Anyone else not love the cruise?

[cdnmickeylover]

We are two adults who travel without kids and we loved our DCL cruise (7 day western). We found that there was lots for us to do as just adults. We both love Disney though and we do like to see the Disney kids movies. The food we found was great (but we aren't in any way picky) and the service was wonderful. What helped in our enjoyment of the cruise was meeting tons of Disers and interacting with the crew.

We didn't enjoy Palo however and won't be returning there so our cruise wasn't perfect.

To each his own though and I think it's just like the resorts at WDW -- some people love some resorts and others hate the same resorts. Everybody has their own tastes and needs. DCL just happens to match with our tastes and needs.

Really looking forward to the next one!

 

[mrsfuzzmo]

We agree that we don't go on a cruise to relax. I know many people do. We do not. We love adventure sports, water sports, lively nights, good music (which really, really lacked on this cruise). Where was the limbo? the Dollar Dance? The "Adult" fun stuff? We go on a cruise to see the different ports of call, to meet new people (which I think was the biggest let down of all).

I guess because there were so many people with children, the other adults just didn't want to interact. It get's back to those "Relaxers". I really enjoy meeting new folks on a cruise as does my husband. We love chatting with people from all over the country (not to mention the world). There was none of this friendly chatter on board. Seems most of the other adults were enjoying their "peace" and quite while their kids were in the clubs. We don't cruise for peace and quiet. We cruise for dancing, socializing, strolling, swimming, cocktailing, calypso music and the caribbean sea. It just wasn't there.

 

[1stNoel]

You are not alone. We cruise DCL for the decor of the ship, the nonsmoking staterooms, the ports and excursions. We are Disney freaks and spend more on Disney vacations than I will ever admit. I feel the same way about the food on the ship as I do about the food in the resorts and parks though. It is assembly line cafeteria quality grub. I have never had a meal at any Disney restaurant that I felt was even in a good to acceptable category. On the cruise I tend to eat a ton of cheese & crackers, bread and desserts to fill myself up. At WDW I make breakfast in the room, eat a pretzel or a hot dog from a cart (as they are 1000% better than the restaurant burgers & dogs) for lunch and I try to get to Shulas for dinner. I'm not picky or a food snob, as you probably could guess from my lunch choices . I just feel if it's going into my calorie count I want it to be fresh tasting, good quality and made to order. We love Disney and don't let the lack of edible food ruin our trip, but it would be really nice if the food was better. Bottom line - we go for fun, not for food.

 

[hydster]

Beth--The sick people on board was ridiculous! They ask you checking in if you are experiencing any symptoms of cold or flu and obviously everyone lied. The kids club they make the kids use hand sanitizer when they walk in and out of the club (but mine never stayed long enough to see if they did it during the time the kids were in the club).

As for the food....breakfast was ok...I mean how bad can you screw up breakfast with pancakes, waffles, fruit...we actually really enjoyed our breakfasts for the most part.

Lunch we ate always up on deck either at topsiders or at the pizza place. It seemed to us that the lunches got progressively worse the longer we were on board. The embarkation lunch was good, there was an asian day where we really enjoyed the food but after that BLAH

Dinner--Except for the first night and the last night at Lumiere's our dinners were nothing special, fancy or even edible at some times. The only thing I did really enjoy were the desserts!

I came home 7 lbs lighter than when I left if that gives you any indication of how little I ate. Maybe it was just that week that was off I don't know but we sure didn't look forward to going to dinner each night like we have on our cruises in the past.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it when you get back though!
Heidi

 

[dclwdwlover]

Originally posted by mrsfuzzmo
We agree. we really enjoyed the fact that we were on vacation, but we could have had those experiences on any number of ships/lines. We will not do Disney Cruise Line again. There are just to many other things to do and places to go on this planet. It definitly was not special enough for us to return.

Just curious - not meaning this rude at all, but why do those of you that dislike your DCL experience continue to visit these boards when all talk is primarily about the DCL cruises??

Thanx.

