I was on the Dream 15-18 cruise and had to chuckle when I read this--amazing how different impressions can be. We never once felt the experience was reduced or that we were shut out of things or had to wait too long. To the contrary, this was our 3rd time sailing on the dream and it was the most enjoyable one we've ever done.
We rode the aquaduck many times and it ranged from walk-on to at most 10 minutes--nothing like the 45 minute waits I remember from 2019.
Yes we waited our turn to get into the family pool sometimes; however, often either Donald or Mickey was available even if the other had a line, so we'd just go to the open pool. And again that was at most 5-10 minutes, and we could watch funnel vision while we waited. I thought it was a good system and when our time was up in the pool, we often were able to just "loop" it and go back in if we wanted for the next 15 min session. Plus the experience in the pool was awesome and worth a little wait--much nicer to be able to relax and spread out in the pool than when it was kid soup pre-Covid, and there were always lots of poolside chairs available. There were two times where the Mickey pool was closed because someone's toddler had left a little "present" in the pool and it had to be shut down for cleaning (approx 3 hours downtime)--so if the person complaining about waits was trying to use the other pool at the time I could see how the line would be longer as there was only one pool available, but that's hardly Disney's fault. When that happened to us we just switched gears and played mini golf (with no wait).
We had a full theater for Beauty and the Beast the first night (main dining, so this was the 8:45 show) but it didn't fill up till right before the show started. I got in right at the end and the show started just a couple of minutes later. The fact that CM escorted you to a seat was much nicer than Pre-Covid when I'd have to climb over everyone to get to the middle of the row to find an empty seat only for someone to say the seat was saved. There was also a second opportunity to see the show on the last night, so I highly doubt anyone who wanted to see it had no ability to do so. We also watched one movie--Shang Chi--and no issue getting seats 5 mins before showtime.
We went to quite a few activities/game shows and they were not at capacity even though we always arrived no more than 5 minutes prior to the start. If someone got shut out due to capacity they were either really unlucky in their activity choices or they arrived late.
On
Castaway Cay day, there were a decent amount of people on the island, but we still were able to find shaded loungers right up against the water at the family beach both in the morning and when we relocated to another part of the beach in the afternoon--which was never true on our prior Dream cruises. And while there was a line for food at Cookies at 12:30, it was 5 mins at most and we had no trouble getting a table.
We did have lines for soda and ice cream sometimes on the ship, but never more than 4-5 people in front of us. And it felt a lot less gross than when everyone's kids would be grabbing their own cups and cones and making a mess around the stations.
The kids club was the only thing that had less-than-stellar availability. We used our pre-booked session every day but could not book extra for our kids. That said, we still found lots of fun to do on the ships as a family and ended up really enjoying the sense of togetherness it forced on us. And when you add the sessions together, that's 5.5 hours over a 3 day cruise which is really plenty when you think about it.
I can see how if you were looking at September cruises and thinking that'd be what it's like, you might feel ripped off. But that's not really a sound strategy for researching cruises. This past weekend was a fall school break in many parts of the country. Disney did not even offer Florida resident rates for it until shortly before the cruise because of that. If you did a little research, you would know that going into the cruise it was going to be a LOT more crowded than the cruises before it. We knew that and went anyway and had a blast. I would caution the same for anyone planning a trip on Veteran's day weekend, Thanksgiving week, and Christmas--when school is out, crowd levels are up; that's just the way it is.
thanks! I hope that is the case. How was the spacing in the dinning rooms for your cruises? This is my main concern about cruising with a potentially higher capacity than we did earlier this month with 1400 passengers
The tables were spaced about the same as I remembered from pre-2020. We were not elbow to elbow with the other tables, but we weren't spread out either. I'd say 3-4 feet of open space between tables depending on the dining room and table location.
Edited to add, while we all have our own risk tolerances, I would rather be 3 feet away from another table on a ship where everyone tested negative just a day or two ago, than 10 feet away from a table on land where people could be unvaccinated or have a breakthough case and not know it. That's the same reason I didn't care at all that we were sharing elevators on the ship. YMMV.