first time cruiser/disney dream review

[jenn22980]

Hi I just go back last night from the disney dream cruise 4/10-4/14. This was my familys very first cruise. First I have to say thank you for all the great tips I recieved from this board it was extremley helpful and made our cruise an even more enjoyable experience.

Day 1

My family and I opted to get to the terminal a little later we arrived about 11:00am drove right up and checked our luggage with a porter, while my husband parked our vehicle. I proceeded to go through security with my son (8)and had no wait. I then was able to fill out our health papers and then spotted my inlaws who had stayed at a nearby hotel the night before. We then waited for my husband to arrive say 10 mins later. ( I had done all the online check in at home/so did my inlaws) and we were assigned online 12:30-1:00 check in time. We then went to the right line for first time cruisers and was handed boarding #17 before we did anything at the desk with the cast member. Then we waited for maybe 5 minutes at most to check in with the castmember and have our picture taken. After that we took pictures of the ship....had a picture with goofy...and then once boarding began the lines went down to get the mickey bands for the oceaneer club/lab, once again I had completed all the paperwork portion online so I waited a total of 20 minutes to get my son's mickey band and as soon as we were done with that they called our boarding number. When we walked onto deck 3 it was 1:30 and were able to go straight to our cabin to drop our carry ons off before we headed to lunch. All in all check in was super smooth and other than my son being very excited to get aboard the ship the whole process went by very quickly. I have to say my first impression of the ship was awe struck and the dream looks huge compared to other cruise ships at port....it is a very beautiful ship to behold.

Cabbanas was not very crowded the first day for lunch...when lunch was over my inlaws took my son to the pool and my husband and I went and toured the spa(which I loved...we had a couples massage the next day and it was amazing and the massage therapist were great). The pools were defintley crowded the first day and the day at sea in the afternoon but I had expected it from the other reviews I read....but it did not seem to detour my sons enjoyment of them.

We ended up getting first seating for dinner which was 5:45 and the second show which is 8:30...(right now on the dream dinner times are 5:45 and 8:15,shows are 6:30 and 8:30) we orginally had second seating but got moved to the first even though I didn't ask for it to be changed. My family and I ended up liking the first seating it worked well with our schedules. We did not attend the sail away party my son really wanted to sit out on our verandah and watch us pull away from port....which gave us time to relax/unpack/and get ready for dinner.

I thought the cabin set up was really nice we had 8038(deluxe oceanview w/verandah). Our dinner rotation was rp/ap/eg/eg ( we ate at palo on the first eg night....more on that later.) We ended up sitting with another couple who had a 9 year old boy and our children hit it off and became fast friends. I felt like the service was great first night a little rushed but by the end it was great. The golden mickeys were great my whole family really enjoyed all the shows....(my favorite was believe, husbands was golden mickeys,and my sons was villians). I will post more later feel free to ask any questions also...I have navigators I will scan asap for anyone who would like them.

 

[chudson98]

Would love to hear your impression of the club/lab? We are traveling with our DS who is 8 and I am hoping he is going to like it.

 

[jenn22980]

My son loved the lab portion there is a lot of computer/wii/board game interactives. The friend he made and him would usually meet up in the lab after the shows. Most of the time I had to drag him out of there lol.

 

[stamot]

Im glad to hear ur son loved the club. that is something that have me worry with my daughter. which was your favorite restaurant?? did you tried the aquaduck?? did your son loved it?

 

[mmouse37]

Moving to the trip reports board.

MJ

 

[chudson98]

My son loved the lab portion there is a lot of computer/wii/board game interactives. The friend he made and him would usually meet up in the lab after the shows. Most of the time I had to drag him out of there lol.

Hopefully my son will feel the same way. Thanks for the info.

 

[KarBear]

We are thinking of cruising for the first time ever on the Dream (never cruised before). I have a few questions:
1. Were you worried about your son being sea sick? My DD will be 9.
2. Was it akward sitting with people you didn't know all week?
3. My husband is a big eater - can he really ask for more - like if he orders steak can he get another steak?

