In an effort to get our families to experience more of the world than just the Caribbean, we decided to book an Alaskan cruise. We are 2 families who cruise together regularly (moms are cousins) and this time we both invited our parents to come along and see what we've been raving about for so many Disney cruises now. One family has 5 kids (20, 19, 9, 6, and 3) and the other has 2 kids (11 and 8). Grandparents ranged in age from 66-84. Boarding the ship was simple. While the hotels very close to the port in Vancouver were CRAZY expensive, especially for a crew of our size, we were able to find an all suites hotel a few blocks inland that was VERY reasonable. We flew into Seattle (saved 50% on airfare), and took the train up to Vancouver Friday morning. We ended up having a 3+ hour delay, so the normally 4 hour trip took over 7. We were VERY comfortable on the train, kids were entertained and could move around, so all in all we didn't mind. I would NOT recommend trying to take the train on Monday as you're supposed to be at the port by 3pm. (We went early to get the kids acclimated to the time change.) The inside passage is VERY VERY VERY calm. No rocking at all like most other cruises. The first night we had fog, so the ship horn blasted every 2 minutes. ON THE DOT. Good to not crash into people or boats. Bad for sleeping. (Use white noise!!) We saw ample whales, seals, eagles, etc from the balcony. Many times, we just wanted to go back to the room to watch for whales!! (Side note: Orcas are WAY smaller than you think they're going to look in the wild from a big cruise ship!! FYI! Lots of splashing and they're FAST.) We saw MANY MANY humpbacks during this trip. The final sea day was the BEST whale watching of all. Don't take the Tracey Arm day lightly...it's BREATH TAKING!!!! SO much more than I was anticipating. The biggest let down of the cruise was the service and the food. Nothing huge. No glaring errors, but just small things like we'd bought a wine package and the unfinished bottles weren't waiting for us at our table when we arrived like they had on all our other Disney cruises. (4 to be specific.) The kid's didn't have drinks waiting for them on this cruise. Our party of 15 was supposed to be linked in the system, which we confirmed with DCL directly via the phone several weeks prior to sailing, yet half our party was on a completely DIFFERENT DINING ROTATION when we got on board. My cousin and I had to go fix it as soon as we were on board. Palo wouldn't let us make a reservation for the 10 adults we had, and made a huge deal about our party when we tried to fix our 2 separate reservations so we could all eat together....yet when we dined there the restaurant was only 1/4 full the entire time we were there. The kids enjoyed the muppet interactive scavenger hunt on the Fantasy MUCH more than the Anna and Elsa hunt on this ship. The kid's club crew wasn't as interactive and entertaining with the kids. If they wanted to do one activity in the club and then another activity in the lab later on, the crew didn't inform them the new activity was starting, so they missed it because they were doing something (like a small craft) filling the time. All of the younger kids were MUCH less impressed with the cast members in the kids club on this ship. The food is really rather blah. On every other sailing (Fantasy and Dream), I had multiple meals I could RAVE about....only Palo gets that note here. Tiana's was HIGHLY interactive, but the food was meh. I'm not sure if it was just the size of our party or not, but the photographers only took our pictures at dinner once at our table. When you pay $300 for the photo package, I'd like to see A LOT more of those types of photos at the end of my cruise. All in all, it was ALASKA!! It was amazing! BUT the Disney caliber cruises I've come to know and love just missed a bit on this one. I don't know if that's because it was Alaska, or because the staff on this ship just isn't being held to as high of a standard, but it was noticed. (Incidentally, another family we met on the train ride up had the exact same feelings.) We will absolutely sail again. Our kids LOVED Alaska and the fun adventures we took while we were gone. They are still talking about seeing all sorts of cool stuff from our balcony. These memories will last a life time (for everyone except the 3 year old), and all in all I'm very glad we went. Excursions: We did NOT do the extra boat in Tracy Arm (Acutally we went into Endcott Arm b/c there was too much ice in TA) and it was still amazing. OH OH OH and make time to go see the Naturalist's lectures!! They were fascinating and added so much understanding to what we were seeing. Ketchikan - cold and rainy that day - we did Zip lining....very fun but we were pretty wet in the end. We had plans of warm showers and then going back in to explore the town, but the rain wouldn't let up so we just continued to enjoy the ship. Juneau - we did the helicopter tour to the top of the glacier. (Booked via Viator.....saved several hundred $$) The dog sledding part was cancelled because it had been so warm that the snow melted and they had to close the dog camp. Walking on the glacier was AMAZING. Kids loved the helicopter ride as well. When else could we do that!!? We had to fork over the $. Skagway - grandparents, dad, and sons went Salmon fishing and LOVED LOVED LOVED it. It was the ONLY picture my 9 year old wanted to bring to show his class from his summer vacation. I took the girls on the Duck Boat tour and then we walked around town. Meh. it was ok. It was good to get out and get a little city tour. Before our cruise, we did a whale watching tour out of Vancouver harbor. That was great! (Also booked on viator) Alaska is definitely a bucket list place for most people. We are glad we sailed Disney with our families for all of the entertainment. All of us had things we wanted to do and didn't get to on our 7 day sailing. Read Less

