- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
DW Karen and I just returned from the annual Turner Classic Movie (TCM) cruise on the Dream. This was our first TCM cruise and not having found more than a couple previous trip reports, none of which was on the Disboards, I thought it would be helpful for any other DCL cruisers who were also movie buffs to get an idea of whether or not this cruise was for you.
Our interest in this cruise primarily stemmed from the fact that we could go on this cruise for the same price we would pay for a couple of the higher-priced TCM festival passes. That being said, previous cruises had movie stars of previous eras (Leslie Caron, Debbie Reynolds, Margaret O’Brien, to name but a few), and we’re in our 50’s, so if that trend had continued, it would have had limited appeal to us. However, once Richard Dreyfuss was announced, we booked immediately and were gratified when Chevy Chase, Lainie Kazan, and Sean Young joined them. There were also draws for older fans, including Pat Boone, Bob Mackie, and Deana Martin, but my hope was that there would be a good number of films from the 70’s and 80’s to make the cruise a fun experience.
The TCM cruise is a charter cruise, meaning that you had to book it through Sixthman, not through a travel agent or directly through Disney. No OBOs or other discounts could be applied. However, there were some benefits for Castaway Cay members. The cruise counts toward your status, and we actually earned Platinum on this cruise, which was our tenth. I received a 10% discount on TCM cruise merchandise for being gold (not the usual 20%), and we got the obligatory half-backpack, which we left onboard because we have always found it to be a truly uncomfortable and useless “gift.” Everyone received their Disney confirmation numbers at the same time, however, which was around a month before the cruise. At that point, for non-concierge guests, it was first-come, first-serve for Palo, Remy, and spa reservations and onboard activities.
A quick paragraph for any fellow miles-and-points hobbyists. We used a Bonvoy 50K certificate plus 9,000 points to stay at the W downtown for the night before the cruise. It had a very Kimpton feel to it. We are Platinum Bonvoy members and received a small upgrade. The room had a strange, upscale Chinese restaurant theme to it but the bathroom was huge and luxurious. The toilet had something that I had never seen before. There wasn’t a bidet or bidet features, but there was a small spray hose attached to the toilet to achieve the same purpose. The W was an excellent hotel for a pre-cruise stay, located very near the port.
It was also about a month ahead of time that the movie schedule was released, which turned out to be, for us, the greatest disappointment of the trip. My hopes of seeing Jaws with Richard Dreyfuss and a Chevy Chase-Goldie Hawn double-feature of Foul Play and Seems Like Old Times was dashed. Not only were the movie selections disappointing (Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead for Richard Dreyfuss; only Blade Runner for Sean Young), but many of the best films were screened at 10 PM. We are morning people, not night owls, so even with the three-hour time change, we only made it to the first of those late screenings, Fletch with a pre-screening Q&A with Chevy Chase. I really wanted to see Blade Runner with the Sean Young Q&A and might have gone to Christmas Vacation with another Q&A with Chevy Chase, but I doubted that I would make it through both films all the way.
Fast-forwarding to the cruise itself, there was a lot to like for DCL veterans which I doubt that I will ever experience on a regular Disney cruise. The great majority of the other cruisers were significantly older than regular Disney cruisers, and there were only a handful of children on the cruise. Making a good situation even better, there were only 1700 guests onboard, less than half of full capacity. As a result, we went on Aquaduck ten times in a row with no line on embarkation day and six times on a row on the Cayman Islands port day, following Ben Mankiewicz and his wife or daughter each time. By Castaway Cay day, we were spoiled if we had to wait 10 minutes in line, but the lifeguard still called us his best customers.
