Hola everyone! Hope everyone enjoyed their cruise, and those still at WDW are having a great time!
I missed the last weeks countdown on here, which is the best part as you share the excitement, but as usual when we plan a vacation, we had some last minute bad mojo come our way so didn't have much time for the boards. But everyone leveled out long enough for us to have our vacation, so yay!
So here's my mini-review (believe it or not, this is short for me!):
I have so many thoughts about the Dream, some great, some average, some not-so-great. I admit we compared it A LOT to the classic ships, and there were times I missed many of the aspects of those ships. But I know
DCL is still working out the kinks, and we enjoyed ourselves enough to do a dummy booking to switch out for 2013 when those dates are released. The ship was just GORGEOUS, and we were treated amazingly.
I was surprised that I did notice how many more people were on this ship than the classic ships, b/c I truly assumed others complaints on the issue were overblown. But I realized that my experience was probably a fluke. People always ask us (was asked 3 times on this trip!) why we sail a
Disney cruise when we don't have kids. And we've always said it was b/c they really, really take care of the privacy and vacation of the adults. So while the kids and family areas may be busy, the adult areas were always very peaceful. We never sail Carnival or RCL b/c there are just more adults who want to party, and we aren't party people...we are relaxing people. And even the adults in the adult areas on DCL are pretty family-oriented to start with.
But this vacation...woooow. The adult areas weren't just much busier, we kept running into these really large, really rowdy, really drunk, and really loud groups of all adults. Now I'm not a teetotaler, and we got to know the bartenders quite well
, but this was just frat/sorority party type obnoxious.
For instance, while Serenity Bay has always been very peaceful for us, it seemed much busier this time and the one huge group that we seemed to keep running into plopped right in front of us (I think it was a group of sales people? Looked like an incentive/bonus type vacation). And there was really no where to move to b/c the beach was pretty full. *sigh* we had to leave after just a few hours of louder and louder drunkeness. A bartender we spoke to said it had been a WEIRD cruise this time, and in fact they'd had to disembark someone at Nassau b/c he was kicked off for being too drunk and disorderly!
At first we thought that was the "emergency" we turned back for, but she said this happened while we were docked, and his family actually stayed behind to finish the cruise.
I dunno, not sure why those people would choose a Disney cruise of all places, but it put a damper on our vacation a few times. BUT, I know that the Dream is SO popular with her first year out and all the publicity, so hoping that by the time we sail again, things will be a little less crowded and a little more settled.
And that being said, we also met the NICEST people on this ship. We are pretty shy, but we struck up so many great conversations. One really sweet woman was sailing with four generations! She introduced us to her amazing 80+ mother, her adult children, and their children. We also met many other very nice couples who were SO grateful for the kid's clubs giving them some adult time
We found the staff to be very nice, and most tried very very hard. Overall some of the complaints we'd read earlier about poor staff wasn't something we noticed too much, except for some surprising things from the Cabanas staff and the counter service people. I felt SO BAD for the poor custodial staff with the bug situation. They were working so hard, and you know they had zero sleep that first night.
We loved Pink, Skyline and Meridian, and thought the dining room food was better than in the classic ships. We actually only dined in the main room once, which was Animators Palate. Those pasta pursiettes were as good as they said! We had our own table that night, and DH was the first person Crush talked to, teaching him whale talk. VERY funny. Our room was amazing, 8th floor forward, though we must have been near a service area b/c in the morning and at night we'd hear BOOM, BOOM, THUD a lot.
And OMG, REMY!!!! Best service I've ever had, and the second best food I've ever tasted. Well worth it, though I had to take my heels off to keep from bumping into the walls after that wine pairing.
Palo was good too, but after we left Palo we cancelled our brunch the next morning. Not because anything was wrong, I was just glutted out after so much food and couldn't take another round of stuffing myself
Weren't we so lucky how the storms kept missing us during prime time? We were equally lucky at WDW, as we only got rained on a few hours at DHS, and napped through a big afternoon storm, leaving the hotel for dinner just as it had ended. And at WDW...well, we must be lucky, lucky people. People on the boards complain a lot lately about the increasing rudeness of other guests. I was worried b/c I do not have much patience AT ALL for rudeness or even careless thoughtlessness, but I would say everyone we encountered was exceptionally polite and friendly. More so than in any other trip we've ever had. Aside from the heat and raw feet, we had a lovely time there as well.
Whew...that was a long one, huh? Would love to hear what everyone else's experiences and thoughts were! Anythings that stood out? Personally, I wish I could bring that hot tub, and those round padded chairs for two home with me. Heaven!
Everyone in the elevator went, "Oooooh!" I think someone needs to adjust the sensitivity on those things before that's a little kid in there.
We were hanging out at the forward part of the deck waiting for the sun to go down. You were VERY VERY BEAUTIFUL!
I hope I didn't leave anyone out and just miscounted! If you didn't, let me know and I'll mail you a set.
