DCL Planning Thread: Dream Come True - First Try! - WDW, DCL & UOR All in One

I’m sure it was! We really enjoy it, but I also try to also emphasize that we don’t have kids with us. I know some of the other beach clubs might be more fun. I’ve heard good things about Mr. Sanchos, but have never been.

I wouldn’t fly from Orlando. By the time you get to the airport & check luggage it’s almost the same amount of time. The drive from Orlando is really easy until you actually get into Miami. Driving in Miami can be a mess because everyone is driving like where they are from & it just doesn’t work. Not near as busy as LA, but just absolutely horrid driving. Leaving a car at the port would honestly be the easiest thing to do. I think it’s between $25-28 per day. I WOULD NOT go to an offsite economy parking lot. I just pay for garage at the cruise terminal.

If you are going to a park the day before your cruise then I would just leave Orlando early morning the day of the cruise.

This sounds like an amazing trip!! I look forward to following along.

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If DCL still has excursions to Isla Pasion I highly recommend it. The sand on the north side of the island is far softer than the coarse stuff in the west side. I did not enjoy Nachi Cocum nor Play Mia.

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Have you tried Chankanaab or Punta del Sur to compare to Isla Pasion? So far I have it narrowed down to wanting a beach day and Playa Mia is our last choice (but does have room for all of our party of total 14 & would be somewhat flexible to go later so those are the main reasons I’m considering it).

But Playa Mia is definitely our last choice & I’m waffling back & forth between these three mainly:

  1. A private jeep tour (not through Disney but through a recommended tour company on our cruise’s Facebook group) that would be customizable for any/all of the following: Punta del Sur ecological park, their lighthouse museum, a (small) Mayan ruin there, the beach at the Punta Del Sur park & snorkeling, lunch & a tequila tasting. If we did this one I would be using the jeep just to see maybe the ruin & then spend the rest of the excursion time on the beach. And being customizable we would be able to pick the start time which would be a good fit for our group. The only downside is we have a 3yo & 5 (almost 6) yo and so I would have to figure out how to have them securely transferred on a jeep. It’s a little farther on the island and a jeep so I would want them to be fairly secured. And I imagine the reason Disney lists a min. age of 8 on their excursion that is similar is to this is absolutely due to how to restrain an under 8 child on a jeep.
  2. Chankanaab Beach Park through Disney. It still has room enough for our group of 14 especially for a later start, and would have a sea lion show we could enjoy in addition to a day at the beach but for some reason I am holding back on booking it. Nothing I have read about it compels or wows me to get there.
  3. Isla Pasion through Disney is my third choice and I do feel more compelled to go there than Chankanaab because it seems beautiful but I didn’t book it because it had an earlier than 10am start. My family would be fine with that, but there doesn’t seem to be an option for those who want to rise later to join & there are a couple of morning reluctant parties in the other families so I am trying to use my currency for early rising on the 4 days at WDW and not to push at all on any excursions since I promised them that WDW would be early mornings and the cruise would be all relaxation. Also, the last I checked it didn’t have room for all 14 of us now. I did try to look up alternative tour operators to get here because I would rather do this than Playa Mia but the one tour I could find, I couldn’t find many reviews on so I’d rather not do it without a recommendation.
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I have not tried either of those places.

Mitsugirly is a participant on cruisecritic with hundreds of reviews. Sometime before the pandemic, she started a comprehensive blog. Maybe you can find out more there:
TravelwithMitsugirly

I will say that I am having a lot of trouble with reviews post-lockdown. They are not as easy to come by and there are so many things affecting how these places are reviewed. Many clubs aren’t even owned by the same people who owned them prior to the shutdown. Many remain understaffed afterward. I am so grateful to be able to cruise again, but I feel a lot of disappointment about our upcoming port days (we have a Carnival and a RCCL cruise coming this year). I almost wish I hadn’t booked my RCCL cruise bc I am so sad about our ports.

I can see why Playa Mia would work for your large group. And to be fair, the pool side was somewhat fun for the kids. The food was Americanized, but plentiful, and the bathrooms weren’t awful.

