First Timer's DCL Review

[Wadekind]

I was considering a 4-day cruise for my first one to make sure we liked being on a boat that long. But sounds like you just jumped in with a longer one and we’re happy with that decision.

We (Parents, Grandparents, Wife and kids) had never cruised before and felt the same way. We all went together on a 4 night on the Dream the first year it sailed. It was an awesome introduction to cruising for all of us but was over in a blink of an eye. No one from our group has sailed less than 7 days since that first cruise.

 

[BabyYoda]

Our severs were amazing and only brought up the ratings at the very end of the cruise. We had many allergies and they were so accommodating and helpful throughout! However, the gluten free/dairy free people AND the non-allergy people all agreed the food was sub-par, and I think the servers knew this because he really harped on "PLEASE do not rate the food quality poor because even though we have nothing to do with it, it reflects on us".

It does seem pretty unfair!

 

[RedHead0186]

I can help with your breakfast room service problem. When you order breakfast on the room card. You indicate the number of people in the room on the card but when you are marking the item choices you want don’t put an X or a ✔ next to the item. You are supposed to write a number in next to the item of how many you would like of it. Some in the room may want certain items others may not. So if you don’t put a number next to the item room service is left to guess how many you may have wanted. They probably don’t want to give 3 of everything you selected in fear it is wasted. The adults in the room may have wanted bagels but the kid may not. I like to get extra milk so I put the number of milk cartons I would like them to give me. Also for the mixed fruit I add very small note next to it what fruit I would only like. For example grapes and watermelon only. We have also done this for the danish/pastry items. Of course writing these notes are only a request.

I made this mistake once. We ordered breakfast for our room of 4, and just put check marks next to everything. They brought us four of everything (and we had all ordered something different: bagels, cereal, fruit, etc.) so we had way too much food. Oops, we learned our lesson, lol.

 

[Kwami]

"PLEASE do not rate the food quality poor because even though we have nothing to do with it, it reflects on us".

Unfortunately, the food quality will never improve if we aren't honest about answering that question. It's not fair that a rating of less than five works against the servers, but it's also not fair to put guests in this position, either.

 

[dvcjoe]

Unfortunately, the food quality will never improve if we aren't honest about answering that question. It's not fair that a rating of less than five works against the servers, but it's also not fair to put guests in this position, either.

As others have said, I grab that piece of stationery from the desk drawer in the room ( you can get additional from your cabin steward or guest services) and if there are any comments on the food I write my thoughts. The survey should have questions regarding the food but it does not. My rating on the servers, is only on the servers performance.

 

[MomOTwins]

OP--your comment about the spa robes really struck a chord. This happened to me on my last cruise--I'm a bit pear shaped, and the robe fit fine on top but gaped open at my thighs. I obviously kept on my undies but had to still pinch it shut with two hands when walking from the changing room to the waiting area to the spa treatment room and back. It was soooo embarrassing. One of the (several) reasons I decided not to book a massage on my upcoming cruise, despite being a person who loves massages on vacations.

 

[o&smom]

This is exactly what I do too. It was even better on my last cruise when the server saw my black lanyard and was like okay, you’ve sailed enough times, you know the drill with ratings.

I was like, thank you for sparing me the speech He was also excellent which helped!

OMG, our last cruise was our worst, and our first with a black lanyard!

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

We have done 4 DCL sailings over the past year and I do feel like the most recent one kicked the pressure for excellent up a notch.

I work for a company that does customer satisfaction surveys and I’m genuinely baffled by Disney’s choices here. Would be much better not to pressure us (or the servers) to get perfection and say that “very good is passing and excellent is the best service of your life” and then they can see who needs a little extra training and who is a star, as to just figuring out who can guilt/scare their guests into giving perfect scores. The food situation is another example—why have a survey but not rate caliber of food/menu choices at various restaurants? Honestly filling out the survey is a bummer way to end the trip because I’m often choosing to give ratings I don’t fully believe in as I don’t want to hurt the livelihood of a server who is ok but not amazing. Disney is charging pricing at premium to luxury level (depending on the sailing) and they aren’t delivering on quite that level of service in MDRs (Remy and Palo are great)—but they don’t give us a real opportunity to provide honest feedback.

Also, nobody else has mentioned but I 100% agree with your comments on lines. There are lines everywhere on a DCL cruise— yes, partly it’s because there is more stuff to do, but the shore excursion, debarkation, buffet, and especially lunch at Castaway Cay are all outrageous compared to Celebrity, HAL, and even Princess/RCCL.

Nevertheless, we love the adult restaurants and spaces, don’t mind hit-or-miss food and spotty service in the main dining room, so we’ll keep coming back. Really going to try to avoid DCL shore excursions though!

 

[Kwami]

Also, nobody else has mentioned but I 100% agree with your comments on lines. There are lines everywhere on a DCL cruise— yes, partly it’s because there is more stuff to do, but the shore excursion, debarkation, buffet, and especially lunch at Castaway Cay are all outrageous compared to Celebrity, HAL, and even Princess/RCCL.

