoping the girls will still enjoy it!

Also, we realized after we booked this trip that DS has band camp starting on the 20th and he really didn’t want to miss it so he and DH are coming with us to Boma for DD8’s birthday and then flying home to Dallas.

DS IS flying back after camp on the 23rd to experience Epic with us so he is super pumped for that!

DD14 also has summer camp that starts on the 25th and she didn’t want to miss that so she will be flying home on the 23rd so she has a day to reset, do laundry and get ready for camp.

Part 3

5/23 - Check in to Loew’s RP, lunch at Toothsome, take DD14 to MCO + P/U DS from MCO (it’ll be a crazy day of bouncing around!)
5/24 - IOA + USF
5/25 - EPIC!
5/26 - Check out, USF, Fly home

Ok, this last part of the trip starts out crazy having to switch hotels and put both older kids on flights - one going home and one coming back! Ha! It’ll be fun and hopefully not too stressful. I also plan to pick up our tickets this day.

We have 2 day 2 park tickets for IOA and USF. We enjoy the offerings at IOA better so I am planning on spending the majority of Saturday in IOA and likely bouncing over to USF to explore Diagon Alley. We will hit up what we want in USF for a few hours before we head to MCO on the 26th.

We will spend all day in Epic on Sunday, the 25th. I decided with only one day we would buy EPs. Ugh but I think we’ll find it worth it for us. I’m trying to get the kids to tell me what their top 2 lands are and prioritize that way.

I put together a loose touring plan yesterday but it’s so hard to know how it’ll go with opening weekend crowds and downtime for rides. I really hope we can explore a few lands throughougly and at least see the other ones briefly but it’ll be a full full day for sure. I am hoping we can last open to close. We shall see…haven’t done that in a long time.

Currently, I am targeting Pizza Moon for lunch, snacks at Hooligan’s and a late (8:30) dinner at Atlantic which hopefully allows us for some amazing night pictures on the way out.

Whew. If you read all of that, congratulations. I was more long winded than I planned to be. Countdown to summer is on! One more week of school and then one week to get ready for this amazing adventure!

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Wow! Sounds like a truly epic trip! I’m excited to hear all about it. Especially how you like Epic Universe.

What ship is it you’re sailing on?

I can’t remember what’s included with this package. Is it snorkeling equipment, floatie and bike? It’s definitely worth having all three at Castaway Cay, but you probably don’t need to book them in advance. There has always been lots of availability on the island when we’ve gone. Also, you could book the full package for part of your party and just snorkeling equipment for the rest. That’s what we did in January. We shared the floaties and bikes since we didn’t all want to use them at the same time.

Have a fantastic trip!

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We are sailing on the Wish. I have read reviews that say first time cruise goers love it and longtime DCL fans hate it. Time will time for us!

That’s helpful thanks! And yes, you are correct. The rental is for snorkeling, inner tube and one hour bike rental.

And sharing is a great idea! :bulb:

What exactly is there to do on Castaway Cay? I’ve done shockingly very little research. Are there places to eat? Are they included in the cruise price? Is the beach the main attraction or are there sport courts or anything else there to make note of?

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We’ve always stuck close to the beach at Castaway Cay. The snorkeling is a ton of fun! There are lots of Disney touches underwater for you to find and enjoy. There’s also a play area in the water and some water slides. But there is a kids’ club area as well that you can check the kids into which has games and things. If you’re out close to disembarkation time, it’s easy to get a bunch of lounge chairs near umbrellas.

Lunch is on the island, Cookies or Cookies Two. It’s a bbq buffet, quite good. There’s also fountain drinks and soft serve ice cream available. As well, there are a few bars if you want to purchase something alcoholic and several places to shop for clothes and other souvenirs.

For biking, there’s an old runway in the middle of the island that is great for riding around. There are a few paths off of the runway that you can go on, but we found they were way too crowded to bike comfortably.

Feel free to ask me any other questions you have. We don’t have younger kids but I can answer a lot about most other things.

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All so helpful. Thank you!

I’m really hoping our kids like the kids spaces but they are all in their “everything is lame” eras. :laughing:

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My kids only really used the kids spaces on our first cruise when they were 6 and 9. After that they preferred to hang out with us. But that’s mainly because they are both super shy. My youngest probably would have gone more often but her older sister was a no go.

