Disney Dream Reviews

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Disney cruising is a cut above the rest. We've done Carnival and Royal Caribbean as well. Our 5-year old was so impressed with every aspect of the cruise that his experience alone made it worth the (quite high) price of admission. Aquaduck, Mickey's slide, the whole Castaway Cay setup, the three restaurants, ice-cream, Disney shows, pools with giant movie screen, Goofy's golf, detective game, pull-down bunk bed, and simply being spoiled rotten by the staff wherever he went, were the highlights for the kid. He didn't spend much time in the Oceaneers Club, though he did visit while we watched Avengers, and IMO it's a waste of the cruise to leave kids there to play rather than enjoy all the things they can do with their family on this remarkable ship. Avengers 3D, Rain Forest area, Cabanas, and dinners served by those amazing waiters and the wonderful head server Ali from Turkey were appreciated by the parents. The Jamaican cabin host was also a joy. Not much to complain about. It seems one of the families on board had kids suffering from gastroenteritis, something that can spread quickly in a warm pool and ruin vacations fast, and Disney restricted them to their cabin for the entire cruise - no fun for them, but considerate of other families. The crew were handing out disinfectant wipes everywhere around food areas. Embarkation and debarkation were both super efficient. Getting there around 1:00 got us on board within about 20 minutes, right into the Enchanted Garden for the welcome lunch. Pick up a Disney Dream beach towel if you go, it's usually on a "special" in the shops on board, and is a great souvenir of a fantastic vacation.

