Disney Skeptic on His 1st Disney Cruise

Really nice tone and balance to your review - seems like if you could quantify it, maybe you'd suggest that DCL is worth 1.5 times more than other lines, but certainly not 2-3 times?

Some of your sentiments/thoughts/comments made me think of my exact same thoughts and reactions during our first time on DCL 3 years ago.

Thanks for this!

Thanks for your comments! We sailed on Princess for our 10th wedding anniversary. For an adults only cruise, it was a great choice. Dining on that cruise was truly a highlight, and like you said, we loved having the flexibility to eat whenever we wanted and also to choose which main dining room we wanted. We also loved the cuisine which was consistently excellent.

 

With that said, I would probably shy away from Princess if we were traveling with our crazy, small children.

 

 

 

 

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I've cruised Princess many times (with young daughter who loved it), but I've never heard of Princess adult-only cruises. Was it a charter?

I've cruised Princess many times (with young daughter who loved it), but I've never heard of Princess adult-only cruises. Was it a charter?

I think the poster means that their group was adult only. We did a 20 night Princess cruise last summer--there were great reports from families about the kid programs! No, they aren't Disney, but the kids seemed to like them. And perhaps because it was summer, there were a lot of kids on board!

I've cruised Princess many times (with young daughter who loved it), but I've never heard of Princess adult-only cruises. Was it a charter?

Adults-only as in just my wife and I, without the kids. Sorry for the confusion!

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We thought about purchasing the week pass for The Rainforest in the Senses Spa, but we figured that we wouldn't use it enough to justify the cost since we would be spending a lot of time with the kids. But the facilities looked awesome.

 

I think that it would've been nice to give Remy, the other specialty restaurant, a try. Everybody that we spoke to who'd done it raved about it.

 

Next time, I will definitely bring Pirate costumes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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If you do get a chance to sail on the Fantasy again, I highly recommend you try Remy. It is an incredible dining experience. We've sailed on the Deram twice and the Fantasy three times and Remy was a must do each time.

Thanks for the review, it was really well done and interesting. I am taking my second cruise on the Fantasy, leaving in 8 days, so I am obsessed with all things "Fantasy" right now!!

I have sailed on Carnival, RCCL, Celebrity, HAL, and most recently the Haven on NCL, and to me DCL is still "home" and my favorite, although I agree that many of the other lines do things as well, and occasionally better, than DCL.

I will say, that sailing DCL over Thanksgiving (or Spring Break, or Christmas) is a REALLY expensive time to sail on an already expensive cruise line. DCL would still be more than most other lines even in the off season, but if you book early enough you can probably go for about 20% more than other cruise lines. As much as I love DCL, I wouldn't cruise over Thanksgiving because of the cost and the crowds.

I also found your information about MSC interesting. I think I might try a cruise with them in the next couple years, especially if they will match our status on other lines as I have heard they do.

I also found your information about MSC interesting. I think I might try a cruise with them in the next couple years, especially if they will match our status on other lines as I have heard they do.

We enjoyed our MSC cruise. And they did match our status to their Gold level. We got a 5% discount on our fare as well as a list of goodies including free photos, cocktail drinks, spa passes and logo items because of that. They have modern, beautiful, elegant ships (think Swarovski encrusted staircases in the atrium) but at very affordable prices.

But if you decide to sail on them, be prepared because the experience is nowhere near what you've experienced on Disney. Customer service seems to be the source of many complaints about them. The crew looks disinterested and very blah. No smiling, cheery, going out of their way attitude. Even though the ships are beautiful and they sail to some interesting places worldwide, the experience is more budget minded than premium or luxury. Anything that would elevate the experience to a premium experience comes with a surcharge.

But with all of that said, if the main focus is sailing somewhere new without breaking the bank, and getting to know a lot of people from different countries and cultures (they cater heavily to Europeans and everything is done in 5-6 different languages), MSC is a great option. For comparison purposes, we are currently booked on a Mediterranean cruise aboard the brand new MSC Meraviglia out of Civitavecchia for next year. We have reserved a 2 level Áurea Duplex Suite. First floor has a living room with dining table, a bathroom, and a private deck with its own jacuzzi tub. The master bedroom, a second bathroom and a walk in closet are on the second floor. The Áurea experience means that we have a list of perks including priority embarkation, unlimited beverage package, complimentary access to the thermal suite at the spa, as well as complimentary massages. All of this for about HALF THE PRICE of the Disney cruise that we just took in a standard deluxe verandah stateroom!

But as great as it sounds, I know that MSC is not for a lot of people who are used to the experience that Disney delivers. The lackluster service and more budget minded experience would be a deal breaker for many. It's apples and oranges.