 

[BethA]

If I could come home 7 pounds lighter I might not care if the food was Blah!! But with what you pay it shouldn't be. Did you ever tell the server the food was bad? Our servers have seemed very concerned whn we don't eat something. If the quality is not good they definitely need to be told by all the guests or they figure people are okay with it as is.
I feel that way about the WDW restaurants-just okay-nothing great for what you pay. We ate at Shulas at Thanksgiving and for the amount they charged found it nothing great and would never go back. I guess everyone is different, maybe we are used to low quality food. who knows.
Beth

 

[traycie2201]

Hey guys your'e starting to worry some of us first time cruisers, i guess if you were unhappy with aspects of the cruise then you'll be booking a different one in future and have learnt from your own experiences.
But you're starting to dim my excitement and i so want to have a great holiday.
Tell me something good about the cruise please

 

[mrsfuzzmo]

Because I like to give my opinion. Good, bad or otherwise. I read these boards religiously for 6 months prior to our cruise. I learned a lot on these boards about what was good to do, not so good and really bad. If I had not read these boards, we would have missed Palo brunch. We probably would have booked a DCL excursion and been disappointed, but reading these boards we were steered in another direction and had some wonderful excursions.

I don't believe that everyone on here just wants to keep hearing the sugar coating. I am not ripping the cruise line. I just think that many opinions about a subject gives people more material to base conclusions on. If more people would have written that their cruise experience on DCL was NOt magical, then I would have expected what we got. Because so many people are so "Pro" DCL, I assumed, by the time we were done with our trip we would be too. We were not, and that's fine.

These are "Cruise Boards". Open to anyone who has an opinion and wants to share it. Like I said, I like to share my opinions, my insights, and my experiences on the cruise like anyone else. Is there some fine print that says "If you didn't like the cruise, you may not say it on these boards?" If there is, I must have missed it.

 

[hydster]

I visit and post because even though we didn't enjoy our cruise like we thought we would and should there were still things we did enjoy and I feel like I can give "valuable" information to people about our experience. I've posted about what movies were playing, how we liked our excursion, how we liked our transportation company, how we liked our connecting rooms and many other things I feel are helpful to people getting ready to leave soon.

I also am posting still because I feel that people need to realize that not every sailing is perfect and full of "pixie dust" and that there are things that may NOT be perfect on your vacation.

I also want people to go in with realistic expectations about the kids club and the fact that they aren't like what is advertised on the commercials or the DCL dvd. It was out of control in the clubs the first night, took almost an hour to check your child in to the clubs the first night. We had a false impression that during an hour that some CM might have seen our 5 year old sobbing (a few mothers from the dis board saw it but couldn't do anything about it and they were only there for a few minutes)but not one page was sent to our pager and in fact we had them test it making sure it worked (which it did) and no I don't expect one on one service, but it would have been nice if ONE CM in that hour would have noticed my son sobbing and tried to help him or at least page us. My 9 year old asked them to page us several times that first night as well. They kept telling him they would but they never "got around to it" as they told us when I complained about it. His name was on the page list but they never paged us.

I post here because I think if I could help parents realize this IS a possibility then I did something valuable!

 

[FredS]

First off, I guess we were lucky in that overall we all felt that the food was great (and my family generally is beyond picky about food), everything was clean as could be, our servers and room attendant were top-notch and I didn't notice anyone who was sick.

Next, some of the things that a few posters missed are not things that I would care about at all -- I can't imagine ever longing for a casino! I rarely drink, but certainly recall that alcoholic beverages were available for those who want them. As far as socializing, we had plenty of opportunities to meet new people and we took full advantage of those.

We probably lean more towards the "relaxing" crowd of vacationers, but it seems that we were always going and doing something, spending very little time in our rooms. (One reason we are taking the seven-day cruise instead of another four-day is because we felt like we didn't have enough time to do everything and relax much at all.)

It depends on what you are looking for in a cruise, I guess. Sorry that it did not suit everyone, and for those who had less than steller cast members serving them. I can imagine that sometimes a series of smaller problems could make the overall experience less than great. Particularly if you are looking for more of a party-type cruise then I would check into some other cruise lines which might be more suited to your interests and desired activities.

