What mementoes can you bring home from the Disney Cruise for little/no $$

What mementoes can you bring home

from the Disney Cruise for little/no $$

       We all enjoy bringing home mementoes from our trips. I know I want to get things to remind me of all the wonderful fun I had while was having my adventure. Problem is we can’t always afford to buy all the fun things we wish to. Even if we did buy them all what do we do with that large sombrero or stuffed fish that demanded to be purchased?

       There are lots of things you can bring home from your Disney Cruise that cost little to nothing. For a small amount of money you can purchase post cards. These give you pictures of the ship and/or ports you could not get otherwise. You can add them to a scrapbook or frame them to hang on your wall. You can purchase stamps from the various ports you go to. You can either keep them pristine or mail them home to yourself on a postcard. These can be framed or put in a scrapbook with your postcards as you desire.

       There are wonderful drinks you can get in plastic glasses you can bring home. The drink is about $7 and you keep the plastic goblet it comes in. these come in both alcoholic and non alcoholic versions. Watch for discounts toward the end of deck parties and other events! Be aware the discounts are offered on the drinks they have already made and are left over. You take what is there or don’t get them. These glasses are a wonderful reminder of fun times when you get home.

Take a good digital camera and lots of batteries (or several sets of rechargeable batteries and a charger) with extra memory chips or a laptop computer you can download the chips too. Digital pictures can be made into picture CD’s or DVD’s with slideshows and music to relive the magic of your trip for years to come.

Remember to take your camera to character meet and greets. In fact keep your camera with you wherever you go because you don’t know when you will see something you wish you could take a picture of. You also never know when you will see a character just walking around the ship. This can save you lots of money on the professional photos. Usually the professional photographer will take pictures with your camera as well as theirs if you ask. If they will not, and for some reason there are times they say no, you can usually ask the person in line behind you to take a picture or two. You can offer to do the same for them making a new friend in the process. If there is a crewmember around that is not a photographer they are always willing to snap a picture for you.

If you are traveling with a large group of people look into sharing a photo package at Shutters. Another idea is to get together and split the cost of a photo CD from Shutters. You can have all the professionally shot pictures for your entire group put on one CD for a single price. I believe the price is around $350 (too expensive for a single family in my opinion) but I do not know the exact price for sure. This is not widely advertised. They don’t have the information on the website and you need to ask for this at Shutters when you get on the ship. Once you purchase this photo CD you can designate one member of your group to make copies for everyone. They can take it home and mail it to everybody or, if they bring a computer and blank disks do it before you leave the ship. You can then print the pictures you like at home if you have a good printer or take them to a store and have them printed. You not only get your children and spouse’s picture you get the pictures of everybody in your group! I have friends who did this and they ended up with well over 350 pictures of people in their group from all over the ship and Castaway Cay. It worked out to a little over $1 per picture for the total price!! Well worth the price, especially if you split this between four or more family groups.

       I suggest you pack a divided travel folder to pack away print material to bring home. This will keep it from getting folded or wrinkled during your trip. Anything small thing that may get damaged drop into the folder.

The first free mementoes you will receive is your luggage tags. It will be mailed to you several weeks before your sail date. We scanned our luggage tags before putting them on our bags. Then when we returned home we carefully cut them off and stuck them in our folder until we can get them into a scrapbook. You will also get a luggage tag at the end of the cruise that indicates where you can find your luggage in the port terminal and what disembarking group you are in. Ask your room steward for an extra one for your scrapbook. Grab an extra map of the ship as well!

When you get to your cabin you will find some Disney Cruise Line Stationary for writing a note home along with a couple of complimentary post cards. I suggest you save those as you can’t purchase these anywhere.

       Everyday you are given a Personal Navigator. I went to guest services and got a second copy or maybe even two. Take a highlighter with you and mark one copy with the things you want to do. Maybe even check off the things you did after that so you can have them to look back at later to jog your memory on what you did each day. The days can get so busy it is easy to lose track of what you did each day.

       The kids have crafts they make in the kids clubs every day. Those are always fun to keep and look back on. If it is something your child plays with take a picture of it before they play with it too much so you can remember their creativity. I suggest you get your child a inexpensive digital camera and put their name and your cabin number on it. They will see a lot of characters in the kids clubs and will want to take pictures of and with them. They will also make many new friends they will want pictures of so they can remember them.

       There are many different lectures/classes onboard each has printed directions for what they taught. For example, when you sit in on a Disney Art of Entertainment lecture on cooking they give you printed copies of the recipes to take home. If you enjoy towelgomi you can get directions for some of the fun towel critters they leave in your room at a class that teaches you how to make them. Besides being a fun thing to do at home they are good mementoes to remember you time on the ship. Even if you did not go to the lecture/class you can pick up the paperwork if you happen to go past the area before they clean them up.

       If you wish to get either all of the Princess’ or the classic Disney characters autographs all together here is a fun way to do it. Take something along with you to have signed. It can be a pillowcase, shirt or a picture frame matt. The choice is yours. Let your mind get creative on what you want signed. Drop it off at the Guest Services Desk in the Atrium Lobby near the start of your trip. Sometime toward the middle end of your trip it will be returned to your stateroom signed by the characters you requested. You can purchase something in the gift shop and have them sign it if you wish. We purchased a picture of the Disney Wonder in Mexico and had the classic Disney characters sign it for us. We will frame it and hang it in a place of honor later.

       This may sound strange but take a small note pad and pencil. Use this to give new friends your contact information and if you wish and to write down their contact information. This way you can keep contact with these new friends when you get home.

       You can also find things like napkins and other items with the cruise logo or characters on them. Let me know what other free or low cost mementoes’ you like to bring home.