Hi all...just adjusting to life off the Disney Magic...which I am not liking compared to being on the DCL trip!
I don't want to get too detailed as I am not sure the value of doing that.
I can tell you we had a great time and not many complaints at all. In fact, we met three crew members who literally made our trip and really had us wanting to adopt them as members of our family.
From the top: I traveled with my DW, DD (11), DS (7) and DB (8 mos.). Everyone except the baby had been on a Wonder 4-day back in 2007. We weren't DCL newbies but we had not done a 7-day cruise before so the lenght of the cruise was new to us and not really a problem.
Getting on the ship was easy and painless as usual. We get there early since we live in San Diego so that helped a lot. The terminal is what it is: if you've never been to Disney's terminal in Canaveral, you won't understand but it wasn't awful.
As we expected, the weather the first two days was a little cool but being Southern Californians we expected it and were prepared with sweatshirts and cold kids getting out of the Mickey/Goofy pools.
We love cruising with Disney and this trip lived up to our expectations which are getting higher as we cruise more. The staff, food, activities, etc. were all what we expected. We're very easy going so not much gets us riled up.
SHORE EXCURSIONS:
We went ashore for the Family Resort Escape in Cabo and it was fine. Cabo itself isn't much but we wanted just a nice pool and beach to take the kids too and it was great. The killer whale waterslide is all my kids needed for a good time. Transportation was great and the food passable. My only complaint is the excursion was only 3.5 hours which was far to little time to really get relaxed and enjoy it. This needs to be at least a 5 hr trip.
We didn't go ashore in Mazatlan...no desire.
Puerto Vallarta was a great trip. We got a five hour trip to Paradise Village Resort. My kids were in heaven with the Mayan-themed pool and it's numerous waterslides and underwater caves. The resort was great as was the tour staff. I highly recommend it. My kids want to go back to the resort on a separate trip...that's how much we liked it.
ON BOARD:
Overall the ship was great...clean and not much different than our experience on the Wonder. Our staterooms were Cat 11, which we weren't used to since our first stateroom was a roomy Cat. 8.
Not having the portholes was a bummer. I never thought it was a big deal but we missed it as did the kids. We had to go to two Cat. 11 when we had our third child back in November...the Cat. 8 we originally booked only sleeps four.
Our stateroom was in basically good condition...although the bathroom tile was really showing its age and the in-room refrigerators were both awful. Our attendant Jonathan was great though and took perfect care of us.
The restaurants were all great...and food as expected. We had mistakenly been given an 8:30pm dining time and with an 8 month old infant, the first night was hell because our guy was way past his bedtime. Michelle, a head server, was fantastic and by the second night we were switched to 6pm. I can't tell you how much this meant to us...as we like to eat as a complete family. Michelle is AWESOME and gets much love on this board. She is someone you hope to have as she really does her job well.
ACTIVITIES:
The staff is still great and Emma and others are amazing. I do think the type of activities are getting old for those of us who have done DCL before. I had only sailed once before and things got old quick. In addition, I wish DCL would do more physically active activities for entire families. We like to hang out together and some sort of Family dodgeball or something physical would have been great. We gave that feedback to Christian (CD) and he appreciated the feedback.
KIDS:
The kids activities are still best in class, although I agree with others that they move the younger kids around too much. When you have strong winds on deck, it's tough having seven year olds playing dodgeball on Deck 10 when the balls blow away. They really need to think about this before they take kids out. In addition, with so much moving, it's hard to get your kids checked in sometimes. We had our dinner date at Palo and I had to stand on deck 10 with wind blowing my suit and hair for 15 minutes waiting for my son's group to arrive so I could check him in. They were in "transition" time and this was highly inconvenient.
In addition, I was appalled at how many kids were running around uncontrolled by their parents. That has nothing to do with DCL...that's more of a parenting issue. It was far more noticeable on this trip than it was on our 4-day from Florida. Some real demon-seeds this time around...WOW!
CALIFORNIANS:
Let me say this...I have been a resident of California since I was 9 years old...so I am a SoCal guy through and through.
But I have to say...with many more Californians on this trip, I discovered they just aren't as friendly as those I met on our Florida cruise. They aren't as fun...they're more rude and they don't really get into the DCL spirit. This may be because of Disneyland and growing up next to it but it was very, very noticeable. We love to meet new people but had more trouble this trip because the "LA" attitude was in full-force. The best folks we met were from the midwest or from out of the country. The Cali folks all acted like they were too good to talk to anyone. Very odd...and sad to me as I love California and think it's the best place on earth to live.
Just being honest...many others noticed the same thing I notice. This, I will say, has had a huge influence on my thinking about our next few cruises. We booked a 7-day Eastern Caribbean (Tortola) for Sept. 2009 when we were on board...and I don't know if I'll do a WC sailing when a ship ultimately is stationed there. Just my current thinking.
