I repeat: fine the parents/stateroom!Hi,
I was on the same sailing as well and we had horrible service in the dining rooms as well. We had the first seating and unless we skipped dessert, we would not finish dinner until 8:00 every night! We missed so much of the family entertainment and character experiences that were scheduled between the 7-7:30 start time. Our servers were very nice and worked hard but I honestly think they are overworked. They looked so tired and upon speaking to many different servers throughout the week.....most said they use their time off to sleep instead of getting off the ship (which I do feel bad about...). We did run into language barriers too....esp with our stateroom host and you could tell he was new. We had a hotel manager outside our room with him many days...and we could tell he was nervous. I also agree with the whole kids running around unsupervised. We had numerous instances of kids running down the halls after midnight and one night around 230 am they were actually kicking people's room service dishes up and down the hallway and slamming them into the hallway walls and breaking them.
I totally agree with the pool too. We could not find a chair on any sea day on the pool deck and the pools were so crowded and cloudy we did not let our 5 year old swim during the day...we did go on the aqua duck but only at night since during the day the wait was 60 minutes or more. The other thing we were disappointed in was that Nemos Reef was not open later for the little ones. It closes at 7. Many times at night I would not let my daughter go in the pool because there were kids unsupervised in the pool and they were rough. One night in the Mickey pool there were 3 kids....maybe 12, 8 and 6. They were wrestling each other and tossing water at each other with cups. Many people left the pool. I went to cast member and asked if they could help and they did ask them to stop but we were told that they can not ask them to leave the pool! What???? Kids are being rough, bothering other guests, and could possibly hurt themselves and they are UNSUPERVISED and you can't ask them to leave the pool? Totally baffling to me? So instead the children who had proper supervision and were acting appropriately had to leave the pool for their own safety??? I will never understand??? I told my husband I wanted to see how long it would take for a parent to come down to get them so I waited and watched the funnel vision movie. It took about an hour for the parents to show up....and when they did, they were all primped up with cocktails in their hands....they must have been at one of the adult clubs or maybe a Palo dinner....guess they don't believe in kids clubs.....but the kids being so young....swimming alone was not a safe option.
We were on the Magic the week prior and our experience was night and day. I have to admit I left the Fantasy a little disappointed. Now I fully understand the crew members fears on the Magic. They are so afraid they are going to lose their spots on the Magic and be transferred to the Fantasy. They all are begging to stay on the ship when their contract is up. Many of them are trying to stay under the radar....
Hopefully Disney can get things together on the Fantasy...it's a beautiful ship. I just hope Disney did not make it too crowded.
Hi there. We were on the cruise with you and had horrible service in the MDRs as well. After 4 cruises on the Magic with amazing service we were very disappointed. No allergies in my family so I don't know what the excuse was. Huge language barrier, incorrect items, timing WAY off. Our assistant server was great though!!
Hi,
I was on the same sailing as well and we had horrible service in the dining rooms as well. We had the first seating and unless we skipped dessert, we would not finish dinner until 8:00 every night! We missed so much of the family entertainment and character experiences that were scheduled between the 7-7:30 start time. Our servers were very nice and worked hard but I honestly think they are overworked. They looked so tired and upon speaking to many different servers throughout the week.....most said they use their time off to sleep instead of getting off the ship (which I do feel bad about...). We did run into language barriers too....esp with our stateroom host and you could tell he was new. We had a hotel manager outside our room with him many days...and we could tell he was nervous. I also agree with the whole kids running around unsupervised. We had numerous instances of kids running down the halls after midnight and one night around 230 am they were actually kicking people's room service dishes up and down the hallway and slamming them into the hallway walls and breaking them.
