4 Nights Very Merrytime Bahamian Cruise from Ft. Lauderdale Cruise

A Merry, merrytime cruise

A lot can be said about a Disney Cruise: Above average food quality, excellent service, unique entertainment, character encounters all in a magical environment at sea. While a Disney Cruise may not be for everyone, it remains my belief that no cruise line offers something that is close to what they offer. Yes, some cruise lines may have tastier, fancier foods... some others may have offer more "thrills" for tweens and teens... and adults who like a party cruise are likely better somewhere else but for us, Disney is still in that "sweet spot" when it comes to spending time at sea. This particular sailing was a Merrytime cruise that had a day at sea on December 24 and spent Christmas at Disney's private island - Castaway Cay, in addition to spending a day in Cozumel early on. Main dining rooms: The Dream offers 3 locations on a rotational basis: Royal Palace (French inspired cuisine), Animator's Palate (offering an interactive experience with Crush) and Enchanted Garden (whose decor is apparently inspired from the gardens at Versailles). With Animator's being the only restaurant with much noise and interaction, the Disney Dream (and Fantasy) are the two quietest ship when it comes to main dining. Food quality was good to excellent depending on the night/dish ordered. On one night, I had a tasty, but slightly overcooked salmon, while the following night I had beef which was slightly under-done but with nice flavors. The pork I had on one night was quite good, with 2 of the 3 pieces cooked to perfection. On the last night (Christmas) I had ham which was also cooked to perfection and of well above average quality. There were no "bad parts" in any of the meat dishes ordered. Other than the first night for which things are always hectic, the service was close to the usual very high Disney standards every other night. I could tell that our dining team might have been a bit rushed and spread out, as the interactions where shorter than usual and a bit more transactional - but they still took the time to get to know us and get things right. Buffet and premium dining The buffet quality was on par with what you would expect of a buffet. Mass produced food meant to please most palate. Disney erring on the side of food safety, some of the items might have been a bit overcooked, but not to the point where one would find the food to be bad. At breakfast Churros Mickey Waffle never disappoints. At lunch, the chicken tenders remain a classic, and so does the carved turkey on embarkation day. Pizza was good both at Cabana's or the quick service location. At quick dining, hot dogs were much improved compared to last time. Burgers were fine, and fries were well done. There is a new "tacos and bowls" station which I did not have time to try this time around. Lines at buffet and quick service never were an issue. We also did order room service on a few occasions and the items were of good quality and relatively quickly brought to our stateroom As a Premium offering, Palo continues to deliver the gods Our stateroom: I really like AFT facing staterooms with a verandah and this is what we booked on the Dream. While the cabin is sold as undersized or obstructed view, we found the verandah to be quite suitable with plenty of space and a nice view. The ship's propulsion system was upgraded during a recent drydock and did not experience any vibrations while sailing, other than when docking/arriving at a port. The bed was extremely comfortable and really appreciate that the standard on DCL remains two turndown services/cabin cleaning per day. We had a special towel design on Christmas Eve (snowman) with different chocolates for the occasion as well as a print to bring back home to celebrate spending the Holidays at sea. No issues with temperature control. Great water pressure in the shower, and love the split bathroom design in use in most DCL staterooms. There was just enough storage space for clothing for this 5-nights trip and luggage stores nicely under the bed so that it isn't in the way during the cruise. With 3 Broadway-quality show on board, DCL never disappoints in that area Port check-in and embarkation went without a glitch. Disembarkation is painless in Port Everglades with the use of biometrics.

First time, great time.

