We took our 8 year old grand diva on the Disney Magic. We are young grandparents (49/47) So I believe we were more excited then she may have been. From the VERY beginning Disney was a First Class Act. From Check In to Check Out. Everything went smoothly. I was so nervous how she would do with the wait and the crowd prior to boarding. Disney had it all covered. Characters Characters Characters. The entire Staff made sure once we hit the pier, we didn't have to worry about a thing. They took such great care of us. The staff was amazing. Your Servers will become your best friends the entire cruise. If you lucky enough to get VICTOR, you will walk away with many many great memories for sure. I was extremely pleased with the rotation of the dining. Every dining room was amazing and they remember everything about you. What you like, what you cant eat and what you what 2 helpings of each day. Shows Shows Shows. WOW!. Food Food Food WOW! If you can, get a stateroom with a Verandah. Portside. You will not be disappointed EVER. If you twisted my arm to give 1 thing which I was less happy - it would be the breakfast buffets. Nothing really made me personally jump for joy BUT my grand diva loved it. Espec her Mickey waffles and Cereal. You cant go wrong with finding food you like. On Deck you can eat eat and eat some more.(or get 100 ice cream cones like me hehe - real soft serve) We all had an amazing time! I see why people continue traveling with disney. I would for sure try a different ship and go again. Disney, Job Well Done! Read Less

We had concierge suite 8582 and it was the most beautiful suite we have ever seen or stayed in. It was impeccably clean and and kept that way all 5 days. There was never a disappointment with the turn-down service or anything else related to the stateroom. If you are fortunate enough to have Andrae as your wait service staff in the dining rooms you will never be disappointed. He made our granddaughter feel special and, for us, that's what we were looking for. He is such a hard worker and it is apparent that he strives to make you leave the dining room happier than when you came in. All of the food we had was just out of this world. Speaking of happy; Andy from concierge was SO amazing! I wish I could remember the names of the young ladies in concierge because they were all so happy and willing to assist in any way they could to make you feel like you were the only people on that ship. I don't understand how they did that with 2,000 other people on it, but they did! Again...Andy, ladies, I can't thank you enough for making this first Disney Cruise for us so special. Rina from the spa, thank you for giving me the most relaxing 2 hours I've had in a long time. Ladies, I recommend you write her name down and make an appointment with her as soon as you board the ship. Her skills are amazing and she makes you feel like you've known her forever. There are two reasons I didn't give this experience 5 stars. The first is the character experience. I wish they could figure out a way to make the characters more accessible to the kids. With so many people, the lines were a mile long. The second reason is the swimming pools. There were so many people in the swimming pools that it was a place to get wet but no room to swim around. Kids were wall to wall. I don't know how it could be improved though. Neither of these things kept us from having an exceptional vacation. There is so much to do on the ship. My granddaughter LOVED the Royal Tea with the princesses. Please book ahead. It is an amazing experience...and bring your princess dress! Disney does such a great job making your little princes and princesses feel special. One can tell that a lot of thought goes into the experience for them. Read Less

It was a wish list to cruise with Disney. Both my wife and I aged 60 self confessed Disney Fans. However the Cruise nearly didn't happen. I had a Heart attack and double by pass surgery 12/2017. This cruise was my motivation to get through surgery. while expensive, this cruise was a great value and worth every bit of the cost. We had 5 days of pure Magic.(except the weather) Cabin 7612 5 star service and clean . Food very good and well presented. The shows excellent and very memorable. Could I find something to complain about ? that would be petty and unreasonable. Would I cruise Disney again Already booked 2019 Panama Canal 14 days on The Wonder Rotational Dining was great. pure Disney Magic. Had Late seating with good table companions. exceptional wait staff. HINT you got to buy the butter knife from AP as a great gift. ATTEMPTED MURDER ON CASTAWAY read on My wife made me Cycle on Castaway in the Rain Read Less

