12 Tips For a Land/Sea Disney Vacation

Ringing in 2011

Part 1 (lessons 1-6)

Lesson 1: What is a Land/Sea Vacation? Disney used to do “Land/Sea packages”. These packages would create a vacation that started at Disney World and ended with a sailing on the Disney Cruise Line or vice versa. From what I understand, they no longer offer this service. Which is fine because when I checked if I booked them separately I came out cheaper! So that's what I did. I just made sure that all of our times lined up. I was not automatically told this option was cheaper until I started chatting with the reservation specialist.

Lesson Learned: Always price out your options and look/ask for discounts/savings. Discounts/savings can come in the form of a Value hotel room instead of a Moderate, or on the Cruise Line a different cabin category such as a 4b instead of a 4a, or choosing deck 7 as opposed to deck 9 The only difference here is the location on the deck that you have chosen. For example 4a will be closer to midship and the elevators than 4b will. Just be honest with yourself and know if you are ok with possibly sacrificing.

Lesson 2: Know your Schedule Our Mega Vacation didn't start out that way...

Surprising Your Kids With A Disney Cruise

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   There is some debate about the method in which you should surprise your loved ones with a cruise or if you should surprise them at all. I read one account from a teen that was surprised with a cruise and she complained that it ruined her plans with her friends and she preferred that she not be surprised! I do not feel that way at all, I could be surprised at any day, hour, or minute. All I need is my passport and my camera : )

     As soon as I hung up the phone after booking our cruise we sat down and started talking about how we would pull off this “Christmas Miracle”...

Booking Our First Disney Cruise

Christmas Morning 2010

It's 2010 and several things have changed. Our kids are of course older we now have a Freshman in High School, a 6^th grader, and a 1^st grader. As we always do around September/October my husband and I began thinking about Christmas. We get a loose budget together and talk about gift ideas or different items that the kids have been asking for.

Since 2/3 of our kids were getting a bit older we had been talking about making a vacation around Christmas...

Our Disney Cruise, a Pipe Dream?

Disney Magic 2010

My family and I were sitting down to watch some t.v., and as we flipped thru the channels we landed on a show about the Disney Cruise Line. This was probably around the year 2005. Having been to Disney World several times and already having a severe love of Disney I thought this was the perfect show for us to watch.

At that time the family consisted of me, my husband, our 8 year old son, and two daughters age 6 and 2.

We sat down together and watched in awe...