We also went on the 9/30 Eastern Cruise. It was our first Disney Cruise and although I wasn't disappointed, I wasn't enchanted either. We had a good time overall and the things that went "wrong" with the trip didn't ruin it completely, just not what I expected. Actually I don't know what I expected..I had nothing to compare it to.
As I had mentioned before on the boards...we got a pixie dust shower from a category 9 to a category 4 for only 100 bucks! We called to upgrade about three weeks out and they offered an upgrade for 100 dollars it was to be on deck 5 the CM informed us. When we got our documents we were on Deck 8!
The ride to Port Canaveral from the airport was okay. It was impressive to see the ship docked when we came over that bridge. The boarding procedure was a bit hectic. I think that the facility should be larger instead of cramming all of those people in that small area. I had registered the kids online for the club which I don't see what mattered because the wait to do the final registration was very long and if you hadn't registered online you could fill out the form, walk right up and get your pager faster than those who do it online.
The boarding process was okay..we were number 10 I believe. Our stateroom was ready promptly however I was a little disappointed on the upkeep of the staterooms. The walls were pretty badly scarred up and the floor in the bathrooms were dirty. The furniture needed to be repaired pretty badly. All in all the stateroom was adequate size for our family so we enjoyed that.
We had an incident as soon as we got in the room where the balcony door was not unlocked all the way and when my mother and I went out there we closed the door behind us and we were locked out of the room with my two girls (5 and 6) in the room. My mom tells the 6 year old to look outside to see if there was anyone to help...BIG MISTAKE! Both ran out of the room and closed the door behind them. Now I'm freaking..they don't have a key to the room, they wouldn't know how to work the key if they did and I knew they would run around looking for someone and get turned around. I didn't know what to do...just as I was about to yell at one of the workers on the dock for help the family in the room next to us came out on their balcony and I handed the man my key so he could let the girls back in the room and let us in the room. Not Disney's problem in ANY way..just a silly mistake on our part.
The kids activities were AWESOME...or at least that's what my girls said. They had a fabulous time in the club. I went to one activity with them to watch and it was the Stitch activity. They told the kids that Stitch would be there and he didn't show up so they were disappointed. The guy that did the Stitch activity didn't know what the heck he was doing..it was terrible, but the kids enjoyed it so that's what matters. The air conditioning in the club was inadequate. It was always very, very hot when I would go get the kids. I was told they were having difficulty with the air in there that week. The kids only complained about it once when they paged me to be picked up because it was too hot in there. There of course was a bully in the club that had a tendency to hit and shove the other kids. I said something to the staff that he needs to keep his hands to himself and the staff assured me that something would be said to his parents about his aggressive behavior. After that there wasn't a problem. Check in and out of the club was very inefficient for the first few days but toward the end they finally figured out to have one line for check in and one line for check out. Several times the computers would crash so the wait to get in the club was long sometimes. Overall the kids absolutely loved the club.
The food....well....what was in the dining rooms seemed very good, although I didn't care for many of the offerings. I'm just not that adventerous of an eater but it was that way on the cruise I took with Carnival several years ago. I delt with it. The food by the pool was horrible!!! I didn't know you could mess up a hotdog, but the buns were always stale, the taco shells...stale..the soda was always flat. We stopped eating up there because it was terrible. In topsiders the staff would get all nervous when I would go through the kids line and ask for an adult plate. "This is the kids line only Maam" they would say and my response would be "I understand that however I do not care for the offerings in the adult line".
Our servers were very professional and nice, but just not special. Karoly and Mariano. Karoly was always too rushed to speak to you about anything except what was on the menu and Mariano tried to interact with the kids but seemed very uncomfortable most of the time talking. I don't know if he was afraid that he didn't know enough english or what. It took forever for our orders to be taken and most of the time we wouldn't get a soda or even water until well after our meal came. Forget about a refill...you were lucky to get one before dessert. I let that go pretty much until Thursday night. We were experiencing the same service and then they forgot about the birthday celebration for my girls that we confirmed with them the beginning of the week. Finally at 10pm they bring out a cake but the kids were asleep. I spoke with the head waiter Maclean (who by the way hardly ever came to our table) and told him about our disappointing experience. He said give him tomorrow night and he will make it very special. By the way the folks sitting next to us got constant drink service. Seems like as long as you keep the alcohol flowing you'll get as many refills as you want. Great for them, terrible service for us. I actually started to get jealous that the other tables of kids were dancing with their servers and getting little animals and hats made for them out of napkins but ours...nothing.
So Maclean asked if we were ordering dessert that night and I told him no that I was so disgusted by that point I just wanted to leave the table. We went back to the room and a few minutes later room service came down with a tray full of desserts and soda for us. Apparently Maclean was trying to make nice and sent every dessert on the menu to our stateroom.
