mom2brooke76
Proud Redhead who doesn't think that Universal is
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2006
- Messages
- 1,235
We just sailed on the 3/10-3/13 Dream. It was me, dd 6, and dd's godfather. It was my 4th Disney cruise and their 3rd. After reading all of this crazy negative stuff about the Dream I was honestly worried and NONE of my concerns were warranted, thank goodness! We were on a sold out cruise. We arrived via towncar at the port at 10 and had to wait behind about 20 people before they started letting people inside. That took no more than 15 minutes. No line at security and we were the next in line at the CC check in line. Got boarding group 3. The funny thing is that our tablemates were the first people to check in other than the b2b's and they got boarding group 5, so it seems like the numbers may be random now. Whole process took about 20 minutes. The only long line was for kid's club registration.
We ate at Enchanted Garden for lunch. I'd recommend Cabanas as I didn't feel like this restaurant was set up well for a buffet making the lines bad and it was difficult to reach your table again. One of my only real "what were they thinking" moments. Not a big deal, though. Also, I had read that if you asked the server that you could get kids food in there since it isn't available on the buffet. I asked several servers and they said no, that the buffet food was all that was available for kids. So, you may want to consider that if you have picky eaters.
The rest of the cruise was GREAT! The only line we encountered was Aquaduck and that wasn't too bad and we expected it. The pools weren't bad at all (although I'm sure that would change on a sea day) and we never saw more than 2 or 3 people at the adult pool the entire cruise! We felt horrible for the bartender!
I will admit that the elevators opening into the adult pool area was a total Disney fail. We stayed one floor down from that area and regularly used the stairs to access deck 11. I must admit that I felt bad walking my dd through there. She's well behaved and I was quick about it, but still odd.
The best fireworks viewing is on deck 13 at Currents. There's both a family and adult side. That's close to where they shoot them off. Nothing like being able to sit back and watch them. Currents also has the best ocean views on the ship IMO. Not to be missed!
We were in room 10504. It was below the spa I believe. No issues with noise ever. About 3 doors down from the bridge, so it was super cool to watch Captain Henry and his crew
The overhang was no big deal. In fact we liked it. It seemed to help with the wind (and we had some pretty bad wind) and it seems that it would be great on rainy days. Had a nice little "cozy" feel to it.
Dining was great too in the main restaurants! We didn't have our server on the last night because he came down with the flu, so the head server took his place. Dinner took a little longer the first night, but was much faster subsequent nights. We wound up linking our ressies with two other DIS families (each a party of 3), and I'm so glad that we did! We had a blast! If you're worried about who you might get paired up with at dinner, I would highly suggest checking your cruise meet thread and seeing if others would be interested in doing this.
One thing that I didn't care for as much on the Dream (this has nothing to do with crowds, etc) was the kid's club. I think it's a super cool area, but when you go to find your child, it could easily take you several minutes to do so. The Oceaneer's club and lab are now connected and kids can freely go back and forth between the two. The counselors would let me know what area that she was in, but I found out that this is a generalization and can actually mean one of many areas. The problem is that now there are so MANY different little rooms within the clubs that it can seem to take forever to find your child
She had a blast in there and they always seemed to be doing something. Also, the counselors were great. They apparently no longer do the program on the last night any longer which I'm sure is because of the additional kids. I miss that.
We ate at Enchanted Garden for lunch. I'd recommend Cabanas as I didn't feel like this restaurant was set up well for a buffet making the lines bad and it was difficult to reach your table again. One of my only real "what were they thinking" moments. Not a big deal, though. Also, I had read that if you asked the server that you could get kids food in there since it isn't available on the buffet. I asked several servers and they said no, that the buffet food was all that was available for kids. So, you may want to consider that if you have picky eaters.
The rest of the cruise was GREAT! The only line we encountered was Aquaduck and that wasn't too bad and we expected it. The pools weren't bad at all (although I'm sure that would change on a sea day) and we never saw more than 2 or 3 people at the adult pool the entire cruise! We felt horrible for the bartender!
I will admit that the elevators opening into the adult pool area was a total Disney fail. We stayed one floor down from that area and regularly used the stairs to access deck 11. I must admit that I felt bad walking my dd through there. She's well behaved and I was quick about it, but still odd.The best fireworks viewing is on deck 13 at Currents. There's both a family and adult side. That's close to where they shoot them off. Nothing like being able to sit back and watch them. Currents also has the best ocean views on the ship IMO. Not to be missed!
We were in room 10504. It was below the spa I believe. No issues with noise ever. About 3 doors down from the bridge, so it was super cool to watch Captain Henry and his crew
The overhang was no big deal. In fact we liked it. It seemed to help with the wind (and we had some pretty bad wind) and it seems that it would be great on rainy days. Had a nice little "cozy" feel to it.Dining was great too in the main restaurants! We didn't have our server on the last night because he came down with the flu, so the head server took his place. Dinner took a little longer the first night, but was much faster subsequent nights. We wound up linking our ressies with two other DIS families (each a party of 3), and I'm so glad that we did! We had a blast! If you're worried about who you might get paired up with at dinner, I would highly suggest checking your cruise meet thread and seeing if others would be interested in doing this.
One thing that I didn't care for as much on the Dream (this has nothing to do with crowds, etc) was the kid's club. I think it's a super cool area, but when you go to find your child, it could easily take you several minutes to do so. The Oceaneer's club and lab are now connected and kids can freely go back and forth between the two. The counselors would let me know what area that she was in, but I found out that this is a generalization and can actually mean one of many areas. The problem is that now there are so MANY different little rooms within the clubs that it can seem to take forever to find your child
She had a blast in there and they always seemed to be doing something. Also, the counselors were great. They apparently no longer do the program on the last night any longer which I'm sure is because of the additional kids. I miss that.
Fortunately, took the stairs most of the time, so that counts! 
