First Fantasy Cruise Completed - Observation

[dclpirate]

Hello All,

I tend to be a lurker but felt the need to post about my recent sailing aboard the Fantasy. We did the Eastern Caribbean over the Easter break and I have to say I was somewhat surprised by my experience. I should preface this by saying that we have now 5 Disney cruises under our belts, 3 on the Magic, 1 on the Wonder, and the most recent on the Fantasy. We have enjoyed all of them without question, even our 7 day turned 6 day cruise on the Magic when she got stuck in Castaway Cay, and our Eastern turned Western Caribbean cruise on the Magic when Mother Nature had the gall to schedule a severe tropical storm on my vacation. But all that said, my most recent was a bit disappointing and I'd like to see if anyone else had a similar experience or was there something just wrong with my family and the three others we were travelling with.

I was impressed with the new technology on the Fantasy, but I felt like it was almost too busy. My kids enjoyed it but they felt that the experiences in the kids clubs were far more chaotic and less organized than what they were used to. In many cases they liked being in there, but more because their friends were in there with them, not because of what was going on. I also felt that the counselors were overwhelmed by the number of kids in the space. They were pleasant, and they were a dream to deal with, but it was clear they were stressed. The same could be said for the dining staff in all three of our major venues. They were definitely working much harder than their counterparts on the Magic/Wonder just with the shear volume of people in the massive dining rooms. It left less time for their personal interactions with us, and resulted in warm/cold food on quite a few occasions. This was across all the tables we and our friends were occupying. On sea days, the upper decks were slammed with people. No chairs and the pools were so full of people that swimming was impossible. Food service lines were long, and you were weaving in and out of people all the time. Overall, while the crew members we ran into were shining with that Disney spirit I love, they were clearly stressed and always in a hurry. Regrettably this feeling extended to Castaway Cay as well. I do think the BBQ and Remy were the only good food we had all week.

On the plus side, the Aquaduck was fun, and the entertainment was top notch.

All of the families we were travelling with came away with the feeling that we don't really need to sail on the Dream / Fantasy again. We didn't hate it, but felt we can get a better experience on the Wonder / Magic, especially as Disney refreshes the technology on board. I left with the personal feeling that Disney has made a big mistake with the super ship model. I also felt that the movement and sway on the Fantasy was far worse than the Wonder/Magic (really top heavy feeling). Many in our party were seasick, and the seas were calm with blue skies and sunshine.

btw I'm a die hard Disney fan, which is what makes this the most upsetting. Did others have the same feeling?

Thanks for reading.

 

[DahliaRW]

Honestly, I think a lot of that has to do with sailing at spring break when the ship is more full and is going to have a lot more kids on board. That was not our experience at all on the Fantasy in January (MLK day week). But, I have not been on the classics so I cannot compare to those.

 

[jrabbit]

The Dream and Fantasy have all of the "Cool Toys"

The Magic and Wonder have better personal service.

I've been saying for some time now (ever since one of the first sailings of the Fantasy) that the public spaces on the new ships are too small. People wanting their own table in the MDR's can have them, but it's just an illusion as the next table is less than 4 inches away. There is not enough additional cruise staff on the new ships (and it appears that the cruise staff size on the Classic ships has been downsized somewhat). The Walt Disney Theater is not correctly sized for a full sailing (our New Ship cruises were far from full - and the WDT was always packed). The Tube / Evolution were impossible venues to see popular acts in - unless you were way early and had a front row seat.

I was just on the Wonder 2 weeks ago and we had a great cruise. The servers and cruise staff were personable. Everyone we came in contact with was friendly and helpful.

I cruise with Disney for the great service, clean ship, friendly staff, good entertainment and good food. As they chip away at staffing levels - it makes my enjoyment of the cruise diminish. At some point the extra costs associated with DCL will not be worth the premium paid.

 

[Bree]

I was on this cruise. The only time I felt overwhelmed with people was on Castaway Cay day and getting off at Port Canaveral. It was a complete chaos free for all trying to disembark. We avoided pools in the early afternoon. We never had issues with seats for the shows even showing up "late", but I agree it is on the small side when the ship has a full sailing. The seas are typically rougher on Eastern sailings compared to Western or Bahamian.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I was on this cruise. The only time I felt overwhelmed with people was on Castaway Cay day and getting off at Port Canaveral. It was a complete chaos free for all trying to disembark. We avoided pools in the early afternoon. We never had issues with seats for the shows even showing up "late", but I agree it is on the small side when the ship has a full sailing. The seas are typically rougher on Eastern sailings compared to Western or Bahamian.