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Yes and yes. That’s the beauty of private islands that are owned and/or operated by the cruise lines. The island functions like an extension of the ship, with many cruise staff also working on shore (recreation, food, beverage). Lunch is like an on-shore BBQ version of the ship’s buffet lunch. Cost is included. Any alcohol will cost (unless you have a drink package).

You don’t need your passport, just your ship’s cabin card for each person. They provide beach (pool) towels.

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We were supposed to take our first cruise Oct 2020, but ended up not being able to schedule it when the school schedule didn’t include a fall break so waited to actually book our first cruise April 2021. And so similar to you, we had a very delayed first cruise when we finally felt like it would be an actual cruise experience in March 2023! So I totally understand!

You picked a great ship and a fantastic situation for a first cruise. With the Royal suite and concierge. The Wish is beautiful and modern and if you aren’t already conditioned to how the 4 previous ships are built, you will mostly love it! I feel like they did such a great job making it a beautiful floating art-gallery-castle-on-the-sea and after having done one of the older ship first (and 2nd), then doing the Wish and then going back to an older ship, I really appreciated the design of the Wish. The 4 older ships are great, and one of them is my favorite ship overall, but most of the gripes you hear, are things that I personally feel were improvements on the Wish (i.e. the atrium, the elevator banks and the 3-level promenade walking deck that gives you access to walk the bow of the ship).

My first tip is to consider getting Magnetic door decorations. Not all do this, but a good amount will decorate their doors and it’s an easy way to distinguish your door for you to find your room (although I don’t know if you’ll need that being in one of the Royal Suites since your door will be in the corner without a row of doors around it to have to distinguish). But if your kids will think it’s fun, go for it! I almost didn’t do it our first cruise because I didn’t want to be overwhelmed, but decided last minute to go ahead and get a few magnets and it was so fun & we do it now every cruise.

My next tip is to figure out if you want to participate in dressing up for Pirate night. With a 3 night cruise a lot less people usually participate in the dressing up so you won’t stick out either way. The stateroom host will leave a bandana in your stateroom that day for you to at least have that accessory if you bring nothing else. But no matter what, you will have a Pirate themed night and I definitely recommend at the very least going to the later Pirate party at/after 10pm, to watch a live pop-rock 80’s band and most importantly, the fireworks at sea. Stand on deck 12 starboard and closer to the back funnel than the forward funnel for the best view.

And then if you have Disney+ I also recommend watching the National Geographic/Disney+ documentary on the making of the Wish. Lots of things you see on the ship will have a bit deeper meaning, and gives you some good Easter eggs to appreciate. And it will also give you a preview of the phenomenon of people laying down on the carpet under the chandelier in the atrium all of a sudden just before midnight (to have the best view of the chandelier when it does a short little goodnight light-up show). That one detail became my favorite part of the ship & I have missed having that moment each night at midnight it on the ships we’ve done since the Wish.

And then finally, I’ll round out tips with being concierge you will definitely want to take advantage of all the perks. You get priority boarding so I would make sure you are at port the very earliest you can be (usually 10:45am-11am and they will board concierge very first). There is a sit-down lunch for concierge only which gives you a chance to meet your concierge service team and avoid the crazy chaos of the buffet on embarkation day. Then with concierge you will have a lounge and sun deck. I believe the Wish also has a pool or hot tub for concierge and has Dole Whips for concierge on the sun deck. The lounge will have snacks and canned sodas/bottled waters available all day for you to grab and a happy hour for alcoholic drinks from 5-10pm. You also get priority access with free soda and popcorn for the theater shows. You do have to be lined up to go into the theater on deck 2 more than 30 min in advance as they have concierge go first (with their popcorn and soda) and then they open the doors 30 min. before the show for the rest of the masses to join. And then for debarkation day you also get your own priority line to leave and as soon as you want. Also, for the room, I believe you can request the fridge to be stocked with whatever canned sodas and bottled water included in your concierge room cost. And if you have a dining room table, I think I have heard you can get meals served in the room, if you really wanted. But the restaurants are really great too and I love them so I wouldn’t advise skipping them on such a short cruise.

Ok, phew sorry if that was a lot. But cruising is our right now favorite vacation and we’ve spent a lot of the last 2 years making up for the lost time from losing out on our (first and second and third first planned cruises when we kept bumping them back before finally getting our first).

