ahhhshmatthew
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2019
- Messages
- 106
Hi All 
It has been a while since I've posted anything, but family and I (spouse and 7YO) just got back from a 4 night sailing on the Disney Destiny, with B2B stops at Lighthouse and Castaway. It was our first time sailing on the ship (and any Wish Class ship for that matter) and our 4th Disney cruise overall (2x Magic; 1 Dream). Here are some thoughts with the usual caveat that these are just my/our first impressions and aren't set in stone -->
Positive Takes:
-The ship itself was beautiful. I've read/watched a lot of commentary on this topic, with numerous folks hammering on the "lack" of detail and/or higher quality materials in certain areas, but that wasn't anything that bothered me or something that I even noticed. I think I have a preference for other lobbies, but overall we thought the ship's design and presentation was vibrant and fun.
-Perhaps the most well-read topic on the Wish Class ships is the layout and how much disdain there is for it. As someone who had only been on older class ships I was very concerned about this. However, I have to say: I did not in any way feel like the layout was chaotic, frustrating, etc. This class is obviously bigger, and again, laid out completely differently than older class ships. I can see how if you had spent years or decades on those ships this new layout would be jarring, but overall, I didn't think the setup in any way negatively impacted our vacation. I still thought essentially all amenities were efficiently close and no one in our party felt differently.
-We still love Castaway Cay. You can see below on our service thoughts, but Castaway is to me such a well-oiled operation. We got great chairs (which given the sailing was an interesting discovery), had great service, fantastic weather, and our day there was an easy reminder of a part of why we love Disney cruising.
-Some of the venue specific highlights for us were The Rose, Palo brunch, Meg/Merida pre-dinner coffee cocktails, Oceaneer's Club for the kiddo, and Haunted Mansion Parlor (but also, see below).
Negative Takes:
-This sailing was, per multiple CMs, the highest occupancy the ship has ever been. We were told by multiple CMs in the same sitting that the ship had 3,960+ passengers on board, and they noted that over 1,700 of those were children. FWIW - it didn't feel "overrun" everywhere with guests, but there were obvious pain points Disney was not prepared for.
-Very much related to the above, the ship was simply not staffed to handle this influx of guests. This was especially noticeable for anything F&B related - dinner service in particular was far below the standard we're used to, but it also showed up at almost every cocktail/bar setting, as well as both Meg/Merida. The most disheartening part was just how stressed the CMs were - it showed on almost every facet of service - they know they're understaffed, they know it shows, and it clearly affected their ability to provide service in their usual way. It's not the CMs fault of course -- but this situation led to inevitable issues that I'm not accustom to on Disney cruises: forgotten drinks, forgotten requests, overall extremely slow services, and perhaps the most frustrating, CMs absolutely rushing as fast as possible to serve you and move you on (especially at dinner).
-Related to the above, and for us specifically, our lead server for dinner was borderline having a panic attack our first night at Pride Lands. The venue is already a bit chaotic, and the sea itself was very choppy at the start. I sat down with out 7Yo and 2 other friends' children, and it wasn't 60 seconds before she had arrived and asked if they were ready to order. That set the tone for dinner - everyone was essentially rushed as fast as possible in every facet. On night 2, our leader server was gone -- we were told she was sick, but we never saw her again. It took another night for our new lead server to adjust (as he clearly had extra tables) and for our assistant server to realign, but that too just added further to the chaos.
-Somewhat odd note but -- we also felt the service, aside from being rushed, was extremely impersonal. Highly unusual again for DCL. Multiple bartenders, servers, etc. wouldn't look us in the eye, didn't make conversation. We're accustom to them going out of the way for our kiddo, but that rarely happened if at all (outside of BBB, where the godmother was great). I think for the first time ever, I saw a CM on their cell phone -- I waited nearly 60 seconds for him to notice me at a pool bar b/c he was staring down on his phone texting. I cannot recall this ever happening before anywhere in Disney.
-This has been hammered home a lot already by others, but I wasn't wildly impressed with any of the specialty cocktails at most of the bars. A bit too sweet and simplified for mass consumption for my taste.
-Weather was certainly not ideal the first 36 hours, but what can you do? We swayed and rocked and had fun regardless, but it definitely added to the overall chaos initially. On our Lighthouse day there was a black flag warning, and no one was allowed in the ocean b/c of the undertow. Pretty wild - not experienced that before.
-----
Overall, we had a great time. We love Disney cruising and will go again (Wonder in October out of San Diego). It was simply jarring to see a ship, especially one that new, be this unprepared for the occupancy. Multiple CMs reiterated this was their first ever "truly sold out" sailing, and as noted above, had not had that many children on board before (it showed at Oceaneer's; there was a 30-40 minute wait to pick up kids at multiple points, and one CM said they had 300+ children inside at various times). They had months and months to prepare for these sailings and clearly just couldn't get it done, so it was disappointing to that end. Anecdotally, CM told us the agencies used to help hire the huge masses of international CMs had (as of late, apparently) been being very dishonest with people about what it's like to work on a cruise ship. She told us they had more CMs simply quitting mid-contract than she had ever seen -- she said one CM simply got off the boat at a port mid-sailing and never came back.
Hope they can get it worked out in the future for this ship, but curious if people have experienced this level of poor service recently with DCL. Cheers all.