Part of the problem with the theater being full on busy sailings, is that it wasn't really designed to handle 1/2 of the guest complement at each show.

Originally, there were 3 shows for the 2 dinner seatings (early seating would go to one of the 2 later shows, while late seating was split between the earliest and latest shows). They found that not everyone goes to the shows, and it wasn't really necessary to schedule the showtimes for everyone, and reverted to how it's done on the classic ships (early dinner go to late show/late dinner goes to early show).

 

[Joel0917]

i was on that sailing and thought it was fine...the pools were crowded..but that was normal. i will say the new combination of the clubs being all together instead of age separated..makes it a bit crazier..but gives kids more choices...

I didn't think any of the shows were too crowded...they even added the 3rd Aladdin and had it as a 3pm matinee. The other shows i never had a problem getting a seat 10 minutes before showtime.

I feel a ship is a ship. 4000 people at spring break is the same as 4000 people in june or february...

Our staff in the restaurants were outstanding...they had 6 tables..but never missed a beat. Of course we always showed up 10-15 minutes late and it seemed to work for all of us the whole cruise that way.

 

[Cats12]

Hello All,

All of the families we were travelling with came away with the feeling that we don't really need to sail on the Dream / Fantasy again. We didn't hate it, but felt we can get a better experience on the Wonder / Magic, especially as Disney refreshes the technology on board.


Thanks for reading.

This. Totally agree. Went on the Dream (when it was new even) and haven't been back. Not that we don't like it, or that I wouldn't love to go on the Fantasy some day, but I think we're the Magic/Wonder kind of peeps.

 

[JulieMc 3]

I was also on this cruise. I have sailed on the Magic 3 times and this was our second time on the Fantasy - our first time on the Fantasy was last year over Easter. Something was different this year. Although after last year, we all decided we liked the Magic better, just liked the feeling of the smaller ship better. The crew got to know you a little better and never felt crowded.

This year on the fantasy, we couldn't get over the horrible service in the dining rooms. The waiters had no time to stop and interact with us as they had on all prior cruises. They seemed to be overwhelmed. They were very nice, but the service was terrible. 15 minutes to get a drink is unacceptable - and that includes just getting water! My family was trying to figure out what had changed and why the service ws so different. We did the same cruise last year so I know it wasn't the time of year. And as far as we could see, our servers only had 3 tables including ours. We couldn't help but wonder if it was because of the new prepaid tips policy.

And we did feel very crowded at castaway. Never used the pools so I cant comment on that. The Aquaduct was fun, no line if you went around 6:00.

We booked our next cruise for the Magic - can't wait to see the remodel!

 

[mmouse37]

We have sailed the classics numerous times and have sailed the Dream a few times and the Fantasy once in 2012. It was July when we sailed the Fantasy over 4th of July and really did not feel that the ship felt crowded. Same at CC. We got off the ship early and had our choice of spots and had no problems with crowds. We stayed on the family beach. We were a group of 15 people and we all had a great time. We requested specific servers so our MDR meals were always great.

Sorry you had poor service in the MDR's.

I do like the more personal service on the classics but the new ships still had wonderful service, in our experiences. Of course not everyone will have the same experience as others.

MJ

 

[26555]

I cruise with Disney for the great service, clean ship, friendly staff, good entertainment and good food. As they chip away at staffing levels - it makes my enjoyment of the cruise diminish. At some point the extra costs associated with DCL will not be worth the premium paid.

Why would they do like other lines and shoot themselves in the foot in this regard? The other lines might need to do it b/c have to discount the rates to fill ship but DCL can keep filling the ship at a premium that has to be profitable if they could be the line that DOESN'T decrease staff/pax ratios and keeps food quality high. It would be a niche for them. Sounds like it's already too late on both accounts but this is how they could have KEPT people sailing DCL, IMHO, even if the price is much better on Oasis/Allure.