The next night they did the cake at the beginning of the meal and sang happy birthday to the girls and sat the cake to the side for the meal until dessert. Our drinks came readily...at one time Maclean looked over and saw that we were almost done with our drinks and he had another server send us some at the same time Mariano was getting us drinks.
The ports of call were okay. We loved St. Martin. Yes the people were a little pushy but we loved the feel of the place. The beach right by the ship was okay. We enjoyed ourselves. The chairs were nice and had umbrellas and the guy working there went out of his way to go get you food and drinks when he didn't really have to. He was nice.
St Thomas was horrible. The cab drivers were rip offs. We went to Megans Bay and it was a joke. If that was rated in the top ten by National Geographic I would hate to see the bottom ten. The water was nice and the bay itself was nice but the beach and facilities were filthy. It was a rip off there also. We paid 3 dollars per person to use the beach whereas other families were only charged 3 dollars per family. We left the beach after a few hours and just went back to the ship. We didn't want another rip off cab ride to the shopping.
We bought the picture package on the ship and that was a big mistake! We didn't want to plan our day to chase down the characters so we didn't get all of the 6x8 photo ops. All the photos we got taken were 8x10s but the staff was gracious enough to let us trade two 6x8s for 1 8x10. Reuben in the photography department was wonderful as he personally came to Parrot Cay the last night to take pictures of the girls for us during their birthday celebration. I mentioned him on the comment card.
We also had a problem with the brown water and when I called guest services the woman had the nerve to tell me to go ahead and use it..she assures us it is safe!! I told her why would I bathe my children in dirt, that would defeat the purpose of a bath. They also charged us for charges that we didn't make. Apparently there was a mix up and someone was purchasing things and they were putting it on our account. Yes the correction was made but it took a few days because they had to hunt down the receipts.
All in all it was a nice vacation. Perfect weather..the kids had a wonderful time and I guess that's what counts. I did find that when you checked the kids in the club there wasn't many activities for a single adult to do. Who wants to go to a dance party by yourself?? There was a single dance the last night but it was only ages 18-25. I guess Disney thinks that anyone over 25 should be married or something.
Would we take another Disney Cruise ....probably so, just because of the children's enjoyment. Would I take another one to the same ports of call? Definately not. I would also convince my boyfriend that he must come with us so I can have something to do when the kids are playing in the club. Kinda hard to play how well do you know your mate..when you don't have a mate with you.
So there you have it ...the good, the bad, the ugly from a first time Disney Cruiser.
As I had mentioned before on the boards...we got a pixie dust shower from a category 9 to a category 4 for only 100 bucks! We called to upgrade about three weeks out and they offered an upgrade for 100 dollars it was to be on deck 5 the CM informed us. When we got our documents we were on Deck 8!
The ride to Port Canaveral from the airport was okay. It was impressive to see the ship docked when we came over that bridge. The boarding procedure was a bit hectic. I think that the facility should be larger instead of cramming all of those people in that small area. I had registered the kids online for the club which I don't see what mattered because the wait to do the final registration was very long and if you hadn't registered online you could fill out the form, walk right up and get your pager faster than those who do it online.
The boarding process was okay..we were number 10 I believe. Our stateroom was ready promptly however I was a little disappointed on the upkeep of the staterooms. The walls were pretty badly scarred up and the floor in the bathrooms were dirty. The furniture needed to be repaired pretty badly. All in all the stateroom was adequate size for our family so we enjoyed that.
We had an incident as soon as we got in the room where the balcony door was not unlocked all the way and when my mother and I went out there we closed the door behind us and we were locked out of the room with my two girls (5 and 6) in the room. My mom tells the 6 year old to look outside to see if there was anyone to help...BIG MISTAKE! Both ran out of the room and closed the door behind them. Now I'm freaking..they don't have a key to the room, they wouldn't know how to work the key if they did and I knew they would run around looking for someone and get turned around. I didn't know what to do...just as I was about to yell at one of the workers on the dock for help the family in the room next to us came out on their balcony and I handed the man my key so he could let the girls back in the room and let us in the room. Not Disney's problem in ANY way..just a silly mistake on our part.
The kids activities were AWESOME...or at least that's what my girls said. They had a fabulous time in the club. I went to one activity with them to watch and it was the Stitch activity. They told the kids that Stitch would be there and he didn't show up so they were disappointed. The guy that did the Stitch activity didn't know what the heck he was doing..it was terrible, but the kids enjoyed it so that's what matters. The air conditioning in the club was inadequate. It was always very, very hot when I would go get the kids. I was told they were having difficulty with the air in there that week. The kids only complained about it once when they paged me to be picked up because it was too hot in there. There of course was a bully in the club that had a tendency to hit and shove the other kids. I said something to the staff that he needs to keep his hands to himself and the staff assured me that something would be said to his parents about his aggressive behavior. After that there wasn't a problem. Check in and out of the club was very inefficient for the first few days but toward the end they finally figured out to have one line for check in and one line for check out. Several times the computers would crash so the wait to get in the club was long sometimes. Overall the kids absolutely loved the club.
