Pros and Cons of 3-Night Dream Cruise San Juan to Fort Lauderdale

[SnowWhite2]

I did the 3 cruises before you (17 nights). We were told by staff that the 3 night was full and they were expecting a difficult voyage with all of the people. I was glad at that point we didn't stay for the 3 night.

We ended our trip as Pearl CC level so I've had some experience on DCL. This was the worst behaving group of passengers ever! I thought the first group was bad because it was a 4 day and lots of NYers/first time cruisers. Then the Jersey week trip from NY to San Juan was awful behavior (lots of kids). The 7 day Southern Caribbean was just as bad. The behavior at the WD Theater was beyond crazy. Adults and kids grabbing stage props during the show, running up and down the isles, screaming so loud that my ear was ringing for several minutes. Saw a woman "throw" her drink at another woman when she moved a chair in front of her at Evolution. The glass broke.

Lots of incompetence from the staff also. In Evolution, the tech team couldn't work the camera for the magicians close up tricks and when they finally got it working so we could see the trick on the screen, it was turned by 90 degrees. Never did figure it out during the show. When you are an entertainment company, that is unacceptable.

We saw several groups come in to first seating (5:45pm) at 6:30 - 7 pm and expect to get dinner. Not one or two but multiple groups and we sat in a back corner so I couldn't see most of the dining room. That is so beyond rude. It reflects on the service others are getting since the servers need to get them caught up on courses. I didn't realize that on the last cruise out of San Juan, our server had 3 of the 5 tables only speak Spanish. He was Indian and didn't speak Spanish. The assistant did thankfully but then I realized why we didn't see him much that cruise. It also made the Crush talk in Animators awkward since many of the people didn't speak English. Crush would talk and call them out by their shirt or some item and they didn't respond.

The 3rd cruise we got a VGT and they moved us even though our room was available a week before sailing. OK, no problem. We signed up to any veranda room. DCL then kicked us out of our room for two days from 8am - 3 pm to paint the balconies. Why assign us a room that is out for maintenance for two days? The cruise was not full. The first day, GS had no idea if it would happen again, which it did. I could understand if there was something wrong with the room like the toilet backed up or the AC had problems.

This was one of the times that made me reflect if DCL is still the cruise line for me. I've read of bad behavior before but never really experienced much of it. This time was totally different. I have a lot to think about for my future cruises. Maybe I need to go back to the smaller ships.

 

[MomOTwins]

Oof, this is just crazy! I will say I don’t think it is only this cruise—we’ve been noticing guest behavior on our recent cruises has been very entitled lately, but this is next level craziness. Still, I’ve definitely noticed an uptick in blatant line cutting, pin board theft, rushing to board elevators before others who were there first, food trays left blocking the hallway and other general rudeness. I remember when we went to the sail away party there was a family of 4 that created a 15 foot barrier with their luggage all around them so they could have a private viewing area on the upper level by the railing with nobody standing close to them. Then there was the woman at the frozen show in the Walt Disney theater who LOUDLY belted out the lyrics to every song. Another memorable one was when crush called on my 7 year old but the drunk adults at the next table over loudly interrupted talking over my kid and hijacked the conversation so they could talk to Crush instead.

On the other hand, we also have noticed some really nice behavior on the same cruises. Lots of pixie dust, people offering to take family photos of us, veteran cruisers giving helpful tips to newbies etc. There are still plenty of nice folks too, it’s just the bad ones leave such a vivid impression!

 

[kittylady1972]

I did the 3 cruises before you (17 nights). We were told by staff that the 3 night was full and they were expecting a difficult voyage with all of the people. I was glad at that point we didn't stay for the 3 night.

