If you’ve planned a wedding, you know it’s so strange that you spend a year (or more) of your life planning one day. Well, for us it was multiple days, but still. Something I said numerous times on the cruise was that nothing ever looks the way it looks in your head, and it’s true. No matter how many photos you see or videos you watch, nothing quite ever matches exactly because life isn’t always shot from the best angle and there’s no color correction or filtering. I should know; I spend half my free time working with Photoshop for a reason.
For the most part, everything with our wedding went better than I ever could have dreamed. I’m especially grateful with the timing, because if I’d set our cruise for just one week later, we might not have made it. The Orlando theme parks and pretty much the world shut down almost our first day back at home.
I try very hard on this blog to be positive about everything. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. I have scrapped entire articles because some of the places we’ve been have been such a disaster, I can’t say anything nice. I’ve actually been more openly honest about the bad things than I usually am, in the Wedding Adventures without trying to put as much of a positive spin on things. If you’re reading this because you’re planning your own Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, I want you to have the best information I can give you. So, to that end, I’m not just going to say “these are the bad things that happened” or “I didn’t like this”. Hence why this is about expectations and reality. I know I talked about some of these in the Wedding Adventures, so forgive me for repeating myself, but I wanted them all in one place.
I also feel it’s important to mention there was no point when I told Disney that I was blogging any of this. I didn’t even tell Faith during the wedding planning that I was a former Cast Member. (In my experience, it’s best to never admit to being a Cast Member until you have to, the service level often drops immensely.)
These aren’t in any particular order.
First things first, wedding brain is a real thing. It’s a whole new level of stress. You may not even necessarily feel stressed, but it spills over into other areas of your life. I put ice cream in the fridge instead of the freezer. I turned the wrong eye on next to the pot on the stove instead of under the pot. I put the wrong number of toes on the Duffy paws. I lost the gas cap on my car. Trust me, I make mistakes all the time, but they’re usually not that blatantly stupid.
It was non-dairy ice cream too, so it was more expensive than regular ice cream.
We got Jay’s wedding band on Etsy and it’s amazing. It took me several months to mail it in to get the sand inlay done due to the Pandemic, and I had it back less than two weeks after I sent it in. My ring… not so much. It’s my fault for mixing up Gemvara’s return policy and their warranty that I wasn’t able to return it, but the fact that I wanted to return it should tell you something. The stones are nowhere near as big as you’re led to believe online, and the jeweler I took it to in order to have it cleaned told me I was ripped off when I told her what I paid. Thankfully, she’s a friend of my mom’s and helped set me up with a much better and less expensive wedding band. I should have just gone to her in the first place.
I have mentioned this before, but no matter how much time and energy you put into your invitations, wedding website, wedding program, etc., people will get the information wrong. Your brother might think your wedding is in September instead of March. People could go to the theater on Deck 3 instead of Deck 4. Just accept that and prepare yourself for it. As long as everyone gets on the boat, everything will be fine. If they don’t get on the boat, I don’t know what to tell you.
I will also say just get a travel agent and let them handle all the reservations for the cruise. Don’t be me and take that on yourself. I had my reasons, but I’m not sure the stress of handling the reservations and everyone’s money was worth it in the end.
Having never been on a cruise before, I wasn’t quite prepared for how tight and compact everything is. The Disney Dream is a massive ship, and the space is well utilized, but at the same time, things felt cramped. The Outlook is an extremely small venue. It fit all of us, and it was comfortable, but my walk down the aisle lasted maybe fifteen seconds. It doesn’t help that I move pretty fast to begin with. This is neither good nor bad, but I was certainly surprised when I walked (snuck) in the Outlook the first time. That being said, I would still pick it over any of the other wedding locations on the ship. Also, I will probably spend the extra money to get an ocean view room over an inside room in the future.
The Disney Cruise Line food was good, not great. I think part of the problem was so many friends spent so much time telling us how great the food was that it could never live up to the hype. So, maybe lower your expectations on the food and you’ll be pleasantly surprised? I also feel bad because I passed on some advice to my mom, and then she took advice from someone else at Palo and she basically never ordered what she wanted the entire cruise. Palo was good, but I honestly can’t see myself paying the extra $40 per person for dinner in the future without it being a special occasion. I do want to try the brunch though.
It was strange to email with Faith for an entire year and then be handed off to Jaime for the actual cruise. I understand why Disney does it this way, you can’t be coordinating weddings on the ship and answering emails all day long, but it was a jarring change. Jaime was direct, to the point, and determined to get everything done. He’s how I was as a Cast Member. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but I was expecting Faith’s warmth and excitement. At the end of the ceremony, rather than telling us it was time to go, he simply started cleaning up and we got the hint. Some days thinking back, I like that he never told us to leave, and there are other days that my brain goes, “How dare you clean up before we were ready!” I also wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t noticed he was cleaning up. However, he got the job done, and that’s what matters.
Having Mickey at the wedding was some of the best money we spent. The character attendant tried to get Mickey to leave after we were done taking pictures, but Mickey insisted on staying to cut the cake. He even wound up joining in on the first dance. As much as I would have loved to have Duffy, I can’t think of anything better than having Mickey Mouse at my wedding.
