Dream HOTHS 5-night Western Caribbean Oct 15-20th ADULT ONLY TRIP REPORT

[kittylady1972]

We are about 11 days post our first Disney Cruise since Sept/Oct 2015 and we had a group of 10 adults on this trip!

I'll do a quick recap of the good...and the bad. Let's start with the good:

• Embarkation in Miami, our first time leaving from here, was great and easy. Our luggage actually arrived at our room pretty early, though others in our party were not as lucky. Wonder how much of it was the fact that our luggage tags arrived for us THE DAY WE LEFT for the trip, so we had them on our bags while others had to do them at port and they were handwritten, one was done quite poorly...that couple got their luggage pretty late. Also we tipped the porter quite nicely...that may have helped.
• Customer service...we went immediately when we got on the ship to change around some things, add people to things, remove people and the person helping there was so patient and did a great job. Other visits to Customer Service for other things went well.
• Adult entertainment...Mauricio was simply fabulous! We spent a lot of nights with our group at Evolution. Silent dance party was so much fun but so were all the adult activities from the adult Halloween Costume Contest, to the trivia, to the gameshows.
• Adult bartenders...we had some great ones in Pub 687 and the pool bar and we got quite good at hitting the happy hours at many locations
• Adult pool...this was where the majority spent most of our days. It was just a great atmosphere, people were friendly, husband and friends befriended a bartender there and the drinks had some heavy pours...which may or may not have caused a few people in our group to nearly miss dinner
• Beverage tastings...we did a few...they were okay overall. I miss when you could make your own drinks in Mixology. The tequila and margarita tasting was probably my least favorite. Mixology was okay. DH and friends did the Bourbon and liked it and other friends did Champagne and Chocolate and liked it. For the $40+ pricetag for most, it was a decent deal but I probably would skip it in the future.
• BINGO...still fun and quite packed the two times we played.
• Food...Cabanas was good, had a few different options for lunch. The quick service options on the pool deck (pizza, burgers) were also good. We also had a few nice happy hour buffets outside 687 during late nights which was nice. I did order the wings at room service...they were good. The charcuterie plate though was a bit disappointing. And only 5 or 6 wings on the order...I think for 2 people you would need 2 orders of wings or 2 charcuterie plates...and the room service said 40 minutes but was there within 20 or so both times. We only did rotational dining which was all pretty good...not amazing but not bad. Also the buffet on Castaway Cay at the adult beach was good...nice to have steak as an option there and ribs were excellent.
• Room cleaning...amazing as always even if half the time we didn't know what our elaborate towel animals were supposed to be
• Trivia...we did hit quite a few of these and all of them were fun.
• Shows...we only saw Beauty and Beast but it was FANTASTIC! Definitely something to see at least once.

Ok now the BAD:

• Dining Rotational Servers: Wow...like we didn't have the A, B or even C team..and in fact I wouldn't call it a team at all. They clearly didn't really work "together" as the guy doing our drinks and helping...was barely there. They only showed up side by side...sorta...day one. Our server tried very hard, I'll give him that, but he just couldn't deliver. Some of his suggestions were okay. EVERY single night at least one item was missed by somebody in our party. That could be a food item or a drink item, didn't matter. One night he was nice enough to de-shell the shrimp for everybody at our table...except one person...and she was the first one to order and get served. One night somebody got pasta...that dish came out first, but some dishes came out quite a bit later and THEN our server was offering parmesan cheese to the person who already ate half the pasta. It was sadly comical in a way but for some people this was their first cruise, others their 2nd but first Disney cruise, and we boasted about how the dining teams would be...and they failed. Drinks went unfilled, even those of us ordering the same drinks every night...that wasn't even remembered.
• Ok I wanted to love the Rainforest Room, and we did get the length of cruise passes for a good deal, but it just wasn't my thing. The stone beds were okay. The 2 person hot tub on the water was actually nice. The shower rooms were okay and I didn't do the sauna. It was still a nice escape place and close to the adult pool.
• Hard sells: Ok the day one hard sell on the pool deck for the water and cooler was a bit much...at least it was just one day. The hard sell on spa services got old after a while also.
• The Disney APP: Wow so it was nice to communicate with each other, but one day I got logged out and when I got back I no longer had access at all to our group chat. Then it would show me messages that I seemed to be sending to myself...but I had to look at the conversation to figure out who it was coming from...so that was frustrating. When it worked, it was great, but it was too glitchy to rely on all the time and getting locked out of our group chat with the other 9 people really sucked.
• Pirate buffet gone...this made me super sad as I swear days before we left I was reading about it and couldn't wait to see it. I did some trick or treating at Cabanas at least on Halloween night, which was nice.