 

[FredS]

Originally posted by hydster
...We had a false impression that during an hour that some CM might have seen our 5 year old sobbing (a few mothers from the dis board saw it but couldn't do anything about it and they were only there for a few minutes)but not one page was sent to our pager and in fact we had them test it making sure it worked (which it did) and no I don't expect one on one service, but it would have been nice if ONE CM in that hour would have noticed my son sobbing and tried to help him or at least page us. My 9 year old asked them to page us several times that first night as well. They kept telling him they would but they never "got around to it" as they told us when I complained about it. His name was on the page list but they never paged us.

I post here because I think if I could help parents realize this IS a possibility then I did something valuable!

This would be a HUGE PROBLEM to me. I would be furious and most definitely pursue a satisfactory resolution of the problem. What happened? What did the supervisory staff and/or DCL have to say? I would not have let something like that drop, if you honestly believed your child was sobbing for an hour, staff was aware, but actually stated that they had not "gotten around to" paging you??!!

 

[hydster]

Tracey--there were MANY things on this cruise that were good! I don't know if you read my trip report but I mentioned many good things! The servers were amazing! Our stateroom hostess was darling, the Palo brunch was yummy, meeting all our dis board fanatics on embarkation day was fun, Castaway Cay was an amazing island *and probably the only thing we didn't like in 2002 but then it was cool and rainy that day at CC*, watching my kids faces light up when the characters came walking past them, watching our kids LOVE the nightly shows (and they loved every single one of them dearly *except Disney Dreams which we saw once and the kids wanted to go to the arcade instead*) Just being away from home with my family was great fun! The towel animals we got each night was fun, collecting a few shells from teh beaches to bring home in a small jar was fun, the pictures of the memories we had are invaluable!

The stuff we are reporting about that is bad is something that may or may not be bad on YOUR cruise! For our week we felt the food mediocre though others on the disboards with us thought the food was excellent *it's subjective to taste and wants and likes*

The kids club I think if I had been prepared for the mob scene I was about to confront I would have waited a day or two before putting the kids in them but on this board it was said time and time again to put them in the first night because that's when friendships were made so I did it..but regret that I did that.

The weather is nothing DCL can control which we understand but I think the wind played a HUGE part in how we felt about the cruise in general. It was too windy to use the balcony much, too windy to get in the pool for very long, too windy to sit on deck with a drink. The weather in the ports however was beautiful!

There were MANY good things...it's just this thread is talking about what we didn't enjoy or what we wished would have been better.

 

[BethA]

While my son loved the club we had a bead experience. on our first cruise 3 years ago I stopped by to check on him and witnessed a bigger boy hitting him. He was five at the time and the other boy appeared to be about 7. It continued til I jumped over the gate and reprimanded the other child myself. I think there are not enough CM for the volume of kids. Some people rave about the clubs and the staff-in 3 cruises I've never encountered anyone that great- everyone seems to have their own cruise experience. WE have had great service and food, but think the clubs need more supervision. Also more preteen supervivion. Got sick of them camped out in hallways and riding the elevator!!! We are returning for our 4th cruise so obviously the good far out weighs the bad.

Beth

 

[traycie2201]

Mrs Fuzzmo / Hydster no flames please i also like to hear everyones opinion and certainly didn't suggest that you couldn't post both good and bad comments and i definately don't want sugar coating but i was really suprised to hear negative comments as i haven't really seen any in several weeks of researching the boards, i understand that everyone has different levels of expectations and of what makes a good or bad holiday , hydster as a parent i too would have been concerned about not being contacted and i can understand that you want other parents to be more aware, mrsfuzzmo i'm glad that you enjoyed your excursions, Fred S thanks for your sharing your experience too. I'm sure that DCL will meet my expectations as never having cruised before i have nothing to base them on except boards / trip reports and if it doesn't simple i won't cruise with them again.

 

[trishy]

We cruised on DCL because that was the only "kid friendly" line that we could use DVC points for (that is me assuming that HAL is not as "kid friendly" - just a personal opinion). We enjoyed it the first time, but noted the same situations as the OP - not a whole lot of enjoyable night time activities unless you're into the smoke-filled dance club type of thing; or a piano bar. I like more live music lounge type of activities - for comparison. The kids had a blast! The second time, the kids had a great time; the third time, the kids barely participated in the kid's activities. They were bored with the same flubber, pj party, etc - you know what I mean if you've cruised on DCL more than once. It's the same stuff - kidwise and adultwise. Not a problem except for the fact DCL has such a huge Castaway Club return passenger volume. You'd think there would be changes/additions - if even just minor.

