Camie627
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2008
I planned for months for this cruise and Disboard was my primary resource for EVERYTHING...thought i would give back....Let me start off by saying the Dream IS as amazing as everyone says. I LOVED IT! 5 days is not long enough! Here is some info that I wanted to share: I traveled w/ husband & 2 sons (both 8). We arrived the night before and stayed at country inn & suites, we left our car there during our stay. When I made reservations for the room, they said they did not have any "park & stay" packages, had to pay $30 to park there. The lot seemed safe enough. room clean / staff super nice...although when you check in you need to sign up for the shuttle, but by the time we checked in the shuttle was booked through 2 in the afternoon. Front desk clerk called local cab company and reserved a taxi for us for the next day, i think it costs $15 to get to the Dream from hotel (about a 10 minute drive). We packed coolers of beer & wine & was able to take them aboard, but i did not know that ice was not allowed. Had to get out of line at terminal, bring cooler outside, empty out all ice and repack. (security was very nice, he just let me get right back to the front of the line) took less then 1.5 hours from the time we entered port (11:00) until the time we got on board. We stayed in room 5150...we LOVED it!! I found that there was plenty of room for all of our belongings, i did invest in an over the door storage "thingy", found that i did not even need it (i left it in the closet for the next visitor!) As soon as i got on board i went right to Remy/Palo and was able to get reservations for my traveling companions (sisters & their family & my dad) for Remy (choice of time) I was able to book Palo Brunch (only had 10 am open) and made Palo Dinner reservations for 6 of us (we traveled w/ sisters & their families). DINNERS: was on a 5 night cruise, there was 1 semi-formal night & quite a few guests were very dressed up. I felt a little under-dressed in dress pants & nice blouse...wished i had brought a more "dressy" dress. One night at dinner we were running late and i had my boys in shorts and a tee & was a bit embarrassed that they were under-dressed (although i am sure nobody noticed). dinners were about an hour. My sisters & their families went to Remy's and LOVED it--they raved about their wine selection & i think their bill was over $900 (they really like their wine). 6 of us went to Palo for dinner---AMAZING...we were there for almost 4 hours. Worth every penny! Best deal on ship. oh yeah, children's soft drinks @ dinner are not free. I brought my 2 children & 4 nieces/nephews to a show & bought them each a soda & it was $45!!! for 6 sodas!!! CC: all the children we were with complained that the water was burning their eyes (very salty??) island was amazing. we hung out near the gazebo & disney characters showed up and danced with all the kids...they had crab races there too, the kids loved it. Oh yeah, i purchased the 2 day snorkel / tube / bike rentals for all 4 of us. I lugged all the snorkels / fins / tubes from the hut to our spot on the beach, kids used them for 30 minutes and that was it. Waste of money for our family. There was plenty to rent there if you wanted to. Nassau: we did the sea lion encounter ($99 p/p) the boys loved it, it was really neat, but boy do they get you in the end. We spend about $200 on photos afterwards. Would not do this again, it was booked thru disney, left boat @ 12:30, had to RUN back to boat in order to be on time for 5:45 dinner--we ended up being 15 min late. too stressful! but we did it, have the pics to prove it, and the $58 DVD!! My sisters and I attended a matinee bingo. The electronic Bingo ended up costing each of $50. They only play 4 games & the payouts were something like $110 , $120, $140 & $150! you would think they would have been a little more?? They also start singing and dancing in the middle of a bingo game, it was a bit too much. (just call the next number already!!)... Carry your camera EVERYWHERE! Disney characters pop out in the strangest places. A lot of overtired children and fed up mommies. I think the mantra I heard over and over (myself included), was " THAT'S IT!!! TONIGHT YOU ARE GOING TO BED AT 8:00!!!" (yes, that was me screaming at my son dragging him thru the sand at Castaway Cay!) Also, please realize you are on a DISNEY cruise, there will be children everywhere. So if you are rolling down the hallway in your wheelchair, PLEASE SLOW DOWN!! Some man pushing his wife along ran over my 4 year old niece and yelled at me for not moving her to the side..Also, they have a few "parties" in the main lobby and people line up on each deck watching over the balconies: is it just me, or does it bother anyone else that adults do not move aside to let children in front of them? My boys were so desperate to see the show, they crawled on the floor between 2 women, the ladies were quite startled (i think they thought that the boys were trying to look up their dresses!! LOL) you would think that they would have move over a little & let the kids in to see, but NOPE! My husband wanted me to add that the fireworks were a little lame, but i heard the pirate show was amazing ( we were the 1st people on deck for fireworks, but we were standing near the adult pool section & could not make our way over to the main pool area to see show--way too crowded.) sorry for any grammatical errors / it is getting late...i thought i had a million things to write about, but i am exhausted and can not remember!! Can't wait for next Disney Cruise!! Disney is top notch & customer service is a priority.
Just curious about the quoted portion. You said kids soft drinks @ dinner are not free and then say you bought them for the show and it was $45. I don't see why you would have been charged at dinner as 
Nice peeps on our cruise for the most part.
