12 ways to save money on a Disney cruise

Having been on 10 Disney cruises (and counting), there are at least two things I know for sure to be true: Disney Cruise Line is a tremendously fun and enjoyable vacation, and it can also be pricier than some other family-friendly cruise lines.

While we find a Disney cruise to offer solid overall value considering the price includes lodging, meals and top-notch entertainment, it still helps to find ways to bring down the overall cost a bit.

With that in mind, here’s how to save money on a Disney cruise — and how to find the cheapest Disney cruises, which tend to start around $500 to $700 per person for the entire experience, depending on if you want to sail from the U.S. or if you happen to find yourself overseas.

Related: Credit cards that can get you $1,000 or more in first-year value

Pick your dates carefully

An average Disney cruise costs more than one on, say, Carnival or Royal Caribbean, but that doesn’t mean it’s unattainably expensive. It simply doesn’t have to be if you’re flexible with when you sail.

The peak school break weeks are pricey, but with many three- and four-night sailings, you can choose a long weekend at different times of the year and avoid those costly weeks if you want to.

For example, two people can sail on Disney Dream for three nights from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas from Friday, Jan. 23, to Monday, Jan. 26, 2026, for $1,660.

Sure, you could probably book a hotel in Fort Lauderdale or the Bahamas for three nights for less than $1,660, but there are also many hotels in those areas that would cost more — and remember, in a regular hotel, that price wouldn’t include your food or Broadway-style entertainment the way it does on a Disney cruise.

Adding two kids to that same itinerary to make a trip for four people would raise the starting price to $2,889. That breaks down to about $240 per person, per day, which, again, isn’t cheap. But when you compare it to the cost of a trip to Walt Disney World (where base-level tickets alone can cost anywhere from $150 to almost $200 per day), it isn’t quite as bad as it may seem at first glance.

On the flip side, if you took that same trip during the winter school break, the starting price would be more than $5,000.

So, when you sail matters tremendously on the cost side of the equation, and if you can be flexible on dates, you can save hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars.

Related: 7 ways Disney Wish surprised me during a sailing

Let Disney choose your cabin

Another good way to save money on a Disney cruise is to let the cruise line choose your cabin in exchange for a discounted fare. These are called guaranteed rates.

In doing so, you pick the room type (inside, verandah, etc.) and are then guaranteed to be in that category, but the line selects exactly which room within that category you get.

These fares come with additional restrictions around payments and changes, but you can sometimes save up to 35% off standard rates. I’ve had great success with these discounted fares in the past. As long as you aren’t too picky about where your room is on the ship, this strategy can be a great way to save on your Disney cruise.

Book via a travel agent who gives you onboard credit

You can log onto the Disney Cruise Line website and book the cruise yourself, but you may not want to when you know a travel agent can do the work for you — and even score you some onboard credits in the process.

The amount varies, but I’ve gotten up to $750 as a statement credit when I booked a pricier Disney cruise at the concierge level. With more affordable cruises and cabins, expect the credit to be more in the $75 to $200 range.

While the amount will vary, you can often get somewhere between 5% and 10% of the price of your cruise back in the form of a gift card or shipboard spending credit through a travel agent or even via Costco Travel.

If you aren’t sure where to start, you can get offers from agents who want to book your cruise, sometimes with extra perks and credits, via CruiseCompete.

Pay with discounted Disney gift cards

At wholesale clubs, such as Sam’s Club, you can reliably purchase Disney gift cards at a discount. Sometimes, these discounts get even deeper around sales events such as Black Friday, even at places like Best Buy, where I’ve seen them available for 10% off. But on an ongoing basis, you can usually get a $500 Disney gift card at Sam’s Club for about $485.

That’s not a huge discount, but if you paid for your $3,000 Disney cruise with cards purchased at those rates, it would save you $90, which is more than enough to take yourself to the adults-only, high-end Palo restaurant available on most Disney ships.

If you have a Target credit card, you can also save 5% on Disney gift cards at Target. On that same $3,000 Disney Cruise, you’d save $150 by going that route.

Remember that you can often earn bonus points with certain credit cards when shopping for Disney gift cards, depending on where you purchase them. Office supply stores, grocery stores and even wholesale clubs can be good bonus categories for different rewards credit cards, allowing you to earn 3, 4 or 5 points per dollar spent with your card while you buy your gift cards.

Use your credit card points or miles

Not all credit card points and miles can easily translate to a “free” Disney cruise, but some can.

The easiest way to do this is to pay for some (or all) of the cruise with a credit card that lets you use your points or miles at a fixed value to erase a travel charge. This way, you could book with a travel agent to get that onboard credit and then use your points or miles to cover your deposit or final payment.

For example, if you put the charge on your Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, you would earn 2 miles per dollar and then could use the miles at 1 cent each in value to cover part of the cost. Just to give an easy example: If you wanted to cover $1,000 of your trip cost, you could redeem 100,000 Capital One miles toward the purchase.

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card: Earn 75,000 bonus miles (worth $750 in travel) after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening, plus a $250 Capital One Travel credit to use in your first cardholder year.

Upgrade at the port for less

This tip isn’t exactly about saving money overall, but it is a way to get a better room for less than the original list price.

If the cruise isn’t sold out, you can go to a special desk at the port before you board and ask about any space-available discounted upgrades. At Port Canaveral near Orlando, where all the Disney check-in desks are on the left side of the terminal building, the upgrade desk is the rightmost desk.

The cost to upgrade will be related to the room type you’ve booked and the one you’d like to upgrade to. The supervisor will use a preprinted chart to find that cost differential. It will cost less than if you had booked a better room initially, sometimes by about half, though that number varies.

