After cruising with NCL 7 times previously, including once with our 1 year old, my husband and I decided to give Disney a try since all of the cruise lines (including NCL) now charge for kids under 2. I need to write NCL a thank-you note for starting to charge because we would have never strayed away to try another cruise line.

We booked this cruise about 5 days out in a balcony guarantee category. Our son is just starting to get into Mickey and Minnie so we thought this would be a fun trip for the three of us.

When I completed the online check-in, we were assigned the 2pm arrival time slot. However, we drove to the port and arrived at noon and had no trouble getting on board. When we arrived at the port, we immediately knew that this cruise was going to be different than our previous NCL cruises. There was a Disney rep at the port entrance who gave us simple directions on what to do. He said that my husband could park the car while I took my son in to check-in. Very nice. NCL advised us on our cruises with them that we all had to be together before starting that process. Check-in was as easy as could be and finished in about 15 minutes. My husband walked up right as I was finishing so he was able to get his photo taken before we boarded. Read more