Disney Dream 5 night Very Merrytime Western Caribbean from Miami

[Tama-chan]

We got home in last week (yup! Snowing with -8 lol) from Disney Dream 5 night Very Merrytime Western Caribbean from Miami. (5th to 9th of December)

I will do day by day report but I will post summary now and also if you have any questions please let me know and I will try my best to answer.

Thank you so much for everyone on this board helping me planning our vacation! It’s my time to return!



About us: We are 2 adults (2nd time on Disney cruise) and 1 almost 5 yr old son(1st time on cruise )


Stateroom: room 7566 Category 5B, with Verandah

We LOOOOVEd our room. It was close to elevator hall but not too close, maybe 20 steps or so. If elevators are too full, we could easily manage to use stairs to go up to deck 11 or even from restaurants on deck 3. We will get this room again!

On top of that, our stateroom hostess, Mercedes, was just AMAZING she was so friendly and her attentions to detail were so great! She even tied up our chargers with little Velcro! I used bank bed and stole one of the pillows from main bed. From day 2, two pillows were waiting for me on the bank bed!



Dining: We are not fancy family, our go to restaurant back home is Eastside Mario (I think equivalent to Olive Garden), Cheesecake Factory and Milestone. So we really enjoyed our food on the ship.

My son loved slow roasted chicken from adult menu and that was his choice for every night except the 1st night. He literally ate like 80-90% of big chicken .

Our service though… as we had such a fantastic team back on Fantasy in 2015, if I compare to that, I would say it was good but not fantastic. We had to ask a spoon for my son every night, although as I mentioned he ordered the same menu except the 1st night.



Entertainment:

I really appreciated they made kids only zone for “sail away party” and “mickey’s pirate night”. My son was able to watch on the very first row. And of course the fireworks were just beyond amazing

We went to watch “Golden Mickey”, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Believe”. It was my son’s first time to experience Broadway type show and he LOVEd it!!! He kept asking when is next “real person” shows lol. My favourite was “Believe”. We had a good laugh and still had tons of famous Disney movie scenes and musics.

I have to mention though, I highly recommend to wear mask in theatre. People are constantly talking and coughing everywhere although they might be just choking on popcorn . I felt so uncomfortable and so glad I had my mask on. Also people!!! Please turn off your phones!!!! I saw numerous guests on the phone during the show and some of them were even recording/taking pictures of the show!!! Those really bothered me.



Characters:

We are not huge photos with characters family. So it was not our priority, but we still enjoyed some and to me, it wasn’t a much of the wait. We managed to take a photo with captain Mickey just right after boarding the ship too! The longest line we did was Pirate Stitch and it was probably about 30 mins or so. We thought we would miss pirate show but we just made it!





That’s all for now. I will post day by day soon!

 

[KSL]

We will be on a 5-Night Merrytime cruise on Dream next week and I am eager to read your TR! One thing I cannot find: which night was the Pirate Night? Also, did you find CC too cold for swimming? I'll be following along!

 

[Tama-chan]

We will be on a 5-Night Merrytime cruise on Dream next week and I am eager to read your TR! One thing I cannot find: which night was the Pirate Night? Also, did you find CC too cold for swimming? I'll be following along!

So jealous! So you will be on the ship on Christmas Day???
Pirate night was on the 4th night, which was Cozumel day. You can check from app, and try to book Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and see which night offers pirate make over.
I wanted to make sure so I emailed DCL from the link below, and I got the reply on the same day.
https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/help/email

CC was beautiful for swimming! Although the water was a bit cold for the first time, once you are fully soaked in, you would be fine. My son started feeling cold in the afternoon, so we started heading back at 2:30 ish. But until then we forgot it was December

 

[Tama-chan]

Day 0: Travel day

We left our home in on Sunday morning to FLL. As Air Canada has on going issues with luggage lost this year, we packed as much as we could in carry-on.

Although our first flight was delayed for about an hour, we were able to make the connection and ta daaaaaa our checked luggage even made it to Fort Lauderdale!!!


We took Lyft to hotel in Miami. We bought Mifold booster seat for my son. It was a great option for us as it fit in backpack and we didn’t want to use shuttle transportation.

The Lyft was $55 including tip and priority pick up!! It took us about 50 mins with traffic (we left airport just before 6PM and arrived at the hotel at 6:40)

BTW getting on Lyft/Uber was pretty easy at FLL. You get out from terminal and follow the sign for shared car ride. Uber has green sign on dashboard and Lyft has pink/purple sign, super easy to find your car. (Not sure this is standard in USA but not where I’m from in )



We stayed at Atwell Suites Miami Brickell. I had some IHG points to be used by end of the year and they were doing promotion of purchasing points. So we were able to stay there for about $140CAD. We choose this hotel mainly because of the location and free breakfast.

