Why should I try Disney Cruise line

[wwinfl91]

Hi,

 

My wife and I are in are very early 60's and have no children. We live in the Orlando Florida area which is close to the port where Disney sails from in Florida.

 

We have looked at cruising on Disney previously and have always decided against it for several reasons.

 

One is the number of kids on these cruises.

 

Two is the price of Disney cruises.

 

We have previously been on HAL, Princess, RCCL, Costa, Celebrity and unfortunately Carnival.

 

I have looked closely at Disney and like the larger cabins, the rotating dining room concept and the general Disney theme of the cruises (clean, family oriented, etc).

 

I would appreciate previous Disney cruisers who match up with us, no kids, late "middle age", relatively frequent cruisers, Florida residents, etc., to give me some additional reasons I should try Disney cruise lines.

 

Thanks for your input and have a great next cruise.

[rolloman]

I match up to about 95% of your criteria to answer your question. I feel they have an above average product. The adults areas are just that and strictly enforced. Really nice secluded lounge called Cadillac and Palo an adult only Italian restaurant. There are no pressure sales as most ships have (drinks, inch of gold, room filled with marketing flyers) The adult portion of the private Island is about 2 miles away and you are taken there by tram. I guess what I am saying is, if you want to stay away from kids it is possible. I think your best bet is to go at a time when kids are generally in school. The ship is first class. The shows are very nice but they are all of a Disney nature, (no comedian, juggler etc.) I would bet anything I have that a 4 day cruise onboard the Wonder would not disappoint. Hope this helps.

[wwinfl91]

Thanks for the reply. Given your cruise history it has weight that someone who had only went on Disney wouldn't have.

 

I will continue to check out Disney and hopefully see a deal that I can't turn down during school time for kids.

 

have a great next cruise.

[shelbell77]

I travel without kids, and compared to my other cruises on NCL and Princess the Disney Magic felt like it had less kids even though it probably had 3 times more. Between all the adult only areas of the ship and adult only activities and the kids clubs that the kids don't want to leave - Disney is my favorite line for avoiding kids.

[belle907]

We have a daughter that is 14 that we travel with. On Disney we never see her, she's always occupied; can't say that for the Carnival cruises we went on where the kids were all over the ship.

 

I definately agree with the previous poster saying there's no high pressure sales or their self advertising all over the place. They don't need to advertise the adult's only restaurant, Palo; they don't push drinks when you are just walking thru the pool area, there are no bargain tables set up in the hallways outside the shops.

 

There are a couple of online TA's where you can look on their site to see if DCL is offering any FL resident rates or you can call DCL directly. If you can grab one of those rates you will be saving a lot of money. They don't come up very often and when they do they usually go quickly. In fact, this fall they had FL res. rates for a few 7 days cruises this fall for the first time in over a year. They are usually released 4-10 weeks before sailing so you have to be able to sail with short notice.

Right now there are FL res. rates for some 3 day sailings thru 11/23; for some 4 day sailings thru 11/16; and some 7 night sailings thru 11/29.

 

Hope this helps you a bit as well.

[Muushka]

Hi,

 

My wife and I are in are very early 60's and have no children. We live in the Orlando Florida area which is close to the port where Disney sails from in Florida.

 

We are a little younger than you but kidless as well

 

We have looked at cruising on Disney previously and have always decided against it for several reasons.

 

One is the number of kids on these cruises.

 

We are not fond of a lot of children, but DCL does a great job of making them (for the most part) magically disappear! And they have some great adult only areas, pool and restaurant.

 

Two is the price of Disney cruises.

 

I agree. DCL is expensive, but you can get some deals with FL resident. It is worth a little more to me, not a lot.

 

We have previously been on HAL, Princess, RCCL, Costa, Celebrity and unfortunately Carnival.

 

We have cruised only DCL (3) and Celebrity (2 with one more next year). We love Celebrity and we also love DCL. We are big Disney fans, and being on one of their ships is very comfortable to us. The music, wall art, characters are all very nice. And some great hidden Mickeys!

 

I have looked closely at Disney and like the larger cabins, the rotating dining room concept and the general Disney theme of the cruises (clean, family oriented, etc).

 

You can't beat the cabin size. But the verandas on Celebrity, the extra big secret ones, they are the best. Disney does not have many of those, sadly.

 

I would appreciate previous Disney cruisers who match up with us, no kids, late "middle age", relatively frequent cruisers, Florida residents, etc., to give me some additional reasons I should try Disney cruise lines.

 

We are not FL residents, does all this writing count then ;)?

 

Thanks for your input and have a great next cruise.

 

Thanks! We just got off the Magic 2 weeks ago. It will be another year till the next one.

 

Don't count on the ship not having as many kids during school. The one we just completed had a lot of kids on it. I was surprised at the number.

 

By the way, do you enjoy Disney? That has a lot to do with whether you would appreciate DCL and why it is so $$$$!

