Cruising During a Pandemic
Disney Cruise Line is my most booked cruise line. My clients continue to come back to the service, quality, and experience that is Disney. I thought it was time I experience the Disney magic first hand plus I wanted to see how the cruise industry is reacting to the pandemic.
*Not all cruise lines will have these same procedures. This was the travel requirements at the time of my departure.
General Covid-19 Protocols
To sail on a Disney ship out of Port Canaveral, guests 12 years and older must be fully vaccinated. Guests 11 and younger are not required to be vaccinated but must take a pre-trip COVID-19 test. Additionally, everyone gets tested when you arrive at the port, before being cleared to board the ship. This requirement will change to guests 5 years and older in January 2022.
Pre-Cruise
Download the Disney Cruise Line Navigator App- Just like the Disney Parks, Disney Cruise Line has an app called Disney Cruise Line Navigator. When you book your trip, you should download this app instantly. The app lets you choose additional onboard activities, excursions for the island, and more. It is important that you choose your additional experiences sooner than later.
Submit Proof of Vaccination- Disney sent us an email, and we were required to submit proof of vaccination and answer other questions as part of our Pre-Sail Screening. When our documents were approved we received the status, “Clear to Arrive”.
Submit Proof of Negative Covid Test - If the guest is 11 years or under, they are required to complete a pre cruise covid test. When our documents were approved we received the status, “Clear to Arrive”.
Select Your Arrival Time- In order to keep socially distant, you will be given a time to arrive at the cruise terminal. This times should be followed as closely as possible to keep everything moving smoothly.
Check-in
When you arrive at Disney's terminal, you will drop off your checked bags with the porters before heading for the parking garage. Once in line at the bottom of the garage you sign in, and are given a testing kit. A cast member walks you through the testing process at the bottom of the garage, and collects everyone in your party’s samples.
You then make your way up the garage to a parking spot and wait for your results to be texted/emailed to you. When you get that “Clear to Sail” notification you’ll cheer (I heard many cheers throughout the parking lot while waiting, and sure enough, my party did as well). Collect your carry ons, have your passport ready, and head into the terminal!
One of the good things about this process is that no part of the check-in process had long wait times after we were cleared to sail. Getting our passports scanned, walking through the terminal. Waiting to board, and being serenaded by Mickey and Minnie when we stepped on board the Dream was a breeze. The entire process, testing and waiting included, only took about an hour from dropping off our checked bags to stepping into our cabin.
Disembarkation
Early Monday morning, the Dream pulled into Port Canaveral, and it was time to disembark. They leave color/character-coded tags in your room the evening before for any luggage you’d like checked. If you use that system, you need to have your luggage outside of your stateroom by 3 am for it to be picked up. You also have less flexibility in the morning as they stagger who can leave when.
Lucky for us, we like to travel light, so we were able to just wake up at our leisure and walk right off the boat. Checking out of our stateroom, getting off the ship, making our way through customs and back to our car only took about 30 minutes.
As someone who traveled a lot before the pandemic, it was nice to see that other than a couple of minor things like indoor masks and pre-trip testing and vaccination, not much has changed about the cruise experience. If anything, it was a better experience than before, because we never felt crowded or rushed through any part of the experience. Our support staff estimated that the ship was at 50% capacity, and everyone was excited about the deals they had been able to take advantage of.
