AdventureMommy

3 hours ago, davidmbfonz said:

 

So, basically $1,250 per day/night (is it a 4-day cruise or a 5-day cruise?)...  how much would a WDW vacation package cost per day?   Tickets for five at current prices would be:  $109 x 5 = $545.00.  That leaves $700 for food and lodging per day/night.  One of the things we discovered 5 years ago is that DCL was competitive or even cheaper than WDW.  But that may no longer be the case.

 

Okay, so I just checked and made an imaginary quote for a four day WDW package for the same time as the cruise, same amount of days and nights and including the basic dining plan, and the total is 4322, and that has us all squeezing into one room and taking disney transportation, two things DH said he would never do again (we did a trip that way one time). $4322/5 people/4 nights is $216 per day per person, so cheaper than the cruise. $5210 if we got two rooms and that's $260 per person per day. (For my quote, I got a rate of $222 per night at CBR).

2 hours ago, davidmbfonz said:

 

So, basically $1,250 per day/night (is it a 4-day cruise or a 5-day cruise?)...  how much would a WDW vacation package cost per day?   Tickets for five at current prices would be:  $109 x 5 = $545.00.  That leaves $700 for food and lodging per day/night.  One of the things we discovered 5 years ago is that DCL was competitive or even cheaper than WDW.  But that may no longer be the case.

 

On our last trip to WDW, we had spent a week offsite in a beautiful 3 bedroom 3 bathroom condo, got 5 day 1 park per day tickets, rented a minivan and ate most of our own food (packed lunches, breakfast and dinners at the condo, had a couple meals out, bought snacks in the parks) and it cost us about a thousand per person for the complete trip. So if you count that as 5 days since we did 5 days in the parks, that's 200 per day, if you count that as 7 since we stayed for 7 days, that's under 150.

I didn't think about it that way until this thread, but I just calculated it and I'll be paying $250 per night, per person(2 adults, 3 kids, 2 inside staterooms) during the cheapest time (end of January) for a 4 night cruise. It's a lot but I don't think another cruise line would be an option for us at this time for lots of factors and I'm willing to pay the upcharge. In the future, we'll stick to land based Disney 🙂 but I'm sure we'll love our cruise, it's just a one and done for us.

Thank you all for your advice. I decided to go with a Disney cruise this time. I'm sure we'll have a great time!

I'm considering a cruise for my family (boys ages 10, 8 and 7) for 2020. We've never been on a cruise and I'm wondering if paying double for a Disney cruise makes sense for us. My two concerns are food and activities. We keep kosher and would be eating reheated prepackaged kosher meals on both cruise lines. I know that food is a major part of cruising and not getting the full "package" of the cool food takes away some of the value. Also, we probably wouldn't do a lot of excursions so I'd like a full roster of things to do on the ship. I see that both lines have kids clubs, but my oldest would be in a separate club from the other 2 on RC, they would all be together on Disney. He's not a real independent kid so I'm worried he'd fight me on going to a club alone. Also, are there enough adult and kid activities to keep us busy during the day on RC? We don't gamble. I looked through the RC site and most activities seem to be in the evening or involve food. Disney seems to have stuff going on all day. I'm sorry if this is rambling, I'm just trying to get some thoughts on my choices. Thank you!