Anyone booked a last minute trip a month before?

[ten822]

I'm considering booking a last minute trip for mid-August on the Wish. Is there anything I would miss out on by booking with such short notice?? (I probably wouldn't do any specialty dining)

 

[auntlynne]

Alcohol Tastings.

At 30 days pre-cruise, looks like Royal Tea opens booking.

A cabana on Castaway Cay, but that’s pretty much booked by Concierge before top loyalty tier gets a shot.

 

[Cats12]

I've done it a few times. If you want specific port adventures, princess gatherings, or spa appointments, they might not be available ahead of time, although you might be able to book on board. You'll likely be assigned 2nd seating for dinner, although can waitlist or try to change to 1st if you like, too. Fish Extender groups are often closed by then. You'll probably get a later port arrival time. Basically anything you would book ahead of time will already be booked by others, but all the other parts of the cruise are just the same. As long as none of that is a deal breaker, it's a great way to go!

 

[ScooterScott44]

We did a booking inside of two weeks, closer to the one week side. There is a deadline in the last day or so. That allows the line to submit the passenger manifest appropriately.
If you are really just looking to get onboard and mainly focus on relaxing it is not bad. The more you hope to specifically schedule, you might not be as happy. We didn’t have issues getting a few things scheduled but again we were not looking to do much since we have done multiple DCL cruises. Not sure how things are booking up, you might have some activities open. If there are rooms and not sure on how “Mid-August” you are, but impacts from schools starting could help.

Happy planning.

 

[CamColt]

We once booked a week in advance. We didnt book anything extra in advance, but we were able to get Palo dinner once on board.

 

[kiford]

We booked about 3.5 weeks in advance. We didn't plan to book any excursions, adult dining or any activities on the ship. We probably could have acquired Palo dinner but we weren't interested. All of the brunch spots were taken which is the only thing that I might have been interested in. Our friends requested early dining (which I hadn't known in advance) and suddenly one day we were moved from late to early dining so I doubt that I would have been able to enjoy dinner after a Palo brunch. I personally still prefer later dining but one of our friends has some issues that require her to eat earlier so we tried it. This was late January so it's not always the case that you can get earlier dining but if it's something you want, you can certainly try. We got off the ship in the Bahamas only to go to a Starbucks so that our friend could try to get one of the mugs. We didn't bother to get off at CC since we've been so many times. Instead, we spent our time in the adult-only pool, Cove Cafe and on the Aqua Mouse all of which were pretty deserted.

We didn't mind not doing excursions or any booked activities since we barely got a chance to experience and see everything on the ship. With the early dining, we never really had the chance to try out the on deck food options (beside ice cream!) because we were so full from breakfast and wanted to try out Marceline Market for lunch. We are going back, just the two of us, for another 3-day cruise at the end of August so that we can finish our exploration of the ship.

I'd never booked a cruise (or a vacation for that matter) on such short notice but it worked out fine. We had a great time and got to spend time with our friends. If you're not fussed about having to be able to book lots of things, a short notice booking will be fine. It took us pretty much the four days to even try to experience as much as possible without doing extra things.

 

[Rob1872]

Booked 10 days in advance once. Was able to shift to early dining 3 days out. Only thing we were unable to sign up for was the sports simulator for my son.

 

[auntlynne]

Our first cruise was booked a few weeks in advance. We knew nothing about cruising. Looking back, still don’t feel like we missed anything. It was a basic DCL 3-nighter. We sailed again 4 months later - on a 4-night, still didn’t pre-book - nor felt I was missing out.

I think we forget how easy a basic Disney cruise is - unlike some other lines, you don’t need to book up-charge restaurants, secure seats for shows, pay extra for areas of the private island. After picking a PAT, you can go on cruise control .