What I learned on my 14 night WBPC cruise.

[darnheather]

Phew still very tired and I plan to do a full trip report starting soon but here are a few of the things I learned on the big cruise.

1) Even on a 14 night cruise you can't do it all. I didn't get in the pool even once and normally I love the pool. I didn't make it to all the dance classes because I had things that conflicted. I didn't make it to Cpt Pucket's lecture's live but I did get to watch them later on t.v.

2) Hearing protection. The Walt Disney Theater can be VERY loud. My hearing sensitive daughter didn't need her mufflephones for Tiana's place but we both needed them for the WDT. I would highly recommend you bring hearing protection for children under two or at least talk to your child's pediatrician about it.

3) I'll probably never try another cruise line. I know this is highly subjective, but the vast majority of people on this cruise were platinum and I talked to many who had tried other lines: RCL, NCL, Celebrity, Carnival, and Princess. Not one of them was interested in going back with one exception. A cruiser with 30 sailings on DCL preferred Princess for Alaska because of the itinerary. However, she was aghast at the food and warned me to bring my own packets of hot chocolate if I chose to try it.

4) Always book another onboard, or at least a place holder. I was lucky enough to be onboard for opening day and booked a 7 night Fantasy and 5 night Dream for September 2020. This will get me to gold and give me the grand-slam before the new ships start arriving in 2021.

ETA 5) Open bar doesn't mean order anything you want. I didn't know this going in. But it was still a lot of fun.

 

[lilsonicfan]

Curious to hear more about what the open bar did mean, if not order what you want (i assume it was a private event, the ones that are $14pp or so?)

Thanks for sharing! Food is so subjective. The food for us on Princess was much better than on DCL.

 

[darnheather]

Curious to hear more about what the open bar did mean, if not order what you want (i assume it was a private event, the ones that are $14pp or so?)

Thanks for sharing! Food is so subjective. The food for us on Princess was much better than on DCL.

Open bar was a private event and $18 per person for mid-shelf (I think). There were about 5 different cocktails available, one white and one red wine, and two or three beer choices. Whatever liquor was available you could also get with coke, diet coke, or sprite. So I couldn't get for example a daquari or a martini.

The woman I talked to about Princess didn't really talk about the food too much it was more about the drinks situation. She didn't like the fact there was nowhere to get drinks outside of meals other than the bars. She also mentioned that she felt the need to upgrade to a much higher class of stateroom than she would normally take on DCL due to the size of inside cabins. Of course the ships that go to Alaska are always the smaller ones so again all this is subjective.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Can't wait to read your trip report. DH gave me the green light to try to book the WBPC in 2021!

 

[ironz]

Phew still very tired and I plan to do a full trip report starting soon but here are a few of the things I learned on the big cruise.

1) Even on a 14 night cruise you can't do it all. I didn't get in the pool even once and normally I love the pool. I didn't make it to all the dance classes because I had things that conflicted. I didn't make it to Cpt Pucket's lecture's live but I did get to watch them later on t.v.

2) Hearing protection. The Walt Disney Theater can be VERY loud. My hearing sensitive daughter didn't need her mufflephones for Tiana's place but we both needed them for the WDT. I would highly recommend you bring hearing protection for children under two or at least talk to your child's pediatrician about it.

I cannot agree with you more on #1 here! We did so much, and took a bit of down time, but there was so much more we could have done, if not for schedule conflicts, or needing some rest! (or playing too much bingo-- lol)

On #2, I just want y'all to know that @darnheather was so sweet on one of the boats back from an excursion, the music got loud and she was so sweet and generous to immediately offer her headphones to a small child.
I would also add that for light-sensitive people, it seemed like a couple of shows they did lighting effects where spotlights shined onto the audience that was not pleasant. Not all the shows, though. Of course, Frozen was amazing, like when we first saw it in 2017.

The Panama Canal cruise is superb. I think Heather and I will agree that it was one of the best! It was fun meeting her and her kids at Las Caletas (also an excursion we would recommend in Puerto Vallarta).

I hope to get a trip report out there-- if I can remember everything! (and I did not take a bunch of food pics, but have plenty else to talk about!)

 

[lorimay]

Another one here just back and yes there is so much to do and you think you have so much time to get it done, but it flies by and there's a point where you just need to stop and breathe for a little bit.
We had an amazing time for sure.
I loved every minute of it.

