When you sail away with Disney Cruise Line you are going to have a great time. There are so many activities and things to see and do, but how do you know when or where to find things. The answer: your Personal Navigator.
You will hear over and over on the ship "refer to your Navigator" and they are not talking about a crew member charting the course for the ship.
The Personal Navigator is a 6 page handout chalk full of information. What you find in the navigator ranges from weather to stage shows. TIP: For your first day you can get one when you check in at the terminal and you can read over it as you wait to board the ship. For the remainder of your trip you receive one with your turn down service the night before to give you lots of time to plan. You can find extra copies at guest services.
Lets go through the make up of a Navigator page by page.
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| Day 1 Page 1 or Front cover |
At the top of the Navigator it gives you the weather report and sun up and sun down times. It also has the date and your port for the day.
Next, is a large display for that evening show. On this one it is the Golden Mickey's and it shows the times and locations. The bottom half of the front page has the "don't miss" section, one I would recommend for anyone who is on the ship for the first time is the "Welcome Aboard Ship Tour." This is really helpful to learn your way around and will save you tons of time later by not being as lost.
The bottom gives the Menu and Drink of the day. Also some important numbers so they are easy to find.
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| Day 2 Page 1 |
This is the front page of day 2 and you can see the lay out is very similar.
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| Day 1 page 2 |
Page number 2 of the Personal Navigator Gives you some Highlights for families and adults. It shows the tour times for the spa. It is a great idea to take a tour of the spa if you are thinking about booking something! They sometimes run specials on spa treatments if you go to the Spa Tour. It always seems if the time you wanted was not available online, they can find a way to fit you in somewhere. However the less expensive treatments do book fast, the most basic massage was not available to book on board. TIP: Do your Spa Treatments first thing when you do online check in, as well as booking a Cabana at Castaway Cay!
The other important booking thing on this page is the Beverage Seminars. It tells you where to go to book those.
Booking and touring things can make the first few hours busy but helps set up the rest of your cruise!
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| Day 1 page 3 |
Page three Shows highlights of youth activities, it also tells you how to register your kids for the clubs, for ages 3 -12. You should have registered them in the port terminal right after you checked in so you do not waist any of your time on the ship filling out forms. When you register them it is just basic information and you are not picking out activities for them. They can choose to do whatever events or activities in the clubs they want.
You also find a Movie schedule for the Buena Vista Theater. Disney shows first run movies the whole cruise. This is where you can see the whole list at once. We were able to see Thor the Dark World the day it came out and in 3D on one of our cruises (the movies are all included in the cruise fare, however, be careful with the movie snacks - those are NOT included!).
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| Day 1 page 4 or back cover |
On to the back page! Here is lots of information, not just highlights anymore. Lots of good stuff to read through as you wait to board the ship. The very first thing is to plan your next cruise. There are some great reasons to book while on board: 1) you get a discount and 2) an on board credit. We actually looked ahead a year and were ready with what we wanted to book before we ever set foot on the ship. TIP: I would recommend going before the last day. There can be huge lines the last day and of course tell them your travel agent! If you book on board and give them my name and company I can help you with all the other details.
Other things on this page deal with shopping, pictures, and Internet. The most important thing to note is that when in port all the shops on the ship are closed!
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| Day 1 Insert Schedule |
Now on to the "meat" of the Personal Navigator - the Insert! This is a two sided page that has all of the details. If you need to know when something is, this is where you look. It is also designed to be folded in thirds so it can go in a pocket and easily go with you. The insert is like your own personal guide to the cruise. (I have witnessed navigators in other peoples hands with multiple colors of highlights to help Navigate the day.) After you get the highlights from the other pages, you dive into the insert to really plan your day, or if you prefer to not plan, you could always just sit on your veranda and watch the sea go by.
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| Day 2 Insert schedule |
Here is a shot of day #2's schedule so you can see what a full day looks like. You can see they make it easy to find the highlights, but it does not show you everything going on. The spa really does not show up, as well as your meal times, so keep that in mind as you plan it out.
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| Day 1 insert hours |
Here is the other side of the insert and it is full of hours, hours, hours, and more hours. Do you need to know what time they start serving breakfast in the Enchanted Garden, then this is your place. How about when the mini golf opens, here as well. Even the pool hours are listed. This also has a listing of all the Characters to meet.
On our last cruise, we were on board for the premier of Thor and they had an insert about a special midnight showing in both theaters.
The back side showed the rest of the showings just in case you missed it in the other 3 spots you could find it. It was neat how they showed it in both theaters. They normally don't show movies in the larger Walt Disney Theater.
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| Map of Castaway Cay - Disney's Private Island |
On the castaway Cay Day they insert a map of the tropical paradise.
Now when you hear that you can find it in your Navigator, I hope you know what they are talking about. It is a valuable tool to maximizing your time on the ship. Looking it over the night before can save you the moment of walking in on something just as it ends and saying "if we had only known".
If you want to find more Navigators to look at, you can check out
The Disney Cruise Line Blog. On that site there is a large archive of Navigators. Look for the ship and length of cruise that you are doing and see what fun is in store. Check it out
here!
Want to see a set of Navigators from a 7 Night Eastern Caribbean that we shared with the Disney Cruise Line Blog. You can see what we did for a week on the Fantasy
HERE.