So really overall we had a GREAT time. Our adults went ALL IN on pirate night and costume night and some of them were not even Disney people at all but still seemed to really enjoy themselves. We took advantage of bringing our own alcohol on the ship on day one, but beyond that we had great service at the bars and overall I don't think anybody felt the bill at the end for alcohol was too great. I would never get my money's worth out of a cruise line with a drink package or an all inclusive, but I know people love them. With our happy hours and such, we did just fine.

Ports...we found it very easy to get around Grand Cayman, grabbed a taxi who took us to 7 mile beach very cheaply and when we were ready to leave 7 mile beach there were TONS of people waiting to give rides back to the port. We actually asked for the same lady who drove the 5 of us and she came and took us back to port. So no worries at all about making your way to 7 Mile Beach on your own. There were two food trucks there at 7 Mile with a DELICIOUS Cuban sandwich at one of them...one of the best ever. And reasonable. We easily got somebody to hook us up with beach chairs and an umbrella too. We made it back to port in plenty of time doing this on our own and having some time earlier to shop around the area.

Castaway Cay...well I could complain that we didn't have the best weather but we still made the best of it even with the rain. Our first time at Serenity Bay was nice, loved that the drinks came right to us in our chairs at the water line there. The food there was definitely a step above the Cookies places. Soft serve ice cream was great and if you put it between two chocolate chip cookies it's even better...you can thank me later.

Sea Days kept us busy enough. We didn't do any character greetings, Jack and Sally was advertised very late I'm sure for crowd reduction but they still had a long line. Soft ice cream on the ship got crazy busy at times but they did their best to keep it functional and relatively clean.

Any other questions let me know!

 

[JM_97]

How was your stateroom?

 

[kittylady1972]

How was your stateroom?

Our stateroom was GREAT! Always cleaned regularly...we just couldn't recognize the towel animals but they were quite elaborate. We had an Oceanview near the rear of the ship with one portal. Rooms are always good size on DCL, plenty of storage, but this is our 5th cruise so not surprised. My only complaint was that on night one, and a FEW other times, this part of the ship had a LOT of vibration! I know the first night in particular, as we were sleeping, there was just a constant vibration. One of our party said stuff in their stateroom (they had a drop down bed but weren't using it) was rattling and they had to stuff things around it to stop it. Eventually I still managed to sleep that first night, but others who aren't good sleepers like me may not like that. We've always picked rooms in the middle of the ship, but we book OceanView GTY this time. We were on the 7th floor I believe and our entire party, most of which booked at different times, all had rooms together.

Now this location was GREAT to go to Cabanas in the morning (straight up and you were there) and to the adult nightclub areas at night (straight down). However for the vibrations that we experienced the first night and a few other nights, I probably wouldn't recommend it.

 

[kittylady1972]

So our room was 9656...not the 7th floor.

Towel animals:

 

[mama&me]

So our room was 9656...not the 7th floor.

Towel animals:
View attachment 716067View attachment 716069View attachment 716070View attachment 716068

1. Rattlesnake
2. Lobster
3. Davy Jones??
4. Gorilla.
These are my guesses.

 

[travellingwithnikki]

I agree with your comment on the upselling - the spa ladies on our cruise on the Dream a few weeks before yours were relentless for most of the cruise.

 

[kittylady1972]

1. Rattlesnake
2. Lobster
3. Davy Jones??
4. Gorilla.
These are my guesses.

I am not even sure...I think we asked at some point but that information wasn't retained by my brain.

I agree with your comment on the upselling - the spa ladies on our cruise on the Dream a few weeks before yours were relentless for most of the cruise.

Yeah...they seem to be at every big "event" to try to do the selling thing. We went to the day one raffle which of course was one long sales pitch overall. I know they were at Bingo and maybe even some of the drink events too?

 

[Tama-chan]

Thank you for sharing! So sad to hear that dining room team is not as great as should be…one thing I really enjoyed on my last Disney cruise was how wonderful the servers were. I’m going on Dream in December, hopefully they will improve by then.

How was debarkation? Was it long line up or custom hold or anything?

