With just over two weeks to go, it’s probably time for an update.
Disney Cruise check in
Cruise check in seems like years ago now!
Check in opened for us at the end of May – yes I was one of those people crazy enough to get up at 5am! At least it fell on a Sunday, so I could go back to sleep afterwards. I also convinced Ollie to get up at 5am with me.
I had two priorities – an early PAT and Palo brunch. The site was being a bit glitchy (as Disney sites often are) and wouldn’t let us checkin, although we could select activities. First stop – Palo brunch for the final sea day at 10am. There was plenty of availability. We picked the earliest slot available, so hopefully we are hungry again by dinner (if you’ve read any of our other reports, you know this won’t be a problem for us).
On the spur of the moment, clearly a bit sleep deprived, Ollie said to book Palo dinner! We’d been debating this for a while, but he had the sensible logic of booking it and potentially cancelling later if we change our mind. (Weirdly, I had a dream about forgetting to cancel the reservation the other night). We really enjoyed our meal at Palo last time (hello chocolate soufflé
) but found it difficult to know which night to pick as we don’t want to miss the Animator’s Pallette shows or some of the nice sounding menus. Last trip we changed our dining rotation on board to get our Palo reservation to fall on the night we wanted and ended up being sat by ourselves. This time we want to see who Disney pairs us up with!
Let’s all take a moment to appreciate this beauty…
However, since writing this, the exchange rates have taken quite a hit. With this in mind, we’re probably going to cancel this reservation as it’s another expense which isn’t really necessary. The funds can go towards making up the difference on our other spends. Although I haven’t cancelled this yet so this could all change!
A few minutes later we could complete the check in process, which was fairly quick as they already had a lot of our details. We selected a PAT of 11am, which was the earliest we could choose at the time. I don’t know what time the PATs start from at Barcelona, but we will be there promptly to try and get on the ship in good time.
About a week and a half later, we found out some character meet and greets were available to pre-book. We’re part of a facebook group and a fellow cruiser posted these were available to prebook, which was nice as we hadn’t been notified by email.
We booked the frozen meet and greet for the first day and the princess gathering for the last sea day. I had a brief moment of feeling self conscious as an adult booking these, and then remembered it was a Disney Cruise and this is totally acceptable! We passed on the character breakfast which was also available to pre book.
Room allocation
In other news, we’ve been assigned our stateroom. I’d been checking every 3 days or so, and finally noticed it on our reservation about 35 days out.
We booked a GTY 11C and have been assigned an 11A – so that’s the same type of room but in a better location. Rather than being on deck 2, we’re on deck 7. I’m really happy with the location – there are staterooms above and below so it will be a bit quieter than being below a restaurant or similar!
Thanks for reading
I’m working on some more detailed daily plans which should be up soon.