Disney Dream Nightmare

[Seattle Disney Fan]

So we just got back from out cruise on the new Dream. We have been on a number of cruises with Disney in the past and have loved everyone. The Magic is our favorite and we were hoping the magic would continue. We were sadly mistaken.

From the time we arrived at the cruise terminal it was clear, Disney was not ready to deal with the increased passenger count. The terminal was crazy with lines up and down the side walk outside the fence, just with folks trying to get into the terminal. This was made even worse by the fact the folks coming off the cruise before us were still disembarking. After we finally made it into the terminal we sat for over two hours before Disney was ready to start letting people on. Needless to say, everyone was starving by this time.

Once on the ship, the problems with crowd control continued. Restaurants were constantly out of food. Even the Pizzaria, which now closes at strange times throughout the day... like 6PM? We attempted to watch a movie in the new theater onboard and arrived 15 minutes before the show to find standing room only. People were sitting on steps and not a single seat available. This repeated itself during the adult shows in the nightclub where if you didn't arrive at least 30 minutes early there were no seats. We had 2nd dinner seating, so there was not way to get there that early.

On the final night of the cruise, we arrived back into Port Canaveral around midnight and spend the rest of the evening staring at the port. This was very frustrating as we always loved our last night out at sea on our verranda.

For the cost of the cruise, we didn't get what we paid for. The crew members were trying their best, but just could not keep up and deliver the Disney quality service we had come to expect from our other cruises.

Finally, the morning we disembarked the ship the line to get off was terrible. It ran from the lobby all the way down to animators and then wrapped around and went back up the hall to the lobby again. Overall we spent 1 1/2 just trying to get off this ship.

 

[rosiep]

So sorry you had a bad experience. I sailed Feb. 6th and because I arrived at the terminal much later I did not experience the wait you did.

I would have been very disappointed too if our last day "at sea" was actually in the port!!

What time did it arrive?

 

[Brancaneve]

Hmmm...so sorry about your experience. I have always cruised when the ships were not at full capacity, so I fear that I will not be as "relaxed." With WDW or DLR, many people have a strategy for touring the parks. I am feeling like I will have to have a strategy for the Dream. I think my first strategy will be arriving at the parks a little later than I had originally planned.

 

[mdinowitz]

I'm so sorry to hear that you had such a disappointing cruise. We were on the 2/20 cruise- which may have been the same as yours, and had the opposite experience. We have young kids, so we had the early show and dinner times- and always felt that it was less crowded than we expected. On the last night at sea we were the only people in skyline at 10:00PM. We took the kids to the family karaoke, and dance parties and felt that it wasn't too crowded. We spent time on the nice cushioned loungers on deck 4 in the afternoon and it was quiet and peaceful. The crowds for disembarkation were long, but moved really rapidly. We ate breakfast, and were in our car driving by 8:30 AM! The only really crowded times for us were during the fireworks, but it wasn't unbearable, and at the kids club open house the first night (now that was a madhouse)- but the clubs were great after that night.

 

[grandy w]

Hmmmm.....

 

[insureman]

We were on the same cruise as the 1st cruise of our b2b.

The lines were from people getting there too early, if you waited to arrive an hour later you could have gone right to the terminal.

We never heard of anyone running out of food in the restaurants.

The Pizza place was open till midnight every night.

Never had a problem getting into the clubs on any night

The Captain had opted (for safety reasons) to pull into Port Canaveral because of heavy fog forcasted for the next morning.

We watched the long lines staring to form to debark the ship after 8:45 AM, for some reason many people stayed late and wanted to leave at the same time.

These were are 9th and 10th cruises and we had a great time!

 

[5lilfish]

We were on the same cruise as the 1st cruise of our b2b.

The lines were from people getting there too early, if you waited to arrive an hour later you could have gone right to the terminal.

We never heard of anyone running out of food in the restaurants.

The Pizza place was open till midnight every night.

Never had a problem getting into the clubs on any night

The Captain had opted (for safety reasons) to pull into Port Canaveral because of heavy fog forcasted for the next morning.