 

[kittylady1972]

Thank you for sharing! So sad to hear that dining room team is not as great as should be…one thing I really enjoyed on my last Disney cruise was how wonderful the servers were. I’m going on Dream in December, hopefully they will improve by then.

How was debarkation? Was it long line up or custom hold or anything?

Thanks...yes sad about the server situation but we made the best of it.

Debarkation was simple and easy...first time in Miami but we had no issues. Waited for our "character" to be called, walked down and pickup up our luggage, no real lines at customs, no forms to fill out, then we were through and out. Since we had no car, there was plenty of transportation at the port to take us to the airport...albeit way too early but we didn't feel like trying to find ways to kill time. One couple had a very late flight, they took Uber or Lyft to a museum in Miami, and then took advantage of some kind of "free" transportation in the area after checking their luggage into one of the places they had for storage...might have been at a hotel or something? Can't recall.

We would definitely go in and out of Miami again, despite it not have the same Disney "feel" like PC.

 

[Tama-chan]

Debarkation was simple and easy...first time in Miami but we had no issues. Waited for our "character" to be called, walked down and pickup up our luggage, no real lines at customs, no forms to fill out, then we were through and out. Since we had no car, there was plenty of transportation at the port to take us to the airport...albeit way too early but we didn't feel like trying to find ways to kill time. One couple had a very late flight, they took Uber or Lyft to a museum in Miami, and then took advantage of some kind of "free" transportation in the area after checking their luggage into one of the places they had for storage...might have been at a hotel or something? Can't recall.

We would definitely go in and out of Miami again, despite it not have the same Disney "feel" like PC.

Great to hear, thank you! I was scared of the long waiting line like airport lol but seems way better and smooth. We also won’t have any car and planning to do Uber/Lyft on the spot.
We have a flight from FLL instead of Miami at 12:30 so hoping to get out from the port before 9:30 or so.

 

[TFeldy26]

We are about 11 days post our first Disney Cruise since Sept/Oct 2015 and we had a group of 10 adults on this trip!

I'll do a quick recap of the good...and the bad. Let's start with the good:

• Embarkation in Miami, our first time leaving from here, was great and easy. Our luggage actually arrived at our room pretty early, though others in our party were not as lucky. Wonder how much of it was the fact that our luggage tags arrived for us THE DAY WE LEFT for the trip, so we had them on our bags while others had to do them at port and they were handwritten, one was done quite poorly...that couple got their luggage pretty late. Also we tipped the porter quite nicely...that may have helped.
• Customer service...we went immediately when we got on the ship to change around some things, add people to things, remove people and the person helping there was so patient and did a great job. Other visits to Customer Service for other things went well.
• Adult entertainment...Mauricio was simply fabulous! We spent a lot of nights with our group at Evolution. Silent dance party was so much fun but so were all the adult activities from the adult Halloween Costume Contest, to the trivia, to the gameshows.
• Adult bartenders...we had some great ones in Pub 687 and the pool bar and we got quite good at hitting the happy hours at many locations
• Adult pool...this was where the majority spent most of our days. It was just a great atmosphere, people were friendly, husband and friends befriended a bartender there and the drinks had some heavy pours...which may or may not have caused a few people in our group to nearly miss dinner
• Beverage tastings...we did a few...they were okay overall. I miss when you could make your own drinks in Mixology. The tequila and margarita tasting was probably my least favorite. Mixology was okay. DH and friends did the Bourbon and liked it and other friends did Champagne and Chocolate and liked it. For the $40+ pricetag for most, it was a decent deal but I probably would skip it in the future.
• BINGO...still fun and quite packed the two times we played.
• Food...Cabanas was good, had a few different options for lunch. The quick service options on the pool deck (pizza, burgers) were also good. We also had a few nice happy hour buffets outside 687 during late nights which was nice. I did order the wings at room service...they were good. The charcuterie plate though was a bit disappointing. And only 5 or 6 wings on the order...I think for 2 people you would need 2 orders of wings or 2 charcuterie plates...and the room service said 40 minutes but was there within 20 or so both times. We only did rotational dining which was all pretty good...not amazing but not bad. Also the buffet on Castaway Cay at the adult beach was good...nice to have steak as an option there and ribs were excellent.
• Room cleaning...amazing as always even if half the time we didn't know what our elaborate towel animals were supposed to be
• Trivia...we did hit quite a few of these and all of them were fun.
• Shows...we only saw Beauty and Beast but it was FANTASTIC! Definitely something to see at least once.