The other benefit was that we were able to do something that we’ve never done before and would be unlikely to do on another cruise, which was to eat every night at Palo, except the one night when we ate at a Remy, plus a Palo brunch. Ana from Portugal became our server, as she served us for all five of our Palo meals. I initially had intended to eat at Palo only maybe twice, but I learned that we were seated with three other couples at a table for eight, which was not appealing to me. I could have easily changed to sit alone as a couple, but our experience on the Fantasy in September soured me a bit on the main dining room food quality. I always thought of the main dining room food as wedding food, given that it’s all pre-plated and of a reasonably good, if not great, quality, which obviously can’t compete with food at Palo or Remy, which is made-to-order, for the most part, and uses higher-quality ingredients. The ambience and comfort is also so much nicer on the higher-end restaurants, so we really enjoyed our time there. We chatted with Ana especially long on the last night and as a result never felt that we were lesser connected to her than we would have been to our main dining room servers if we had eaten there instead.
A final sight that you will never see on a regular cruise were the kids’ club crew members stationed on various floors, helping guests find where they are going. At one point, I even saw a crew member help a guest by asking where she was going and then pushing the elevator button for her.
The only real negative about this group of cruisers is that I’ve never seen so many incidents of rude guests, treating people poorly, as on this cruise. When I was paying for a Coke at the concession area near the Buena Vista theatre, a cruiser was demanding ice water from the crew member and when she was told that they didn’t have ice at that location, only bottled water, the cruiser left in a mad huff, completely disrespecting the crew member. In another incident, Karen observed an obviously drunk cruiser repeatedly demanding to be let in to the Deana Martin performance even after being told multiple times that the venue was full. Finally, once when Karen was in line for the shrimp and crab, a cruiser cut right in front of her and was about to help herself when Karen pointed out the line to her. Rather than demonstrate any contrition, the cruiser just waited until Karen was done and then cut in front of the person who had been behind Karen in line. As I said, not your typical Disney cruisers, at least in our experience.
Three final and unexpected TCM benefits: Popcorn was free at both theaters throughout the cruise; we received a nice TCM Cruise beach blanket; and tips were covered in the regular booking fee. However, make sure that if you book the 10% future cruise promotion, you don’t choose to link the reservation to your travel agent. I thought the system would recognize my usual travel agent, but it was linked to TCM, where I wouldn’t be able to use the discount, since it's not accepted by Sixthman, who charters the ship for the TCM cruises. I made that mistake and had to fill out a form to get the offer transferred to my regular Dreams Unlimited agent.
Let me return to the programming. All of the stars except for Sean Young participated in Q&As with the TCM hosts, but we only went to the ones for Richard Dreyfuss and Chevy Chase. It was great to be able to laugh at Chevy Chase, who was as funny as ever. It was sad, though, to see his memory so deteriorated that he needed his wife onstage to frequently remind him of various facts needed to answer questions or answer questions outright for him. This got a little awkward when Ben Mankiewicz asked a question to which he already knew the answer, something he acknowledged was true for most of his questions. He asked Chevy if had turned down any movies during a particular period, and he said no. His wife reminded him of Forrest Gump, the answer that Ben had expected, since he asked a follow-up question about the script being written with Chevy Chase in mind.
His behavior to both Ben and his wife, frankly, was inexcusable. He actually called Ben an ******* at one point and threatened to punch him in the face, just for asking reasonable questions that Chevy couldn’t easily answer, likely due to his memory loss. Rather than appreciating his wife’s help, he was rude to her as well, to the point where Ben joked that if the marriage had to come to an end tonight, at least they had a good run. This Q&A proved to be the only one that wasn’t available for viewing on the stateroom televisions.
Our highlight was seeing My Favorite Year with Lainie Kazan. I’d only seen this movie once, and it was a delight to see it again, especially with her wonderful Q&A before the movie, again with Ben, and watching it with her in attendance. It’s one of the great comedies of the 80’s which is so little seen, and even though her part is small, her main scene is not only the funniest but establishes the heart of the movie.
The second highlight was seeing Woman on the Run with a pre-screening talk by Eddie Muller. We don’t usually watch TCM, but I love film noir, and it was a real treat to see this movie which Eddie rescued and is so little seen on any screen, much less the big screen. It was our last movie of the cruise and a great way for us to end the screenings.