Departing from Miami versus Galveston was a pleasure. Lots of new things to try and a great area to temp your taste buds with Cuban cuisine at its best. We stayed in a deluxe ocean view cabin room. It gave plenty of dresser space but not much to walk around for a family of 4. Truly nothing more was expected. The room had a small tub which made it easy to attend to an infant. The only problem with the cabin was the air went out a couple times and it took a while to fix. Luckily this happened while we were out and about. The downside is if it hadn’t been fixed there were no other rooms available. My chikdren from the 8 year old to the 12 year old loved it. There was not a moment either was bored, complaining, or fingthung. The live entertainment was very Disneyesque and well suited for Kids and adults of all ages. The pool to me is a past time for itty bitty ones so I didn’t find it small since I don’t have an itty bitty. The boys got in on their own while watching a show that was out on. They really enjoyed that along with playin on the slides on the kiddie pool which gave them just enough splash time. A couple mentioned: The spa area is lovely but the staff can be rude. My husband slipped and cut himself and they did nothing much to help. 3rd cruise with Disney and we had a minor problem with checking our. Onboard credits which had been posted and seen there hadn’t picked up. There was a mention or note about them but since they couldn’t actually see the receipt they demanded for us to pay before leaving without verifying any info as requested. 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

I am a single mom with a 7 year old, and I have gushed to anyone that would listen that this was the happiest, most relaxed, and most stress free vacation that I have ever taken!!! Disney sat us at a dining table with other single parents and kids my daughter's age. We had three moms, 1 dad, and four 7-9 year olds.The shows, the room, the boat, the character meet and greets, the kids club and Castaway Cay were AWESOME! My daughter loved the splash pad area on the ship (she's not into slides yet), and I loved relaxing with my book. Restaurants/Food: We had so much fun in Animators Palate guessing which cartoon would be drawn next. We liked the new Tangled restaurant as well; however, we were seated in the back so it was hard to see the characters on stage. They did roam around though and were hilarious when they stopped at our table. So that was fun! The food was good. there was a good selection at the buffet thought sometimes I had to eat it lukewarm by the time I got to my table (but that is just buffet eating). Some was fine, other items were so yummy. My daughter is a picky eater, so when I say that all she ate was fruit loops, mickey waffles, watermelon, macaroni and cheese, and dessert (mainly ice cream bars), I'm not kidding. That's what she ate for 4 days! haha But we were on vacation, so whatever. My two favorite dinners were when I ordered steak. Yum! Character Meet and Greets: We liked that they were all times during the day and the lines really weren't that bad. We had tickets (you didn't pay for them, but needed them) for the princess meet and greet. However, there was a time we caught Cinderella roaming in the main lobby. And we had fun getting our picture with Mickey and Minnie in their many outfits. (I think they packed as much as I did.) The last night lots of characters and people from the different shows came down and stood at different places on each level and you could go get your picture with whoever. THE BEST was Captain Jack Sparrow. Of course, I realized at Disney World long ago that the people characters are the best and so much fun. He was awesome!!! And the best part was the next day when we had been out and gotten back to our room there was a letter from Captain Jack for my daughter and it even mentioned two or three things that they discussed. So neat! Castaway Cay: It was my favorite. I could have done two days there. So relaxing! I'm wishing I was in one of those hammocks right now. the only downer was many excursions were cancelled that day due to the wind, but we still enjoyed ourselves! Kids Clubs: My daughter loved going. We were usually so busy during the day that she only went after dinner. On our sea day, she went some in the afternoon. I always felt comfortable leaving her. She seemed to enjoy herself, though all I ever saw her doing was the IPAD games! LOL My daughter has never hugged and kissed me so randomly all throughout a day before. All day long, she would just lean over and kiss me. She was so happy!!!! she said, "It was the best spring break of my life!" haha Everyone asks what I think about the price in regards to the experience.....well, as a single mom, it was tough. It was saving and asking for Disney gift cards for birthdays and Christmas. But the only thing I have thought about the price since getting back is that we are going on a 5 or 7 day next time! I even went ahead and held a spot for another one while on board. For $250 (which will go toward your next cruise), you have 2 years to book, and you get 10% off and a $200 stateroom credit. So, my daughter and I have already started saving for spring break 2020! Read Less

We just returned from a 5 Day Cruise on the Disney Magic. We departed from Port of Miami. Ports visited were Cozumel and CastawayCay. We had stateroom 2550. The cabin was nice and quite. I really liked the 2 “room” bathroom. With 3 girls ....having the toilet and shower/bathtub in separate rooms was very convenient. The mattress were fairly comfortable. I do believe it’s about time for these mattresses to be replaced. Our stateroom host was great. He couldn’t do enough for us. My granddaughters (8 and 10) loved everything! The kids club (Oceaneers) was a favorite. They could check themselves into the club, and I would pick them up. They enjoyed the musical productions at the end of the day, too. These were well done. The girls loved dressing up on pirates night! (Bring your own costumes. Buying these on the ship are quite expensive). They also loved dressing up in princess dresses, which we bought before we packed for the cruise. We