Thanks for your help

 

[jenn22980]

Our favorite restraunt was ap due to the interaction with crush we only were a couple of tables away from one of the screens. My whole family thought it was really funny and enjoyable. Cuisine was eg I really enjoyed the lobster pasta and a few other dishes. We also ate at palo I didn't think the cuisine was any better than any other restraunt on the ship but atomshpere was very romantic. The only thing I would have to say is most restraunts were very loud except for palo...our tablemates who had cruised with disney before said that it might due to more people at each restraunt..Rp was the worse to hear anyone talk. Also I thought the service was great Ricardo was our server and he interacted with both boys and dinner seemed very smooth.

To the question about motion sickness...my son did not seem to feel the ship at all. I personally felt it the first day so took dramamine but didn't take any after the first day. My husband felt it a little more on the last but it wasn't bad. I would defintley have dramamine on hand just in case.

About tablemates we had a best case secnario...at our table was my son 8,my husband, my mother and father inlaw,and another couple and their 9 year old son. We were able to hold conversations and all got along really well...we actually exchanged staterooom numbers so the boys could meet up but didn't have to use the wave phones because we would run into them all the time and at great times.

I believe you can order more than one entree...but personally we were all full at the end even my husband who eats quite a bit.

The aqua duck usually has a line but we found out that it is best to ride it in the morning when it first opens and at night...afternoon time you have to wait quite a bit and the stairs that lead up to get hot. We developed a routine of getting breakfeast from roomservice then would head to pools at 8:30 and be able to ride aqua duck and if my son got hungry again I would just grab him something from cabanas. Hope this all helps.

 

[WAHkoMom]

Hi! Great TR so far - - - - my DH and I are sailing on the dream in a little over two weeks from now, so I'd love to see the Navigators!

Also, are there still two sailaway parties? We're trying to meet up with some other DISers and want to work around the sailaway parties and the lifeboat drill.

Thanks!

 

[Native NYer]

Enjoying your tr!

 

[jenn22980]

On our sailing the only sail away party was at 4:30 which was right after the drills. I wish there had been two probally would have been less crowded and more likley to join in. I am still working on scaning my navigators I was having trouble with the printer this morning. I will try again this afternoon.
Some helpful hints we learned for our next cruise which we booked a 5 day for next april 5th... I can't wait.

1. Don't arrive to early at the terminal.

2. Bring your own alochol...this worked out great for me I am the only one in my family who enjoys a glass of wine with dinner so it worked out perfect. I brought 3 bottles but didn't end up finishing it. I carried a glass to dinner and hubby and I would have a glass together while we walked the ship or relaxed on the verandah after dinner. Also they run drink specials....I had a bahama mama on first day really good! I had a frozen drink at castway cay(had a ton of alochol...as my husband put it you have to be in your 20's to drink than one of those lol). We each had a drink on day at sea...he had a bloody mary which he said was good and I had a mimosa.

3.Roomservice is great...espically for breakfast it allowed me to workout and the boys to sleep in. Plus my son loved watching a disney movie in the morning and eating breakfast...then gettting ready to head up to the pool. Just bring singles for tips.

4. Loved the spa would defintley skip bahamas and stay on ship next trip and enjoy the spa more. I will be gettting the rainforset pass for the next trip sorry I missed out on that. We had the couples massage and that was unbeliveable...even my husband who is picky about massages said it was one of the best ones he had.

5.Pirates night was really cool...loved the fireworks!!! My son enjoyed it but they only had one show and there was a huge gap between the show and fireworks...we missed the show due to our palo resy. But there was a lot of in between time and they close the pools. It did give our son the chance to ride the aqua duck ( I rode too) without any wait. We wanted to make sure we had a good spot for fireworks. aqua duck is really fun for adults too!

6.Lines are long for most of the character pictures...to my disappoitment my son didn't really want to get pics with characters he was more into what he could do activity wise. But we did do a picture with chip and dale after the show on day 1 and the line moved rather quickly. But the tip about taking things to be autographed to guest services (deck 3)great idea we had a frame mat and an autograph book for my son...all were delivered to us the last night.

