My Disney Cruise Experience!
This is part 1 to a 3 part mini series all about my vacation! My family never went on big vacations growing up. I never got to leave school for a week so we could spend our spring break running through the streets of Magic Kingdom. The first time I went to Disney World, I was 16! Now, as I approach 24, I got to go on my first REAL family vacation. My mom treated herself, me, my sister, my brother, my niece, and my niece’s mom to a cruise for my niece’s 13th birthday. Not just any kind of cruise, a Disney cruise!
If you’re looking for a sign to book a Disney cruise, this is it! We sailed aboard the Disney Dream for 5 days traveling to the Cayman Islands and Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island. The Disney Dream is just one of five ships in the Disney Cruise Line fleet. As someone who has never gone on a big vacation, or even a cruise, this was the coolest experience ever! My Facebook friends are probably tired of me talking about it, so I’m bringing it to all of you here on Medium. From the entertainment to the excursions, here’s my experience while sailing on the Disney Dream.
The Room
Our room was so nice! We didn’t have a balcony or anything fancy like that, but we did have a really cool porthole! So cool, my niece often sat there to read when we had down time during the day. Our room attendant was named Alfie and he always had the biggest smile on his face when he saw us. We had two rooms for the 6 of us, and it was perfect! I didn’t feel crowded and was able to go between the two rooms freely.
I made myself at home, unpacking my belongings and putting them away in one of the two closets in the room I shared with my niece and her mom. I highly recommend doing this rather than living out of your suitcase! It made for a much easier morning when I was able to just throw my clothes on and head off to breakfast, rather than dig through my clunky suitcase. The rooms are cleaned twice daily, Alfie would even wrap up my phone cord for me! It was so nice to come back to a clean room after being busy all day long.
The coolest part about our rooms were our doors. I don’t think I got a picture, unfortunately, but the doors to our staterooms were magnetic! We planned accordingly for this and had custom magnets made for both staterooms. It was so cool going down the hallways and seeing how each family decorated their door! Fish extenders and Pixie Dust are also a big to do aboard the Disney ships. More on that later.
Sure, a room with a balcony would have been a neat experience, but I was happy with our little window to the world.
The View
The views alone sold the entire cruise. Our little family is from a small town in no where Pennsylvania, so views like the one above are hard to come by. I currently live in South Carolina with my mom and brother, so I’m used to ocean views. However, nothing will ever top the crystal clear blue water of the Cayman Islands. The beaches of Castaway Cay are amazing too! The sunrises while you watch the ocean as you eat your breakfast, and the sunsets as you lounge on a deck chair while watching Disney movies on the funnelvision, all of it is incredible.
When I tell you the water is clear, I mean the water is CLEAR. While swimming with stingrays in the Cayman Islands, I jumped off our boat with my sunglasses still on my face…not my smartest idea. I was so bummed when I came up for air and realized my favorite pair of sunglasses were gone and we were only on day 2! I couldn’t really look for my glasses as I had to really pay attention to what I was doing (there were literal stingrays right next to my ankles!)
Back home in Myrtle Beach, I would have given up and realized my favorite sunglasses were now fish food. So, at first, this is what I resorted to. I was so sad and came to terms with the fact that I would be without my sunnies for the remainder of the trip. I swam with my family and when it came time to board the boat I climbed back on with a newfound disappointment.
I walked to the side of the boat I jumped off of and looked down in the water. What did I see sticking out of the sand in the ocean below? MY SUNGLASSES! I was able to see right to the bottom of the ocean thanks to that crystal clear water. Thankfully, the husband of the kind family next to us was still in the water with goggles on and retrieved my glasses for me. Crisis averted!
The Food
This section might be my favorite to talk about. I wouldn’t call myself a foodie per say, but I love to try new things just for the experience! The food on the Disney Dream was absolutely delicious. I didn’t get to try the little food places they had around the ship, but I did get to check out the dining rooms and the buffet.
Cabanas is the buffet that they have where you can catch breakfast and lunch. We ate breakfast here almost every day, which was so yummy! I think I got eggs benedict every morning just for the hollandaise sauce. They had everything from fresh fruit and pastries, to asparagus and chorizo for breakfast! We ate lunch there a few times and that was also really good. They have so many options to pick from, I’m pretty sure at one point I had a piece of pizza and a pork chop on the same plate.
There are three dining rooms you rotate through for dinner while you’re on the ship. They are Animator’s Palette, Enchanted Garden, and Royal Palace. You also have two servers that follow you to each dining room. Ricardo and Shekinah were with us all week and they were the nicest people ever! I think I miss them most of all from the trip.
Animator’s Palette was where we were the first two nights, and out of all three it was my favorite dining room. The food was delicious, from the Peri Peri chicken to the truffel pasta. The knives were shaped like little paintbrushes! And Crush from Finding Nemo swims around the restaurant while you eat. The room was spacious and always clean. I truly loved eating here.
Enchanted Garden was good, but not my favorite. The food was good and so was the ambiance, but it felt quite crowded where we sat. Then again, we were on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean so I can’t complain too much. This is where we were for my niece’s 13th birthday. We ordered a Mickey cake for the big day and that was the best chocolate cake I have ever had! Ricardo and the crew sang happy birthday, and then he brought us dessert menus and told us we could “just have a taste.” Two desserts it is! We ended up having the chocolate cake for breakfast the next morning.
Finally, Royal Palace. I didn't care for this dining room like the others, maybe because we were only here for one night. I liked the food here, but not as much as the other two rooms. We had lunch here the second day and the pasta was delicious! Our waiter even made my niece some “Minnie ears” out of a napkin he folded and put on her head, how cute!
They have so many places to eat on board, free soft serve ice cream all day long, and 24/7 free room service! That room service sure came in handy when we wanted something to eat at 10:30 at night but didn’t want to leave our stateroom. The day of the Cayman Islands we woke up late and missed breakfast and were gone all day. We were starving by the time we got back to the ship and were able to order chicken tenders to munch on while we waited to go to dinner.
All in all, we definitely didn’t go hungry the entire week that we sailed.
There is so much more to tell you about, so come back next week where I talk about the entertainment and the excursions!
