Dreamin' in the New Year! Our 4 night getaway on the Dream!

[christineD186]

Life is but a "Dream"! We just got off the Dream this past Friday. It was a whirlwind of a vacation. This is our 5th Disney cruise, but first time on the larger ships. There were 6 of us, including my uncle who is a disabled vet and wheelchair bound. This was a 4 day cruise to Nassau and Castaway Cay with a Sea Day. This trip report will include our travels to get to the port and the cruise itself. I will also include my thoughts on the large vs. the smaller ships. But I will leave you with this: A day on any Disney ship is a good day.

 

[Otimon]

Agree 100%.

 

[Shanti]

View attachment 213999

Life is but a "Dream"! We just got off the Dream this past Friday. It was a whirlwind of a vacation. This is our 5th Disney cruise, but first time on the larger ships. There were 6 of us, including my uncle who is a disabled vet and wheelchair bound. This was a 4 day cruise to Nassau and Castaway Cay with a Sea Day. This trip report will include our travels to get to the port and the cruise itself. I will also include my thoughts on the large vs. the smaller ships. But I will leave you with this: A day on any Disney ship is a good day.

Looking forward to reading your report. We're booked for next New Year's Dream cruise.

 

[christineD186]

Shanti,

We boarded on the 2nd of January. We were not on the NYE cruise

 

[christineD186]

We started off by flying into Orlando the night before our cruise. As I said, my uncle is a disabled vet. Delta was wonderful with transfer help on and off the flight. We used Happy Limo car service to get to the port. Efficient, courteous and wonderful to work with. I would definitely recommend them if you are not looking to take Disney transfers.

We stayed at the Country inn and Suites in Port Canaveral. Great place for overnight with a full breakfast. The taxi was only $5 per person to the port and came immediately after we called. Travel was very smooth and easy.

We had an 11:15 PAT. While the cruise terminal was very busy, we were lucky to get right up to a cast member to check in. We had a little snafu (my mom's passport was expired! EEK!) but luckily she happened to have her birth certificate with her (phew!) We were finished with checking in at about 11:45 and walked right on to the ship. Of course we got a family picture boarding (this is always one of our favorite pictures) and before we knew it we were heading to cabanas for lunch!

 

[christineD186]

Embarkation buffet is always my favorite! Everyone is always so excited. Now this was our first time on a larger ship. We have sailed both the Wonder and Magic, but never the Dream or Fantasy. Normally, we would go to the restaurant buffet on the smaller ships. We enjoy the leisure lunch and not walking around with our food trying to find a place to sit. The Dream only had Cabanas open for lunch. We spent 35 minutes walking around trying to find a table to sit at. We brushed it off as everyone being in the same place at the same time, but little did we know that it was going to become a theme at Cabanas.

We enjoyed our lunch and by that time our rooms were open and we were ready to change and drop off our carry ons.

We had 2 rooms. When we booked we were able to book a handicapped room (9170) and the other room was gty. When we got our second room number we were super excited. Our second room was 7190, which is also a handicapped room(?) with an extended verandah. I question that it is a handicapped room because while it is set up that way 7190 was missing a lot of what 9170 had (doorbell, pushbutton to open door). The extra room is amazing! We had 6 lounge chairs on our verandah, 2 of which were full layout loungers. We definitely took advantage of the verandah and often laid out on the verandah rather than the deck. Also, it was nice not to trip over each other. While these rooms only have 1 bathroom, we had no issues.

Our luggage arrived while we were in the room and we decided to unpack and set up our door and fish extender before the muster drill.

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Joining in!

 

[Quellman]

Those magnets are great!

 

[christineD186]

Thanks! I made them all!

 

[christineD186]

Oh! I forgot that we went to the DVC members get together the first day! We always love going and seeing what specials they have. Any time we have added points on, we have done on a cruise. We find the incentives to be better for us. Often it's onboard credit which everyone loves! We did not add on this cruise. We added Poly in 2015 and are still paying that off.

We used points for this cruise. Some people don't think you get the value for points per dollar when using them on the cruise. We find it worth it. We were able to take 6 people on this cruise, and we only paid the $95 reservation fee.

Ok, back to muster!

Muster was quick and easy. Actually, one of the fastest muster drills I have ever had. After muster we headed up to deck 11 for the sail away party! I love all of the party's that DCL does. I love looking around and seeing everyone having one of the best day's ever. We enjoyed the whole party and our vacation had officially begun! Phones were set to airplane mode and sunglasses were on!

 

[Quellman]

Oh! I forgot that we went to the DVC members get together the first day! We always love going and seeing what specials they have. Any time we have added points on, we have done on a cruise. We find the incentives to be better for us. Often it's onboard credit which everyone loves! We did not add on this cruise. We added Poly in 2015 and are still paying that off.

We used points for this cruise. Some people don't think you get the value for points per dollar when using them on the cruise. We find it worth it. We were able to take 6 people on this cruise, and we only paid the $95 reservation fee.

Ok, back to muster!