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I preface my review by stating that I am an avid traveller who is accustomed to staying at 4 star hotels and do not like crowds. I am not an avid cruiser because because I prefer quality food to quantity, I hate being treated like cattle and I am a non-smoker. I also note that I travelled with my 7 year old son who absolutely loved the ship and did not mind the noise, crowds or overall insanity of the ship. Positives: 1. The ship is BEAUTIFUL. The cabins are well appointed. The finish and design of the ship is amazing. Disney staff endeavor to keep it super clean. It is an axing ship. 2. Palo Restaurant. The food is excellent and well worth the extra cost. If you are going on the cruise spend the extra money to eat at either Palo or Remy-it will be the only good meal that you will have on the ship. 3. Deck 4. It is quiet. They pipe in music that you can listen to and relax. My favorite part of the ship. Definitely spend a couple hours there relaxing and really cruising. 4. Serenity Bay. The adult beach on Castaway Cay is absolutely gorgeous. The sand is soft. The water crystal clear. You can go out about 250 yards from shore to a sandbar. I have travelled extensively in the Caribbean and Pacific and this it one of the best beaches I have been too. Ditch the kids and treat yourself to the only thing at Castaway Cay worth experiencing. 5. Shows. The Believe Show is excellent. The Awards show is good. The Villains starts out great and fall apart. It is mediocre. The pirate show is terrible (my son dressed up as a pirate and even he thought it was just ok) but the fire works are great. Overall the shows are very good. 6. Aqua Duck: My son love the Aqua duck. He was too short to ride it alone so I went about 15 times and it is pretty good but way too short. Lines average 20 minutes. 7. Restaurant. All three restaurants are beautifully designed. There is a "screen" show at animators. Disney design has out done itself. I just wish they would enforce the dress codes. People coming to dinner in t-shirts and jeans really ruined the atmosphere of the restaurants. 8. Oceaneers Club for kids is great. My seven year old really enjoyed. The check in and check out procedure is a bit of a pain but the club is great. Note that at dinner counsellors will pick up the kids at the restaurant so that adult can enjoy there meals. You have to let the servers know that the kids will be going to the club! Negative: 1. Pools are terrible. One tiny adult pool and one tiny kid pool. 4000 people trying to swim in two little pools. The pools are way too over-crowded, dangerous and absolutely gross. I did not get in the pools. They were disgusting. The adult pool has a capacity for about 12 people and there seemed to be between 25-50 people crammed in it. Shame on Disney. The kids pool is not any better. My son swam in both pools. I watched like a hawk that he did not get hurt in the adult pool or accidentally run into a little kid in the child pool. In the adult pool he had one kid jump on top of him while he was swimming but he was able to get out of the pool. Please note that neither pools is supervised by Disney staff and there is not a capacity limitation for with either pool. 2. Food. Over all the food is very average. Disney is serving over 4000 people so expect banquet food. The breakfasts are terrible. Buffet at Cabana's was a wide variety and is pretty good for lunch. As I note above go to the adults only restaurants for a real dining experience. 3. Castaway Cay. I was disappointed in the kids section of Castaway Cay. With 4000 people is the most crowded beach I have ever been on in my life. We arrived at the beach around 9:30 am and found seat with an umbrella in the third row of seats from the beach. I think there were six rows of seat from the beach. Disney advertises this as your own private beach but it could not be further from the truth. There a variety of ropes defining where you can and cannot go. The "kids" swimming area is about chest deep. There are Disney staff every where telling the kids where they can and cannot go. To snorkel Disney Staff insists that you rent a yellow floatation device. Adult snorkel rental is $25 each and kids $10 each. In the snorkeling area there are fish is you go out far enough and Disney had placed some artificial ships to see. Note that because there are 4000 people kicking up the sand you have to go a ways out snorkeling to get clear water. I scuba dive so I thought the snorkeling was a joke but other people seemed to think it was pretty good. 4.People. Very few people dressed in attire that is suitable for the ship. At dinner way to many people wore jeans and t-shirt to really nice restaurants. Around the boat to many tank tops and stupid graphic tees. It is like cruising with the Simpsons. The ship is refined and elegant but by and large the customers dress like slobs. There are way too many people on board the ship and the people ruined the cruise for me. Too busy! 5. Elevators are insane. Way too many people trying to cram in to the elevators. You would think that people would understand that you should let the people in the elevator to get out before trying to get in. Way to over-crowded. 6. Smoking. In the morning and evenings I went out to enjoy my veranda and more often than not I was driven back into the cabin by people sitting outside there veranda's smoking. Disney should not have allowed smoking on the balcony's. 7. Tipping. On the last morning I tipped the staff. Approximately 2/3rds of the people who were at dinner did not attend breakfast. I know a small portion had to rush off to catch flights but most clearly stiffed the staff. It is really awkward. Our table that had 14 people the night prior had just 3 people. 8. Noise. Overall the ship is incredibly noisy. The pool are is insane. The restaurants are noisy. The show are noisy. The constant noise drove me nuts! TIPS: 1. Pay for the port parking right next to the terminal. Your are spending $3000 for the cruise so pay the extra $50 and save the hassle of a shuttle! 2. Check in early. We had a boarding time of 1pm but were permitted to board 30 minutes early. 3.Bring the kids swimsuits so that when you board they can change and go straight to the aqua duck. If your child is less that 54inches tall a parent will have to ride with them. 4. Eat at the adult only restaurant. The food is exceptional and significantly better than the banquet fare. 5. Enjoy deck 4. 6. Go to to top of the front of the ship to enjoy the view. 7. Be on the left side of the ship on the top deck floor at the rail to enjoy the fireworks. Facing the front of the ship the fireworks are set off on the right side. 8.GO TO THE ADULT ONLY BEACH. IT IS THE BEST THING ON THIS CRUISE. 9. Make extensive use of the Oceaneers Club particularly the dinner pick up. 10 Disney's motto should be hurry and and wait. There is no point running around with crowd's trying to do everything. I hope the lengthy review is helpful

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We went on the RC Liberty in Feb 2012 to the Caribbean. We just returned from the Disney Dream and was suprised by difference. I would rate the RC an A. Disney B+. RC is alot less $ and has better features. Disney check in was the fastet I've experienced - BUT totally uninfomative. We were told to board the ship, but noticed a long line at the right of the terminal. This line is for the kids club to get their gps bracelet. To save time you may want to do this on the ship. What I loved about the Dream: The stateroom was huge. The bathtub/shower was the largest I've experinced on a ship. The tv options were also the best we've had on a ship. Unfortunately Disney does allowing smoking on the balcony. Also the hallways are very narrow to manovure strollers etc. The coffee was the best I've had on a cruise. The shows were awesome. We really enjoyed the 3 shows and the comedian. What I did not like about the Dream: Nemo's reef for under age 8 was cute but really the size of my living and dining room. Entirely to small. RC Liberty had a better splash play - pool area. Same for the private Island. RC had a huge play splash area for the kids and disney's was comical. Really suprised me. Dinner times. The 3 restaruants were nice. But the only one with entertainment was Aminators. The rest of the dinners were too long and became boring for small children. I think Disney should have the princess come into the Royal Palace and Stich into the Enchanted Gardern (really reminds me of Tavern on the Green). I HATED the fact that Disney does not offer Cabanna's caferteria style to eat anytime for dinner. It is closed. Kids aren't always on Disneys schedule. Crazy. All other cruise lines have this option for you. The NAVIGATOR that shows you the happenings throughout the day was very confusing and my least favorite of all 4 cruise lines I've been on. They need to look at the others and redo it. AND MOST OF ALL THE WORST THING: saving seats. RC does not let anyone save seats/ chairs. On the island people had saved seats including the hammocks all day and didn't not use them. It was difficult to find seats by the pool and on the island.

