The good, bad and ugly from a first timer

[disneyairforceguy]

I just got back home from our first cruise ever. We did the Dream 3 day. I will try and answer any questions anyone may have to help out like everyone has done for me. I will not respond to any negative comments on what I will post as this is just my opinion and how things effected me. I know there are people who will defend DCL no matter what, and I don't want to argue with anyone as I found everyone on here to be great and helpful.

Good:
I should say great! We stayed in rooms 12000 & 12516. The concierge staff (Ashley, Tracey, Angeline/Ion bartender) was amazing!!! So was our hostess for both rooms. My daughters hugged theirs as if we were leaving family. I don't have any thing else to go off of, but it would be hard to imagine that the rooms could get any better any where else. I thought the ship was beautiful and very well maintained. I only got to see one show (Golden Mickeys) and thought it was very entertaining. The food was up and down for me. Sometimes I thought it was good and sometimes I thought just ok.

Bad:
I understand that their jobs may depend on it, but every time you engaged in conversation with someone they were pushing you for that excellent rating on the comment card. If it is that important do an excellent job and you will get the rating. At dinner alone three people would push this every night.

Ugly:
Shutters, I had picks missing and service was not good overall. It was like they didn't believe you and they always push you to just come back later. We went there before dinner the last night, told them we were missing pics. They said no problem come back later and they would have them. I went back during late dinner and show, I was the only one there. I talked with the same person and he acted like I was lying about talking to him earlier. It only took a minute to find the photos but said I would have to come back at 10 to pick them up. I asked if there was any way I could get them sooner as I didn't want to deal with the crowd and was told no. Go back at 10, it was a mad house. Give them my room number tell them what's up and with out looking for anything I was told I would have to come back in the morning. After that I told them they could keep the photos and I wanted a refund. They asked for my room number again and poof there was my photos.
Kids club, my son is mildly autistic. I called before the cruise, went to open house and spent at least 20 minutes going over stuff and the cast member watched him with us there and assured us that he would be ok. We told her that we will only be using the club when we had a wine tasting and she said that they are very experienced in dealing with children more severe than my son. Fast forward to the tasting. We dropped him off 3 minutes before the tasting and was assured that every effort will be made to take care of him. Before the tasting even started we get the text to come and pick him up. When I get there the member explained to me that he went to the gate so she thought that he was ready to leave. I told her no problem that I was here to pick him up. She again explained that she thought he was ready to leave, I again said no problem and apologized for inconveniencing them and then saw my son walk by as he smiled and waved to me and ran off to play. I told her that he is right there and for a third time she went into an explanation for some reason. By this time I started to get upset. I told her just let me take my son and she had me wait so she can help the people who came there after me. When she finally got those other two families checked in, she told me to go and get him that he was in the infinity area. He was not there. When I did find him there was a member with him asking why was I picking him up. By this time I'm thinking I just lost money on this tasting for no reason. When I went to leave the club I again had to wait for them to check more people in before I could leave. When I finally was given the opportunity to leave I asked for his band to be cut off so we could turn it in. An officer was there by that time and must have seen my displeasure and asked why am I turning the band in so early which I told her it was a mistake on my part for bringing him in the first place. She said that they make every effort to accommodate in which I responded that zero effort is given when my son was here for less than 10 minutes and I am asked to pick him up and when I get here immediately after the text and they don't know where he is. I will say that the officer seemed very concerned and wanted to help. When I got to the 12th floor, Ashely seen I was frustrated and asked what was wrong and I assured him that everything was ok and later I received a call from someone asking about the incident in the club. Again they gave me the effort speech and I replied the same and told them that it was my fault for attempting to use their service.

Overall
Believe it or not we had an outstanding cruise. Besides the two incidents the service was great my daughters talked about their days in detail every night and they are 20 & 17, you would have thought they were 5. Even though it rained in the a.m. and canceled our stingray excursion Casaway Cay was awesome!! Please don't make any decisions about the kids club off of my experience if your child is special needs as I have read great things about it. Sorry for the long post.