The only thing I really love and need from it is the floats. And we can easily share 3 between the 6 of us. And I do enjoy the bikes so if the kids are up for it, we usually book those for everyone who wants. But when I did the math on it being separately booked or in the package, I determined that you have to really do all three, especially the snorkeling, otherwise it’s cheaper to book the bikes & floats separately.

So we only book the package now for those who want to both bike and snorkel which is only a couple of us. Then we do book the bikes for all the rest that want them, and then decide day of if we need to add any floats (sometimes we get 1 more, but when we get 4 floats, I find there’s always at least 1 still sitting back by the chairs and sometimes they walk off with someone who doesn’t realize or has decided they don’t care, that someone else paid for that float for the day and feel like they can walk-off with it).

And then you got a lot of good info on the rest of your questions for Castaway, but I definitely am happy to answer any other questions you have, about Castaway or the cruise in general.

And the rest of your trip sounds so amazing! Our first cruise we did WDW before for 4 days, then a 5 night cruise out of Miami and then finished off with 4 days at UOR so your trip reminds me soooo much of that trip. It was an amazing long vacation and while all our cruises have been special, I don’t know if we’ll ever get to do such a long trip with all 3 again anytime soon so I am so excited to hear how yours goes! (We also agree that we like more at IoA than USF and I think you have your days perfectly broken out for UOR at the end).

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This trip sounds amazing! I have 4 kiddos similar ages so always enjoy hearing how others kids like rides/meals/experiences, etc! I also know there’s a lot of logistics lol. Can’t wait to follow along!

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Mine can be this way. Especially if they aren’t together which I think the age of the spaces with separate them into two different kids spaces? Maybe even three? I can’t remember if DD14 is old enough for the teens space.

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That IS lovely.

Have you ever purchased the drink package? If so, did you find it worth it?

DH and I mostly stick to our drinks of choice at home (Crown + D.C. for him and red wine for me) and on vacation with only occasionally trying out fruity, fun cocktails. We will likely have 1-2 drinks per day.

Also, do we have to bring our passports to when we get off the ship in the Bahamas?

So many things I don’t know. :melting_face:

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I haven’t seen anything in our cruise info that talks about this but maybe I missed it!! It’s something they always do on the Wish?! Do people go all out? Is it like at the parks for Dapper Days or something like that where some people go all out in costume and some people do nothing at all?

We are!! I didn’t realize they had a documentary for this ship! Will for sure be watching it while we pack next week.

I didn’t really understand departure day concierge perks until after I booked our flights. We will land at MCO around 11. So likely not there until 1. Will we regret this? DH and I looked this morning and it is possible to flip our flight to one that leaves late Thursday night instead.

:laughing: lol! I love it!!! This is often the exact thing I say when friends are planning a trip to WDW and ask me for help. I just have so much knowledge and information to share I overwhelm people!! But this is PERFECT. Thank you so much for taking the time to share!!

I hadn’t considered us being able to share gear but it makes total sense that all of us may not need it at the same time.

I love that! Love long, bananas trips with all my crew. It makes for some really good memories.

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So many logistics!!! For sure! And simpler while at the same time more head scratching for me now that they’re older. Like yay they can pack themselves but bruh why did you pack 15 hoodies and no underwear?! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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Oh my gosh YES THIS, we once got 3 hrs away for a trip and my son (maybe 11 at the time and had successfully packed his own suitcase) realized he had no shoes on!

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:joy: :joy: :joy:

My son recently packed zero chargers for his electronics just assuming he’d bum ours when his batteries were low. Like, boy, just go get the chargers I bought you!!

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DH looked into the drinks package and could not see any way that it would be worth it. The amount you have to drink is crazy! He did find it worthwhile to buy a couple of bottles of wine and have the waiter keep them to serve him each dinner. Cheaper than buying by the glass.

Oh, and don’t forget you get some alcoholic drinks in the concierge lounge!

You need some sort of government ID for each adult when departing the ship. Could be a passport or a drivers license . We just took our drivers licenses.

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For pirate night, you will get a bandanna left in your room for each member of your party. Some people just wear that with their regular clothes and some people go all out. On our last cruise, DD18 and I had outfits but DH and DD20 just wore the bandannas.

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This is what I did. We had a Halloween cruise and it was trick or treating + pirate night combined so the kids dressed up in their costumes.