Son wanted to cruise on Disney. I didn’t care. I personally would rather go back to Disney World. We had a good experience for the most part. Our servers were excellent & friendly. I’m not a fan of sharing a table, other people didn’t have to, my son had an issue with it. I wish we were told prior. We bought the $300 photobook with the thought they would take pictures of us. That’s the biggest joke ever. We got 58 pictures of us, probably 15 were nice, we had to look for people to take pictures of us. We approached one lady to ask her to take a picture of us, she said no, I only take pictures in the dining room. If you do the math, that’s $5 for each picture. It’s a ripoff. This was the biggest disappointment of the whole cruise. When I ask my son what he liked the most, he says the detective game. Read Less

Everyone was telling us how incredible the Disney cruises were, so we paid a premium price to take our daughter (7r old) and took off. It was a good cruise. But nothing to write home about. We've been on Princess twice and those ships were better. Customer Service on the ship and cleanliness are what stands out for Disney. The biggest issue was the pools are ship, layout are small and terrible. And then get this, the waters were slightly rocky so the captain decided not to visit one of our ports - Grand Cayman! Seriously?? They could have at least tried to compensate us in some way but refused (visit another island, voucher, etc). When I called customer service after the cruise, she flatly said no they wouldnt do anything to make up for this. I was annoyed. Also the food was lukewarm during dinners because they've expanded their restaurants to hold more pple. Great decor but mediocre food. Read Less

My 6 year old, and 12 year old both had a blast. My 12 year old spent the vast majority of time at The Edge...we rarely saw her. My 6 year old was in love with meeting the princesses, going to the boutique, and swimming in the pool. My nearly 14 month hold, however, only went to the Edge a few times, and was bored the rest of the time. The horrible teens running around the ship, nearly slamming into people, literally falling out of the elevators when the doors opened...they were from The Vibe. I wouldn't sign the paper allowing her to go there. I didn't want her to be a part of all of that. Embarkation was great. We had a deluxe family veranda suite with concierge service so we were able to get on the ship with no waiting except for security which is expected. The ship is beautiful for sure, but the pools are fairly small. So they filled fast. We had dinner once in The Enchanted Garden which we all kind of felt was out dated. The Royal Palace was beautiful. We ate there twice. We were supposed to eat at the Animator's Pallet but we skipped it. We were just too full...but I was really looking forward to seeing the changing walls. The movie selection looked great, but we never really had time to go because they didn't time the movies well...they cut into dinner, and other things that were happening on board. Like the live shows. Or sleep (starting Moana at 11pm??). They didn't start during the times we were sitting twiddling our thumbs with nothing to do. Service was fine, the concierge was great. I came down with a cold or something starting on day one, and day two the concierge provided my husband when he asked where to find it, with dayquil for free. I went in after and got nyquil so I could sleep better. The excursion in Nassau we went on was the hour city bus tour and Ardastra Gardens (which is a zoo). While Nassau looks like it has a lot of potentially beautiful areas, the bus tour didn't show much of it, and took us to a little parking lot where there were people waiting to sell stuff. So if you decide to take this excursion, make sure you bring some cash or stay in the bus. The zoo was sad. I honestly hate to say that because it's pretty there, and the kids had fun. The flamingo "show" didn't seem so nice when you realize it's just a guy scaring the birds to run around. Very few animals are in enclosures...the majority are in cages. There was one monkey there, alone, in a large cage. The highlight there though was the feeding of the parrots by hand. They land on your arms and eat apple slices from your hand. If I were to ever go to Nassau again, I'd probably do my own research and figure out where to go based on time there...but most likely I'd stay on the boat. We planned on a glass bottom boat tour in Castaway Cay but the choppy water was too rough and so most (or many) excursions there were canceled including that one. So we just went back to the boat...which ended up being for the better since