We watched the long lines staring to form to debark the ship after 8:45 AM, for some reason many people stayed late and wanted to leave at the same time.

These were are 9th and 10th cruises and we had a great time!

Same with us...we were B2B too.

The dining room had everything we ordered.

We went to 2 adult shows (one on each cruise) and had no problems getting great seats. We didn't walk in last minute but we weren't there 30 minutes early.

My son ate pizza every waking hour of the day. If they had run out, we'd have heard about it.

We were in Cove Cafe and Skyline almost every night....never overly crowded in either.

I know we docked early...around 1am according to my son (he watched). I don't think that is normal...but the expected fog would explain that.

There was a long line to get off the ship on the 24th. I'm not sure why people were all leaving so late on this sailing. We left late because we were getting back on. So, we just sat on Deck 5 for 20 minutes and then the line was much more manageable. At the end of the 2nd cruise (the 27th), we went to deck 3 at 7:15am....because we had a long drive home. We literally walked right off the ship. We had our bags and were in our van at 7:30am. It was amazingly fast and smooth.

We had a great time, as usual. There were very good points and a few not so great points. I will try to get myself organized to post a review in the next day or 2.

Jess

 

[stingfancb]

Not sure what cruise you were on; but, we were on the Feb 24. We arrived at the port around 10:15 - waited @ 15 minutes to get into the terminal. Only waited about 5 minutes to check in and then we took turns sitting/walking around. We had boarding group #5, and we were onboard eating lunch at Enchanted Garden by about 12:15. We had early dining and loved it. We were not thrilled with our servers the first evening - didn't do anything wrong, just didn't "thrill" us. The second and third evenings they redeemed themselves. I think they were new and nervous, and once they saw that we love to joke around and have a fun dining experience - they ran with it. After breakfast the last morning at 6:45, we headed back to the room at 7:30 to pick up our bags (we had checked with our hostess about doing this - she was fine with it / we had everything ready to go). We were in our car by 8:15.
Hopefully, your bad experiences didn't ruin your entire vacation.

 

[DMMarla07860]

not sure what cruise you were on, but I was on the 20th cruise as a second part of a b2b went the 17th cruise as well and both cruises I was on didn't have trouble with crowds or anything really at times there were a lit of people places, but not as much as I thought. Evolution didn't seem to get packed too much for me not to find a seat on both cruises

 

[waltsgirl]

Wow we were on the Dream and it was sold out. We never experienced any thing like that. Never ran out of food and we never had long lines. Never were we turned away from a show of course we always went to our assigned time. The day we got off we were on our way to Disney World by 8:30.

 

[Alexander]

Seriously? Two posts of the same exact thing? Nothing else?

 

[Kias]

Hmmmm.....

I'm with you.

Out of food during "operation gluttony"?

Hmmmmmm.....

 

[edk35]

So we just got back from out cruise on the new Dream. We have been on a number of cruises with Disney in the past and have loved everyone. The Magic is our favorite and we were hoping the magic would continue. We were sadly mistaken.

From the time we arrived at the cruise terminal it was clear, Disney was not ready to deal with the increased passenger count. The terminal was crazy with lines up and down the side walk outside the fence, just with folks trying to get into the terminal. This was made even worse by the fact the folks coming off the cruise before us were still disembarking. After we finally made it into the terminal we sat for over two hours before Disney was ready to start letting people on. Needless to say, everyone was starving by this time.

Once on the ship, the problems with crowd control continued. Restaurants were constantly out of food. Even the Pizzaria, which now closes at strange times throughout the day... like 6PM? We attempted to watch a movie in the new theater onboard and arrived 15 minutes before the show to find standing room only. People were sitting on steps and not a single seat available. This repeated itself during the adult shows in the nightclub where if you didn't arrive at least 30 minutes early there were no seats. We had 2nd dinner seating, so there was not way to get there that early.

On the final night of the cruise, we arrived back into Port Canaveral around midnight and spend the rest of the evening staring at the port. This was very frustrating as we always loved our last night out at sea on our verranda.

