Magic July 14 - 21, 2019

Hello! My family is also on this cruise. It will me and my husband and my two children (ages 18 & 21). They 'aged' out of the clubs so it will be a new adventure for us for sure.
 
Hello! My family is also on this cruise. It will me and my husband and my two children (ages 18 & 21). They 'aged' out of the clubs so it will be a new adventure for us for sure.
Welcome! How many Disney cruises will this be for your family? There is actually a thread on the main page about 18-20 Society. Have your kids been part of this yet? We are getting closer to this change in our family. Our son has only one or two more cruises before he moves on to the older group. Are you able to enjoy more time in Europe before or after the cruise? What cities/ports are you most excited about? Happy planning!
 
Thanks! We have been on two cruises:

Disney Wonder - Alaska July 2015
Disney Dream - Bahamas June 2011

I went to Europe a lot as a child but my children have only been one time (well two... my daughter did a summer program at Oxford). None of us have been to Spain so this is going to be super exciting for us. We plan to go a few days early and enjoy Spain and then afterwards, we plan to spend some time in England.

Thanks for the tip on the 18-20 club. I will check it out.
 


Thanks! We have been on two cruises:

Disney Wonder - Alaska July 2015
Disney Dream - Bahamas June 2011

I went to Europe a lot as a child but my children have only been one time (well two... my daughter did a summer program at Oxford). None of us have been to Spain so this is going to be super exciting for us. We plan to go a few days early and enjoy Spain and then afterwards, we plan to spend some time in England.

Thanks for the tip on the 18-20 club. I will check it out.
This will be our third time leaving out of Barcelona. It is a great city and we all cannot wait to get to spend more time there. Let me know if I can answer any questions. Have you considered a day trip to Mont Serrat? The kids were a little too young last time, but this is in our plans for this trip. The Harry Potter studios outside of London is great as well if any of you are fans.
 
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Ceremony of the keys you need to get the tickets ASAP. Like, go online and see if they're available NOW and book them. It was fascinating and awesome, and truly a once in a lifetime kind of thing.

We'll see if I can convince the family to indulge my inner potter nerd.
Got our reservations! Some dates were starting to fill up. Thanks for the heads up on this. Looking forward to it on our first night in London.
 
i wonder when they change the time on this cruise?
too bad we're doing the cruise before DLP...
it would be easier to get everyone up at 6 am france time, if we came straight from home (where it's 7 am when it's 6 in france)..
i just discovered i'll have to be a disney nazi, getting everyone up at the crack of dawn at DLP to make it to our 'free' breakfast at 7 am...(and then to early opening)...

maybe we should skip the cruise and just do DLP? make it a quickie 5 day trip to DLP, without the cruise thrown in?
hmm.....
well, we have a lot of time to decide...
 


i wonder when they change the time on this cruise?
too bad we're doing the cruise before DLP...
it would be easier to get everyone up at 6 am france time, if we came straight from home (where it's 7 am when it's 6 in france)..
i just discovered i'll have to be a disney nazi, getting everyone up at the crack of dawn at DLP to make it to our 'free' breakfast at 7 am...(and then to early opening)...

maybe we should skip the cruise and just do DLP? make it a quickie 5 day trip to DLP, without the cruise thrown in?
hmm.....
well, we have a lot of time to decide...
Is your breakfast your first morning at DLP? Maybe you can go to bed a bit early the night befor to get on "France time". We have given up on stressing too much to make it to rope drop or early entry. Maybe we make it once, but we always end up staying until close and it's just not worth it to ruin our time by trying to get up early.

Hope you are doing well!:)
 
Is your breakfast your first morning at DLP? Maybe you can go to bed a bit early the night befor to get on "France time". We have given up on stressing too much to make it to rope drop or early entry. Maybe we make it once, but we always end up staying until close and it's just not worth it to ruin our time by trying to get up early.