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It depends on your definition of " a lot." There are not nearly as many adult activities as we've seen on other lines. There are basically trivia contests' date=' mixology "classes" and various alcohol "tastings," bingo, movies, DVC presentations, and that's about it before 9pm. Most of the "educational" series that they used to have has been scrapped, but they usually still run the cooking program--most recently called "Anyone can Cook." Most or all of the "behind the scenes" tours and events have been discontinued.[/quote']

 

as i've written before, we first sailed DCL many years ago, when our kids were teens...

they LOVED the teen club and really enjoyed the cruises.

my husband and i were less enthusiastic at that time.....while the service etc was outstanding we were bored by the lack of adult activities...

but a few years ago, we decided to try again and to our surprise, disney had added the very silly adult activities that we both adore - trivia and silly contests....(yes, we're basically looking for the summer camp experience)..

that combined with the outstanding service and the very disney oriented theming (yes we're admittedly psychotic disneyholics), we found DCL to be everything it had been to our teenage kids all those years ago...(and we're definitely a long long way from our teen years, our kids now married with kids)..

 

so when you say, "only trivia", for some of us that is all we need to make it a perfect cruise!! (that and a tamer somewhat more g rated version of royal's quest ;))

 

We enjoyed our MSC cruise. And they did match our status to their Gold level. We got a 5% discount on our fare as well as a list of goodies including free photos, cocktail drinks, spa passes and logo items because of that. They have modern, beautiful, elegant ships (think Swarovski encrusted staircases in the atrium) but at very affordable prices.

 

But if you decide to sail on them, be prepared because the experience is nowhere near what you've experienced on Disney. Customer service seems to be the source of many complaints about them. The crew looks disinterested and very blah. No smiling, cheery, going out of their way attitude. Even though the ships are beautiful and they sail to some interesting places worldwide, the experience is more budget minded than premium or luxury. Anything that would elevate the experience to a premium experience comes with a surcharge.

 

But with all of that said, if the main focus is sailing somewhere new without breaking the bank, and getting to know a lot of people from different countries and cultures (they cater heavily to Europeans and everything is done in 5-6 different languages), MSC is a great option. For comparison purposes, we are currently booked on a Mediterranean cruise aboard the brand new MSC Meraviglia out of Civitavecchia for next year. We have reserved a 2 level Áurea Duplex Suite. First floor has a living room with dining table, a bathroom, and a private deck with its own jacuzzi tub. The master bedroom, a second bathroom and a walk in closet are on the second floor. The Áurea experience means that we have a list of perks including priority embarkation, unlimited beverage package, complimentary access to the thermal suite at the spa, as well as complimentary massages. All of this for about HALF THE PRICE of the Disney cruise that we just took in a standard deluxe verandah stateroom!

 

But as great as it sounds, I know that MSC is not for a lot of people who are used to the experience that Disney delivers. The lackluster service and more budget minded experience would be a deal breaker for many. It's apples and oranges.

 

 

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DCL's med cruises are also very cross cultural, for the good and the bad -- europeans are really lousy at standing in lines...in fact they just don't.....and i say that as someone who lives on the european side of the atlantic...

 

my daughter's med cruise last year had far fewer americans than non-americans, including 1,000 guests from the middle east (Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc), as well as europeans, especially spaniards (barcelona embarkation)...

 

she said it was an interesting cruise because of that, though the European behavior did put a bit of a twist on the experience...

 

but what we love on the DCL cruises is the very wonderful, outgoing, disney loving attitude of the crew....it makes it perfect for us...

 

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DCL's med cruises are also very cross cultural, for the good and the bad

I looked at Disney sailings in the Mediterranean when I was doing my research for next year. Unfortunately they only offer a handful of sailings during the summer that don't match the dates that we need.

But even if the dates matched, the prices are a hard pill to swallow. A suite similar in size to what we have already booked on MSC is almost $19K. Even if we were willing to get a standard stateroom so that we could stick with Disney, it's still close to $9K. Add flights, excursions, as well as a pre cruise hotel stay for a family of 4 and I will have blown my entire vacation budget for the next few years.

We chose Disney in the Caribbean because the focus would be on the Disney product and not so much in the destination, plus we could manage costs a bit better since we could drive to port. But going to the Mediterranean where the main focus will be the ports of call and what we'll experience off the ship, I don't consider it wise to spend that much money for the Disney experience. But once again, I'm not a big Disney fan, however I'm sure that someone else will consider spending $19K completely worth it.

