We made a split decision to go on our first Disney Dream Cruise to the Bahamas! We booked the 4-night Bahamian cruise on the Disney Dream on a whim and then rushed to get everything in order before we left. There were a lot of scares with hurricane warnings and a forecast full of rain, but it was too late… we had no choice but to take the risk and make the most of it!
A Disney Dream Cruise to remember
When we got to Port Canaveral it was a partly cloudy day with blue skies and sun… little did we know this would be pretty much the only sun we’d see!
The Disney Dream Is Stunning
The Disney Dream is absolutely stunning. I’ve seen pictures everywhere, but they do NOT do it justice. Since our cruise was a Halloween on the High Seas Cruise everything was decorated for Halloween. Disney always takes out all the stops when it decorates and they didn’t leave out any detail. Don’t forget to look for Hidden Mickeys!
The Disney Dream also features the Aqua Duck water coaster! It was always a little chaotic on the pool deck, but we were each able to ride the Aqua Duck with Ashtyn once and then he rode it once by himself (we actually lost him that day but he was with another family from his school so technically he was never lost, right?).
Stateroom with a Balcony
Our stateroom was wonderful! We were in room 7657 with a balcony! I was really impressed with how spacious the staterooms were. Being in a small stateroom was one of the main reasons I never wanted to cruise. The staterooms on this cruise were so spacious that I wasn’t claustrophobic at all! The bed was fairly comfortable and the sofa turned into a bed at night for our son to sleep on. I didn’t think that was very comfortable, but he didn’t complain!
There is also a split bathroom in the stateroom. One bathroom had a sink and a toilet, while the other bathroom had a sink and a tub/shower combo. The tub/shower also had retractable clotheslines that you could use to hang up your wet swimsuits! However – I have a major tip. Even though there are split bathrooms you really should consider buying some Poo Pourri (I’m really not kidding)! You’ll thank me later.
Another positive thing about Disney staterooms is that there is plenty of storage! There is a large closet, lots of drawers, and you could also store inside the ottoman.
Oceaneer Club & Lab – A Child’s Dream
My son absolutely LOVED the kids club on the Disney Dream cruise. I heard stories of kids wanting to stay there all day and I can totally see why. I wanted to hang out there! They have an interactive floor, lots of themed spaces, art rooms, tech rooms, the Star Wars Millennium Falcon, and a Disney Infinity game room (plus more)!
There are two separate themed clubs that are connected. They advertise it as the kids can go from one side to the other as they please. However, we noticed that during the day one side usually had an open house going on. Due to this, the kids had to stay on the other side if they didn’t have a parent with them. It ALWAYS seemed like the side our son wanted to be on was hosting an open house! He had fun anyway… if you can guess he spent MOST of his time in the Disney Infinity game room. I know, hard to believe!
The kid’s clubs offer the kids food during lunch and dinner times, but the kids don’t have to eat if they don’t want to. Our son was mad one day because they were having a pizza party when we came to pick him up to go to dinner with us. We personally felt like meal times were family time, but I guess it wouldn’t have hurt to let him eat with his “friends” once while we were there.
Lots of Things to Do… At Night
We are kinda fuddy-duddies… I’ll admit it. There are a LOT of activities to do on a Disney Dream cruise. Sadly a lot of the activities seemed to be later at night that we wanted to try but, we just couldn’t make it up that late. We even tried taking a nap one day so we could stay up later and yet we STILL couldn’t make it up for Family Karaoke at 10:45 pm.
However – there were some activities that we did participate in. We saw the Golden Mickeys, Disney’s Believe, and The Nightmare Before Christmas Sing and Scream in the Walt Disney Theatre. We also went to the onboard movie theater called the Buena Vista Theatre and saw Spider-Man: Homecoming. My husband thought that watching a movie like that on a cruise ship was a waste of our time, but it was a nice break!
One thing that my husband and I really enjoyed was BINGO! Timmy was the best Bingo caller I’ve ever seen and honestly, that might be why we went every time. He kept it fun and entertaining. We have some funny memories from our Bingo time with Timmy like when he kicked the machine and said “Come on Betty!” because the number wasn’t popping up… and of course his Old School Sprinkler Dance!!
Since we were on a Halloween on the High Seas Disney Dream Cruise we had Pirate Night AND Mickey’s Mouse-charade Party with Trick or Treating!
Disney Service is Stellar
The service onboard the Disney Dream is outstanding. Our stateroom host was VERY friendly and helpful. Every night we had a different towel or blanket animal on our bed. One of them actually scared me when I came into the stateroom (those gold doubloons were glowing in the dark)! Everything was always clean and taken care of. They are like wizards! We were in our stateroom quite a bit and we never saw him servicing our room, but we would see him in the hallways. They come and clean up and make the bed sometime in the morning and then they turn down your beds sometime in the evening.
Food Everywhere
The thing we were most looking forward to on the Disney Dream cruise was the food. We had heard so many good things about it and we like to eat! Maybe we had too high of expectations, or maybe the food wasn’t as good… but we weren’t super impressed. I hate saying it, but we were a little disappointed. We ate daily for lunch at Cabana’s Buffet (my husband heard there were always crab legs there, but the crab legs weren’t that great).
We ate at each main dining room once (Animator’s Palate, Enchanted Garden, & Royal Palace). Due to booking so late we were originally put on the second dining rotation. The first night our son was literally crying and falling asleep at the table, so the next day we went to customer service and asked to be changed to the first dining rotation and they were able to do that for us. We arrived at our table that night and the family that they seated us with seemed very upset that we were there. They said that they requested to be seated alone. We never saw them again after that!
There is also 24-hour room service. We thought we were going to take more advantage of this, but we honestly weren’t very hungry ever. The first night we ordered warm chocolate chip cookies and milk. Our son thought that was the coolest thing ever!
The Ports of Call
Our cruise was set to port for one day in Nassau, Bahamas, and one day at Castaway Cay (Disney’s private island). We stayed on the ship the day we were ported at Nassau, although we did dreamily look off into the distance at Atlantis and wish that we would have checked it out. However, we were excited for the following day when all of our dreams would come true at Castaway Cay…
The next day… It was CASTAWAY CAY day!! We have been waiting for this day since we booked our Disney Dream cruise. This was the main REASON we booked the cruise instead of going on Carnival or Royal Caribbean. We couldn’t WAIT to use the special snorkels that we bought off Amazon and soak up the sun on the beach…
But that would never happen. We got into the water and within 5 minutes the lifeguards were yelling for us to all get out because a huge storm was coming. More like a monsoon. We were stuck in it for 45-minutes before they finally canceled all activities and made everyone go back to the ship. There would be no happy memories made at Castaway Cay that day.
My Overall Impression on my Disney Dream Cruise
Sadly, we booked our cruise during hurricane season and I’m not sure that I would ever do that again. Sadly the school system dictates when we can vacation so we are limited in our choices. Our cruise was VERY ROCKY and at some points, I felt like the ship was going to break in half and the ocean was going to gulp us up! It was almost always raining (which canceled activities on the pool deck) and it was very windy. It’s not Disney’s fault, they did the best they could to keep us all happy. If we go on a Disney Dream cruise again, I would definitely not book it during Fall Break!
These are the things you learn as you travel- but luckily I made some of those mistakes for you!