The food....well....what was in the dining rooms seemed very good, although I didn't care for many of the offerings. I'm just not that adventerous of an eater but it was that way on the cruise I took with Carnival several years ago. I delt with it. The food by the pool was horrible!!! I didn't know you could mess up a hotdog, but the buns were always stale, the taco shells...stale..the soda was always flat. We stopped eating up there because it was terrible. In topsiders the staff would get all nervous when I would go through the kids line and ask for an adult plate. "This is the kids line only Maam" they would say and my response would be "I understand that however I do not care for the offerings in the adult line".
Our servers were very professional and nice, but just not special. Karoly and Mariano. Karoly was always too rushed to speak to you about anything except what was on the menu and Mariano tried to interact with the kids but seemed very uncomfortable most of the time talking. I don't know if he was afraid that he didn't know enough english or what. It took forever for our orders to be taken and most of the time we wouldn't get a soda or even water until well after our meal came. Forget about a refill...you were lucky to get one before dessert. I let that go pretty much until Thursday night. We were experiencing the same service and then they forgot about the birthday celebration for my girls that we confirmed with them the beginning of the week. Finally at 10pm they bring out a cake but the kids were asleep. I spoke with the head waiter Maclean (who by the way hardly ever came to our table) and told him about our disappointing experience. He said give him tomorrow night and he will make it very special. By the way the folks sitting next to us got constant drink service. Seems like as long as you keep the alcohol flowing you'll get as many refills as you want. Great for them, terrible service for us. I actually started to get jealous that the other tables of kids were dancing with their servers and getting little animals and hats made for them out of napkins but ours...nothing.
So Maclean asked if we were ordering dessert that night and I told him no that I was so disgusted by that point I just wanted to leave the table. We went back to the room and a few minutes later room service came down with a tray full of desserts and soda for us. Apparently Maclean was trying to make nice and sent every dessert on the menu to our stateroom.
The next night they did the cake at the beginning of the meal and sang happy birthday to the girls and sat the cake to the side for the meal until dessert. Our drinks came readily...at one time Maclean looked over and saw that we were almost done with our drinks and he had another server send us some at the same time Mariano was getting us drinks.
The ports of call were okay. We loved St. Martin. Yes the people were a little pushy but we loved the feel of the place. The beach right by the ship was okay. We enjoyed ourselves. The chairs were nice and had umbrellas and the guy working there went out of his way to go get you food and drinks when he didn't really have to. He was nice.
St Thomas was horrible. The cab drivers were rip offs. We went to Megans Bay and it was a joke. If that was rated in the top ten by National Geographic I would hate to see the bottom ten. The water was nice and the bay itself was nice but the beach and facilities were filthy. It was a rip off there also. We paid 3 dollars per person to use the beach whereas other families were only charged 3 dollars per family. We left the beach after a few hours and just went back to the ship. We didn't want another rip off cab ride to the shopping.
We bought the picture package on the ship and that was a big mistake! We didn't want to plan our day to chase down the characters so we didn't get all of the 6x8 photo ops. All the photos we got taken were 8x10s but the staff was gracious enough to let us trade two 6x8s for 1 8x10. Reuben in the photography department was wonderful as he personally came to Parrot Cay the last night to take pictures of the girls for us during their birthday celebration. I mentioned him on the comment card.
We also had a problem with the brown water and when I called guest services the woman had the nerve to tell me to go ahead and use it..she assures us it is safe!! I told her why would I bathe my children in dirt, that would defeat the purpose of a bath. They also charged us for charges that we didn't make. Apparently there was a mix up and someone was purchasing things and they were putting it on our account. Yes the correction was made but it took a few days because they had to hunt down the receipts.
All in all it was a nice vacation. Perfect weather..the kids had a wonderful time and I guess that's what counts. I did find that when you checked the kids in the club there wasn't many activities for a single adult to do. Who wants to go to a dance party by yourself?? There was a single dance the last night but it was only ages 18-25. I guess Disney thinks that anyone over 25 should be married or something.
Would we take another Disney Cruise ....probably so, just because of the children's enjoyment. Would I take another one to the same ports of call? Definately not. I would also convince my boyfriend that he must come with us so I can have something to do when the kids are playing in the club. Kinda hard to play how well do you know your mate..when you don't have a mate with you.
So there you have it ...the good, the bad, the ugly from a first time Disney Cruiser.
I wanted to let you know that I didn't mean to offend you or your family. Were you the family from Kentucky? We enjoyed sitting at the table next to you...it's nice talking to other families especially when they are from where my family still refers to "down home" since moving to Ohio.
