Disney Dream 4 night Halloween cruise with baby

orangecuse

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 30, 2018
Hello! Thought I would just write up a quick review of our cruise to hopefully hit on some topics other may be curious about/that I searched for before leaving.

We did a 4 night Halloween on the High Seas cruise. It was myself, my husband, and my son who turned 1 during the cruise. Ship was the Disney dream. My parents (retired seniors) were also on board.

1. Room- we had a 6B verandah room after booking GTY. We were happy with size and location (aft). Our stateroom attendant was wonderful and thorough. We unfortunately had some issues. Our verandah door broke not once, not twice, but three times over the course of one night. It made a horrible loud smacking noise and this resulted in three different calls to guest services to ask maintenance to come fix it before they woke up a manager who actually fixed it for good for the night. Up until 2am with a one year old sucks! Our stateroom attendant asked how we slept the next day and when we tomd him he looked horrified.

2. Characters- I felt like they had a lot of characters, meeting at a lot of times. Wait varied and while we saw massive lines for Daisy 30 minutes before her meet, we walked into a Minnie line 5 minutes before as the second family in line. I think it just depends on what everyone else is up to at that moment. We also caught Goofy, Stitch, and Captain Hook just wandering around.

3. Small World Nursery- BAD experience. So I will say I was very hesitant to leave my son anyway but my husband wanted to see a movie. We dropped him off for a planned 2.5 hour stay. Hes a pretty chill dude but 60 minutes in they called and said I had to get him. When I got there they said they couldn’t figure out how to settle hom and were too busy to provide one on one attention. I picked him up and...he had a poopy diaper. Like really? As a childcare staff you can’t smell that or think to check? I was pissed. Like hello, step number one in “why is this baby crying?” is check the diaper. I immediately called and they said they would call me back. They called back and apologized and offered us free nursery time for the rest of the cruise. Very generous but we let them know we no longer felt comfortable leaving him there. I thought that was that BUT two days later they called AGAIN and tried to convince us to leave him for some free nursery time. We declined and they insisted on refunding our previous stay (they had charged us for an hour) which was very kind. They also let us know they had a staff meeting over the whole thing and seemed genuinely upset/sorry it happened. Totally resolved any negative feelings and I'd consider trying it again in the future.

4. Ports- Castaway Key was really nice. Clean, super friendly staff, great beach. We did the bikes and they had a helmet that fit my 1 year old and a bike with a back baby/toddler seat for me to strap him into. Tip for biking- morning is better to avoid hear BUT you willbe biking around the 5k runners then which can be hard. I’d aim for 9:30/45 over 8:30 for getting off next time to try and avoid more of the runners. Nassau was fine (been many times) and we enjoyed the half-submarine boat tour. My parents did the pirate museum (easy walk from the ship) and enjoyed it.

5. Food- Food! So we have done Celebrity, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean. Food was hit and miss for us comparatively. Disney lacks some of the better late night options Carnival has. Everything but Vanellopes and Room service was closed after dinner. It also has less menu diversity for sit down meals than Celebrity. HOWEVER overall we really enjoyed the food. Breakfast buffett at Cabanas was excellent. Our servers in the dining room (Travis and Ernesto) were lovely, and the food we got was all excellent. I just wish the menu had a little more in the way of seafood/exciting chickin/veg (so really non-redmeat/pork options) for the apps and mains. A truly minor complaint though. In Animators I thought the show was only okay. However they do Crush wasn’t working well as he couldn’t hear anyone responding to him. I preferred the other two restaurants because they were less loud and I liked the menu better! We did sit down lunch one day in Royal Palace and it was SO GOOD. If you have the time do it! Our food at Tomaters Grill was terrible. The sandwhich/pizza places and Cabanas for lunch were great though!

6. Pictures- we did the 10 photo digital package for $149 purchased pre-cruise. We got some GREAT shots, but I felt like there were not many photogs or picture opportunities outside of character meets. I am not sure I would purchase again for this reason alone.

7. Activities- Just do to time and tiredness we didn’t get to do Nemo’s Reef (baby splash area) this trip. It looked adorable though! One downside to Disney’s current set up is the show times. If you have first dinner (5:45pm) you are seeing the second show (8:30pm). My son can’t stay up past about 7 so that meant choosing dinner or the earlier show (6:15). One night he popped up about 8 and wouldn’t settle so we caught Golden Mickeys at 8:30 and he LOVED it. I think next time we will skip more dinners in favor of room service or Cabanas dinner and getting to see the earlier show. I realize they can’t run three productions a night, just wanted to point out for others whose kids have early bedtimes and can’t stay up for second seating dinner or the show you will have to choose. Movie wise we had Ant-Man and the Wasp, Incredibles 2, and Christopher Robbin. Lots of showings of each at various times and we saw all three. Also a good variety of trivia, towel folding, ect. We felt like we barely scratched the surface of what was available! We also participated in Jack Jacks diaper dash which was adorable and fun.

8. Customer Service- Okay back to the room. So we chose not to complain because hey, things break and thats that and why complain? Apparently our stateroom attendant said something because we ended up with a free giant stuffed Captain Mickey and nice heavy photo frame sitting on our bed one night, REALLY surprised and impressed. My parents also kept saying how nice everyone was from the staff to our fellow cruisers. My parents cruise 2-3 times a year with Celebrity and I honestly think they came in assuming disappointment and they have already told us they will happily join any future Disney cruise.

9. Embarkation/Dosembarkation- very smooth. PAT was 11:15 and arrived close to it and had very short waits for security and check in. Waited for boarding to start and then our boarding group (8) was called really quickly. Our room was ready ar 1:30 and luggage was already outside it. Leaving we carried off our own luggage and got to the main lobby about 6:45 and were in our car at 7:15.


We are planning to book again soon! I really only mention our “problems” to show how well I think Disney handled them. We had a great time!
 
What night was trick or treating and what night was pirate night?

Day 1- embarkation, no events
Day 2- halloween themed events/Nassau
Day 3- pirate themeed events/Castaway Cay
Day 4- at sea day, no events

(By no events I mean no halloween party or pirate party, plenty of things to do every day of course)
 
Thank you! We are cruising October 1st and have Palo booked the 4th night. That will make the kids happy.
 



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