We also saw Close Encounters, a film that now seems helplessly dated and inferior to Speilberg’s own, similarly-themed ET; Fletch, which I hadn’t seen since its original release and inferior to the newly released reboot Fletch, Confess (watch it on Showtime); High Noon; Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which had a disappointing introduction by Mark McCray, where he spent most of the time unnecessarily summarizing the plot; and The Great Escape, the only film with no introduction. The TCM overlay extended to our staterooms televisions, where there was a TCM channel, and we watched The Way We Were (an inexplicable classic) and The Birds.
The problem with seeing so many movies on the Dream is that its theatres are not really designed for spending a lot of time in them watching movies. The Walt Disney theatre is typical of movie theatres from the pre-stadium seating era, and it was truly uncomfortable to have to watch a three-hour movie like The Great Escape, much less multiple movies a day in that theatre. In the Buena Vista theatre, dedicated to movies, the seats inexplicably lean back without restraint, resulting in many times when we would hit the knees of the people sitting behind us, resulting in an uncomfortable experience for both of us.
The worst part of the cruise, however, was the music. While it makes sense for them not to play Disney music, I was at least hoping for movie soundtracks, not a frequently repeating selection of 20’s standards played in Muzak-y arrangements (think heavy on the strings, light or non-existent horns). At least the Disney music returned on disembarkation day.
We will more than likely do another TCM cruise, though again, it will be based on the actors/special guests. For those who are planning to go on the next one, for which the pre-sale has already begun, it will be a different experience on the Magic, where the next cruise has been relocated. For this cruise, we could easily get a good seat in the Walt Disney theatre even 10 minutes before the movie, but we tended to show up 20-30 minutes early if the movie was being introduced by Richard Dreyfuss or Chevy Chase and for the Q&As. The same was true for the Buena Vista theatre except that it filled up completely for most of the movies that we saw there, so we tried to get there early even when there wasn’t a Q&A. On the Magic, the theatres are both significantly smaller and at least for the Buena Vista theatre, more uncomfortable, especially if you are going to see multiple movies in a day.
To close out with a treat, here is the beautiful gingerbread house that was unveiled on the last day of the cruise.
I’ll be glad to answer any questions, and I hope this report was helpful.
Our interest in this cruise primarily stemmed from the fact that we could go on this cruise for the same price we would pay for a couple of the higher-priced TCM festival passes. That being said, previous cruises had movie stars of previous eras (Leslie Caron, Debbie Reynolds, Margaret O’Brien, to name but a few), and we’re in our 50’s, so if that trend had continued, it would have had limited appeal to us. However, once Richard Dreyfuss was announced, we booked immediately and were gratified when Chevy Chase, Lainie Kazan, and Sean Young joined them. There were also draws for older fans, including Pat Boone, Bob Mackie, and Deana Martin, but my hope was that there would be a good number of films from the 70’s and 80’s to make the cruise a fun experience.
The TCM cruise is a charter cruise, meaning that you had to book it through Sixthman, not through a travel agent or directly through Disney. No OBOs or other discounts could be applied. However, there were some benefits for Castaway Cay members. The cruise counts toward your status, and we actually earned Platinum on this cruise, which was our tenth. I received a 10% discount on TCM cruise merchandise for being gold (not the usual 20%), and we got the obligatory half-backpack, which we left onboard because we have always found it to be a truly uncomfortable and useless “gift.” Everyone received their Disney confirmation numbers at the same time, however, which was around a month before the cruise. At that point, for non-concierge guests, it was first-come, first-serve for Palo, Remy, and spa reservations and onboard activities.
A quick paragraph for any fellow miles-and-points hobbyists. We used a Bonvoy 50K certificate plus 9,000 points to stay at the W downtown for the night before the cruise. It had a very Kimpton feel to it. We are Platinum Bonvoy members and received a small upgrade. The room had a strange, upscale Chinese restaurant theme to it but the bathroom was huge and luxurious. The toilet had something that I had never seen before. There wasn’t a bidet or bidet features, but there was a small spray hose attached to the toilet to achieve the same purpose. The W was an excellent hotel for a pre-cruise stay, located very near the port.