I haven't sailed the bigger ships yet but everything I read tells me it will not have the same service level and quality of food as Magic 8 years ago. It's a shame they didn't leave alone what was working and they could have a niche in that area and be different than the other lines reducing MDR quality. Maybe they chose to persue too high a profit margin.

 

[cmhand30]

I was on this cruise also. Our 6th with DCL. Not the most magical we have been on. We will be back but not during Spring Break again we will stick with slow seasons as we have in the past. Not happy that I had to ask numerous times for drinks at dinner and my meal orders were forgotten.

 

[holula]

Honestly, I think a lot of that has to do with sailing at spring break when the ship is more full and is going to have a lot more kids on board. That was not our experience at all on the Fantasy in January (MLK day week). But, I have not been on the classics so I cannot compare to those.

And we were on the MLK week sailing and didn't have a good experience on the Fantasy. MDR was great but it was crowded, rushed and poor service everywhere else. It was the second time with an experience on the Fantasy which isn't worth the $$$ Disney charges.

We will probably only sail the classics from now on because we have found the service is just so much better.

 

[DLW8]

We have sailed on the Wonder, Magic and Fantasy (in that order) and are booked on the Fantasy again in November.

Before we sailed on the Fantasy, I was worried about the size of the ship and it being too crowded. we loved it. The kids had so much more to do than on the Wonder/Magic (they don't do the kids clubs) and our service was fantastic. Granted, we sail during off peak/lower crowds, but we never had any issues getting seats at the shows, the pools or on CC.

I agree that the tables are kind of close together in the MDR, but with late seating there were also a lot of empty tables that we saw. Our servers were very attentive to us, and our room steward was fantastic as well.

Sorry that OP had less than stellar service, I can only hope we have the same great experience in November that we have had on the past 3 cruises, especially since I don't think we will be back on DCL due to the higher prices and the OBB changes...

 

[FrogMBA]

I have only sailed on the classic ships. Magic at Easter and Wonder for Halloween. I am set for a B2B on the Dream in Nov and after reading this thread I am starting to worry. I loved the intimate feel of the classic ships and had a great serving team on the Wonder. I hope I won't be disappointed, but if so I will stick with the classics in the future.

 

[jrabbit]

I have only sailed on the classic ships. Magic at Easter and Wonder for Halloween. I am set for a B2B on the Dream in Nov and after reading this thread I am starting to worry. I loved the intimate feel of the classic ships and had a great serving team on the Wonder. I hope I won't be disappointed, but if so I will stick with the classics in the future.

if you are not sailing around Thanksgiving time - you should be OK - the ship will not be over crowded - but there will be lots of the 6 yo and younger folks onboard.

Lots of parents are skittish about taking the kids out of school - and the school districts do lots of "saber rattling" about attendance since they get paid by the number of chairs filled everyday. 20/20 hindsight says that we should have been less concerned about the school schedule and more focused on the needs of our family.

 

[algae]

We've been on both sizes of ships and we didn't feel it was more crowded on the Dream/Fantasy. The only time it was bad was on the NYE sailing this year on the top deck of the Fantasy at just after midnight and it started raining. They closed off part of the top deck for the fireworks and show which meant that most everybody on the top deck had to funnel down the stairs by the AquaDuck. No room to breathe and no room to move.

We'll be on the Magic soon, so we can compare to the Fantasy/Dream that we've been sailing the past few times.

 

[Jillpie]

OP, I completely agree. We didn't have kids, so I can't comment on the clubs. But when we sailed the Dream last year (which is comparable to the Fantasy), I wasn't feelin' the love for it, it just missed the "pixie dust" of the Magic. I desperately missed the adult pool from the Magic, the Dream adult pool is a joke if there's more than 3 people in it! What in the world were they thinking?? I just won't choose to sail on the bigger ships again, I'll take the Magic and Wonder any day .

 

[dclpirate]

Thanks for all of your replies. They are all valuable. It sounds like there are differences and similarities between all of us. Our group was four families with a combined 7 children. We had different serving staff as we were at separate tables, but our experiences were the same.

