Disney Dream - Halloween on the High Seas - First Time Cruisers

[davidmbfonz]

Hi everyone! I have been following the Disney thread here on Cruise Critic for nearly 3 years now and figured it might be my turn to share my family's experience on DCL. We were on the October 23rd sailing out of Port Canaveral on one of the few double-dip itineraries. I've been wanting to write this review for awhile now, but with Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas right on the heels of this trip, it's been too much of a whirlwind. Hopefully folks who are not yet convinced about going on one of the "Halloween on the High Seas" sailings will find some useful information here.

 

First, about my family. My wife and I have three kids - DS (9), DS (6), and DD (3). We had never been on a cruise before, and honestly, had never seriously considered going on one. I guess it took us awhile to come around to the idea that the cruise ship could be a vacation in its own right, and it wasn't just a 'floating hotel'. We have been to WDW more than a dozen times, and had recently (in the past 5 years) started staying at a WDW resort when we visited. We had gotten good at renting a timeshare and thought it was silly to pay so much more and get less space, etc. Our first "Magic Your Way" package quickly proved us wrong! We LOVED the Free Dining promotion that Disney ran for a few years. If it wasn't for that, we probably wouldn't have ever tried staying on-property or experienced all of the restaurants that we now love at the parks. We like to stay at the moderate resorts, but with 5 of us now, that means getting two rooms.

 

In fact, an argument FOR DCL's prices that I have yet to see brought up here on the Cruise Critic boards is the comparison/competition point. For us, DCL isn't competing with other cruise lines - they're competing with their own prices at WDW. A vacation package comparison was what first got me looking at a DCL cruise: when I price out a moderate resort, meals, and park tickets for the five of us (DD now is a 'real' person and 'counts'), going on a 4- or 5- night DCL cruise starts to look not only realistic, but a smarter alternative!

 

You can see by my join date that I joined in June of 2012. That's when I booked our 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy for a mid-December 2013 sailing. At 18 months out, it was a great price and I started dreaming. I would go on these message boards every day or two and (pardon the pun) fantasize! We ended up having to push our sail date back 10 months, and in doing so, secured two Cat 8B deluxe family oceanview rooms for cheaper than a 5-day package at a WDW value resort! The 2nd room option was only about $300 more than having all five of us in one room. Score!

 

In Spring 2013 when we made the booking change, there wasn't any formalized "Halloween on the High Seas", but it was known that Disney did special things around Halloween on the ships. You can imagine how exciting it was to get the announcement that DCL would be going all out for Halloween in 2014!

 

Enough back story for now. I'll share some pictures leading up to our embarkation.

 

Here's four of us - I'm usually the guy with the camera, so I'll show up eventually.

 

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 042 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Since we live in Georgia, we drove to Port Canaveral. It took us about 7 hours to get there and checked-into the hotel. We stayed at the Best Western in Cocoa Beach, right near the pier.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1397 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

We were upgraded to a family suite (not a busy time of year), and this is the near-oceanfront view we enjoyed:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1378 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Here's the view out the front of the suite - I call this the 'before' picture, because there would be a very magical addition to the frame the following morning!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1413 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

My youngest two on the balcony - I don't think any of us fully appreciate the full excitement that was ahead for us!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1456 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Very early the next morning (I had been tracking the arrival of the Dream up the Florida coast since the night before).

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1439 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

[davidmbfonz]

That was all she needed to see... "Daddy, let's GO!"

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1441 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

By the time we ate breakfast and were ready to head to the port, the lighting had changed - what an amazing sight that ship was, even from that distance of a few miles! Keep in mind, we had been dreaming about this cruise for almost 2.5 years!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1447 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Our first view of the ship. Just breathtaking! I made sure to have my iPhone's voice recorder turned on while we were nearing the terminal so I could capture their excitement. I was not disappointed!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1463 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

We knew this model would be here thanks to all the awesome reviews we've read on this forum - but seeing it in person is something else!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1468 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

I was intent on capturing the design details that DCL had put so much thought into. Here's just a random speaker in the terminal. Amazing attention to detail!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 005 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Absolutely loved the floor inside the terminal! What a stunning start to the cruise!

