Embarkation Process:
Quick and easy if you check in online first. Overall process from the time that we arrived at the port to the time that our name was announced on the boat as we stepped on board was roughly 1 hour 15 minutes. We took the Disney Bus from WDW Port Orleans Riverside starting at 12pm and got to the port a little before 12:50pm. At this point, there was still a small wait to get into line and such...but it seems that a lot of people already boarded. Check in online to save time when processing paperwork. If you are in a Boarding Group that is waiting to get in, you can check-in at the Youth Activity desk and get your Kids Wrist bands for the clubs. Of course, you can do this onboard as well...but if you have time to do it....go ahead.
NOTE - Confirm with DCL, but since we are leaving a US Port and coming back to a US Port.....a Passport Book, Passport Card or Birth Certificate can be used as identification. Per my conversation with DCL beforehand, you can use any of those forms of identification...but recommend that you use a Passport Book. The only reason to do so IF ( and it's a big IF ) there is some Medical/Personal emergency and you need to fly back from Nassau itself. A Passport Card won't work as proper ID through Customs if you need to fly out of a foreign Nation ( I'm not sure if a Birth Certificate will allow you to go through US Customs if you need to fly out of Nassau ). If you don't anticipate such an emergency....then a Passport Card is sufficient for ID to simply board the Boat via the Embarkation Process. Whoever knows more can correct me if I am wrong...but for those that don't go on cruises that often and are planning now....this is useful info. Again, please confirm with DCL if you want to be sure. I only bring this up cuz I myself called beforehand just to confirm what would be needed and am sure that many will have the same questions.
Impressions of the Ship:
The ship is clean and the decor is very classy and what you'd expect. Overall, like most of this review....there isn't much that I can say that hasn't been said before by others. The Disney Dream is what you think it would be. There was always someone cleaning something and making sure that the ship it is kept in shape. The only part that I wanted to add was the Adult / 18+ areas of the ship on Deck 11 and above. I didn't really use it...but the Adult sections of the boat was nice. The entire back deck was open to adults with plenty of space for adults to sit and/or lay down and relax with no kids in sight. It wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be at night...but I am sure that it was used more often during the daytime. Either way, I think that DCL went out of their way to create a nice and inviting Adults / 18+ only section.
Room - Stateroom 6564 MidShip ( about 3 doors down from the MidShip Elevator )
We usually take an inside stateroom on Carnival ( mainly for cost ) while the last time we cruised on Carnival we booked an outside Stateroom but without a Balcony. This time, since it's unlikely we'd cruise on DCL again...I decided to splurge a little and booked a room with Balcony. My impression of the DCL rooms are the same as most. The room had plenty of space for a family of 4. I have to admit that the DCL Outside Balcony rooms are really nice and spacious...considering that we are on cruise. I loved just standing out on the balcony and looking out. The Kids LOVE the bunk beds where they had to swap beds each night so that they can have the right to sleep on the top bunk. Having space underneath the bed to put the luggage was very helpful given that we had 3 big pieces of luggage. Having the double Bathroom's are very convenient. No issues with the room itself. Ida was our Room Attendant and he kept everything clean. We stayed on Deck 6 midship. There was not as much noise as I thought there would be given the proximity to the elevators. If you can someohow get a room on the 4th/5th/6th floor midship....it's a great location. I loved the location since it just required us to walk 2 or 3 flight of stairs down ( instead of taking the elevator ) to get to most of the dining rooms.....it was 1 floor above the Oceaneer Lab, the Buena Vista and just 2 floor above the Walt Disney Theater. It was quite a walk to Deck 11 and Edge....but the majority of the time we were going to places located just 2 or 3 flights of stairs below us. This was really convenenient when you finish watching a late night movie and can just go up 2 close and quick flights of stairs to your room. The only thing that we didn't like was that we had to keep a room key in the slot by the door to keep the lights on. I get why they do this....but it became more of an annoyance than anything. More often than not....someone ended up leaving their Card in the room.
