Taking a Disney Cruise is one of my family’s favorite ways to vacation and definitely one of the best cruises for kids. There’s something for everyone in our family to do and enjoy. As a mom, I have to say that it’s one of the few times on a family vacation when I feel like I have gotten a vacation too! Our kids loved the kids’ clubs when they were younger, and adored connecting with other teens in the Vibe club as they were older.
Disney Cruise regulars know that decorating their cabin doors is just one way to rachet up an already wonderful family vacation experience. Here, we tell you where you can buy these magnets. Even better, we offer templates and step-by-step guides to making your own super cute Disney Cruise door magnets so you can save money and make the decorations all your own.
Read More: How Much Does a Cruise REALLY Cost?
Stateroom Door Decoration Tips for Your First Disney Cruise
Years ago, a clever person (I always wondered who it was) realized that the stateroom doors on a Disney cruise are metal and, therefore, magnets will stick to them. In the years since, decorating your door has become a beloved Disney Cruise tradition whether you’re sailing on the Disney Magic, Dream, Wish, Fantasy or Wonder.
Read More: Complete Disney Cruise packing list (includes a reminder to pack your Disney Cruise door magnets)!
Where can I get Disney Stateroom Door Magnets?
There are a lot of places that sell magnets designed for a DCL stateroom door. You can find them on Etsy or Amazon. You can also make your own magnets! It’s super easy, and you DO NOT need to be crafty to do this!
Making your own Disney Cruise Line magnets is a great way to save money for your vacation! We have a free printable template for you and the supplies to create the magnets are affordable (you might even have a lot of them around your house already).
What Types of Magnets Do You See on Doors on a Disney Cruise?
There are so many fun ways to celebrate on your Disney Cruise; door magnets are just one of them. If you’re on a special sailing like the Marvel, Pixar or Star Wars Day at Sea, you’ll see a lot of themed magnets on doors.
You’ll also see a lot of seasonal magnets for those on a Holiday or Halloween cruise. We cruised one year on Easter and there were a lot of cute Mickey Mouse magnets with Easter Bunny ears on doors.
You will often see several magnets on the door, with family names. This comes in handy if your teens make friends with other kids in the Teen Club. That way their friends can leave them notes on the small fish clipboard next to the cabin door.
Other Ways to Decorate a Disney Cruise Stateroom Door
In addition to magnets, you’ll also find small whiteboards and fish extenders on doors.
The whiteboards allow families traveling together in separate cabins to leave messages for one other. (We used them a lot when we traveled with our kids when they were teens since we let them roam the ship with their friends).
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A fish extender is a bag or pouch (like a skinny over-the-door shoe organizer) hung from the metal fish next to each cabin door on a cruise ship. It has a pocket and people leave messages and treats for one another in the pockets.
Read More: Mega Ship or Laidback Luxury: What’s the Best Cruise Line for You?
Free Disney Door Magnets Printable
We have a fun — and free! — printable Mickey Door Decoration for you.
The free printable includes several Mickey silhouettes with different hats so you can make one for each member of your family.
Included are:
- Simple Mickey Mouse
- Minnie Mouse with Bow (in 3 different colors)
- Pirate Mickey (swap out your other Disney magnet with this one on Pirate Night on the ship)
- Sailor Mickey
- Santa Hat Mickey (great for Holiday sailings)
- Witch Hat Mickey (if you’re lucky enough to be sailing on a Halloween on the High Seas voyage).
- “The ______ Family” Mickey – ready for you to personalize with letter stickers.
How To Make Disney Cruise Door Magnets
Supplies:
- Cardstock or Printable Magnetic Sheets
- Adhesive Magnetic Strips if using Cardstock
- Scissors
- Optional:
- Letter Stickers
- Lamination Machine (you can also have them laminated at an office supply store)
Option 1:
Print on magnet paper and cut out.
Option 2:
Print on Cardstock, Laminate, and add magnets.
This is the method I prefer. It’s more cost-effective as printable magnet sheets can be expensive. You are also more likely to run into printing problems due to the thickness of the sheets.
Lamination is inexpensive and easy, you can take the door magnets to your local copy shop to have them laminated, or use a home laminator. There are a lot of great ones on the market.
Also, using this method makes it easy to add letter stickers to your images to personalize your magnets.