 

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[davidmbfonz]

Picture with Mickey - my DD wasn't so sure about all this excitement!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 011 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Waiting, briefly, for the Dream to begin! We had an 11:30 boarding time, and it was right-on!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 023 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

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Couldn't get over how beautiful this ship is - can only imagine the precision clockwork to get all that luggage on in time.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 048 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Almost on!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 046 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

I must say, the calling out of the family name happened so quickly and I had been thinking about it for so long, that it was surreal. Such an incredible moment. I did find it really amazing how you just walk into a door and you're right in the middle of the atrium.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 051 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

[davidmbfonz]

You can see some of the not-over-the-top (aks 'tasteful') Halloween decorations in these pics.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 083 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

This tree turned out to be seriously cool!

 

 

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The boys took in a high view of the atrium while my wife went to the Excursions desk to get tickets for the Princess Meet-and-Greet.

 

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What a great idea to put seats in the portholes. These are our first moments on this ship, and the kids just made themselves at-home!

 

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My sons were fascinated with the prep work being done on the lifeboats (which were much more sophisticated than I imagined - or had seen in movies).

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 078 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

[davidmbfonz]

Absolutely loved the 'magic artwork'.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 091 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Just gorgeous!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 064 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

That's all for now. Hope you liked!

[cruisefamilyforever]

You are posting one of the best trips reports I've seen on the boards. I love the pictures and details. Can't wait to see more and I've been on the Dream. Your review will be benifical to a lot of cruisers.

[davidmbfonz]

Thanks for the kind words, 'CruiseFamily'. I thought I would share a few more details that occurred to me after I finished making my embarkation post.

 

The Best Western was a really good deal - I think we paid $90 and that included a decent breakfast, a nice pool, and a surprise upgrade to that near-oceanview family suite. Another thing I forgot to mention - at checkout, they gave us a voucher for savings at the Port Terminal parking lot - the voucher reduced our parking rate to $9 per day, so we paid $45 to park.

 

Since this was our first time cruising, we had no idea the order of events for parking, getting luggage out of the car, checking-in through the x-ray machines, etc. So, we slowly followed the signs. We pulled up near the curb before we reached the parking garage, and this was our first sign of Disney's superior service - a (uniformed) porter jumped off the curb, quickly grabbed our luggage and told us to drive forward to the parking garage. No claim ticket or anything - I was nervous, but had mentally decided that at some point, you have to just let go and go with the flow of the vacation. We pulled around to park and got in a small line to enter the terminal building. The luggage arrived at our cabin later that afternoon, just like magic! (phew!)

 

I loved the terminal - it seemed like this was going to be a special adventure. There were so many windows/agents open that we whisked right through. With all of our planning, I had left our signed travel agreements at home (of course!), but within seconds, the agent had new documents printed and they were signed. I had managed to remember to pack the "ebola screening document' that was emailed to us the Saturday before our cruise - don't know if they're still doing that or not.

 

We found embarkation to be a pleasant beginning to our Dream cruise!

[davidmbfonz]

I took more photos of the artwork while my wife picked up tickets for the Princess Meet-and-Greet at the Port Adventures desk. There was a short line for this. My understanding is that this way of doing the princesses was about a month old at this point. This was one of the must-dos for our trip, and my wife picked up two tickets (one for each of our staterooms). She didn't think about the timing choices, though, and just took what they offered her, not thinking that we could have asked for a later time. We received 9 am tickets, which is a bit early for our family - we're never that put-together that early while on vacation.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 092 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

We headed up to the pool deck - this is my kids' first glimpse of it:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 100 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

My wife got her first Bahama Mama and we walked to the aft of the deck to head into Cabana's. I will say this ended up being our first (but minor) hiccup - The restaurant was PACKED and I thought I had remembered reading that there was a sit-down buffet open for lunch on embarkation day. We had been directed up to Deck 11, though, so Cabana's it was. We grabbed some small plates of food as we made our way through the restaurant, searching for a place to sit. We ended up outside on the very aft patio of the ship. We had to wait about 5 minutes for this table to open up:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 119 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

We could see the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Cape from our table.

