Thoughts on our four night cruise

[Cinderella]

We did the four night cruise on December 11th for four nights. Will post a full trip report as soon as i can but here are some brief thoughts on the trip. We were two adults and two kids - ages 8 and 11.

Food - excellent in general. Loved Parrot Cay buffett for lunch on first day. Palo's was good - but we liked Triton's the best of all, for both lunch and dinner - it was outstanding.

Kids activities - fantastic - they were never away from the club's and did not even want to eat with us most of the time. They also loved the pool. Kids both checked themselves in and out of clubs - found their way around the ship easily and felt safe. Youngest said castmembers always helpful and stopped a couple of times to make her way back and to the club and asked if she knew where she was going ok.

Ports of call - didn't see much of Nassau as too exhausted after snorkelling and lunch! Didn't find the people there too pushy - a smile and polite no did the trick.

Castaway Cay was fantastic - wish we could have stayed longer - beaches lovely and hammocks on very quiet adult beach to die for.

Ship in general beautiful - staterooms much bigger than expected - had cat 5 eighth floor - plenty room for a family of four.

Spa treatments were lovely - had the seaweed wrap which was to die for and also the couples massage - both good. Therapists at seaweed wrap extremely pushy at selling products, but ones doing massage weren't, as they knew we'd bought lots already at first treatment.

Service great but the service from our services on the last night was v bad. We tipped well but noticed that they were focusing more on the larger parties and couldn't seem to be bothered with us at all. Had to ask three times for drink orders to be taken and wrong desserts were brought. We noticed that other servers were being more attentive to guests though, and the whole experience spoiled our thoughts on the cruise a bit. We felt as though the servers had only been nice on the rest of the trip to get good tips, and didn't feel they had to bother on the last night.

Overall impression - we all loved the cruise and would really like to do the 7 night next time. But, it was by no means cheap and we spent a lot on extras such as spa, spa products and photos from shutters.

 

[Cyrano]

Sounds great

 

[callisa]

That is so true about the servers. I've been on DCL, Princess and Holland America, and have definately found that the most servers act very differently on the last night (after tips have been determined) and especially the morning after. I actually had a server who had been so sweet to me all week take me aside in the morning and complain about the tips he received from others in our large group, he was actually kind of mean!

I actually noticed it less on DCL -- although our servers were not overly wonderful all week so it wouldn't have been that much of a difference!!!

We're going again in June, I'll keep an eye out for the Friday night attitude change...

Lisa

 

[Cinderella]

Glad someone else noticed this problem with the servers. We were staying at the poly before the cruise and one of the girls working in the neverland club said she had found the service on the cruise to be much better than in the resorts. It was a while since she had cruised so maybe things had slipped. Mind you, we had great service in the resorts - both ssr and poly, and in all the wdw restaurants.

Another thing I forgot to mention about the cruise is the Nassau snorkeling experience. We went on the morning one, organised by Disney, and it was absolutely fantastic. We had never snorkelled before and we were a bit apprehensive when we put the masks on, but once you get in the water it is great, and we saw a lot of fish. When we got back on the boat they served rum punch (non alcohol ones for the kids).

 

[madisonsmom]

I noticed that too about our servers, on the last night and especially the morning we left. I wasn't sure if it was because it was so early in the morning or if it was because of the tipping. We even tipped significantly extra to one of our servers that was really good, but not sure about the 3 other families.
Thought it was odd...especially since I wait tables as well and would never do that to a table, but then again, I live in the South and we take hospitality very seriously down here

 

[ripvanwinkle]

Sounds like you had a very nice time.

 

[Tarabra]

We've commented on the change in the servers too during breakfast the last day, BUT you have to remember, they are there very late in the evening preparing for the morning breakfast after the late seating, then they have to be back very early the next day to prepare for the first seating breakfast. THEN they start all over again that night. They also have to get us in and out of there pretty quickly. We usually give them some slack.

 

[mruhaak]

You know our servers were really nice the whole time. They explained to us beforehand that they would be very busy the next day, but they still were very friendly in the morning. They spent a large amount of time answering questions and humoring my mother and DH's grandmother who sometimes got confused as to who to order what from.

I was highly impressed and haven't experienced this on my other cruises!