OT: Disney Dream Cruise vs...

[who's ur daddy?]

So we just came back from a Disney Dream cruise through the Carribbean and it was pretty solid and fun vacation overall: lots of food, Disney entertainment, excellent service from top to bottom, spectacular Castaway Cay (Disney's private island), very organized, etc.

This was my first cruise and although I am not necessarily married to the idea of annual cruising, I was just curious as to how this compares to the experience with other cruise lines...

I didn't plan this cruise, so only have a general sense of the cost ($700 pp?), but understand that some cruises are signficantly cheaper ($500 pp?).

Cruisers - speak up!

 

[vacation_junkie]

So we just came back from a Disney Dream cruise through the Carribbean and it was pretty solid and fun vacation overall: lots of food, Disney entertainment, excellent service from top to bottom, spectacular Castaway Cay (Disney's private island), very organized, etc.

This was my first cruise and although I am not necessarily married to the idea of annual cruising, I was just curious as to how this compares to the experience with other cruise lines...

I didn't plan this cruise, so only have a general sense of the cost ($700 pp?), but understand that some cruises are signficantly cheaper ($500 pp?).

Cruisers - speak up!

We have cruised both Disney (Many times) & Carnival..we prefer Carnival. We cruised Disney for many years before we ventured to Carnival. I am glad we did!

We usually pay $2000 for the 3 of us for a 7 day Carnival in a Balcony room....we paid $1500 more for Disney and that was an Ocean view room.
You actually probably paid $1000 a person...and that would be for an inside stateroom...

We prefer Carnival (The bigger ships, dream, magic...etc) More stuff for adults to do...rooms are bigger. My son actually does too and he's 11

We are going on the Breeze in January....8 day cruise and its $1990 for a premium room for the 3 of us!

 

[2gr8DisneyKids]

I think you will get different answers based on which ships on other lines people sail. We took a Carnival cruise to Canada (before the DCL option existed) and hated it. It was an older ship (but had been recently dry docked so in good shape), but we ate the same food in the same restaurant every night and hated that you had to walk through the smoky casino or go many floors out of your way. We also all got sick and have never been sick on a DCL cruise, the attention to hand sanitation that we thought was a bit over the top is well justified!

To save on the cost of DCL we book the day prices are released or last-minute with a GTY.

 

[retiredkid]

we have been on Holland America, Norwegian and Disney.
We are two retired adults and cruise without any kids.
As pp said, it would depend on the categories and ships....HOWEVER, we found:

Disney entertainment was by far the best
Disney staterooms were larger
Disney split bathrooms were great

As for food, cleanliness, service etc.....
Holland America and Disney are comparable
Norwegian is our least favourite.

As for prices, Disney is quite a premium to pay.

 

[roxysmum123]

I've cruised a few lines before, but never Disney. Disney is by far the steepest price-wise from what I've seen and as a usually solo cruiser I just can't pay that "single supplement" they all like to tack on so much.

I've cruised with Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Princess and would do any of them again but would prefer Princess personally. Food was the best of the 3 and I had a few issues with Celebrity that I wasn't too fond of (eg it was hard to get anything to eat after 11pm, which for a night person like me is rather inconvenient).

Cruises are my fave way to travel (other than Disney) so I'd absolutely encourage you to try another line or two in the future and see how different, yet similar, it can be.

 

[Tower]

we have been on Holland America, Norwegian and Disney.
We are two retired adults and cruise without any kids.
As pp said, it would depend on the categories and ships....HOWEVER, we found:

Disney entertainment was by far the best
Disney staterooms were larger
Disney split bathrooms were great

As for food, cleanliness, service etc.....
Holland America and Disney are comparable
Norwegian is our least favourite.

As for prices, Disney is quite a premium to pay.

We have sailed Carnival, Royal Caribbean and DCL. As you can see by our ticker below, we're doing Disney again! We sailed on the Carnival Dream in 2010 after a fantastic Disney Magic cruise the year prior and all I can say is 'WHAT A DIAPPOINTMENT .
I agree with retiredkid on those comments. The thing that I noticed was the lack of customer service on the Carnival Dream vs. what we received on the Magic. Buffet lines opened on time and they were ready for us early in the AM, while on Carnival, a 6:30 breakfast buffet would not open until 6:40 on some mornings, ignoring the waiting early risers wanting to enjoy their breakfast.
Also, while I don't drink a lot, I do enjoy my beer when vacationing and DW enjoys her 'fruity drinks'. The fact that Carnival prohibits the bringing on of our own alcohol and DCL encourages you to carry it on is a big bonus. On that last Carnival cruise, they confiscated any alcohol we had in our suitcases until the last night of the cruise! It really soured my attitude as I swore not to buy a single drink from the ship at all because of that. I did manage to bring aboard a couple of plastic-capped mickey bottles at the various ports (big pockets) so I did have something, but still have no respect for Carnival anymore.
Yes the savings are there, but it depends what you're looking for.
This will be our 7th cruise this November, and we'll definitely be booking our 8th while aboard the Magic for the future!

 

[minnie mum]

Bear in mind that we are an older couple travelling without kids, but who are both huge Disney fans. All I can say is you don't always get what you pay for. We did a 4 day cruise on the Wonder that cost the same as our 7 day cruise on the Queen Mary II. Similar staterooms size (with balcony). I don't think we'll be sailing with Disney again. We loved the way the ship was decorated. And we loved the characters and evening shows. Castaway Cay was fun and we enjoyed our day there. But that was about it.

We found the food service VERY disappointing indeed. There was no excuse for the level of food preparation- the QM manages to serve first quality meals to twice as many people every night. Why couldn't the Wonder? The wine steward consistently had difficulty with our orders as well. We also didn't appreciate having to trek from one end of the ship to another just to get a cup of coffee or a Coke.

There were also fewer adult oriented activities available on the Disney cruise. It just wasn't a good fit for us. In the future we will probably look at cruises with Holland or Norwegian to see how they compare, but for now I'd say our hearts belong to Cunard.