We'd like to send a big THANK YOU to everyone who has submitted a trip report on this message board. This DD5, DS8, DW43 and DH46 have benefited tremendously from the tips and hints we read during the six weeks prior to our 7-day Western cruise on June 8th. Your written comments provide a tremedous service to DCL vacationers.
In keeping with that tradition, I want to share some feedback on our own trip with the caveat that our opinions are just that, our own, and may not directly apply to your particular family situation. But, I hope our impressions and suggestions will be helpful for future travellers and for any Disney representatives that might read this report and are looking for suggestions on how to improve their vacation product.
As I'm writing this I can hear the kids getting into mischief in the family room, so I'm going to have to wrap this up pretty soon. I'll be segmenting my report into several parts so I can finish each section completely. Rather than writing a day by day synopsis, I thought it might be helpful if I wrote about one or two topics in each section.
P.S. : Our family of four shared a Cat. 3 room, # 8102, a one-bedroom suite room located aft on the port side. It was very large and the decor was beautiful. It was located right under Topsiders restaurant, the casual one that lots of people go to for breakfast. The verandah was huge, but not exactly private. I'm sure more than one person was amused the morning we docked in Key West. I walked out on the verandah in a bathrobe and a towel on my head and then quickly retreated when I realized everyone could look down on our verandah from the restaurant above.
So here's the first one....
Service: Pre, During and Post
We booked our vacation through our local TA in California. She had been on a Disney cruise, but frankly we got much better info. from the board, than from her. In all fairness, once I told her about a DCL cruise issue, she responded quickly.
#1: The bed situation
The good: Much to our surprise, our suite only had only one pull out bed in the living room for the two kids to share. After discovering that fun fact on this message board, we called our TA to do something about it. We knew this was going to be a problem with our kids.
After some prodding our TA called DCL. Our TA got DCL to agree to board a roll out bed prior to our arrival. Unfortunately, we didn't get to use it. There just wasn't enough room to fit it in the living room area with the pull out bed. Our room steward (who was very nice--Anastasia?) tried to fit it in, but it just wouldn't work.
The bad: As we expected, the kids snarled and bickered with each other about blankets, space, noise etc. DW and DD were kept awake while all of this was going on . This ended after three days when threats of death and toy elimination finally had the desired affect.
The Disney: O.K. Here's our recommendation to DCL. FULL DISCLOSURE. Make sure the TA's and your representatives know if there are any special "nuances" about sleeping arrangements in any room. If we had known we would have put ourselves on a wait list for another room.
#2: The room steward.
The good: Anastasia. Or room steward was charming, but not pushy. Our kids loved the towel animals and the ice bucket was always filled (except for the last day). She did a great job of using our "props" to personalize the towel animals.
The bad: Hmmm....can't think of anything
The Disney: Keep up the good work. Unlike the restaurant servers (I'll get to that later), you didn't feel like the room steward was working the rating system to get recognition or a bigger tip.
#3: Concierge Service
The good: Wow, what a difference this makes. I am so glad we had this service with our Cat. 3 room. We arrived at the ship terminal a bit later than I had hoped, about 11:45 a.m. While checking in was easy, the line to board was huge. Fortunately, I had read on this board that folks with concierge rooms had a special waiting area. What I didn't know was that we were going to be able to walk to the front of the line to be screened by security and board the boat. We did and we were very, very happy!
Just to give you a feel for the impact this made, I'll share this little story. When we were checking in we saw two cute little twin girls in stripped dresses. They got through check in before us. About 50 minutes to 60 minutes later, after boarding the ship, unpacking etc. we headed back to the lobby (deck 3?). As we crossed the lobby we saw the twins entering the ship. We would have been in line behind them if we didn't have a Cat. 3 (or 1 or 2) room with concierge service. Instead we were able to get unpacked and settled in right away. Boy was that nice.
Earlier, we had been able to call DCL and book our Palo restaurant requests (we ate there twice), request a table for four and verify early seating. When we joined the "Concierge Meeting" that afternoon in the Sessions lounge we were able to verify our reservations, make a couple of spa reservations and book our kids into camp (we received our pagers). This helped us finish all the "housekeeping" activities (without sprinting about the boat) so we could take the kids to the pool--except it was raining. Boo Hoo! You can't control mother nature.
