Overview
As cruisers with 25 sailings under our belts, it's been on our bucket list for a while now to try out Disney Cruise Line.
We've talked about it but never could find the right cruise or price to fit into our travel schedules so at this point, it wasn't something we had experienced. We knew we wanted to give it a try so we could serve our travel agency clients better, and we've been looking for the right opportunity.
Besides schedule, the fear of being on a ship full of screaming, running children had kept me away despite Audrey and some of our clients' reassurances that this would not be the case.
Finally, Disney Cruise Line courteously gave us a great rate to try out their cruise line as travel agents. The date was perfect, and we booked our first Disney Cruise.
The itinerary details are below as well as three things I liked and three things I disliked from my first-ever Disney Cruise.
Ship: Disney Dream
Sail Date: February 10, 2025
Departure Port: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Duration: 5 Nights
Itinerary: Nassau, Bahamas, Castaway Cay, Bahamas, and Lookout Cay, Bahamas
Like 1: Entertainment
This was easily a favorite of our cruise. I heard going into the trip how good the shows and entertainment were. I also have experienced the production value from Disney World and Disneyland so I had high hopes for this category. It didn't disappoint.
Each production was high quality, engaging, relatable, and entertaining. From Pirate Night to Marvel Day at Sea to shows in the Walt Disney Theater, the entertainment onboard Disney Dream was top notch.
The main show onboard was Beauty and the Beast. While the show had been cut down from its original length, Disney Cruise Line did an amazing job at presenting this show in a unique and beautiful way. It was as good as anything you'd see on dry land. The same can be said for the other two production shows in the theater, The Golden Mickey's and Believe.
Featuring well known Disney songs, colorful costumes, great choreography, and amazing storylines, you were captivated each and every time the Disney Cruise Line cast took the stage.
To top it off, you had two fireworks shows at sea with the Pirate Night celebration and the kick-off of Marvel Day at Sea. Both of these featured high flying acrobatics, pyrotechnics, and engaging storylines.
You will be entertained on your Disney Cruise and by my experience, it's the best of any cruise line at sea.
Like 2: Service
The service onboard Disney Cruise Line reminded me of the service you used to get on every cruise line "back-in-the-day."
At dinner, you had a large wait staff that served limited tables and were able to focus on your needs and didn't seem overwhelmed or overworked. This has become a problem for major cruise line dining rooms over the last several years.
You still got twice a day stateroom cleanings including chocolates on your pillow and a towel animal every single night. This was something that was commonplace in the early 2000's for all cruise lines but is virtually non-existence in main stream cruising today. Our cabin attendant was very friendly and kept special care not to be a bother while still turning our room over twice a day.
Bar staff, event staff, and wait staff in specialty restaurants and quick service areas were also super friendly and helpful.
The service gets five-stars from me and is definitely above its competitors like Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian, and other major cruise lines in the family category. It's really not even close.
Like 3: Disney's Private Ports of Call
This itinerary was unique because we got to visit both of Disney's private ports of call: Castaway Cay and Lookout Cay in the Bahamas.
Castaway Cay is the oldest and most well known of the two private destinations and comes highly rated and reviewed. We booked a private cabana at the adults only beach, Serenity Bay.
Castaway Cay's Serenity Bay is a beautiful, quiet, and calm beach. The cabana was well equipped with great amenities and service. It was one of our more special beach days we've ever had.
There's plenty to do for families of all ages and since the Disney staff is running this private island, you get the same great service all around this paradise. As described, it's a private paradise where you can pick your place to relax or go on an adventure.
Castaway Cay was the first private island we visited on this cruise and it quickly moved to the top of our cruise line private destination list.
The Cabana was pricey, around $600 for the day, but was totally worth. You can check out our social media for more details on this and a guided tour. The beach was easily one of the prettier beaches we've ever been to. The hammock just outside the cabana was very relaxing as well, it's pictured below:
Castaway Cay was our favorite port of call on the cruise, until we visited Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Pointe the very next day.
Lookout Cay is located on the island of Eleuthera and is Disney's newest private port, opening in mid-2024. Being less than a year-old I wasn't sure what to expect.
Like Castaway Cay, Lookout Cay has an adults-only Serenity Bay beach area. This was our destination since we loved it so much the day before. Folks, this beach is truly unrivaled.
Disney has done an amazing job keeping the natural beauty of this place while still having great amenities. The beach at Serenity Bay was a pink sand beach and under the clear sunlight of the day, sparkled and invited with the the crystal clear blue water of The Bahamas. This beach officially entered our favorite beaches of all-time categories and is pictured below:
Just like Castaway Cay, Lookout Cay has plenty to do for travelers of all ages including splash pads, family beaches, snorkeling, jet skis, and more.
