The service left me Wondering.

[sweetpee_1993]

it's because of this. :\

Okay. ??

 

[jtba]

Okay. ??

the daughter of @MunFam had several really terrible (and potentially life threatening) dining experiences on the wonder. that link above (http://www.disboards.com/posts/55295437/) leads to her story.

 

[tlynk]

I had the opposite experience. DH and I weren't overly impressed with the service and food on the Fantasy. We still had a fabulous time and rebooked on her for next year, but we missed the Wonder at times. I sail on the Wonder soon and will be sad if the food and service has downgraded to just sub par.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

We cruised on the Dream in 2014. Our waiter and assistant waiter were phenomenal. Our head waiter was a pretentious jerk. Our stateroom host was just blah. As others mentioned, I think it's hit or miss. Our waiter and assistant waiter went above and beyond in every way. They remembered what we ordered to drink and had it ready for us every night. My daughter asked for a baked potato one night for dinner and they brought her 2 gigantic potatoes. They helped the kids cut their meat and did magic tricks and told jokes. I actually got tears in my eyes when we said good-bye to them on our last morning. The waiter told me my daughter was a wonderful and beautiful young lady. The head waiter did as little as possible for our group. Our stateroom host surprised me. I am very friendly with everyone, and he seemed, not unfriendly, just not Disney friendly. On our CC day it rained all day. I didn't want my backpack to get wet so I had covered it with a WDW poncho. When we got back to our room in the early afternoon, I hung the poncho over the shower curtain to dry. When we got back after dinner, the poncho was gone. The next morning I asked him where he had put my poncho. He told me he threw it away. I was flabbergasted! I asked him why he threw it away and he couldn't answer me. I went to guest services shortly after that and told the CM what happened. That day before dinner, there was a brand new WDW poncho on our bed. He never apologized about throwing away the poncho. Maybe he thought it was a WDW garbage bag, I don't know. I'm hoping he was just new.

I'm willing to bet that the stateroom host who threw away your poncho didn't realize you paid for it. Oftentimes when the ship's excursions are headed out if it looks like rain they bring out cases and cases of the ponchos and hand them out for free as guests leave the ship. Not that he should've thrown away your poncho. Even if it was free you might have wanted to save it. I have half dozen or so never used put back in my travel junk box. Just mentioning it in case it lends some perspective.

 

[jtba]

the daughter of @MunFam had several really terrible (and potentially life threatening) dining experiences on the wonder. that link above (http://www.disboards.com/posts/55295437/) leads to her story.

it stood out in my mind because we were on the wonder a couple months after @MunFam , and i remembered her story when we were on the ship since DD has multiple food allergies as well.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

the daughter of @MunFam had several really terrible (and potentially life threatening) dining experiences on the wonder. that link above (http://www.disboards.com/posts/55295437/) leads to her story.

My bad! I didn't see your link! LOL! I was thinking "Uhhhh...because not-impressed face? Whuuuuu???" Old eyes. Late night. Yeah. My bad. But thank YOU!!!!!

 

[jtba]

My bad! I didn't see your link! LOL! I was thinking "Uhhhh...because not-impressed face? Whuuuuu???" Old eyes. Late night. Yeah. My bad. But thank YOU!!!!!

i figured. that "this" link was too subtle.

p.s. "not-impressed face" lol!

 

[Flossbolna]

My first cruise was on the Wonder in 2013. And before the cruise I read all about that spectacular service here on the DIS. I was actually rather sceptical about this as it sounded as if people were just wearing rose coloured glasses because they loved their vacation so much. I had read the same about WDW and had rarely experienced wonderful CMs there. But after my cruise I was blown away. It was little things like a lady from the housekeeping team (the general one that cleans the bathrooms and hallways) had talked to me for a bit and I kept running into her and she would always greet me with a smile and by name. Our serving team was nothing special and our stateroom attendant only appeared when it was time to get his tip (he did a good job though, just was invisible).

We cruised on the Fantasy in 2014 and had the best serving team so far on our Disney cruises. However, in other ways we found the service to be a little less engaging and more just doing their job without such great enthusiasm as we had experienced before.

I wonder if first DCL cruises are bound to stand out and therefore it will be difficult to reach that level again? And of course my Wonder experience is now 3 years old, so a lot can change in that time frame.

The best service on DCL all around was my Magic cruise to Norway last year, however. You could feel the excitement buzzing in the crew about taking the ship on a brand new itinerary.