OTHER:
We had three amazing experiences with Cast Members on board that I want to share.
First, was Kim (she's from South Africa) and is a manager at Mickey's Mates. When my son left his pin lanyard at the pool the first night (no, no one turned it in!), he was crushed. They were pins he bought and traded for on our last trip to Disneyworld and on our last cruise. Needless to say, he was crying and so upset that he lost this.
We ran into Kim the next day at pin trading in the Atrium and my wife told her the story. She did so because we often (no offense!) make fun of the adults who go absolutely nuts with this pin trading stuff. I mean they're somewhat psycho! Anway, Kim had a laugh and then told us to meet her in the store a few hours later.
When we got there, she gave my son a new lanyard and several pins to get him started again. She didn't have to do that with it being such a business for DCL. She was fantastic...and we appreciate what she did. I am writing a letter to DCL about her and how she made my son's trip.
Second was Alberto in Treasure Ketch. This guy is just a fantastic human being. We met him our first day on board when we bought a signed print and some other items. He was just the nicest guy ever.
His customer service was so good I found myself coming back several times a day to just say hello. And each time he remembered my WHOLE family's names AND spent time making sure we found what we needed. He also helped my son get started with some new pins and sent two Magical Moments cards to our staterooms for both kids which included another pin. He is exactly what you picture when you think about the perfect Disney Cast Member. We got to know him well and it's the first time we were really sad saying goodbye to an employee on the ship. He's really an extended member of our family and we plan to keep in touch.
Please stop by and say hello to him...you won't regret it. Just tell him the Gulbransens say hello!
Third was Paula in Mickey's Mates as well. Hailing from Brazil, I've never met a Cast Member better with kids in my life. Just a sweet gal who really went out of her way to say hello to us throughout the ship.
Overall, just a great trip. We love DCL and, even though we second guess ourselves on booking more cruises, we're hooked. I want to experience other vacations but for the money, I just don't think you can beat it.
Hope you enjoy your trip and please feel free to email or DM me any questions.
I don't want to get too detailed as I am not sure the value of doing that.
I can tell you we had a great time and not many complaints at all. In fact, we met three crew members who literally made our trip and really had us wanting to adopt them as members of our family.
From the top: I traveled with my DW, DD (11), DS (7) and DB (8 mos.). Everyone except the baby had been on a Wonder 4-day back in 2007. We weren't DCL newbies but we had not done a 7-day cruise before so the lenght of the cruise was new to us and not really a problem.
Getting on the ship was easy and painless as usual. We get there early since we live in San Diego so that helped a lot. The terminal is what it is: if you've never been to Disney's terminal in Canaveral, you won't understand but it wasn't awful.
As we expected, the weather the first two days was a little cool but being Southern Californians we expected it and were prepared with sweatshirts and cold kids getting out of the Mickey/Goofy pools.
We love cruising with Disney and this trip lived up to our expectations which are getting higher as we cruise more. The staff, food, activities, etc. were all what we expected. We're very easy going so not much gets us riled up.
SHORE EXCURSIONS:
We went ashore for the Family Resort Escape in Cabo and it was fine. Cabo itself isn't much but we wanted just a nice pool and beach to take the kids too and it was great. The killer whale waterslide is all my kids needed for a good time. Transportation was great and the food passable. My only complaint is the excursion was only 3.5 hours which was far to little time to really get relaxed and enjoy it. This needs to be at least a 5 hr trip.
We didn't go ashore in Mazatlan...no desire.
Puerto Vallarta was a great trip. We got a five hour trip to Paradise Village Resort. My kids were in heaven with the Mayan-themed pool and it's numerous waterslides and underwater caves. The resort was great as was the tour staff. I highly recommend it. My kids want to go back to the resort on a separate trip...that's how much we liked it.
ON BOARD:
Overall the ship was great...clean and not much different than our experience on the Wonder. Our staterooms were Cat 11, which we weren't used to since our first stateroom was a roomy Cat. 8.
Not having the portholes was a bummer. I never thought it was a big deal but we missed it as did the kids. We had to go to two Cat. 11 when we had our third child back in November...the Cat. 8 we originally booked only sleeps four.
Our stateroom was in basically good condition...although the bathroom tile was really showing its age and the in-room refrigerators were both awful. Our attendant Jonathan was great though and took perfect care of us.
The restaurants were all great...and food as expected. We had mistakenly been given an 8:30pm dining time and with an 8 month old infant, the first night was hell because our guy was way past his bedtime. Michelle, a head server, was fantastic and by the second night we were switched to 6pm. I can't tell you how much this meant to us...as we like to eat as a complete family. Michelle is AWESOME and gets much love on this board. She is someone you hope to have as she really does her job well.
