Disney Winter 2021 At-Home “Cruise”

As a family, we don’t like just sitting around, even in the time of COVID. However, we are also careful, especially in times like these. Therefore rather than try and push the boundaries of what is safe, we decide to create our own Disney vacation. If you are looking for how we prepped see the original post here.

Below I will be sharing our forthcoming plans below. We will obviously include downtime and things like movies and playing games throughout the days, but the detail below are specific Disney activities we are looking to do. This post will be updated if we have anything meaningful to add for everyone to use as we continue to prepare.

It should be noted the upcoming plans for our “cruise” is a lot more laid out and structured as we are putting a lot more thought into it than we did during the summer. However, if you have ideas of your own or suggestions please post them in the comments for others! If you are looking for what we did on other “trips” you can find them here.

Embarkation Day

The plan is to start Saturday night after Shabbat. Generally, our kids make a pretty big mess in our downstairs so while we send them down to clean up we will be setting up.

• Decorate the door they will be coming in from with streamers
• Give each of them lanyards and their Key to the World cards we still have from previous cruises. (While you can buy items like these on E-bay if you haven’t been on a cruise before you can probably safely skip this since your family will not know what they are missing)
• Give them their Navigators for the rest of the night.
• Start our Adventures Away Sailaway party. There are a couple of ways to handle this yourself:
  • Show on your TV one that was recorded in the past that was posted on YouTube (e.g. https://youtu.be/I64kKbZDivE?t=123) and get into it with your family
  • Use the Kosher in the Kingdom Spotify playlist based specifically on the Adventure Away songs!
  • Put together your own playlist on a platform like Spotify and have your own party!
• While the kids cool down with dinner and a Disney themed movie we will be sneaking upstairs to surprise everyone with the famous animal towels

Day at “Sea”/Castaway Cay

A day at sea on a normal cruise is filled with activities and our kids spend 75% of the time at the kid’s clubs playing where they have activities of their own. We are going to try and replicate some of the best and easiest ones.

• Throughout the day we plan on playing a Spotify playlist with the types of songs you hear on the ship on our Alexas.
• Breakfast buffet with cereal, Mickey pancakes, and donut holes (similar to our meals at Cabanas which includes Krispy Kream donut holes)
• Disney has a great series known as “Anyone Can Cook”, inspired by the Ratatouille movie (they were really accommodating for our kids’ kosher needs.) Therefore we are going to find something simple, like brownies, and separate all the ingredients into little bowls and have the kids cook with us
• One of the more entertaining things on a Disney Cruise is funnel vision. However, since we live in the northeast, and going outside to a pool is not always the best idea, instead we bought plastic balls and a kiddie pool to create a “pool” for the winter and will set the kids up with a movie in our basement
• One of the smartest approaches to recreating a cruise is my wife’s idea to have our kids be the characters while we take pictures with them. So as part of our character greetings, each kid will get a new Disney-themed costume and we will take pictures with them.
• In recent years the ships add their own Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, and so we will do our own version with the girls getting “makeovers” and our son getting something to make sure he doesn’t get left out (TBD)
• During the stop at Castaway Cay, the main food served is a BBQ, so when we go we also try and match up our kosher food to be BBQ style. In that vein for dinner, we are planning a BBQ (indoors with a grill pan) including setting the stage with Luau decorations for Castaway Cay.

Day at “Port”

While we obviously can’t go on any really adventurous trips since it remains a pandemic, we are planning on doing small trips that safely continue our cruise at port.

• Breakfast buffet with cereal, Mickey waffles, and muffins (similar to our meals at Cabanas)
• Trip to Target for a scavenger hunt and limited spending budget
• Trip to a pool. This item is still up in the air. With all of my travel, I have a lot of hotel points and when looking into it, there is a hotel nearby where we can book a room for a small number of points that also has an indoor pool with safe and reasonable COVID accommodations (max 10 people, reserved slots, etc.). We are considering booking a room merely for the use of the pool. This is still TBD, but an interesting idea to us.
• Finally, our family loves Pirate Night. We plan on of course all dressing like pirates but we will also plan on having a Pirate Pizza Party and we will try and recreate the deck party by handing out more glow-in-the-dark items and showing the deck party from youtube. (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ4-b79wA4E)

Have other ideas we should add or you are planning for? Add them in the comments below!