There were a couple records broken onboard:

Of the 2050 guests onboard 1791 were repeat cruisers with DCL.
1050 were either gold or platinum cruisers.

I never heard how many kids were onboard, but there were plenty of remarks about how few.
Walking by the club/lab was strange, its usually so busting over there and it was always so quiet on this cruise.

Loved the shows, Josh Strickland was amazing!!!

Does anyone know if they ever did the late evening in Tiana's with jazz music? Never heard anything about it.

 

[Dug720]

Another one here just back and yes there is so much to do and you think you have so much time to get it done, but it flies by and there's a point where you just need to stop and breathe for a little bit.
We had an amazing time for sure.
I loved every minute of it.

There were a couple records broken onboard:

Of the 2050 guests onboard 1791 were repeat cruisers with DCL.
1050 were either gold or platinum cruisers.

I never heard how many kids were onboard, but there were plenty of remarks about how few.
Walking by the club/lab was strange, its usually so busting over there and it was always so quiet on this cruise.

Loved the shows, Josh Strickland was amazing!!!

Does anyone know if they ever did the late evening in Tiana's with jazz music? Never heard anything about it.

My parents said that Natalie said there were 20 kids on board. Captain Daniele was setting up some time to sit with some who had to do a project to justify them missing school.

 

[owensjro]

My parents said that Natalie said there were 20 kids on board. Captain Daniele was setting up some time to sit with some who had to do a project to justify them missing school.

This was a bit of an exaggeration. There were at least 20 kids just in the Vibe, though they never did all that much for group activities from what we could see.

Jim

 

[darnheather]

My parents said that Natalie said there were 20 kids on board. Captain Daniele was setting up some time to sit with some who had to do a project to justify them missing school.

That was Natalie's joke. There were at least 20 of Edge age and 20 Vibe age. I'm not sure about club/lab. There were more under 2 than I could have imagined.

 

[darnheather]

I cannot agree with you more on #1 here! We did so much, and took a bit of down time, but there was so much more we could have done, if not for schedule conflicts, or needing some rest! (or playing too much bingo-- lol)

On #2, I just want y'all to know that @darnheather was so sweet on one of the boats back from an excursion, the music got loud and she was so sweet and generous to immediately offer her headphones to a small child.
I would also add that for light-sensitive people, it seemed like a couple of shows they did lighting effects where spotlights shined onto the audience that was not pleasant. Not all the shows, though. Of course, Frozen was amazing, like when we first saw it in 2017.

The Panama Canal cruise is superb. I think Heather and I will agree that it was one of the best! It was fun meeting her and her kids at Las Caletas (also an excursion we would recommend in Puerto Vallarta).

I hope to get a trip report out there-- if I can remember everything! (and I did not take a bunch of food pics, but have plenty else to talk about!)

Yes, the lights really got to me too but I can't remember at the moment which show it was. I had a migraine several nights unfortunately. Frozen was amazing. It was so nice to just sit and talk to to people sometimes which I don't remember having time to do before. I'll absolutely sail this cruise or back the other way again. Wasn't that excursion amazing? I couldn't believe my 13 year old did the snorkel excursion but she is still talking about it.

 

[ImprovGal]

Does anyone know if they ever did the late evening in Tiana's with jazz music? Never heard anything about it.

The late night supper club in Tiana's was held on Monday night, March 4, from 11pm-12:30ish. Price was $59 and you had to sign up at guest services.
Club Host Jo mentioned it at some of the adult events (Trivia in Crown & Fin and adult shows in Azure that I can recall).

And I agree it was a fantastic cruise!

 

[GPaLarry]

We did the EBPC on the Magic, yes, Magic in 2008, our first cruise with DCL. I will always remember it for discovering towel animals, Capt. Hook tapping my wife on the shoulder and surprising the daylights out of her, watching the locks through the portholes at night where we only had two feet clearance on each side, Goofy being goofy on the top deck while we dodged bridges, magic tricks by servers in Cabanas that fooled us all and history lessons on the canal that brought things down to earth. Our verandah got a lot of use, much like our Alaska cruise two years ago. We love long cruises and the EBPC was awesome.

 

[Carrie in AZ]

I am sooo happy to see your post, Heather!! I have been thinking about you!! Sounds like it was amazing!