We ended our trip as Pearl CC level so I've had some experience on DCL. This was the worst behaving group of passengers ever! I thought the first group was bad because it was a 4 day and lots of NYers/first time cruisers. Then the Jersey week trip from NY to San Juan was awful behavior (lots of kids). The 7 day Southern Caribbean was just as bad. The behavior at the WD Theater was beyond crazy. Adults and kids grabbing stage props during the show, running up and down the isles, screaming so loud that my ear was ringing for several minutes. Saw a woman "throw" her drink at another woman when she moved a chair in front of her at Evolution. The glass broke.

Lots of incompetence from the staff also. In Evolution, the tech team couldn't work the camera for the magicians close up tricks and when they finally got it working so we could see the trick on the screen, it was turned by 90 degrees. Never did figure it out during the show. When you are an entertainment company, that is unacceptable.

We saw several groups come in to first seating (5:45pm) at 6:30 - 7 pm and expect to get dinner. Not one or two but multiple groups and we sat in a back corner so I couldn't see most of the dining room. That is so beyond rude. It reflects on the service others are getting since the servers need to get them caught up on courses. I didn't realize that on the last cruise out of San Juan, our server had 3 of the 5 tables only speak Spanish. He was Indian and didn't speak Spanish. The assistant did thankfully but then I realized why we didn't see him much that cruise. It also made the Crush talk in Animators awkward since many of the people didn't speak English. Crush would talk and call them out by their shirt or some item and they didn't respond.

The 3rd cruise we got a VGT and they moved us even though our room was available a week before sailing. OK, no problem. We signed up to any veranda room. DCL then kicked us out of our room for two days from 8am - 3 pm to paint the balconies. Why assign us a room that is out for maintenance for two days? The cruise was not full. The first day, GS had no idea if it would happen again, which it did. I could understand if there was something wrong with the room like the toilet backed up or the AC had problems.

This was one of the times that made me reflect if DCL is still the cruise line for me. I've read of bad behavior before but never really experienced much of it. This time was totally different. I have a lot to think about for my future cruises. Maybe I need to go back to the smaller ships.

Wow...not sure I saw a lot of that...but this time we did the late dining, and while concerned about it at first I actually enjoyed that we were not rushed for dinner. We would do trivia at 687 then head to dinner. If we were hungry before, we ordered some wings and charcuterie from room service to hold us over. So the only show I went to was the early Golden Mickey's on the 7 day and that was fine...but probably because most of the kids were at dinner? So of course we didn't have too many stragglers coming in late to the late dinner...except our own people by like 15 minutes maybe.

That's terrible about your room though. I will say for our 3 night we stepped down from Verandah to our first inside room. The room condition, and the person taking care of our room, were not good. We missed our 9th floor room and our attendant from our 7 night as he was fabulous.

We put down 2 deposits so we definitely will go again, and I'd also like to return to one of the smaller ships as we enjoyed our Wonder and our Magic trips in the past. I'd also like to try out one of the new ships, but only when they do at least 5 nights.

 

[drstrange]

Pros:

• We had a great morning of sightseeing in San Juan prior to embarkation.
• Weather was idyllic for most of the trip.
• Captain did a good job of steering us away from forecasted tropical winds.
• Stateroom hostess did a good job.
• Given a private MDR table after requesting it at Guest Services (had already requested it in advance but that wasn't honored).
• Food at Palo (dined there twice), MDR and Serenity Bay was very good.
• Rainforest Room was fantastic.
• Stateroom and extended balcony was great.
• Midship Detective Agency was fun.
• Aqua Duck was fun.
• Service overall was very good.
• We had a Serenity Bay cabana and that was excellent.