Disney has struck gold with its newest private destination and both places are remarkably scenic, well run, and still boasting natural beauty and Bahamian vibes. They definitely get a 10/10 on private destinations and move to the top of our list of private islands visited.
Dislike 1: Check-In, Lines
If you've followed any of our CruiseNReview content over the years, you'll know my criticism of Disney and lines. Unfortunately, they seemed to carry this tradition over to checking in on embarkation day and some other portions of the cruise.
Check-in at the Disney Cruise Line pier in Fort Lauderdale was easily the most poor experience of our entire cruise. They created lines and waits where all other cruise lines have seemed to completely eliminate them.
First, we arrived around 30 minutes before our assigned check-in time. Nearly all other cruise lines will go ahead and let you either check-in and wait or check-in and board if you are close to your check-in time. This is because timing your arrival at the pier is not an exact science with all the variables at play while getting there. If you are too early, a wait is to be expected, within 15-30 minutes is generally understood to be acceptable to arrive for all other cruise lines. Not for Disney Cruise Line in Fort Lauderdale.
Since we were slightly early, we were directed to a holding area where lines were formed in the parking garage and were not allowed to enter the port building. There was no air flow in the parking garage and it was about 85 degrees. Families with kids were lined up, sitting on the ground, and trying to stay cool to wait for their precise boarding time. I really think if the location of the wait would have been different, this wouldn't have been such a bad experience.
I figured once they released our time to go in the port, however, it would be a breeze to get onboard. I was wrong.
Our next issue was that Disney's app removed our check-in document that we were to use for boarding and the staff wanted a hard copy of the boarding documents. I've not seen this since pre-covid for checking in on a cruise. All other cruise lines use QR codes in the app. Since we didn't have this, they had to enter our stateroom number in an iPad to clear us to go in.
Once we finally got released to go into the port building, the lines for the check-in kiosks were very long. I feel this was exacerbated by them creating and unnecessary queue outside and the letting large amounts of people in at the same time instead of letting them come into the building and check-in as they arrived.
After about 20 minutes, we were finally at the kiosk counter where once again they asked for a paper copy of the boarding pass. We once again explained that we had it in our app and now it was gone. They took our stateroom number and passports, checked us in, and then gave us a business card sized paper with our stateroom number boarding zone number.
The boarding zone number was confusing to me. I haven't seen this in years at cruise ship check-in. Since the inception of boarding times, the boarding zone is no longer necessary. Since it was our boarding time now, why did we have to wait again for our zone to be called?
After check-in, we went through security and had to wait in another holding area for our number to be called, and make sure we held onto our business card ticket so we could get onboard.
Finally after around 10 minutes, they called our number to board. I thought, surely this part wouldn't take long. Wrong. It took us around another 20 minutes to finally get onboard and checked in as you had to wait to get to a check-in counter onboard (which I've also never seen before) then stand in line for them to announce your arrival on the ship over the microphone in the atrium. As neat as this was, I would trade that for a much quicker embarkation.
All told, it took us over an hour to get onboard. Most modern cruise lines will tell you that longer than 30 minutes to board is unacceptable. The most frustrating thing about it was that it seemed so unnecessary. How can all other cruise lines get all guests onboard in 10-15 minutes regardless of boarding time? This surprised me as Disney has always impressed me with their efficiency in handling large crowds.
The unnecessary queues continued when we were onboard. There was always a line for dinner to get into your dining area despite you sitting in the same table every night. The same for checking in for a shore excursion. It's almost like Disney Cruise Line has fallen so in love with organization and structure that they have over structured to the point where they create lines where there really is no need.
I will cut them some slack and say that some of the structure is necessary because there are an unusually high number of first-time cruisers on Disney Cruise Line compared to other cruise lines.
Finally, Disney Cruise Line is one of the few cruise line's left that still utilize the in-person assembly drill. Most major cruise line's now have guests watch a video on their mobile app then visit their assembly station at their leisure during embarkation day. Disney has gone back to the traditional assembly drill of everyone gathering at the same time at their assigned assembly station to watch a presentation. I've often thought that the e-muster drill was the best thing to come from COVID cruising. For some reason, Disney has kept the most loathed of traditions despite others moving away from it. The result? Frustrated guests, kids, and parents in a small space in the middle of flu season packed in like sardines just an hour from departure. Kids were unhappy, parents were frustrated, and the whole thing seemed very unnecessary in a modern cruising world.