 

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A Carnival ship was also in port:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 115 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

[davidmbfonz]

We then headed out to the pool area to grab some desserts - our first of many!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 135 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 143 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

We then headed down to see if our room was ready. We were in 9154 and 9156, which was just 2 decks down. This came in handy throughout the cruise. My kids couldn't wait any longer and couldn't resist ignoring the sign:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 144 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Finally in! They LOVED the rooms. My kids didn't know we had two rooms, and so I sent my wife into the other room (from the hallway) and then she opened the connecting door - they FLIPPED OUT!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1497 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 160 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

[davidmbfonz]

After the safety drill, we headed to the Deck 12 balcony to snag a good viewing area for the sail-away party.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 190 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

These guys were amped UP! I think they were also excited about a double dip!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 223 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

Toward the end of the party, we noticed we were moving. This was our first time cruising, remember, and we had no idea how subtle the movement would be. The kids loved it!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 249 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Bye Port Canaveral!

 

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The Carnival ship had left just before us. It was right next to us in Nassau the next morning.

 

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[davidmbfonz]

Eye Scream!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 261 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

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After that, we went back to our stateroom to get ready for our first show, and dinner!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 287 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Villains Tonight!

 

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(to be cont.) :-)

[davidmbfonz]

The little princess was ready for the show... we didn't have any problem getting seats. Two of the lead characters came out and wandered around the theater. We had requested the 2nd seating for dinner since our family's natural rhythm (while on vacation) is to be up late. We also thought that the early dinner time might be just that - too early for us.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 298 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

"Villains Tonight" was a great introduction to the quality of entertainment on the ship. We enjoyed the twist of telling the story from the villains' perspective; a la "Wicked". Some of the numbers were stunning. Where else will you get to see a lavish set piece and dance number featuring Cruella Deville?

 

When the show was over, we headed back toward our stateroom (in the aft of the ship), walking through the atrium on the way. We had been given special cards that had pumpkin seeds on them that we were to write our name on and place in a pot at the base of the Halloween tree in the atrium. We found it quite crowded, as a show was about to start, so we went up a deck to the balcony and listened to the story from above. We ended up keeping the "pumpkin seed cards".

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 314 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

I really liked how the storyteller at the tree was reminiscent of the character from my favorite Magic Kingdom ride, the Haunted Mansion (perhaps he WAS that character, I didn't catch his name). He's the guy with the scrawny dog who is holding a lantern. Well, he told a ghastly tale while we sat in the lounge chairs right above him eating plates of salami, olives, cheese, and grapes! The kids love this - all three of them!

 

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[davidmbfonz]

We continued back toward our room and walked into the club area - we heard "Let it Go" blasting from around the corner and my daughter had to go investigate. We ended up in the D-Lounge where there was a family dance party going on! My daughter and wife jammed to some pop hits, including a prolonged mixed of "Let it Go". I must say, this string of incredible events just one after another was nearly overwhelming, but in a good way. And we hadn't even had dinner yet!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 360 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Finally back to our stateroom to clean up briefly, we had received our very first fish extender gifts! My wife got us signed-up for three groups (!) - an aft group, a latecomer group, and an adults-only group. We brought an entire reinforced cardboard packing box full of gifts to hand out, and easily filled it up in return! Such fun!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 375 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

The orange backpack and sand pails were both VERY useful, especially on Castaway Cay.

 

Couldn't stop taking pictures of the artwork on the ship:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 366 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Our first dinner was in Royal Palace. We were seated with a delightful family of three - Disney had matched us with an awesome couple and their son who was the same age as our oldest. They sat next to each other each night. I was VERY worried about the dining situation when I first booked (remember, 2.5 years before our eventual sail date): primarily, I was worried about how my three young kids would behave, and whether we'd irritate the other diners. Well, our kids grew up a bit in the interim period, plus the family we were paired with LOVES kids - we were instantly put at-ease the moment we met them. Dinner was tasty - I had the steak, and my wife had lobster ravioli. The kids mostly ate burgers, chicken fingers, and mac & cheese the whole cruise. This was their first time getting the 'mickey mouse ears ketchup' splotch on their plate. They loved it, of course! It's really those little, silly extra touches.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 369 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

After dinner, we came back to the stateroom to find THIS adorable dachshund. We have a dachshund, so we were floored to get this first. The kids went bonkers when they saw this (we hadn't told them about the towel animals before the trip).