Dining - 1st Seating in the Royal Palace / Animator's Palette / Enchanted Garden / Royal Palace / Animator's Palette Dining Rotation
The service and ambiance was as expected for a Disney Cruise....it was excellent. Roy and Savio were our waiters and they did a good job of serving us throughout the cruise. The problem is that throughout the cruise....there wasn't any single dish that really stood out to me. There wasn't any entree that made me ask our Servers for "seconds". The food wasn't bad...it was good....and ( at most ) slightly above average. Unfortunately, for me and my Wife....there wasn't anything that blew me away. There was a Seafood, Red/White Meat and Chicken Entree....pretty standard. But from night to night.....it just tasted the same after 5 nights. It wasn't that I was looking for some thing that would totally blow my mind...it's just that the entree options were just too simiilar. To be clear, I'm not saying that the food wasn't bad....it was good for a 4-Star restaurant.......I was just expecting more when it came to a Disney Cruise. To be fair...I could have gone to Palo or Remy....but my Wife wanted to stick with the regular Rotation restaurants. As for everything else, Cabanas was okay...nothing special....standard higher end Cafeteria food. The Kids LOVED the Late Night Pizza and Chicken Tenders/Fries. Every night.....before we went to sleep....we'd go get pizza....whether it be to eat in the room or during the late night movie. Another thing....I loved the Strawberry Soft Serve ice cream ( which I don't see that often ). BTW....if you are on Castaway cay and are over 18....head over to Serenity Bay and have lunch there. They essentially serve the same type of lunch as the rest of the island....but the Adult section has freshly Grilled Salmon, Steak, Burgers and other more adult options.
Entertainment
I'm not going to say too much about the Disney Shows....cuz for me, I was like...ok...whatever, since I'm not too into those shows. Overall, the shows were typical Disney Shows...the kids loved it and everyone else loved it....so I'll just leave it at that. For me, I loved the first Run movies that we could watch in the Buena Vista theater. We had the fortunate situation where we got to not only see TomorrowLand ( I know, it kind of sucked as an overall movie...but I didn't see the movie yet ), Inside Out ( which we already saw but we still loved ) and And-Man ( which just came out and I didn't see yet ). As I suggested above....I love that I could grab some pizza, fries and soda and watch a late night movie and then in 5 minutes walk right up to my room. We tried the Bingo 3 times, which is always fun but disappointing ( the only thing I won was a Free 2 person pass to the RainForest Room ). My Wife LOVED Taylor Mason and his Comedy/Ventriloquist routine. The only Onboard Activity that I paid for was the Mixology Class. We tried the AquaDuck twice while waiting about 30 minutes. Again, not much to say that most would comment about it.....the Kids loved it, the pool and water slides. When I saw the Oceaneers Lab, I was impressed by the sheer size and different activities that DCL offered inside for the kids to play with. DCL really goes out of the way to create different activities for kids to play and enjoy. My 7 year old Daughter really enjoyed the Carnival Kids Club when we last went on a Cruise.....so I thought that she would really LOVE the Oceaneers Club. Overall, I think she somewhat enjoy it...but ( for some reason ) she didn't seem to enjoy it as much since she ended up calling me to pick her up most of the time. Being a very social person, I'm not sure what happened. My 11 year old Son went to Edge. He seemed to enjoy that one more since he played with kids that were more his age. They had Scavenger Hunts, they played the sports games and hung out.
One more thing....there is one thing that YOU MUST TRY on board......TRY any of the "Alcohol" Tasting options that DCL offers during Sea Day. There are options for different types of Liquor, Tequilla, Martinis, etc. I took the Mixology Tasting class with my In-Laws. They have a Bartender show you how to make various drinks while showing the various techniques. Here's the catch and the ONLY REASON to pay for this activity.....it ONLY costs $20 per person for 5 different drinks. That may sound like a lot....but these aren't the watered down drinks that you get at the pool....they use the premium liquors and ALLOW YOU to make the drinks themselves that's only $4 per drink. Think about that for a second....you get to try 5 different drinks that they show you how to make and taste for $20. That's way better than the $8 to $10 per watered-down drinks that they regularly charge you. On top of that...they let you pour the alcohol. I'm a lightweight....so I didn't add so much alcohol...but you can easily pour a little extra if you want
. Either way, try the Liquor Tasting offerings they have...you will not regret it.
Offshore Excursions
We didn't really do anything at Nassau other than stay onboard....which is what we usually do. I loved Castaway Cay. I decided to sign up on the 1st day at Castaway Cay for the 5k run ( ran it in under 26 minutes
). It was humid and hot...but wasn't as bad as I thought it would be since it was around 9am that we ran. As a periodic runner....if you like to run....it's worth it to at least say that you ran a 5k on some Tropical island in the Bahamas. I snorkelled on the main family area. Be aware that this side of the island had a lot more seaweed and whatever else usually floats on the shore. Nothing bad...just that I was disappointed that the shoreline wasn't as clear as I hoped it would be. I couldn't get the kids to go snorkelling....but I swam out to look for the underwater Mickey and Minnie statue. I randomly found the Underwater Minnie but had to swim back to get back to the boat ( in the main snorkel area, look for the 1st Guard Tower on the right with the Ship Mast sticking out of the water...it's beyond that area ). On the 2nd day at Castaway Cay, I convinced my Wife to join me on the Serenity Island side. As I suggested before, go if you can and have lunch there. It's a minor upgrade over the lunch on the main side of the island....but it's nice. The water and shoreline was WAY CLEARER and warmer. I loved that we can walk out very far and still only be waist deep in water. We saw many fish ( as expected ) and even saw a Stingray swim underneath us ( while freaking out my Wife ). As expected, it's much quieter and much nicer than the other main part of the island.
