Disney Cruise dates

This is part of the Family Travel Series on Choosing a Cruise by TPG Director of Operations, Danielle. Other posts include: Choosing a Cruise While Maximizing Points, Is the Disney Credit Card Worth It For A Cruise?, How to Choose a Cruise Based on Points, Using Frequent Flyer Miles for Cruise Flights, How to Get a Passport for Your Child.

As I mentioned in my first post, my husband, Mike, and I are trying to choose a Caribbean cruise for a summer vacation with our two kids (ages 3 and 4) in June. One of our options is with Disney Cruises, which seems to be the most popular choice with families thanks to kid-friendly amenities like Disney character experiences, magic mirrors and “talking” paintings in the halls and rooms, activity pools, Broadway shows, live performances and events like “Pirate Night”. The only drawback is that staterooms and suites seem to be much more expensive than on other lines–in the range of 50% more! So if we were to book a Disney cruise, we would want to offset some of that extra cost either with discounts or by maximizing our point earning.

We decided to look into the Disney’s Premier Visa® Card from Chase to see if it would be worth it to get it specifically for this cruise and any savings we could squeeze out of it. Some of the benefits of this card are a $200 Disney Gift Card after you spend $500 within the first 3 months from account opening, 2% in reward dollars on card purchases at gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants and most Disney locations and 1% on all your other card purchases, and you can save 10% on select merchandise purchases of $50 or more at DisneyStore.com and Disney Store locations all for an annual fee of $49. To find out more details on this card, visit