Crowds question

[LissafromSJ]

Okay, hoping you pros can set my mind at ease. I'm only halfway through the "looking forward to" phase for our Nov. 05 cruise (the 12-19, seven day Eastern), and I'm starting to worry about crowds. Here's my question: in your opinion, are the on-board crowds similar to a Disney park on an off season day or on a July/Christmas vacation/Easter vacation day?
Some of the more unhappy posters seem to blame crowds a lot, so that has gotten me wondering. I can't blame someone for being turned off of a wonderful experience because they were always being smushed by others.
We avoid crowds like the plague, and always do the parks in November for this reason. We have second seating dinner, and for our three kids (who will be 11, 11, and 9), think that'll be best for us.
Just hoping someone can make me stop worrying that I'll be squeezing past people in the hallways and on deck, and scanning a crowd of a thousand kids to catch a view of mine in the water at CC. Thanks all!! Melissa

 

[lbgraves]

We were on the 11/15/03 Eastern and even though the ship was sold out we didn't experience long lines everywhere. Once we figured out the trick of getting in line early for autographs, especially for the princesses, we cut that wait time down tremendously too. At the kid's show on Friday they said that there were 750 kids on the ship aged 3-12. I was in shock! We never saw the Mickey pool THAT crowded, though we went first time in the morning & when the ship was in port. CC was also not a crowd issue for us, no worse than the beach here on the NC coast on a holiday weekend...in fact it was better for us than that because we didn't have to lug a cooler with drinks & food or chairs. It was also less stressful because the water is shallow near the shore on the family beach and there is no rip tide like here all the time. We also didn't seem crowded on our recent Western 12/4/04. One great thing to look forward to on your cruise is the Christmas decorations will be up!!! That makes the ship just that much more beautiful.

 

[Lynderella]

I too am not a crowd person. I don't like to go to the movie theater if it will be full. But, I never felt crowded on the Magic. The worst was packing everyone in to do the immigration before St. Thomas and watching the graduation performance for the club kids. But, if you are prepared, you know what to expect and know it doesn't last long. We were luck to have a dinner table that was next to the wall. I never felt crowded at dinner.

If you need a break, try the lounge chairs on Deck 4 on a port day. You might even get lonely.

Hope you have an enjoyable cruise.

Lynn

 

[kcashner]

My experience with fall cruises with a school aged daughter is that there are almost no lines at all once you have boarded and made ressies. There will probably be a lot of toddlers and younger children on the cruise, but not a lot of the 10+ crowd as many parents don't like to take kids out of school. We love late seating, and with kids the age of yours, I'd strongly recommend it.

I have to add the disclaimer that I didn't have any reason to use Flounders, and only on our first cruise was DD of Club age. She's done Lab and Stack many times since that first cruise....essentially without any crowds. You will wait in short lines for character pictures and autographs, but that's about all. Fall is my favorite time to cruise!

 

[LissafromSJ]

I knew I'd feel better! Thank you all for responding - I'll relax and go watch my Disney Cruise DVD (again) ... Melissa

 

[Mickeyhugger]

Another thing, the crowds are 'regulated' on a ship vs. the parks. A capacity ship is not like a capacity at the parks. We've sailed the Magic three times, each sold out (two were spring breaks.) Walking through the hallways and decks, I'd say to DH, "I can't believe this is a full ship.'

 

[shmoogrrrl]

Hard to say. I've been on two packed cruises, one practically empty cruise, and one moderately full cruise. They were all the same to me, it seemed. Obviously we waited in line for pictures longer on the full cruises, but it wasn't too bad at all. We were always at Dinner on time.

I think it depends on your idea of a crowd. If you don't want to wait for anything, that isn't likely to happen, but I don't recall waiting very long for anything!

 

[pdarrah]

DH and I are definitely NOT crowd people. We had cruised twice over 12 years ago (Carnival) and stopped because we just didn't like the crowds and lines. We took our first DCL cruise last October because our DS5 begged for a year and we figured it couldn't be that bad and we are Disney nuts (WDW at least twice per year for a decade! - but always in "off" times to avoid crowds )

Throughout the cruise we kept asking each other - "Where is everybody". We were told that it was a "full ship" (I don't know if that means sold out or not) but we sure didn't see those crowds very often. Certainly, there were plenty of people in the terminal for boarding, but the lines moved quickly and we never felt packed in or anything. There were some long lines for some of the formal pictures (but we were able to walk right up to the captain for photos with no wait at all.) We felt the tables in the dining rooms were a decent distance apart so that we weren't right on top of our neighbors. There were reasonable numbers of kids in the Mickey pool, but no worse than the kiddie pool at our town aquatic center on a summer weekend day. (Frankly, kids seem to enjoy pools more when there are lots of other kids.) Most of the time, we were able to find an open chair or lounge to sit in while we watched. I think the longest line for the slide that he waited in was maybe 10 kids.

The only time we waited to disembark was at Castaway Cay and that only took a few minutes to clear (we were on the Western, so no St Thomas). Our DS5 loved the club and there were always a decent number of children there, but again - it didn't seem particularly crowded (no more so than his montessori school - more kids, but bigger space and more couselors also.) We never had to wait to get into dinner or into the theater (except for the kid show and that was only because they had the disembarkation talk going on in there before it and it was running long for some reason - they wouldn't let anyone in until that ended so we stacked up in the hall.) That was very different from our earlier cruises where we waited in line to get into dinner every night (a HUGE room where 1/2 the passangers ate at the same time).

The only other crowd that I can remember was having lunch at Topsiders right after we boarded. That was CROWDED, but we quickly got our food and took it outside where we felt like we had more space. For our next cruise, I think we will lunch at Parrot Cay and see if that avoids the crowd. Oh yes - also at Shutters before or after dinner - that was NUTS and I just avoided it for the most part.

I wonder if our experience is partly due to the late dinner seating (which we LOVED and are doing again.) Maybe our schedule was off from many other families so we were at the pools and such at different times? I don't know why, but we definitely didn't feel crowded on DCL and rebooked on board (totally unexpected!) for this October and my parents are joining us due to DS5's rave reviews!

pdarrah

 

[tvguy]

We were on the packed NYE 2003-2004 Magic Eastern. The ONLY time we saw a crowd was the last morning, trying to get 2600 people off the ship at once did lead to 45 minute lines on the ship, but they must have been regulating the flow off the ship, because the time it took to step off the ship, get our luggage, clear customs, checkin at the port for our flight, board the Disney bus, and leave was 10 minutes.

Actually we were surprised, we went to a Disney trivia contest on a sea day, we were among 4 families that showed up.

 

[mamalle]

Im not sure we just got back from the wonder 2/6 and we were told the ship was full. I had the impression it wasnt a peak time. you really could tell at the pool area in the afternoon and some of the lines to meet the characters. we just would go early like 30 minutes for the ones my daughter wanted to meet- which Im glad we did on the morning she saw her fav princesses..