Pirate Night was beyond amazing. I was expecting cute and fun, but nowhere near the level of insanity and awesomeness that we got to experience. Although, I could do with less Daisy Duck. To be fair, I could always do with less Daisy Duck.
Characters meet at oddly specific times. It’s usually early in the morning or during one of the shows or dinner. Meeting characters would have been much easier on a longer cruise or if I hadn’t had so many people to spend time with.
I heard mixed reviews on the Broadway style shows on the ship, but I was blown away by the two we saw. Since we ran late at Palo on our last night, we missed Believe, but I look forward to seeing it in the future. Don’t listen to the reviews, go see them yourself. Even if you end up hating them, you never have to watch them again, and you might love them. The Sail Away Celebration was also incredible. I saw some of the most talented performers I’ve ever seen at Disney. I was thoroughly disappointed in “See Ya Real Soon”. I was expecting it to be a whole show, not a five-minute song, character appearances, and another five-minute song. It did let me meet more characters I missed, so yay that!
Castaway Cay was shockingly underwhelming. It didn’t help that the water was too cold to enjoy and it was an overcast day, but it did not remotely live up to the reviews I’ve read. I’m so glad we decided against trying to force a cabana rental for everyone into the budget, because it would have been such a waste of money. I still want to go snorkeling there at some point in the future, but I will never prepay for Castaway Cay excursions again.
There are several items I hesitate to include because I don’t know how much of this was standard, but they don’t tell you to keep it a surprise, and how much of this was magic. I wouldn’t necessarily get your hopes up for this or expect it if you’re planning your own Disney Cruise Line wedding, but for us it was a nice surprise. There were so many more flowers at our wedding than I expected. There were multiple flower arrangements and petals everywhere. It was beautiful. We also got to keep our Disney Fairy Tale Weddings cake serving set. There was a Disney Fairy Tale Weddings bag, towel, and pillow waiting for us in our stateroom on Embarkation day. On the night of the wedding, when we got back to our room, there was champagne on ice and chocolate covered strawberries. The flower arrangements had also been brought to our room.
If Disney Cruise Line knocked everything out of the park, Walt Disney World was basically one foul ball after another.
I already talked about our disappointments with the Yacht Club stay, so I won’t hammer that in (too much) now. I still stand by my opinion that they should still have “Just Married”/”Happy Anniversary”/”Just Engaged” buttons instead of simply “Happily Ever After”. I did not spend the kind of money I spent to hear “Happy Anniversary!” from every Cast Member we encountered. The idea that a Disney Deluxe Resort that averages $600+ a night can’t provide a vase for a Disney bridal bouquet is absurd. I can’t be the first person who’s needed to put flowers in water. Yes, I figured out that I could use the ice bucket, but that also meant we didn’t have an ice bucket if we had needed it. I won’t go into detail about one of the quick service restaurants refusing to make a sandwich that was on the menu, but I’m still mad about it. You can read about it in the Debarkation article if you want.
All in all, Yacht Club and the Walt Disney World portion of our wedding was a big disappointment. There were some bright spots, like the awesome waitress at Trattoria al Forno that basically saved our day after the Castle fiasco.
To put a long story short if you didn’t read the last couple of articles, there were cranes absolutely everywhere and we got laughed at by construction workers while trying to take our $2,500 Magic Kingdom Premier Park Portraits. I was devastated and the whole shoot just sucked. I pride myself on my writing and I still can’t describe it any better than saying it sucked. That’s how bad it was.
We should have had our photos by the end of April. Due to the pandemic, we didn’t get them until June 2nd, which I completely get. (However, I am willing to bet there were other people waiting for their photos that weren’t as understanding.) Before we got the photos, we got a call in May that the Castle photos weren’t salvageable. (BIG SURPRISE RIGHT?) It took me a year to get this fixed. See last week’s post.
The Animal Kingdom photos were an amazing experience, and they are so much prettier than the Magic Kingdom ones I do have. Part of that is because we weren’t faking our smiles in them, and part of that is because Animal Kingdom is much more relaxed than Magic Kingdom. There were no managers hovering around watching us.
Nothing could have fixed the Magic Kingdom day, but if you’re planning on doing more than one park for your photos, do the park you care about less first. We had our groove down so much better on the second day. The photographers knew us better and everything was more comfortable. Plus, I finally had the hang of walking in the dress. We could have easily had the same disaster if I’d done Animal Kingdom first, but at least I could have walked away from the laughing construction workers faster. They tell you to bring comfortable shoes to change into for the Parks portraits, but I’ll warn you all the benches will probably be wet. Just learn to walk in your heels and deal with it, or don’t wear heels at all. My dress would have been too long with any other shoes, so I wore my Wonder Woman boots the whole time.
I kind of wished we had skipped the Celebration at the Boardwalk. I wound up not being able to invite most of the extended family it was intended for, and most of our friends wound up cliquing off. I spent most the night trying to talk to everyone, and Jay spent most of the night getting ignored. On the bright side, I got to see some awesome people I hadn’t seen in a very long time, and it wound up being the last time I would see people for almost a year.
