Upcoming - Disney Magic Cruise
We are booked on our 1st Disney Cruise this year. We will be on a 5 night Western Caribbean Cruise from Miami aboard the Disney Magic this June 2023.
This cruise departs from Miami on Saturday. Sunday is a day at sea, Monday we will be in Gran Caymen, then Tuesday is another day at sea. Wednesday will be spent at Disney’s private island Cataway Cay and then Thursday we depart back in Miami.
5 Night Western Caribbean Cruise Route - Image from Disney Cruise Line Blog
Disney do not offer any transfers from Disney World to the Port of Miami, so we are hiring a car from Orlando airport when we land on Thursday and driving to the DVC resort Old Key West for our pre cruise stay.
We are then driving to Miami airport to leave the car and then get an Uber or transfer bus to the port. This is frustrating as we were under the impression that Disney offered transport to the cruise terminals but this only applies to Port Canaveral which is the main port used by Disney Cruise Line.
We booked our cruise through DVC rental store. DVC rental store is a fantastic company who help DVC members sell points that they may not use, sell reservations they may have made but can no longer use to non DVC members.
This a great way to try before they buy or take advantage of the fantastic quality of hotels for a price much lower than booking direct through Disney. This is not a normal route for booking a cruise as we did a DVC points swap, however I will detail the process below for anyone that’s interested.
We researched cruises on the Disney Cruise website then contacted DVC rental store to find out how many of our DVC points we would need to sell via them to pay for the cruise.
We didn’t have enough points so we did a point swap of 209 points plus a cash payment.
The way this process worked was very quick and simple. We told DVC rental store how many points we had to sell (209) they told us we would get $16 per point. They then found a party that wanted to rent DVC.
We then booked the trip via our DVC portal and put the booking in the parties name. We sent all the booking confirmation info to DVC rental store. They acted as the intermediary so the party paid them and then DVC Rental Store booked our cruise.
Doing a point swap is perfect for UK residents. If you sold the points for cash you would be subject to US tax and have to file a return.
Our points were rented out within a few days and we received our cruise confirmation soon after. We then paid the remaining balance in cash.
As this is our 1st cruise our booking window for onboard activities is not until the 10th April (75 days before our departure). Once you have done 1 cruise you join the Castaway Club and then as you do more cruises you move up the tiers, with one of the perks being an earlier booking window for onboard activities.
At the time of booking we have downloaded the Disney Cruise line app and linked our booking to it via our Disney Experience account (the same account you use for Disney World). Through this we could pick out dining service (1st early - 6pm or 2nd late - 8pm).
We opted for 2nd dining as we normally eat later. This also means that we could watch the early shows in the theatres.
At this time we could add any dietary requirements or access needs.
As the ship has a specific number of rooms we have been given our cabin number already and can look at the ship map to start to navigate our way around.
Come back to see how we went about booking excursions and onboard activities after 10th April.
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