it poured and there were tons of people in line getting soaked trying to get back on the boat. The character meet and greets took 30+ minutes to get through the lines and by the time you got to the line, you were actually in another line...the one you wanted to see was closed some 10 people up in line. Their billing is odd on the ship. My mom ordered a drink from Currents and bought me a bottle of water (with my cold I was pounding the water). On her bill it was charged as a non-alcoholic drink for $11.44. They didn't separate them and we were really confused...we thought they charged us that much for a bottle of water. I took my daughter to the boutique for a princess makeover. I chose the crown package for $70. That charge was on our bill, but so was another for something like $250 both labeled the same. So when we should've been lining up for express walk off (early debarkation), we went to guest services to find out why we were charged so much. It turns out it was an event charge (which I knew about) for the Royal High Tea Party. It had nothing to do with the boutique...except that's where they charge it. So it says the boutique. This held us up, as there were only 2 people working at the counter...on debarkation day, when a bunch of people have questions about their bills, or other things. So...express debarkation is that you leave at like 7am. This would be before the rest of the people on the ship, except the harsh reality is that half the ship turns out to do it. (likely to catch early planes, and avoid staying another night in Orlando, or wherever they're at). When you are royal caribbean concierge, you leave before everyone else, so it's not crowded, no lines, etc. It's nice because you get out to the parking lot and there's no traffic to fight. We didn't need to worry about that since we had a private transfer but for others, you pay a LOT for concierge...perks are a good thing. And they're absent on Disney Cruises. RC you get reserved seating at shows...not Disney. After taking a RC cruise and comparing these two I really felt let down. The private transfer we used was Happy Limo. It was amazing when they swapped out a minivan for an actual limo and picked us up from the Art of Animation resort to take us to the ship. Not so much when the next driver who was speeding and nearly killed us when he didn't see the stopping cars and swerved into a lane that was ending on the right just to prevent hitting anyone. It wasn't a horrible trip or anything, I just won't be doing another Disney Cruise. Read Less

My daughter asked her Papa and I to join her and our three grandchildren on the kid's first cruise. My husband and I have sailed on 18 cruises...Alaska, Hawaii, South America, and every cruise to the Carribean. We took one cruise on a ship out of Puertio Rico doing two back-to-back 14 day cruises. One whole month in Paradise. We love cruising. We had grown up watching Walt on nine inch tvs. How we loved Walt and the Mickey Mouse Club.. When our girls were growing up we took them to Disneyland. We took them to Disney World. We flew our daughters, their spouses, and our six grandchildren for 7 days at Disney's New Orleans resort and Disney World park. I never expected Walt to ever disappoint us. Yet, he did. I would never take this cruise line again. We left Cape Canaveral and our first day out I felt concern. We diverted to Miami after a gentleman took a serious fall down the main marble stairway. Critically hurt, when I saw a rescue boat arrive beside the boat to remove him from the ship, I realized that there was no helioport onboard. On two cruises, we saw people choppered out after serious health conditions. After a career in medicine, I could not help but think of that critical hour window of time which happens with critical medical conditions. The trip was great...really great for young children. Our grandchildren, aged 9, 12, and 15 enjoyed their first cruise. Yet, they spent most of the time at our side. They tried the children activities the first day, but did not like the activities. So they played miniture golf and used the amazing water slide a lot. The food onboard was inferior to the ships we have cruised on. It came to the table cool..not hot. Three nights I did not see a dessert on the menu that I liked. Our wait staff was excellent and I loved the beautiful .three diningrooms where our staff accompanied us to a different one each night.The maitre-D was accommodating We had a seventh floor balcony room. The greatest room ever. I loved the bathrooms! One with a sink commode...one with a sink and tub shower! It had the most storage on any ship of the ships we sailed. It had a full couch and constant reception in the rooms for news and sports. Very family oriented! Our room attendant, Scotty was excellent. I do not get a lot of time with my daughter and her family She lives in Minnesota and is a licensed nurse practitioner at Mayo Hospital. A job extremely demanding. We live in Iilinois. The first at-sea day was extremely disappointing. We were up early and got chaises in a family area near a small pool. We had two or three hours and went to lunch---we were gone thirty to forty minutes ! We left our towels on chairs. We came back and our towels were removed. Other people as taken our chaises. I asked the deck