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 378 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1508 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

Edited January 30, 2015 by davidmbfonz

[davidmbfonz]

My wife put my daughter down for the night, and I took the boys up to the pool deck for some swimming and our first Aquaduck runs. It was incredible to finally be on that watercoater after watching the videos of it on youtube so many times. I was really surprised by the few parts where you go down and it jets you back up! Very cool at night too. The weather at night was balmy and the line was maybe 10-12 minutes.

 

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Even the elevator has special details!

 

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After the boys went down, I headed down to guest services to drop off our portrait frame to be signed, and explored the ship a bit more by myself. It was past midnight at this point.

 

Here's a mosaic near Guest Services:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1523 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

That's the end of our first day on the Dream. Pretty dreamy!!

Edited January 30, 2015 by davidmbfonz

[davidmbfonz]

The blackout curtains work really well! I pulled the one back in the kids' stateroom to slowly wake them up. I can only imagine what it must be like to be a kid and wake up to the view out of a porthole!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1535 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

 

At this point, I should discuss one of the big concerns/worries I had about the trip prior to embarking, and how it played out. I was worried that one or more of us would get seasick. I'd been on plenty of boats before, but never out on the open sea, so who knows how your body will respond? My wife frequently gets car sick, and my kids are all so new to this world still. To prepare for this, we packed dramamine, and also bought 2 packages of Sea Bands - one for adults and one for kids. Guess what? I got moderately seasick while sleeping our first night! I woke up at 6 AM, 'green' as can be, and drank some water, took the maximum dose of dramamine, and placed the sea bands on. My symptoms got slightly better, but I still felt weak. We went to breakfast and I forced myself to eat. Well, that did the trick - 5 minutes after getting some food into me, I felt completely fine! I'm sure it also helped that the medicine was kicking in, and the ship was now docked! I wore the sea bands for the rest of the cruise and had no more issues. I vowed to look more closely into how those sea bands worked when I got home (pressure points? Seriously?). I didn't need to take any more dramamine either. Nobody else in the family got seasick. Just me, and only for a few hours in the middle of that first night.

 

I can't remember who I was talking to the next day about this (while poking fun at myself - I would hold up my wrists and declare, "I earned my Sea Bands!" to whomever seemed sympathetic), but it was an experienced Disney cruiser, and he said that because of the special double-dip itinerary we were on, that the ship had just the first night to make it the 300+ miles to Nassau and that the ship was, in his words, 'booking it'. So, perhaps it was a combination of the speed of the ship that night, PLUS the nasty-looking weather front that had been threatening our cruise since a week before we embarked. Here's a brief blurb about Tropical Storm Hanna from wikipedia:

 

Tropical Storm Hanna by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

We had breakfast in the Royal Palace each day. It was a real treat to start the day together peacefully as a family and eat such tasty food. We pretty much got the same thing each day - I got the 'French Toast Pineapple Tower', the kids got Mickey waffles, fruit, and yogurt, and my wife tried a variety of different items. All delicious!

 

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The Princess at breakfast...

 

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Jason was having the time of his life!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 396 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

Edited February 1, 2015 by davidmbfonz

[davidmbfonz]

Prior to breakfast, my DD (3.5) had her first princess meet and greet scheduled for 9 AM. This meant we were up before 8, after that very exciting and exhausting first day. Daddy got the princess all ready and it was a short walk to midship where we took the elevator down to Deck 4. There was a rope line with about 5 kids in front of us, and it was probably a 7-minute wait, if that. The process was really perfect - she got about 90 seconds with each of 6 princesses! The whole operation was smooth - the only thing missing was my little girl's usual radiant smile and personality. You can see very clearly from this photo that she was too tired to really enjoy the event. She tried her best though. I'm not sure what other times were available, but obviously an 11 AM or even later time would have been preferable in our case. Luckily, she had another chance at this in 2 days (at the same time, though!). A note about the princesses - they were just beautiful and looked exactly as they should - really awesome. Princess Tiana in particular was stunning.