Debarkation Process:
A LOT easier than I thought it would be. On Carnival....we had to wait in huge lines after we wait for our Group to be called....even if it took up to an hour or two to get off the boat. On the Dream....we finished eating by 8am...left Animator's Palette and went to the main atrium trying to figure out what to do next...fully expecting to wait for another hour before leaving. Since we had DCL pick up our luggage the night before.....all we had to do was head to the lobby and just leave the boat. There was no huge line or waiting to be called for our group. There was just a short line to exit the boat. We had to go through customs and pick up our luggage inside the port itself ( which took another 30 min )......but it only took us 15 minutes to physically leave the boat from the time that we left the restaurant. Other Cruise lines should take note.....whatever DCL did to streamline their process works great.
Our flight was early next morning at 7am at MCO. I decided to stay at the Hyatt located inside MCO itself. We checked out and left the room by 5:10am, was able to check our luggage into the United Front Desk, get through Security and sit down at our Gate by 5:55am. If you can afford the $250 stay for a single night...you can't beat the convenience of staying at the Hyatt MCO. It was worth the extra $$$ purely for the convenience itself.
Overall Experience
The family enjoyed it....it was definitely better than the usual Carnival Cruise that we go on. The kids enjoyed themselves and there wasn't anything that was a negative for me on the boat. The only part was the entree options during the Dining rotation....but that is purely subjective on my part. For me....my next cruise with my Family will likely be one of the bigger RCL boats ( cuz I want more variety and mainly cuz I want a Casino on the boat ). But if you are looking for a very high end Family Cruise experience....DCL really hits on all cylinders and was worth the premium that we paid for.
Quick and easy if you check in online first. Overall process from the time that we arrived at the port to the time that our name was announced on the boat as we stepped on board was roughly 1 hour 15 minutes. We took the Disney Bus from WDW Port Orleans Riverside starting at 12pm and got to the port a little before 12:50pm. At this point, there was still a small wait to get into line and such...but it seems that a lot of people already boarded. Check in online to save time when processing paperwork. If you are in a Boarding Group that is waiting to get in, you can check-in at the Youth Activity desk and get your Kids Wrist bands for the clubs. Of course, you can do this onboard as well...but if you have time to do it....go ahead.
NOTE - Confirm with DCL, but since we are leaving a US Port and coming back to a US Port.....a Passport Book, Passport Card or Birth Certificate can be used as identification. Per my conversation with DCL beforehand, you can use any of those forms of identification...but recommend that you use a Passport Book. The only reason to do so IF ( and it's a big IF ) there is some Medical/Personal emergency and you need to fly back from Nassau itself. A Passport Card won't work as proper ID through Customs if you need to fly out of a foreign Nation ( I'm not sure if a Birth Certificate will allow you to go through US Customs if you need to fly out of Nassau ). If you don't anticipate such an emergency....then a Passport Card is sufficient for ID to simply board the Boat via the Embarkation Process. Whoever knows more can correct me if I am wrong...but for those that don't go on cruises that often and are planning now....this is useful info. Again, please confirm with DCL if you want to be sure. I only bring this up cuz I myself called beforehand just to confirm what would be needed and am sure that many will have the same questions.
Impressions of the Ship:
The ship is clean and the decor is very classy and what you'd expect. Overall, like most of this review....there isn't much that I can say that hasn't been said before by others. The Disney Dream is what you think it would be. There was always someone cleaning something and making sure that the ship it is kept in shape. The only part that I wanted to add was the Adult / 18+ areas of the ship on Deck 11 and above. I didn't really use it...but the Adult sections of the boat was nice. The entire back deck was open to adults with plenty of space for adults to sit and/or lay down and relax with no kids in sight. It wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be at night...but I am sure that it was used more often during the daytime. Either way, I think that DCL went out of their way to create a nice and inviting Adults / 18+ only section.
