We were on the 3-night cruise on Sept 1st, and are happy to report that we had the time of our lives! Here's a quick run down of our 8-day trip.
Aug 28 - Sept 1: Stayed at Jambo House for our first no-park trip ever. We ended up having our most relaxed vacation yet. We slept, ate, strolled, swam, shopped, watched movies, read magazines, enjoyed the resort's amenities - when we felt like it. Only had about 2 scheduled dining reservations, but because there were only 3 of us, I felt that we could have just walked in and would still get seats.
I set aside my fear of clowns (just for an hour and a half, anyway LOL) and saw Cirque du Soleil La Nouba and again had a great time! DD9 who also doesn't like clowns, loved the show as well. Amazing performance plus we got discounted tickets from DVC. We didn't plan this - just looking around for things to do and thought to see it since we have never seen a Cirque show. No regrets!
This is also the first trip where we rented a car to get around. I love that the busses are free, but having a car changes the way we vacation at WDW now. Animal Kingdom Lodge is apparently not too far from the rest of WDW when you drive. Everything is so close to one another and if you are staying within WDW, you don't even need a GPS because all the roads are very clearly marked with directions. I also realized that we had more time to do other things because we don't spend time waiting for the busses anymore. Even Downtown Disney was a quick find-your-parking-spot and get out rather than stopping at Marketplace, then Pleasure Island, then West Side. I know, I know. You're on vacation so you'd like someone else to drive for you. But if waiting for the bus and actually getting to my destination will take an hour as opposed to just 10 minutes if I drove on my own, I'll just drive.
I also explored Alamo rates because they pick you up at the resort to pick up your car, but they were always so expensive. The night before we were to pick up our Budget rental (I had to take Downtown Disney bus and then walk from there, which admittedly was a hassle), I just thought of playing around with the Alamo website and got an even cheaper deal! Alamo it is then! Called them up the morning of our rental and they sent their shuttle to Jambo House to pick us up. Registration was a breeze too. No sales talk about getting extra insurance either. When we returned the car after a week, we used their shuttle to go back to our resort as well. Will we do it again next time? Hell yeah!
Sept 1 to 4: I read so much from the Disboards and got a lot of tips and 'secrets'. We used Park N Cruise mainly due to the recommendation of Disboards, but they charged for 4 days rather than 3 days for the 3night cruise, and I wasn't expecting that. However, I was not about to go ballistic on $6.99 on my most relaxing vacation ever, so we just made sure to ask that there was no mistake and when the guy said it was per "day", then okay off to their shuttle. Will I use them again? For a longer cruise, sure. For another 3-nighter, probably not. Parking at the port will just be $15 more expensive for a 3-nighter, and if that's the case, I'll just leave the car at the port. For a 7-nighter, maybe...
Our port arrival time was 11AM and we got there at 11AM. A lot of people at the terminal but everything was orderly. We saw a short line for Mickey and Minnie photos with the ship model and so we did that even before checking in. At check in, there was a shorter line for non-US citizens, so we were 2nd in line right away. Got boarding #6. Sounded like a bad number if I put my Disboards obssessive-compulsive planning knowledge to use, but in reality, boading #6 was a great #. Like I said, we arrived at the outside of the terminal at 11AM. By 5 minutes to noon, our name was being welcomed to the ship.
Before I continue, I have to say this. Although I've been planning this trip for a year, I believe that my enjoyment of my vacation is 95% my attitude and just 5% of everything else combined. Where as in my regular life, I would be so upset if I saw someone jump the line, or if it rained or if the server forgot my order, in this vacation, I was in a total relax mode. I tried not to take everything too seriously. Now back to my report.
Pools: The kiddie pools were small. I mean for a ship this big, they are really small. Sardine can, I think someone referred to it. But you know what? My DD wanted to be in the sardine can - let her! I just sat by the side of the pool watching her. And when she got tired of that, then we moved on to something else. If she wanted to do it again, we go back. Lather, rinse, repeat. There a TON of other activities in the ship (most of which you won't have time for, believe me) to enjoy when you're not in the pools. We road the Aqua Duck 3 times. If the line was too long for our convenience, then we didn't fall in line and we did something else. When we felt it was more manageable, then we fell in line. See? My theme of "relaxing while on vacation" was at work... No stress.
