4 Night Cruise plus Parks or 7 Night Cruise

christmasmagic

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 6, 2012
My husband just gave me the go ahead to book a cruise for fall of 2019. I have sometime, but I am excited to start planning. We have done WDW and we have done cruises, but not a DCL. So my question, for DCL newbies, would you recommend a short cruise so we do a land and see (it would actually be land-see-land) or is a 7 night better?

We are a family of 4- at the time the kids will be 6 and 4. We also live in NY so doing a cruise out of NYC would be an option.

I am sure torn and my husband just wants the cruise! HAHAHA It doesnt matter to him which.
 
Whenever this is brought up on this forum the answer is nearly always the same. 7 night cruise hands down. With being in NYC I would highly advise this as you won't have to pay for additional travel. You can even do a trip that includes a day at the parks with park hoppers. Cruises are SO much more relaxing for the grownups and just as fun for the kids.
 
I have to say that while I love WDW, I love cruising way more. The parks are amazing and super fun, and I love rides probably even more than my kids do. But cruising is much more of a vacation to me than WDW. We are on the west coast so we have been to DL more than WDW. So I was a little taken aback by how intensely I felt I had to plan WDW. (Stalking dining reservations, planning fast passes, planning the schedule since we weren't staying onsite and couldn't do extended hours). And in general I find it so stressful to even plan where to eat etc. Whereas, cruising was just a great way to turn my brain off! Kids still got to see the characters they wanted, and they loved kids clubs. They could eat what they wanted and as much or as little as they wanted. It was amazing. So I'd go with 7 night :D
 
I agree with lilsonicfan about the planning. I planned for six months before our five day trip to WDW. It is intense. Cruises just make sure you have your passports and sunscreen.
 


This is the cruise board, so you might get a different answer than on the parks board, but I would choose the longer cruise. We sailed from NYC last fall and the one day at the parks was great!

LOL That is actually an interesting point!
 
I have to say that while I love WDW, I love cruising way more. The parks are amazing and super fun, and I love rides probably even more than my kids do. But cruising is much more of a vacation to me than WDW. We are on the west coast so we have been to DL more than WDW. So I was a little taken aback by how intensely I felt I had to plan WDW. (Stalking dining reservations, planning fast passes, planning the schedule since we weren't staying onsite and couldn't do extended hours). And in general I find it so stressful to even plan where to eat etc. Whereas, cruising was just a great way to turn my brain off! Kids still got to see the characters they wanted, and they loved kids clubs. They could eat what they wanted and as much or as little as they wanted. It was amazing. So I'd go with 7 night :D

Its funny you bring that up because I LOVE planning WDW and not having much to plan for a 7 day cruise mad me a bit sad :D lol
 


Whenever this is brought up on this forum the answer is nearly always the same. 7 night cruise hands down. With being in NYC I would highly advise this as you won't have to pay for additional travel. You can even do a trip that includes a day at the parks with park hoppers. Cruises are SO much more relaxing for the grownups and just as fun for the kids.

Thanks! That is what I was thinking as well! Not having to pay airfare is nice and I also love that someone just drops us off at the ship and just like that we are on vacation!
 
My husband just gave me the go ahead to book a cruise for fall of 2019. I have sometime, but I am excited to start planning. We have done WDW and we have done cruises, but not a DCL. So my question, for DCL newbies, would you recommend a short cruise so we do a land and see (it would actually be land-see-land) or is a 7 night better?

We are a family of 4- at the time the kids will be 6 and 4. We also live in NY so doing a cruise out of NYC would be an option.

I am sure torn and my husband just wants the cruise! HAHAHA It doesnt matter to him which.
We did an 8 day out of NYC last October that had a day at WDW and it was the best cruise of the 8 we’ve been on. Loved the day at WDW
 
7 night cruise!! I've done 4 Disney cruises so far and have a 5th already booked. I must admit though that I've only been to WDW one time and that was in 1996, with no kids. Just the thought of planning for a WDW vacation gives me stress, cruises are very easy to plan for. Our dd was 6 when we took her on her first cruise in 2014, she's now 9 yrs old and loves going on the cruises. Your dds are the perfect age for a cruise, plus having the kids club onboard will give you and your dh some time to spend by yourselves. I'd either choose a 7night or a cruise that includes 1 day at WDW since those leave from NY.
 
7 night cruise!! I've done 4 Disney cruises so far and have a 5th already booked. I must admit though that I've only been to WDW one time and that was in 1996, with no kids. Just the thought of planning for a WDW vacation gives me stress, cruises are very easy to plan for. Our dd was 6 when we took her on her first cruise in 2014, she's now 9 yrs old and loves going on the cruises. Your dds are the perfect age for a cruise, plus having the kids club onboard will give you and your dh some time to spend by yourselves. I'd either choose a 7night or a cruise that includes 1 day at WDW since those leave from NY.
I agree!
 
My husband just gave me the go ahead to book a cruise for fall of 2019. I have sometime, but I am excited to start planning. We have done WDW and we have done cruises, but not a DCL. So my question, for DCL newbies, would you recommend a short cruise so we do a land and see (it would actually be land-see-land) or is a 7 night better?

We are a family of 4- at the time the kids will be 6 and 4. We also live in NY so doing a cruise out of NYC would be an option.

I am sure torn and my husband just wants the cruise! HAHAHA It doesnt matter to him which.

Just a couple of thoughts here. I used to live in NY and would have loved to sail from my home port. It’s nice not to have to jump on the plane to Orlando this year the magic sails to Castaway Cay with a stop at Disney World then back to NYC.
That would be really easy ! However since you have done a cruise in the past , did it go to other islands such as St Thomas ? You may want to look at trade offs her such as sea days. You have 4 sea days for the NYC sailing and 3 sea days for the Easter Caribbean. Would you miss the other Caribbean Islands ?
Another idea would be to do Either the 7 day Eastern or Western and then a day at the parks.
This assumes that there will be a similar cruise in 2019 from NYC! We’ve done the 4 and 3 day cruise plus parks and that’s great too ! Good luck you can’t go wrong whatever you decide !
 
We just did our first cruise (4 night) in March, with three parks days prior. It was all exhausting because we were trying to pack everything in during short amounts of time at both places.

We love the parks but I like more time there so it is not so rushed - we usually do a week. We liked the cruise and are considering a 7 night Eastern Caribbean next year... so we will have more time to play and rest!!
 
We like to do the 4 night Disney Dream cruise coupled with two days at the park after. We usually try to stay at a monorail resort using our DVC points.
 
We just took our first cruise on DCL on 4/7 going to the Eastern Caribbean (family of 4, girls are 8 and 15). We loved this cruise and are now hooked! We just booked another DCL cruise to Alaska in June 2019, we loved it that much. I don't think you could go wrong with a 7 day cruise. I feel like if we had done a shorter cruise we would not have been able to explore the ship as much as we would have wanted. Sailing out of your home town port sounds like a lot of fun! :)
 

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