Room - Stateroom 6564 MidShip ( about 3 doors down from the MidShip Elevator )
We usually take an inside stateroom on Carnival ( mainly for cost ) while the last time we cruised on Carnival we booked an outside Stateroom but without a Balcony. This time, since it's unlikely we'd cruise on DCL again...I decided to splurge a little and booked a room with Balcony. My impression of the DCL rooms are the same as most. The room had plenty of space for a family of 4. I have to admit that the DCL Outside Balcony rooms are really nice and spacious...considering that we are on cruise. I loved just standing out on the balcony and looking out. The Kids LOVE the bunk beds where they had to swap beds each night so that they can have the right to sleep on the top bunk. Having space underneath the bed to put the luggage was very helpful given that we had 3 big pieces of luggage. Having the double Bathroom's are very convenient. No issues with the room itself. Ida was our Room Attendant and he kept everything clean. We stayed on Deck 6 midship. There was not as much noise as I thought there would be given the proximity to the elevators. If you can someohow get a room on the 4th/5th/6th floor midship....it's a great location. I loved the location since it just required us to walk 2 or 3 flight of stairs down ( instead of taking the elevator ) to get to most of the dining rooms.....it was 1 floor above the Oceaneer Lab, the Buena Vista and just 2 floor above the Walt Disney Theater. It was quite a walk to Deck 11 and Edge....but the majority of the time we were going to places located just 2 or 3 flights of stairs below us. This was really convenenient when you finish watching a late night movie and can just go up 2 close and quick flights of stairs to your room. The only thing that we didn't like was that we had to keep a room key in the slot by the door to keep the lights on. I get why they do this....but it became more of an annoyance than anything. More often than not....someone ended up leaving their Card in the room.
Dining - 1st Seating in the Royal Palace / Animator's Palette / Enchanted Garden / Royal Palace / Animator's Palette Dining Rotation
The service and ambiance was as expected for a Disney Cruise....it was excellent. Roy and Savio were our waiters and they did a good job of serving us throughout the cruise. The problem is that throughout the cruise....there wasn't any single dish that really stood out to me. There wasn't any entree that made me ask our Servers for "seconds". The food wasn't bad...it was good....and ( at most ) slightly above average. Unfortunately, for me and my Wife....there wasn't anything that blew me away. There was a Seafood, Red/White Meat and Chicken Entree....pretty standard. But from night to night.....it just tasted the same after 5 nights. It wasn't that I was looking for some thing that would totally blow my mind...it's just that the entree options were just too simiilar. To be clear, I'm not saying that the food wasn't bad....it was good for a 4-Star restaurant.......I was just expecting more when it came to a Disney Cruise. To be fair...I could have gone to Palo or Remy....but my Wife wanted to stick with the regular Rotation restaurants. As for everything else, Cabanas was okay...nothing special....standard higher end Cafeteria food. The Kids LOVED the Late Night Pizza and Chicken Tenders/Fries. Every night.....before we went to sleep....we'd go get pizza....whether it be to eat in the room or during the late night movie. Another thing....I loved the Strawberry Soft Serve ice cream ( which I don't see that often ). BTW....if you are on Castaway cay and are over 18....head over to Serenity Bay and have lunch there. They essentially serve the same type of lunch as the rest of the island....but the Adult section has freshly Grilled Salmon, Steak, Burgers and other more adult options.
Entertainment
I'm not going to say too much about the Disney Shows....cuz for me, I was like...ok...whatever, since I'm not too into those shows. Overall, the shows were typical Disney Shows...the kids loved it and everyone else loved it....so I'll just leave it at that. For me, I loved the first Run movies that we could watch in the Buena Vista theater. We had the fortunate situation where we got to not only see TomorrowLand ( I know, it kind of sucked as an overall movie...but I didn't see the movie yet ), Inside Out ( which we already saw but we still loved ) and And-Man ( which just came out and I didn't see yet ). As I suggested above....I love that I could grab some pizza, fries and soda and watch a late night movie and then in 5 minutes walk right up to my room. We tried the Bingo 3 times, which is always fun but disappointing ( the only thing I won was a Free 2 person pass to the RainForest Room ). My Wife LOVED Taylor Mason and his Comedy/Ventriloquist routine. The only Onboard Activity that I paid for was the Mixology Class. We tried the AquaDuck twice while waiting about 30 minutes. Again, not much to say that most would comment about it.....the Kids loved it, the pool and water slides. When I saw the Oceaneers Lab, I was impressed by the sheer size and different activities that DCL offered inside for the kids to play with. DCL really goes out of the way to create different activities for kids to play and enjoy. My 7 year old Daughter really enjoyed the Carnival Kids Club when we last went on a Cruise.....so I thought that she would really LOVE the Oceaneers Club. Overall, I think she somewhat enjoy it...but ( for some reason ) she didn't seem to enjoy it as much since she ended up calling me to pick her up most of the time. Being a very social person, I'm not sure what happened. My 11 year old Son went to Edge. He seemed to enjoy that one more since he played with kids that were more his age. They had Scavenger Hunts, they played the sports games and hung out.