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I just want to add for those of you looking for time away from the kids on a Disney cruise, Castaway Cay has an adults-only beach area called Serenity Bay – the tram will take you down to that end of the island. It’s a little slice of paradise, and has its own dedicated eating area. It’s been a few years since I was there, but they served a wonderful blackened prime rib steak at that location! There are also beachside cabanas where you can book a massage (you will need to do this in advance, and they are rather pricey).

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I looked at Disney sailings in the Mediterranean when I was doing my research for next year. Unfortunately they only offer a handful of sailings during the summer that don't match the dates that we need.

 

But even if the dates matched, the prices are a hard pill to swallow. A suite similar in size to what we have already booked on MSC is almost $19K. Even if we were willing to get a standard stateroom so that we could stick with Disney, it's still close to $9K. Add flights, excursions, as well as a pre cruise hotel stay for a family of 4 and I will have blown my entire vacation budget for the next few years.

 

We chose Disney in the Caribbean because the focus would be on the Disney product and not so much in the destination, plus we could manage costs a bit better since we could drive to port. But going to the Mediterranean where the main focus will be the ports of call and what we'll experience off the ship, I don't consider it wise to spend that much money for the Disney experience. But once again, I'm not a big Disney fan, however I'm sure that someone else will consider spending $19K completely worth it.

 

 

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After seeing this post, I looked at prices for the Med cruises. I think that DCL has overcome their issue of the first few years in the Med when they were booking primarily US guests and couldn't seem to interest the European crowd (they did offer a series of shorter "try out" cruises and intensive marketing efforts, but not till after the first couple of years.) The cost of a 7 night cruise is now far more than we paid for a 12 night just a few years ago. I'm glad we did it when we did (actually did a couple of different Meds) because I don't like the prices I saw!

We knew people were discovering the joys of the TA cruises--on our first TA there were only 400 children on the ship and we've experienced that steadily increasing to about 1000 on our last TA. I never should have looked at the prices--they are now almost three times what we paid! And DCL was making money at the former rates.

I looked at Disney sailings in the Mediterranean when I was doing my research for next year. Unfortunately they only offer a handful of sailings during the summer that don't match the dates that we need.

 

But even if the dates matched, the prices are a hard pill to swallow. A suite similar in size to what we have already booked on MSC is almost $19K. Even if we were willing to get a standard stateroom so that we could stick with Disney, it's still close to $9K. Add flights, excursions, as well as a pre cruise hotel stay for a family of 4 and I will have blown my entire vacation budget for the next few years.

 

We chose Disney in the Caribbean because the focus would be on the Disney product and not so much in the destination, plus we could manage costs a bit better since we could drive to port. But going to the Mediterranean where the main focus will be the ports of call and what we'll experience off the ship, I don't consider it wise to spend that much money for the Disney experience. But once again, I'm not a big Disney fan, however I'm sure that someone else will consider spending $19K completely worth it.

 

 

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yes the DCL european cruises are insanely expensive......but apparently they're able to get those prices now...

my daughter sailed in an oceanview room....first time she wasn't in a verandah room..

but as it turned out, she really enjoyed the room...

of course, she paid more than she would have paid for a verandah room on a carribean cruise...

but it was worth it for her...

for us, a european cruise on DCL is all about the ship, not the destinations....

europe? been there...done that...not interested (as i said, we live on the european side of the atlantic)..

on her cruise, she had 4 ports: naples, rome, livorno, ville franche...

she and her husband stayed on the ship in naples and rome...

got off at livorno to do cinque terra, and at ville franche just to take a walk and have a beautiful fish lunch nearby...

then boarded right back again...

for us, DCL is the destination.....not the ports...

and when the magic is in the med it allows us our little disney fix, without having to spend thousands of dollars to get to the states to walt disney world..

going back to your original review, i'm not really sure why anyone who's so completely not interested in anything disney would spend the extra dollars for the disney experience...

we took the entire family to walt disney world this past summer...

3 weeks in august.....all 8 of us....in two 2 bedroom villas at a disney world resort...

$25,000 just for the resort...

another $25,000 to get us to the USA ...(and those were sadly economy class seats....flying in the summer is beyond expensive)..

another $4,000 for tickets into the parks..

oh and another $3,000 for two car rentals..

and a bunch more for food...(didn't tally it up)..

and i'm not including in that little summary, the 3 day DCL cruise, half of our group took at the end of the trip, after the other four flew back home..

was it worth it? oh yeah....every penny....

we LOVE disney....we live disney....we breath disney...

we were bringing two toddlers this time for their first trip to disney world....