It was also about a month ahead of time that the movie schedule was released, which turned out to be, for us, the greatest disappointment of the trip. My hopes of seeing Jaws with Richard Dreyfuss and a Chevy Chase-Goldie Hawn double-feature of Foul Play and Seems Like Old Times was dashed. Not only were the movie selections disappointing (Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead for Richard Dreyfuss; only Blade Runner for Sean Young), but many of the best films were screened at 10 PM. We are morning people, not night owls, so even with the three-hour time change, we only made it to the first of those late screenings, Fletch with a pre-screening Q&A with Chevy Chase. I really wanted to see Blade Runner with the Sean Young Q&A and might have gone to Christmas Vacation with another Q&A with Chevy Chase, but I doubted that I would make it through both films all the way.
Fast-forwarding to the cruise itself, there was a lot to like for DCL veterans which I doubt that I will ever experience on a regular Disney cruise. The great majority of the other cruisers were significantly older than regular Disney cruisers, and there were only a handful of children on the cruise. Making a good situation even better, there were only 1700 guests onboard, less than half of full capacity. As a result, we went on Aquaduck ten times in a row with no line on embarkation day and six times on a row on the Cayman Islands port day, following Ben Mankiewicz and his wife or daughter each time. By Castaway Cay day, we were spoiled if we had to wait 10 minutes in line, but the lifeguard still called us his best customers.
The other benefit was that we were able to do something that we’ve never done before and would be unlikely to do on another cruise, which was to eat every night at Palo, except the one night when we ate at a Remy, plus a Palo brunch. Ana from Portugal became our server, as she served us for all five of our Palo meals. I initially had intended to eat at Palo only maybe twice, but I learned that we were seated with three other couples at a table for eight, which was not appealing to me. I could have easily changed to sit alone as a couple, but our experience on the Fantasy in September soured me a bit on the main dining room food quality. I always thought of the main dining room food as wedding food, given that it’s all pre-plated and of a reasonably good, if not great, quality, which obviously can’t compete with food at Palo or Remy, which is made-to-order, for the most part, and uses higher-quality ingredients. The ambience and comfort is also so much nicer on the higher-end restaurants, so we really enjoyed our time there. We chatted with Ana especially long on the last night and as a result never felt that we were lesser connected to her than we would have been to our main dining room servers if we had eaten there instead.
A final sight that you will never see on a regular cruise were the kids’ club crew members stationed on various floors, helping guests find where they are going. At one point, I even saw a crew member help a guest by asking where she was going and then pushing the elevator button for her.
The only real negative about this group of cruisers is that I’ve never seen so many incidents of rude guests, treating people poorly, as on this cruise. When I was paying for a Coke at the concession area near the Buena Vista theatre, a cruiser was demanding ice water from the crew member and when she was told that they didn’t have ice at that location, only bottled water, the cruiser left in a mad huff, completely disrespecting the crew member. In another incident, Karen observed an obviously drunk cruiser repeatedly demanding to be let in to the Deana Martin performance even after being told multiple times that the venue was full. Finally, once when Karen was in line for the shrimp and crab, a cruiser cut right in front of her and was about to help herself when Karen pointed out the line to her. Rather than demonstrate any contrition, the cruiser just waited until Karen was done and then cut in front of the person who had been behind Karen in line. As I said, not your typical Disney cruisers, at least in our experience.
Three final and unexpected TCM benefits: Popcorn was free at both theaters throughout the cruise; we received a nice TCM Cruise beach blanket; and tips were covered in the regular booking fee. However, make sure that if you book the 10% future cruise promotion, you don’t choose to link the reservation to your travel agent. I thought the system would recognize my usual travel agent, but it was linked to TCM, where I wouldn’t be able to use the discount, since it's not accepted by Sixthman, who charters the ship for the TCM cruises. I made that mistake and had to fill out a form to get the offer transferred to my regular Dreams Unlimited agent.
