Disney Cruise- The Final Night of Your Cruise

The final night of your cruise can be confusing if you have never cruised before.  Here are some tips to get you through the final night.

• You will get little envelopes for each person you will be charged gratuities for.  It will also have a slip of paper that shows what you are charged for each person.  These gratuities will automatically be charged to your onboard account if you did not prepay these prior to the cruise.  We always tear the slips of paper and put them in the corresponding envelope for each person and hand them to them.  We always put a little extra cash in there as well.  These people work so hard and when you see how they go above and beyond, we never felt like the gratuities we were automatically charged were enough.  Plus, I am sure it is nice for them to get a little extra cash!
• You will also have two choices for luggage.  You can choose to walk off with your bags the morning of the cruise or put your luggage out the last night of the cruise by 10pm.  
• If you choose to walk off the morning of the cruise with your bags, it is nice because you have all your stuff with you and don't have to figure out how to put your toiletries and clothes for the next morning into a carryon.  However, it is a pain to have to lug the bags to the elevators and all the way off the ship.  It can be quite a long way.
• If you put your bags out the last night by 10pm, you pack all your stuff up except for whatever you need that night and next morning.  Then you will want a carryon for that stuff so you can have a bag that morning for your stuff.  If you choose this option, by 10pm you place the luggage tags you will get the last night on your bags and place all your bags outside of your door.  We usually do this.  I always have my family change into their clothes they plan to wear off the ship or into pajamas if you are ready for bed by 9pm that evening.  Then there are less outfits to deal with in the morning.  That way each person has one outfit and a pair of pajamas to carry out the next morning in a carryon.

The final morning:

• You will be assigned a breakfast time and it will be fairly early.  You may not have time to come back to your room after breakfast.  We always took our carry-ons with us to breakfast and then got off the ship from there.  
• Then you will disembark when your group is called.  If you had your bags picked up the night before, you will look for the corresponding character who was on your luggage tags the night before and find your luggage in that area.  You will have to go through customs.

If you are unsure of any of this, please send me an email and I will happily see if I can help!