 

[MunFam]

it's because of this. :\

In addition to that whole dining debacle, our room host was not nice at all. She serviced our room 3 times in a row and never left towels. Our rack was empty! We finally called and asked for towels. She refused to fill our ice bucket (saying to do it though room service), she did not give us our pirate night bandanas until the day AFTER pirate night (and only because we went to the desk to inquire about them)...when she did deliver them she literally threw them at me with no eye contact. It was awful. She left a "towel animal" in the shape of a toilet seat with chocolate turds on it. It was supposed to be "the crest of arendale" but I showed the picture to multiple passengers and guest services and they were all shocked. It looked NOTHING like the other towels left. I work in the travel industry, so I am extra understanding of situations like this...where sometimes things get missed or people have a bad day.

It went on for days and days and days. The night before we departed, she had the nerve to pull me aside and tell me she needed all 5's (or whatever high mark it was) on her review card so she would not lose her job! I was dumbfounded.

I do have to give credit to the characters, their handlers, the people in the show, the shutters photographers and the lifeguards on duty. They were all what we expected as far as DCL service was concerned.

 

[jdb in AZ]

In addition to that whole dining debacle, our room host was not nice at all. She serviced our room 3 times in a row and never left towels. Our rack was empty! We finally called and asked for towels. She refused to fill our ice bucket (saying to do it though room service), she did not give us our pirate night bandanas until the day AFTER pirate night (and only because we went to the desk to inquire about them)...when she did deliver them she literally threw them at me with no eye contact. It was awful. She left a "towel animal" in the shape of a toilet seat with chocolate turds on it. It was supposed to be "the crest of arendale" but I showed the picture to multiple passengers and guest services and they were all shocked. It looked NOTHING like the other towels left. I work in the travel industry, so I am extra understanding of situations like this...where sometimes things get missed or people have a bad day.

It went on for days and days and days. The night before we departed, she had the nerve to pull me aside and tell me she needed all 5's (or whatever high mark it was) on her review card so she would not lose her job! I was dumbfounded.

I do have to give credit to the characters, their handlers, the people in the show, the shutters photographers and the lifeguards on duty. They were all what we expected as far as DCL service was concerned.

I assume you didn't give her an "excellent" rating. What did guest services do about the toilet seat "animal?" You said they were shocked, but did they DO anything? Here's hoping she got fired.

 

[dclpluto]

I only had problems with the service a few times on 17 DCL cruises. Once on the dream my only time on the dream the server and asst server was so bad always slow and got orders messed up all the time. That's when DCL was doing a lot of changes with staff the fantasy was coming soon. 5 cruises on the fantasy never a problem. 4 cruises on the wonder only one problem the stateroom host was very bad and slow.
7 cruises on the magic. The service was great but one time the server breath smelled like he just got done eating a poop sandwich. I will rather have bad service than having a server breath smelling like poop everyday.

 

[Jennifer777]

I just got off the same cruise as the OP and have to say our experience was similar. We've cruised Magic and Fantasy in the past and both were amazing. We aren't picky people and don't expect to be waited on hand and foot but we were very underwhelmed this time around. We had the best head server we've ever had but the rest of our dining staff was rarely at our table. We were some of the first ones to be seated and often waited 20+ minutes just for our drinks. Dining took over an hour each night even though we walked in prepared to order to save time. We ended up skipping dinner the last night because it was not worth the time it took to be served. Very few pleasantries from anyone other than the head server either. On the Magic and Fantasy our servers catered to our kids, did little magic tricks, had our kids' drinks ready and asked about our day. They made us feel welcome. We felt more like a burden than welcome this time around. Our stateroom host did ok, but didn't leave us our stateroom navigators the first two nights and never left our cabana wrist bands so we had to prove who we were and carry around out cabana tickets at Castaway Cay until they could get us new ones. We only saw him a few times and a couple days we left the room for hours and came back to find our room hadn't been tended to. The first day, one of the CMs who was serving drinks walked off with my husband's KTTW card and it took us an hour to find him. He apologized and I think he genuinely felt bad but it was still disappointing. The one show I went to was ok, nothing spectacular but there was technical difficulties a few times throughout it which took away some of the magic.