I would not go to Isla Pasion with anything other than a ship-backed excursion. It is a pretty hefty distance by boat to the resort. Have you looked at it on Google Earth? Granted, the DCL port is a bit closer than where the other ships docked when we went past it in 2019.

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Thank you! Off to explore.

I have been trying very hard to base my decisions off anything 2021-22 and yes, it’s been so hard to figure out how things are now.

I am so sorry. I hope by the time you do go, you’re able to get a good/better than expected experience on your ports.

Thank you for all your reassuring words that it would work out. It has a lot of logical reasons to work out, but I know that if it were up to just me it would not be on my radar at all, but for all the reasons you point out if it’s where we end up, I don’t think it would be the worst.

Thanks for that advice as well. I did look on Google earth a little bit and saw that Isla de Pasion is definitely more remote/out of the way. I also saw that Punta del Sur Eco Park is on a more remote area of coast & farther away (the opposite direction of Isla de Pasion). The remoteness of both is probably why I was drawn to them. I just gotta get back to Cozumel when my kids’ tastes are less inflatable beach trampolines and more for remote sandy beaches and/or with less extended family that have their own preferences as well.

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It was lovely. But the fear of not making it back to the ship is very real to me. I’ve had a few excursion mishaps (never left behind though) and I’m just less adventurous than I used to be.

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Continue! Continue!

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So I meant to come back to this more often with planning updates but those have been a bit of a hot mess. We’re super excited to go, but it’s been a journey (and there’s still some work to do) on getting all families on the same page.

Today we got the last passport (for my family) so I’m exhaling a little bit. DSIL’s family did theirs a couple days after DH & I so they still have time and she paid for expedited shipping back to her so I’m less worried that they won’t have passports since they shouldn’t be more than a week or so behind us, at worst.

As for plans on the ship & port, it feels like we both have a lot & don’t have a lot.
The only thing we have definitely agreed to is: every night we will do the show & late main dining.

What we have somewhat figured out

  • Optional Dress-up & Pirate nights: we will all be participating as a large group. Dress-up night is mostly decided (colors at least). TBD for Pirate Night if we coordinate on just colors or exact costumes and/or will be specific Disney pirates. The discussion is on-going.
  • Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique makeovers: The girl cousins plus DS6 would love to do this all together. Do we have our act together to have this booked in advance for them? No, no we do not. We also are weighing the economics of doing BBB on a water heavy trip. Right now 2 of the 4 girls have appointments at a time we would actually want to do them. The rest have appointments at weird times. What we’ve landed on is when we get to the ship we will go to guest services and our first order of business will be to see if there’s a time for them to get in, and ideally isn’t during dinner or right smack dab in the middle of both our port days (those are the times that area available now & what some of the kids have booked). If we can’t get a time for them all close together at a time that doesn’t compromise port and/or dinners, we won’t stress. If we can, we will take the opportunity.

What we absolutely do not have figured out

A Cozumel port excursion

I’m only slightly going crazy on this one. The stuff above is taking priority since things have be bought/packed ahead of time, but the planner in me is nervous we don’t yet have group consensus to book something. DSIL & our families have nothing booked now. The East coast cousins have right now booked a Coco-themed pinata workshop that looks fun, minimum age is 6 though so our 2 youngest wouldn’t be able to come. The cousins have it booked because space opened up & just until we as a group figure out what else we might want to do with all 14 of us.