Disney apologists will say that this drill is safer than the e-muster drills other lines conduct. I would argue that in a real emergency, no one is going to the theater to wait, especially when the water is 80 degrees and land is within sight. Don't believe me? There are plenty of examples of this being exactly what happens in a real emergency. The e-muster drill used by other cruise lines is effective in telling you where, when, and how to act in an emergency while still familiarizing you with where to go if there is an incident.
All-in-all, between check-in, the assembly drill, and the long line to get into dinner, it made for an overly stressful and frustrating first day of our cruise. Can you tell I'm still fired up about this? It all just seemed so unnecessary.
Dislike 2: Dining Structure
Please keep in mind that this dislike may be very subject to my taste and that I've heard many people say that like Disney Cruise Line's style of dining.
DCL uses rotational dining as their only form of seated dinner dining outside of a couple of specialty restaurants. This means that you dine at a set table and time and you rotate between three restaurants with your table mates and wait staff throughout the cruise. First, if you're not a fan of table mates you don't know, this is an immediate negative. We ended up loving our table mates but this could have easily gone the other direction.
Since the dining is in a set rotation, it is not customizable at all and you don't choose your rotation. Since we had booked the two adults-only specialty restaurants for a couple of nights, we were in a spot where we would end up dining in Animator's Palate three times and missing the other two rotational restaurants. The only thing that could be done was to move the the specialty restaurants to other nights but this meant we would miss the unique menus and venue changes of Pirate Night and Marvel Day at Sea. As a result, we ended up having to miss the Enchanted Garden and Royal Palace rotation and only got to eat in Animator's Palate. You could change your dining rotation plan but there were only three rotations to choose from and none of them solved the issue.
To top things off, the buffet was not open at dinner time so it left you with only quick service, specialty dining for a fee, or the pre-set rotational dining as your options. Cruise lines have moved away from the strict scheduling of dinner times, table mates, and lack of options at dinner. This move my bother cruise lines has been for the better in my opinion and it's odd that Disney Cruise Line doesn't offer some kind of free floating option for dining in the evenings. All other major cruise lines still have pre-set dining times for those that like that, but if you want to mix things up and customize your dining experience, you can do so.
While I loved the food, the wait staff, and our table mates, the lack of customization was really off-putting, frustrating, and surprising. This is another case of Disney over-structuring where a little more options and freedom would likely serve to better the modern guest experience.
This type of dining also set-up another opportunity for lines as everyone was going to the same place at the same time, leading to long lines trying to get into the respective dining halls. Again, totally unnecessary.
Dislike 3: Uncontrolled Kids
I mentioned my concern in the introduction about there being a ton of kids on the cruise. This concern was slightly validated though was not nearly as big of a burden as originally feared due to Disney Cruise Line having a ton of adults-only options available.
That being said, parents need to control their children. The kids themselves are fun and enjoyable to watch as they meet their favorite characters or enjoy the activities. It's the lack of control in the common areas, hallways, and dining spaces that is troublesome.
At one point, a kid knocked my plate of food out of my hand at the buffet because he was running through everyone. I don't blame the kid, I blame the parent that didn't even apologize or reprimand the child for doing so.
We awoke every morning to the thundering of kids running down the hallways. Running kids were also prevalent virtually anywhere you went on the ship. In the interest of sounding old and cranky, when I was a kid, there were appropriate places to run and have a good time, and places to be more reserved and walk. We were taught that from a young age and we were instructed to stop when we broke the rules. I didn't see much of this on this cruise. Kids ran wild and you caught yourself jumping and moving to avoid tripping over or being stampeded by a running child.
The kids on the cruise were fun. It's a cruise line for kids, young and old alike. It's the lack of discipline and control that made this a negative. There's not fault to Disney Cruise Line here, but parents should teach their kids some manners.
Conclusion
Overall, my experience on Disney Cruise Line was very positive. I don't know that I would rate it among my top cruise lines or cruises, but it is definitely a high quality experience with great service and amenities.
I would definitely recommend it for families with younger kids and for those who love Disney and great entertainment.
Those looking for a relaxing, quiet, and freeing experience, steer clear!
As always, this is just my opinion and experience. It's all subjective and in the eyes of the beholder. You'll definitely have a great time on a Disney cruise and so much of it goes back to The Vacation Mindset that we talk about so often at CruiseNReview!
I'd definitely take another Disney cruise at some point and I know feel very comfortable talking about it with out clients, so mission accomplished.
Stay tuned for more content from our cruise onboard Disney Dream on upcoming episodes of the CruiseNReview Podcast.
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