Disney Cruise Line announced itineraries from Fall 2025 to Spring 2026 for the Magic, Wonder, Dream, Fantasy legacy ships, plus the newer Treasure and Wish. This post covers the destinations, followed by commentary on pricing, what’s missing, DCL pent-up demand, and booking ASAP vs. waiting.
Note that “opening day” booking for the general public will begin on June 28, 2024. Do not call today–these itineraries cannot be booked yet by anyone. Prior to that, there will be a staggered advance booking period beginning next Monday. Here’s the eligibility timeline:
- June 24, 2024 – Pearl Castaway Club Members
- June 25, 2024 – Platinum Castaway Club Members, Golden Oak Club Residents
- June 26, 2024 – Gold Castaway Club Members
- June 27, 2024 – Silver Castaway Club Members, Disney Vacation Club Members, Adventures by Disney Insiders
- June 28, 2024 – All Guests
It’s always a good idea to use an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner to do the work for you, but especially for opening day bookings. For one thing, using them to book your cruise is a great way to save time and stress. For another, their services are free to you since they’re paid commission by DCL on the reservation. You can also book directly on disneycruise.com or by calling Disney Cruise Line at 888-325-2500. Anyway, here are full details about the DCL Fall 2025 to Spring 2026 sailings…
Four ships–the Disney Fantasy, Disney Wish, Disney Treasure and Disney Dream–will regularly sail to one or both of Disney Cruise Line’s signature island destinations, Castaway Cay and/or Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point, offering voyages filled with even more Disney magic.
Tropical itineraries await with sailings from the Pacific Coast and Gulf of Mexico in late 2025 and early 2026. A third season of voyages will embark across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific on the Disney Wonder from October 2025 to February 2026.
As part of Disney Cruise Line’s collection of themed sailings, families will make memories on beloved holiday cruises with Halloween on the High Seas and Very Merrytime sailings in September, October, November, and December 2025.
Here’s a graphic offering an easily digestible visual rundown of Disney Cruise Line’s Fall 2025 to Spring 2026 sailings:
For even more details, here’s a listing of every single Disney Cruise Line sailing for these two seasons:
When it comes to commentary, as I shared back when the Summer 2025 Itineraries were announced, we cancelled all of our cruises last year when we found out Sarah was pregnant. We had booked the inaugural sailing to Lighthouse Point, but also cancelled that when the opening date for Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea was announced (first world/blogger problems).
With the benefit of hindsight, I’m glad we didn’t end up going to Lighthouse Point early-on. The fly problem does appear to be very real, but also something that’s completely fixable. I doubt Disney is going to be chased off the island by insects, although it would be mildly amusing if they had to abandon ship, so to speak, because they didn’t take bugs into account. More likely, they’ll figure it out–and quickly. As someone who hates bugs (not “scared” of them, just cannot stand them), that would have driven me crazy and I probably would’ve overreacted (negatively) to the pests.
On the other hand, as someone who clocks at least 20,000 steps every single day when visiting Walt Disney World, I probably would have “underreacted” to the walk along the pier to Lighthouse Point. Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if others didn’t say anything, and have admittedly chuckled a little when seeing so many people post screenshots of their phone stopwatch showing times of like 9 to 12 minutes. That’s the walk from the Little Mermaid rooms to the bus stops at Art of Animation.
Am I missing something? Maybe so, as this walk also isn’t shaded. (Disney didn’t think to add shade? Who would’ve guessed?!?!) Perhaps it feels worse than the normal ~10 minute stroll at Disney, especially since it’s an expanse of nothingness in direct sunlight and you can see how far you need to go from the outset. That might be daunting. Regardless, I’m also optimistic DCL will come up with solutions to this if it’s truly problematic.
In terms of these actual itineraries, the biggest things that stick out to me are a lack of sailings out of San Diego and New York City in Fall 2025. There’s probably good reason for this, as Disney Cruise Line now has a second home port in Florida, so there’s no “need” to send a ship to NYC. Also, we frequently saw last-minute deals on those itineraries, which is part of why that became an aspirational itinerary for me. Guess we should’ve done that when we had the chance–now we’ll have to find a different way to Quebec.