Context: 2 adults and 2 kids (5 and 10yr old) veteran cruisers but sailing for 1st time with DCL and not sure what to expect. We splurged on 2 connected balcony afternoons. A similar cruise setup on RCI Anthem cost roughly half what we paid for this so expectations were high. Pre-cruise: not a good experience...after booking we were assigned 8:30pm dining and later found out the buffet is closed for dinner. Far too late for kids but thankfully after being on a waiting list for a few months we were changed to 6:00pm. On the day when excursion booking opened checked the app at 8am - all the good excursions booked up! Travel Agent admitted DCL give previous cruisers advance access to this. I'm not sure how that's meant to encourage a new customer to come again? Had to book independent excursions (recommend Venture Ashore which comes with guarantees) and direct with one company (Viking of Haugesund for RHIB boat who refunded when we missed port). Finally the check in process! Opens midnight 30 days before for 1st timers. I wanted a good arrival time so waited up till midnight....but was midnight NYC time! So at 5am on I go and it took over 2 hours of website crashing but finally got checked in with times of 12:30 which I was pleased about. By comparison RCI check in took about 20mins on the app and midnight was GMT. Disney were good at getting back to me when I queried if Pirate Night was happening or not - rumours on Cruise Critic said 'not in Europe' but there was both a Frozen and Pirate themes night. Arrival: arrived early at Southampton in case of traffic around 11:30. 30 mins wait in holding area outside (under a roof) and we were boarded early. In Buffet by 12:30 - great. 1st impressions were of a warm welcome on a beautifully appointed ship. No lift issuses, buffet busy but plenty of seating on adjoining pool deck to eat. We took our swimmers so jumped straight in the quiet slides and warmest pool on any cruise ship I've been on (although smaller than most). Kids had a blast on slides and kids with grownups enjoyed Aquaduck (top tip we wore shorty wetsuits after this 1st go as water in slide is cold as was Norwegian weather at times!). Staterooms ready at 1:30. Somehow we were meant to know this as no announcement or info on this. Keycards outside ready for us. The rooms: fantastic! Steward Malvin excellent at looking after them and opening up the adjoining bits which effectively made it a suite. Split bathrooms good idea. Masses of storage. Aircon brilliant. Minor issues such a s broken door handle fixed within MINUTES of reporting it. My youngest is a fidget in bed so via app I had requested a bed rail which was provided. Throughout cruise the rooms were quiet and comfortable. The ship in general: very well maintained and attractive ship. Not hard to navigate. Only real oddities I found were the forward lifts bring you to pool deck (11) on one side of the adult only section which you've no choice but to walk through with the kids to get to buffet etc. This area barely ever used and since the upper bow area on 13 was adults only I wonder why it's necessary? Also little bar hidden between aft funnel we didn't realise was there again is an odd choice of location. Theatre and cinema: yes it has both. Theatre is what you'd expect on a good cruise ship. Cinema is the nicest I've been too on land OR sea (extra charge popcorn worth it and cheaper than Odeon!). Bars/lounges: we only used 'D-lounge' for the excellent cartoon drawing classes and gameshow\trivia. Odd there is no drink service in here. We aren't interested in hanging around in bars so didn't go in the rest. The odd beer with dinner cost about $9.50 or £7.30 with gratuity automatically added about par for cruise or land restaurant frankly. All soda included which was a nice touch (including self service and dinner service) shame they ran out of Sprite and later Coke Zero so didn't get a lot of use from us. Kids club: hmmmm. Mixed views on this. You'd think Disney would get this right... 1st the positives. At least once a day adults can come with kids to the club to use the facilities. I wish cruise lines would do more of this! As a parent on a family holiday I don't want to shove the kids in the club all the time but also don't want to entertain them all the time either. The open house sessions were a bit odd. Often they'd be literally nothing going on - just a very large and well decorated empty space (for example the Star Wars section was a mock up M.Falcon with 2 pilot chairs and Star Tours footage going round and round in a loop on screen but literally nothing else - Just an empty film set). When the kids went to a planned event (app good at telling you) such as slime making with Stitch or Racing Car building with Mickey Mouse they (and adults) had a great shared experience. When kids tried going in any old time they were bored and asked to leave (staff msg you on the app). I can see why when half the space is fully of broken video games with no staff fixing them or showing how to use the few that weren't crashed. This was a major disappointment for DCL, however in our experience so far it's common across the industry (RCI was worst kids club I've encountered so far, oddly Celebrity and P and O were the best). The good news is though that there was so much family friendly activity going on aboard through the day that there was little need for kids club and we stick to the planned events. It was very special for the kids and adults to have Stitch come and be naughty during slime making and Mickey to hand out 'well dones' for the racing cars so more of this please Disney! Characters\Disney theming: as you'd expect DCL have this nailed down! Characters everywhere! You could queue to meet them (average 15mins only!) but I lost count of how many times a quite literally turned a corner and nearly bumped into a character (Minnie, Mickey, Goofy, Stitch pop to mind) they all stopped for an interaction! Artwork and theming\ambient Disney music etc all spot on. Frozen theme night....bit odd. Only told this the night prior, staff where in themed outfits but that was it! No Elsa/Anna/Olaf? Pirate Night but better: guests all dressed up, pirate makeovers on offer in the boutique, Capt. Jack Sparrow, Capt. Hook meet and greet and a deck party (too late for the kids so we skipped this). No themed menus and dining staff weren't 'piratey'. Was a bit half hearted honestly. Dining: I've never felt the need for specialty restaurants and was no different this time. Cabanas