Reviews of Carnival Ships Tour to Disney?

[bme]

Anyone been on a Carnival ship that docked for the day in Port Canaveral and taken the 10-hour ship tour to Disney? How did your kids handle the day? What happened and when? What time did you return to the ship and what did you do about eating dinner? Overall, would you say it's worth the high cost?

 

The kids on our upcoming trip will be 5 and 7. I know they would love Disney but it seems like a long, expensive journey for a few hours.

 

Appreciate any insight!

[mzloolue]

A couple of quick questions.

 

First, what is the cost?

And second, have you ever been to WDW before?

 

The thing about WDW park tickets is that there are four separate parks and way more to see and do than can be done in a week.

Plus when you buy tickets from Disney, the cost for the first day is the high, but the cost for additional days decreases a lot with each additional day that is added.

 

If it was me I would think a lot about making a trip to WDW some other time and skipping the ship tour. Being on a cruise is probably enough fun and adding in a day trip to WDW is a bit of overkill to me.

And in planning a WDW trip there is so much research to do if you want to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

[travelntreats]

Disney is a trip in itself and at minimum needs 5 - 7 days to get the true Disney Experience....It is NOT a shore excursion that merits any value in my eyes !

[bme]

The ship tour to Disney is currently listed at $151 per adult and $131 per child including bus transportation and one day park admission. The tour is 10 hours long including 2-3 hours travel time from the pier. I read somewhere that the bus drops off at the Ticket and Transportation Center (TTC). I don’t know how long it takes from there to get to the actual park (likely Hollywood Studios in my case). So, there is additional time “lost” getting to/from the bus drop off point at TTC to the park.

 

Point of comparison: One-day Disney tickets are $80 per adult and $67 per child. (I don’t think it’s worth buying multi day passes and adding non-expiration to them. Seems like too much $$ to “invest” for this purpose. I have no idea when we’ll be back in Orlando.)

 

Without the ship’s transportation I could look into car/minivan rental at the port or hiring a private shuttle which I’m guessing could be $200-$300 round trip for the seven of us. Of course, it is important not to miss the ship coming back. To avoid rush hour traffic from Orlando to Port Canaveral would mean cutting park time even shorter. This in itself is not bad, but means that park tickets would be used for no more than about 5 hours.

 

I'm clearly torn on this -- it would be the first Disney experience for the kids. Not sure they would enjoy/appreciate the many-hour tour of Kennedy Space Center as much...

 

An alternative idea is to find enough to do outside of the parks so that we can avoid tickets. For example, a character breakfast at the Contemporary Hotel might do the trick. Are there other types of outside-of-the-park activities at the various hotels and Downtown Disney that would fill 4-5 hours? I don’t know if we could use the Disney transportation if we aren’t a hotel guest – do the buses and monorails check for this? So, this might mean we need to have a rented car to move about the various parts of the Disney property rather than a private shuttle.

[travelntreats]

please visit http://www.mousesavers.com for tips and tricks !

[mikayla73]

There's plenty to do at WDW without ever stepping foot in the parks!

 

Character breakfast as you mentioned

Spending time in DTD

Spending time in the Boardwalk area

You could do a day at one of the water parks, although that involves ticket cost, but they are cheaper.

Take a ride on the monorail and get off at each hotel to check them out.

Rent "mice" (the small boats that run around bay lake and other water areas)

play miniature golf (there are two there)

parasailing

fishing excusrions

 

There are probably more, but that's all I can think of right now. I could spend 4-5 hours doing most them :)

[mikayla73]

I thought of another ...

 

You could go to AKL and check out the animals on the savanah.

[mzloolue]

Bus transportation from the TTC to Hollywood Studios could likely take an hour. The buses run at about 20 minute intervals usually, but sometimes they run late.

 

You can use the WDW transportation.

I have never seen them check anything.

For something to do you can ride the monorail.

There is a fancy disney putt-putt place.

 

Or, another though is check into going to Fort Wilderness and doing a horseback riding thing. From the TTC there is a monorail and a boat that go across to MK.

From there you can get a boat to Fort Wilderness.

There is also a little restaurant in Fort Wilderness that is a fried chicken buffet sort of thing and not too overpriced.

 

You could even check out some of the resort playgrounds with kids those ages. I know that Coronado Springs has a really nice one.

 

You might want to check out mouseplanet.com

[bme]

Bus transportation from the TTC to Hollywood Studios could likely take an hour. The buses run at about 20 minute intervals usually, but sometimes they run late.

 

Thank you! This alone is really good information!! Certainly enough to convince me that we'll skip the ship's tour and probably rent a car and do a non-park day on Disney property.

 

I'd still be interested in any first-hand accounts of what the Carnival excursion was like. Hopefully there are people out there who find this thread and are willing to share!