We do know we want:

  • Structured transportation, most likely booked through Disney ahead of time for the reliability & safety aspects.
  • The cousins are interested in seeing a ruin, maybe, if it’s en route to a beach or something walkable with free time before/after an excursion. There seems to be a really cool excursion through Disney that is to an ecological park that has a small Mayan ruin & lighthouse with museum and the excursion ends with lunch & beach time with optional snorkeling. It only has room for 2 people though online. If it’s available once on board, it ticks a lot of boxes for what we are most interested in doing in Cozumel, so a good option to check. There are private jeep companies that we could customize a tour to this exact beach & park but most reviews include a tidbit about driving ourselves (not my ideal idea of fun in a foreign country on vacation) and our younger kids are a little young to feel secure about taking a Jeep ride across an island without their car seats.
  • My kids want beach time the most and their first choice is Playa Mia (ok beach but has pools, water slides & a small kiddie water park), but they would do Isla de Pasion (better beach but none of the waterpark/slide/pool aspect) if that’s the beach the group wanted more (this is also dependent on if we can somehow get space for all of us as right now there’s only space online to book 5 of us before the excursion fills). We are also looking at at 3rd beach option that has great snorkeling, a little park with replicas of Mayan ruin that has education info on Mayan culture, and a short sea lion show for free (and is the beach where observers of the Dolphin & Manatee encounters are also hanging). It’s a rocky beach though with stairs as the entry to the ocean. There is a 30 yard stretch that’s zero entry but it’s small even in the photos & apparently gets mobbed by all young kids (understandably) so our youngers would be part of the mob scene and I’d prefer a little bit more space where the water meets the sand to enjoy with them. Also recent reviews mention a lot of upselling street vendor fashion when lounging on the beach. So that’s adding hesitation & diminishing the idea of relaxation on the beach.

Lastly, one reason we’re still working on a final consensus is I’m prioritizing decisions in some smaller, manageable chunks for DSIL. She’s never been to WDW nor on a cruise so there’s a lot to decide/explain. If I can get through all the travel logistics & WDW aspects with her and there’s time to go over cruise excursion options, then we’ll maybe make a decision before boarding. But if not this will be our 2nd item of business once onboard and BBB is decided. And to help keep the planner in me from full-on anxiety, I keep reminding myself that “worst-case,” we walk off the ship & sign up for the Playa Mia beach encounter in port. And/or take a taxi to the ecological park and pay the entry there ourselves to do just beach and/or the ruin and/or lighthouse.

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Sorry! I hit send wayyyy to soon trying to do something with the bullet points, but the full deets I was going over are up now!!

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Forgot to add what port arrival times we got & our experiences with them:

  • Me: Didn’t see reminder on phone go off & signed on 8 minutes late (for me it was 10:08pm on a Friday & we were in the middle of watching a movie with the kids). Getting the photos/IDs uploaded wasn’t hard at all but everything else after that was a drag. I tried solidly for 2 hours, half-heartedly for 1 or so more and then took a break. Finally 4+ hours after and just before heading to bed, I tried on last time, got us all checked in within 20 minutes. Port arrival time obtained: 12:30. This was for both our family’s staterooms, I could have had 12:00pm for one but when it didn’t show up for the other, I went back & changed it to the time that matched what I could get for the 2nd room.

  • East coast cousins: As I was logging in the minutes late that I was, I sent out a text to east coast cousin & DSIL to let them know I was going to try & see. Shortly after I reported that I was having issues so she didn’t log in right away. It was also after midnight for her, being on the east coast. She did sign on first thing the next (a Saturday) morning, followed my instructions easily on photos/IDs (from the helpful thread here) and had a zero stress 15 min max experience. Port arrival time obtained: 12:45

  • DSIL: When I sent out the reminder text, DSIL realized she had read over my instructions once & not come back to them so didn’t get anything ready, including obtaining a birth certificate for one of her kids who’s only copy was being used to process a passport for the trip & wasn’t available for them. She felt really bad. I felt really bad I hadn’t sent her more reminders. She had to wait until Monday after work to get the document she needed and then sometime that night did her online check-in. She struggled for a bit with some of it, but not the uploading photos part! Port arrival time obtained: 2:15 So we’ll have to see how this goes. She doesn’t want us to wait back with her so we’ll be eagerly waiting, and by the time she’s on, the rooms should be ready.

Anywho, the takeaway I got is if I can’t get on right at the time check-in opens and do it in 20 minutes, I’ll put it down & come back 3-4 hours later, for any other Disney cruises we take. The port arrival time available to us was not worth the 3 hour headache, especially when the next day it was only up to 30-15 min later.