One more thing....there is one thing that YOU MUST TRY on board......TRY any of the "Alcohol" Tasting options that DCL offers during Sea Day. There are options for different types of Liquor, Tequilla, Martinis, etc. I took the Mixology Tasting class with my In-Laws. They have a Bartender show you how to make various drinks while showing the various techniques. Here's the catch and the ONLY REASON to pay for this activity.....it ONLY costs $20 per person for 5 different drinks. That may sound like a lot....but these aren't the watered down drinks that you get at the pool....they use the premium liquors and ALLOW YOU to make the drinks themselves that's only $4 per drink. Think about that for a second....you get to try 5 different drinks that they show you how to make and taste for $20. That's way better than the $8 to $10 per watered-down drinks that they regularly charge you. On top of that...they let you pour the alcohol. I'm a lightweight....so I didn't add so much alcohol...but you can easily pour a little extra if you want
. Either way, try the Liquor Tasting offerings they have...you will not regret it.Offshore Excursions
We didn't really do anything at Nassau other than stay onboard....which is what we usually do. I loved Castaway Cay. I decided to sign up on the 1st day at Castaway Cay for the 5k run ( ran it in under 26 minutes
). It was humid and hot...but wasn't as bad as I thought it would be since it was around 9am that we ran. As a periodic runner....if you like to run....it's worth it to at least say that you ran a 5k on some Tropical island in the Bahamas. I snorkelled on the main family area. Be aware that this side of the island had a lot more seaweed and whatever else usually floats on the shore. Nothing bad...just that I was disappointed that the shoreline wasn't as clear as I hoped it would be. I couldn't get the kids to go snorkelling....but I swam out to look for the underwater Mickey and Minnie statue. I randomly found the Underwater Minnie but had to swim back to get back to the boat ( in the main snorkel area, look for the 1st Guard Tower on the right with the Ship Mast sticking out of the water...it's beyond that area ). On the 2nd day at Castaway Cay, I convinced my Wife to join me on the Serenity Island side. As I suggested before, go if you can and have lunch there. It's a minor upgrade over the lunch on the main side of the island....but it's nice. The water and shoreline was WAY CLEARER and warmer. I loved that we can walk out very far and still only be waist deep in water. We saw many fish ( as expected ) and even saw a Stingray swim underneath us ( while freaking out my Wife ). As expected, it's much quieter and much nicer than the other main part of the island.Debarkation Process:
A LOT easier than I thought it would be. On Carnival....we had to wait in huge lines after we wait for our Group to be called....even if it took up to an hour or two to get off the boat. On the Dream....we finished eating by 8am...left Animator's Palette and went to the main atrium trying to figure out what to do next...fully expecting to wait for another hour before leaving. Since we had DCL pick up our luggage the night before.....all we had to do was head to the lobby and just leave the boat. There was no huge line or waiting to be called for our group. There was just a short line to exit the boat. We had to go through customs and pick up our luggage inside the port itself ( which took another 30 min )......but it only took us 15 minutes to physically leave the boat from the time that we left the restaurant. Other Cruise lines should take note.....whatever DCL did to streamline their process works great.
Our flight was early next morning at 7am at MCO. I decided to stay at the Hyatt located inside MCO itself. We checked out and left the room by 5:10am, was able to check our luggage into the United Front Desk, get through Security and sit down at our Gate by 5:55am. If you can afford the $250 stay for a single night...you can't beat the convenience of staying at the Hyatt MCO. It was worth the extra $$$ purely for the convenience itself.
Overall Experience
The family enjoyed it....it was definitely better than the usual Carnival Cruise that we go on. The kids enjoyed themselves and there wasn't anything that was a negative for me on the boat. The only part was the entree options during the Dining rotation....but that is purely subjective on my part. For me....my next cruise with my Family will likely be one of the bigger RCL boats ( cuz I want more variety and mainly cuz I want a Casino on the boat ). But if you are looking for a very high end Family Cruise experience....DCL really hits on all cylinders and was worth the premium that we paid for.
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