Review of the Disney Dream

Disney Dream Bahamas Cruise September 2012

written by stevek2012 posted on 06/09/12

Sunday we hit the port at around lunchtime, and were on board to hang out and catch the lunch buffet. We went up top to get a good view of the ship shoving off, and our dinner plan took us to the Animators palate restaraunt...where we met "Charlie", our server. At that point, it went downhill. We had made a couple of diet requests with guest relations, who confirmed them (we've got a few things we've GOT to eat every day) and they weren't even CLOSE to accommodated. We understood...no problem, sometimes the message isn't delivered, but Charlie was completely and totally rude to us, snappy, unapologetic, and completely NOT the image that company presents. So, I left dinner and went and had a little chat with guest services. A Lovely woman name Erica helped me, and when I returned, the dining manager, Zan, met me, and with OTHER tables that ALSO had a problem with Charlie, it ensured it was the LAST "we" saw of Charlie the entire cruise. We were re-assigned to a different table assignment for the remainder of the trip, Our new service team, Suka, Cris, Sziland, and the staff were AWESOME.

We made our way around the ship just exploring. Completely awesome and you'll never have enough time to do it all, but very cool. Up On Deck 11, there's Coke fountains at four different locations ....all you can drink...go for it! There's also 24 hour hour food stores, sandwiches, panini's, soups, salads, etc. AND, a little place called Eye Scream....where you can eat all you want of four to six different flavors of ice cream.....24/7! We headed to the Disney theater for the "Golden Mickey" awards. They were awesome, like the "grammy's" of Disney history. Very cool. We crashed and were told the next morning when we awoke, we'd be in Nassau. That was that. I woke up in just enough to catch the ship docking in Nassau.

Breakfast at Cabanas was great.... We debarked, in the rain, and caught a Taxi. It was four dollars to catch a taxi over to the Atlantis Resort...where we intended on spending the day at the big aquarium, and exploring. The scariest taxi ride EVER....We get to Atlantis, and...we're stopped. We can't go through to the aquarium. They said they don't let cruise tourists go through free anymore. Now it's A HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS A PERSON!. They said they had hotel guests complaining...so they now charge for it. In reality, they're not charging for it...they're attempting to discourage tourists from doing it. But what made it worse, the Cruise Line DIDN'T know it (That's not Disney's fault, by ANY means) ...and the taxi drivers didn't tell you. So. We got back in the taxi....and headed back to the ship. It was four dollars a person, again, and the taxi driver was given a twenty dollar bill....he promptly said "thank you" and left (do the math there...). And That was Nassau.

On my way back onto the boat, I stepped off the gangway into the ship, and my ankle did a complete 180 on the wet deck (no wet floor sign) and I caught myself on the railing, twisting my angle, and my room key, drivers license, and pass ended up in a combination of on the floor and in a nearby trash can. Hurt too. I got up and said "I'm fine"...then I went and fished my OWN ID out of a trash can, and got back on the boat... Two people asked if I needed to have my leg looked at and I said "no, I'm fine".... but several people said said "let's go to the medical center and get it checked....at least let them make a note that it happened". So, we did....we got there, and some woman, out of uniform, walked out, locked the door and said "come back at 4:30 (almost 4 hours from that point..). We were not pleased...went to guest services and made that known (who tells someone who just slipped and fell on a wet slick floor...that the medical center is closed?".

Back on the ship, we caught Dinner,in the Enchanted Garden. The cool part is that our servers and manager from the previous night, moved with us to the next restaraunt, and the service was awesome. Had a great dinner, and then caught the "villains" show in the theater, and called it a night. The days are LONG, but they go by tooo fast! Before the night ended, I had three phone calls from guest services checking to make sure I was okay (I was...THAT"S what disney's service is all about...that's what I've known it to be, dedicated, and determined). We went back to the room and I said to myself "wait, the land is on the wrong side of the boat" - I went down and said "What's up with that" - and I realized it was Nassau. We were headed BACK to Nassau. All anyone would say was it was a "Medical Debark". Fastest I've EVER Seen someone parallel park a 125x1200 foot boat.... I don't know the details...so....I won't say anymore. But, we STILL, even after going back, made it to our destination the next morning.