Oops! Got to run...will finish tomorrow. VS
In keeping with that tradition, I want to share some feedback on our own trip with the caveat that our opinions are just that, our own, and may not directly apply to your particular family situation. But, I hope our impressions and suggestions will be helpful for future travellers and for any Disney representatives that might read this report and are looking for suggestions on how to improve their vacation product.
As I'm writing this I can hear the kids getting into mischief in the family room, so I'm going to have to wrap this up pretty soon. I'll be segmenting my report into several parts so I can finish each section completely. Rather than writing a day by day synopsis, I thought it might be helpful if I wrote about one or two topics in each section.
P.S. : Our family of four shared a Cat. 3 room, # 8102, a one-bedroom suite room located aft on the port side. It was very large and the decor was beautiful. It was located right under Topsiders restaurant, the casual one that lots of people go to for breakfast. The verandah was huge, but not exactly private. I'm sure more than one person was amused the morning we docked in Key West. I walked out on the verandah in a bathrobe and a towel on my head and then quickly retreated when I realized everyone could look down on our verandah from the restaurant above.
So here's the first one....
Service: Pre, During and Post
We booked our vacation through our local TA in California. She had been on a Disney cruise, but frankly we got much better info. from the board, than from her. In all fairness, once I told her about a DCL cruise issue, she responded quickly.
#1: The bed situation
The good: Much to our surprise, our suite only had only one pull out bed in the living room for the two kids to share. After discovering that fun fact on this message board, we called our TA to do something about it. We knew this was going to be a problem with our kids.
After some prodding our TA called DCL. Our TA got DCL to agree to board a roll out bed prior to our arrival. Unfortunately, we didn't get to use it. There just wasn't enough room to fit it in the living room area with the pull out bed. Our room steward (who was very nice--Anastasia?) tried to fit it in, but it just wouldn't work.
The bad: As we expected, the kids snarled and bickered with each other about blankets, space, noise etc. DW and DD were kept awake while all of this was going on . This ended after three days when threats of death and toy elimination finally had the desired affect.
The Disney: O.K. Here's our recommendation to DCL. FULL DISCLOSURE. Make sure the TA's and your representatives know if there are any special "nuances" about sleeping arrangements in any room. If we had known we would have put ourselves on a wait list for another room.
#2: The room steward.
The good: Anastasia. Or room steward was charming, but not pushy. Our kids loved the towel animals and the ice bucket was always filled (except for the last day). She did a great job of using our "props" to personalize the towel animals.
The bad: Hmmm....can't think of anything
The Disney: Keep up the good work. Unlike the restaurant servers (I'll get to that later), you didn't feel like the room steward was working the rating system to get recognition or a bigger tip.
#3: Concierge Service
The good: Wow, what a difference this makes. I am so glad we had this service with our Cat. 3 room. We arrived at the ship terminal a bit later than I had hoped, about 11:45 a.m. While checking in was easy, the line to board was huge. Fortunately, I had read on this board that folks with concierge rooms had a special waiting area. What I didn't know was that we were going to be able to walk to the front of the line to be screened by security and board the boat. We did and we were very, very happy!
Just to give you a feel for the impact this made, I'll share this little story. When we were checking in we saw two cute little twin girls in stripped dresses. They got through check in before us. About 50 minutes to 60 minutes later, after boarding the ship, unpacking etc. we headed back to the lobby (deck 3?). As we crossed the lobby we saw the twins entering the ship. We would have been in line behind them if we didn't have a Cat. 3 (or 1 or 2) room with concierge service. Instead we were able to get unpacked and settled in right away. Boy was that nice.
Earlier, we had been able to call DCL and book our Palo restaurant requests (we ate there twice), request a table for four and verify early seating. When we joined the "Concierge Meeting" that afternoon in the Sessions lounge we were able to verify our reservations, make a couple of spa reservations and book our kids into camp (we received our pagers). This helped us finish all the "housekeeping" activities (without sprinting about the boat) so we could take the kids to the pool--except it was raining. Boo Hoo! You can't control mother nature.
Oops! Got to run...will finish tomorrow. VS
