PearlandPaige
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 3, 2005
- Messages
- 151
Just got off the 10/15 Magic and thought I'd share a few thoughts on the cruise - good and bad. I'll start with the bad first, but please keep in mind that I rebooked while on the cruise, so the bad couldn't have been that bad (sorry for the long post)...
Some Bad Things
1. I was very bad and didn't meet many of my DIS cruise meet friends onboard. Once I got on the ship, thoughts of anything other than the ship and my family were gone from my head.
2. In addition to some very nice people on the ship, there were some seriously rude people. On Pirate Night, a family sat in some chairs next to us on deck 10 for a while, then abandoned the chairs (leaving NOTHING indicating they were holding the chairs). Another family came along and sat in the seats. The first family came back and the mom SCREAMED at the second family for stealing their seats. The second family finally relented and gave the first family the seats just to shut the woman up, but in the process deliberately poured their drinks on the seats. It was UGLY. The second example was on Castaway Cay. A family secured two hammocks, left their stuff in them, and ran down for a dip in the water. Moments later, a couple of women came along, threw the family's stuff in the sand, and claimed the hammocks. The family returned very shortly thereafter and asked for their hammocks back. The women claimed the family didn't pay for the hammocks and weren't in them, so the women had the right to take them. With that reasoning, any chair on the island would be up for grabs any time someone got up to chase an errant toddler, take a dip or use the restroom. The women then called the father of the family some shockingly inappropriate and vulgar names in front of the children. A DCL CM happened along at that point to take drink orders and was dragged into the dispute. The CM explained that if the family's stuff was in the hammocks, it was theirs. The women left, but then claimed chairs very near the hammocks and spent the rest of the day loudly making nasty comments about the family. How can people be so mean in paradise?
3. In St. Maarten, we went to Orient Beach. I knew to expect some nudity, but thought the full nudity was largely isolated to a portion of the beach. Instead, a guy FROM OUR SHIP stripped down to nothing right in the middle of the area of the beach reserved for the people on the DCL excursion - in the middle of loads of children. I was forewarned about the nudity but was really surprised that someone from our cruise would go buck nekkid in the middle of the group. Yuck. And by the way, the same guy wore a thong on Castaway Cay. Double yuck.
4. The wraps and sandwiches at Goofy's Galley (which replaced Scoops) are good, but the self-serve soft-serve ice cream dispensers next to it were broken more often than working and we could only get Mickey Bars through room service or at dinner. [If someone knows if you could get them elsewhere, please let me know.]
5. The stateroom bill at the end of the trip. YIKES!
Some Good Things
1. Castaway Cay is paradise. Absolutely the best beach experience ever. We liked it so much we booked a Castaway Cay double dip for the same time next year.
2. Cruising when pregnant is wonderful. I was 21 weeks when we cruised and it was great to eat whatever I wanted and not worry about looking fat in a swimsuit. As for drinks, I missed alcohol a wee bit, but there were loads of virgin options to choose from and since they didn't contain alcohol, they were cheaper!
3. Cruising with a toddler is so much fun. We took our 18 month old and he had the best time. He loved Flounders (pitched a fit when we dropped him off, but when we looked through the two-way mirror two seconds later, he was playing and having a good time). He loved the Mickey fountain. He loved all the Mickey Bars and macaroni and cheese he could eat. And he loved sharing virgin pina coladas with his mama!
4. All the straws are bendy straws.
5. The CMs are amazing. Their constant enthusiasm and happiness, even when working unbelievable hours, is so impressive. And when we needed anything, we had it in seconds. For example (and this is probably TMI but here goes), all those Mickey Bars and macaroni and cheese created a little constipation problem with my son. Our head server (Jeevan?) noticed him struggling with it at dinner one night and within two minutes, we had a cup of highly effective prune juice at our table. Oh, and another example - our stateroom hostess (Anastasia) created the most magnificent towel animals (stingray, heart, bunny, elephant, monkey, swan and cobra). We had so much fun opening our stateroom door every night to see what animal we got.
6. It was great having servers who knew what we needed and wanted. By the second or third day, when we arrived for dinner it was already set with soy milk and water for DS, water for me and my grandmother and tea for my DH, and a big bowl of lemon slices for me. I was so disappointed to go out to eat today and have to ask for all that stuff and then actually be presented with a bill at the end of the meal!
Overall, the experience was just great. I know it's an outrageously expensive vacation (we could do three RCCL cruises from a port 30 minutes from our house for what we paid for our DCL cruise), but we must have felt like it was worth it or else we wouldn't have rebooked. And the funny thing is, I had to twist DH's arm to do the first cruise, but DH was the one who actually suggested we rebook.