Wednesday Morning I woke up in time to see us dock at Castaway Cay (Pronounced "Key) and we got breakfast...great, as usual. Packed our bag for the beach and headed off the boat. Serenity Bay, The private adult beach was AWESOME. Quiet, no kids, a bar with a server that walked the beach...and the best banana daquiri you'll ever have (top shelf...3/4 of a glass of rum, 1/4 of a glass of ice, and a real banana). My wife ordered it, and it was GOOOD for under 5 bucks, hand delivered on the beach. Lunch was at noon, at cookie's BBQ, and my GOD was that awesome. Grilled burgers, hot dogs, brauts, steaks, ribs, you name it, it was there...and of course, the ice cream and coke machines....unbelievable. Sunburnt, we headed off the beach and back to the ship for Pirate Night. I stopped in the lobby to use the restroom, and somewhere in the process, my wallet (with both room keys, and both Photo ID"s (Mine and my wife's) in it (I'd taken all my debit / credit cards and everything else out of it and put it in the safe in the room) got dropped in that restroom. I just didn't know it at the time. We went down to Club 687, which is the sports bar on board (it's named 687 because it's the 687'th ship the german ship builder that built the ship made) for "TV THEME" Trivia. We got 26 out of 30 right....the nearest competing team had 22. We won. When I realized I dropped my wallet was at this point when I went to the room to change for dinner. It wasn't; in the room, (which guest services had to let me into) so we headed to guest services to say "now what'. "Now What' entailed being met by our favorite guest services person, and My wallet. One of the disney employees returned it....to guest services. I made it a POINT to seek him out and thank him. THAT'S what I expect from Disney, and they never let us down... Dinner at Royal Palace, same crew, same awesome service, and of course, DELICIOUS.... Headed up on deck and caught the pirate festivities, and of course, the fireworks . That's got to be the craziest floating party I've seen.... Still a lot of fun! I even met with Ramchanda, the chief of ship security, about the "Slip and fall" incident. He was wanting to make sure I was okay (after repeatedly telling people I was).

Overall impressions:

Disney has, no doubt in my mind, the best customer service in the industry. They're a little pricey, but they're CERTAINLY worth every penny. Penny for Penny, you can't beat it. I'd like to see Disney do an "Over 18" cruise, without the kids stuff...but it IS "Disney'...and they do make a strong and forward effort to give the adults something to do. I never ventured on to the few decks that are COMPLETELY childrens areas.

The food is unbelievable, and unlimited. You got to the buffet, you eat what you want. You go to a sit-down restaraunt, and you order as little or as many different items as you want, if you don't want it, tell them, they'll bring you something else. I saw people send back prime rib and duck for chicken....I'd never do that...but It's AMAZING....

The rooms on the disney ship are absolutely fantastic. I've seen full sized hotel rooms that aren't as nice as those disney staterooms. You wouldn't believe it if unless you saw it. And the staff that helps maintain them (ESPECIALLY HORACE!) is awesome. They do whatever they can to give that unique touch that only "you" could experience (Horace, our stateroom attendant, made a POINT, each night he turned down the beds, to do something with one of my multipe pair of sunglasses I took with me. Never had a frown, and was ALWAYS checking in when he saw us to make sure that he couldn't do anything for us. I'll be asking for HIM again when we go back on another disney cruise (and we will).

Disney is top notch. They lead the industry in guest services...and I don't see that changing any time soon, and when it DID go a little wrong...they made EVERY effort to fix it, repeatedly, and made EVERY effort to follow up on it thereafter, REPEATEDLY.

The only negative I see is Nassau is something you've got to watch out for. There are things going on there that the cruise lines don't KNOW to tell you and the taxi drivers WON'T tell you. So, just use caution if you ever sail to that port....

Scariest part....have to go back to reality.....