 

[bumbershoot]

When I get there the member explained to me that he went to the gate so she thought that he was ready to leave.

Ah... I bet they were trying extra hard because you had told them of his autism.

Whereas my young cousin, whose parents were not in the mode to advocate for him at all at that time, didn't have anyone telling anyone anything about him, and he was standing at the gates for nearly half an hour, with no one doing much of anything. (they had called his parents because he asked them to, but they weren't picking up the wave phone or room phone...alas, we hadn't thought of putting other family members down to pick him up, and his wanting to leave prompted my son wanting to leave, and we were there but his parents weren't)


Did you really only try the ONE time? And you gave it up? Even though he was in there, seemingly enjoying himself? You didn't *have to* take him out. Just b/c the CM was telling you WHY she called you, it didn't mean you had to take him. We've gone in upwards of 3 times to check on DS to see if he wants to go (now he uses the Navigator app on his SIM-free phone to text us) and when he says "no" we* go back to the gate, turn in our lanyard, and go back to whatever we were doing.

I'm sad for all of you that you only tried the one time, and responded in that way.



*I say "we" but they only let one parent in. So "we" means "whichever once of us goes in that time".

 

[KashasMom]

I'm glad you enjoyed your cruise even with those issues. I agree with you about the comment cards. On one of our 7 nights cruise we hated going to dinner because we knew that we'd have to listen to the speech yet AGAIN. We also had an issue in the kids club. I am particularly bothered with the wide age spread 3-12. In fact, I came to pick up my daughter and found her crying on the older kids' side of the club (which all ages have access to). She didn't want to go back to the club and I didn't force her.

 

[Bear3412]

... we had an outstanding cruise. .....

Would you do it again, given the annoyances, especially related to your son?

Thanks for the detailed report.

 

[Hundredacre]

I just got back home from our first cruise ever. We did the Dream 3 day. I will try and answer any questions anyone may have to help out like everyone has done for me. I will not respond to any negative comments on what I will post as this is just my opinion and how things effected me. I know there are people who will defend DCL no matter what, and I don't want to argue with anyone as I found everyone on here to be great and helpful.

Good:
I should say great! We stayed in rooms 12000 & 12516. The concierge staff (Ashley, Tracey, Angeline/Ion bartender) was amazing!!! So was our hostess for both rooms. My daughters hugged theirs as if we were leaving family. I don't have any thing else to go off of, but it would be hard to imagine that the rooms could get any better any where else. I thought the ship was beautiful and very well maintained. I only got to see one show (Golden Mickeys) and thought it was very entertaining. The food was up and down for me. Sometimes I thought it was good and sometimes I thought just ok.

Bad:
I understand that their jobs may depend on it, but every time you engaged in conversation with someone they were pushing you for that excellent rating on the comment card. If it is that important do an excellent job and you will get the rating. At dinner alone three people would push this every night.