7. Loved our stateroom host Omar. Sticky pads works great if you need to leave them notes.

8. We loved castway cay...hence the rebooking for 5 day so we can enjoy it twice. We did the extreme getaway package...didn't have time to bike. I will probally purchase items seperate next year...for example we used all snorkle equip..but will probally do one of the snorkle excur...it's a very long swim to see anything good in the lagoon and my son was very tierd by the time we made it back to shore. We only used 2 floats...sting ray thing was very cool and we all enjoyed it. Overall I could just live on castway cay and never come back.

Any other questions let me know...If I think of any other tips I will post some more

 

[CrozB4]

First time cruiser here and we've booked the Extreme Getaway Package, also. When you said you didn't have time to do the biking, I became a little worried as my family members want to do all of these activities. How much time are you allotted to do all 4? I assumed there was probably a fixed time to feed stingrays, but thought the other activities would be at your leisure.

 

[jenn22980]

We had the stingray adventure time at 1:00-2:00....we got on the island about 9:00 am and defintley take the advice of walking or taking the tram to the far end of the island where cookies 2 is much more seating and not as crowded plus near the pelican plunge...restrooms and cookies 2 (someone gave me that advice before my trip). We swam and we spent alot more time snorkleing so by the time we finished snorkleing(defintley allow more time for this takes a bit to swim out to the good stuff espically if you have young ones in your family) it was time for lunch(we spent about an hour at lunch so much good stuff to eat and was nice to get out of the sun for a bit and catch up with the inlaws on what they had been doing).The crab races were right after lunch and my son wanted to watch that(15-20min) then to head to the sting ray adventure(which was a highlight of our trip)(1 hour). My inlaws went bike riding after that but my son had no intrest and he just wanted to swim and do the pelican plunge thing some more so we opted to do that versus bike ride(2:15-4). We had dinner ressys at palo that night so we headed back to the boat at 4 so my son could have roomservice before going to the lab and I wanted to get some pics of everyone dressed up. There is so much to do and castway was really relaxing so we just tried to go with the flow and that is why we ended up not doing the bikes. We are going back next april and doing 2 days at castway cay so I defintley will do the bike ride on one of those days.

 

[CrozB4]

Thanks for explaining! Can't wait for easy relaxation!

 

[loveysbydesign]

Thanks for posting all this great info!

 

[Toria]

My son loved the lab portion there is a lot of computer/wii/board game interactives. The friend he made and him would usually meet up in the lab after the shows. Most of the time I had to drag him out of there lol.

Are the kids clubs only open at night?

 

[jenn22980]

The kids clubs are open at night the lab/club was open til 1 am most nights. I think it closed a little earlier the last night and didn't open up til 6 or 7 on night the first night. If you are into the adult clubs or want to catch a late movie at the buena vista theater it works out well. my ds loved going after the show because it gave him time to get out energy espically after sitting for dinner and show. The pools are open later too and they usually play movies on the funnel vision at night as well so you can swim and watch a movie.

 

[Toria]

The kids clubs are open at night the lab/club was open til 1 am most nights. I think it closed a little earlier the last night and didn't open up til 6 or 7 on night the first night. If you are into the adult clubs or want to catch a late movie at the buena vista theater it works out well. my ds loved going after the show because it gave him time to get out energy espically after sitting for dinner and show. The pools are open later too and they usually play movies on the funnel vision at night as well so you can swim and watch a movie.

I kind of wish they were open during the day for a couple of hours. My son is so excited to go to the clubs and when he finds out that he won't be able to go until the evening(I can already see the look of disappointment of his face) Oh and let's not mention DD she is going to cry. Guess I should prepare them before hand, so we can avoid the meltdowns on the ship(turn our magical experience into an unmagical experience)

Thanks for the info!

 

[LadyOfNawlins]

I don't mean to barge into Jenn's TR, but I wanted to let Toria know that the kids club/lab ARE open during the day. They just weren't open for drop offs during the day on the first day. After that, they are open all day until about 12 or 1 am.

 

[jenn22980]

Thank you for clarifying the times. My son went a couple of times during the day as well. Although there was one time he had lunch in there and didn't like the selection so if your children might be there during a mealtime I would check to make sure they like the food.