signed up - online - (a few weeks before leaving on the cruise) for ticketed Disney Character events. Do this as early as you can as they “sell” out. These events are free, but you have to sign up. Also we had fun with the Marvel Day-at Sea. Heads up - Since this is basically, just one day, the lines get very long ( hour wait) to meet Capt America and Thor! While we were waiting to get onto the ship, we were given a letter, informing us that the Mexican government recently lifted a tourist warning on traveling between the Cancun area and Cozumel. Nevertheless, Disney was cautiously avoiding excursions across this area. This made me very nervous about doing a reserved snorkeling excursion in Cozumel, so I cancelled it. We did a little shopping in Cozumel...a little overwhelming for an 8 and 10 year old due to lots a cigar smoking and salesmen calling out to us to buy their goods. Not much fun for us. Castaway Cay was a nice break. The captain couldn’t get the ship docked until about noon ( rough seas ) so we only had snacks offered on the island. We had Fun snorkeling (although not much aquatic life to see) . The girls felt comfortable in the floatation vests offered by Disney. We brought our own snorkeling gear since it ran about $100 for the 3 of us to rent them. We loved renting bikes ($10 each) and biking around the island. It was a great way to see the island and the beautiful ocean scenes. Bottom line, the girls had a blast on the cruise! And I loved seeing their joy and excitement. It was nonstop excitement over meeting Disney characters, nonstop high energy throughout the ship! I could hear young moms expressing exhaustion about day 3! My girls loved the pool area, even though the pool looked like a can of packed sardines....so crowded! My only complaint was the quality of the food. Given the price of a Disney Cruise, Disney should definitely improve on their cuisine! I heard multiple passengers complaining. The recent cruises I’ve done on - Celebrity, Royal Caribbean and Holland America; all had far superior cuisine to Disney. My girls weren’t too disappointed because all they cared about were the free ice cream cones and room service delivered cookies and milk at the end of the day. Read Less

Having done my last 3 trips on Carnival and Previous to the on Royal Caribbean was very much looking forward to Disney cruise having heard so many positive things about service and experience. While we enjoyed our trip very little impressed us about Disney. Water Park: Aquduck was very fun and lines were never to long even on a sold out ship Pool not having salt water was nice as well. Dinning: We felt dinner was on par with Carnival, buffet edge went to Disney both on food and having shorter wait times not sure if that was Disney or just a smaller ship that previous sailings Cabin: Traveling with the family split bathroom was nice room. Cabin had broken shower, malfunctioning toilet, and blue water dripping for an AC flood more on that later. Did not take a hot shower once on trip. Luke warm was best. Childrens Club: Lots of great activities for kids, was a step up from previous experiences. Entertainment: Seats in movie theater we to narrow to sit in making watching move impossible. Live shows were Fantastic one area they blew away other trips. Customer Service: Was poor at best. Massive leak took AC out in some areas had to dry clean clothing due to blue water leaking from cabin and hallway. Guest services was either border line rude to apathetic. Water come leaked for 2 of our 5 days. Repair and clean up started at 7AM waking us up 2 days in a row. As different crews argued who's responsibility it was. On every previous trip Cabin stewards know our our family's name and pleasantly greeted us in the hallway not the case on this trip was badgered while trying to get off the ship to confirm out shower had been fixed even after explaining to him we were going to miss our excursion. Disembarkation: Was smooth and pleasant set up time and breakfast was nice touch over other ships. Maybe my expectations were to high having read up about Disney experience and paying 2x times what 8 day Vista trip cost. But would not go back on a Disney Cruise again. While a couple things were nice i was longing for the enjoyment of my previous Carnival trips. Looking forward to trying one of the new RC trips next cruise. Read Less

I had heard such wonderful things about Disney cruises so wanted to give them a try. As far as cruise ships go, it was a nice ship, but not any more special than other cruise ships. The extras of Disney are the quality shows in the evening and the personal touch they give like the announcement when you board the ship. The negatives are that the pool is extremely small and the waterslides are just okay. There was no rock wall or extra activities such as a mini golf course as are on other ships. It is the best bet if you are looking for character interaction for your children. Embarkation went well, but the disembarkation was not smooth at all. It turned into a free for all after breakfast and the lines were crazy long. People were cranky having to wait. I prefer other times where each color is called at a certain time. Overall a nice time and would consider going again for the kids. Read Less