attendant! Oh, that is our policy..a book, a bag, was laid aside on the floor. THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED ON ANY CRUISE SHIP I HAVE SAILED ON#!!!! We could not find anywhere to sit. We went to our cabins!!! The medical physician and nurses were excellent! I had got onboard for the trip on prednisone due to problems due to suffering with systemic lupus and a rash I developed!!! However I had finished my meds. I took a cold, had a rash, and high temp.. I was given more prednisone. I spent 24 hour in my room. At Castaway Key...the last day on the ship my family and nearly everyone else went ashore! I returned to the top deck where we were the day our chairs were taken. I read. I napped. It was early. Shortly about 11 a.m. the deck attendant came and started stacking all the chaises. I asked him why? Well,he told me they had to to get ready for the new vacationers getting aboard the next day. I told him this was my cruise and he brushed me off. . He wanted to ad my chases to the stack. I gathered my things. I went to Guest Relations and nicely told the receptionist that I had paid for that last day. She just brushed me off. I told her I had no doubt their ship would always be filled. They would have repeat cruisers. But having talked to other fellow cruisers....ones who have cruised on Celebrity, Holland America, Princess, Norwegian...they also in the past week had told me they would, like us, never cruise Disney again. All other cruise lines treat you with respect. On Celebrity..you are one! There were never attendants from the bar walking around to ask if you would like a drink! In smoking areas....ashtrays run over....you are invisible. No, WALT DISNEY' let us down. How we never expected that.. Read Less

Let me start by saying that I am an avid Disney fanatic. I go to Disneyland, Disney World, or a Disney Cruise once or twice a year for the past 20 years, and it seems that as the years progress, my experience keeps getting worse. October 1st was my first experience on the Disney Dream, and the ship was magnificent and grand. In fact, it was so big that me and my wife decided we would stick with the smaller ships from now on since it took so long to get from one place to the other. The benefit of sailing on a ship this size is that it dispersed the crowds so that you had room to move around. I had a cabin with a veranda, but the room was rather narrow and cramped (it seems that on the Wonder the rooms are wider). When we did spend time on the veranda, there was never anyone outside next to us or above us. Since they did away with smoking verandas I guess there isn't really much need to spend time outside (and I will get to that in a minute). The service from the staff was excellent (as always) but seems to be a little more catered on the smaller ships. Excellent wait staff at the evening dinners, and quite wonderful. The buffet (Cabana's) had a lot of food to choose from, but the quality wasn't as good as on the smaller vessels. The desserts were definitely not as good and not a wide selection (Betty Crocker quality). The live evening shows in the Walt Disney Theater were wonderful (if you haven't seen the same ones over and over again on every ship), and the Buena Vista Theater allowed us to see "Inside Out" and "Antman" which we had not seen in the local theaters. Due to the hurricane conditions in the Bahamas, we were diverted in the opposite direction and instead of docking in Nassau, we spent the day at sea. Why they don't go to another destination instead, I don't know, but after all...we don't choose sailing because we want to actually go some place, we sail because we want to see which direction they go to get there. I personally would have settled on Miami, or even Cuba. But so what if our Nassau cruise didn't actually go to Nassau....who cares. Now, back to the smoking verandas. They don't offer them anymore, I guess because people complain about smoke. I don't know who would complain that much, considering that all of the smoking verandas used to be located together. I had two options in which to smoke. One was on the 4th floor deck (right side of the ship) and the other was on the 12th deck (next to a bar and with no covering overhead). My cabin was on the other side of the ship, and it took about 10 minutes to reach each of these locations. One particular night, I was told by an employee on the 4th floor that I could not go outside on the deck to smoke because of the high wind, upon making my way to the 12th deck bar area, it was raining heavily and I got drenched. Now most of you will probably say, good for you smoker, but I have a response. I know Disney caters to families, and we shouldn't allow children to tolerate the filthy habit of smokers, but come on....is one addiction better than another? The Disney Dream has about 9 bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. They serve alcohol to adults near the children's pools and the dance party on Pirate night is full of children dancing with their parents who have a Bahama Mama in their hand. I am a recovering drinker (2 years) and I find it rather hard to be around those who drink. If Disney wished to limit smoking on their ships due to people who complain, they need to limit their drinking to adults only areas (bars). Moving on....due to the storms letting up, we were able to dock at Castaway Cay (even though all shore excursions were cancelled). It turned out to be a great day for relaxing and looking at the water (very few swimmers due to the wind and high tide). Leaving the ship and going through customs on the last day was a pleasant experience. They have attendants, who for a tip, will gather up your luggage and take you through the whole process. We paid our attendant $20.00 and he managed to have us out of the line and on our bus back to the Disney resorts in 5 minutes. Despite my negativity, I would not sail on any other cruise line but Disney; but then again, because of Disney's policies, I may not ever sail again. Read Less

