DCL cutting back on little things?

[rcchello]

Disney is very particular on who can play each character. The person playing Mickey has to be petite in size to fit into the costume. They have to go through training so that their hand and body movements are correct for the character. I wonder how many trained Mickey's they have onboard.

For face characters they probably only have a single person on each cruise to play each one. They probably don't want kids to see two different people playing the same character in such a small place like a cruise.

 

[kay1864]

Just off the Magic, and while we had a wonderful time, we noticed a few little things that have apparently been dropped by DCL. First, the animation show at AP ended with the parade of servers in their colorful vests, but for the first time in our experience on either the Magic or Wonder, there was no appearance by Sorcerer Mickey.

I just got off that same cruise, and Sorcerer Mickey was there with the parade on Saturday night in AP. Maybe there was some glitch with him on your AP night.

 

[cadien]

I think it's a side effect of the high rates. People tend to notice the changes and the cuts more than the usual.

Exactly. If it's all the little details that justify paying twice as much as the other lines, then losing those details matters.

 

[lilpooh108]

Disembarked Magic on 9/27, we definitely had Sorcerer Mickey in AP. Maybe Mickey was out sick that day.

As to the Lays potato chips -- I came over on the WBTA just before your cruise. Lots of things weren't available due to DCL having a different supplier in Europe. Maybe they just didn't get a chance to restock once they ended up in NYC. I did noticed that our 2nd day in NYC lots of things were available once again (we saw them loading in food).

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Disembarked Magic on 9/27, we definitely had Sorcerer Mickey in AP. Maybe Mickey was out sick that day.

As to the Lays potato chips -- I came over on the WBTA just before your cruise. Lots of things weren't available due to DCL having a different supplier in Europe. Maybe they just didn't get a chance to restock once they ended up in NYC. I did noticed that our 2nd day in NYC lots of things were available once again (we saw them loading in food).

That's exactly what happened on our WBTA in 2010. They had NO Mickey Bars on the Med cruises. Or on the trip back across the ocean. Once we reached Castaway Cay, another ship had left boxes of Mickey bars for us. They were walking around Castaway all day handing them out.

 

[gatordoc]

So just out of curiousity did you have meet and greet tickets with the princesses? I ask because we had them on Day 2 Sea Day and Belle was there, but by Day 4 she was not there for the second set of princess meet and greet tickets, I noticed while on the elevator overlooking the atrium and also a mom in the elevator was expressing disappointment because she had M&G tickets for day 4 sea day for princesses... I also noticed belle wasn't at the Royal Tea Party, perhaps that's just a normal thing but I thought all the princesses on the boat usually make an appearance at the Royal Tea Party, given the expense of it all and it's really like a 30 min thing for the princesses to deal with.... so I set up this story with the fact that I am leaning towards the conclusion that perhaps belle was sick because she was essentially MIA after the M&G at 9:00-10:00 on sea day on day 2... I wonder if perhaps the person playing Mickey had a similar situation? That Night 1 was really rocky and could have affected the crew... just odd that they wouldn't do the whole show in AP for you, it's like a 90 sec appearance by Mickey so one would assume it wouldn't be a big deal.... IDK, while we certainly enjoyed our time on this cruise, it was certainly different than what we've experienced, there were a lot of mixed things in terms of planning and service... sorry for my ramble, I am going to write a trip report but this is definitely odd OP but like not surprising given how things unfolded on the cruise if you know what I mean? You know because you were there... there was something off in terms of execution

I think I agree, but I also think some of the "off" things were related to it being the first cruise out of NY after the TA. We don't do princess M&Gs so I can't comment on those. But for example, when we boarded the ship, they were frantically putting up Halloween decorations, and I think that was emblematic of it being a transition period. Then we had the really rough seas the first night, which I know knocked some crew members for a loop. All that said, the Magic is still our favorite ship, mainly because of the various cast members we've gotten to know over several cruises. And we also had plenty of magical experiences with cast members on this trip who were new to us. To be honest, while I did miss Sorcerer Mickey, I don't really care about potato chips or ice cubes - my intention wasn't to complain, but simply to mention some things we noticed that were different from our previous experiences.