It has been a while since I've posted anything, but family and I (spouse and 7YO) just got back from a 4 night sailing on the Disney Destiny, with B2B stops at Lighthouse and Castaway. It was our first time sailing on the ship (and any Wish Class ship for that matter) and our 4th Disney cruise overall (2x Magic; 1 Dream). Here are some thoughts with the usual caveat that these are just my/our first impressions and aren't set in stone
-->Positive Takes:
-The ship itself was beautiful. I've read/watched a lot of commentary on this topic, with numerous folks hammering on the "lack" of detail and/or higher quality materials in certain areas, but that wasn't anything that bothered me or something that I even noticed. I think I have a preference for other lobbies, but overall we thought the ship's design and presentation was vibrant and fun.
-Perhaps the most well-read topic on the Wish Class ships is the layout and how much disdain there is for it. As someone who had only been on older class ships I was very concerned about this. However, I have to say: I did not in any way feel like the layout was chaotic, frustrating, etc. This class is obviously bigger, and again, laid out completely differently than older class ships. I can see how if you had spent years or decades on those ships this new layout would be jarring, but overall, I didn't think the setup in any way negatively impacted our vacation. I still thought essentially all amenities were efficiently close and no one in our party felt differently.
-We still love Castaway Cay. You can see below on our service thoughts, but Castaway is to me such a well-oiled operation. We got great chairs (which given the sailing was an interesting discovery), had great service, fantastic weather, and our day there was an easy reminder of a part of why we love Disney cruising.
-Some of the venue specific highlights for us were The Rose, Palo brunch, Meg/Merida pre-dinner coffee cocktails, Oceaneer's Club for the kiddo, and Haunted Mansion Parlor (but also, see below).
Negative Takes:
-This sailing was, per multiple CMs, the highest occupancy the ship has ever been. We were told by multiple CMs in the same sitting that the ship had 3,960+ passengers on board, and they noted that over 1,700 of those were children. FWIW - it didn't feel "overrun" everywhere with guests, but there were obvious pain points Disney was not prepared for.
-Very much related to the above, the ship was simply not staffed to handle this influx of guests. This was especially noticeable for anything F&B related - dinner service in particular was far below the standard we're used to, but it also showed up at almost every cocktail/bar setting, as well as both Meg/Merida. The most disheartening part was just how stressed the CMs were - it showed on almost every facet of service - they know they're understaffed, they know it shows, and it clearly affected their ability to provide service in their usual way. It's not the CMs fault of course -- but this situation led to inevitable issues that I'm not accustom to on Disney cruises: forgotten drinks, forgotten requests, overall extremely slow services, and perhaps the most frustrating, CMs absolutely rushing as fast as possible to serve you and move you on (especially at dinner).
-Related to the above, and for us specifically, our lead server for dinner was borderline having a panic attack our first night at Pride Lands. The venue is already a bit chaotic, and the sea itself was very choppy at the start. I sat down with out 7Yo and 2 other friends' children, and it wasn't 60 seconds before she had arrived and asked if they were ready to order. That set the tone for dinner - everyone was essentially rushed as fast as possible in every facet. On night 2, our leader server was gone -- we were told she was sick, but we never saw her again. It took another night for our new lead server to adjust (as he clearly had extra tables) and for our assistant server to realign, but that too just added further to the chaos.
-Somewhat odd note but -- we also felt the service, aside from being rushed, was extremely impersonal. Highly unusual again for DCL. Multiple bartenders, servers, etc. wouldn't look us in the eye, didn't make conversation. We're accustom to them going out of the way for our kiddo, but that rarely happened if at all (outside of BBB, where the godmother was great). I think for the first time ever, I saw a CM on their cell phone -- I waited nearly 60 seconds for him to notice me at a pool bar b/c he was staring down on his phone texting. I cannot recall this ever happening before anywhere in Disney.
-This has been hammered home a lot already by others, but I wasn't wildly impressed with any of the specialty cocktails at most of the bars. A bit too sweet and simplified for mass consumption for my taste.
-Weather was certainly not ideal the first 36 hours, but what can you do? We swayed and rocked and had fun regardless, but it definitely added to the overall chaos initially. On our Lighthouse day there was a black flag warning, and no one was allowed in the ocean b/c of the undertow. Pretty wild - not experienced that before.
-----
Overall, we had a great time. We love Disney cruising and will go again (Wonder in October out of San Diego). It was simply jarring to see a ship, especially one that new, be this unprepared for the occupancy. Multiple CMs reiterated this was their first ever "truly sold out" sailing, and as noted above, had not had that many children on board before (it showed at Oceaneer's; there was a 30-40 minute wait to pick up kids at multiple points, and one CM said they had 300+ children inside at various times). They had months and months to prepare for these sailings and clearly just couldn't get it done, so it was disappointing to that end. Anecdotally, CM told us the agencies used to help hire the huge masses of international CMs had (as of late, apparently) been being very dishonest with people about what it's like to work on a cruise ship. She told us they had more CMs simply quitting mid-contract than she had ever seen -- she said one CM simply got off the boat at a port mid-sailing and never came back.
Hope they can get it worked out in the future for this ship, but curious if people have experienced this level of poor service recently with DCL. Cheers all.