The lack of San Diego sailings for Halloween and Christmas is more surprising. California is a large and highly populous state. (Not that New York isn’t.) It’s also home to a huge Disney fan base. (Again, not that New York isn’t.) It’s just wild to me that Disney Cruise Line wouldn’t want to have the fan-favorite seasonal sailings out of California.
Perhaps I’m underestimating the demand out of Florida as Walt Disney World guests do land and sea cruises? If it isn’t as high out of San Diego, maybe the same should be better marketed with Disneyland + DCL? After all, Disneyland at Halloween and Christmas is far better than Walt Disney World!
Nothing else really sticks out to me, but also, I do not purport to be a DCL expert. The itineraries out of NYC and San Diego are the ones I’ve most wanted to do, and those aren’t available, so that’s very apparent to me. Perhaps the ‘replacements’ are far better options that resonate more with DCL diehards, and I’m just oblivious to it.
Every year opening day price-points make waves on social media, as prices always jump. This is not really a surprise at this point, but it’s nonetheless easy to be taken aback when first seeing each year’s prices…especially if you remember what prices were 5 years ago.
This has been especially true with Disney Cruise Line in the last couple of years as compared to the post-reopening period. We talk a lot about pent-up demand, and it’s important to recognize that DCL has seen a tremendously lagged version of that. Remember, there were restrictions in place through 2022, and ‘revenge travel’ didn’t really arrive in full force until last year.
We’ve had some sticker shock in looking at DCL prices lately, especially as compared to the post-reopening period when Sarah went on several sailings with friends–there were a ton of last minute steals back then. Now, it’s the opposite. Sorta like Walt Disney World in 2022 when resort discounts were scarce.
My hope is that a similar scenario plays out with Disney Cruise Line. That pent-up demand will start exhausting itself, discounts will return, and pricing will trend back towards “normal” levels. It does seem like that’s finally starting to happen, thankfully, but I’m not sure to what extent. I just know we have seen more deals and have heard reports that there are even better options available to Cast Members. Progress!
Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that opening day stateroom rates are usually on the lower end of the eventual pricing spectrum. Which is to say that as itineraries start to book up and stateroom inventory becomes more scarce, rates invariably increase. Pricing is demand-based, with cruises in recent years rarely decreasing in price–increases are far more common. (Basically, this is my warning to not bank on the exhaustion of pent-up demand leading to price decreases. It will happen with some sailings, but do not count on it happening across the board. History is not on your side.)
Ultimately, it’ll be interesting to see what happens with Disney Cruise Line, just like all other aspects of travel. We already have Megatron’s first cruise booked for this year (finally getting the chance for a do-over of the Very Merrytime Cruise) and my guess is that we’ll be doing another sailing in 2025, but probably in summer rather than any of these (especially since there’s no San Diego).
From my perspective, summer is the ideal time to do Disney Cruise Line–it’s my least-favorite time to travel pretty much everywhere else due to climate and crowds. (“Everywhere else” meaning the places I like to go: theme parks and National Parks.) Since the ships are capacity-constrained, largely indoors, and have a cool breeze outside in the evenings, I find them to be great summertime alternatives to the normal tourist destinations. There’s more to it than that, but anyway, that’s a rundown of the Disney Cruise Line itineraries for Summer 2025!
Planning to set sail aboard one of the Disney Cruise Line ships? Read our comprehensive Disney Cruise Line Guide to prepare for your trip, plan entertainment and other activities, and learn what to expect from your Disney cruise! If you want personalized recommendations for Disney Cruise Line itineraries, ships, and more, click here to get a cruise quote from a no-fee Authorized Disney Vacation Planner. They can find you all of the current discounts, and help you plan the details of your cruise!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of these Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 Disney Cruise Line itineraries? Any that appeal to you? Thoughts on pent-up demand for cruises starting to exhaust itself? Have you spotted any (worthwhile) DCL deals recently? Will you be booking on opening day, or taking a wait and see approach hoping to score a deal later? Do you agree or disagree with our perspective? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