Hope you are doing well!:)


we have free breakfast in the concierge lounge every morning...people on the DLP board suggested eating first before going to early opening hours at the parks..

how is everyone doing?

in the meantime, DD and DSIL just booked a cruise for this summer....royal's symphony of the seas, since it's in europe for its inaugural season..
so she's doing the 7 might med starting from rome...it's one of those cruises where you can board in rome or barcelona and be on the same cruise...kinda weird....anyway, i'm helping her plan so that's fun!! always good to plan!
 
we have free breakfast in the concierge lounge every morning...people on the DLP board suggested eating first before going to early opening hours at the parks..

how is everyone doing?

in the meantime, DD and DSIL just booked a cruise for this summer....royal's symphony of the seas, since it's in europe for its inaugural season..
so she's doing the 7 might med starting from rome...it's one of those cruises where you can board in rome or barcelona and be on the same cruise...kinda weird....anyway, i'm helping her plan so that's fun!! always good to plan!
Sounds like fun on a new ship. I am not sure how I feel about the cruises where people have different embarkation/debarkation ports. Seems weird, but I have only done cruises where you cannot do this. My husband and I are planning on doing an around the world cruise in about 15 years and many of them combine shorter cruises to make the longer one. Guess I will just go with it.

Things are good here. The lull before you can really kick into planning always seems to drag on. We are looking forward to the end of school and then 2 weeks in Hawaii for some relaxation.
 
Sounds like fun on a new ship. I am not sure how I feel about the cruises where people have different embarkation/debarkation ports. Seems weird, but I have only done cruises where you cannot do this. My husband and I are planning on doing an around the world cruise in about 15 years and many of them combine shorter cruises to make the longer one. Guess I will just go with it.

Things are good here. The lull before you can really kick into planning always seems to drag on. We are looking forward to the end of school and then 2 weeks in Hawaii for some relaxation.


are you going to aulani?

the only downside to hawaii is the very long flight to get there...though of course, it depends where you're flying from....
last time i was in hawaii was a lifetime ago...hmmm...trying to remember....i was only there twice, the second time was back when i was 17 years old....so let's do the math...OMG ....45 years ago...yikes...i suppose it must have changed since then!! :rolleyes:
 
are you going to aulani?

the only downside to hawaii is the very long flight to get there...though of course, it depends where you're flying from....
last time i was in hawaii was a lifetime ago...hmmm...trying to remember....i was only there twice, the second time was back when i was 17 years old....so let's do the math...OMG ....45 years ago...yikes...i suppose it must have changed since then!! :rolleyes:
We will be staying one night at Aulani to check it off our bucket list. Then, before we leave Oahu, we will be visiting the Arizona war memorial before flying to our favorite island, Kauai, and relaxing for two weeks. We live on the West coast so the flight is not too bad. :) What island(s) did you visit? Hawaii is a funny place in that many of the things stay the same over a very long period of time. My husband and I bought a timeshare on our honeymoon 22 years ago, and we used to go every year. In 2004 we bought a timeshare in Ixtapa, Mexico, so we would alternate vacations. Then 2010 came and we went on our first Disney Cruise and we got hooked. Our daughter who turns 8 on May 22 has never been to Hawaii, but has been on 8 Disney Cruises! She is very upset to not be cruising this year and having to wait until next summer, but she is excited to go to Hawaii. It will be interesting to see what she thinks of Hawaii after our vacation.
 
We will be staying one night at Aulani to check it off our bucket list. Then, before we leave Oahu, we will be visiting the Arizona war memorial before flying to our favorite island, Kauai, and relaxing for two weeks. We live on the West coast so the flight is not too bad. :) What island(s) did you visit? Hawaii is a funny place in that many of the things stay the same over a very long period of time. My husband and I bought a timeshare on our honeymoon 22 years ago, and we used to go every year. In 2004 we bought a timeshare in Ixtapa, Mexico, so we would alternate vacations. Then 2010 came and we went on our first Disney Cruise and we got hooked. Our daughter who turns 8 on May 22 has never been to Hawaii, but has been on 8 Disney Cruises! She is very upset to not be cruising this year and having to wait until next summer, but she is excited to go to Hawaii. It will be interesting to see what she thinks of Hawaii after our vacation.


actually we went to hawaii more than two times....i only remembered the two times we broke up our flights back from japan with a long stop in hawaii for R&R....(after that, we always flew non-stop to japan, eliminating the hawaii stop)...but we did go to hawaii a few times just on vacation, unrelated to having to get to the far east...

