I have been reading reports on this site for months in preparation for our Dream cruise and now would like to share ours. I will try to keep is short. Please feel free to ask any questions and I will answer as quickly as possible.
Okay, here goes...
Prior to the cruise...We spent 3 nights at Treasure Island before our cruise and we loved the area. We visited Downtown Disney on Wednesday and then we headed to Port Canaveral the night before our cruise and stayed at the CI&S. We paid $20 to leave our rental van there and have them transport us. I signed us up in the 11:30 time slot as I didn't want to arrive early and wait, wait, wait to board.
How was our boarding process?? Well, our shuttle driver loaded our bags and dropped us off curb side at approximately 11:35. We grabbed our luggage and headed to the port. We walked right through security as there was NO LINE!! We made our way to the check in area and there were maybe 4 families in front of us. A lady handed us a card with boarding #14 on it while we were in line. We made our way to the check in and that process went very quickly and smooth. Our check in lady changed our boarding pass to #6 without us even mentioning anything about it...YAY!!! We opted not to stand in the HUGE, HUGE, HUGE line to check kids in the kids club because A)we didn't plan on leaving them, and B)we had read to do this onboard if we chose to. I definitely recommend to do it on board! We found our way to a comfy couch and sat down for maybe 25-30 minutes before they called boarding #6. We were onboard and eating lunch at Cabanas by 12:45.
We headed down to deck 9 (our deck) at about 1:20. They had signs posted that rooms would be ready promptly at 1:30 and they were. We headed to room #9120 and believe it or no there was my suitcase! My husbands and sons wasn't there, but by 2:30 they had arrived. Our room was fantastic.
We did a bit of exploring the ship and then went back up to get ready for dinner. We had been assigned late seating and when we checked our tickets it had been changed to early dining...YAY!!!! So, we headed down to the atrium to take some pics around 5:15 and made our way to dinner. We never stood in line for more than 5 or 10 minutes anywhere for pictures and we ended up with 116 on our CD. The CD was $199 just to clear up the questions on pricing.
The next morning we did get off at Nassau and explored for a couple of yours. We will opt to stay on board next time and enjoy the ship. Dinner was at Animator's Palate on night 2 for us. This was our favorite. We loved how Crush interacted with the guests...so cool!
Castaway Cay was beautiful. We didn't feel like it was crowded at all. We ate on the island and the food was excellent. We stood in line for maybe 10 minutes getting on our food. Dinner was at Enchanted Garden our last night and it was very nice. We had a port hole window next to us and the view was gorgeous.
Our servers...Perdago (spelling??) aka "Mr. P" was our server and Mo was our assistant server. We loved them
Mickey waffles?? The only place we found them was on the breakfast buffet at Enchanted Garden. They did not have them at Cabanas.
The pools...yes, there were more crowded at times, but...I never felt like we couldn't enjoy them.
The aquaduck...our daughter rode this 3x and we never waited more than 20-25 minutes. At night there was NO WAIT AT ALL!
The mickey slide...our DS4 loved this. I bet he went down it 30x. The line moved quick and there was probable never more than 10 in front of him.
This was our first cruise and we had a fantastic time and can't wait to plan the next one.
Please feel free to ask any questions.
Okay, here goes...
Prior to the cruise...We spent 3 nights at Treasure Island before our cruise and we loved the area. We visited Downtown Disney on Wednesday and then we headed to Port Canaveral the night before our cruise and stayed at the CI&S. We paid $20 to leave our rental van there and have them transport us. I signed us up in the 11:30 time slot as I didn't want to arrive early and wait, wait, wait to board.
How was our boarding process?? Well, our shuttle driver loaded our bags and dropped us off curb side at approximately 11:35. We grabbed our luggage and headed to the port. We walked right through security as there was NO LINE!! We made our way to the check in area and there were maybe 4 families in front of us. A lady handed us a card with boarding #14 on it while we were in line. We made our way to the check in and that process went very quickly and smooth. Our check in lady changed our boarding pass to #6 without us even mentioning anything about it...YAY!!! We opted not to stand in the HUGE, HUGE, HUGE line to check kids in the kids club because A)we didn't plan on leaving them, and B)we had read to do this onboard if we chose to. I definitely recommend to do it on board! We found our way to a comfy couch and sat down for maybe 25-30 minutes before they called boarding #6. We were onboard and eating lunch at Cabanas by 12:45.
We headed down to deck 9 (our deck) at about 1:20. They had signs posted that rooms would be ready promptly at 1:30 and they were. We headed to room #9120 and believe it or no there was my suitcase! My husbands and sons wasn't there, but by 2:30 they had arrived. Our room was fantastic.
We did a bit of exploring the ship and then went back up to get ready for dinner. We had been assigned late seating and when we checked our tickets it had been changed to early dining...YAY!!!! So, we headed down to the atrium to take some pics around 5:15 and made our way to dinner. We never stood in line for more than 5 or 10 minutes anywhere for pictures and we ended up with 116 on our CD. The CD was $199 just to clear up the questions on pricing.
The next morning we did get off at Nassau and explored for a couple of yours. We will opt to stay on board next time and enjoy the ship. Dinner was at Animator's Palate on night 2 for us. This was our favorite. We loved how Crush interacted with the guests...so cool!
Castaway Cay was beautiful. We didn't feel like it was crowded at all. We ate on the island and the food was excellent. We stood in line for maybe 10 minutes getting on our food. Dinner was at Enchanted Garden our last night and it was very nice. We had a port hole window next to us and the view was gorgeous.
Our servers...Perdago (spelling??) aka "Mr. P" was our server and Mo was our assistant server. We loved them
Mickey waffles?? The only place we found them was on the breakfast buffet at Enchanted Garden. They did not have them at Cabanas.
The pools...yes, there were more crowded at times, but...I never felt like we couldn't enjoy them.
The aquaduck...our daughter rode this 3x and we never waited more than 20-25 minutes. At night there was NO WAIT AT ALL!
The mickey slide...our DS4 loved this. I bet he went down it 30x. The line moved quick and there was probable never more than 10 in front of him.
This was our first cruise and we had a fantastic time and can't wait to plan the next one.
Please feel free to ask any questions.
