So we just returned from our 7-night Eastern sailing on the Magic. We last sailed on Disney 4 years ago with my two kids who were then 4 and 6 months. This time we brought the older two (now 8 and 4) my youngest (10 months) and my in-laws. My in-laws are veteran cruisers with2-3 cruises a year on many lines (mostly Royal Carribean recently) and avid Disney fans. The kind of Disney fans that have Disney-themed Christmas trees, dining rooms, artwork, and are annual pass holders. They have never done a
Disney cruise because the price was so much more for them than they typically spend on other cruise lines. We paid for their cruise and have been saving and planning for several years.
DH and I had been raving about the fabulous Disney service and were really excited to cruise. I read the few negative comments on this board and figured it was mostly from people who cruise Disney so much they were nit-picking. Now I think they may have some legitimate concerns....
Service ranged from absolutely awful to just OK with a few exceptional spots. Our Assistant waiter was awful. Really, really awful. The first night, my SIL had mistakenly booked a spa treatment at 7:15 thinking we would be done with our 5:45 dinner and ended up only getting an appetizer and one glass of water. The rest of us finally left the dining room at 8 and gave up on getting dessert. Our waiter did everything - having to bring silverware, drinks etc.
While our waiter seemed to cover better by night 2, the assistant server was worse - but at least we all ate and managed to leave by 7:30 (which is still a long time for three kids to behave). By night three, I ended up leaving at 7:15 with a crying baby, no entre for me, no dessert for any of the adults, and barely made our show. The assistant waiter served a flat coke that didn't arrive until the main course. When my SIL asked if he could possibly serve her that wasn't flat, he looked at her incredulously and asked if she expected him to go to another machine
However, the final straw that night was when he started clearing and replacing silverware from our table and the other table he was responsible for. He was taking the dirty silverware and putting it into a bin and then pulling the clean silver ware FROM UNDERNEATH and putting it out for use (for both us and for the following seating because we watched him do it at the table next to us when he was re-setting for the next meal.) At that point, we sat our waiter down and told him this was not working out. He told us the assistant server was new and he would try and train him more.
On night 4, no assistant server showed up. It was kind of amazing that our waiter provided much better service without an assistant (drinks on time and what we ordered, silverware out when it was time to eat something, etc). We inherited a replacement assistant.
The next day, I was up with a cranky baby very early at topsiders and saw a couple of officers who were clearly in charge of food service checking on something at the drink station. Remembering someone's comment here on DIS about not letting your cruise go by before complaining, I flagged him down and expressed our problems - and mostly requested that the replacement assistant server stay with us for the remainder of the cruise. At least at this point, Disney customer service began to kick in. He took everything down on paper. That evening, a restaurant manager came over to talk to us and said that the previous assistant server would be doing something else for the remainder of the cruise. While dinner service definately improved, it was still INCREDIBLY slow. We wanted to enjoy the evening family caberet at 7:30 and it was hard to make it, even when we were the very first people in the dining room at 5:45 when it opened.
Our waiter told us that probably close to 85% of the crew were on first contracts with Disney. He was also a first Disney contract, but had been at sea for 9 years sailing with Royal Carribean. He said the biggest problem was close to 40% were probably first time at sea!!! It definately showed. We had really hoped to wow my in-laws and they were clearly dissappointed. My mothe-in-law kept pointing out that on Royal Carribean they managed to get served dinner in an hour and on Royal Carribean they were given towels and there were bottles of water for purchase right where they disembarked the ship to take with them on excursions, etc. We did have some great service in pockets....I needed some kind of broth soup to feed my baby and asked a waiter at the lunch buffet one day if he could find me something. He ordered it for me from room service and delivered it to my table (I didn't know they had chicken soup at room service and had had spent two days searching for broth soups!) Our room steward was great. I was glad Disney resolved my complaint. My biggest problem, however, was that Disney is training A LOT of people on the job. As I pointed out to the manager, I realized that people needed to be trained, but I had paid a lot of money and didn't want to train them on my cruise - I wanted them to arrive at my table trained!!
We also had problems with the condition of the Magic. I didn't notice the little things that people have complained about - rust spots, chipped tiles, dirty chandelier, etc. I did notice that the entire ship was out of hot water for a day. It was especially irritating, because I went to take a shower and found no hot water and called maintenance. The lady took my room number and said "you don't have any hot water??" like it was a big surprise and room specific. My in-laws also didn't have hot water next door. I decided to go to the changing rooms on deck nine in the spa for a shower and found it was also cold. There was another lady doing the same thing because her shower was cold. When I left the spa, I mentioned it to the ladies at the front desk thinking that no one knew there was a water problem. That is when she said "oh, the entire ship is without water and has been since noon. THey didn't expect so many people to be coming back to take showers right now" THis was at 5 pm when the ship was in St. Maarten and everyone was getting ready for pirate night!!! I thought the maintenance people should have told me they knew about the problem. I also spent most of that dinner wondering how they had washed their hands and cleaned the dishes without hot water. At least I was only without hot water for a day. I talked to a couple of people that told me they hadn't had hot water the first 3 days of the cruise.
The kids had a great time, but the crew really seemed surprised by the number of kids and unfamiliar with how to manage a crowd - very un DIsney. The first Princess gathering occured on Monday. It clearly stated in the Navigator it would be repeated on Thursday. The line was so long that 30 minutes prior to it starting they were telling people at the end of the line that it would be repeated and to come back on Thursday.
We opted for the Thursday princess gathering. As we watched the princesses file in, Aurora wasn't there. On the Monday princess gathering, Aurora, Tiana, Cinderalla, Belle, Snow White, Alice and Peter Pan had all been present. I asked a CM where we could find Aurora. She told me they had decided not to include her, Alice or Peter Pan in this gathering because it had been too crowded on Monday. I was kind of suprised that the CMs had not been prepared for the amount of little girls who would come to a princess gathering and didn't know how to manage the crowds. Hasn't
DCL been doing princess gatherings on the Magic for years??? But, the worst part was that Aurora was not only NOT coming to the princess gathering, she wasn't out again at all until the party the final night. My daughter was in tears about missing her favorite princess which made me really irritated that I had followed the navigators and assumed it really would be repeated on the second day. My 4 year old couldn't stay awake until 10:30pm to see her the final night. They also closed the Oceaners Club down for the day we were in St. Thomas. They ended up cancelling half the activities in the lab and half in the club and combining the groups together there. My kids still had fun, but they had highlighted activities they wanted to do that day from the navigators and were dissapointed that they weren't offered because the Club was closed. Not at all sure why they did that.
We re-booked on board so I could have the discount if I decide to cruise again. However, right now I think there is probably a greater chance that we won't - at least until Disney has finished putting out new ships and can catch up with training the crews.
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