 

What is your favorite cruise line and why? I know you don't care for Carnival!:D

[Dale-N-Chip]

I know I don't meet a lot of your criteria for opinions (perhaps none of them :rolleyes:), but I wanted to throw in that if you don't love Disney and don't have an interest in doing the "Disney" things on the ship (character greetings, evening shows) it may leave you wondering what you paid all the extra money for.

 

We took friends along on our first DCL trip (4-nt) because we are Disney nuts and they are cruise nuts. We thought it would be a perfect fit! But we found that because we wanted to do all the "Disney" stuff and they didn't, we rarely saw one another and they left the ship wondering what they paid all that extra money for. It's not that they didn't enjoy the cruise, it's that they didn't find that Disney differentiated themselves enough in the categories that a childless couple in their late 30s who aren't into Disney were watching. They are happy on other cruise lines--DCL just didn't do it for them.

 

I will reinforce the comments above about how good Disney is at giving adults traveling without children places and times apart. On our recent "grown-ups only anniversary cruise" we were seated at a table that was exclusively adults in our age-range. I think they do make the effort at pairing you with similar travelers for dining.

 

My two cents. :)

 

mk

[wwinfl91]

Thanks to everyone for their comments. I have been reading them with much interest.

 

Some asked what was our favorite cruise line. Right now I would probably say it was Princess with HAL being a close second. We have had several good RCL cruises and one very average one, our first one. We were not as impressed as some people seem to be with our only Celebrity cruise but it was on one of their older ships, the Zenith, not on one of the newer bigger ones. Costa was OK but we were not impressed with the food. We had hoped they would have good Italian food but at least in the Caribbean they served the same cruise food as all the other cruise lines do.

 

Our one Carnival cruise was not a success. The food was not very good. The service was not particularly good, both in the dining room and our room steward. The ship was not very well maintained (missing or light bulbs out in the big chandeliers in the dining room as an example). Many people seemed to ignore the no smoking rules in various areas of the ship and the ship's crew seemed to just ignore it even if you brought it to their attention.

All in all it was our least enjoyable cruise and the reason we would not go out of our way to go on another Carnival cruise. Hopefully the other lines we like who are also owned by Carnival corporation won't end up like this ship.

 

We will continue to look at Disney and hopefully we will see a cruise at a price we feel is worth giving it a try.

 

Have a great next cruise.

[intotheoh]

I have cruised on Disney as well as a few other lines. When I'm not on a Disney ship I feel like I'm in a flea market the way they are always trying to sell you something. (Drinks, pull tabs, bingo, more drinks)

 

Kudos to Disney for keeping that atmosphere of their ships.

[AlexandNessa]

Well, we are a bit younger and don't live in FL, but we do meet your other criteria. We have cruised HAL and RCI as well.

We cruise Disney for a few reasons.

One is that we see nary a child. Disney is one of the few lines that does enforce their adults only sections of the ship. In our experience, HAL gives them lip-service only. When we do see kids on DCL, we find them to be well-entertained and content and therefore well-behaved. I dread seeing kids on longer HAL cruises. There aren't many kids, they aren't well-entertained, and they're often bored, and as a result, often mis-behaving (just our personal experience on the longer cruises, YMMV).

The food is as good as HALs.

The service on DCL, I would argue, is slightly better.

The entertainment, if you like Disney productions, is MUCH better. If you don't care for Disney productions, this would have no value to you.

Do you like to gamble? Disney has no casino.

I would give a 4-day cruise a try, with a FL resident rate, if I were you. I agree with you that their run-of-the mll Caribbean and Bahamian cruises are a bit overpriced.

BTW, we wouldn't cruise RCI again if it were free. We learned that there is a reason their loyalty/repeaters program is so generous and their commercials are all over the place. We learned that we like things a bit more refined and bit less mass-marketed/commercialized.

[JHarry]

I loved Disney, however, my only complaint would be the price. It was expensive but I do plan on sailing again in the future with Disney. I have nothing but good things to say about Disney. There were plenty of activities for adults to do. We went to a comedy show that was for adults and it was very funny. We played bar games and relaxed in the adults only section. Service was top notch, my wife is disabled and uses a power chair and the crew went out of their way to accommodate us. As far as children go, we had no problems with them at all because Disney kept them all busy from toddlers to teenagers.

[cruiserbryce]

Disney does provide some unique items...larger cabins, exemploary service, perfect food and of course the whole Disney experience. Our first cruise was on the Wonder and we were worried that we would be spoiled by Disney and not enjoy any other lines, but in fact we found that the value on the other lines was a little better as far as how far your vacation dollar goes...so its not that ones is better than another, just different

[wwbill4]

Wejust booked a 3 day Disney Cruise Jan 29th. Good price.

This will be our first Disney Cruise.

Celebrity was our most memorable cruise ship the Summit, then everyone else.

We have never sailed HAL and hope to do than Line next year.

We did carnival and contratry to others were very pleased on the Spirit, 12 repositioning cruise ending in Vancouver. In our late 50's at the time were were the youngest people on the ship.

Thats for all the good reading on the Disney Cruise Line, it was very helpful.