Buffet was solid, not as good in choice and layout as RCI or Celebrity but way better then P and O and Princess. Not hard to find a table on busy days but layout makes it needlessly crowded in places. MDR rotation system was great, glad our staff came with us as Darcie and Yusuf were fantastic. All the food was wonderful. Kids menu.....bit odd at times but don't worry if you have fussy eaters like me. Though it doesn't say so, just ask your server and chicken tenders, chips, margarita pizza available every night. Highlights for me were the Beef Wellington main and the Honey Cake dessert. Servers bring your kids main while you have starter and their pudding while you have main so they are happy - a great touch. Staff learned the kids names and had fun with them throughout. A note on the theming: animators palette was the standard I expected with bright cartoon decor and screens showing moving Finding Nemo scenes on visit 1 and on visit 2 we each drew a picture before ordering, it was whisked away (presumably to a boffin in the back somewhere) and later our characters reappeared on the screens dancing and moving with Mickey etc. This was the highlight of all the dinner experiences. Royal Palace and Enchanted Garden however we're just a restaurant with nothing going on. Particularly the Garden was boring with plastic plant decor. Needed some characters to circulate or a dinner show or frankly any Disney theming at all! This didn't detract from the food or service. On average we were served and done with 3 courses in 60-90mins which was excellent. Poolside burgers and pizza were really good, these are your only good options open later beyond 5pm by the way if you don't go to the restaurant. Pools\outside: to avoid repeating too much...main pool small but lovely and warm, time your visits right and space won't be an issue. Shallow kids pool was popular but mine can swim so they prefer the deeper one. We were always able to get loungers right next to pool. Sea screen wasn't intrusive like other lines (P and O and Princess particularly) as Disney movies played at a comfortable volume and not competing with a band etc). Slides were brilliant. Queues could build up for aquaduck but again time your visit and you'll get straight on. Kids yellow slide rarely any queue and the kids happily went round and round. There was an adult only pool we didn't try. Hot-tubs popular and very warm. Kids welcome in some. Nemos splash pad was great for 5 year old and sprayed water was warm. They have to be accompanied by an adult though so be prepared to get wet! Mini-golf was great fun on stern (included) basketball court looked good but we didn't use. Deck 4 promenade allows compete circuit. Little odd shuffleboard here where those with funny definition of holiday wanted to jog....also stern and bow end of the prom was a white metal tunnel. Maybe some Disney theming would have made this more attractive? Entertainment: Beauty and the Beast was a Broadway quality show. Not quite up to Frozen show seen in West End but far surpassed the usual cruise ship offerings. The other nightly shows were of high standard but we skipped the Jazz performance as not our taste. Visiting magician (Raven) was both funny and very entertaining. As mentioned cinema excellent - included in fare were new releases such as Inside Out 2. Deadpool and Wolverine available but usually shown around midnight for obvious reasons and I didn't have the energy! Trivia and gameshows were what you'd expect with a Disney theme. Sometimes were a bit disorganised! How to draw classes were the highlight. Various character dance shows looked popular but avoided by me as hate that sort of thing (pleased to say though noise was never intrusive in cabin or other areas of the ship). Shops: usual expensive rubbish with a Disney theme nearly always empty with little being bought. I'd rather see the space used for something better! Ports: we were unlucky with weather days 5-6 with pouring rain and high winds. Olden very wet but we made the best of our hike to Briksdal Glacier and enjoyed it though very soggy. Missed Haugesund as weather too windy. Sea got up a bit but wasn't uncomfortable. Captain could have been more reassuring in his announcements though as he managed to worry the kids! I'd do the same itinerary again and hope for better weather!I Disembarkation. Assigned group with no choice. Skipped the assigned 6:50 MDR breakfast and went I Buffet around 7:30 and was in car on way home by 8:20 so no complaints really. Summary: it wasn't perfect and I was surprised at some of the bits DCL got wrong in particular the pre-cruise experience and the kids club. However if I factor in the whole experience (and include the weather) and compare this to our similar RCI cruise in 2022 which was about half the price per night then I'd say the experience was about equal. When I booked this at the high cost I said 'we'll only do this once) however I would go again on a similar DLC cruise provided at booking they can guarantee the earlier dining time. If you have young kids up to young teen age that like Disney and you want to splurge a bit then this is for you. If you find Disney brand veneer a bit thin then save money and go with RCI.

Disney has great food and service.

Service and food were outstanding. We are not "Disney people," and were a bit surprised at how many folks we met had been cruising with Disney 20, 25, 30 times! We didn't do a great many of the activities, so I can't really comment on them, but we enjoyed the Magic Window on our inside cabin, and watching Disney movies on the TV in our room. We also greatly enjoyed the dining rooms (I don't want to spoil it). We only took one of Disney's excursions - a walking tour that was disappointing, but so were the excursions we booked ourselves. Also fun was "Pirate Night." Again-I don't want to spoil the surprise. I recommend a shorter Disney cruise to any Disney fan to see how they like it and become a member of their cruise club. The transatlantic was a trifle long. Sodas are free. We don't have kids but we heard kids telling their parents they wanted to go back to the kids activities. There are laundry rooms on board - a great convenience, especially for long cruises. We did not use the fitness center. We enjoyed the water slide but there were lots of stairs to get there. There are adult areas on board, including swimming pools. The adult areas did get a bit crowded. In general, quiet areas to sit and read could be a bit hard to find.