I hope everyone else going on a DCL cruise has as much fun as we did and I hope they leave their bad moods at home!
Some Bad Things
1. I was very bad and didn't meet many of my DIS cruise meet friends onboard. Once I got on the ship, thoughts of anything other than the ship and my family were gone from my head.
2. In addition to some very nice people on the ship, there were some seriously rude people. On Pirate Night, a family sat in some chairs next to us on deck 10 for a while, then abandoned the chairs (leaving NOTHING indicating they were holding the chairs). Another family came along and sat in the seats. The first family came back and the mom SCREAMED at the second family for stealing their seats. The second family finally relented and gave the first family the seats just to shut the woman up, but in the process deliberately poured their drinks on the seats. It was UGLY. The second example was on Castaway Cay. A family secured two hammocks, left their stuff in them, and ran down for a dip in the water. Moments later, a couple of women came along, threw the family's stuff in the sand, and claimed the hammocks. The family returned very shortly thereafter and asked for their hammocks back. The women claimed the family didn't pay for the hammocks and weren't in them, so the women had the right to take them. With that reasoning, any chair on the island would be up for grabs any time someone got up to chase an errant toddler, take a dip or use the restroom. The women then called the father of the family some shockingly inappropriate and vulgar names in front of the children. A DCL CM happened along at that point to take drink orders and was dragged into the dispute. The CM explained that if the family's stuff was in the hammocks, it was theirs. The women left, but then claimed chairs very near the hammocks and spent the rest of the day loudly making nasty comments about the family. How can people be so mean in paradise?
3. In St. Maarten, we went to Orient Beach. I knew to expect some nudity, but thought the full nudity was largely isolated to a portion of the beach. Instead, a guy FROM OUR SHIP stripped down to nothing right in the middle of the area of the beach reserved for the people on the DCL excursion - in the middle of loads of children. I was forewarned about the nudity but was really surprised that someone from our cruise would go buck nekkid in the middle of the group. Yuck. And by the way, the same guy wore a thong on Castaway Cay. Double yuck.
4. The wraps and sandwiches at Goofy's Galley (which replaced Scoops) are good, but the self-serve soft-serve ice cream dispensers next to it were broken more often than working and we could only get Mickey Bars through room service or at dinner. [If someone knows if you could get them elsewhere, please let me know.]
5. The stateroom bill at the end of the trip. YIKES!
Some Good Things
1. Castaway Cay is paradise. Absolutely the best beach experience ever. We liked it so much we booked a Castaway Cay double dip for the same time next year.
2. Cruising when pregnant is wonderful. I was 21 weeks when we cruised and it was great to eat whatever I wanted and not worry about looking fat in a swimsuit. As for drinks, I missed alcohol a wee bit, but there were loads of virgin options to choose from and since they didn't contain alcohol, they were cheaper!
3. Cruising with a toddler is so much fun. We took our 18 month old and he had the best time. He loved Flounders (pitched a fit when we dropped him off, but when we looked through the two-way mirror two seconds later, he was playing and having a good time). He loved the Mickey fountain. He loved all the Mickey Bars and macaroni and cheese he could eat. And he loved sharing virgin pina coladas with his mama!
4. All the straws are bendy straws.
5. The CMs are amazing. Their constant enthusiasm and happiness, even when working unbelievable hours, is so impressive. And when we needed anything, we had it in seconds. For example (and this is probably TMI but here goes), all those Mickey Bars and macaroni and cheese created a little constipation problem with my son. Our head server (Jeevan?) noticed him struggling with it at dinner one night and within two minutes, we had a cup of highly effective prune juice at our table. Oh, and another example - our stateroom hostess (Anastasia) created the most magnificent towel animals (stingray, heart, bunny, elephant, monkey, swan and cobra). We had so much fun opening our stateroom door every night to see what animal we got.
6. It was great having servers who knew what we needed and wanted. By the second or third day, when we arrived for dinner it was already set with soy milk and water for DS, water for me and my grandmother and tea for my DH, and a big bowl of lemon slices for me. I was so disappointed to go out to eat today and have to ask for all that stuff and then actually be presented with a bill at the end of the meal!
Overall, the experience was just great. I know it's an outrageously expensive vacation (we could do three RCCL cruises from a port 30 minutes from our house for what we paid for our DCL cruise), but we must have felt like it was worth it or else we wouldn't have rebooked. And the funny thing is, I had to twist DH's arm to do the first cruise, but DH was the one who actually suggested we rebook.
I hope everyone else going on a DCL cruise has as much fun as we did and I hope they leave their bad moods at home!