Ugly:
Shutters, I had picks missing and service was not good overall. It was like they didn't believe you and they always push you to just come back later. We went there before dinner the last night, told them we were missing pics. They said no problem come back later and they would have them. I went back during late dinner and show, I was the only one there. I talked with the same person and he acted like I was lying about talking to him earlier. It only took a minute to find the photos but said I would have to come back at 10 to pick them up. I asked if there was any way I could get them sooner as I didn't want to deal with the crowd and was told no. Go back at 10, it was a mad house. Give them my room number tell them what's up and with out looking for anything I was told I would have to come back in the morning. After that I told them they could keep the photos and I wanted a refund. They asked for my room number again and poof there was my photos.
Kids club, my son is mildly autistic. I called before the cruise, went to open house and spent at least 20 minutes going over stuff and the cast member watched him with us there and assured us that he would be ok. We told her that we will only be using the club when we had a wine tasting and she said that they are very experienced in dealing with children more severe than my son. Fast forward to the tasting. We dropped him off 3 minutes before the tasting and was assured that every effort will be made to take care of him. Before the tasting even started we get the text to come and pick him up. When I get there the member explained to me that he went to the gate so she thought that he was ready to leave. I told her no problem that I was here to pick him up. She again explained that she thought he was ready to leave, I again said no problem and apologized for inconveniencing them and then saw my son walk by as he smiled and waved to me and ran off to play. I told her that he is right there and for a third time she went into an explanation for some reason. By this time I started to get upset. I told her just let me take my son and she had me wait so she can help the people who came there after me. When she finally got those other two families checked in, she told me to go and get him that he was in the infinity area. He was not there. When I did find him there was a member with him asking why was I picking him up. By this time I'm thinking I just lost money on this tasting for no reason. When I went to leave the club I again had to wait for them to check more people in before I could leave. When I finally was given the opportunity to leave I asked for his band to be cut off so we could turn it in. An officer was there by that time and must have seen my displeasure and asked why am I turning the band in so early which I told her it was a mistake on my part for bringing him in the first place. She said that they make every effort to accommodate in which I responded that zero effort is given when my son was here for less than 10 minutes and I am asked to pick him up and when I get here immediately after the text and they don't know where he is. I will say that the officer seemed very concerned and wanted to help. When I got to the 12th floor, Ashely seen I was frustrated and asked what was wrong and I assured him that everything was ok and later I received a call from someone asking about the incident in the club. Again they gave me the effort speech and I replied the same and told them that it was my fault for attempting to use their service.

Overall
Believe it or not we had an outstanding cruise. Besides the two incidents the service was great my daughters talked about their days in detail every night and they are 20 & 17, you would have thought they were 5. Even though it rained in the a.m. and canceled our stingray excursion Casaway Cay was awesome!! Please don't make any decisions about the kids club off of my experience if your child is special needs as I have read great things about it. Sorry for the long post.

We have had problems with the kids club too. In one incident, two girls repeatedly cornered and teased our child. He is a scrawny kid and has some behavioral issues. He pointed out the girls later in the cruise and they were big, twice his size. He told us he reported it to a cm again and again and they ignored him until the girls got violent and were removed from the club. I do not think it had to end that way but the cms never intervened. I do not get the impression the cms are very hands on. It seems a bit like lord of the flies in there sometimes.

 

[professorandmom]

The club and lab used to be divided by age...that worked well for my family and my kids had amazing experiences they still talk about...but many parents were very vocal with their displeasure since folks wanted siblings and friends of different ages to be together (the boards were FULL of complaints)...so Disney changed and group kids: 3-12...I think we are seeing the results...I truly don't think there is a way to deliver kids programming to everyone's satisfaction given the wide variations in parenting styles and the HUGE age grouping.
(not that the OP's situation is really related to this...sorry OP that your experience was so poor)

 

[winterface]

Ashley is fantastic. he was our host on our cruise as well.

 

[mevelandry]

I wouldn't know for the kids club...

But so far, after two cruises, our experience with Shutters is simply not good (first cruise: no choice in the size of the prints, then second cruise: no pictures at all!) I wish they could switch to Photopass like WDW. Photopass are so efficient!

 

[FairestOfThemAll37]

Bad:
I understand that their jobs may depend on it, but every time you engaged in conversation with someone they were pushing you for that excellent rating on the comment card. If it is that important do an excellent job and you will get the rating. At dinner alone three people would push this every night.

I know a lot of people find this annoying, I do as well. But I think it's an issue with the system and not that staff. It's not as simple as do a good job and get a good rating.

I've seen this popping up everywhere. Some geniuses in a board room have decided that anything less than a 10 is a 0. Unfortunately, many people think and 8 or a 9 is excellent but for the server it's the same as if you put a 0.

I'm amazed that nobody higher up has ever taken even a psych 101 course, which would explain why this isn't a great idea.

I will give great employees the 10 so they don't get a hit but I always write about how the system should be changed because the end result is pressure and discomfort for the guest when the staff have to explain the situation.

For me it always makes great service seem less great even though I understand their predicament.