 

Here she is with Belle, another stunner!

 

DDR-141024-Belle_6x8-13824715 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Waiting in-between princesses...

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 387 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

The photo with Belle is an example of a pro shot from the photo package. We bought the CD prior to embarkation and were quite pleased with the photos. This one was a bit over-exposed though.

 

Loved the custom borders for each shot!

Edited February 3, 2015 by davidmbfonz

[davidmbfonz]

After breakfast, we delivered some fish extender gifts, and then went and checked the kids into the kids club for the first time. It was also an open house time, so we went in and toured the club with all three kids. The first thing we all had to do was wash our hands in the 'automatic rinse-o'matic' washing station. It was awesome. The kids would have been happy just playing with that! Imagine that - Disney made it fun to wash your hands!

 

The club was a lot bigger than we had imagined and very cool! My wife and I also toured the "Small World Nursery" - it was a little sad knowing that we won't ever have a child young enough to go here (grand-kids someday, right?!). We checked the kids in which involved getting them wrist bands - the staff showed us how they worked. It was really cute to see all the little dots/blips on a map of the club - they could tell exactly where each kid was at all times. My wife and I gave them a kiss and beat it to explore the spa area!

 

I had pre-purchased two passes for the Rainforest Room prior to embarkation - tickets/passes for the spa showed up in an envelope our first afternoon on the ship. We checked in, and were led on a brief tour of the spa. It wasn't exactly clear what to do, but part of trying out a new experience is just going with it. We had to figure out how to use the lockers (turned out to be easy), then where to put the robe once inside the Rainforest Room, what to put the wavephone in so it wouldn't get wet, etc. I saw other couples walking around with little cups of something, so I finally asked one of them what it was - it was a dry bath scrub! She told me to go to the front desk, which I did pronto! My wife hadn't come out of the women's locker room yet, so I was in a hurry to surprise her. I bought a cup of chocolate mint scrub and had it waiting when she entered the spa. We went into the hammam and used the srub. It was a really cool (well, hot actually) experience!

 

Guess how you wash the scrub off? You go into the different shower stalls - we tried them all. One of them was a mountain waterfall and it was QUITE shocking - it was like having a bucket of ice water dumped on you, and suddenly (like, as soon as you pushed the button)! We both shrieked like little kids. A lot of fun! The whole experience was very sensual, and when we were done, we went out and laid on the heated stone loungers which overlooked the edge of the ship. Coupled with the serene quiet of the spa, it was an amazing contrast to the action-packed prior 24 hours. I felt at complete peace for about 20 minutes on that lounger, just loving this whole trip so far.

 

Then the wavephone buzzed - our daughter "would like to be picked up" said the text. We got dressed and headed down to pick up the kids. When we arrived (about 15 minutes after the text), we were led to Pixie Hollow where she was coloring happily, one-on-one with a club counselor. We checked the kids out and headed back to the stateroom. They looked like they had had a good time!

 

(sorry no pictures from this part of the trip - would have been weird I suppose to take pictures inside the spa!) ;-)

Edited February 3, 2015 by davidmbfonz

[Jellifer]

Great review and your children are adorable.... Looking forward to hearing more!

[jwalk03]

Really enjoying your review. We took out first Disney cruise on the Disney Dream last year, and I agree with everything you have said so far. It's absolutely wonderful, and it's those subtle attention to details that really puts it over the top on DCL.

[davidmbfonz]

thanks Jellifer and Jwalk!

