Our expectations were in check after researching reviews for the Disney cruise line for months on this and other sites. I must say that my expectations were exceeded in just about every area. We are not "Disney-ites", but we have been to the park a time or two. Everything on the entire cruise was really nice, but we are not fancy people either. We like going out to dinner, but we are more Chili's and Outback people than Ruth's Chris. If expectations are set appropriately you will have an amazing trip. In my opinion, the reason for a lot of the negative reviews is that people pay a premium to go on Disney and expect dramatic differences. The differences are subtle, but they all add up to a value our family is comfortable with.

Some of the things that surprised me:

1. The ship was completely sold out in the early part of February. We spoiled our kids by letting them out of school for several days, and obviously many other families did the same. The great thing was that there was only 1 time that I felt crowded during the entire trip (Goofy pool on a sea day afternoon). We never had to wait in a line for food, shows, embarkation, debarkation, etc. Disney excels at people flow, and it was clearly a differentiating factor for us. Read more