For the cost of the cruise, we didn't get what we paid for. The crew members were trying their best, but just could not keep up and deliver the Disney quality service we had come to expect from our other cruises.

Finally, the morning we disembarked the ship the line to get off was terrible. It ran from the lobby all the way down to animators and then wrapped around and went back up the hall to the lobby again. Overall we spent 1 1/2 just trying to get off this ship.

YIKES..... This sounds crazy. Okay...question.. If you had the second dinner seating...weren't you supposed to go to the 7:00 show???? If so, why could you not get there early enough? How many nights were you on the cruise? Thanks

 

[edk35]

We were on the same cruise as the 1st cruise of our b2b.

The lines were from people getting there too early, if you waited to arrive an hour later you could have gone right to the terminal.

We never heard of anyone running out of food in the restaurants.

The Pizza place was open till midnight every night.

Never had a problem getting into the clubs on any night

The Captain had opted (for safety reasons) to pull into Port Canaveral because of heavy fog forcasted for the next morning.

We watched the long lines staring to form to debark the ship after 8:45 AM, for some reason many people stayed late and wanted to leave at the same time.

These were are 9th and 10th cruises and we had a great time!

What time are you supposed to get off the ship? Thanks

 

[Viva Pataca]

Finally, the morning we disembarked the ship the line to get off was terrible. It ran from the lobby all the way down to animators and then wrapped around and went back up the hall to the lobby again. Overall we spent 1 1/2 just trying to get off this ship.

Oh yeah. If you didn't remind I almost forgot about this too. We had the same experience. But overall it didn't bother us at all for a very good cruise on the Dream.

I hope your next one will be better, wherever that will be.

 

[Queenie11078]

Not sure what cruise you were on; but, we were on the Feb 24. We arrived at the port around 10:15 - waited @ 15 minutes to get into the terminal. Only waited about 5 minutes to check in and then we took turns sitting/walking around. We had boarding group #5, and we were onboard eating lunch at Enchanted Garden by about 12:15. We had early dining and loved it. We were not thrilled with our servers the first evening - didn't do anything wrong, just didn't "thrill" us. The second and third evenings they redeemed themselves. I think they were new and nervous, and once they saw that we love to joke around and have a fun dining experience - they ran with it. After breakfast the last morning at 6:45, we headed back to the room at 7:30 to pick up our bags (we had checked with our hostess about doing this - she was fine with it / we had everything ready to go). We were in our car by 8:15.
Hopefully, your bad experiences didn't ruin your entire vacation.

I was on this cruise too and did not experience any of this....we had a wonderful time with no lines, plenty of food, and plenty of places to sit anywhere we went. Sorry this was your experience.

 

[insureman]

What time are you supposed to get off the ship? Thanks

Anytime after custom's clears the ship. We left at 7:30 AM with no lines.

 

[Mickeyhugger]

Seriously? Two posts of the same exact thing? Nothing else?

I noticed the same thing!

 

[GEB@okw]

0K, we were on the sold out Feb. 20 cruise, arrived at the terminal at 11 am, found a 10 minute wait to get inside the fence and another 10 minutes for security. No wait to check in and had boarding pass #11, another 30 minute wait after the numbers started to be called. Never saw any shortage of food, never saw a full theater and never experienced any line except a ten minute wait on the aqua duck. Walked off the ship, shuttled to CI&S, got my car and was at Disney's Saratoga Springs at 8:55am. No complaints here. Next time OP, try another cruise line......

 

[SueInBoston]

Were you on the 2/24-2/27 cruise? My experience is vastly different than you's. We got to port at about 11 and there was absolutely no line. we got boarding #10 and was boarding at 12:40. We had late dining and always went up to Flo's for snack around 6pm and there were always plenty of food. Didn't have issue with seating in the theater, matter of fact I went into Golden Mickey midway through and there were many seats available. As for last night of the cruise, we were at 11:00 showing of Tangled and it was way past 12 by the time we left the theater and we were definitely still in open sea .

We had other issues on the cruise, but crowd was definitely not the factor.