This bit is true for both the Boardwalk and the cruise portion of the wedding. I did not expect people to get us gifts after spending so much money to come on the cruise. I made extra effort to put low cost items on our registry, and we actually got more high dollar ones than low cost ones. No disappointment on gifts whatsoever. I was highly disappointed in the lack of cards though. I love cards. I always have. I save them to hold onto and read later in life. I have birthday cards my grandmother gave me when I was in high school, and I have basically everything my mom has ever mailed me since I moved to Florida. I think we got a grand total of six cards, and half of those were sent by people who weren’t able to make it.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or entitled. I am happy people were able to come and spend time with us, and yes that is better than any gift, but I have a box for wedding cards and it’s very empty. It makes me sad that I put so much time and effort into the welcome bags, and handed out both buttons and the custom Sorcerers Cards at the Boardwalk, and people couldn’t get a card and write something nice in it. In the big picture of the wedding, it is a very minor thing, but it is something I will always remember. On the flip side, it makes me more grateful for the cards we do have.
Chelsea, are you really going to complain about the fact that people didn’t get you cards?
Yes, it is my blog and my wedding and I am allowed to talk about the things that were disappointing. Michael and Abby not only bought some of the most expensive things on our registry, but they also had a ton of stuff sent to our room on the ship, and other people couldn’t be bothered to buy a $2 card at Walgreens?
For the record, I did send thank you cards to everyone who got us a gift or came on the cruise.
There is a part of me that wishes we had skipped the Walt Disney World portion entirely, including the parks photos, and just stuck with the Cruise Line. However, without the endgame of the Magic Kingdom photos, I would have never looked into having a Disney Cruise Line wedding in the first place, and it was the best weekend of my life. I can also say Jay and I definitely have the Disney Cruise Line bug and we can’t wait to sail again. At the same time, we have agreed we’re most likely never spending money on staying at Walt Disney World ever again. I’m sure we’ll end up going to the Star Wars hotel, but it’s going to require very special circumstances for me to ever give Disney money for a hotel room again. The only Cast Members who didn’t fail us while staying there were the waitress at one restaurant and our photographers who tried their best with impossible circumstances.
My biggest regret of the entire wedding is that, somehow, I missed getting a photo of just me and my brother dressed up for the wedding. I have them with my parents, but there’s no picture of just us. In the grand scheme of wedding regrets, that is nothing. I have very few things to complain about, most everything went according to plan. I actually remember Lacey saying to me about a month before the wedding, “Something will not go according to plan, and when it does, I need you not to freak out.” I’m racking my brain but I honestly can’t think of much that didn’t go according to plan on the cruise.
That being said, if you want to be a Disney Bride and have a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding, I firmly believe Disney Cruise Line is the way to go.
For the most part, all of these “issues”, which I really wouldn’t even call them issues, could have been avoided if we’d been on a cruise before. My biggest advice to future Disney Cruise Line brides is to take a research cruise if you’ve never been on a cruise before and you can find it in the budget.
As I said before, nothing ever looks the way it does in your head, but I wouldn’t change a thing about our Disney Cruise Line wedding. Quite frankly even without the parks photos disaster, I would still be pretty disappointed in the Yacht Club. However, I would much rather love my wedding and hate the mini honeymoon than the other way around! In the end, there’s nothing Disney’s ever going to do that is going to make up for construction workers laughing at us taking our wedding photos. (I should know, I spent a year trying to get them to do that.) That being said, I basically got double the amount of photos I should have, so I guess karma evened things out for us. Without the castle disaster, we wouldn’t have gotten the chance to work with Stephanie and I wouldn’t have met Jenn, who is now my hair stylist for life.
Both the wedding and travel industry have changed for the foreseeable future, but I still stand by this opinion. I look at what I spent and what I would have had to spend to get a similar experience at Walt Disney World and there’s just no comparison. Now, my guests had to pay for their own cruises and spend that much money out of pocket to attend our wedding, and that’s something to be considered. I know some people think destination weddings are rude. However, unless everyone lives in the same city, it’s a destination wedding for someone. I priced out attending my friend’s wedding in Colorado, and it was going to run Jay and I close to $1,000 between the flights, hotel, and rental car. That didn’t even include doing anything while we were there or food. Depending on the room type, most of our guests spent around $800 to $1,000 per person. (Remember, I booked half the staterooms and managed the payments myself!) That included all the food on the ship, the entertainment, and basically everything but alcohol and tips. They didn’t even have to pay for transportation to the port or parking, because I took care of that. (Well, some people had to drive, but I coordinated carpooling and paid the parking.) My parents never would have gone on a cruise on their own, neither would Jay’s parents, and they all had a blast. If anyone thought the trip wasn’t worth the money, no one has said anything to me after the fact. For a lot of our guests, this was a bucket list item. So, take all of that into consideration before you rule out a Disney Cruise Line wedding. I firmly believe that inviting people to a Walt Disney World wedding, or Aulani or Disneyland for that matter, would cost almost as much money in the long run for the guests.