 

[elvispursley]

I heard the recent transatlantic cruise on Magic caused food restocking problems and the time changes got to some of the crew. Maybe there is some truth to it.

We just got of the WBTA and I'm sure some of the stocking issues were due in part as not being able to get certain things. I noted we had differing brands of butter nearly every night. But not sure why the time change would affect the crew--we gained an hour of sleep almost every night! If anything, both our servers were raving about the extra sleep they were getting! I happened to have ordered ice tea in Palo and never even noticed if we got ice tea ice cubes, just noted that it was very freshly brewed ice tea. As for Mickey in AP, we definitely had a Mickey showing, so perhaps there was an off-night for Mickey??

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

We had all “three items” (Lays, Mickey in AP, and frozen tea ice cubes in tea at Palo) on the Magic in August in the Med.

Thanks,
Heather

 

[olafLover]

.

 

[ivanp91]

First, the animation show at AP ended with the parade of servers in their colorful vests, but for the first time in our experience on either the Magic or Wonder, there was no appearance by Sorcerer Mickey.

This has reminded me of something on our Wonder cruise last month... during the first night in AP, they didn't have the colorful vests anymore It was the exact same show as we have seen twice on the Magic (Sorcerer Mickey and all), but the vests were noticeably absent. We asked our server and she said that was a change since the Wonder came back from drydock. It's a shame, it was a really cool touch when we saw it on the Magic.

 

[lorimay]

On the Fantasy last week, we had the ice cubes in our tea at Palo. I saw someone order the pretzel in La Piazza it was huge, I told my husband if it wasn't so close to dinner I would have gotten one to share, but it was a meal in itself.
We didn't have the crush show AP this time, we had it in 2014 on 2 different cruises.
Plenty of Lay's chips on deck.

 

[mareed]

Don't know if it's Dream class-specific, but I did have them on our Fantasy cruise this past June:
View attachment 274625

I wasn't told about it. I just noticed it after I had drunk the tea down a bit. While I think it's nice, I usually find that iced tea is made much stronger than I prefer (I mean it's supposed to be a clear liquid), and I like the (regular) ice cubes to dilute it out a bit.

Yeah, I always have to water down the tea on ships as it's too strong for me, and I felt bad doing it at Palo since they'd gone to such effort so it wouldn't get watered down!

 

[dad of 3 addicted to DCL]

Just off the Magic, and while we had a wonderful time, we noticed a few little things that have apparently been dropped by DCL. First, the animation show at AP ended with the parade of servers in their colorful vests, but for the first time in our experience on either the Magic or Wonder, there was no appearance by Sorcerer Mickey. Second, the quick serve locations on deck 9 did not have Lays chips available - when I asked, they told me all they had were fries. And third, the iced tea in Palo had plain ice cubes rather than the ones made with frozen tea. Hopefully these were just random things on this cruise and not part of a trend.

We were on the cruise following yours and we had Sorcerer Mickey at the AP show

 

[dad of 3 addicted to DCL]

What? No more pretzels???? NO!

The were on the 10/2 Canada Coast cruise

 

[cvjw]

Went to palo twice last week on the fantasy. Had tea ice cubes in my iced tea glass both nights. I noticed them immediately!

Also, bags of lays chips were available on deck 11 and deck 12 on the fantasy

 

[JWG]

Those who cruise with some relative frequency are going to have varying experiences and each time "something" is going to be missing, out of stock, unavailable, etc. Not necessarily because they've cut back but because supply chain issues happen, equipment breaks, people get ill.

I have a strong opinion that Disney should not continue to allow the declining by degrees that have occurred at their theme parks given the premium price, but the cruise line suffers from a different constraint and isn't quite the same as failing to replace light bulbs and broken animatronics on rides.

Other than the Castaway Club gifts turning over slowly and if you cruise more than once in 18 months you'll probably get the same one, we havnen't noticed much decline from out first cruise in 2000 until now. The Fantasy looked a little "worn" this past March, but we sailed 3 weeks prior to its first major dry dock and overhaul. It looked pretty good considering that.