Muster was quick and easy. Actually, one of the fastest muster drills I have ever had. After muster we headed up to deck 11 for the sail away party! I love all of the party's that DCL does. I love looking around and seeing everyone having one of the best day's ever. We enjoyed the whole party and our vacation had officially begun! Phones were set to airplane mode and sunglasses were on!

We have used points towards a cruise 2 separate times. It worked well for us because they were going to be points that were going to expire anyway. Sure there is ways to better convert to cash and yada yada, but you know what, your points do what you want!

 

[mommy2mb]

Joining in!!!

 

[christineD186]

After the sail away party, we decided to go change and get ready for the show. The first show was the "Golden Mickeys". I adore this show. I think it's a great kick off for the start of your cruise. Our cruise director was Trent. We found him very entertaining! After the show we decided to explore a bit and get more comfortable with the ship. We had dinner at the Royal Palace the first night and we all were looking forward to that.

Right here is one of my more frustrating points from our cruise. I found the Dream a bit hard to navigate. While, I love the amount and ease of the elevators, I found getting from one side of the ship to the other to be a annoying. On the smaller ships, there is always a straight shot from one set of elevators to the other. I found myself constantly getting switched around and running in to dead ends. I honestly just couldn't find an easy path. Maybe this was me, and had I been on the ship longer I would have figured it all out, but I found it quite frustrating when by day 4 I was STILL running in to dead ends.

Back to night 1!

Dinner at the Royal Palace was fantastic!!!! We met our servers, Vlad and Suhyeh, and of course they were wonderful. I'm always amazed when we talk to the servers and how long they have worked on the ships. Vlad was on his 8th year with Disney! I think that's amazing. He loved working on the ship and wanted to continue for as long as he could.

We enjoyed the french onion soup, escargot and of course the filet. We loved the Strawberry shortcake sundae and asked for it the next night too!

We were exhausted after dinner and went to bed!

 

[carolann210]

Following along...first time on DCL Dream next year.

 

[lorimay]

After the sail away party, we decided to go change and get ready for the show. The first show was the "Golden Mickeys". I adore this show. I think it's a great kick off for the start of your cruise. Our cruise director was Trent. We found him very entertaining! After the show we decided to explore a bit and get more comfortable with the ship. We had dinner at the Royal Palace the first night and we all were looking forward to that.

Right here is one of my more frustrating points from our cruise. I found the Dream a bit hard to navigate. While, I love the amount and ease of the elevators, I found getting from one side of the ship to the other to be a annoying. On the smaller ships, there is always a straight shot from one set of elevators to the other. I found myself constantly getting switched around and running in to dead ends. I honestly just couldn't find an easy path. Maybe this was me, and had I been on the ship longer I would have figured it all out, but I found it quite frustrating when by day 4 I was STILL running in to dead ends.

Back to night 1!

Dinner at the Royal Palace was fantastic!!!! We met our servers, Vlad and Suhyeh, and of course they were wonderful. I'm always amazed when we talk to the servers and how long they have worked on the ships. Vlad was on his 8th year with Disney! I think that's amazing. He loved working on the ship and wanted to continue for as long as he could.

We enjoyed the french onion soup, escargot and of course the filet. We loved the Strawberry shortcake sundae and asked for it the next night too!

We were exhausted after dinner and went to bed!

We have done 13 Disney cruises (11 of them on classic ships) I still get turned around and lost, so don't feel bad.

 

[JMommyof3]

We were on that cruise too. It was our first ever. We had such a great time.

 

[christineD186]

Day 2 at sea!

At Sea days are always my favorite. We all got up and had breakfast. We went to Cabana's for the buffet. I love how it's a free moving buffet, but we had a hard time finding a table. This seemed to be a theme this trip. I'm pretty patient, but I was even getting frustrated with finding a table. We went at off times so we could have a leisure breakfast. That was definitely not the case. Just a tip, look for a table first.

After breakfast, we went back to the room and changed into our swimsuits and headed to the aquaduck. It was a beautiful day. Sunny, warm and perfect for laying in a lounge chair. I decided I wanted to try my hand at the origami and headed down to the pub.

In the past, I have always felt like there was almost too much to do on Sea Days. I was running from one activity to the next on the classic ships. On the Dream? Not so much. I felt like the detective agency (more on that later) was really what they wanted you to do. Maybe more people end up doing that than going to the trivias and activities. Either way, I was kinda bummed that there wasn't more to choose from.

After origami (we made a lily pad, frog and heart for Princess and the frog) I met my family at the family pool where they were playing poolside trivia. I decided to see what the adult's only sections looked like and headed to quiet cove, the adult pool and the adult lounge area.

The adult lounge area was awesome. I loved the lounge chairs, it was quiet and was a perfect place to read a book. I decided it was time for a snack and headed back down. I found some of my family, grabbed a snack and went back to the room to shower and get ready for the show. It was Villian's tonight! One of my favorites!

 

[princess_jamie]

Following along! Going on my first ever Disney cruise next January and it's in the dream so I'm excited to hear what you have to say!