Anyway, after all the above, we're still going to use our DVC points for the Halloween 2005 DCL cruise; however, we're trying another line for a 15 day Panama trip over the holidays and really looking forward to more adult activities on this line. This line also has a reputation for being very kid-friendly. So that's our story.

edited to add: Just wanted to point out that there are other lines that also have their own islands. Though CC was pretty, it's not the greatest thing out there to us - For families with young kids, the family beach was packed each trip we were there, not enough hammocks and loungers, the beach was murky after about an hour of snorkeling (such a small, shallow beach area for families) just to name a few - again, remember this is just my opinion.

 

[traycie2201]

Hydster - thanks glad to hear it , i'm just checking your reports now , i'm glad that despite being poorly and other bad experiences you still have good memories and enjoyed other parts so much, i guess if the weather sucks it affects your holiday wherever you go because you become limited to inside activities and most things are based on being in the sunshine either on board or during excursions. Thanks Traycie

 

[hydster]

FredS--that whole thing with the kids club I think made me the maddest, followed by very sick people in the show coughing all over me. I know my 5 year old was sobbing very hard for an hour because I ran into people that had been there throughout that hour and saw him sobbing. A few went to tell a CM about it but never got the chance because the CM was too busy or the person had to leave for late dinner. When I went to check on him his eyes were beyond puffy, he was doing the sniff you know after you cry really hard you do the little sniff hiccup thing? and he had snot all over his face because he cried for so long it made his nose run and he didn't have a tissue to wipe it with. My 9 year old was not sobbing he just wanted to leave so he would ask the CM to page us and she would say "sure we can do that just give us a second" so he would wander away patiently awaiting our arrival and after awhile he would go back and ask again and they would tell him "yes your name is on the page list and we will get to it soon" so by the time we got there he'd had it with this whole "you can page us anytime and we'll come get you" thing and never wanted to go back. I complained to GS about it many times during my cruise (that's how I found out information about how many kids on board, that the waves were really 12-15 sometimes 20 ft high instead of the 4 ft it said on the tv, that the goofy pool got closed because a child cut his head open when a wave slammed him into the side of the pool). I wrote a huge complaint letter and submitted it to Guest Services, I wrote it on my comment cards as well for both rooms.

 

[webray]

We are adults that cruise alone on disney.

There was so much for us to do, we couldn't fit it all in.

Food, mediocre..that is on all cruise ships. For the way the food is prepared..to feed 1000 people at a time, in a timely manner, I think they do a great job.

 

[KYCruiseCrazy]

i noticed that the first poster never talked bad about the cruise over all. yes DCL olny stays at CC for about 8 hrs. its enough to tease you to come back for more. the food on DCL is getting better. its not easy to please 7800 different people a week on a cruise ship. im sorry your not happy with DCL. i go DCL cause i like to let the small kid out on a DCL cruise. were else on the planet and you let loose and be a big kid for 3,4 or 7 days and not worry about what the other 2600 others are thinking. as long as you are happy and enjoy it then its worth it. as for price what do you expect for a cruise company with only 2 ships and not 16+ ships like the others companys. DCL also doesn't ofset its cost with a casino. im sorry you didn't enjoy DCL. you can please everyone every time. thanks

 

[NAT&MAGSMOM]

Well...for y'all who don't love Disney cruises..THEN DON'T GO..

then there'll be more room

FOR THOSE OF US WHO DO LOVE TO CRUISE ON THE MAGIC AND WONDER.

We'll be doing #6 in December(unless we can squeeze another one in before then). We've never had bad service, our DD has always liked the clubs(however, we don't cruise in the middle of summer or spring break time), the food is very good, especially Palo..we like to get some rest while on the ship...we don't have to be "entertained" constantly.

I think there must be two phantom ships that replace the real
Magic and Wonder when some people are on them......

Enough said...................

Phyllis