anyway, i remember those visits....we'd leave tokyo at night and arrive in honolulu on the morning of the same day....having gone backwards in time as we crossed the international dateline...
and then my sister and i would just fall asleep on the beach and wake up and not know the time of day.....day of the week....year...whatever...completely blew our minds..


let's see...the first time we went, we stayed in waikiki (that was when i was 14)...
but after that, we still stayed on oahu, but on the other side of the island...can't remember the name of the resort...
just remember the waves on that side were HUGE...huge huge..

i never was on any other island..

my sister visited many times once she had kids...they always go to maui....but the extent of my hawaii knowledge is oahu...i don't even know if the resort we would go to still exists...

.
 
Just an idea, someone join the social media cruise group for 22nd July 2018, where with over 150 members, we have ideas for Barcelona, hotels, sightseeing, Cadiz, Lisbon, Vigo, port guides, private tours, London hotels and sightseeing and restaurants, Dover transport.
Plus you would get reports this summer on the similar cruise.
 
Just an idea, someone join the social media cruise group for 22nd July 2018, where with over 150 members, we have ideas for Barcelona, hotels, sightseeing, Cadiz, Lisbon, Vigo, port guides, private tours, London hotels and sightseeing and restaurants, Dover transport.
Plus you would get reports this summer on the similar cruise.


i just took your advice....sadly, the cruise next year doesn't go to cherbourg....an interesting port to stop in...unlike Brest which for some reason disney decided to pick for next year....

.
 
actually we went to hawaii more than two times....i only remembered the two times we broke up our flights back from japan with a long stop in hawaii for R&R....(after that, we always flew non-stop to japan, eliminating the hawaii stop)...but we did go to hawaii a few times just on vacation, unrelated to having to get to the far east...

anyway, i remember those visits....we'd leave tokyo at night and arrive in honolulu on the morning of the same day....having gone backwards in time as we crossed the international dateline...
and then my sister and i would just fall asleep on the beach and wake up and not know the time of day.....day of the week....year...whatever...completely blew our minds..


let's see...the first time we went, we stayed in waikiki (that was when i was 14)...
but after that, we still stayed on oahu, but on the other side of the island...can't remember the name of the resort...
just remember the waves on that side were HUGE...huge huge..

i never was on any other island..

my sister visited many times once she had kids...they always go to maui....but the extent of my hawaii knowledge is oahu...i don't even know if the resort we would go to still exists...

.
Such fun memories! I never really thought about spending time on Oahu. All I ever saw was about Waikiki and it just looked so urban for a tropical island. As I said, my husband and I vacationed on Kauai, and that is where we vacationed most years. The timeshare we bought is actually on Molokai, so we thought we should check that out as well. It was lovely and very laid back and relaxing. My brother was a rescue swimmer with the Coast Guard and got stationed at Barbur's Point on Oahu so we visited him there a couple of times. I could not believe how empty beaches could be if you went up to the North Shore. It was so different than what I had expected. I also ended up enjoying some time in downtown Waikiki. :) I visited him in October one year (Big Wave season) and we went to the North Shore to watch the crazies surf. The size and the sound of the surf was incredible! We saw many broken surf boards that day, and luckily no one got hurt. The difference in the beach conditions from summer to fall is really hard to wrap your brain around. So happy to have had a reason to spend some time on Oahu. The main reason we are staying at Aulani, besides we all want to experience it, is because I wanted to fly through Honolulu instead of Seattle, Mauai, or Kona. The approach to the runway there is just so breathtaking, and the airport is so "Hawaiian" - being open air, and it just really feels like you have arrived in Hawaii. The airports on Kauai, Mauai and the big island just do not have that same feel. So, because I wanted to experience that Hawaii magic that I felt on my first visit, we will get to also visit Aulani.
 