 

[lanejudy]

I'm so sorry you found the Club/Lab didn't work out for your son. Personally, as the parent of a special needs child myself, I don't think I would have limited the Club exposure to one open house and just that one drop-off time. I would have given my child a trial-run at drop-off programming earlier in the cruise -- maybe planned just 30 minutes at first, worked up to 60 minutes depending on how things went. It honestly sounds like the CMs didn't know how to communicate with your son; you don't indicate he's non-verbal but maybe he just wasn't feeling comfortable to speak with them. The CM tried to explain to you that she thought he wanted to leave because he went to the gate. My guess is he just went to look, and since he appeared to be enjoying himself and actively engaged with another CM when you returned, I would have said "thanks, he seems to be settled now so I'm going back to the tasting event" and allowed him to stay. They may still have called you 20 minutes later, or he may have found an activity (or 2 or 3) to enjoy.

It does sound like your whole family had a very enjoyable cruise overall! Hopefully you'll return and give it another try, with or without using the kids clubs.

 

[Quellman]

Glad you enjoyed the Golden Mickey show. We were pleasantly surprised with that one as well.

Tough nuggets about the people asking for excellent ratings. I have never had that experience that others on the board have mentioned. Maybe I am lucky in 5 cruises. But there are whole threads about how to respond. I would also have notified my head server that it was going on. Simply unacceptable.

 

[brochad1611]

Not at all trying to be confrontational, but I am a little confused concerning your complaint with the kids clubs...

They send you a message saying that your child wants to be picked up (we get those all the time from our youngest daughter...). You go there and discover that he doesn't want to be picked up. Instead of leaving him in the club where he is having a good time and going back to your wine tasting, you pull him from the club and blame the staff for not understanding how to work with your special needs child? I get your frustration with the time it took to get him checked out...but I don't get your decision to remove him and never bring him back to the club.

To my understanding, they send a message to the parents whenever the child asks to be picked up. This does not mean you must pick them up. I daughter asks to be picked up constantly but usually changes her mind long before we can even get there. If we are at an activity, we wait until it is over and then go check on them. They can still play even if they request pick-up.

 

[disneyairforceguy]

Ah... I bet they were trying extra hard because you had told them of his autism.

Whereas my young cousin, whose parents were not in the mode to advocate for him at all at that time, didn't have anyone telling anyone anything about him, and he was standing at the gates for nearly half an hour, with no one doing much of anything. (they had called his parents because he asked them to, but they weren't picking up the wave phone or room phone...alas, we hadn't thought of putting other family members down to pick him up, and his wanting to leave prompted my son wanting to leave, and we were there but his parents weren't)


Did you really only try the ONE time? And you gave it up? Even though he was in there, seemingly enjoying himself? You didn't *have to* take him out. Just b/c the CM was telling you WHY she called you, it didn't mean you had to take him. We've gone in upwards of 3 times to check on DS to see if he wants to go (now he uses the Navigator app on his SIM-free phone to text us) and when he says "no" we* go back to the gate, turn in our lanyard, and go back to whatever we were doing.

I'm sad for all of you that you only tried the one time, and responded in that way.



*I say "we" but they only let one parent in. So "we" means "whichever once of us goes in that time".

The cast member made me feel that I had to take him, but after that we did what he truly loves THE WATERSLIDES

 

[disneyairforceguy]

Would you do it again, given the annoyances, especially related to your son?

Thanks for the detailed report.

Yes!! This was a totally relaxing trip for my whole family.

 

[tidefan]

We just got off of the Magic 3-night. Funny, we didn't have the comment cards mentioned to us one time.

 

[disneyairforceguy]

Not at all trying to be confrontational, but I am a little confused concerning your complaint with the kids clubs...

They send you a message saying that your child wants to be picked up (we get those all the time from our youngest daughter...). You go there and discover that he doesn't want to be picked up. Instead of leaving him in the club where he is having a good time and going back to your wine tasting, you pull him from the club and blame the staff for not understanding how to work with your special needs child? I get your frustration with the time it took to get him checked out...but I don't get your decision to remove him and never bring him back to the club.

To my understanding, they send a message to the parents whenever the child asks to be picked up. This does not mean you must pick them up. I daughter asks to be picked up constantly but usually changes her mind long before we can even get there. If we are at an activity, we wait until it is over and then go check on them. They can still play even if they request pick-up.