Cons:

• Worst behaved guests I've ever seen on DCL out of 11 cruises. 80-90% of the guests seemed to be South American nationals and many of them acted entitled. Many instances of kids yelling indoors while parents passively watched. Kids cutting in line for the Aqua Duck. Rowdy drinking on deck 3 midday one day- so loud we left the gift shop & decided to go back another day. Families so self-absorbed they would just stop in the middle of a walkway & you'd have to find your way around them- this became a common experience on this cruise & they never apologized or said pardon us or excuse me or anything.
• Muster drill was twice as long as usual due to so many families arriving late to the drill. Everything tended to start late due to a lot of guests being late. Our server mentioned he had a 1st seating guest show up at 7pm and expect full service.
• Worst theater experience ever on DCL, due to abominable audience behavior (keep in mind I'm platinum CC and am fine with what DCL family audiences are normally like.) Kids in front of us talked constantly and were actually standing up for about a third of the show while their parents passively watched. Many in the audience talked throughout the show, which I could barely follow due to the disruption. For the first 20 minutes of the actual show (which also started late) there was a steady stream of people arriving late, walking through the center aisles, with several using cell phone flashlights to find seats & signal to one another across the theater. Saw CM intercept people who were filming the show at least 3 times.
• Entertainment staff at Bingo were lackluster. Minimal joking and dancing. Not the fun experience I've had on other sailings.
• No final jackpot bingo.
• We couldn't embark onto Castaway Cay until almost noon. Original embarkation time was supposed to be 10:30. They delayed our all aboard time by 45 minutes to compensate. No one's fault as it was due to weather, but still a bit disappointing. At least we docked and the weather was nice on the island.
• Our Palo server (who we got both nights) confused providing good service with doing tons of chatting and interrupting our conversation every few minutes to ask how we were doing. She even asked if we were ready to go while I was in the middle of drinking something (we hadn't been lingering & we didn't close the place down or anything). At that point I just put my glass down & said yes and we left. That was our 2nd night there & at that point we were eager to get a little peace, which we should have been able to get while dining at Palo.
• Our MDR server was lackluster, then he gave the longest "excellent speech" in DCL history. Learned about this guy's homeland, history of work at DCL, current staffing & scheduling issues at DCL, etc., all during one speech and without encouraging him to talk.
• Good Morning Disney was embarrassingly bad, with hosts giggling and snorting throughout the show one morning and doing other silly antics I never would have expected to see on DCL (like a host running up to the camera & putting his face right up to it while the other giggled).

Overall, we enjoyed the cruise and relaxed a lot. I would have been dismayed and possibly not returned if this were my first DCL cruise, though. I will not do another 3-night repo, as they seemed to phone in some of their entertainment offerings on this cruise. I also will not sail out of an embarkation port that's further south than Florida again. The culture clash of sailing on a ship of mostly wealthy South American nationals isn't something I want to experience again.

If you had dinner at Palo twice on a three night cruise, then I'm sure the reason that your MDR server was over the top with the "excellent" spiel might have been because they didn't really get a chance to make an impression on you otherwise, along with all of the other things they mentioned. Seems like they wanted to jam pack 3 nights worth of information into one seating.

Also, I'm curious who the cruise director was for this sailing based on the other feedback you provided.

 

[RedHead0186]

If you had dinner at Palo twice on a three night cruise, then I'm sure the reason that your MDR server was over the top with the "excellent" spiel might have been because they didn't really get a chance to make an impression on you otherwise, along with all of the other things they mentioned. Seems like they wanted to jam pack 3 nights worth of information into one seating.

Also, I'm curious who the cruise director was for this sailing based on the other feedback you provided.

Not quite the same, but we sailing concierge for a 7-night on the Fantasy recently. Since we had a one-bedroom suite, we took advantage of the perk to have MDR food delivered to our stateroom a couple of nights (and also had Palo one night). We only went to the MDRs three nights out of seven (first night, Pirate Night, and last night). Despite our repeated assurances and explanations to our server that our absence had nothing to do with him/the serving team, he continued to lay it on thicker-worse than I'd ever experienced before. Some of it might have just been his personality (if we had gone all 7 nights we still might have gotten the spiel multiple times, we'll never know).