I totally agree with the pool too. We could not find a chair on any sea day on the pool deck and the pools were so crowded and cloudy we did not let our 5 year old swim during the day...we did go on the aqua duck but only at night since during the day the wait was 60 minutes or more. The other thing we were disappointed in was that Nemos Reef was not open later for the little ones. It closes at 7. Many times at night I would not let my daughter go in the pool because there were kids unsupervised in the pool and they were rough. One night in the Mickey pool there were 3 kids....maybe 12, 8 and 6. They were wrestling each other and tossing water at each other with cups. Many people left the pool. I went to cast member and asked if they could help and they did ask them to stop but we were told that they can not ask them to leave the pool! What???? Kids are being rough, bothering other guests, and could possibly hurt themselves and they are UNSUPERVISED and you can't ask them to leave the pool? Totally baffling to me? So instead the children who had proper supervision and were acting appropriately had to leave the pool for their own safety??? I will never understand??? I told my husband I wanted to see how long it would take for a parent to come down to get them so I waited and watched the funnel vision movie. It took about an hour for the parents to show up....and when they did, they were all primped up with cocktails in their hands....they must have been at one of the adult clubs or maybe a Palo dinner....guess they don't believe in kids clubs.....but the kids being so young....swimming alone was not a safe option.
We were on the Magic the week prior and our experience was night and day. I have to admit I left the Fantasy a little disappointed. Now I fully understand the crew members fears on the Magic. They are so afraid they are going to lose their spots on the Magic and be transferred to the Fantasy. They all are begging to stay on the ship when their contract is up. Many of them are trying to stay under the radar....
Hopefully Disney can get things together on the Fantasy...it's a beautiful ship. I just hope Disney did not make it too crowded.
Hearing how incredibly poor St Maarten is may alter our touring plans.... Thanks for such a detailed review!
Based on the views at the different ports would you recommend a stateroom on the port side vs starboard? Or does it really matter?
I repeat: fine the parents/stateroom!
Such behavior is beyond unacceptable -- it's destructive.
Of course, we want to permit our children to have some freedom, but not at the expense of all of the other paying passengers on the ship.
Currently, I keep an eye on my 7 y/o son at all times (when he is not in the club/lab).
When he is old/mature enough to earn some free time, he will be provided with clear instruction as to appropriate/inappropriate behavior.
If I were ever informed that he ran up and down hallways, or engaged in any type of destructive behavior, such as breaking dishes, I would have him spend the entire next day confined to the cabin, writing notes of apology to each and every stateroom on our deck (or the deck that he was running rampant), as well as the deck below.
He would be required to pay, out of his own funds/allowance, for any broken dishes/items (after he cleaned it up, himself).
He is taught to respect himself, and those persons around him. If he does something wrong, he is expected to make it right. That's it. Before anyone accuses me of being a Tiger mom, please understand that I/we serve up ample amounts of hugs and kisses and and laughter and "I love you"s and all kinds of (specific) positive reinforcement. But bad behavior is not to be tolerated, under any circumstances! My $2.
He is taught to respect himself, and those persons around him. If he does something wrong, he is expected to make it right. That's it. Before anyone accuses me of being a Tiger mom, please understand that I/we serve up ample amounts of hugs and kisses and and laughter and "I love you"s and all kinds of (specific) positive reinforcement. But bad behavior is not to be tolerated, under any circumstances! My $2
Bonniec said:Can I ask another question, do kids run crazy in the concierge areas on any ships? This is one of the reasons why I am considering it.
As I mentioned, in stateroom corridors, if you look at the rugs, there are maps. If you're walking south to north, you're moving towards the forward of the ship. If you're walking north to south, you're moving towards the aft.
We have Fantasy cabin 6586 booked for April! I was so glad to read your review, but I'm confused about the ladder situation. We have 3 kids so we'll definitely be using the upper berth - our 8 yo ds will be up there. What do you mean that it was OK because your dd is a "little girl"? My son is old enough that I'm not too worried about a short/wobbly ladder, but was wondering if you could give a little more info.
Thanks so much for your thorough review, I really enjoyed it.
Bummer about unruly kids, but that's what the bar is for
We were on the same cruise. Spent every night at Skyline with Novak....so much so you'd probably recognize us. He's our favorite bartender ever after 10 cruises!!
We didn't have any service issues. Cami and Steve in the dining room were AWESOME. We let our 11 year old daughter go around the ship with her friends, but they were a pretty subdued bunch. Maybe some of the running around you saw was actually instigated by the Tween Club. I know they had several activities where they would send the kids off on scavenger hunts, and things around the ship.