We have sailed previously in the Disney Fantasy but this time my family went sailing on the Disney Wonder on january 2015. Save money and wait for the Disney Fantasy experience. The Wonder ship overall is decent, but not wonderful, just ok. Service was good also, only that the joyful spirit experienced at the Fantasy cannot be compared at all with the Wonder. Food menu and variation is for mediocres.... totally unflavored, cold and super limited. Theaters and pools were extremely crowded since they are small size compared to the amount of people sailing. I won't say we did not have good times as a family but I was expecting way much more. Our visit to Castaway Cay was a mess: we could not get off the ship until almost midday, water was super cold, cold winds as if there was a hurricane and all port adventures cancelled except for swimming with stingrays in the freezing water as safety measures. There was nothing exceptional that I could point out other than the room movies, fruits, vanilla ice cream, chicken tenders and pirate night fireworks. We also had a really bad experience at the Quiet Cove with a group of people trying to dump me (25 years old) and my sister (20 years old) from the place literally harassing us alleging that we were lying about our ages and the right to enjoy of the adults jacuzzi. I mean we could have seemed to be younger but that does not mean that people can commit to dump others out just because they feel they are not the right age. Security did came and asked for all of our information to checked our ages in the system but that did not make up for the disrespect and the bad time that we experienced for almost 45 minutes. On the other hand, my husband and I went sailing on the Disney Fantasy on april 2014. There were by far more ups than downs. The Fantasy ship overall is really gorgeous, spacious and super neat... including the cabins and bathrooms all around. The service goes above and beyond and the spirit is wonderful. Not great are the food and the value for the money but plates are sincerely beautiful and the variety in the buffet is very good although most of the times the food do not have flavor at all. We had a wonderful time but the money spent is worth of consideration. This time our visit to Castaway Cay was very good except for the water's temperature which was really coooold. I must say we had a blast in the Watercraft Ski Adventure. Best things are cleanliness, spirit, Aqua-duck, pirate night fireworks, free variety of cold drinks, beautiful ship, comfort, Palo dining, Remi dining, Chankanaab Park at Cozumel and Watercraft Ski at Castaway Cay.   Read Less

We greatly enjoyed our recent cruise on the Disney Wonder traveling to Grand Cayman and Cozumel. A bit about me: I am in my early 20s. I travelled with my husband, mother, and teenage brother. No children in our party. We all love Disney! This was my first Disney cruise, previously we have cruised Carnival and Royal Caribbean. We will start with the not-so-good -Food-the food was just okay. It was better than what we eat at home, but the food often came overcooked & really didn't impress us much at all. There are also very limited choices in venue & variety out of the dining room compared to other cruise lines. Room service choices were very limited. The iced tea is also a no-go. -Entertainment-generally in the "good" section other than Toy story, the musical, which was truly terrible. Everyone in our group agreed that they took the least interesting & funny parts of the story and wrote mediocre songs about it. I was very impressed by the sets and costumes for about 5 minutes, then literally fell asleep. -Communication-It was very difficult to figure out any information on our specific cruise prior to boarding the ship. When we arrived, it was difficult to discover what was going on each day. Their activities page "The Navigator" isn't in your room the first afternoon. You have to go to guest services to get it. When you do receive it on all of the subsequent evenings, it is disorganized & has unclear or no description of what particular activities are. -Lack of shops-I am shocked that I am saying this about a disney venue, but I wanted to buy a few disney souvenirs and I felt that I had incredibly limited options in their only 2 shops! -Shore excursions-We take "duck tours" as a family every place we visit, however I do not recommend the tour of Grand Cayman that we scheduled through Disney. There was very little interesting or historical information on this particular tour especially for the prices that they charge. We had much more fun doing