Disney Dream Review Double Dip 6/19-6/23/19

[Mitura]

Here is my cruise review. Hope you like it.

This was our 7th cruise and we stayed on the 8th deck mid. Our dining rotation was E-R-R-A. This was a double dip cruise which was what drew us to booking this cruise.

Some background. We're a family of 4. Me, Mom and boys 16 and 13. We're from PA.

We usually cruise Thanksgiving-ish time frame on the Fantasy. We haven't been on the Dream since 2014. Since we usually cruise in the fall/winter so this time the weather was an experience! It was so hot on CC!

I know the DCL Blog was on the cruise and thank you Scott for stopping and saying to Hi to me when I introduced myself. Thanks for your blogs/emails/videos.

We drive down the day before and stay overnight. We tried something new and parked at the terminal instead of using the hotel shuttle. Night and day difference. No lines for parking and when disembarked we got right off the ship and on the road in 15 minutes with express walk off. Beautiful!

One challenge is that we knew going in that this was a 4 day cruise but unfortunately for us we tried to do all of our usual 7 day stuff in 4 days and it nearly killed us with exhaustion. We partied, played, watched and ate on overdrive. It was well worth it.

Highlights:

-Toy Story 4 priEAR. Seeing it at 10 on Wednesday night.
-2 Castaway Cay stops. And both days weren't crowded. It seems with a double dip that only 1/2 of the cruisers go one day and 1/2 go the next. We never had lines, we never scrambled for beach loungers. Always got on the first tram. We even noticed on the 2nd CC day that they started closing up Cookies Too early since there was no one there. And for Pelican Plunge going right to the top, hardly any lines. And the water was perfect. Not the ice bath that we sometimes experience in the winter.
-@ CC - spending about 1.5 hours playing cards at Cookies 2 with the family and just having a ball with the family.
- Seeing John Cassidy during his adult show.
-Pictures with Captain Jack and he was wondering where my crew was (they were napping) and he called them a "Lazy Crew", which I agree with.
-2 nights of Escargot- my server took it upon himself to make sure I had enough for the trip
-Just walking around the ship with the family doing the Midship Detective Agency, enjoying being "Home", and everything about the ship.
-#Tony from Spain. - Almost winning 80's music trivia (38 out of 40) and Movie Music Trivia (17/25 winner had 18/25)
-Finally getting to see Avengers End Game

But with the shortened itinerary for us we only did the Aquaduck 1x, had to get up early for shore stops, really had to plan when I would get to the rebooking desk, couldn't get into a groove with our servers and cabin steward, (our server kept calling me the wrong name).

So for us its back to our Thanksgiving time frame cruises. We have a 7 day Eastern on the Fantasy in 11/19 and a 8 day Eastern on the Fantasy in 2020. So we are set with vacations!

Thanks for reading.
Joe

 

[LadyDi13]

We sailed on the Dream last year and loved #Tony from Spain! I hope the Fantasy has someone equally as fun this August!

 

[Pooh93]

Love the double dip! Tony is fantastic! We were on the Fantasy in May 2018 with him. We are going on the Dream 8/5 and are so happy he is there!

 

[Dug720]

Thanks for the report!

I will be on the 5-night Double Dip on 7/21 and am most definitely going to Castaway both times. That is the whole point of a Double Dip!! I don’t understand people who would pay the increased prices for them and not get off one of the times!!

 

[Quellman]

Your review is spot on. We noticed the same with double dips. I figure most people forget sunscreen the first day and don't want to go back to the beach.

 

[pixiedustedme]

Nice review, thanks. We've only done CC in winter so far, but are considering summer. Any issues with mosquitoes?

 

[Shrfleen]

Love #TonyfromSpain! A little bummed he won't be on our cruise next year since we will be on the Fantasy. But who knows maybe it will change.

 

[daisyx3]

We were on that cruise. In fact we were next door to Scott! (totally unplanned). We did CC both days; had an excursion and family beach day 1 so I could do Pelican Plunge, the second day just relaxed at Serenity Bay (our kids are grown and we travel without them).
I did not get to see TS4. I never knew it was showing that first night--didn't see it on my navigator and must have missed any annnouncements. And the day it was in the theatre at 6 and 830 we had Palo reservations at 630. Oh well. The most interesting show we saw was two people missing the MSC seaside docked next to us. (Beauty and The Beast was good too.)
We had the ERRA rotation with Constantin and Aline. Both were great. Late seating. Weather gorgeous every day except during the sailaway party.
Glad we tried a double dip. Doing a 7 night Fantasy end of May 2020.

