Gingerbread house building on this year's Merrytime cruises?

NOLA_Tink

Jambo, y'all!
Joined
Jul 3, 2008
Last year, were you able to book the gingerbread house activity beforehand? It's not listed in our cruises' pre-bookable onboard or dining activities. THANKS! #BestForumOnTheDis!!!
 
They stopped doing the houses last year and replaced them with a cookie. I believe you just show up.
Perfect! That makes a lot of sense with the kids not being able to bring their gingerbread houses off of the boats. Thanks for the helpful info!! That may actually work out better for our group of little ones.
 


It would be really great if they switched back to houses for the actual Christmas cruise. I'm really sad about it just being a cookie.
You can always buy a kit and bring it on board to assemble if it is an important tradition for you. I think the reasons they switched it out were probably a combination of (1) cookies are easier and quicker to eat so less food waste and less likely to grow bacteria sitting around for days and make people sick, (2) shorter time to decorate cookies versus a house means more people can enjoy this very popular limited availability activity; and (3) easier for toddlers/little kids to participate since there is less complicated work involved. I don't see why the rationale would be any different on the actual Christmas cruise versus the other merrytimes--if anything, the (2) reason is all the more pronounced on a sold out Christmas cruise.
 


Looking forward to take part with my 5yr old. Do you remember if it was on a specific day of on various days? Just for planning all of this great activities...
 
Thanks for such great info and pictures, DisBuddies! My little ones are going to LOVE doing this! Is there a fee?
 
I was very disappointed that my first Very Merry last year did not have the houses, so I brought my own and did it in the room. I also did the cookie activity sponsored by Disney. They offered it twice on our western Caribbean cruise - once as a sign up, the second as a walk up. There were more adults than kids at the walk up event. I was allowed to make 2 cookies, one for me and one for DH who didn't want to go. The decorations as you see by the PP picture are minimal, to make it more interesting you could bring some candies with you - or buy a few different things from Sweet on You
 
It was only offered once for us on a 7 day Bahamian from Galveston towards the end of the cruise on a sea day in the morning. Walk up, no pre sign up. No fee
 
You can always buy a kit and bring it on board to assemble if it is an important tradition for you. I think the reasons they switched it out were probably a combination of (1) cookies are easier and quicker to eat so less food waste and less likely to grow bacteria sitting around for days and make people sick, (2) shorter time to decorate cookies versus a house means more people can enjoy this very popular limited availability activity; and (3) easier for toddlers/little kids to participate since there is less complicated work involved. I don't see why the rationale would be any different on the actual Christmas cruise versus the other merrytimes--if anything, the (2) reason is all the more pronounced on a sold out Christmas cruise.

Rumor at the time was that is was because the Gingerbread houses generated a lot of waste for mousekeeping. Since guests could not often eat the entire house (especially on shorter cruises) and / or didn't eat it anyway (my DW and I always did them, but can't eat much sugar at our age and weight) mousekeeping had to throw all of those houses out - which was a lot.

Plus it was disappointing to guests that you could not take the houses off ship.
 
We did a 3-night Dream - had 2 cookie decorating times, both walk-up. They also let us take cookies 'to go' to decorate outside of where they were hosting the event. I'm not sure if it was that not a lot of people showed up for the second session, but they actually tried to get us to take more cookies than we wanted.
 
It would be really great if they switched back to houses for the actual Christmas cruise. I'm really sad about it just being a cookie.
My sentiments exactly, especially since you pay a premium for cruising during Christmas week.
 
Honestly we thought those gingerbread houses were a real PITA and they started making it really limited and making more and more people share. The last time we did it, there were people pushing their way in who didn’t have reservations, great idea but disorganized. I think the individual cookie route is probably much better, although the decorating choices look minimal to say the least.
 

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