On Tuesday, June 7, 2016, Disney Cruise Line will give guests the opportunity to pre-book special character breakfast and two of many meet & greet opportunities with their world famous Disney Characters online. Emails were sent out over the past few weeks to concierge guests informing them these experience are already reserved for the traveling party if they wish to participate.
Then, last night we received the email (below) which targeted Platinum Castaway Club members to pre-book character experiences. For our sailing, we were offered to option to pre-book a Disney Character Breakfast, Princess Gathering or a Frozen Meet & Greet.
If you are interested in securing bookings for similar experiences during your next cruise and you are within your online booking window, visit the My Disney Cruise section of www.disneycruise.com on or after Tuesday, June 7, 2016. I’d like to point out that there may still be availability once onboard if you do not pre-book online.
The following is a summary of the offering DCL is providing travel agents.
Pre-Book Character Greeting Opportunities Aboard Disney Cruise Line
Beginning on Tuesday, June 7, 2016, your Clients will have the ability to pre-book two Meet & Greet opportunities with Disney Characters through the My Disney Cruise section of DisneyCruise.com. Guests sailings on cruises of 7-nights or longer that feature at least two sea days will also have the opportunity to pre-book a special Character Breakfast online.Similar to Port Adventures, if your Clients do not pre-book these experiences prior to sailing, they may check availability once onboard.
If your Clients are interested in pre-reserving tickets for the Princess Gathering, Frozen Meet & Greet or a Disney Character Breakfast (if applicable) during their cruise, encourage them to visit the My Disney Cruise section of disneycruise.com on or after Tuesday, June 7, 2016 to pre-book these experiences.
Concierge Guests will not need to pre-book these experiences. Character Meet & Greet opportunities and Character Breakfasts will be pre-booked ahead of time by the Concierge Team.
For some reason, DCL is not allowing guests to search ALL DAYS for the Character Meet & Greets Requiring Tickets. For now, you must click on each day of your cruise to see if these experiences are available.
@TheDCLBlog you can now search for the character events using all days vice individual days
— Mark Rustin (@Rustin_Mark) June 9, 2016
Once you selection an experience and select eligible guests you can check availability to choose a specific time for your sailing. For example below are the times for the Frozen Meet and Greet, Disney Junior Character Breakfast and the Princess Gathering on Day 3 of a Disney Fantasy Eastern Caribbean cruise.
This long overdue pre-booking option will definitely reduce the line at the Port Adventures desk upon embarkation to reserve these experiences. What are your thoughts on pre-booking these character meet and greet experiences?
Scott, you might want to redact your reservation number…
Chris, Excellent catch! I mistakenly uploaded my original screenshot instead of the modified version.
This was the character breakfast offering.
Character Breakfasts:
On select sailings Guests can start their day by joining some of their favorite Disney Characters for breakfast.
Select 7-night or longer sailings with at least 2 days at sea feature a Character Breakfast on one morning of the cruise. This breakfast is a ticketed event
The Disney Junior Character Breakfast is presented on 7-night or longer sailings with at least 2 days at sea departing from U.S. domestic ports. While appearances may vary by sailing, typically Jack, Sophia and Doc McStuffins are part of the Disney Junior Character Breakfast.
VIP Characters appear on 7-night or longer sailings with at least 2 days at sea departing from non-domestic ports (including Alaskan itineraries). On most sailings VIP Characters will include Mickey Mouse and his pals Minnie Mouse, Goofy and Pluto.
14-night transatlantic and Panama Canal sailings feature a Character Breakfast with VIP Characters (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto).
A character breakfast is not currently offered onboard any 2-, 3-, 4-, 5- or 6-night sailings.
Thanks Carol. That was informative, even though our next cruise is a 7 night sailing.
We got the gold notification e-mail today … we are now booked into the frozen meet and greet and the character breakfast on the Icelandic cruise next month. It’s a welcome addition and saves some of the messing about on the first day. All three experiences seemed to be offered on most days, we are not doing the princess meet and greet on this cruise.
For those who haven’t sailed before, will we be able to book these opportunities online as well? Is it the same 75 days out? Thanks for sharing!!
These experiences are part of the regular online pre-booking options which are part of your booking window for your sailing.
Are prebookings available for all future cruisers today or just ones within their booking windows? (Tried to check but the DCL site is running really slowly today.)
Scott, when is your cruise? We are sailing in October, and it appears that maybe this is tied to the date you are allowed to start booking other excursions as well? Thanks
These offerings are treated like any other pre-cruise booking and are tied to your booking window.
