Children Customize Their Cruise Experience with More Choices than Ever on Disney Cruise Line

CELEBRATION, Fla. – Disney Cruise Line, the leader in family cruising, has once again reinvented onboard children’s experiences. Through an entirely new approach to youth activities, kids can let their imaginations set sail by customizing their cruise vacation. Dedicated children’s spaces and more youth activities than ever before are available and children choose experiences based on individual interests.

“Disney Cruise Line youth activities allow children the freedom to create a customized experience onboard our ships,” said Disney Cruise Line Vice President of Entertainment Jim Urry. “Children can select their own adventures and immersive experiences for a truly personalized, memorable cruise vacation.”

Customized Experiences

On Disney Cruise Line, children can personalize their cruise vacation by selecting activities and events, regardless of age. Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab are open to children ages three to 12.

While Disney Cruise Line continues to recommend activities that appeal to specific maturity levels and ages, the entire menu of offerings is open to every child. With this evolutionary approach to shipboard youth activities, children choose programs based on their specific interests to create a customized and very personalized experience. Best of all, children ages 3 to 12 – siblings, extended family and friends – can participate in youth activities together throughout their cruise.

The majority of children’s events and free-time activities occur within dedicated youth spaces on the ship and on Castaway Cay. As always, Disney Cruise Line youth activities are supervised by specially trained, experienced counselors.

Specific program information is available to guests on the day of check-in at the Youth Activities registration desk located in the Disney cruise ship terminal building prior to boarding, or onboard in the Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab.

A World of Youth Activities

With more than 100 activities, events and programs, and with all youth activities open to ages 3 to 12, children have more choices than ever before on Disney Cruise Line.

Clubhouse Series – focus on movement and appeals to younger children.

• Tots take part in training exercises to make them a Mouseketeer, and then prove to a very special guest that they’ve earned their ears during Mouseketeers In Training.
  
• Little Einsteins activities are inspired by the talents of favorite Little Einstein characters. Kids play instruments like Quincy, sing like Annie, dance like June and conduct like Leo.
  
• During Nemo’s Coral Reef Adventure puppet show, children help Dory find Nemo and encounter whimsical sea life along the way as they “swim” along through the ocean.
  
• Puzzle Playtime with Mickey and Friends (Disney Fantasy, Disney Dream) – Mickey Mouse and his pals stop by the Club to play some of their favorite games with the youngest cruisers.
  

Storybook Series – draw inspiration from classic Disney stories and popular Disney characters.

• During Cinderella’s Royal Ball, young guests can feel like royalty as Cinderella shows them how to be a prince or princess.
  
• So You Want to be a Pirate offers adventurous tales of the high seas, pirate training for young buccaneers, swashbuckling fun and a special appearance by Captain Hook.
  
• A special moment with a Disney princess comes to life when children share a story and a dance with Snow White at Do Si Do With Snow White.
  
• Disney’s Once Upon a Time (Disney Fantasy, Disney Dream) – Bartleby the Bookmaker surprises children with his very special talent – when he reads the books that he creates, the characters magically come to life!
  

Jump Up! Series – include group games and movement-orientated activities.

• Children are immersed in the world of Disney Pixar’s “Toy Story” during Toy Story Boot Camp. Led by Corporal Green, toy recruits participate in a series of interactive activities.
  
• It’s party time, Hawaiian style at the Aloha Luau where children learn how to dance the hula and surf the waves like Lilo and Stitch.
  
• Magic PlayFloor (Disney Fantasy, Disney Dream) – A variety of games to get kids moving, including leaping over lasers with Stitch, scrambling around the perimeter of the floor to control the tilt of a virtual maze and using movement to control race cars that speed around a track.
  

• In Flubber, one of the most popular youth activities on Disney Cruise Line, children join Professor Goo in creating magical green goo and other interesting concoctions.
  
• The next great celebrity chef could be discovered at Ratatouille Cooking School, where children work together to bake tasty chocolate chip cookies.
  
• A race car made of soap is the good clean fun of the Piston Cup Challenge, where kids make mini race cars out of soap and other materials, then race them to find the fastest in the fleet.
  
• Super Sloppy Science (Disney Fantasy, Disney Dream) – Professor Make-O-Mess guides kids as they conduct some of the most extreme and sloppiest science experiments around.
  

In the Spotlight Series – focus on stage presence with activities and enthusiasm.

• In All For One: A High School Musical Mad Cap Caper, kids search the ship to find “props,” then star in a “High School Musical”-themed karaoke and talent show.
  
• Monsters, Inc. Open “Mike” Night (Disney Fantasy, Disney Dream) – Kids help Mike Wazowski save Monstropolis from doom by putting on a comedy show for parents to collect loads of laughter.
  
• Tinker Bell’s Talent Show (Disney Fantasy, Disney Dream) – Tinker Bell helps youngsters discover their Fairy Talents, as they shine in a show for their families.
  

Solve It Series – challenge children with problem- and solution-based activities.

• During Detective School, Detective Goofy guides children as they seek out clues to solve an onboard mystery.
  
• In Stitch’s Great Adventure, kids helpStitch capture several lost experiments before they cause havoc on the ship. Together, they locate and contain the experiments in Oceaneer Lab.
  
• In Animation Antics and Animation Cels, kids learn how to draw and paint popular Disney characters.
  
• Get the Hook! (Disney Fantasy, Disney Dream) – Kids search ship-wide for clues to solve the mystery of Captain Hook’s missing hook. The adventure culminates with a reward from the Captain himself!
  

Castaway Cay – youth activities on Disney’s private island.

• During Tracking Sense, children discover that conservation can be fun as they learn about endangered animals and locate (plush) cotton-top tamarin monkeys using telemetry tracking – just like real scientists.
  
• The Dig at Monstro Point leads kids to discover the skeleton of a giant whale, shark teeth and other fun artifacts.
  
• Search for Atlantis is a quest around Castaway Cay in search of special crystals that are the life source of the mystical city – the only catch is that the directions on the ancient map are written in a lost language that must be decoded.
  

The Most Family-Friendly Cruise

Along with this evolution in youth activities, Disney Cruise Line continues to provide the most family-friendly cruise experience available.

While children are enjoying the most extensive youth activity areas at sea, parents can enjoy the ship “worry-free,” thanks to an onboard mobile phone service that allows kids and counselors to contact parents anytime and anywhere on the ship. Plus, Disney Cruise Line has the industry’s longest operating hours for children’s activities, providing greater flexibility for parents and even more fun for kids.

Dine and Play allows families to enjoy dinner together, then gives kids more time to enjoy youth activities while parents relax at the end of the meal. With Dine and Play, parents may check their children into evening youth activities during second seating in all of the main dining rooms. Families enjoy dinner together, then youth counselors whisk children away to play so the grown-ups can savor some time together in the adult-exclusive areas of the ship.

Disney stage productions, family activities, special events, first-run films in digital 3-D, poolside movies, deck parties, a family club and the Castaway Cay Family Beach provide even more opportunities for families to experience a memorable cruise vacation together.

To learn more about Disney Cruise Line or to book a vacation, guests can visit disneycruise.com, call Disney Cruise Line at 888/DCL-2500 or contact their travel agent.

Source: Disney Cruise Line