OK. Coming out with anything but A++++ reviews of anything Disney can subject you to a backlash that makes coming out as a Trump supporter pale in comparison. We have many friends who are Disney addicts and have been on numerous DCL cruises as well as numerous annual trips to the parks. Yeah, we aren't "those" people. Don't get me wrong, we LOVE Disney, but it isn't like air and water is to life with us. Taking a DCL cruise was a bucket list item for us and with the kids getting older, now was the time. Found a good rate (for a Disney cruise "good rate" is kinda subjective) over 2 school holidays and we went ahead and booked it. Arrived the night before and stayed at the Hampton Inn Brickell in downtown Miami and it was awesome. Perfect pre or post cruise hotel. 15 min drive to the port and 35 minutes later we were on the boat. Now is Disney can just figure out a way to get the park lines to move that fast! Once on the boat, we immediately went to the pool decks to let the kids start swimming and once we saw the pools, our hearts sunk. We knew the kids swim areas were small on the ship, but we didn't realize they were THIS small. Kiddie pool was maybe 15 ft across and at any given time there would be 20-30 kids running around screaming, splashing, fall on eachother, elbowing each other, etc. It was like a kiddie Thunderdome and watching my 7 year old autistic son try to survive that environment was more stressful than Id have liked. The main pool wasn't much better. VERY small and at any given time packed with tons of kids to the point where you could hardly see the water for all the kids and life jackets. This is what I don't understand. Disney has more money than most small countries and can afford to build whatever they want. They build a boat to hold 2700 people, of which an easy 1500 will be kids, and make the pools smaller than what you'd find in a run down apartment complex. On the "at sea" day, it was truly a nightmare with every child on the boat in and around the small pools. Im sure Disney has some sort of reasoning behind this, and Id love to know what it was. The 2 water slides were ok but always packed too. Ultimately, we were VERY disappointed in that. As far as the room and the rest of the ship, it was very nice. The room was by the aft elevators and was in the perfect spot. Easy walk up or down a cpl floors to get to all the restaurants and the pool decks since they were all in the aft part of the ship. The room was very nice and clean. Beds were amazing. Split bathrooms was a genius idea and having the balcony was a welcome escape of the madness every now and then. Food was BY FAR the best Ive ever eaten. ANYWHERE. Heard DCL does their food up well, but never expected this. They could take the lunch buffet to any casino in Vegas and serve it for dinner and charge $100 per person all night long. And that was lunch!! Dinner was even better. Cabanas was just amazing. Every type of food you could possibly want. Dishes from all over the world made it an adventure every time we went to eat. I got to try alot of dishes Id never had before. Asian, Indian, Mediterranean, you name it. Plus piles of fresh shrimp and stone crab claws and snow crab legs at each meal. Absolutely beyond compare. The sit down restaurants were great too. Lumiere's and Animator's Palate were as promised. Especially AP. We knew it would be fun, but seeing it in person made it even better. Having the wait staff rotate with you nightly to different restaurants was a great idea. They knew what the kids wanted and didn't want and treated us like old friends. This was a smart move by Disney. Ice cream and pizza was the one area where we came out ahead. Kids easily ate 40 ice cream cones over 4 days and we kept the pizza place in business. Not the best pizza, but it filled a void when you were hungry. Room service was good. the BLT was a big hit with us. The steak panini was great too. Would have liked to have a few more choices, but what we had was good. As for drinks in the room, bring your own soft drinks or be prepared to pay for them with room service. Knowing the kids would inevitably want a soft drink while in the room and knowing I wouldn't want to walk up to the pool desk to the soda fountain, we brought a pack of 8 oz pepsi bottles with us. Was definitely a smart move. As for the ship, incredibly clean and well kept. Never saw garbage or anything dirty. Public areas were as clean as your stateroom. After a cpl of days, the Disney themed music kinda begins to wear on you. For the first day or 2 its fun, but after hearing songs from Mary Poppins 500 times while walking around the ship, jumping off becomes a viable option. I didn't go on a Disney cruise expecting to hear hard rock or even most pop music around the pool because most of it isn't really what Id call kid friendly, and Im ok with that. Instead Disney has a playlist of about 25 songs that are palatable to families and plays it on a loop. Over and over and over again. I am a huge U2 fan, but you can only hear "Beautiful Day" so many times before you wished Bono never wrote that song. Again, small things, but when you can't get in the pools and are relegated to sitting on a chair watching the kids, pool music was all we had. The entertainment. Disney really stresses and PR's their kids clubs. They looked very fun and there were always kids in there, but my 12 year old daughter had no desire to go in one by herself and they aren't really set up to take special needs kids, so as a result we didn't use them. As a result, we felt like there wasn't much else to do activity wise. At