Let me return to the programming. All of the stars except for Sean Young participated in Q&As with the TCM hosts, but we only went to the ones for Richard Dreyfuss and Chevy Chase. It was great to be able to laugh at Chevy Chase, who was as funny as ever. It was sad, though, to see his memory so deteriorated that he needed his wife onstage to frequently remind him of various facts needed to answer questions or answer questions outright for him. This got a little awkward when Ben Mankiewicz asked a question to which he already knew the answer, something he acknowledged was true for most of his questions. He asked Chevy if had turned down any movies during a particular period, and he said no. His wife reminded him of Forrest Gump, the answer that Ben had expected, since he asked a follow-up question about the script being written with Chevy Chase in mind.
His behavior to both Ben and his wife, frankly, was inexcusable. He actually called Ben an ******* at one point and threatened to punch him in the face, just for asking reasonable questions that Chevy couldn’t easily answer, likely due to his memory loss. Rather than appreciating his wife’s help, he was rude to her as well, to the point where Ben joked that if the marriage had to come to an end tonight, at least they had a good run. This Q&A proved to be the only one that wasn’t available for viewing on the stateroom televisions.
Our highlight was seeing My Favorite Year with Lainie Kazan. I’d only seen this movie once, and it was a delight to see it again, especially with her wonderful Q&A before the movie, again with Ben, and watching it with her in attendance. It’s one of the great comedies of the 80’s which is so little seen, and even though her part is small, her main scene is not only the funniest but establishes the heart of the movie.
The second highlight was seeing Woman on the Run with a pre-screening talk by Eddie Muller. We don’t usually watch TCM, but I love film noir, and it was a real treat to see this movie which Eddie rescued and is so little seen on any screen, much less the big screen. It was our last movie of the cruise and a great way for us to end the screenings.
We also saw Close Encounters, a film that now seems helplessly dated and inferior to Speilberg’s own, similarly-themed ET; Fletch, which I hadn’t seen since its original release and inferior to the newly released reboot Fletch, Confess (watch it on Showtime); High Noon; Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which had a disappointing introduction by Mark McCray, where he spent most of the time unnecessarily summarizing the plot; and The Great Escape, the only film with no introduction. The TCM overlay extended to our staterooms televisions, where there was a TCM channel, and we watched The Way We Were (an inexplicable classic) and The Birds.
The problem with seeing so many movies on the Dream is that its theatres are not really designed for spending a lot of time in them watching movies. The Walt Disney theatre is typical of movie theatres from the pre-stadium seating era, and it was truly uncomfortable to have to watch a three-hour movie like The Great Escape, much less multiple movies a day in that theatre. In the Buena Vista theatre, dedicated to movies, the seats inexplicably lean back without restraint, resulting in many times when we would hit the knees of the people sitting behind us, resulting in an uncomfortable experience for both of us.
The worst part of the cruise, however, was the music. While it makes sense for them not to play Disney music, I was at least hoping for movie soundtracks, not a frequently repeating selection of 20’s standards played in Muzak-y arrangements (think heavy on the strings, light or non-existent horns). At least the Disney music returned on disembarkation day.
We will more than likely do another TCM cruise, though again, it will be based on the actors/special guests. For those who are planning to go on the next one, for which the pre-sale has already begun, it will be a different experience on the Magic, where the next cruise has been relocated. For this cruise, we could easily get a good seat in the Walt Disney theatre even 10 minutes before the movie, but we tended to show up 20-30 minutes early if the movie was being introduced by Richard Dreyfuss or Chevy Chase and for the Q&As. The same was true for the Buena Vista theatre except that it filled up completely for most of the movies that we saw there, so we tried to get there early even when there wasn’t a Q&A. On the Magic, the theatres are both significantly smaller and at least for the Buena Vista theatre, more uncomfortable, especially if you are going to see multiple movies in a day.
To close out with a treat, here is the beautiful gingerbread house that was unveiled on the last day of the cruise.
I’ll be glad to answer any questions, and I hope this report was helpful.
