January 3, 2011 - 5 night Bahamas Sailing

[mommyofthreeboys]

Yes, thank you to everyone for the FE gifts!!!! We received so many great things that I couldn't pick my favorite. I LOVED the CD, calendars, scrapbooks, weekly planners, candy, loved the beautiful ornaments, sand off beach brush, glow sticks, oh oh oh, and the RUM.....YUMMY!!!!! and loved the luggage tags, moon pies and mousepad calendar and more candy!!!

I don't drink coffee so I gave it to my sister for watching my boys and she was SOOO excited because "Tim Hortons coffee is her favorite"....who knew?!?! So Thank You!!!

Ok, I can't remember everything but know I loved it ALL!!!! No matter how big or small, we loved it all. We also had fun with it and that's the main reason!

I hope everyone liked my card set. If not, sorry


I came back to an inch of snow....I want to go back!!!!!!

 

[Georgia3]

I would like to get off the ship now - I am still feeling the ship movement. My kids did not enjoy the Lab this time. I thought it was because they were 2 years older but I think it was probably because of all of the little kids- now that I look back.
My DD12 would not have liked her brother and cousins to be with her in the Edge so that would have not been an option for the 10 year olds in our group. Although they enjoyed the simulator in the Edge during open house.

 

[breathogg]

thanks for this comments.

 

[BigHugsForEeyore]

.

 

[Georgia3]

My kids have been out of school since December 18th. Now we have the blizzard of 2011. No school today and probably tomorrow. At least I can get all of my bags unpacked just hoping we do not lose the power, it is sleeting now.

 

[biohaz_man]

Welcome Back Cruisers......we are heading down in a couple of weeks. We were hoping for an update on a few things;

1. Service Quality - we hear that there are a lot of newbie servers?

I believe our assistant server Eric was relatively new but he was very personable and attentive and took great care of us. Our server Eka is the best cast member we've ever had the pleasure to encounter. She was terrific. If you can, make sure to request her as your server.

2. Weather at all the ports - could you swim at the Ports?

We didn't swim at the ports but did get our feet wet at CC and had no issue with the water temperature. The first stop was warm with a fair breeze, excellent weather while the second stop was very windy and rather chilly.

3. Was it warm on teh cruise ship? could you swim on teh ship or was it too cold?

For the first few days it was rather warm (75-80) on the ship but the last day and a half it was a bit cool with a lot of wind. We didn't try to swim but did see many people doing so.

Thanks so much

Responses above.

 

[Silverfox97]

Responses above.

Hey biohaz_man,

I think you are going to be on our next cruise according to your ticker - Oct 1st on the Magic??

 

[mommyofthreeboys]

We booked October 23rd on the Dream. I can't wait!!!

 

[Elangen]

Oh! I think you came and sat at our table for breakfast on the last morning - none of the others from our table turned up. Were you at Table 16?

I really didn't like that serving team! They were so pushy about the food - trying to make you order food you didn't like, getting offended because you didn't eat every single speck of food on the plate, taking away the bread plates before they were finished with. They treated dinner too much like a Military operation

yes, that was us. So sorry to intrude. I did not realize it was going to be table service!
we werent sure why they didnt place us at another table that was empty since there were so many. I guess they didnt want to mess up another table. Ploman and Goran were our servers throughout the cruise. yours too? I thought that the "pushiness" was a result of their newness. Like they had a script they had to follow and were not comfortable winging it. I thought we threw them for a loop when we showed up at their table 15 minutes late. They seemed a bit nervous to me, so it didnt really bother me, but, I did think the food took forever and could never tell if it was their fault or the kitchen.

Ploman danced with my kids on pirate night. I was surprised since I kept describing him and his demeanor to my husband as a Russan Gangster trying to serve fine dining.

Admittedly, I might have just had a little crush on Goran and cut them too much slack

 

[BigHugsForEeyore]

.

 

[biohaz_man]

Hey biohaz_man,

I think you are going to be on our next cruise according to your ticker - Oct 1st on the Magic??

