Lessons learned from my first cruise

[MomOTwins]

Yes, there are meet and greets with individual princesses at times/locations that are posted in your Navigator. On our trip, there was also a group meeting with princesses around 7pm on the last night that was open to all without a reservation. We also ran into Tiana roaming around the midship stairwell on the first night on our way back to the room and she took pictures with guests she ran into (no wait). It varies cruise to cruise, but if you want to see a princess, you do not need a reservation.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I do find it interesting, though, that the Disney characters do go out in cosplay as Marvel characters during MDAS. It's very much pitched as "Donald is a fan of the Hulk and has dressed up as his favorite hero," though, rather than positioning the characters as co-existing within the same "universe" (even though they're all on the same ship? Idk, Idk).

At the old Star Wars Weekends, the Mickey friends would dress in Star Wars outfits. After the full buy-out, this was ceased. So that's another data point in the whole thing.

 

[lklgoodman]

I just want to be clear, other than Elsa and Anna,. If I don't sign up for a meet and greet. My daughter will still have an opportunity to meet the princesses and take pics? Is that what I have seen post about looking in navigator once on board?

If you know for certain that you want to get your dd's pic with the princesses it's best to get tickets for the meet and greet. That way you can get all the pics done at one time. Otherwise you will have to check every day to see when they will be out for a meeting. And the times they are out might interfere with something else that you want to do at the same time. When we took our dd on her first cruise, they didn't do the ticketed meet and greets. I felt like I spent so much time trying to make sure we got her pics taken with the different characters, sometimes a character would only be out after her bedtime. I also felt like I missed out on doing other activities because we were always in line waiting to see a character. When it starts to get close to the ending time for a character meeting they will turn people away, so it is possible that you won't get to meet a character if there is a long line close to the ending time. They do have the characters come to the kid's club to do activities with the kids, but it's during secured times, so parents aren't allowed into the club to take pics then. We did see a few characters walking around the ship on our first cruise, but have taken 3 other cruises since then and haven't run into any characters around the ship, so I wouldn't count on it always happening.

 

[DietCokeMommy]

We’ve decided to stop doing most of the character meet and greets. I hate waiting in lines and it’s not how I want spend my vacation. Plus my kids don’t enjoy it and it makes everyone miserable. I’d still do the ticketed ones, but never again am I going to wait for 30 minutes to hold our place in line for pirate Mickey (or whoever).

 

[WishUponAStarryNight]

We were on the April 14 Fantasy sailing. I found the best way to meet the most characters in the shortest amount of time was to attend the character party during the afternoon of the last day. They came out for 20-25 minutes and each had their own quickly moving line. You have to use your own camera, but we saw Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Daisy, Chip & Dale, Peter Pan, Pluto and Belle in that short period of time and the interactions were very good. Cinderella, Ariel and Tiana were there, too, but DS wouldn’t take a picture. The See Ya Real Soon party later in the night has the same set up, but many more people. We’ve done this on both the Fantasy and the Dream and it’s been fabulous both times.

 

[Sunshine2U]

Wow, just got home from my first disney cruise. So exhausted, but glad we went. My kids started begging for another cruise before we even left the ship.

I was one of those people that had a million questions ahead of time, and I couldn't easily find answers to some of them, so I thought I'd post a few unusual things I learned in case it is helpful to anyone

...
Great observations - thanks for sharing!

 

[Numtini]

There's a lot of stuff about IP and copyright in this thread that is simply not accurate. It's not even accurate's second cousin twice removed. My guess is that Frozen set a new standard for insanely popular and they don't want the characters chased through the halls by rioting 5 to 8 year old girls.

If you hang on the 4th or 5th level atrium balconies, characters will come and they will not be swamped and will have time to do all kinds of things with the kids. My daughter did the ballet positions with Goofy one night for probably 10 minutes of one on one time. But you get what you get. And sadly that doesn't include Elsa and Anna yet.

 

[YawningDodo]

There's a lot of stuff about IP and copyright in this thread that is simply not accurate. It's not even accurate's second cousin twice removed. My guess is that Frozen set a new standard for insanely popular and they don't want the characters chased through the halls by rioting 5 to 8 year old girls.

If you hang on the 4th or 5th level atrium balconies, characters will come and they will not be swamped and will have time to do all kinds of things with the kids. My daughter did the ballet positions with Goofy one night for probably 10 minutes of one on one time. But you get what you get. And sadly that doesn't include Elsa and Anna yet.

Care to clarify?