Disney Dream Review
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My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed our first Disney cruise aboard the beautiful Disney Dream! It was just us – we don’t have kids. But we are Disney annual passholders and attend the parks at least once a month. This was my tenth cruise, having cruised on Carnival and Royal Caribbean in the past. We had discussed trying Disney Cruise Line for a couple of years, but did not know if 1) it was fun for adults, and 2) if it was worth the extra money. (In my research over the past couple of years, I have found Disney cruises to be 2 and sometimes 3 times the cost of other cruise lines, depending on the time of the year.) But, we decided we wanted to cruise at the last minute and didn’t want to battle hoards of college spring breakers - we figured Disney was a safe bet. Obviously, this review will not include info about the child-specific activities, but I can say that the kids on board looked like they were having lots of fun! In this review, I have tried to be as detailed as possible so I can help you decide if a Disney cruise is the right cruise to spend your hard-earned money on.
Embarkation in Port Canaveral – “Smooth Sailing”
Since we are Florida residents, we drove to the port. We arrived at about 12:30 PM and parked in the parking garage ($20/per day) adjacent to the Disney terminal. It is a safe, secure garage. We dropped off our luggage with the porters before parking and made sure to tip at least $1 per bag. The lines were moving quickly and it took about 30 minutes to get on the ship. I will say that the ship was already bustling with passengers by the time we got on, so if you want to get there at the beginning of the party, the earlier the better. Even though Disney will give you a time to arrive at the port and tell you that no one gets on the boat until 1:00 PM, I know many folks got on the ship before that. When you do get on the ship and are about to step through the threshold into the grand atrium, they announce your family and everyone claps. What fun! Overall, we had zero problems with embarkation and all of our luggage was delivered to our stateroom by about 4:30 PM, so we were off to a good start!
Cabin Review
Since we booked at the last minute (about 5 days before sailing), we had very few stateroom options. The least expensive option was actually a Guaranteed Verandah stateroom. Now, we have never sprung for a stateroom with a balcony in the past. We just don’t stay in the room that much, and especially since this was a short cruise, I thought it was kind of unnecessary. (I have since discovered that the inside staterooms with the “magic portholes” are very popular and are in high demand. Leave it to Disney to figure out how to get people to want an inside cabin and actually, in some cases, pay more for one than an oceanview cabin!) But, money is money, and so we booked the guaranteed verandah room, not knowing what we would get or where it would be located. They don’t tell you your room assignment until you get to the port. Actually, the porter who took our luggage was the first person to tell us our cabin number. He also said our room, 5658 (aft, starboard), would be ready at 1:30pm (I believe the rooms are not ready until 2:00 on the other lines I have been on). It turned out our room was a category 4E (Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah) and the verandah was extended, i.e. double the size of the balconies above (ours could fit four chairs while the balconies above had two). Awesome! I figured we would get a tiny balcony with an obstructed view, but Mickey was good to us. We really liked the location because we were one Deck up from the nightlife area (The District). I thought it might be loud, but the room was very quiet and no noise came up from the bars below. And being more aft, less people passed by our cabin, so it was extremely quiet! The cabin also had a split bathroom (one part with a shower and sink, the other part with a sink and toilet), a small fridge (more on bringing your own beverages later), a sofa sleeper, safe, and the bed was raised to store luggage below. We would take this room again in a heartbeat! Our room steward was great – we never saw her but knew she had been there.