Disney cruise prices increase as it sells rooms so you booked at a much higher price than if you’d booked when the sailings opened. I do feel like it’s worth the money though.
No. You can meet them without any reservations.
Unless you are dying to get off the ship, with just four nights, I’d stay on the ship and get your money’s worth enjoying things you can only do on the ship.
I do read this all the time - but it’s the same price right now to book for May 2026. And I’ll never be able to book that far in advance again. The earliest I’ve ever booked a cruise was out DCL in 2013 for 15-months out. We have a lot of schedules to juggle. 
Maybe if we can get some beach days before summer is over I won’t be as eager to do Nassau beach. I really hope there is enough to do. I’m starting to think we can fill our days fine. 
That’s good to know!!
Edge is amazing. It’s definitely a very different vibe than Oceaneers. But the space on the Wish was very nicely done and the entrance being so locked down was like having ‘secret access’ (a bit of a pain of you as a parent wanted to be able to get them out of the space & talk to them if they didn’t have a device and/or weren’t able to get messages on the device, but nothing super annoying.
My littles ended up jealous that Edge was so cool and we spent some of Edge’s open house time for them to get to see the space & meet the counselors that their big siblings raved about and were so excited to see as we got back on.
But Edge really is about the people there more than the space and what the group of kids/counselors decide to do on the cruise. For my kids and their set of counselors/kids it was all karaoke all night long. With some other fun interactive/get to know you/team games plus a very few crafts peppered in. There were video games and board games also available and I think my kids said they played Mario Odyssey once, but it wasn’t the ‘boring there’s only video games for them to do all day’ that you sometimes hear about. It can be that, if that’s what your kid wants. But if you want other things, there are definitely other things to do there.
I hope they have the BEST time ever there! And I hope whatever counselors are there now are even just a fraction as good as the ones that my kids had that quite literally made DS12’s cruise & got emotional when we told them the story of him getting squeezed out but ending up having such an amazing time in Edge because of them.
I mean - by May 2026 it could be $5000. But right now it says $4400 and I paid $4400. So I’m not worse off, and I get to go 20 months earlier.
I feel like with the Wish prices just already start fairly high & only raise small amounts. BUT for what we wanted on the ship felt worth it to us for the extra experiences (Marvel & Frozen specifically) that we were getting vs. the other ships that don’t have those things.
I do think there are certain itineraries where you need to jump on them fast but they also happen to be really unique ones at times of the year that are not shoe-ins for me to coordinate that far in advance because it’s cruises to Hawaii, the Panama Canal, Trans-Atlantic & South Pacific ones or ones with unique/long Caribbean itineraries, and those all happen in fall or spring when any experiences/extracurriculars my kids want to participate in meaningfully might happen and a schedule isn’t known schedule until 2-3 months, maybe 4-6 in advance.
So for now we pay a premium anyway being restricted to closest to whenever our school breaks are & it hasn’t ever made a huge difference if we book within 6-8 months and/or are willing to chose a ship/itinerary that isn’t as popular/fast-selling.
Ahhh prob why I didn’t even bother. We were 15 and up I think. *Yup cuz we went opening year and kid is now 17.
I’ll prolly aim to hit the Treasure next or one of the older ships but with cooler destinations like Mediterranean. DD17 wants me to take her to Italy and I’m debating just a Mediterranean Cruise because popping allover Scotland and having to repack all the time was exhausting. One room the whole time sounds nice, oh so nice.
Those both sound excellent!
We’re trying the Treasure next year in June and we loved the Magic when we did it for the Silver Anniversary at Sea last year (an extra night of fireworks!!!). The Magic has the best combination of shows and restaurants of the ships we’ve tried. They’ve all been great, but the Magic has really had the best food & I loved all 3 of its shows as a whole the best.
I’m excited to try the Wonder too, it’s not a very cool destination (Baja) but it is convenient as it’s out of San Diego, and I love Princess Tiana so excited to see the execution of her restaurant on board. If how much I loved Arendelle and Rapunzel’s on the Magic is any indication, it will be one of the highlights/favorite parts of the trip. The Wonder also does the South Pacific itineraries and that’s a goal of mine to someday do one. It will be a long while before the kids can be way from school that long the times of years DCL does them, but maybe it’ll be one DH & I do when the kids are in college/early adulthood doing their thing.
I liked the Magic too. Dream is still my fave of the three we’ve done (Magic, Dream and Wish).
Yup we’re getting closer and closer to more and more kid free vacations!
We’ve done the same three. 
They are good ones! I read up on your Wish trip report ahead of our Wish cruise & remember it being all so helpful. I didn’t see your Dream & Magic ones until much after we’d been on those ships, but enjoyed reading them all the same!
Lucky (on being closer to more and more kid free vacations)! We’ve got bit with the youngest still being 4, but we’ll get there! Hopefully with sanity in tact.
Oh enjoy. I keep asking the 17 and 19 yo if I can read to them again. lol. I miss them being like elementary age. Not toddlers and def not middle school tho!
I’ve been thinking genetically this prolly when historically id be a grandma and could read to babes again but thankfully we spread this out more that we used to! But I still have the grandma need to read to wee ones. I saw so many kid books I wanted to buy in Scotland but don’t have anyone to buy them for ha ha. I took pics of them for future.
Awwww! I will probably still buy the kids books (because one day there could & hopefully will be the grands but I also have nephews that are in college so hopefully they will have kids that bridge gap for me when my younger two are tweens and oldest two aren’t quite ready to take on parenthood).
Amen!!
I’m SAD my travel party is getting smaller. BUT it does mean we can do things we would have had a hard time doing in the past. My oldest has a lot of food allergies and we always wanted connecting rooms. Having those limitations removed has changed our travel for the easier.
In 27 years or marriage, DH and I have gone away together once - our cruise last March. But I missed my kids a LOT.
I miss mine too but the dogs I miss even more ha ha ha j/k (but maybe not LOL)
DS12 was 10 months old the first time we left him with grandparents to take a trip and I didn’t regret not bringing him (it was mainly to UOR for WWoHP) but man, it was hard to be away. So yea, we’ve done only one other real trip and one staycation in all the years since that. The staycation was just one hour away in a mountain resort and just for one night so it was literally a sleepover, and we are lucky to have family that love to do that so it wasn’t the same as a full-on trip & we didn’t miss them. But man, the other trip was for our 10th anniversary to Puerto Rico and it was hard to be away again. Emotionally and logistically. And we still talk about how much we want to take the kids back to see what we saw there.
Was WiFi awful on Wish? I seem to recall that for you @gingerSnaps543222
Also - any of you/your family coffee drinkers? Any idea how much the lattes, etc cost at Marcelines or Wishing Star? We must budget for that.
Kids are looking forward to buying treats at Wheezy’s and the Inside Out ice cream place.
From what I recall it was awful on Magic and better on Wish.
I did also buy coffee and it’s like Starbucks pricing from what I recall but I’m with you in that that’s important! Lol
We bought ice cream on the Dream and it was rich but yummy. I’ve always eaten the free stuff since.
But we did visit the inside out place and its adorbs.