ACTIVITIES:
The staff is still great and Emma and others are amazing. I do think the type of activities are getting old for those of us who have done DCL before. I had only sailed once before and things got old quick. In addition, I wish DCL would do more physically active activities for entire families. We like to hang out together and some sort of Family dodgeball or something physical would have been great. We gave that feedback to Christian (CD) and he appreciated the feedback.
KIDS:
The kids activities are still best in class, although I agree with others that they move the younger kids around too much. When you have strong winds on deck, it's tough having seven year olds playing dodgeball on Deck 10 when the balls blow away. They really need to think about this before they take kids out. In addition, with so much moving, it's hard to get your kids checked in sometimes. We had our dinner date at Palo and I had to stand on deck 10 with wind blowing my suit and hair for 15 minutes waiting for my son's group to arrive so I could check him in. They were in "transition" time and this was highly inconvenient.
In addition, I was appalled at how many kids were running around uncontrolled by their parents. That has nothing to do with DCL...that's more of a parenting issue. It was far more noticeable on this trip than it was on our 4-day from Florida. Some real demon-seeds this time around...WOW!
CALIFORNIANS:
Let me say this...I have been a resident of California since I was 9 years old...so I am a SoCal guy through and through.
But I have to say...with many more Californians on this trip, I discovered they just aren't as friendly as those I met on our Florida cruise. They aren't as fun...they're more rude and they don't really get into the DCL spirit. This may be because of Disneyland and growing up next to it but it was very, very noticeable. We love to meet new people but had more trouble this trip because the "LA" attitude was in full-force. The best folks we met were from the midwest or from out of the country. The Cali folks all acted like they were too good to talk to anyone. Very odd...and sad to me as I love California and think it's the best place on earth to live.
Just being honest...many others noticed the same thing I notice. This, I will say, has had a huge influence on my thinking about our next few cruises. We booked a 7-day Eastern Caribbean (Tortola) for Sept. 2009 when we were on board...and I don't know if I'll do a WC sailing when a ship ultimately is stationed there. Just my current thinking.
OTHER:
We had three amazing experiences with Cast Members on board that I want to share.
First, was Kim (she's from South Africa) and is a manager at Mickey's Mates. When my son left his pin lanyard at the pool the first night (no, no one turned it in!), he was crushed. They were pins he bought and traded for on our last trip to Disneyworld and on our last cruise. Needless to say, he was crying and so upset that he lost this.
We ran into Kim the next day at pin trading in the Atrium and my wife told her the story. She did so because we often (no offense!) make fun of the adults who go absolutely nuts with this pin trading stuff. I mean they're somewhat psycho! Anway, Kim had a laugh and then told us to meet her in the store a few hours later.
When we got there, she gave my son a new lanyard and several pins to get him started again. She didn't have to do that with it being such a business for DCL. She was fantastic...and we appreciate what she did. I am writing a letter to DCL about her and how she made my son's trip.
Second was Alberto in Treasure Ketch. This guy is just a fantastic human being. We met him our first day on board when we bought a signed print and some other items. He was just the nicest guy ever.
His customer service was so good I found myself coming back several times a day to just say hello. And each time he remembered my WHOLE family's names AND spent time making sure we found what we needed. He also helped my son get started with some new pins and sent two Magical Moments cards to our staterooms for both kids which included another pin. He is exactly what you picture when you think about the perfect Disney Cast Member. We got to know him well and it's the first time we were really sad saying goodbye to an employee on the ship. He's really an extended member of our family and we plan to keep in touch.
Please stop by and say hello to him...you won't regret it. Just tell him the Gulbransens say hello!
Third was Paula in Mickey's Mates as well. Hailing from Brazil, I've never met a Cast Member better with kids in my life. Just a sweet gal who really went out of her way to say hello to us throughout the ship.
Overall, just a great trip. We love DCL and, even though we second guess ourselves on booking more cruises, we're hooked. I want to experience other vacations but for the money, I just don't think you can beat it.
Hope you enjoy your trip and please feel free to email or DM me any questions.
I would say to give it another try. I am a Cali native, and a social butterfly. I had an amazing time on our cruise. 6/29 sailing. All we did was talk to people everywhere. Everyone was so nice. I do know what you mean about some people from California,but everyone was soooo nice. Maybe it was just your cruise. Don't write West Coast off
I grew up in Huntington Beach, and now live in San Diego
That is funny!!!!!!!!
This cruise was a dream come true. I loved everything. Maybe I didn't notice anything different, because West Coast is all I know. Ignorance is bliss....right?
It sounds like your family had an amazing time!!! Thank you for the trip report!!!!
Remember Max Hammer???? I am crack'in myself up. Enough of this