Not at all confrontational. I did ask cm if said he wanted to leave. In the beginning when I got there I had absolutely no issues about going to pick him up. I told her I was there with a smile on my face. It wasn't till after the third time of unnecessary explanations and then casting me to the side that my frustration began. And I will admit once that starts I can be unpleasant. I did tell the other cm's that it was a me thing from that point on.

 

[disneyairforceguy]

I'm so sorry you found the Club/Lab didn't work out for your son. Personally, as the parent of a special needs child myself, I don't think I would have limited the Club exposure to one open house and just that one drop-off time. I would have given my child a trial-run at drop-off programming earlier in the cruise -- maybe planned just 30 minutes at first, worked up to 60 minutes depending on how things went. It honestly sounds like the CMs didn't know how to communicate with your son; you don't indicate he's non-verbal but maybe he just wasn't feeling comfortable to speak with them. The CM tried to explain to you that she thought he wanted to leave because he went to the gate. My guess is he just went to look, and since he appeared to be enjoying himself and actively engaged with another CM when you returned, I would have said "thanks, he seems to be settled now so I'm going back to the tasting event" and allowed him to stay. They may still have called you 20 minutes later, or he may have found an activity (or 2 or 3) to enjoy.

It does sound like your whole family had a very enjoyable cruise overall! Hopefully you'll return and give it another try, with or without using the kids clubs.

We did have a wonderful cruise and told my girls that next time they were going to have to take my son for a day so we my wife and I could spend some time alone. This trip was for one daughter's graduation and both of their b-bays so didn't want them to babysit this trip.

 

[Vicki106]

We were on a 4 night on the Dream a few weeks ago, and I was so pleasantly surprised that only our dining staff mentioned the comment cards. And they only mentioned them one time on the final night after our dinner was completed. They only asked that we remember to fill them out and that they hoped that we were happy with their service. I was prepared for CMs to ask for excellent reviews and issue constant reminders and that didn't happen at all. We were thrilled with our service and sad to say good by to our dining room team. If you are on the Dream and your server is Wayne from Jamaica you are lucky indeed! Wayne, along with assistant server Cristel and Head Server Kendall, made our dining experiences awesome!!!!!

I'm sad to hear that the excellent service/comment cards were constantly brought up with you. That would drive me crazy.

 

[lfishe3]

I
Bad:
I understand that their jobs may depend on it, but every time you engaged in conversation with someone they were pushing you for that excellent rating on the comment card. If it is that important do an excellent job and you will get the rating. At dinner alone three people would push this every night.

I cannot comment on the kids clubs because we have never used them. With regard to the comment cards. I wish you would have spoken up to the head waiter about it being constantly addressed by your servers. They are not suppose to do that. Whenever a cast member does something like this that makes you uncomfortable you need to tell someone about it. We have had this happen in the past. We addressed the issue with the head waiter and the problem was solved. What we have learned after 4 DCL sailings is the management usually does not know about a problem if no one tells them.

 

[aidtrismommy]

I am glad you had a wonderful cruise. I agree with other posters that in retrospect it probably would have been a good idea to have your son spend some more time in the club prior to the wine tasting but that's in the past. I felt more comfortable with the clubs and the inner-workings of them for my second cruise. I feel like it just takes time and experience to get how it works and also for the kids to learn how it works. I also get annoyed when I have to wait to exit the club because three CM's are letting kids in and nobody is letting them out, but I do understand that they have to make sure the correct adult has the correct child. So I just take a deep breath and wait my turn. It could probably be run more smoothly sometimes but it's not a huge deal. I appreciate the security involved in the clubs.
I once had a panic attack because the CM told me my son was in the Mickey Room. I went in there and he was not there, so I went back to the desk and told them I couldn't find him, she checked again and said that is where he was...We both went back and I couldn't find him still, it turns out he was sitting in a place on the floor watching cartoons on the big screen and I couldn't see him because other kids were sitting on the stools around him.