excursions through the vendors on shore. We primarily used the same companies that serve Disney, however for much lower costs than booking through the cruise ship. -Layout of the ship-Usually by the 2nd day, I know how to get anywhere I want to go on a ship, however I just couldn't get the hang of this layout for some reason. It is odd, because it is the smallest ship that I have ever sailed on! -Characters-we wanted to get a picture with Mickey & waited in line 45 minutes to see him. It would have been faster to drive down to Disneyland! Now for the good and great! -Service-this is where Disney truly is exemplary, going above and beyond in every way. Every single staff member in every department went that extra mile, which would truly make a difference when you have young children. For example, our dining room server pre-ordered the desserts that we liked even though they weren't on the menu, the merchandise team searched high and low in their back room to obtain products we wanted, and when we complained of construction noise in our room, the guest services team's attention to the situation verged on annoying. In every not-so-good mentioned above, a cast member did more than expected to make it right. -Music-there wasn't as much live music as we would have liked, but what we did see was exceptional. -Palo-I wasn't sure if it was worth the extra cost myself, but during dinner, my husband said "I would pay $100 to eat this steak again." So he was impressed enough for both of us. -Entertainment-the broadway-style shows were almost all exceptional & the comedians & other entertainers were family-friendly even in the adult shows, which I enjoyed. -The ports-we spent the maximum hours on shore! In Grand Cayman, we snorkeled off the shore, simply renting the equipment for $18 from a little place walking distance from the tender called "Paradise." In Cozumel, we visited the mayan ruins & walked around shopping at little markets & bartering a bit. If you enjoy history, the mayan ruins are a must! -The regular coffee was actually much better than I had expected. -Seeing current disney movies on a cruise ship-yes please! Just be prepared for a crowded & noisy theater of small children. With every song from Frozen, there were at least a half dozen little ones singing along (which I found to be completely adorable). -Adult areas-very nice. Not as overly-crowded as other cruise ships seemed to be. -Decoration and overall feel of this ship, including stateroom =) Summary-We enjoyed ourselves completely! I would definitely consider a Disney cruise again when we have young children. I think that simply the service of the staff would make all the difference in the world! Until then, we just would not justify the rising cost of Disney in comparison to other cruise lines & will most likely return to Royal Caribbean & Carnival.   Read Less

My husband and I are annual passholders at Disney, so needless to say we are normally fans. As first time cruisers we were beyond excited for this trip that we had planned for over a year. People were surprised that we would take a Disney cruise when we are a very young couple without children. After watching videos and talking to Disney who assured us there were plenty of adult only activities as well as areas on board we decided to take the chance. Unfortunately, our experience did not live up to the hype. Categories and our thoughts on each are included below. Embarkation: Super easy and fast especially for first time cruisers like us. Kudos to Disney on this aspect. Food: Total let down here :0(. First of all, the food in the normal rotational dining rooms is STRANGE to say the least. There were several times we wanted to ask for a child's menu so that we could eat something normal. My husband asked once if he could have a specific ingredient taken out of his dish and we were told that it was already pre-plated. For example, I ordered a crab cake appetizer one night (the most normal appetizer on the menu) and it was set over a carrot/golden raisin salad. Whatever happened to Cesar salad and a starch option? Our table mates also shared the same sentiment about the odd food. Cabanas, the casual buffet we frequented for most of our lunch/breakfast, faired better with our not so refined palates but still lacked significantly. Pretty much the same food was offered each day at both breakfast and dinner. On the sea day I was overly excited to see crab claws while in line until I sat down to eat them and realized they were served cold. YUCK! Adults who wanted to grab a late night snack better like pizza because that's all that was available after a specific time of night. Yes, there was an option of 24 hour room service but that basically only offered a few additional sandwich options. The lack of food at the rotational restaurants left us scrounging for pizza most nights. The one exception to the bad food on the Dream was our night at Palo. The food was "fancy" and plated beautifully, yet it was still normal Italian fare. Everything was SENSATIONAL and we almost wished we had paid to eat there every night. Do not miss the quattro formaggi pizza or the chocolate lava cake! Service: Another high five to Disney here :0)! Rudy, our room host, was fabulous and always greeted us in the mornings or evenings with a smile on his