Where to stay pre-cruise?

First of all, why considering hotel option when you are going on a cruise, don’t you just get off the plane and get on the ship? Yes, you absolutely can. However you are taking a BIG risk of cruise ship leaving without you in the event of flight delay or cancellation. The number one tip for first time cruisers would be arriving at the port one day before the cruise.

Why should you arrive the day before?

Travel Delay/Cancellation

If you have been seeing the news, you know how frequent travel delays and cancellation have been happening. So flying into port the day of embarkation is very risky, especially if you have connecting flight. A slight delay can throw off your entire vacation. The cruise will leave without you. Even if you are driving to port, there are potential reasons for delay due to traffic, construction etc.

Embarkation day experience

If you arrive at the port the day before, you will have much better embarkation day experience. You don’t have to get up super early and able to rest a full night before embarkation day. Full disclosure, last year we flew to Houston the same day of cruise embarkation day. Our flight was on time but I would not do that again. We were nervous the whole time and most importantly the embarkation day was EXHAUSTING. Because it was travel day and embarkation day altogether. Embarkation day itself can be very overwhelming. Not to mention that we got to the port in the afternoon around 1 pm and soon after boarding the ship and had lunch, it was time for safety drill and sail away. It felt so rushed and we didn’t have time to get ourselves oriented on the ship. However on our most recent cruise, we stayed the night at the hotel and woke up at our normal time to have a relaxing breakfast at the hotel. We boarded the ship around 11. The embarkation day experience was totally different and we did not feel tired. We were actually able to explore the ship before our stateroom was ready. Disney cruise vacation is not cheap, not having a few more hours on the ship means you get more bang for your bucks.

Where to stay?

You can stay at pretty much any hotel you want as well. When it comes to picking hotels, every traveler/family has different priorities. We typically would evaluate price, breakfast option, proximity to the port and airport, transportation options to the port etc.

Disney Cruise has partnered with some hotels at popular port cities where you can book a hotel room prior to cruise. For example, they partner with Hilton and Marriott in Fort Lauderdale. While you can book hotel thru Disney, you definitely don’t have to. Before you make your booking, make sure to compare the price. For example, for our most recent trip, we wanted to stay at Hilton Marina at Fort Lauderdale. To my surprise, booking it ourselves was A LOT cheaper compared to the pricing Disney quoted me and we stayed in the same hotel as others who booked thru Disney and got the benefits of staying at a partnered hotel.

Benefits for staying at partnered hotel

It’s not a secret that Disney partnered hotel is more expensive than other options you can find. They come with some benefits:

1. Disney ground transportation (if booked) will pick you up from Disney partnered hotels (giving you an earlier boarding group) and transport you to port. No need to worry about figuring out how to get to port.
2. Disney will pick up your luggage directly from your hotel room and not having to load them to the vehicle and offloading them yourselves

There are definitely situations where you are not able to get to the port the day before, maybe you have limited vacation days or no flight is available the day before etc. If you can only fly into the port the day of the cruise, there is an option for booking flights thru Disney Cruise Line Air Program. Disney will guarantee that you get on the ship, however it may or may not at the first port. You can learn more about the program by clicking on the link. We have booked thru them once, if you have any questions, please leave a comment below.