How did D like Vibe? I know that was a bit of a concern for you leading up to the cruise, wondering if there would be a selection of friends for her. With 20 kids, I am hopeful she had a good time!

Also, how did it go with spending so many hours in San Diego prior to flying back home? Were you able to use your military benefits at the base or in the airport?

I am sooo surprised you did not make it in the pool! That is where we had our nice chat while sailing on the Magic together!!

Looking forward to reading more! Cannot wait to hear how uou liked your excursions. Welcome Back!!

 

[TestingH2O]

Of the 2050 guests onboard 1791 were repeat cruisers with DCL.
1050 were either gold or platinum cruisers.

What was the gold/platinum reception like? Most reports of these things say they are in the WDT, but clearly that wouldn't work with over 1000 people.

 

[ironz]

That was Natalie's joke. There were at least 20 of Edge age and 20 Vibe age. I'm not sure about club/lab. There were more under 2 than I could have imagined.

I kept hearing something like 230 kids on board. Maybe up to 300. But with 2000 passengers, that wasn't many, and almost all of them were very well behaved!
Darn-- we never heard about the late night Tiana's thing, but we ended up going to bed on the early side most nights due to long, full days! I certainly don't feel like we missed out by not going. We missed a lot of activities with Jo, sad to say-- schedule conflicts or just not staying up too late. I find her quite funny! But we saw lots of the regular cruise activities staff all the time. So much fun!

 

[owensjro]

What was the gold/platinum reception like? Most reports of these things say they are in the WDT, but clearly that wouldn't work with over 1000 people.

It was in the WDT and was pretty packed. They gave us a a behind the scenes look of a few minutes of Disney Dreams. It was pretty cool as we got to hear the backstage mics and saw them moving everything around.

 

[darnheather]

I am sooo happy to see your post, Heather!! I have been thinking about you!! Sounds like it was amazing!

How did D like Vibe? I know that was a bit of a concern for you leading up to the cruise, wondering if there would be a selection of friends for her. With 20 kids, I am hopeful she had a good time!

Also, how did it go with spending so many hours in San Diego prior to flying back home? Were you able to use your military benefits at the base or in the airport?

I am sooo surprised you did not make it in the pool! That is where we had our nice chat while sailing on the Magic together!!

Looking forward to reading more! Cannot wait to hear how uou liked your excursions. Welcome Back!!

The Vibe was different than usual for sure and being the oldest (she turns 18 in April) she spent more time talking to the counselors but she still had a great time. She felt a little betwixt and between though. I did sign her up for the teen massage since they didn't do the CC teen excursion and that was fantastic.

We did use the USO for about 2 hours before heading home in San Diego and it is SO nice. Very friendly volunteers and a gorgeous space. It was just what we needed. Thanks for thinking of us.

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

The woman I talked to about Princess didn't really talk about the food too much it was more about the drinks situation. She didn't like the fact there was nowhere to get drinks outside of meals other than the bars. She also mentioned that she felt the need to upgrade to a much higher class of stateroom than she would normally take on DCL due to the size of inside cabins. Of course the ships that go to Alaska are always the smaller ones so again all this is subjective.

I've noted that about cabin sizes on Princess. We plan to sail Princess in Alaska for Glacier Bay, and have decided that we need a mini-suite. I don't really want DD sleeping on a bunk above my head. That feels like a no for me - she needs to be in her little curtained off area.

 

[jdb in AZ]

It's o.k. to sail on another cruise line that boldly goes where DCL doesn't.

 

[owensamo]

We got a chance to chat with you @darnheather - it was nice to meet you! We were some of the Platinums on the ship, and we *will* sail Celebrity again - but we love Disney for the longer cruises with more sea days. Though I have to say - we certainly did less activities and more relaxing on this cruise, so maybe in the future I would feel less like I have to get back to the boat in order to not miss a moment of the ship!

We did book a placeholder, but we're debating what to do with it. We still haven't sailed the Dream, and we might be interested in the Fantasy next summer. But we also found a Celebrity Australia/New Zealand cruise that could work in the fall - something DCL doesn't do at a pretty decent price. It all depends on where my little artist ends up going to college. I keep trying to talk DH into at least booking the cruises on the chance we take them, to get the current pricing...