face. We had our room cleaned twice a day which is a little overkill for us but it was still nice to come back to a new towel animal and a nice clean bathtub or made up bed. Rudy is a keeper! Additionally, our servers Maynor and Edwin made our otherwise unpleasant dining on the Dream enjoyable. They were attentive, funny, and willing to get us whatever we may need. The rest of the dream crew was equally as helpful and never hesitated to answer questions or take us where we needed to go when we asked directions. Quiet Cove Pool: Should be called quiet, boring,better get to early or forget getting a good lounge chair cove. There was only one out of the four days that I was able to find a lounge chair in the sun at the adults only pool. This I suspect is only because my husband and I returned from Castaway Cay early this day. There was absolutely no music or liveliness to this area whatsoever. There was a steel drum man that was very pleasant but seemed to be restricted to only playing slow, old songs on his drums. There were two decent size hot tubs in the adult area but this was not enough for the amount of adults whom were trying to use them. On any additional days that I wanted to lay out by the pool I was forced to go to the family pool (the sun deck above quiet cove was out of use due to wind). Disney could have made a much larger area for the adults and made it a point to get some fun activities going over there from time to time like I observed them doing at the family pool. Adults like to have fun too Disney! Shows: The shows were decent on the Dream and probably what you would expect from a Disney ship. Personally, I feel as if Villians Tonight should be there main hyped show instead of Believe. Believe was cheesy and uninteresting for even someone like me who normally enjoys the singing, happy, happy, shows. Characters: One piece of advice here. If you expect to get pictures with the characters in their sailor outfits or their evening attire, then you better also expect to wait an hour in line to do so. Way unorganized and annoying! "Adult Entertainment" (or lack there of...): My husband and I participated in a number of pre-dinner sports trivia games while on our cruise. They were extremely fun and enjoyable for us. Unfortunately, they only lasted about 15 to 20 minutes. The "dance" club evolution also put on some fun games like "match your mate" and karaoke where you got shots for singing. However, once again these games were VERY short lived and many could not be participated in by everyone. They always seemed in a rush to get on the "celebrity DJ Cide" for the dance club and we had no idea why. This is mostly because the music he played was HORRIBLE. No wonder there was barely anyone in the club at night and only about half the people actually danced. There was an adult group that may have been about 15 years older than us that mentioned to us in the hallways they had the same sentiment as us here. The DJ played mostly old 70's, 80's, and techno hits. I am all for playing all kinds of music but can we at least get some top 40 here and there?!? My husband requested a song, which the DJ said he would play, but after an hour of sitting waiting for it to come on we decided to leave. However, another couple asked for a very strange techno song and it was played right away. For the lack of people there were in the club he probably should have played all requests to keep the party jumping. Personally, we feel as if Disney should spend more time on the games and less time on the sucky dance parties. Furthermore, there are 50 million lounges on the Dream that NO ONE really goes to and are frankly very dull. The most frequented was the sports lounge where adults stayed to watch football and play the trivia. We were so disappointed in the lack of fun we were encouraged to have on the boat and we will probably try a more adult centered cruise like the princess next time. Castaway Cay: Very beautiful, especially Serenity Bay. However, I find it worrisome that Disney feels as if adults do not need lifeguards on their beach. What is to happen if someone passes out while out farther in the sea and no one notices them? The family beach had lifeguard towers in the water and Disney would be smart to avoid a lawsuit and do the same for the adult beach. Further, yes relaxation is GREAT but again, sometimes adults want to have some fun too! All of the volleyball courts, basketball goals, and other activities were held on the family beaches. Absolutely nothing was going on for the adults. As you can probably tell, my husband and I will be trying a different cruise line next time. It seems as if Disney has some sort of idea that adults only want to use their vacation for rest and relaxation. Although this is partly true, we also like to get up and get moving too! It is unfair to expect couples without children to join in on the family activities and feel left out when they have to join in with these groups. There should be more adult only activities offered. In addition, they do not need to try so hard on the food. A simple choice of meat, salad, starch, and vegetables would have been just fine for us. The only area this cruise did not lack is in service. I wish we could take this crew and move them over to another ship :0)! Read Less