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Can I just say I am glad that my ships aren’t doing this?
We did have to agree to a photo on arrival to expedite departure.
12:30 isn’t that late. I’ve barely made it on a ship for all aboard. THAT was not something I’d want to repeat.

2:15PM is not going to be as much fun. At least her stateroom will be ready. But she may find she can’t get anything to eat or drink until all the safety stuff is through. I have run into that in later boarding situations. By the first morning who got on when won’t matter as much any longer.

It really is hard doing all the air traffic control for a big group when you don’t REALLY have all the control. When we had four rooms for 10 of us on NCL, and my mom and sister each were in a solo cabin, it was a nightmare. They expected me to do it all, but I really didn’t have access. I had all of their usernames and passwords, but that is not the same as one control…

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I’m glad your ships aren’t either. It was pretty tortuous. In the grand scheme of things though, if it gets me on the ship to Castaway Cay, I think it will be worth it.

I’m perfectly content with it too. Sure I would love to be onboard as soon as possible. But because we are driving down from Orlando early on the morning of embarkation, I wasn’t at all looking for anything early so as not to stress about being late for port arrival.

That is good intel. I’ll make sure she knows to grab lunch before the ship.

Amen! Hard with a capital H.A.R.D!
I know it will be amazing once we’re on the ship and enjoying being together. It’s the plans up until then that threaten my sanity before hand.

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Ok, I need all the swimming heavy trip packing tips that everyone has.

We’ve only ever gone swimming maximum once per vacation to either a beach or a pool hotel. This trip will be 5 straight days of pools and 2 of those day the beach as well. I’m not entirely sure the best strategy to cart things to & from the beaches, or what’s helpful to everyone to have with you when you do this much swimming on a trip. So all tips appreciated.

I have planned for us to pack 3 swimsuits each and because of the length of the trip, I’ll be doing laundry at least 2x. Once at WDW, once again on the ship, but if it’s no big deal, I may do it again before we leave the ship to come home with less dirty laundry.

I have ordered off Amazon:
Reef safe sunscreen :white_check_mark:
Swim shoes for everyone :white_check_mark:
Sunglasses for everyone :white_check_mark:
Coverups/rash guards (we also own a lot of Under Armor shirts the boys wear IRL all summer) :white_check_mark:

The kids all have bucket hats, DH has a water proof hat with vents that he wear sometimes on our hottest trips to DLR. I have a GIANT straw hat with black ribbon DH bought for me ages ago on a whim in San Diego (it’s like Kentucky Derby sized so I don’t think I’ll bring it for space reasons but so fun to wear). I also have a cute visor.

What am I missing? What’s the best way to cart all this stuff both to pack in luggage & then to beach days (I know we’ll need to carry off our passports too Cozumel, so probably want that to be in a separate bag that we lock up in a locker at whatever beach we wind up).

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Are you packing lots of magnets to hang the suits to dry? Please say yes. In addition, it helps to wear them as they dry more or less, vs hanging up wet. They should dry quickly after excursions of course. But resist the urge to head back to your cabin while they are still very wet.

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Magnetic hooks are on the list to buy.

Your mileage may vary but on the Fantasy our boarding time was noon and they were boarding. ALL groups at that time, no matter your boarding time. So your SIL may be boarding with you all after all.

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Thank you for sharing that. I am reserving some hope that it’s that way because I KNOW that as amazing as it will be to finally be on the ship, it won’t be quite the same if their family is still waiting. She is the one who inceptioned this whole thing for us.

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I will tell you there was nobody at the port checking our arrival time in port Canaveral. We could have parked whenever we wanted. Disney has signs up with times but by 12:15 they were letting everyone through and just reminded people to have their passports out. They were way past our boarding group by the time of our scheduled port arrival.

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I ended up booking Playa Mia.

Isla Pasion was not an option for our cruise.
Upon closer inspection, Chankanaab has very little “beach.” Most of their water access is with ladders into the water.

We like zero depth entry. So that made my decision.

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