Glad I Did/Wish I Did posts are a fun way for me to quickly share with others what worked and what didn't. It's been really helpful for us to refer back to over the years when preparing for our next cruise.

Glad I decorated our Stateroom Doors

Door decorations are very popular on Disney Cruise Line, and I'm always glad to partake. In the past, I've printed the door decorations onto magnetic sheets. This time, I made the door decorations out of metallic cardstock because I wanted Mickey's hat and shorts to be shiny and festive for New Year's. To magnetize them, I used super strong Neodymium magnets that I stuck to the paper with double-sided removable glue dots which ended up sticking to the door much better than the magnetic sheets. Because I went with fancy paper, I wouldn't say this is a cheaper way of making magnets than with the magnetic sheets, but at least this way I can reuse the magnets for our next cruise door decor.

I've found that Glad I Did/Wish I did posts are a great way to quickly share with others what worked and what didn't on our cruise. They're also really helpful to refer back to over the years when preparing for our next cruise.

Glad I did NOT bid on a Stateroom Upgrade

I was very tempted to bid on a stateroom upgrade. There were Concierge Class upgrade bids starting at $100 per person. However, after some research on the Concierge Class, I learned that there wasn't a big incentive to upgrade to Concierge Class on the Celebrity Millennium Series ships. The stateroom is no larger than a standard stateroom. The only extra features are a Celebrity embossed key holder and an "Exclusive Welcome Aboard Concierge Class Lunch" (we actually would have enjoyed that lunch). Also, I had selected a neighboring stateroom with Aaron's parents. I would have bid to upgrade Aaron's parents as well, but there was no guarantee that our rooms would still be next to one another, and there was also a risk that one stateroom would get upgraded while the other would not. It's a risk that I've taken with my family in the past, but give that it was Aaron's parents first cruise, I didn't want to accidentally get our staterooms moved to opposite ends of the ship.

I've found that Glad I Did/Wish I Did posts are fun because it's a great way to quickly share with others what worked, and what didn't. It's also been really helpful for us to refer back to over the years when preparing for our next cruise.

Glad we bid $15 per person for a Stateroom Upgrade (Balcony to Club Balcony)

Rachel and I originally bid only on the Haven suites because we were worried that bidding on a lower category stateroom would negatively impact our odds of getting a suite. As the cruise got closer, we kept a close eye on our cruise group on Facebook and realized that bids were being awarded, and we weren't going to get the Haven (from what we could tell, most Haven upgrades were awarded to parties of three or four guests in one stateroom). The minimum bid for the Club Balcony stateroom was discounted to $15 (originally $25) per person, and I'm glad we decided to put in last-minute minimum bids. With the Club Balcony, we were moved to a higher floor and our staterooms were actually closer together than the balcony cabins that we had originally booked. Also, the large bathroom in the Club Balcony was nice to have.

Glad I decorated Judy's stateroom for her birthday!

My original plan had been to decorate the door of my parents' stateroom. However, unlike other cruise lines, Norwegian actually has a rule against decorating stateroom doors (not sure if they'll actually hold you to it - I saw a few decorated doors on our cruise). I did not find any rules against decorating the stateroom interior. Originally I planned to create my own banners, but then I ran out of time and purchased garland and banners from Party City. I used heavy-duty magnet hooks to string the garland across the room. It was fun and festive. Since the ship wasn't that decorated for the holidays, it was fun to have this cheery little space that felt like a celebration.

On our last sea day, we were told by the Captain that we were behind schedule for our return to Port of San Diego. It was estimated that we wouldn't dock until around 9:30 AM. Due to our delayed arrival (well, there were other factors, I'm sure), very few people put bags in the hall the night before for luggage service. While we had scheduled breakfast time in the dining room we were in the night before (for us, Tiana's Place), we were advised to leave our bags in our staterooms until we arrived in port and not bring them with us to the dining room as is normal debarkation day practice.

You may be wondering if this would delay departure for the next sailing. Since there were no passengers boarding that day, I don't think that was an area of concern.

We also had a time change happen overnight, and when I woke up, I was very unsure about the current time. I thought it was 7 AM, but it was 6 AM. Rachel and Landon were in the same predicament, and I found them out on Deck 4.

It was a very chilly and cloudy morning.


But that didn't stop me from taking hundreds of photos to pass the time.

This is my personal reflection on decisions that I am happy I made and things that I wish I had done differently on my May 10, 2014 sailing on the Disney Fantasy 7-day Western Caribbean cruise from Port Canaveral. Please note that these are my own opinions, and I am in no way affiliated with any cruise line.

Glad I Did / Glad I Did Not

I'm glad I booked a Disney cruise.  Disney cruises are expensive - more so than other mass-market cruise lines.  We could have stayed in a suite on the nearly identical 7-Day Western Caribbean itinerary of the Carnival Sunshine for less than the price of our family ocean view room on the Disney Fantasy.  That being said, I found that Disney Cruise Line offers a great product.  The ship is the most beautiful I've ever sailed.  The stateroom was perhaps the best I've ever had.  The entertainment was wonderful and and by far the most talented theater cast I have seen at sea.  Castaway Cay is the nicest, most extensive cruise line-owned private island I've ever been to, and it's the only one with an adults-only beach.  So yes, Disney Cruise Line is expensive, but I am quite happy in my choice of graduation present.

This is my personal reflection on decisions that I am happy I made and things that I wish I had done differently on my March 15, 2014 sailing on the Carnival Breeze 8-Day Southern Caribbean cruise out of Miami.  Please note that these are my own opinions, and I am in no way affiliated with any cruise line.  I also understand that every person on each ship sailing has a completely different experience, as well as values for what makes a good cruise vacation.

Glad I Did / Glad I Did Not

I'm glad that I did not buy Faster to the Fun.  Faster to the Fun is a package that Carnival sells for $50 per cabin.  You can purchase it online where you buy excursions, and note that although it is listed as $50 per person, only one person per cabin needs to purchase in order to get everyone in your cabin the benefits.  Benefits include priority check-in and express boarding on embarkation day (after VIFP Club Platinum & Diamond members), stateroom ready as soon as you board, express luggage to your room on embarkation day, express guest services (dedicated phone number and line), priority main dining room and specialty dining reservations, tender priority (at tender ports), debarkation priority.  There is limited FTTF availability, and we didn't book the cruise soon enough to be able to purchase the package.  However, I saw little benefit for our cruise.  It actually turned out that priority boarding was delayed for our cruise, and I heard reports from other people that the standard line was actually moving quicker.  None of our ports were tender ports, so there was no advantage there.  We didn't eat at a specialty restaurant (but they sent me an invitation to my room for Fahrenheit 555 with a reservation, anyway).  And our assigned debarkation time was fine for us.  If we wanted to leave later, we could have just left later.  Faster to the Fun just isn't something that I think we needed or would have really benefited from for this sailing.