I consider myself to be a very lucky man on a number of fronts, but the one that pertains most to this endeavor is that I’ve managed to find a way to sail on all of Disney’s extraordinary cruise ships. Of course with another one under construction, I now have a new goal to shoot for, but I digress. The folks at Disney have long been operating state of the art facilities, entertaining guests in high style and providing imaginative and memorable accommodations for some time now. As such, the move into cruising was actually a natural fit. They dipped their tows in the water (so to speak) back in the 1980s by partnering with another cruise line.
Oceanic at Nassau, Bahamas in July, 1986. Photo © Robert Halstead
And believe it or not… that particular ship is still sailing (quite the story actually), but the same can not be said for the rest of the vessels that made up what was then the “Premier Line”
After realizing that the idea was viable, they established their own cruise line and ordered the first vessels in the late 1990s. The result was a pair of unique ships built in Italy by Fincantieri. These two Signorinas were very different in look and feel from nearly all the cruise liners built before, during or even after that time frame. First of all they didn’t have casinos (and
DCL is still the only major cruise line for which this is true). Instead, the Disney folks used all that space to create spaces specifically designed for kids and separated by age groups. Then they went about creating spaces that were designed just for adults as well as areas geared toward combined family enjoyment. Their entry into the business actually changed the cruising industry (even though they only had two ships at first).
Our first DCL experience was aboard the younger of the sisters: Disney Wonder.
We did a Land-Sea adventure in 2007 splitting the trip between POFQ and the Wonder. A few things didn’t go as planed (which is normal for all vacations), but the end results exceeded our expectations in almost innumerable ways. The one unanimous verdict among the members of my family was the time aboard the Wonder was nowhere near long enough to suit us.
Our second encounter with the folks at DCL was a full blown seven day Western Caribbean itinerary in 2009 aboard the elder Signorina: Disney Magic.
Verdict: longer is better. We had the time of our lives. We even topped it off by heading over to WDW to spend a couple more days at CRB and hitting the parks with a few passes leftover from a prior trip.
At just about the time that we were sailing on the Wonder, DCL announced that they were planning to start building new ships. Just before we sailed on the Magic, they actually began cutting steel for the first of these new sea fairing sisters. The keel of Disney Dream was laid on 26 August 2009 at the Meyer Werft shipyards in Papenburg, Germany.
The heavy construction on hull number S.687 was completed on June 1, 2010 when the final piece of the ship, the bow, was put into place.
The “Float-Out” of the first of Disney’s new Fräuleins took place on October 30, 2010 (the same day the band my son is a member of was winning their second consecutive state title, but that’s a very different trip report that will have to be reserved for another arena).
DCL took possession of the ship in December of 2010 and the christening was done at Port Canaveral with the official maiden voyage taking place on January 26, 2011
Like all Disney fans, we knew that this ship was being built, but once we’d disembarked from the Magic in 2009, we really didn’t have a plan to get aboard her any time in the near future. The Dream was destined to take over the shorter three/four day itineraries currently being undertaken by the Wonder, and we’d decided that a longer cruise would suit us better. Once the Fantasy is completed, she will be taking over the longer cruises currently provided by the Magic and although we certainly wanted to sail on one of the new Disney ships, we figured we’d be waiting at least until 2012 or later to be able to pull it off. But things change. That’s a general rule of life, and an almost mandatory occurrence in relationship to travel and vacations.
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Can't wait to read more 