It was such a 'thing' that the head server called us our last afternoon to check on us-see how things were going and ask if we would be coming to dinner that night. I was a little annoyed by it, but also recognize it's the head server's job to monitor his serving teams, so he might have just been checking to ensure our absence wasn't a reflection of our team. Lo and behold, when we get to dinner, the head server comes over to talk to us, and shares that he had tried explaining to our server that we were concierge and not to worry that we didn't come to the MDRs a lot. Apparently, it was the server's idea to have the head server call us (not the head server's idea, as I had assumed). That really bothered me. We went over the top trying to reassure him (and our assistant server seemed to get it, so we did clearly convey the message).

Sorry for the rant, I'd been stewing on that since we got back and apparently this was the opportunity to let it out, lol.

 

[motherdaughtercruisers]

• Good Morning Disney was embarrassingly bad, with hosts giggling and snorting throughout the show one morning and doing other silly antics I never would have expected to see on DCL (like a host running up to the camera & putting his face right up to it while the other giggled).

Oh my gosh! This!!!!! Exactly!!! I am usually a fervent watcher of Good Morning Disney. Like this is one of my can’t miss things on a DCL cruise, and I just couldn’t take it anymore and stopped watching after day 3/4! It was cringey! The snorting was just awful! And I’m not trying to call out someone who snorts when they laugh - like you do you - but when you are responsible for a morning show, you have to make adjustments for the audience. Which leads me to my next complaint… They also kept announcing how many viewers were watching and it was like they were begging people to watch because their ratings/watching percentage was SO low!!! I really hope they address this!!!

 

[drstrange]

Oh my gosh! This!!!!! Exactly!!! I am usually a fervent watcher of Good Morning Disney. Like this is one of my can’t miss things on a DCL cruise, and I just couldn’t take it anymore and stopped watching after day 3/4! It was cringey! The snorting was just awful! And I’m not trying to call out someone who snorts when they laugh - like you do you - but when you are responsible for a morning show, you have to make adjustments for the audience. Which leads me to my next complaint… They also kept announcing how many viewers were watching and it was like they were begging people to watch because their ratings/watching percentage was SO low!!! I really hope they address this!!!

Do you remember the name of the Cruise Director? I am so curious.

 

[motherdaughtercruisers]

Do you remember the name of the Cruise Director? I am so curious.

I don’t.

 

[Cheburashka]

Oh my gosh! This!!!!! Exactly!!! I am usually a fervent watcher of Good Morning Disney. Like this is one of my can’t miss things on a DCL cruise, and I just couldn’t take it anymore and stopped watching after day 3/4! It was cringey! The snorting was just awful! And I’m not trying to call out someone who snorts when they laugh - like you do you - but when you are responsible for a morning show, you have to make adjustments for the audience. Which leads me to my next complaint… They also kept announcing how many viewers were watching and it was like they were begging people to watch because their ratings/watching percentage was SO low!!! I really hope they address this!!!

Exactly. It's normally low-key yet cheerful with a dash of humor, the perfect tone for when you're waking up and either lounging in bed or getting ready. The presenters are normally dignified, as becomes people who work on a ship. These presenters weren't- they acted like silly high school students.

 

[motherdaughtercruisers]

Exactly. It's normally low-key yet cheerful with a dash of humor, the perfect tone for when you're waking up and either lounging in bed or getting ready. The presenters are normally dignified, as becomes people who work on a ship. These presenters weren't- they acted like silly high school students.

Yes! Totally agree! I usually get out to Cove Cafe right when they open and get my Chai Latte with Character design on the milk foam (obv. vital to the drink! Haha), then come back close the curtain divider and drink part of my Chai while watch the morning show, then finish my Chai out on the verandah!

All this to say, I usually turn the tv down very low like where I can just hear it and it doesn’t disturb my Mom with the curtain pulled closed, but the snorting still woke her up!!! And she complained to me about and of course I’m not trying to ruin her vacation, so like I said, I aborted when she (and I, let’s be honest!) couldn’t handle it anymore!