I have been vocal on this board about my feelings toward
DCL lately, a combination of higher prices with declining perks plus feeling like the adult venues are same old same old. I was on this cruise, because we'd booked last year onboard with a DCL loving couple who are friends. We were of course disappointed at missing CC (my first time in 15 DCL cruises to miss it). We all felt that the information provided by the crew was adequate and that they went out of the way to try to make up for missing CC, via extra activities, free drinks Friday night, and pretzels Friday. So funny to us that we asked about the pretzels Thursday just to make sure it was true that they had been eliminated except for purchase at O'Gills. We were told no pretzels, but Friday they appeared for free at the pizza place by the pools. Mickey head plain and cheese stuffed oversized ones. And not the ones served at O'Gills. So they were on the ship the whole time it seems.
We felt the $200 per stateroom was very nice offer since there was totally no obligation on DCL's part as was the discount on another cruise, although we thought the 20% off was only a mediocre offer since fares have increased 10% over last years, so we basically be paying the same as last year if we rebooked onboard and have no onboard credit to boot. But again, totally no obligation on DCL's part, just a show of goodwill.
It turned out as we cruised north on Friday we entered a cold front and the day turned cloudy and cold and windy. It wouldn't have been a good day at CC if we had docked there.
On the plus side, service was much improved over our last two cruises, and officers more accessible.
The negative, the adult pool was not very adult only with the constant stream of children coming through the area. It's gotten worse over our last few cruises.
We were in an inside stateroom on deck 8 aft and the vibration and ratting in the room was horrible, from the start of the cruise to the end. Engineering came several times, but couldn't do much except state that rattling in the ceiling was due to work being done in the ventilation area above us. The noise from the ceiling was finally resolved but the constant rattling and vibration never ended.
I didn't mean to turn this into a review, but we felt that DCL went above and beyond to ease the situation with the mechanical failure.
There was a tug boat on hand to assist on our return to Port Canveral, we got up at 6am and went up on deck 13 forward to watch. It was not needed to dock. The crew on the bridge expertly glided the ship up to the pier.