The room was clean and very stylish, even come with balcony! It has counter with sink, which was useful to wash water bottles and stuff.

Publix is a little short walk away, like 5 mins.

Only negative side was the hotel is so close to train station and we could hear their announcement/bell constantly…..



We checked in, organized ourselves, then headed to dinner at Gyukaku, Japanese BBQ restaurant I loooove! Then after dinner, we stopped at Publix and bought beer for on board.



Before going to bed, I pre-booked Lyft for the following day as demand is high and it was getting pricey.


All right everyone, have a great night, tomorrow is embarkation!!!

 

[KSL]

So jealous! So you will be on the ship on Christmas Day???
Pirate night was on the 4th night, which was Cozumel day. You can check from app, and try to book Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and see which night offers pirate make over.
I wanted to make sure so I emailed DCL from the link below, and I got the reply on the same day.
https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/help/email

CC was beautiful for swimming! Although the water was a bit cold for the first time, once you are fully soaked in, you would be fine. My son started feeling cold in the afternoon, so we started heading back at 2:30 ish. But until then we forgot it was December

Yes, we will! As long as we can get there Long-range weather forecast has a nor'easter hitting right when we'll be trying to fly down.
I tried that hack of looking for pirate makeovers to figure the day, but didn't see any!? Well, that's ok, we've decided to try to pack strictly with carry-ons, so don't have extra room for pirate gear anyway.
I'm glad to hear the swimming on CC was fine!

 

[Tama-chan]

Well, that's ok, we've decided to try to pack strictly with carry-ons, so don't have extra room for pirate gear anyway.
I'm glad to hear the swimming on CC was fine!

Hope the weather will change!!!
Each of you get Mickey pirate bandana on pirate night day, so you will not be left out! Also there was some pirate T-shirts at a gift shop. We were luckily able to find pirate Cozume t-shirts at port wayyyy cheaper than ship, so that’s another option for you.

 

[Tama-chan]

Day 1-1: Embarkation Day

We woke up and headed to breakfast.

Breakfast room was so cool and they even had a semi pod.

Selection was pretty average. Toast, bagels, eggs , yogurt and some fruits. They also had pre-made breakfast sandwiches.




Since we did pre-booking for Lyft, it was so smooth departure! We left our hotel 10:55 and arrived at port (Terminal C) at 11:10. (Our PAT is 11:15 with boarding group 4) The cost was $23.49 including tip.

I prefer Lyft to Uber as you can choose your terminal on Lyft when you put the port of Miami as destination. So there is no confusion or explanation to driver needed.



Once we arrived, a porter was waiting for you. Since we didn’t get luggage tag mailed, we let her know our stateroom number and there was no issue. By the way, I haven’t even received the tag even after we came home…so I guess DCL doesn’t send them to non USA address.



After dropping off luggage, we headed to inside of the terminal, where you do security check first. There was 1 group ahead of us but that’s about it.

Next stop was check-in and time check, it’s only 11:19, so you know how quick the luggage drop and security check went. We presented port arrival form as well as printed out ESTA approval page (As I am Japanese). We received my son’s kids club wrist band but that’s all we got as room key to the world card would be waiting at stateroom door.



After checking in, we went up on escalator where we waited for boarding number to be called. Unfortunately our waiting area did not get DCL wifi but I was able to connect port of Miami one. I was even able to stream FIFA while waiting!!!

One thing I would have done differently was bringing some snacks….it was closer to noon and getting a bit hungry but we packed pretty much everything in checked luggage. Fortunately there was a vending machine selling snacks. But I recommend to pack granola bar or something like that in your carry on.



At 12:12 boarding group 1-4 was called!!!! Yes finally we can board the ship!!!

As walking toward the ship, I was able to connect DCL wifi! And the first thing I did was….checking dining rotation Ours was RAERA.

There was a photo opportunity stop, and if you don’t want to, you can skip which means you can cut like 10 groups ahead. We stopped for a family photo…why not?!

At 12:29, we were on the DREAM!!!! Yes it was a dream!!!!!

As we walked upstairs, we ran into Captain Mickey and luckily we were able to take a pic with him! (Shutter photographer was there too, and since no key to the world card, you just need to tell him the room number.)




All right, next mission is…..Aqua Duck before getting crowded! Well that was my idea…not my kid We did a little bit of dipping before heading to Aqua Duck.

He was a little bit scared at first, but as soon as he got off, he told me he LOOOOOOOVED it and we repeated probably 7 times or so.

All right hubby wants to eat, so we grabbed a table and had a pizza and panini from Flo’s cafe area. Honestly, their French fries were soooo good! Not sure if they are different, but way better than Cabana. By the way I didn’t go in, but my husband said Canana was zoo lol.