i think it will be interesting to see aulani..
probably a one night visit is perfect!!
i think hawaii in general is paradise, even without seeing any of the other islands...they can only be better than oahu and i thought oahu was pretty nice, if in a more urban sort of way.......i can definitely see myself living there.......
i have a few friends who've moved there over the years..
they each went there on vacation (at different times) and fell in love with paradise and then were able to organize their work so that they could live there permanently....lucky them :)
 
so i started looking at the cruise right before this one...the 5 night med cruise..
i'm really torn...
i so much wanted to take everyone on a med cruise, but there aren't any 7 night med cruises in july or august..
there are 9 of us going on this cruise - 6 adults and 3 toddlers...4 of the adults (my kids and their spouses) are all tied to the school year, which only ends on June 30th so cruises in June aren't possible....
the only med cruise in July is the 5 night cruise...it goes to cannes, livorno, rome, and has one sea day...
for one thing, it will be much warmer than the western european cruise...which is good for us....
coming from a hot climate, i'm worried that once we pull around portugal it will be really cold (for us, relatively speaking)...
and the ports in italy are much more interesting to me than the ports on the western european..
but on the downside, it's only 5 nights vs 7 nights...longer is always better...
and i would assume that a short european cruise will be very heavily european...
i mean, what american would fly all the way to europe and only go on a 5 night cruise?....
so i don't know how that affects the disney feeling of the cruise when it's all europeans rather than americans....
the kidlets would probably be ok with majority spanish as they also speak spanish - so probably wouldn't know the difference in the kids clubs...they could speak to kids speaking spanish or english...so that should be ok for them....and who knows if they'll even be willing to stay on their own in the clubs...they might only be willing to go there for open house....they'll be 3 and 5 years old....

and if we did the shorter cruise, we wouldn't be able to take the eurostar to DLP...something the big 'kids' are looking forward to..
i suppose on the shorter cruise, we'd have to fly from barcelona to get to DLP....

hmmmm.....pros and cons to both choices....if it were just me, i'd probably do both...hahah....but that would be too much for the little kids....that many days on the ship...
 
so i started looking at the cruise right before this one...the 5 night med cruise..
i'm really torn...
i so much wanted to take everyone on a med cruise, but there aren't any 7 night med cruises in july or august..
there are 9 of us going on this cruise - 6 adults and 3 toddlers...4 of the adults (my kids and their spouses) are all tied to the school year, which only ends on June 30th so cruises in June aren't possible....
the only med cruise in July is the 5 night cruise...it goes to cannes, livorno, rome, and has one sea day...
for one thing, it will be much warmer than the western european cruise...which is good for us....
coming from a hot climate, i'm worried that once we pull around portugal it will be really cold (for us, relatively speaking)...
and the ports in italy are much more interesting to me than the ports on the western european..
but on the downside, it's only 5 nights vs 7 nights...longer is always better...
and i would assume that a short european cruise will be very heavily european...
i mean, what american would fly all the way to europe and only go on a 5 night cruise?....
so i don't know how that affects the disney feeling of the cruise when it's all europeans rather than americans....
the kidlets would probably be ok with majority spanish as they also speak spanish - so probably wouldn't know the difference in the kids clubs...they could speak to kids speaking spanish or english...so that should be ok for them....and who knows if they'll even be willing to stay on their own in the clubs...they might only be willing to go there for open house....they'll be 3 and 5 years old....

and if we did the shorter cruise, we wouldn't be able to take the eurostar to DLP...something the big 'kids' are looking forward to..
i suppose on the shorter cruise, we'd have to fly from barcelona to get to DLP....

hmmmm.....pros and cons to both choices....if it were just me, i'd probably do both...hahah....but that would be too much for the little kids....that many days on the ship...
I would vote for both as well!!! If only life were this easy. I have loved our Med cruises, but we have a hard time imagining anything less than 7 days. My husband I even booked one of the short Mexico cruises just for ourselves, since San Diego is so close for us. We just could not do it and cancelled. We worried that eventhough it was Disney and we knew it would be a much different experience than the longer cruises, we just could not get over the fear of being disappointed. Trying to choose the perfect vacation can be so stressful! :)

Oh, and not to confuse you any more, but we did a 12 day Med cruise when DD was only 3 and we all had an amazing time. I am so not any help, am I? I really think no matter what you choose to do you will all have a great time and make some amazing memories.
 
We are a family of four, my daughter will be 16 and my son 14, and we have been on a number of DCL cruises. Right now we are booked B2B on this cruise and the Dover to Copenhagen one that follows though I seriously doubt we'll end up on both. Decisions, decisions...
 

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