The long awaited Iceman review...
It sounds like you all went on a completely different cruise than I did. The only thing good about this extremely overpriced vacation is I can use it to get me about 5 years of vacations hiking in the Sierras, Utah, Arizona, the Pacific Northwest, and Hawaii. Oh also, it was nice to visit with my brother and his family.
My non-Mickey review:
the ship - mediocre. I think I would have rated the ship good except for a very serious and significant problem with the pools, which are completely inadequate for the number of KIDS that are on the cruise. Compared to the Sapphire Princess these pools are really tiny (think big potholes
). I think they need to seriously consider changes to their pools. My 12 year old didn't even go swimming all week because the kid pools were so very, very overcrowded. In fact, if I was between 12 and 18 I wouldn't go in them either - they looked awfully yellow!. They either need to dedicate one pool to 13 to 18 year olds or have teen only times in the pool or buy some new ships with bigger pools. Our room was nice. We had an inside cabin on deck 6 and it was bigger than I feared. They seem to pack a lot of storage space in these rooms. There was a cooling problem but that was fixed quickly. The dinning rooms, bars, and theater were very nice.
Ports of call - The Costa Maya ruins tour was worth it.
Castaway Cay was nice, however, I was truly hoping that the snorkeling here would rejuvenate me - that is, flush all of the Disney toxins out of my body. Unfortunately, it was a big let-down. I guess I expected an actual coral reef here. Compared to places that I've snorkel in Hawaii (e.g. Princeville, Kauai) this was very poor. The water clarity drops dramatically once people start showing up. The water at the adult beach was much nicer but no coral and little to no fish. Cozumel was a waste. Maybe I should have snorkeled at one of the public beaches here but I didn't, so this stop was a waste. I would have enjoyed staying another day at Castaway Cay instead of this tourist trap!
Food - mediocre to average. Some days were better than others but overall I think the food was worse on this cruise than Princess Cruises. I think my nDB (aka, 2-of-9) liked it better, but not me (or my DW). As an example, did anyone eat at the seafood buffet? I love seafood and was truly waiting for this buffet. OMG, this was horrible. I'm not sure what they tried to pass off as sushi, but it was terrible! One of the best meals was the lobster and seared ahi. We ate at Palos one night and I think that the waiter actually tried to KILL us with food. This TOTALLY ruined my Palo experience. He kept bringing us dishes that we didn't order to eat. I felt ill for hours after this magical Disney "experience". I guess we should have just left plates of unfinished food instead of feeling like we had to eat what he brought.
Service - this was really outstanding. Having the same waiters from day to day was very nice. Much better than Princess Cruises.
So, from someone that dislikes cruises, comparing this cruise to the only other cruise I've been on, i.e., Sapphire Princess cruise to Alaska, you definitely don't get your money's worth on this cruise. I think this cruise cost us almost double the money of the Alaskan cruise (and we had a window room on that cruise). Was this cruise double the experience? No. This will definitely be my last
Disney cruise (surprised, right?). If I'm lucky it will be my last cruise, but I thought I said that after my Alaskan cruise. Of course, now that I look back at that Alaskan cruise, with the window room, the nice hiking and scenery at the ports-of-call (Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan), and the beautiful mountain vistas, that was a really nice cruise after all compared to this experience.
The Iceman