The prepaid tips might have been to blame for the bad service, though our asst server was awesome and paid a lot of attention to us. She very often commented that she was hoping our server would arrive soon when we had been sitting there for 10 minutes or more. The person in line behind me at guest services on the last day, basically took their tip sheet and had them zero out all of the dining staff tips and move some of it to the stateroom attendant. They said their food was awful and none of their servers, including the head server, ever paid much attention to them.

Crowding in the public spaces varied by day. We did the Aquaduck at night, and always arrived early for theatre seating so that wasn't a problem.

I truly wish Disney had built two more Wonder and Magics and stuck with a working formula. We have a cruise on the Magic in July (Europe) and are looking forward to seeing her again.

Again thanks everyone for your insights.

-dclpirate

 

[natmom]

Thanks for all of your replies. They are all valuable. It sounds like there are differences and similarities between all of us. Our group was four families with a combined 7 children. We had different serving staff as we were at separate tables, but our experiences were the same.

The prepaid tips might have been to blame for the bad service, though our asst server was awesome and paid a lot of attention to us. She very often commented that she was hoping our server would arrive soon when we had been sitting there for 10 minutes or more. The person in line behind me at guest services on the last day, basically took their tip sheet and had them zero out all of the dining staff tips and move some of it to the stateroom attendant. They said their food was awful and none of their servers, including the head server, ever paid much attention to them.

Crowding in the public spaces varied by day. We did the Aquaduck at night, and always arrived early for theatre seating so that wasn't a problem.

I truly wish Disney had built two more Wonder and Magics and stuck with a working formula. We have a cruise on the Magic in July (Europe) and are looking forward to seeing her again.

Again thanks everyone for your insights.

-dclpirate

Do the servers actually know ahead of time that the tips are prepaid? I thought they would only know when we hand them the slip with the tip amount , that is done the last night.

 

[k3chantal]

Hello All,

I tend to be a lurker but felt the need to post about my recent sailing aboard the Fantasy. We did the Eastern Caribbean over the Easter break and I have to say I was somewhat surprised by my experience. I should preface this by saying that we have now 5 Disney cruises under our belts, 3 on the Magic, 1 on the Wonder, and the most recent on the Fantasy. We have enjoyed all of them without question, even our 7 day turned 6 day cruise on the Magic when she got stuck in Castaway Cay, and our Eastern turned Western Caribbean cruise on the Magic when Mother Nature had the gall to schedule a severe tropical storm on my vacation. But all that said, my most recent was a bit disappointing and I'd like to see if anyone else had a similar experience or was there something just wrong with my family and the three others we were travelling with.

I was impressed with the new technology on the Fantasy, but I felt like it was almost too busy. My kids enjoyed it but they felt that the experiences in the kids clubs were far more chaotic and less organized than what they were used to. In many cases they liked being in there, but more because their friends were in there with them, not because of what was going on. I also felt that the counselors were overwhelmed by the number of kids in the space. They were pleasant, and they were a dream to deal with, but it was clear they were stressed. The same could be said for the dining staff in all three of our major venues. They were definitely working much harder than their counterparts on the Magic/Wonder just with the shear volume of people in the massive dining rooms. It left less time for their personal interactions with us, and resulted in warm/cold food on quite a few occasions. This was across all the tables we and our friends were occupying. On sea days, the upper decks were slammed with people. No chairs and the pools were so full of people that swimming was impossible. Food service lines were long, and you were weaving in and out of people all the time. Overall, while the crew members we ran into were shining with that Disney spirit I love, they were clearly stressed and always in a hurry. Regrettably this feeling extended to Castaway Cay as well. I do think the BBQ and Remy were the only good food we had all week.

On the plus side, the Aquaduck was fun, and the entertainment was top notch.

All of the families we were travelling with came away with the feeling that we don't really need to sail on the Dream / Fantasy again. We didn't hate it, but felt we can get a better experience on the Wonder / Magic, especially as Disney refreshes the technology on board. I left with the personal feeling that Disney has made a big mistake with the super ship model. I also felt that the movement and sway on the Fantasy was far worse than the Wonder/Magic (really top heavy feeling). Many in our party were seasick, and the seas were calm with blue skies and sunshine.

btw I'm a die hard Disney fan, which is what makes this the most upsetting. Did others have the same feeling?

Thanks for reading.

Feel like I could have written this about our trip in February. Had a great time but the service was not the same as the Wonder!