How Do I Personalize the Magnets?
There are a few ways to personalize the Disney Cruise magnet template freebie that we have for you.
- You can upload the PDF to an online graphics software (like PicMonkey or Canva)
- If you have a machine like a Cricut, you can cut out letters from Vinyl and adhere them to the cardstock.
- You can use letter stickers.
If you’re someone who’s not super crafty, I recommend going the letter sticker route. There’s not any technology to fuss with and you don’t need any special craft tools. Just a pair of sharp scissors.
What Free Disney Font Should I Use?
If you choose to customize your magnet using online software like PicMonkey or cut out a name with a Cricut machine, you’re going to want to use a fun Disney font!
If you want to go for classic Disney, I recommend Waltograph. You can also infuse a bit of other “Disney Magic’ into your design by using an Avengers-inspired font like Avengero. Or a Nemo-inspired font like Lost Fish.
How to Assemble Your Family Disney Magnets
Print out the template from our free download. The download contains several pages, you only need to print the pages with the images you’d like to use.
Step One: Print
Be sure to print the image on cardstock, so your magnet will hold up well!
If you want to personalize your magnet, you can use one of the options I mentioned above.
Step Two: Personalize
I personalized my magnets using letter stickers I got at the craft store.
SheBuysTravel Tip: Line up your letter stickers on a ruler first. Just place the bottom edge of the sticker on the edge of the ruler. You can rearrange the stickers and check the placement before you adhere them to your Mickey’s head.
When you’ve got the stickers in the place you’d like, adhere the stickers starting with the top, then gently pull away from the ruler from underneath.
Step 3: Finishing
To finish your customized cruise door magnet, simply run the image through a laminator and cut it out with scissors.
Adhere some magnet strips to the back so that they will stick to your stateroom door.
SheBuysTravel Tip: You’re going to need more magnets than you think you do! We also recommend taking a few extra adhesive magnet strips with you on your cruise in case any of the magnets fall off during transport.
If you have a hot glue gun, you can use it to adhere the magnet strips to the back. It will be a bit more secure than the glue that comes already applied to the magnet strip.
Where to Buy Disney Cruise Door Decorations
If you don’t want to DIY a cute set of Disney door magnets, don’t stress! You can easily buy some. Just make sure you order them with plenty of time for them to arrive before your Disney Cruise Line Vacation.
If you want a set of personalized magnets I recommend Etsy. There are several sellers there that will customize your magnet set with names or dates.
You can also find several styles of magnets on Amazon.
10 responses
This really works for people? I was so excited when I discovered Avery Magnet Sheets before our first disney cruise in February, but when we boarded the boat and started to put them on our door they all immediately fell to the ground. Tried putting them on other peoples doors and no luck either. We bought some tiny magnets from the gift shop and those stuck nice and good. I assumed magnet paper just wasn’t very good and tossed them out. What did I do wrong? Could I have demagnetized them in my luggage by stacking them on top of each other? Xray machine?
Hi Matt,
I’m so sorry you had that problem. Ours stayed on the door, except for one small one that my daughter had bent in the middle. I’m not sure if stacking them could have demagnetized them but I did separate each of ours with paper so you never know. We also drove so ours didn’t go through an x-ray machine. I’m sorry I can’t be more help but I’m not exactly sure why they didn’t work.
No worries, I appreciate the response. I guess we’ll just have to go on another until we find ones that stick 😉
Hi!! What size did you make the full size Mickey/Minnie heads?
They were just big enough to fit on a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Unfortunately we are moving and they are packed away or I would measure them (usually we keep them on the fridge).
What type of printer did you use with the Magnet paper? Also, did you have to laminate these or are they good right after printing?
I just used a regular printer (I have the HP Envy) and set it for thick paper. Once I printed them, I cut them out and they were good to go…no laminating necessary. Have an amazing cruise!!!
Hi- I need help wtih the minnie… I’m trying to upload it into Canva and it’s saying it can’t upload a PDF, but that’s how it saved nad I can’t change. Advice?
I’m sorry I didn’t see this sooner! You may have already figured it out but you’ll have to find a program that converts your Minnie to JPG. I don’t know if this works for you but I can also use my printer to scan something to a memory card and select whether I want it saved as a PDF or JPEG. If you can do that with your printer, that would probably be easiest. Good luck!
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