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We travelled on the Disney Dream May 13-17 with our 3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. We had a wonderful time. I read nearly all these reviews before we left, so I won't repeat anything, but will give my brief opinions on what has already been said. We had no trouble with the elevators, really. Unless a ton of people were leaving the deck party all at once, or a show all at once, there was rarely a wait. We just used the stairs when there were lots of folks leaving the same venue all at once. Never any problem. Service was great, especially the stateroom service and dinner service. Our dinner servers were incredible, really, and knew exactly when to bring our dishes and our kids' dishes. They completely understood the need to eat fast with young children. Once I had to leave with my son early, and they packed up two desserts for my husband to bring back to us. The Crew is fantastic. A Crew Member at Castaway Cay showed me the way to the bathroom, while I carried my son. He even grabbed my bag and carried it for me. The best advice I got on this forum was: (1) wear a watch; (2) get to the princess greeting 20 minutes early (and that goes for Tinkerbell too, I found out); (3) ride the Aquaduck first thing when you get on the ship, and then at night; (4) pools are fantastic at night (~ 7:30 p.m. for us with the kids). The pools are crowded, it is true. That would be my only criticism of the entire trip. My daughter just wanted to swim, swim, swim. But we knew the pools would be crowded based on comments on this site, and we were prepared. There is ALWAYS something for everybody to do. My son and daughter have completely different interests, and they both had fantastic time. We loved the cruise. Not necessarily a "relaxing" trip, but completely fun-filled.

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This was our 14th cruise overall, 3rd on Disney and the 2nd on the Dream (1st being March, 2011). Previously, we sailed on Disney "adults only." This time, family accompanied us including our 2 1/2 year-old grandson. Between the family time together, perfect weather, and all the Disney touches, we had a wonderful cruise. Outside of maybe not getting new glasses in our cabin 2 of the 3 days, and some of the fish dishes being slightly disappointing, we really have no complaints. Getting on and off the boat was easy. Everyone made you feel welcome. Despite the number of people obviously on board, I never got the sense of over crowding (except when moving about the ship during the muster drill). The pools got a little crowded at times but we never failed to find a lounge chair or table. My grandson loved the Nemo Reef and for the most part, even it had a manageable number of children in it when he went. The cabin was very nice but knew that from our March, 2011 cruise. We did get adjoining/connecting cabins this time and found that to be great! Service was outstanding in the cabin and in the dining room. Castaway Cay was enhanced since we first visited it in 2009(we were unable to dock in 2011 due to windy conditions) so we appreciated the additions. Someone who posted a review 1-2 before this (also for a May sailing) mentioned about it being crowded. Well, there are ALOT of people on these boats but we went to the 2nd area (by the 2nd restaurant) and found it wasn't too bad at all. The shows were good. Villains might be of less interest and "scary" for the younger set (grandson skipped that one) but otherwise wonderful and expertly done. The Pirate Party was fun but I can see the point of the fireworks being on the late side for a lot of children. Two things mentioned in reviews for May, 2012 -- and possibly the same sailing we were on)I would like to comment on: #1) breakfast on the day you disembark. Cabanas was mentioned. I was unaware it was even open! Rather you were given a scheduled breakfast time/location based on your dining time/room from the night before. We found this very nice, organized, and that it made for a smooth departure. We experienced no lines to get off, get our luggage or to go through customs. If it worked differently for them, they maybe did not take advantage of the system provided. And #2)the scent in the cabins possibly via the A/C system: this is a mystery to me. Maybe it was a cleaner or something used by the cabin stewart or some pick up from an adjoining cabin but we did not experience that at all. (I would not have liked it either!) Bottom line: great cruise. Would do it and Disney again. Would love to try the Fantasy to see the differences they say are on it (vs the Dream) and to experience a longer Disney cruise.

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