I've definitely heard the term "great product, not for us" thrown around a few times lately...and I have to say that this is probably the best way to describe our experience with Disney Cruise Line. Now, there will be no bashing here-because we really did have an amazing time, and I think that if one is traveling with children, Disney Cruise Line is probably by far the best way to go. But I have to write from the heart about my experience, and writing from the heart means admitting things like: we checked with the onboard booking specials and could have gotten a great price (for a Disney cruise, anyway) on a cruise in October, but decided to forgo that option because as adults traveling without children, the experience simply wasn't worth the cost for us. First things first-I do have to express my absolute love of Disney's alcohol policy, that being: if you can fit it in the designated carry-on, you can get it on the ship! We brought four pint bottles and some nippers with us, and I can't even fathom how much money that saved us in the long run. That, and it was nice to be able to run by the (free!) drink station and mix up a nice strong rum and coke or bourbon and coke when the urge grabbed us, rather than heading off to a bar and just hoping that they put a proper amount of alcohol in your drink. However. In the end, the cost of the cruise itself was prohibitive enough that we probably could have gone on another cruise line (for instance, we could have spent half the amount on the cruise and had an oceanview room on Royal Caribbean rather than an inside room on Disney) and ended up spending the same amount on cruise fare plus alcohol as we did on just the cruise fare for Disney. Another huge plus for this cruise was the adults-only area. Better lounge chairs, a nice quiet pool, and two jacuzzis-it was perfect. There were maybe two times when cast members had to ask children to leave the area, but the point is-they actually asked them to leave. Adults only means adults only! (And thank God for that). Plus it was right next to the spa, and we purchased Rainforest Room passes in order to take advantage of their amazing steam rooms and aromatherapy showers. We also enjoyed the adults-only Cove Cafe quite a few times-great coffee, great little snacks (mini caprese sandwiches and the like), and the best service on the ship! Last but not least, I could never say enough good things about Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. Beautiful, clean, and again-an amazing adults-only area. Not to mention beachfront cabanas in which one can receive a massage. We partook in this "activity" and it was the most amazing massage I've ever had-mainly because of the location, but let's not get picky, right? Now, for the not-so-amazing bits...the food was good, but not the best I've had on a cruise. I was only truly impressed on two separate occasions-when we went to the buffet for lunch on the first day, and when we went to Palo for dinner. Of course, the only time I was actually unimpressed was when I tried the pizza at the poolside counter. It was gummy and tasteless and kind of, well, gross. But otherwise, our dinner at Parrot Cay on the first night was above average, and the dinner at Animator's Palate on the last night was okay as well. The deck parties (the sail away party on the first day, and the Pirate party on the second night) were very obviously geared toward children. I remember loving the sail away party on my Carnival cruise, so I was a bit disappointed with Disney's...the area where it was held (decks nine and ten) were simply too small for the crowd of people. I think the Pirate party could have been a total blast had I not spent the entire time being jostled by the family standing next to us and worrying about the fact that the mother had her 5 or 6 year old son standing on top of a trash can on the top deck of the boat. This was the one time when I was truly frustrated that cast members were walking by us and not saying anything to this mother about her children. Finally, our stop in Nassau was very disappointing, but I won't go into detail about that now, because it really is an entire separate blog in itself. When I said that this was a great product-I still think that if you are cruising with young children (as in, any children under the age of 12), Disney Cruise Line is the way to go. Their deck parties and shows are geared toward kids. They offer discounted children's rates, which other cruise lines don't. Sodas and whatnot are included with your meals and if you get them from the drink station on deck nine, so there's no paying extra for a soda card once on board. They've got opportunities to meet characters left and right. Their rooms are bigger than other cruise lines. And I can only imagine that it would be a great vacation to do a 3 day cruise and then spend 4 days at Walt Disney World. Would I do another Disney cruise? Yes, if I had the extra vacation and if the price actually dropped to $400 per person or less for an inside cabin. I would do it for the Cove Cafe, the adults-only area, the Rainforest room at the spa, Castaway Cay and the beachfront couples massage. And again, we did have an amazing vacation regardless! I just wish that it hadn't been quite so pricey, because I'm not sure we really got our money's worth. Read Less