 

If you've only been on a couple of cruises, you might not have experienced a rainy day yet (I'm sure veteran cruisers have lots of stories!). If you haven't cruised before, one thing you might be worried about is what happens if it rains on one of your precious-few days. I know we were. This is a big risk during hurricane season, and so I checked the weather forecast daily (or more!) for Castaway Cay starting 10 days out. Note: this appears to be a 'tricky' corner of the world to forecast, as the rain chance and cloud cover changed almost hourly. I imagine it didn't help that that tropical storm (see above) was doing some strange (and slow) dancing around the Yucatan. In all the forecasts, Castaway Cay was just barely on the edge of a rain band. Nassau was always covered in green.

 

No matter, though, because we weren't planning on getting off the ship. For us, the Disney Dream itself was the main attraction, as was Castaway Cay. No offense to Nassau, but it didn't look very intriguing (we go to Savannah, Charleston, New Orleans, and Florida quite frequently).

 

It rained off an on all day - but never very hard. We spent the morning doing the Princess Meet-and-Greet, breakfast, and the kids club/spa (see above posts). In the afternoon, my wife and daughter spent some time in the stateroom resting and re-charging. I took the boys up the the pool deck. We figured, if you're in the pool or AquaDuck, you're getting wet anyway right? These pictures will give you an idea of the (non-) crowd level on the pool deck during our rainy day in Nassau.

 

Here's a view through the plexiglass on the side of the ship - looks more dreary than it was:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1559 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

A better representation of what it looked like on the deck: Not crowded, and sprinkling:

 

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Definitely not crowded! My boys hung out in Donald's pool and watched Pixar short films on the big screen!

 

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[davidmbfonz]

Let's not forget about the covered hot tubs!

 

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The boys loved that you could see to the ocean below! Another nice little detail.

 

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More swimming...

 

 

 

 

 

and more ice cream!

 

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No complaints from these guys!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1667 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

[davidmbfonz]

I hope folks are liking this trip report and finding it interesting/useful. Let me know if I should be providing more detail in my narrative portion or more/less pictures. :-)

 

I forgot to point out another "benefit" of the on-and-off-again rainy afternoon in Nassau: no need for sunscreen or sunglasses! (It was also late-October, and since we live in Georgia, we have decent tans year-round)

 

We got to enjoy the ship, my wife and daughter got to rest for a couple hours in the stateroom, and we ended up skipping the show - "The Comedy and Hypnosis of Michael C. Anthony". We didn't feel like we were missing out. Plus, it was Pirate Night!

 

When we had come back to the room from the spa earlier in the afternoon, we found these on the bed:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 1592 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

More to come...

[cruisefamilyforever]

You have a perfect balance of words and pictures in my opinion. You are really doing a wonderful job sharing your experience. I am curious what kind of camera you are using because the pictures are really good. Please continue sharing your vacation with us with lots of pictures accompanied by your observations along the way:).

[lovemycat]

Great review! Where did you find the personalized tshirts your kids are wearing on the first day? If they are from Etsy, who is the seller? Thanks!

[davidmbfonz]

Thanks "cruisefamily" and "lovemycat" - I'll check with my wife about those shirts.

 

We got ready for pirate night! The weather cleared up right at sunset, allowing for the night's activities (including fireworks) to go on without a hitch.

 

We packed an extra small suitcase full of dress-up clothes for the cruise - the costume aspect of all this made it extra fun! One thing I'll mention briefly now, and comment more on later, is that the added Halloween aspect of the cruise very likely pushed the whole experience over-the-top into overwhelming. I think the fact that this was a fun Halloween cruise with lots of opportunities for wearing costumes probably took away a LITTLE BIT (like 5-10%) of the special-ness of the pirate party. Not complaining though!

 

Here we are, all ready for "looting"!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 436 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

We went to the pirate show up on Deck 11 that was held in-between the dinner seatings. We looked for a balcony spot again.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 461 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

After that, it was off to Animator's Palate for the pirate night feast.

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 494 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

If you had told me two years ago that the meals would go this smoothly, I'd have thought you were a marketing executive:

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 500 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

Changing electronic artwork in the dining room - stunning!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 511 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr

 

My wife ordered a Shirley Temple and it looked so good, I started ordering them too!

 

Disney Dream Cruise 2014 528 by davidmbfonz, on Flickr