Very observant, we will indeed be on that same cruise... I noticed you were on there when I went to the 10/1 cruise meet thread... DW and I wanted to try a little different cruise since all we have done are Bahamas cruises so we booked onboard.

 

[Silverfox97]

Very observant, we will indeed be on that same cruise... I noticed you were on there when I went to the 10/1 cruise meet thread... DW and I wanted to try a little different cruise since all we have done are Bahamas cruises so we booked onboard.

Well, if you join the FE, I promise to have a different gift for you this time - no repeats here

Hope to see you on the thread. And, maybe we'll actually have a meet this time - I can't believe no one saw each other!!!!

 

[auntlynne]

[mommyto3boys' response to Originally Posted by AverysMommy
Welcome Back Cruisers......we are heading down in a couple of weeks. We were hoping for an update on a few things;

1. Service Quality - we hear that there are a lot of newbie servers?
We got Iketut and Aly and they were bad!!! Very friendly and always had a smile but they were sooooo slow. Our water and our drink ALWAYS went empty. I finally asked our head server Wayne for a refill one night and he seemed very annoyed so the next night the refills were better. Aly would bring around the cracked pepper when we were almost finished with the meal. The earliest time we ever got our meal (entree) was 9:35. One hour and 20 minutes past sitting down. We were first in line for breakfast on debarkation day and everyone around us, who sat down 10 min after us were finished before we even got our drinks! Yes, we sat down at 8:00 and we got our DRINKS at 8:45am. 45 minutes for some milk was ridiculous. I asked Aly if he has to personally milk the cow for my milk and he just smiled. ]

I think you must have had the same time schedule we had! 5:45 seating - maybe we'd have something to drink (other than water) in 30 minutes. If you ordered salad, you might get the dressing 5 minutes later, if you could find someone to flag down and ask for it. Typically 1 hr 20 min until the main course arrived - when one of us didn't order any appetizers/salads/soups, they only had bread until after 7pm.

The servers were cheerful, but it was just so painfully slow. Palo's was better, but not up to its usual.

Wayne, the head server, and Captain John, both said that it was about 35% new staff - a large number of the experienced crew are now on the Dream. It may be years before they get fully up to speed.

 

[Silverfox97]

I think you must have had the same time schedule we had! 5:45 seating - maybe we'd have something to drink (other than water) in 30 minutes. If you ordered salad, you might get the dressing 5 minutes later, if you could find someone to flag down and ask for it. Typically 1 hr 20 min until the main course arrived - when one of us didn't order any appetizers/salads/soups, they only had bread until after 7pm.

The servers were cheerful, but it was just so painfully slow. Palo's was better, but not up to its usual.

Wayne, the head server, and Captain John, both said that it was about 35% new staff - a large number of the experienced crew are now on the Dream. It may be years before they get fully up to speed.

You guys can see my report on the "Losing the Magic" thread on the main Cruise Line board; for us, we had the same issue with the drinks. However, our server, Marcos from Chile, picked up the slack - giving us the dressing,clearing our plates, etc. He was working so hard, he was sweating. Literally.

 

[ladyniles]

We were very happy with the service we got... (and we had a few sets as we switched to early seating) The last morning (and this could be in my head) the servers seemed a little more aloof. Marvin was our host. What a sweetie! Our daughter was taking medicine that was hard to take, the chocolates helped so he left plenty. His towel animals rocked, too. We had a great experience and are hoping to cruise on the Fantasy next June.

 

[Pengwend]

We were very happy with our service. This was our first cruise, and we were seated with 3 other couples who were all on their honeymoons. We are getting married (at WDW!) in May, so we were "testing the waters" to see if we want to do a DCL cruise for our honeymoon.

We had Wayne as our head server. [He totally reminds me of Buzz.] He was great; remembered our names and table so he could show us there every evening. He chatted with us at every meal and other than telling us that there would be a comment card, didn't ask us to say he was good or anything. We had one person at our table with severe allergies, and each night Wayne took extra time to make sure there would be suitable food for the next day.

Nergis was our regular server and she was very, very nice. She even gave us brain teasers each night after discovering that we were all into that. One night my fiance's steak came out well done instead of medium rare and she knew before she even put it down. So she told him that she'd already put in to get another and it came out with the next round she carried out!

