[scyrusurcys]

Hello all, I'm just preparing for my first Disney Cruise. I have a few questions for anyone who has been on this trip before:

1. What kind of restaurants are there on and offboard?
2. Where can I find the best deals on great gift items?
3. How can I make the best of this vacation?
4. Also, I'm interested in snorkeling at Castaway Cay- Is it worth the money? How deep is the water? (.. just don't want it to be too shallow, otherwise it would seem kinda cheap :D)
5. What are the activities for teens, both onboard and off?


Please help, I've been searching all over the web for these answers!


Thanx,
Lee

[trishb]

Lee...Have you ordered the cruise vacation planning video from Disney? It will answer most of your questions.

You sound so excited! Happy planning!

[scyrusurcys]

Thanx, trishb... anyone else?

[mickey]

Lee, welcome to DisneyCentral.

What kind of restaurants are there on and offboard?

There are five restaurants on board, if you don't count the fast food ones up top. Parrot Cay is a tropical restaurant, Animator's Palette is the restaurant that changes from Black and White to Color, Triton's or Lumiere's, depending upon which ship you are on, is a French style restaurant, Palo is the adult only restaurant and Topsiders Buffet is, well, a buffet. For dinner, I thought that the three main restaurants were all equal (Parrot, Animators and Lumiere's), but for breakfast and lunch we always tried to go to Lumiere's. I am not big on buffets, though the food was good at them, I would much rather sit down and order from a menu. There are also a couple of hamburger, pizza and hot-dog places up top, and a great fruit bar at the Scoops, the ice cream place.

Where can I find the best deals on great gift items?

Well, that is tough. I though the prices on board were not much different that at WDW. We bought some of our gifts on board, and some in the towns. A lot of that depends upon which towns you go to.

How can I make the best of this vacation?

There are so many things to do on board. Just go into it with a purpose. Ours was to relax and enjoy ourselves without the kids. Make sure you go to the shows every night, they were great. Explore the ship, whatever you feel like. One hint would be to hit the spa first thing, and if you are going to spend your money on board, do it there. Also, Palo is great, and they only charge you $5 per person to eat there. Best food we had on board, and very romantic.

Also, I'm interested in snorkeling at Castaway Cay- Is it worth the money? How deep is the water? (..i just don't want it to be too shallow ) Is it worth the money?

I will answer this in your other post.

What are the activities for teens, both onboard and off?

They have their own hang out, the common grounds. It features a couple of big screen tvs, games, etc. They have counselors with them at all times that are constantly setting up pool games, sport stuff and basically entertaining them. We saw them together all the time. They usually went to movies at night. Most of them that we talked to had a great time with the others on board. The only thing off board that I know of is the Wild Side on Castaway Cay. They take them to do everything that is available. It is just an excursion you can book when you get on board.

[mickey]

Sorry, I thought you had another question about snorkeling in the other post, but I was mistaken. They have a designated "snorkel park" by the family beach. The water is between 6 and 10 feet deep through most of it. Disney has buried some fish habitat things that you can stand on if you need to fix your gear. Make sure that you ask for a map at the snorkel shack. They have a trail that you can follow to find sunken items, including a sunken Mickey. I spent two hours out there, and never found Mickey. Of course, I didn't have a map.

I totally thought is was worth the money we spent. It was a nice way to get in the water and relax. We also used our gear over at Serenity Bay, but the water is only about 4 feet deep there, so it is a little tougher, and there isn't as much stuff to see.

[imcruisin]

Have a great trip!