Shows: We did not get to see The Golden Mickeys on the first night, I think we were by the pools then. We also wanted to spend time exploring the ship first so skip the show we did. We saw Villains Tonight and Believe - and both were good. I got emotional while watching Believe, my daughter is growing up so fast. I can't believe I have a nine-year old. Pretty soon she's going to be a teenager and probably not going to listen to me anymore
Dining: Superb! Servers were equally great. Our server was Branko from Serbia and our assistant server was Estelle from France, with Mike from the Philippines as our head server. All provided top notch service, we felt well taken-cared of the entire time. Although we are a family of 3, we were seated at a table of 8 with 5 other people - 1 family from Brazil who with their limited knowledge of English provided just the right balance of conversation and silence necessary for us to enjoy our meals. Food was awesome - I tried dishes I would never try at a regular restaurant for fear that I wouldn't like it. On the last night, my DD was doing a dine & dash so her food was coming out faster than everybody else's, but the cast member from the kid's club picked her up before she had her banana split dessert. Branko saw her gone when he passed by and to make up for the banana split, he sent back a plate of goodies my DD can enjoy back in the room. My DD would have really wanted her banana split, but she'll live. Again, the magic word. Relax.
Stateroom: Always kept in immaculate condition by our hostess, Ria, from the Philippines. Loved the towel creations and the chocolates every night. I wish I could take Ria home
Shutters photos: The DIS says it usually was a "madhouse" by the last night, but you know what, you find a spot where you can lay your photos right in front of you so you can choose which ones you want to buy. If you can do that, you'd be fine. To me, lining up at Shutters was a part of my perfect vacation. After choosing my photos, I lined up not even 5 minutes, and they call this a madhouse LOL. I did not buy any photo package before hand, but the 20-credit package was being sold there for $149.95. I tried to find 10 8x10's that I would like, but ended up only liking 4 so much so I did not force myself to come up with 10 photos.
Castaway Cay: The highlight of the
Disney cruise in my opinion. We were very fortunate to have experienced this island, as I know the previous cruise was only the first to go back to CC after Irene. As I looked at Disboard reports of CC after Irene, I said to myself I was going to enjoy the cruise, whether or not it went to CC. The weather, and any damage the hurricane brought upon the island, were something I do not have control over, so why even worry about it? As it turned out, if I worried, it would have been for nothing because we did go to CC. If a future cruise of mine missed CC, sure I'd be disappointed, but I won't let that ruin my trip.
Seasickness: For this one, again, the DIS has varying opinions on the subject. I tried to stay in the middle here - we didn't want to medicate before we've had the chance to see if we can stand the ship's motion, but at the same time, we wanted something that can still "cure" us, even after we've started to show signs of seasickness. I bought 2 bottles of MotionEaze, and ended up not needing any. If I had taken Dramamine beforehand, I would not have known that we fare this well in ships.
Future cruise: Booked while onboard, day 1. No line. Booked another one on day 2, long line. I waited maybe 20 minutes. But again, it was a part of my vacation. How ironic would that be if I got stressed out because I was in a long line for booking my next vacation? Not going to happen. I spent my 20 minutes in line wondering what I would do next after I was done booking the future cruise. My DH and DD were doing the Detective Agency activity while I was in line so I wasn't hearing any "I'm bored".
To sum it all up: people will have varying opinions on everything. I read something this morning on the DIS. Said they weren't going to cruise on the Dream (nor on the Fantasy) until they see consistent positive reviews. HUH? Have you ever been somewhere other people didn't like that you loved? And vice versa? All I'm saying is use the positive and negative reviews to arm you with enough information to make your trip positive. Despite the uber planning we DISers do, there are things that we cannot control. Cast members are humans too, they're not perfect. Doesn't mean that we have to throw in the towel and say "Blech, now my trip is ruined because I didn't get my banana split". Unless the negative review was a safety issue, I didn't need to wait for "consistent positive reviews" before I tried the Dream. We don't all like the same things and we are not all ticked off by the same things. We are all different, so unless you plan on waiting forever, don't let other people's reviews be the sole determination for whether you go on the Dream or not.
My husband and I work hard for our vacations (as I am sure you do too), and we were determined to have fun. Plan as much as you can so you get the best deals and get tips/secrets from previous cruisers, but remember to relax. You're on vacation.
Side note: Sorry the quick run down became a long report. I got carried away
. I am going take your advice and RELAX 