night after dinner we literally wandered around the ship to pass the time while we waited for our stateroom to be turned down for the night. We did go to 2 of the live shows in the theater and the kids really enjoyed them. Very much Disney on Ice type shows...without the ice. We did get treated to many showings of Black Panther since it opened while we were on the cruise, but since Im really not amped about the movie to begin with, we didn't go. They had movies playing frequently in 2 theaters and for some, that's a great option but if you didn't really care for Marvel and Star Wars movies (my wife and daughter could care less) your options were thin movie wise. Character appearances seemed pretty regular, but we skipped out on them. We have plenty of character photos from our times in the parks. Alcohol. This is a big thing for me. Not because I want to get drunk, but I like to have a few drinks, especially when Im on vacation. Drink prices were pretty good and they had several packages for beer or wine. We bought a beer pkg the first day which came with 24 16oz beers of my choice, and a DCL cooler for $130. Yeah, thats alot of money, but if you stop and do the math and consider the convenience of not having to flag down a waiter or go to the bar for every drink (and pay another service charge each trip), it was worth it. Plus all the beers fit in the room fridge and our steward regularly brought us ice for the cooler. it was a very nice fabric soft sided cooler too, so having that by the pool and on Castaway Cay was great. DCL lets you bring on beer or wine and I brought a cpl of bottles of wine and my wife and I enjoyed them in the evenings on the balcony. We'd order a cheese plate from room service and it made a nice pre dinner snack with the wine. Castaway Cay. Very well laid out island with alot of potential. Packing 2700 people on the beaches they have makes for some very congested areas. We were able to find a place a little away from the crowds, which made it better. Water was pretty cold (didn't stop the kids though) and the amount of rocks in the sand and water wasn't what we'd have liked to have seen, but it is what it is. Guess when they dredged up all that sand for the beaches they couldn't sift the rocks out. Id like to see them expand the area and give that many people a little more elbow room. The lunch on the island was just so so . Like I said, the island has a ton of potential and Id like to see them expand a little bit more. Nassau is Nassau. Nothing special there. My daughter got to experience her first foreign city and that was fun, but after a cpl of hours t shirt shopping with her, we got back on the ship. The other BIG thumbs down on DCl was the internet. It is sold in packages and unlike other cruise lines, its sold in MB packages, not GB packages. I don't go on a cruise to spend my time on social media, but having an almost teenage daughter, wifi connectivity is a matter of life and death to her. Logging on the first day, DCL offers you a free 50MB pkg to try to the system. Not really knowing how many MB it would take to use any of the apps on my phone, I logged on to the DCL Navigator app literally to see what the prices were for the other packages. I clicked to 2 pages on the app and poof, nothing. I had already gone through the 50 MB in 2 pages. After hours of begging from my daughter, I allowed her to access her Snapchat for 5 minutes the next day using the wifi, knowing we could find free wi fi in Nassau the following day. 5 minutes on Snapchat cost me $19.99. Unreal. This was incredibly chintzy and disappointing. Im guessing DCL wants families to spend time together on the ship and not on their phones, which I 100% agree with, but for those of us who have to stay connected for work, on top of the teenagers wifi addictions, it made for a bit of a headache. For me it was a welcome escape when I sent my boss a screenshot of the internet prices and told him unless he wanted to pay for them, Id read all work emails when we got back to Miami! As for wifi in Nassau, we found a weak signal in a Burger King and it was just enough for my daughter to reconnect to her friends for a bit. Lots of other places around town offer free wi fi, so just pick one and save your $ on the ship. My wife, who is by far the big Disney person in our family, summed up the whole trip on the sea day as we were watching 30 kids fight to the death in the kiddie pool. "Im waiting for that aha moment. That moment where it hits us and we say Disney was worth the extra cost and effort. I never got it". For her to say that, it said something. We completely get the Disney thing and would never discourage people from taking a DCL cruise. On the other hand, we won't be taking another one ourselves. There is no doubt that our kids will have a better time on another cruise line with more activities (bigger pools, water activities, etc) and we will pay alot less for it and we will leave our Disney experiences to the parks. If you aren't a true Disney fanatic, I can't help but think you will probably be a little disappointed in your overall experience. The food and staff in my opinion really saved the trip for us. Disney got those things down pat and were the highlight of our cruise. Just know what you are getting for your $$ and you will be ok. Understand there is no escaping the Mouse when you are on a ship with him like you can when you are at the parks!!! Read Less