After our Disney World race-cation we decided to extend our trip with a 3 night Disney Cruise from Port Canaveral. Our itinerary took us to Castaway Cay (Disney’s private island in the Bahamas). With a day at sea to get there and back, it was a total of 3 nights on the ship. Having recently come back from a 7 night cruise in the Bahamas and Caribbean, our biggest question was, “is three nights enough?”.
The answer? Absolutely! Heres how you can make the most of your travels on a short cruise itinerary
Add on to an existing trip (or leave from a local port of call)
A 3 night cruise is best when scheduled from a local port of call or a destination you are already near.
In our case, we were already planning to spend the weekend in Florida, so booking a quick cruise just made sense. If we would have had to travel far for just 3 nights, it might have felt too short, but because we were already there, the weekend cruise felt more like a bonus and less like a “short vacation”.
Take advantage of cruise deals
A huge thanks to my in-laws who took us on this cruise using their Florida Resident discount. On a longer cruise, we would have booked separate stateroom reservations, but for this quick getaway we split the cost 4 ways and embraced the close quarters to take advantage of the room deal.
If you are thinking about a 3 night cruise, we recommend you to book using local deals, pre-booked packages or, like us, by maximizing guests per stateroom. There’s simply too much to do on a short cruise to relax in your room so sharing a space is not much of a sacrifice.
Be strategic about your room type
In that same vein, you can be strategic about the type of stateroom you pick knowing that the cruise is a bit too short to maximize your verandah time. A 3-day cruise is the perfect sailing to book an inside stateroom.
We booked a “navigator’s verandah” (which is a smaller, obstructed view) knowing that we weren’t going to spend much time there. We ended up getting upgraded to a full verandah which was great, but not a necessity for our short trip.
And if you choose to book an inside cabin, dont forget you can always enjoy beautiful (and usually quite private) views on the jogging deck. I enjoyed a couple of workouts on this track + sunsets and sail-aways almost exclusively to myself on this hidden gem.
Don’t make too many plans
Our final tip is to limit the amount of plans you make for a short cruise. Unlike our long 7 night international cruise where we carefully planned each day, we embarked on our 3 night cruise with no plans other than enjoying our time. We had a ton of fun adding activities to our Disney Cruise Line Navigator app, but overall we played the full vacation by ears (Mickey pun intended!).
Don’t forget to check out the many trivia nights, beverage tastings and cruise competitions throughout your sailing, but as always we encourage you to just have fun! Enjoy your 3 night cruise with the intention of just having some relaxing, family fun and we are confident you will disembark feeling that your short vacation was more than worth it!
Happy cruising friends!
Loving The Layover 