On a Disney Dream cruise a few years ago, I was able to upgrade to a larger and more deluxe cabin for only $34. Get to the terminal as soon as you can if you are hoping for a suite or concierge-level upgrade because those are very limited and go quickly.

While I haven’t done it, I’ve also heard that even cheaper prices become available on board once the ship sets sail.

Related: Is Disney Cruise concierge-level worth it? We tested it to find out

Save 10% by putting a deposit down for your next cruise while you’re on board

The easiest way to save 10% on a Disney cruise doesn’t work for your first cruise, but it can work for all subsequent ones.

When you are on a Disney Cruise Line ship, you can put a $250 placeholder deposit down on a future Disney cruise to be used within two years. This can be done in your Disney Cruise Line Navigator app while on board.

You don’t have to pick which cruise you want to do at that moment, but by putting that $250 in as a placeholder, you can not only apply that $250 when you ultimately pick your next Disney cruise but also save 10% off the rate (valid on most dates and room types) in the process.

That one step can save you hundreds of dollars on your vacation. Worst-case scenario: That $250 is refunded to you if you don’t book another cruise in the next two years. That happened to us during the coronavirus pandemic, and the money came back automatically and without a problem once the 24 months were up.

Related: 15 ways that cruising newbies waste money on their first cruise 

BYOB and skip the extras

If you are looking to trim costs on your Disney cruise, bring things from home that you would otherwise likely purchase.

For example, you can bring up to six cans of beer or two bottles of wine per person age 21 and up. Instead of paying cruise prices for those beverages, you can bring what you want from home at regular land-based prices up to those maximum limits.

You can also bring unopened water and factory-sealed snacks on board. These come in handy for shore excursions or when you need to hydrate by the pool. (Better yet, pack a refillable water bottle.)

Since a Disney cruise already includes meals, room service, snacks, soft serve ice cream, fountain drinks and plenty of entertainment, you don’t need to spend anything additional on board if you don’t want to. This is especially true on a new-to-you ship and on those shorter three- and four-night cruises where there is more than enough to do and explore already.

If your sailing goes to Disney Cruise Line’s private island destinations, such as Castaway Cay or Lookout Cay, beach chairs, umbrellas, the ocean waterslide, the splashpad and lunch on the island are also included at no extra charge.

Seek out spa discounts

If you’re focused on saving money, you’ll want to skip the spa entirely while on your cruise. But if nothing says vacation like a massage, you can find a discount on onboard spa services on a Disney cruise.

I’ve received a port-day discount of about 20% because most people book their treatments on sea days rather than when the ship is docked (and therefore less busy since most people are ashore).

I’ve also received $50 off a second service while checking out for my first. It’s fairly common for cruise ship spas to offer discounts when you book multiple treatments. I also highly recommend going to the spa raffle that often happens on the very first afternoon, as there are sometimes manager specials that offer substantial discounts over the posted prices that you can only book at that time.

If you don’t see a discount advertised, just ask at the spa desk. That’s how I got hooked up with spa deals on previous Disney cruises.

Use Disney Visa onboard cruise discounts

In addition to a 20% discount for select spa treatments, Disney Visa credit card holders also get 10% off a Castaway Cay package that includes snorkel gear, a bike rental and an inner tube.

If you need time to spread out payments, those with a Disney® Premier Visa® Card (see rates and fees) can also get a 0% annual percentage rate on their Disney vacation for six months (after that a variable APR of 18.24% to 27.24% will apply). Right now, the card has a welcome bonus of $400 in statement credits after spending $1,000 on the card in the first three months of account opening.

Related: The best credit cards for booking cruises

Book early and go during off-peak dates

This is a no-brainer tip to avid cruisers, but if you are newer to cruising, know that booking early and sailing on off-peak dates are great ways to save money on a Disney cruise.

I booked our Alaska cruise for the summer of 2023 the day the booking calendar opened, over a year in advance, because the price typically increases as the sailing date nears. You can sometimes find last-minute specials, but most of the time, cruise prices only go one direction — up.

With Disney, you’ll typically put 20% down when you first book and then have until much closer to sailing to pay off the remaining 80%.

As mentioned earlier, date flexibility will also help you save money on a Disney cruise. The same itinerary that costs $2,000 in September will be up to three times more expensive if you want to sail over winter break.

If you can’t find any affordable prices, I recommend scrolling the cruise list by price instead of starting with the perfect date or itinerary. A sailing you may not have initially considered may turn out to be the perfect vacation option.

Sail from Singapore on Disney’s largest-ever ship

OK, yes, this one is a stretch.

However, if you find yourself in Singapore (or use your airline miles to get there), you can sail on what is often the cheapest Disney Cruise Line sailing on what will be Disney’s largest ship.

Three-night sailings on Disney Adventure out of Singapore have starting prices at just over $1,000 for double occupancy, making them currently the least expensive of Disney’s sailings. As an added perk, if you want to visit Tokyo Disney Resort while you are in Asia to make it a full globe-trotting Disney trip, your wallet will be in for a treat there, as park tickets and food are a fraction of what they cost at the U.S. Disney parks.

So, before you automatically rule this option out, do the math and price it out … odds are you’ll find it’s more affordable, especially if you use your airline miles to get there.

If Asia isn’t your preferred cruise destination, consider Australia and New Zealand instead. You can often find some of the lowest prices of the year if you sail out of these locales.

Bottom line

Believe it or not, a Disney cruise can be cheaper than a trip to the Disney theme parks. A cruise is often much less stressful, too.

If you stack some of these tips together to save money on your Disney cruise, you could cumulatively knock anywhere from 10% to 25% off the list price. Remember, too, to try to strategically pick a sailing on the more affordable end of the spectrum for even more savings.

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