Dawn-join excursion for Magic kingdom?

[missmoo168]

Hello,

I will cruise on Dawn on 12/14 with my 8 months baby. Should I join the excursion to Magic kingdom or is it easy to get the taxi from the port and go there? How much for the taxi?

Can't wait for my first cruise :-)

Moo

[525600]

I would recommend getting the excursion because it is only like $28 pp (not sure if they'd even charge you for the baby. I'd call NCL and ask) and Magic Kingdom is about an hour away. A taxi would probably be around $50-75 (plus tip) if not more.

We were told a taxi ride back to port is 140.00 dollars. Bus is best way. We were on week of Nov 16.

i'm renting a car from hertz for $40. it is 3-4 miles away and they'll pick me up with their van when we pull into port. on the way back I will need to take a cab from hertz. first i'll drop my family off at ship then i'll drop car off and then take a cab back for $5

Yeah, but by the time you get to the car rental, rent the car, drive to Disney, park the car....you could've been in the park for an hour! Sure it's cheaper but you lose some time. And then anything could happen with the rental car....flat tire or whatever. If you take the excursion then you have peace of mind.

[disneylynn]

plus you have to pay for parking,gas ,tolls amd miles!!!!
My family went to epcot on 11-25-03 we were in the park by 11am and we had enough
by 4:30 we took the 1st bus back at 5:00 the buses run every 15 min from 5to6pm

i'll be in the park by 10. and get to stay until at least 7

[disneylynn]

Valtandc, When we were on our trip (11-23-03) we did not have clearence to leave the boat untill 9:45 am and we had to be back on board by 7pm. The boat left at 8pm

Valtandc. When are you going? The boat leaves the port at 8 pm, everyone has to be on board by 7. Disneylynn is absolutely correct. You won't even get off the boat in the morning until at least 9:30 (and that's optimistic) and it's an hours drive. We were first off the boat, right onto the bus (which was parked RIGHT THERE) and on our way. We got to the park at 10:30. You'll be much later than that with renting a car.

good points. thanks. For me it's really not the money that would be saved. I just like the flexibility. I am on 4/25 sailing. I think the boat is in port until 10pm. am I right?

[disneylynn]

Check the ncl web site, I think it is in port from 9am to 8pm
i may be wrong. Also call ncl to be sure. My tickets said it left n.y.c.
at 5pm and we left at 4pm.

Thanks for the information. I was misled. All sites like travelocity and expedia said 8-10. A bit of a bummer. I will take your good advice and make life easy for myself. That a 3 hour difference in port from what I thought to what the reality is. When can I book this excursion? Maybe I'll buy tickets the week before from a Disney store so I can just run right into the park. Is that a good idea?

[disneylynn]

That will also save you time.
Also the disney people are great. If you tell them your on limited time
They may put you to the front of the line on some rides.( They did that for us )
We did everything in epcot in 5 1/2 hours.
Good luck and have a great trip.

You can buy the shore excursion tickets any time online and they will have them in your room when you board the ship. Or you can just buy them when you get on the ship. They won't sell out, they'll just get more busses if there is a lot of interest. When we got to the port there had to be 12 busses waiting for us. Also, if you do Universal then don't buy the express ticket through NCL. It's too expensive and you can upgrade your regular ticket at the parks for $24 a person. NCL wants an extra $80 per person to book an express ticket through them. It's a ripoff. We went to Universal, paid the $85 a person for a regular ticket and transportation and then upgraded when we got to the park entrance.