10 Mistakes I’ve Made on a Disney Cruise

After 19 Disney cruises and counting I’ve learned a lot along the way, but I’ve also made my fair share of mistakes! I wrote a previous blog post on mistakes first timers make, and I made a few of them, but here’s my list of mistakes I personally have made! Hopefully I can keep you from repeating some of them. I’m here to help!

1. Overpacked – I admit it, I’m a chronic overpacker. I constantly tell people to lay out what they think they need and then reduce it by half. And yet somehow, I cannot follow my own advice! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve arrived home and unpacked things that were never worn! That should not be! While the rooms are very well designed with lots of storage, they aren’t THAT big. There’s no reason to bring a bunch of things you don’t need. There is a laundry service and there are washers and dryers onboard. I’m leaving for the British Isles cruise next month and to make our pre- and post-cruise travel in Europe much easier, I’m going to practice what I preach. I’m packing for 18 days like I’ll be on a 7-night cruise. Or less! Overpackers unite! We can do this!

2. Overspent – I’m sure anyone who knows me finds that very hard to believe, but it’s true. I’ve overspent. Like on clothes that I thought were so awesome in a Disney environment and when I got home to real life – not so much. Or maybe on excursions when I didn’t research our options and realized later we could have done something on our own much cheaper. Or how about a bunch of pictures that are still in the folder I brought them home in? I don’t drink, but I suspect there’s some of you out there that have some regrets about your alcohol bill. This doesn’t have to be! Let’s make a budget and stick to it! No impulse buys!

3. Forgot My Passport – Oops. HUGE oops. Totally forgot my passport on one of my cruises. I didn’t realize it until Saturday night before we were boarding Sunday morning. I went into full out shock when I realized it. My friends thought I was having a stroke and I may have been close, actually. To be honest, I cruise so often, I didn’t even glance at my packing list. Thought I was a pro who didn’t need a silly packing list. Wrong! Anyone can forget anything. Check your packing list! Thankfully my story had a happy ending. I was on a closed loop cruise (a cruise that starts and ends in the same U.S. city) and a copy of a birth certificate and government issued photo ID (while perhaps not the preferred option) are an acceptable proof of citizenship on a closed loop cruise. My husband (who I abandoned for this particular cruise) scanned me a copy of my birth certificate from home, the hotel printed it out for me and I was good to go. Pro tip – we now keep a copy of all of our birth certificates in a secure place in the cloud for this very reason. Hopefully we do not ever need it again though! I’m pretty sure I will never live it down if I forget my passport again. I haven’t quite lived down the first time!

4. Packed Too Much the Last Night – Unless you choose to take your luggage off yourself, the last night you will put your packed suitcases outside your stateroom where they will be whisked off to the airport or to Customs for you to pick up after you disembark. They tell stories in the disembarkation talk of people forgetting to leave out clothes for the next day and disembarking in pajamas. No, I did not do that! But we did think we were playing it smart and put on our pj’s and packed everything except our clothes for the next day. That worked great until we realized we were going back out to the See Ya Real Soon farewell party. Well it did make for some cute character photos with our kids in their pjs!

5. Packed Too Much the First Day – Another one of my tips is to put swimsuits and clothes for dinner in your carry-on the day you board. Unfortunately I have ignored my own advice and packed these items away. The swimsuit is for swimming after lunch. The pools won’t be that crowded since most people won’t have their luggage yet. Not to mention, a lot of kids are dying to get in the second they see those pools, and they can’t make it until their luggage arrives! The clothes for dinner are just in case your luggage does not arrive in time for dinner. This has only happened to us once in 19 cruises, but it can happen. If you want to change for dinner, be prepared!

6. Didn’t Book the Room I Wanted – Another one of my tips is to arrive at the port early and check on discounted upgrades immediately after checking in. The problem is that you can’t count on them being available. I wasn’t willing to pay for a verandah on our Alaskan cruise and booked an oceanview and hoped for an upgrade in the port. There were none to be had when we arrived and I spent a wonderful cruise slightly sad that I had to run upstairs with my camera every time I saw something cool passing. Book the room you want! Don’t risk it.

7. Didn’t Buy Insurance – Yep, I’ve done it. I’ve cruised without insurance. My word we were taking a risk. I had heard all the warnings and I was definitely in the camp of – what are the odds something will happen to me? Lucky for me, we had it when we sailed to Europe and my very healthy mom came down with pneumonia mid cruise and racked up over $5000 in medical bills on the ship (which were reimbursed by the insurance!). Lesson learned. Things happen. Not having insurance is not worth the risk. Pro tip – several insurance companies sell very reasonable yearlong travel insurance policies. If you travel more than once a year, it’s definitely worth looking in to!

8. Believed that Enchanted Garden Was Full – On embarkation day, after Enchanted Garden, Parrot Cay, or Carioca’s (depending on which ship you are on) have been open for a little while, the crew starts highly encouraging guests to go upstairs to eat lunch. In fact, if you go to one of the restaurants at that point, the crew will probably tell you that you’ll have to wait quite a while and will again encourage you to go up to the buffet. Don’t believe them. For whatever reason, their job on that day is to push the buffet. I’ve been told we would wait 30 minutes before, only to be seated about 4 minutes later. If you prefer to eat in one of these restaurants as opposed to the buffet on embarkation day, and I do, stick it out. Odds are good that you’ll be sitting and stuffing your face shortly.

9. Enforced Bedtimes – Our first few cruises we tried to stick close to our normal home schedule. We forgot this wasn’t our normal home schedule and we didn’t’ really want it to be! There were awesome activities that the kids missed because we wanted to go to bed. I still remember how sad our son was that his age group in the kids’ club was going to play basketball and we made him come back and go to bed. Why did we do that? We were there to make memories and have new experiences, not sleep! I haven’t made that mistake again.

10. Put Things Off Until the Last Night – I hate acknowledging that the end of the cruise is coming. Apparently I hate it so much that I keep putting things off until the last night thinking I have plenty of time. It’s a bad idea. For instance, visiting the rebooking desk to book your next cruise on the last night (or even the last day) of your cruise, is a bad idea. The line is huge. You will not be the only one with this idea. It’s also a bad idea to buy your pictures the last night. Shutters is packed on the last night! It’s understandable that you may be waiting for the last few pictures to show up, but you’ll probably have a good idea what you want before that night. Check on your photos throughout the cruise, make sure they are all showing up, and narrow down your purchase if you can! It will save you a ton of time that last, hectic night. I’ve also waited until the last night to take empty atrium pictures. That does not work. The last night after the aforementioned See Ya Real Soon show, there is Mickey confetti everywhere! So not only are people up later for the show, after they start to go back to their staterooms the crew is hard at work vacuuming up all the party remnants! Trust me, the pictures aren’t the same with a vacuum cleaner in them.

Have you made any mistakes before that you’d like to share? Is there anything the rest of us can learn from?

Tammy Whiting is the owner of Storybook Destinations. Did you know Storybook Destinations offers a complimentary subscription to TouringPlans with qualified Disney and Universal bookings? Click here for a no-obligation quote on your next vacation.