Ok now the BAD:

• Dining Rotational Servers: Wow...like we didn't have the A, B or even C team..and in fact I wouldn't call it a team at all. They clearly didn't really work "together" as the guy doing our drinks and helping...was barely there. They only showed up side by side...sorta...day one. Our server tried very hard, I'll give him that, but he just couldn't deliver. Some of his suggestions were okay. EVERY single night at least one item was missed by somebody in our party. That could be a food item or a drink item, didn't matter. One night he was nice enough to de-shell the shrimp for everybody at our table...except one person...and she was the first one to order and get served. One night somebody got pasta...that dish came out first, but some dishes came out quite a bit later and THEN our server was offering parmesan cheese to the person who already ate half the pasta. It was sadly comical in a way but for some people this was their first cruise, others their 2nd but first Disney cruise, and we boasted about how the dining teams would be...and they failed. Drinks went unfilled, even those of us ordering the same drinks every night...that wasn't even remembered.
• Ok I wanted to love the Rainforest Room, and we did get the length of cruise passes for a good deal, but it just wasn't my thing. The stone beds were okay. The 2 person hot tub on the water was actually nice. The shower rooms were okay and I didn't do the sauna. It was still a nice escape place and close to the adult pool.
• Hard sells: Ok the day one hard sell on the pool deck for the water and cooler was a bit much...at least it was just one day. The hard sell on spa services got old after a while also.
• The Disney APP: Wow so it was nice to communicate with each other, but one day I got logged out and when I got back I no longer had access at all to our group chat. Then it would show me messages that I seemed to be sending to myself...but I had to look at the conversation to figure out who it was coming from...so that was frustrating. When it worked, it was great, but it was too glitchy to rely on all the time and getting locked out of our group chat with the other 9 people really sucked.
• Pirate buffet gone...this made me super sad as I swear days before we left I was reading about it and couldn't wait to see it. I did some trick or treating at Cabanas at least on Halloween night, which was nice.

So really overall we had a GREAT time. Our adults went ALL IN on pirate night and costume night and some of them were not even Disney people at all but still seemed to really enjoy themselves. We took advantage of bringing our own alcohol on the ship on day one, but beyond that we had great service at the bars and overall I don't think anybody felt the bill at the end for alcohol was too great. I would never get my money's worth out of a cruise line with a drink package or an all inclusive, but I know people love them. With our happy hours and such, we did just fine.

Ports...we found it very easy to get around Grand Cayman, grabbed a taxi who took us to 7 mile beach very cheaply and when we were ready to leave 7 mile beach there were TONS of people waiting to give rides back to the port. We actually asked for the same lady who drove the 5 of us and she came and took us back to port. So no worries at all about making your way to 7 Mile Beach on your own. There were two food trucks there at 7 Mile with a DELICIOUS Cuban sandwich at one of them...one of the best ever. And reasonable. We easily got somebody to hook us up with beach chairs and an umbrella too. We made it back to port in plenty of time doing this on our own and having some time earlier to shop around the area.

Castaway Cay...well I could complain that we didn't have the best weather but we still made the best of it even with the rain. Our first time at Serenity Bay was nice, loved that the drinks came right to us in our chairs at the water line there. The food there was definitely a step above the Cookies places. Soft serve ice cream was great and if you put it between two chocolate chip cookies it's even better...you can thank me later.

Sea Days kept us busy enough. We didn't do any character greetings, Jack and Sally was advertised very late I'm sure for crowd reduction but they still had a long line. Soft ice cream on the ship got crazy busy at times but they did their best to keep it functional and relatively clean.

Any other questions let me know!

Great report! Can I ask what time trivia normally is? We have late dining and I'm afraid I'm going to miss out. Hubby and I LOVE trivia! Thanks!

 

[kittylady1972]

Great report! Can I ask what time trivia normally is? We have late dining and I'm afraid I'm going to miss out. Hubby and I LOVE trivia! Thanks!

We did various Trivia events throughout the day so there wasn't one set time. I know one day we did one around 1pm or 2pm, other times they were closer to 4pm or 5pm. You just need to check the app ahead of time and look for them.

 

[TFeldy26]

We did various Trivia events throughout the day so there wasn't one set time. I know one day we did one around 1pm or 2pm, other times they were closer to 4pm or 5pm. You just need to check the app ahead of time and look for them.

Awesome, at least I know I'll be able to hit some. Thanks!