First, let me say that this was our 10th Disney Cruise in the last fifteen years, and have been on the Fantasy before. We've been on short and long itineraries all over. This was the most mixed cruise we've been on--some really awesome elements and some real sketchy things that were the worst of all ten of our cruises.
First the excellent from this cruise (above other cruises we've taken):
Anyway, a pretty mixed cruise with some pretty awesome stuff and some not okay stuff.
First the excellent from this cruise (above other cruises we've taken):
- The ports and port adventure team were awesome. This Atlantic Coast of Europe itinerary (Vigo, La Coruna, Bilbao, and La Rochelle) has been pretty rare. It was also dicey from a weather perspective this late in the year (could be cold or warn). But, the four ports of call were all awesome, we did tours at all of them, and the tour guides went above and beyond. You could tell that Disney really vetted the sites and vendors. Our two favorites were Santiago De Compostela (beautiful cathedral, and tour structured in a way that you really had enough time to do everything) and La Rochelle (historical French city, and visiting in early fall was beautiful). Only one major snag--we were supposed to see the Castle of Butron in Bilbao, but it was purchased by a Russian Oligarch for personal use and we could not actually get close and it had significant construction/walls blocking the site. Luckily Disney provided a significant refund to all guests who were on that tour.
- Kids clubs and staff were awesome (but this will be partially changing after dry dock). We had kids in all three clubs, and all three had an awesome time. It is crazy how much space they provide Vibe and Edge compared to the other ships. This won't be forever--we were told by cruise staff that during the dry dock they will be combining Vibe and Edge into the current Vibe location (and Edge will be turned into additional staterooms).
- Live shows were really good and had extras. One cool thing they did on this cruise was bring in a seasoned Broadway actor for just this cruise who is/was playing Jafar on the West End Aladdin show and had him play the role in the Aladdin show. They also provided a separate meet and greet and opportunity for him to perform other numbers for the guests. Finally, they wholly redid Disney Dreams since last year and the script/numbers of that show was way better (our kids said it was the best Disney show they've ever seen).
- It felt like the whole ship was broken (and some actual dangerous stuff) approaching the dry dock. I appreciate that at some point ship maintenance becomes difficult, but so much stuff was broken that it got ridiculous. Never have encountered anything like this on a Disney Cruise. At least four drawers and cabinets in our room were broken and wouldn't open without struggle. The doors separating our Veranda and neighbor kept swinging open because the door locking mechanism was broken (get to know your neighbors well/they can enter your room at any time). One of the dryers had a sharp piece of metal that cut my hand decently when I tried to grab my clothes (Disney was nice enough to provide some bandaids). Two of the other washers/dryers were in disrepair and didn't work properly so there was a backlog for laundry. I was eating a Tuna wrap, and I kid you not that that a 10mm rock that looked like concrete (piece of the ship countertops?) was in the wrap and I bit down hard on it (luckily no chipped tooth). Don't even know how a rock gets into the food and where it came from. Paint was peeling and I had to keep telling my littlest kid to stop playing with the paint chips. Lots of other stuff was in disrepair/not working. Not going to make claims to Disney over any of this, but a lot of deferred maintenance as we limped into the dry dock.
- Food was not great quality, service was good. With a Disney Cruise we all know the deal--you are getting 3.5/5 quality food from some major industrial food vendor like Sysco. That's fine. What isn't fine is that we had a couple times where the food tasted spoiled (including scallops and some sauces), or where it wasn't edible due to being old/stale. Also, they really cut back on the room service menu. Wasn't worth trying. Food variety at Cabanas was good. Wait staff was great.
- Disney took away the kids area for dance parties, making it so little kids couldn't participate. I don't know who made this clownish decision (and sorry if it was driven by some legal risk consideration), but they took away the kids area for dance parties. This means that your little kids just can't safely participate in the dance party. Even if you got there early, your kid would just end up surrounded by dancing adults, and it isn't safe when some large Disney adult is trying to full on dance around a five or six year old while everyone is packed together...
Anyway, a pretty mixed cruise with some pretty awesome stuff and some not okay stuff.