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The kids clubs ages are:
Oceaneer Club/Lab: Ages 3-10, strict on the both ends of the age range, no chance to waiver in/out. If you are 2 or 11 you cannot enter during secured programming. But they do a lot of Open House hours that anyone can drop in and enjoy the spaces.

Edge: Ages 11-14 officially, but 10 yr olds may be able to get a waiver to participate, depending on space. Right now my older two are in this club and they pretty much go any chance I give them, and the last couple of cruises, have made good friends that they keep in touch with and this latest cruise their friends even decided to do activities with them around the ship, so they went to more crafts and trivia that we were also at, but they were definitely there with their friends. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Vibe: Ages 14-17 officially, but 13 yr olds may be able to get a waiver to participate depending on space. They are really strict on the end age though. If you turn 18 on a cruise, you are out, donezo, cannot come back in.

But 14 would have a choice to do either since the official ages of both the tween and teen clubs include it. And he wouldn’t have to choose one or the other, he could check out both and decide which one is a better fit to spend his time in.

I’ve seen split opinions on this. As for what’s required, to get back on the ship everyone needs their Key to the World Card (your room key/charging card for the ship) and then anyone 16 and over needs a photo ID, but it can be a Drivers License. Just needs a photo & your name and your Key to the World card and these are checked to get back into the port area. And then the Key to the World card is used to scan you back onto the ship.

As for if you want to bring your passports or not, if you are worried about being left behind and want the absolute security of them on your person to be able to fly out, then you can take them, but on a swimming excursion you would want to make sure they are secure somewhere. We take passports on the cruise, but I leave them locked in the stateroom safe as I’ve heard that it’s common procedure that if you miss the ship, they attempt to locate your passports in your room and leave them with a harbor master for you. And plus, I don’t ever plan to be anywhere but right at the port or on the ship 1 hr or more before the all-aboard and if we do anything give ourselves very much time to get back to the ship. And Nassau has a late all-aboard usually being at 5:30pm, so it’s relatively easy to get back to the ship in time.

It’s kind of buried in the what to plan for if you go looking for dress code information, but it does mention an optional Pirate dress-up night. On most sailings you will see a whole range of fully decked out to not at all participating. Last year we did 3 back to back to back cruises on the Wish with a 3 night, 4 night and 3 night sailings. And what I noticed on both the 3 nights was overall it was a lot less participation compared to every other cruise, including the 4 night in between, and definitely a lot less were fully decked. But the pirate party and fireworks definitely still happen and are fun dressed up or not. You can go as decked out as you want or just do t-shirts and the bandana they provide (or even nothing at all) and not feel out of place. My two younger (right now 8 & 5) absolutely love dress-up play so they have full costumes. The rest of us have black/white & red clothing that we add a few accessories (a red sash, the bandana and sometimes an eye patch) and then we’re not spending on full costumes but still participating in the fun.

A 3 night cruise goes so fast, so my advice generally, concierge or not, is to get all the time on the ship possible, but in the grand scheme of things for your plan it is just the 2 hours, and you would still get allllll the rest of the amazing concierge perks so I don’t know that the 2 hrs would be necessarily worth the extra cost of a hotel room for the night before. I’m not sure how late they serve the concierge lunch though so you might miss that with your plans as is, but there will be plenty of other ways to get food when you get on, so I wouldn’t be worried about eating. The buffet is usually open until 2:30-3pm on embarkation day, the pool deck food is also open and is amazing on the Wish (for a ship), and room service also starts at 1-2pm on most cruises and there is usually a non-concierge lunch going on until 2pm at another restaurant that’s included, so you’ll be able to eat somewhere.

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Ooooh, I’m so glad to hear there may be some wiggle room on this after all? If they allow it, do you think they make a 10-year old need pick just one club and stick with it for the duration of the cruise, or could they potentially move back and forth between Edge and Oceaneers?

I remember reading (among other things on your trip reports) how strict they got about ages, and booked our dates for this summer in part because I really wanted my 8 and 10 year olds to be able to go to the same club together, since they are super tight.

But now my sister has joined our group and her kids will 9 and 11 (but my daughter and her cousin are literally only one month apart in age, as my daughter will turn 11 less than three weeks after we get off our cruise). She’s veering rapidly towards full-on tween mode, and will likely be a little bummed if her cousin gets to hang with the other tweens but she doesn’t.

It’s not a deal breaker, and she’ll also be happy to hang with her sister and her other cousin - but knowing that there might be some wiggle room is exciting news!

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