WDW_Diane
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2011
- Messages
- 657
This was our 2nd Disney Cruise. We sailed during the inaugural season of the Magic back in 1999 as well.
We arrived in Florida on Friday night so we could go to a park the day before cruising. We stayed at Port Orleans again, our favorite resort.
Since we had a party of ten, we used Florida Towncar for our 15-passenger van transportation to the cruise port from Port Orleans, which saved us about $500 over using the Disney transport buses! The round trip from Florida Towncar for ten people was only $250 plus tip. Our friendly driver kindly stopped at a CVS on the way to the ship so I could pick up some medicine and one person could purchase Diet Dr. Pepper, which is not served on board.
We took a party of ten for a 4-night cruise on the Dream. Upon arriving at the terminal at our scheduled time (11:30 a.m.), there was a huge crowd. We filled out our medical papers and were sent to the check-in desk. We were given boarding numbers--oddly, my immediate family were Castaway Club members and we got the last boarding number--#22. The other groups on our party received #17.
We were never told just what the hold-up was, although they intimated that it was computer-related. We had 2 older people in our party, and I was very concerned about them having to stand for so long--they were too old to sit on the floor like most people were doing. Finally I went around asking for 2 seats for them, and we got some. We had to wait a couple of hours. We had thought we'd be boarding within 30 minutes of arrival and had planned to eat lunch on board, so we were starving! There appeared to be no food or water anywhere available. I felt terrible about all of this since I had planned the trip. This wasn't the Disney we know!
When we were finally allowed to board, it was a slow, group by group process. They split up families, making one person go to a key line, and told the rest to board the ship. So there was no "arrival photo" and we were unable to locate the rest of our party for 2 hours, as cell phone reception was spotty on board. My husband was fuming mad! Not a good way to begin a vacation. We overheard more than one person say it would be their last Disney cruise. It think if they had announced what was going on it might have helped.
Everything was off-schedule the rest of the day/night, just not the good feeling we had expected. They offered everyone free drinks, but that didn't help our group as we had a lot of kids and non-drinkers.
We did like the Castaway Club gift in our room, the red bag with 2 aluminum water bottles. We didn't eat the 2 aging rice crispy treat flip flops. ha!
Dinner that night was in the Royal Palace, which was delicious. Unfortunately we didn't realize that this was the dress-up night; oh well! Our table right in the center of the room was so noisy that we couldn't talk to anyone but the person next to us. Our wait staff Mateus and Florin were excellent. We didn't have notification about the Golden Mickey show in time to attend, and were sorry we missed that one.
The beds that night were wonderful! We have a comfortable bed at home, but these beds are amazing! I don't know what they are, but I want one!
The next morning we were pulling up to the slip at Nassau as we got up. From our balcony we could see.... the side of the ship parked next to us! Oh well. That ship played very loud music on their top deck all day, so we could not enjoy the balcony that day. I'm sure their passengers with balconies said the same about our ship with its screaming jumbotron movies all day and night.
Having been there once before, we knew we did not enjoy Nassau, so were only there a couple of hours. The kids wanted to see the pirate museum. We returned to the ship and enjoyed the lower crowds, rode the Aquaduck, etc. The 2 main small pools were extremely overcrowded and seemed unsafe, and un-fun. We didn't get in them. The adult area pool was even full. There was a 30 minute wait to ride AquaDuck, and we did!
The show that night was Villians Tonight, a side of Disney that we don't care for, but some people love it. We had 8:30 dinner seating, and by the time we got out every night it was 10:30. We generally eat between 6-6:30 at home, so this was kind of hard. We did ask to switch seatings as soon as we boarded, but couldn't because of the size of our party.
The food that night at Animator's Palace was our least favorite of the cruise, just not our style. It was a neat environment similar to the one on the Magic, and I loved the Mickey-shorts chairs. That night the water was a tad rocky, and my daughter left to go lay down in our room since she was queasy.
After dinner, my husband and I decided to go to a movie (Mars Need Moms was playing--don't pay for it). When we got back to our stateroom around 1 a.m., we discovered that our teenager had locked the deadbolt, so we couldn't get in with our electronic keys. We pounded on the door, but she is a heavy sleeper. Guest Services said there was nothing they could do! Not what you want to hear! Imagine if there was someone in there having a heart attack or something! They called someone from the bridge, she couldn't unlock the door either. Finally, they called 2 guys who showed up with real keys and a drill. Fortunately a key opened the door and our daughter was in there safe and sound. We had thought we'd be sleeping in the hall.
Does it sound like we were not having the time of our lives? Well, now things improve.
Our day at Castaway Cay was ideal! It was warm enough for early March that people were venturing into the water and enjoying the sun. We heard that the week before they didn't get to go there, so we felt lucky. The food at Cookie's BBQ was good. We rented bikes and that was a great excursion for our family of 3. We rode all over the approved paths, to the observation tower, past the cabanas, etc. This was our favorite day of the cruise.
Pirates Night that night was fun, neat show and good dinner.
The next day was the Day at Sea, which of course was super-crowded since no one could get off the ship. It was nice to have that day to begin packing and my husband did a long workout in their nice facility.
Before disembarking in the morning, we had breakfast at Enchanted Garden and everything went smoothly with picking up our luggage. Florida Towncar was there early to pick us up!
We checked in at the Pop Century and put our luggage in bell services. Six of us went to the Magic Kingdom and three went to see the Harry Potter world at Universal. One stayed at the resort, soon to joined by the one who had swelling in her legs from standing in the cruise terminal.
We will never stay at Pop Century again...admittedly, it would have been better to try out this resort before we were on a luxury liner instead of after, but Pop Century felt like a Motel 6. Glad we found out on a 1 night stay. There was no level of service.... at all.
