Ahoy, Natalie! Welcome back to planDisney and thanks for sailing over with your Disney Cruise Line question about your upcoming back-to-back itineraries.
When you book back-to-back sailings aboard the same ship, you still have two separate reservations and each one will have its own dates for when your
advance booking window opens and when you can complete the Online Check-In process. The biggest difference between the first and second sailing will be the urgency with which you actually need to complete your Online Check-In. As I’m sure you know from previous sailings, most guests want to get onboard the ship as soon as possible on embarkation day. That means that the earliest Port Arrival Times tend to go quickly and it’s important to complete your Online Check-In process as early as possible when it opens at midnight Eastern Standard Time (EST) if you have your heart set on an early boarding time. The Online Check-In process opens 30 days prior to sailing for first-time guests, but
Castaway Club members get even earlier access based on their specific membership level.
While you may want to pick the earliest possible Port Arrival Time for your first sailing, it doesn’t really matter what time you select for your second sailing since you won’t be using it. Although you must still select a Port Arrival Time as part of the Online Check-In process for your second cruise, there is a completely different combined debarkation and embarkation process for back-to-back cruisers. Near the end of your first sailing, you will get detailed instructions from
Guest Services on what to expect. You will be told when and where to meet a cast member on the ship and they will escort all of the back-to-back guests off the ship at the same time to be processed and then brought back on board. I was told that the whole process typically takes around an hour to complete and you can expect to be some of the first guests onboard for the second sailing.
I know that you will thoroughly enjoy your double dose of Disney Cruise Line and two churro Mickey waffle days this summer. Feel free to reach back out to planDisney with any other questions. Happy sailing!
Catherine