2 and 3 years old...

for the last half year before the trip, every friday afternoon, the 3 year old and his aunt (my daughter) sat down to watch a disney animated flick...

a bit of indoctrination/brainwashing/whatever you want to call it - before the big 3 week adventure that had been aimed at since the last big family WDW vacation 6 years earlier (long before those two kids were even twinkles in their parents eyes)...

there was no way we were going to bring two young kids to disney world and drag them around the parks for 3 weeks without at least introducing them to the various characters they would encounter along the way...

but i've gone way off topic i guess..

the point is, i don't understand why anyone would spend the sky high prices of some disney cruises when they're not 'into' disney....

sure the service is great...the crew is great...friendly etc....

but as you said, many cruise lines offer that...(we also enjoy royal)...

the difference is that disney thing....and it's a very big premium to pay when you're so completely uninterested in anything disney... :confused:

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...going back to your original review, i'm not really sure why anyone who's so completely not interested in anything disney would spend the extra dollars for the disney experience...

 

 

 

...the point is, i don't understand why anyone would spend the sky high prices of some disney cruises when they're not 'into' disney....

 

For me specifically, let me start by saying that I may not be a huge Disney enthusiast but I am a huge cruise enthusiast. A few years ago, after being loyal to one cruise line for a long time and realizing that things were getting a bit boring and repetitive, I made the decision to try as many cruise lines as possible and to never repeat the same cruise line two times in a row. The decision has been one of the best cruise related decisions of my life.

Today, my goal is to try as many cruise lines as possible, and I knew that, sooner or later, I would want to try Disney, even if the prices were considerably higher. That's why I'd been researching this cruise line for a long time; because I knew that the time would come. And now that my kids are 8 and 5 years old, I knew that the time was right to pull the trigger. I don't regret for one second taking this Disney cruise. As I wrote in my review, it was a wonderful cruise which is very unique and like no other cruise line out there.

Please don't assume that not being a Disney enthusiast equals being a Disney hater. Even if I don't care much for Disney's pixie dust, that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate what a great product they offer, and that the reputation that they have has been rightfully gained.

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For me specifically, let me start by saying that I may not be a huge Disney enthusiast but I am a huge cruise enthusiast. A few years ago, after being loyal to one cruise line for a long time and realizing that things were getting a bit boring and repetitive, I made the decision to try as many cruise lines as possible and to never repeat the same cruise line two times in a row. The decision has been one of the best cruise related decisions of my life.

 

Today, my goal is to try as many cruise lines as possible, and I knew that, sooner or later, I would want to try Disney, even if the prices were considerably higher. That's why I'd been researching this cruise line for a long time; because I knew that the time would come. And now that my kids are 8 and 5 years old, I knew that the time was right to pull the trigger. I don't regret for one second taking this Disney cruise. As I wrote in my review, it was a wonderful cruise which is very unique and like no other cruise line out there.

 

Please don't assume that not being a Disney enthusiast equals being a Disney hater. Even if I don't care much for Disney's pixie dust, that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate what a great product they offer, and that the reputation that they have has been rightfully gained.

 

 

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i didn't think you were a disney hater....more like agnostic..

and with the very high price of disney cruises, i marvel at people who would spend that sort of money if they aren't true believers...

we've been on two royal cruises....allure of the sea, because i wanted to try out the allure of the sea....didn't care where we were going (though i loved st martin), but just wanted to experience that particular ship...and we weren't disappointed...

really really really enjoyed the allure....all the stupid silly adult games that i look for on a cruise...(yeah, i have the maturity level of my shoe size)..

the other royal cruise was on the radiance of the seas in alaska....DCL only does round trip in alaska....definitely not what we were looking for since we wanted one way (as it turned out, southbound from seward alaska to vancouver)..

we might possibly cruise this summer if we in fact make it to the USA and if i can find some obscenely cheap last minute deal....it's just my husband and me...so there's no way i'll break out the big bucks for just the two of us...

presumably that will mean no DCL for us this summer.. :)

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Great review, and I agree. It's not for everyone. I think the price contributes a lot to the homogeneous feeling, and the time you sailed probably heightened that to an extreme. I'm a minority and it's EXTREMELY obvious when I'm on a Disney cruise. That said, other than barely seeing other minorities, it's not like I was treated any differently. The passengers were all nice (although my wife did have her sunglasses stolen when she set them down on the sink and turned around to dry her hands) and the crew is from all over the world (like every other cruise line). At Aulani, I got separated from my GoPro and not only did someone turn it in, but several people saw it pass them and helped me try and track it down (and I did get it back).

Sorry about your waiter. I've never heard of that attitude before. Mine have always been very diplomatic about other lines or just stick to singing Disney's praises.

I agree that the buffet design isn't the best, but it's no worse than average.

My kids also didn't like the kids club, although I'm not positive why. They may have been too young to articulate why clearly. They LOVED the kids club at Aulani though, so I know they aren't simply opposed to kids clubs in general.