 

[Mitura]

Mosquitoes - none as far as we can see. Also I noticed this time around there was no mosquito repellent dockside to lather up with. Maybe this time of year they are not active?

I forgot Beauty and the Beast. It was very good.

The only other things we noticed compared to a winter cruise were 1) no Christmas decorations 2) alot more seagulls. It seemed to be a competition for the seagulls on how many bags of chips they could steal while on CC.

 

[Mango7100]

We did a 5 day double dip June 28-July 3 on Dream. Loved the double dip and agree that it seemed that not as many people got off the boat at CC...why do a double dip then? We stayed on the island from 830-3 each day. The second day we rode Pelicans plunge 10 times before 11...hardly any wait!

 

[Dug720]

We did a 5 day double dip June 28-July 3 on Dream. Loved the double dip and agree that it seemed that not as many people got off the boat at CC...why do a double dip then? We stayed on the island from 830-3 each day. The second day we rode Pelicans plunge 10 times before 11...hardly any wait!

My 5-night Double is two weeks from now!! I’m another who does not understand why you would pay the almost always higher cost for a Double Dip and then not get off.

Granted DCL makes it harder by putting Palo brunch on the second Castaway day rather than Nassau (and they do Nassau on 3-nights, so I am not buying the argument I have seen put forth that they can’t because of agreements with Nassau about people getting off). I was lucky to get the sea day for mine, but my friend on an earlier one was not and had to sacrifice the day at Castaway. I always do a “glows and grows” email after a cruise, and I plan to mention that in the “grows” section - we pay enough for these Double Dips we should not have to choose between Palo brunch or the whole reason for taking a Double Dip.

 

[pixiedustedme]

I think a lot of people choose the double dip because it's at a convenient time (in summer when school's out), rather than for the itinerary. Some choose it for the itinerary, sure (especially those on these boards), but plenty don't. We were considering a Dream cruise for next summer, and most of what was available for over 3 nights was double dips. So if you're looking for a 4-5 night cruise to add to your family's summer WDW trip, a double dip might be what you end up with by default. I think that's why a fair number of people don't get off the ship twice. They were never particularly interested in that aspect to begin with.

 

[serenitynow]

Sometimes on a double dip people are sunburnt from the first day at Castaway Cay. The sun is much stronger than I think most folks are used to and people don’t reapply the sunscreen often enough to compensate.

 

[MomOTwins]

I think a lot of people choose the double dip because it's at a convenient time (in summer when school's out), rather than for the itinerary. Some choose it for the itinerary, sure (especially those on these boards), but plenty don't. We were considering a Dream cruise for next summer, and most of what was available for over 3 nights was double dips. So if you're looking for a 4-5 night cruise to add to your family's summer WDW trip, a double dip might be what you end up with by default. I think that's why a fair number of people don't get off the ship twice. They were never particularly interested in that aspect to begin with.

This. I think people on these boards are planners by default, but many vacationers aren't. I just rescued a coworker when I found out she was leaving the next day for memorial day weekend in Disney world, had no dining reservations and no fastpasses. I mentioned my disney cruise to another acquaintance who complained she looked but was priced out of it, but she only looked over new year's and didn't realize there was variable pricing over the course of the year. And let's not forget that dreadful New York Times travel writer's articles. How about the Disney Cruise one where he scheduled his daughter for a BBB princess makeover on the morning of castaway cay, and only after realized that it was not super practical for her to be in full princess garb and hairdo on a beach, or when he disembarked at Key West with nothing planned, walked around the port for a bit, and promptly declared there was "nothing to do". Or the NY Times travel writer who shoed up midday at Animal Kingdom, complained she had to wait for 30 minutes at guest services to buy a ticket, and then walked away without even entering the park when she heard about the wait time for flight of passage.

 

[pixiedustedme]

And let's not forget that dreadful New York Times travel writer's articles. How about the Disney Cruise one where he scheduled his daughter for a BBB princess makeover on the morning of castaway cay, and only after realized that it was not super practical for her to be in full princess garb and hairdo on a beach, or when he disembarked at Key West with nothing planned, walked around the port for a bit, and promptly declared there was "nothing to do". Or the NY Times travel writer who shoed up midday at Animal Kingdom, complained she had to wait for 30 minutes at guest services to buy a ticket, and then walked away without even entering the park when she heard about the wait time for flight of passage.

Yeah, some writers definitely think they need to be snarky towards Disney as a matter of course. I think a certain demographic is anti-Disney, and they feel the need to cater to that. Warranted criticism towards Disney I get, but stuff like that was in those articles is more posing ("See how I'm too cool/smart/authentic to get sucked in by Disney") than anything else.