How To Discount And Save On Your Next Disney Cruise

Our family has been working hard this past year to pay off our upcoming Disney Cruise to Alaska.  We booked our cruise while onboard our Mexican Riviera Cruise last February in 2012 saving us 10% and giving us $200.00 of onboard credit.  Once home we quickly transferred our reservation to our favorite travel agent and received another $250 of onboard credit.  By doing those two things we have shaved a nice $581.00 off of the regular price and giving us $450.00 on board credit.
My husband while reading through all of those interesting threads on the DIS boards at www.disboards.com  discovered that you can use Disney Gift Cards to pay off your cruise, and you can buy those gift cards at Target. When you use your Target Red Card you save an immediate 5% off of your purchase, even gift cards.  So now our remaining balance of $5276.00 can be paid off while we save 5% using the gift cards purchased with our Red Card saving us another $263.00.
We have already reserved our excursions and now know how much we will owe on those once onboard.  To save another 5% we have gone out and purchased more gift cards at target and will use those to put on to our account once we get to the ship.  We have saved another $52.00.
Finally we have been able to save up $200.00 in Disney Rewards points by using our Disney Visa.  This money will now help pay for all of our cruise expenditures from pictures, souvenirs, tips, and spa treatments.  
All together we have saved over $1546.00 off of our Alaskan cruise with Disney. 
So, as you sail away on your next adventure with DCL remember to book your dummy cruise before you disembark.  We always call it a dummy cruise because we book a three night cruise in the lowest category with a date in the cheapest season so that we can make a minimal down payment.   Then when we are home we watch for the upcoming itineraries and when we see one we are interested in we transfer our dummy cruise to this date and continue to save 10% and receive our onboard credit and the process starts all over again.


So You've Booked Your Cruise Now What?