Milan was our drinks server and he may have been new. He was very friendly and I particularly liked that he made an effort NOT to be intrusive when we were having conversations at the table. He kept all our drinks filled and even double checked ingredients a couple of times without us asking.

I don't remember the name of our stateroom host, though we did meet and chat with him quite a few times. He left us fun towel creations and extra chocolates a couple times after we mentioned they were cute.

Finally, on our first day at Castaway, we both bought coconut cups at one of the drink stands. The cast member, Augustine, literally ran around the island looking for a pink one for me, even though I said the colour really didn't matter. When he couldn't find one, he was extremely apologetic and promised to deliver one to our room later. When we got back from the 6:15 show, we found he'd left us 2 new cups with some cute notes on post-its! I wrote about him on the back of our comment card, because we just thought it was great that he even remembered!

 

[OrlandoSteve]

We had a great time on our first Disney Cruise. Food was great (especially Palo), room was very clean, cast members were terrific. 13 and 16 year old daughters seemed to have a good time and made some friends. Anna was our server and she was great. Only minor complaint.. could the seats be any closer to the seats in front of them in the movie theater?! Wow. I'm not a big/tall guy.. but my knees were digging into the seat in front of me!

 

[OrlandoSteve]

I would like to get off the ship now - I am still feeling the ship movement. My kids did not enjoy the Lab this time. I thought it was because they were 2 years older but I think it was probably because of all of the little kids- now that I look back.
My DD12 would not have liked her brother and cousins to be with her in the Edge so that would have not been an option for the 10 year olds in our group. Although they enjoyed the simulator in the Edge during open house.

My wife swars she still feels the movement a week later!

 

[Silverfox97]

We were very happy with our service. This was our first cruise, and we were seated with 3 other couples who were all on their honeymoons. We are getting married (at WDW!) in May, so we were "testing the waters" to see if we want to do a DCL cruise for our honeymoon.

We had Wayne as our head server. [He totally reminds me of Buzz.] He was great; remembered our names and table so he could show us there every evening. He chatted with us at every meal and other than telling us that there would be a comment card, didn't ask us to say he was good or anything. We had one person at our table with severe allergies, and each night Wayne took extra time to make sure there would be suitable food for the next day.

Finally, on our first day at Castaway, we both bought coconut cups at one of the drink stands. The cast member, Augustine, literally ran around the island looking for a pink one for me, even though I said the colour really didn't matter. When he couldn't find one, he was extremely apologetic and promised to deliver one to our room later. When we got back from the 6:15 show, we found he'd left us 2 new cups with some cute notes on post-its! I wrote about him on the back of our comment card, because we just thought it was great that he even remembered!

Wayne was our head server, too, and DH will agree - in 3 cruises, he was the best head server we've had to date.

I highly recommend DCL for your honeymoon from personal experience If I could change anything, I would've taken a longer than a 3 night cruise, and would've done it at the end of our wedding/honeymoon, not in the middle. It was tough to go back to WDW after being on a cruise!

That is a great story about the coconuts!!! Glad you had such a great cruise!!

Only minor complaint.. could the seats be any closer to the seats in front of them in the movie theater?! Wow. I'm not a big/tall guy.. but my knees were digging into the seat in front of me!

RIGHT??? It was our 3rd cruise, but our first trip to the theater and I thought the same!! What was even worse, was during Tron Legacy, the ENTIRE ROW (not exaggerating) emptied out our way - it was a tight squeeze!!

 

[auntlynne]

...Only minor complaint.. could the seats be any closer to the seats in front of them in the movie theater?! Wow. I'm not a big/tall guy.. but my knees were digging into the seat in front of me!

They are close together; however, it took me several cruises before I realized that the legroom on the top row was significantly smaller than the rest of the rows.


So glad to hear that first-time cruisers were satisfied; I have had such mixed experience with dining room servers on DCL, but nothing to point of keeping me from cruising with them. This was my 6th cruise, with 4 more scheduled over the next 1.5 years and would hate to be sailing on empty boats.