There were some highlights this trip though. We had AMAZING cabana service! They checked in on us throughout the day, came when we rang the bell, were friendly and took great care of us. Palo was also top notch. The food was as good as it always is. The Wonder is definitely showing her age, lots of painted over rust on our balcony, but the entire ship was very clean and appeared to be well maintained by the CMs from what I could tell. Kids club staff was great. Drink service on the ship was available all the time so we never had to go get our own drinks. The problem with most of these positives is that most come from service that's not included. Had we not gotten a cabana, ordered specialty drinks or dined at Palo I would be struggling to find positives with the service right now.

 

[MunFam]

I assume you didn't give her an "excellent" rating. What did guest services do about the toilet seat "animal?" You said they were shocked, but did they DO anything? Here's hoping she got fired.

The apologized and sent a stuffed elephant with a bow to our room.

 

[Ofinn]

We have been on the Wonder three times in the last 6 months. We've had great service. Some servers I liked better than others. After 12 cruises in the last few years I have found that some servers you just click better with than others.. You can't expect to have the same experience with each serving team. Some of them I loved, and some gave good service, but weren't really memorable. I have never found the service to be better on the Fantasy or Dream than on the Classic ships. I have some favorites on each ship.

 

[sJv2011]

Would you mind writing up a short (or long review of your Princess cruise? Especially in comparison to Disney?

I've sailed Princess as well, probably 10 years ago. We had a fantastic time with them as well.

 

[sJv2011]

After two cruises, I've found the service to be outstanding when there was an extra charge for it (Cove Cafe, Palo, Remy) and the hosts were nice... (We remember their names, that's how good they were!)

Outside of those, it was what I encounter anywhere else. Sometimes very good, sometimes very bad.

Totally agree! Our spa service this time was the most memorable and fun.

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

I definitely agree with those that feel and state each sailing can vary so much between the ships. One cruiser might rave it's the best they've ever had and the next is feeling it was the worst ever. I have no doubt and believe these experiences happen as each dining team can vary in service, each stateroom host can vary, etc. If I'm being honest and when others ask me, I'll tell you that the Wonder has been on the bottom for "service" in my opinion but that doesn't mean it was terrible like others have experienced. I have a c/m friend on the Wonder (and Magic) and that still doesn't skew my feelings I will say I feel like most times the Dream gets the short end of the stick for opinions on the service as most say because she only does 3/4 night sailings but to me - after 6 sailings on the Dream, they have been my far my favorite crew. My mom sailed with me on the Fantasy first, then the Dream and even she agreed the Dream crew blew away her experience on the Fantasy and she was WOW'd beyond belief on the Fantasy.

I always say - go with an open mind, don't expect things to happen and when they don't, don't be disappointed if it happens to others and just soak it all in. OP - that's not directed at you in any way, I'm just speaking out loud in general. I would not hesitate to sail on any ship at any time and no crew has made me feel like I don't want to sail with them. I'm excited to sail on the Wonder again for Alaska and the Magic in October.

So yes, give the Dream a try

Heather

 

[jeepnjudy]

This is so ship dependent. We just got off our 5th cruise on the Dream over New Years and the assistant server was horrible. No interaction with DS12 and DS3, no tricks, no puzzles, no nothing from him and he could never get our drink orders right. I felt bad for the main server as she had to pick up the slack for him which reflected nicely for her in our tip! So far though that is the only blah service we have had in the past 5 cruises and we have been on all 4 ships.

 

[turtle27]

I think serving teams are hit or miss. My first Disney cruise, we had the best servers. The absolute best and we were a large group. The next time, the service was good, but I would not say great. The next cruise, service was not good at all, we attribute that to it being one of the first sailings of the Fantasy, still working out kinks. Then we had great servers again, but we sailed concierge and I know you are placed with the higher rated servers if you sail concierge. This last cruise, well, it was so-so. I felt like our servers were over-worked, and for some reason our table got the short end of the deal. We were constantly in the dining room until 10:15 or later, last to be served, last orders to be taken, had to repeatedly ask for bread service (which we would not have needed had appetizers shown up before 9pm ever), server not paying attention to allergies, etc. It was not bad, just not great. And then there was the spiel about everyone needing perfect scores. I hope people do not get fired for not perfect reviews, that is a horrible way to manage. I know they get benefits if they get the higher marks, but if you want a perfect rating, I expect better than good or ok.

 

[Bluecat74]

So glad to hear lots of good reports....service is so important. First I look for "friendly" and then great continued care.