Eh, I don't know about that. On every Disney cruise that I've taken, I found myself walking right onto the ship while looking at a huge line for some other, non-Disney ship. With tenders, those lines seem extra bad compared to Disney's lines. I guess I'm not usually lined up to be the first off the ship, but I've rarely had to wait more than five minutes in either direction and I don't think I've ever had to wait at the buffet or at Castaway Cay.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Eh, I don't know about that. On every Disney cruise that I've taken, I found myself walking right onto the ship while looking at a huge line for some other, non-Disney ship. With tenders, those lines seem extra bad compared to Disney's lines. I guess I'm not usually lined up to be the first off the ship, but I've rarely had to wait more than five minutes in either direction and I don't think I've ever had to wait at the buffet or at Castaway Cay.

Boarding has been good, it’s disembarking that has frequently taken upwards of an hour.

I’ve never done a tender on DCL so I can’t comment on that.

Have you been to the Castaway buffets lately? We were there on Fantasy, not even one of their biggest ships, 4 weeks ago and waited at least 15, maybe 20+ minutes. There were several separate lines all stretching more than 30 people deep, barely moving.

 

[Princesca]

I don't think I've ever had to wait at the buffet or at Castaway Cay.

Our lines were so bad last week that they were bringing around trays of cups of water for people who had been standing there broiling for easily 20+ minutes.

 

[Kwami]

Boarding has been good, it’s disembarking that has frequently taken upwards of an hour.

I’ve never done a tender on DCL so I can’t comment on that.

Have you been to the Castaway buffets lately? We were there on Fantasy, not even one of their biggest ships, 4 weeks ago and waited at least 15, maybe 20+ minutes. There were several separate lines all stretching more than 30 people deep, barely moving.

Not since last February, I guess. I'm also always at Serenity Bay and maybe that kid-free line moves faster? I've never had to wait, though. I wonder what the problem was on your cruise.

For what it's worth, the Wish is just barely larger than the Fantasy, which is the second largest Disney ship (tied with the Dream).

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Not since last February, I guess. I'm also always at Serenity Bay and maybe that kid-free line moves faster? I've never had to wait, though. I wonder what the problem was on your cruise.

For what it's worth, the Wish is just barely larger than the Fantasy, which is the second largest Disney ship (tied with the Dream).

I asked my husband and he said probably over 30 minutes (almost all of it in the sun). We were both shocked at how slowly it was moving so when we got to the front tried to see what was going on --- it appeared they had one employee for each line rolling silverwear into the napkins and that person took nearly a minute per silverware set.

Serenity Bay is much better (in almost every way!) and I haven't seen much of a line there (though I tend to arrive around the very end of the lunch window, after feeding my kids at main Cookie's and dropping them at Scuttle's Cove)...but it's not an option for many.

 

[Princesca]

I asked my husband and he said probably over 30 minutes (almost all of it in the sun). We were both shocked at how slowly it was moving so when we got to the front tried to see what was going on --- it appeared they had one employee for each line rolling silverwear into the napkins and that person took nearly a minute per silverware set.

Serenity Bay is much better (in almost every way!) and I haven't seen much of a line there (though I tend to arrive around the very end of the lunch window, after feeding my kids at main Cookie's and dropping them at Scuttle's Cove)...but it's not an option for many.

Ours moved slowly in general, but at least one reason for it seemed to be that they ran out of hamburgers. How you run out of hamburgers at like 12:30 when you KNOW you have to be churning them out, I'm not sure. But now that I think about it, the silverware guy was pretty leisurely doing that too. I'm curious why they don't just use the plastic dispensers the parks use, but I know that's not the most eco-friendly option.

 

[CapnCrunch]

The whole pressure to give excellent ratings just needs to go. Just make the gratuities mandatory, to be paid at PIF and refundable if travel can't be completed. If I feel they go above beyond (and most times they do), I'm more than happy to tip extra.

As to the end of cruise survey card, that just needs to go. Come on Disney, spend some of those billions and make it electronic. Send me an email or let me do it through the app onboard.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Ours moved slowly in general, but at least one reason for it seemed to be that they ran out of hamburgers. How you run out of hamburgers at like 12:30 when you KNOW you have to be churning them out, I'm not sure. But now that I think about it, the silverware guy was pretty leisurely doing that too. I'm curious why they don't just use the plastic dispensers the parks use, but I know that's not the most eco-friendly option.

Seems like just having more utensils pre-washed and rolled would make a big difference.

Also, they need to tell people that they can pass by people waiting for one need-to-have food item. Frankly, I don’t think any of the food at cookies is good enough to give up 30m waiting in line for—I’d be happy to take whatever is available instead of waiting for a specific meat or side dish.

 

[CapnCrunch]

Seems like just having more utensils pre-washed and rolled would make a big difference.

Also, they need to tell people that they can pass by people waiting for one need-to-have food item. Frankly, I don’t think any of the food at cookies is good enough to give up 30m waiting in line for—I’d be happy to take whatever is available instead of waiting for a specific meat or side dish.

It doesn't help that it's not really advertised that there are multiple lines serving the same items. So some (especially new cruisers) may not know. And IMO, Disney could mix up the offerings a bit...would it kill them to have a taco bar on the island?

 

[Kwami]

The whole pressure to give excellent ratings just needs to go. Just make the gratuities mandatory, to be paid at PIF and refundable if travel can't be completed. If I feel they go above beyond (and most times they do), I'm more than happy to tip extra.

As to the end of cruise survey card, that just needs to go. Come on Disney, spend some of those billions and make it electronic. Send me an email or let me do it through the app onboard.

I often get an additional survey via email after the cruise. So, Disney has that tech!