Thanks for posting this! We are silver and did not receive any letters or emails about this but I was able to reserve tickets for a character breakfast this morning during our upcoming cruise this July. I would not have known about this without your post.
Seems like a good addition as long as those of us who don’t have a high level castaway key level don’t get shut out of character experiences.
I’m silver and did not receive a notification yet, but I was able to go into reservations and book them today. DCLBlog FTW!!!
Rich, Happy to hear you secured tickets!
Thanks for the tip! We just secured tickets to Princess and Frozen meet and greets. Now If I could only book the tasting classes on-line… 🙂
First cruise, no advance notification from Disney. We were able to book as our online checkin date has already passed. (Booked Disney VIP character breakfast, Frozen, and Princess meet and greets. So happy to book these ahead of time. I was not looking forward to standing in line right after we board, especially as I’m used to the system at WDW–booking ADR’s and FP+ in advance.
You were able to pre book meet and greets without advance notification.
The experiences are available for anyone to book as long as you are within your onboard booking window.
Do you know where the breakfast is?
What happens at a character breakfast? What’s the appeal?
Sit down breakfast. The characters stop by the table for pictures.
Is there an extra charge for the character breakfast? Thanks!
There is no extra charge for the Character Breakfast.
I was only able to secure one ticket for the princess gathering (adult name selected) but was not able to get three tickets (adult plus 2 daughters selected). Does anyone know if that will allow me to take my daughters to the princess gathering on my one ticket?
I think this is a great idea. I sailed on 6/6/16 and got my tickets/reservations when I boarded ( not a line really, just 1 or 2 people ahead of me ). Now when I sail the next time in 3 years, I know I can do this ahead of time and not wait in line at Guest Services.
Well that was disappointing to find out that these Meet and Greet reservations are now made online. Last year we made these reservations for activities once we got onboard the ship. Now to find out that after are window of opportunity for planning activities online was back in May in which we never knew that the change was occurring. Here we are one day before we set sail on Disney Wonder to find out that everything is sold out.
Charles, As far as I know DCL has not going 100% online, you can still go to the appointed location listed in the Personal Navigator on embarkation day to get these tickets.
My booking window is earlier than others we are traveling with because I have silver membership. If I reserve for the four people in my stateroom, is it possible to substitute the children from the other stateroom for my assigned time so the children can attend together? I guess my question boils down to how strict are they about substitutions. Do they check names on the tickets with stateroom keys?
I doubt it matters who uses the tickets, but I do not have first hand experience with this.
Thank you Scott!
I had done this but have been reading all the blogs about how I MUST get in line upon embarking the ship to reserve so I was wondering if I was missing something. I was about to call DCL but you have saved me that time. Now I know my times/tickets that I reserved online will be available to me without getting in line immediately after boarding.
Very Respectfully,
Michelle Clancy
Awesome! The online booking really makes embarkation day less stressful.
I will be sailing this year 2017 on the Wonder and I have no children. I enjoy meeting the characters though. Do you know if this is available to guests without children as well?
Brittany, These character meet and greets are open to all guests.
Scott or anyone know if parents can attend without tickets to take pictures of kids with tickets? I’d hate to reserve tickets that can be used for other kids when I just want to be there to take photos of the kids. Last cruise, we got them for us as well and I felt bad two kids may have missed out because we had tickets only to be there to take pics of our daughter. Thanks!
Jenniffer, that is a great question. I am not sure how the lines are managed, especially in the Frozen meet & greet and character breakfasts where it is held in a separate venue. I would not suspect much of an issue for the Princess Gathering held in the atrium.
nope everyone has to have a ticket. Over eight can go without a chaperone, under eight has to have an adult with them. Everyone has to have a ticket.
This is Disney’s WORST idea ever. I’ve been on a number of Disney cruises and before you would get your character breakfast ticket with restaurant and seating time, similar to dinners, two seatings, all restaurants used. Now Disney has decided that only a certain amount of people can go to the character breakfast? The character experiences and breakfasts “sold out” so fast my travelling party of 8, none of us get to do any of them. And I’m a gold member. So now Disney is telling me that my three under 12 years of age family members don’t get to enjoy the very sought after character breakfast experience? Did Disney pick a number from mouse ears? Only half of all cruisers get to enjoy this experience? Only one third? Two thirds? Shame on you Disney Cruise Line. You “fixed” something that wasn’t broke. Shame on you!!