Specialty Cruises at Disney World
If you are looking for the BEST way to celebrate at Disney, one of my favorites is a Specialty Fireworks Cruise! These are a fun little splurge to do with a group of your closest friends and family and a truly unique way to experience both Disney World and the Fireworks.
You can hear even more about it on our Patreon Exclusive Podcast:
What is it?
These are private cruises on a pontoon boat for a group of up to 10 guests. You can do one for the Magic Kingdom Fireworks or the Epcot Fireworks and you’ll cruise around with your boat captain for around an hour before watching the show. Your Captain will give you fun history and secrets about the areas around the lake and you get some light snacks and drinks included.
Pricing for these cruises start around $449 plus tax, but remember, if you have an Annual Pass or Disney Visa, you do get a discount! These cruises can be booked up to 60 days in advance by calling the Disney Recreation line. If you are celebrating, be sure to let them know as they often have balloons and banners to decorate the boats and it’s included with the price of your cruise!
Guests of all ages are invited, just be aware that children under the age of 12 are required to wear a life jacket which are provided by your captain. Infants are not required to wear one, but do keep in mind that for safety reasons, they do count towards your 10 guests.
The Experience - Magic Kingdom
We have been super lucky in that we have done BOTH the Magic Kingdom AND Epcot. Although they are essentially the same offering, they are very different experiences!
For Magic Kingdom, you can choose to have your boat launch be from basically any of the Magic Kingdom surrounding resorts:
- The Contemporary
- The Grand Floridian
- The Polynesian
- Wilderness Lodge
- Fort Wilderness Campgrounds
Included in your cruise are some light snacks and sodas, this is NOT to be mistaken for a dessert cruise. You get things like chips, packaged snacks, and rice krispies as well as sodas and waters. If you want to bring any additional snacks or drinks (like adult beverages) you are absolutely welcome to as long as nothing is in glass containers!
You will board your boat around an hour before fireworks and your boat captain takes you all around 7 Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake. While touring around, you’ll get to see things like where the old river county waterpark used to be, the ‘Bat Caves’ and the famous ‘Shoe Tree’. You’ll also learn about the history of places like Discovery Island and other fun facts about the area. (I don’t want to spoil it all!)
Then when it’s time for fireworks, your captain will position you right out front of Magic Kingdom, basically right outside of where the ferry boat launches are in front of the train station.
Your captain will pipe in the music to the boat and you get to experience just how MASSIVE these fireworks are! You can even still see where Tinker Bell flies out of the castle!
After the fireworks, your captain will take you over to watch the Electrical Water Pageant which is a parade of light up floats that perform to music every single night all around Bay Lake and 7 Seas Lagoon! This is also the ONLY way you will ever get to see these ‘up close’ and it’s truly a super cool experience.
The Experience - Epcot
The general idea of this experience is very similar to the Magic Kingdom one, however for this you will be exploring the areas around the Epcot Resorts and Hollywood Studios. The boat dock for this experience it at the Yacht Club Arena which is a short walk from the back entrance to Epcot.
You’ll learn a ton of fun facts about the resorts, (even the Swan & Dolphin Resorts!) and parks, and this one is more focused on the architecture itself rather than the nature and wildlife around the Magic Kingdom lakes.
When it’s time for fireworks, you will get to go INSIDE of the park and the boats get tied off in front of the bridge between the France and UK Pavilions. This is also a truly unique way to see these fireworks and with the brand new Luminous Show, we LOVED this one!
This one doesn’t have anything extra afterwards, so you’ll be going back to the boat dock right after fireworks, BUT I think there are some big differences to consider between the two to see which might be the right one for your family.
Let’s Compare, Shall We?
I have to be honest, personal opinion… we love the Epcot one best. Although both are fantastic, we really appreciated the fact that the Epcot one was less distracting as your boat was stationary, turned off, and tied up during the fireworks. The Magic Kingdom one, since it is free floating, your boat is moving back and forth to stay in place the entire show and you do have the occasional horns going off from the ferry boats too.
We also really liked learning about some of these resorts that people don’t talk about as often, but I think alot of that had to be credited to our captain and how interactive she made it. Our Magic Kingdom captain was also great! But he definitely was more about telling us the history versus getting us involved. I think that might be a personal taste and honestly it is kind of luck of the draw when it comes to who your boat captain is. (No, like literally they draw names to assign the boats! lol)
We do love that you get the added bonus of the Electrical Water Pageant with the Magic Kingdom cruise and I also would HIGHLY recommend doing this one in the summer months when the sun is out longer. We’ve done one in the summer and one in the winter and we appreciated that the one in the summer was still light out for most of the cruise so we could see alot of the areas we were touring AND we got to watch a beautiful sunset! During the winter, it gets dark pretty much immediately, so your captain will have a flashlight to help illuminate the different areas, but we simply preferred the other time we did it.
Check Out Our Video About The Electrical Water Pageant:
How Do You Choose?
Either experience is going to be a fantastic one that your family will be talking about for years to come! Alot of it just comes down to personal preference. If you’re family is trying to get away from the crazy fireworks crowds, the Magic Kingdom cruise one is one of the BEST ways to see this show! If you are interested in learning more about the resorts, or you want a more immersive fireworks experience, I highly recommend the Epcot one.
It’s an amazing hidden gem experience at Disney that truly I can’t recommend enough! Want to learn even more? Check out our Vlog from the First time we did this cruise!