We arrived in Florida on Friday night so we could go to a park the day before cruising. We stayed at Port Orleans again, our favorite resort.
Since we had a party of ten, we used Florida Towncar for our 15-passenger van transportation to the cruise port from Port Orleans, which saved us about $500 over using the Disney transport buses! The round trip from Florida Towncar for ten people was only $250 plus tip. Our friendly driver kindly stopped at a CVS on the way to the ship so I could pick up some medicine and one person could purchase Diet Dr. Pepper, which is not served on board.
We took a party of ten for a 4-night cruise on the Dream. Upon arriving at the terminal at our scheduled time (11:30 a.m.), there was a huge crowd. We filled out our medical papers and were sent to the check-in desk. We were given boarding numbers--oddly, my immediate family were Castaway Club members and we got the last boarding number--#22. The other groups on our party received #17.
We were never told just what the hold-up was, although they intimated that it was computer-related. We had 2 older people in our party, and I was very concerned about them having to stand for so long--they were too old to sit on the floor like most people were doing. Finally I went around asking for 2 seats for them, and we got some. We had to wait a couple of hours. We had thought we'd be boarding within 30 minutes of arrival and had planned to eat lunch on board, so we were starving! There appeared to be no food or water anywhere available. I felt terrible about all of this since I had planned the trip. This wasn't the Disney we know!
When we were finally allowed to board, it was a slow, group by group process. They split up families, making one person go to a key line, and told the rest to board the ship. So there was no "arrival photo" and we were unable to locate the rest of our party for 2 hours, as cell phone reception was spotty on board. My husband was fuming mad! Not a good way to begin a vacation. We overheard more than one person say it would be their last Disney cruise. It think if they had announced what was going on it might have helped.
Everything was off-schedule the rest of the day/night, just not the good feeling we had expected. They offered everyone free drinks, but that didn't help our group as we had a lot of kids and non-drinkers.
We did like the Castaway Club gift in our room, the red bag with 2 aluminum water bottles. We didn't eat the 2 aging rice crispy treat flip flops. ha!
Dinner that night was in the Royal Palace, which was delicious. Unfortunately we didn't realize that this was the dress-up night; oh well! Our table right in the center of the room was so noisy that we couldn't talk to anyone but the person next to us. Our wait staff Mateus and Florin were excellent. We didn't have notification about the Golden Mickey show in time to attend, and were sorry we missed that one.
The beds that night were wonderful! We have a comfortable bed at home, but these beds are amazing! I don't know what they are, but I want one!
The next morning we were pulling up to the slip at Nassau as we got up. From our balcony we could see.... the side of the ship parked next to us! Oh well. That ship played very loud music on their top deck all day, so we could not enjoy the balcony that day. I'm sure their passengers with balconies said the same about our ship with its screaming jumbotron movies all day and night.
Having been there once before, we knew we did not enjoy Nassau, so were only there a couple of hours. The kids wanted to see the pirate museum. We returned to the ship and enjoyed the lower crowds, rode the Aquaduck, etc. The 2 main small pools were extremely overcrowded and seemed unsafe, and un-fun. We didn't get in them. The adult area pool was even full. There was a 30 minute wait to ride AquaDuck, and we did!
The show that night was Villians Tonight, a side of Disney that we don't care for, but some people love it. We had 8:30 dinner seating, and by the time we got out every night it was 10:30. We generally eat between 6-6:30 at home, so this was kind of hard. We did ask to switch seatings as soon as we boarded, but couldn't because of the size of our party.
The food that night at Animator's Palace was our least favorite of the cruise, just not our style. It was a neat environment similar to the one on the Magic, and I loved the Mickey-shorts chairs. That night the water was a tad rocky, and my daughter left to go lay down in our room since she was queasy.
After dinner, my husband and I decided to go to a movie (Mars Need Moms was playing--don't pay for it). When we got back to our stateroom around 1 a.m., we discovered that our teenager had locked the deadbolt, so we couldn't get in with our electronic keys. We pounded on the door, but she is a heavy sleeper. Guest Services said there was nothing they could do! Not what you want to hear! Imagine if there was someone in there having a heart attack or something! They called someone from the bridge, she couldn't unlock the door either. Finally, they called 2 guys who showed up with real keys and a drill. Fortunately a key opened the door and our daughter was in there safe and sound. We had thought we'd be sleeping in the hall.
Does it sound like we were not having the time of our lives? Well, now things improve.
Our day at Castaway Cay was ideal! It was warm enough for early March that people were venturing into the water and enjoying the sun. We heard that the week before they didn't get to go there, so we felt lucky. The food at Cookie's BBQ was good. We rented bikes and that was a great excursion for our family of 3. We rode all over the approved paths, to the observation tower, past the cabanas, etc. This was our favorite day of the cruise.
Pirates Night that night was fun, neat show and good dinner.
The next day was the Day at Sea, which of course was super-crowded since no one could get off the ship. It was nice to have that day to begin packing and my husband did a long workout in their nice facility.
Before disembarking in the morning, we had breakfast at Enchanted Garden and everything went smoothly with picking up our luggage. Florida Towncar was there early to pick us up!
We checked in at the Pop Century and put our luggage in bell services. Six of us went to the Magic Kingdom and three went to see the Harry Potter world at Universal. One stayed at the resort, soon to joined by the one who had swelling in her legs from standing in the cruise terminal.
We will never stay at Pop Century again...admittedly, it would have been better to try out this resort before we were on a luxury liner instead of after, but Pop Century felt like a Motel 6. Glad we found out on a 1 night stay. There was no level of service.... at all.
