Disney Dream: Top (Not Quite) Ten Tips to Making the Most of Being Onboard

I was hoping to be able to offer a top ten list of some really great tips I learned through my own experiences on board the Disney Dream, but like when it came to paying my stateroom bill, I came up a bit short. So here’s hoping some of what I learned the hard way can help some of you.

Outsmart Your Smart Room
Hopefully they’ll tell you at check-in, but in order to make your stateroom lights, television and air conditioning/heating operational, you’ll need to insert your Key To The World (KTTW) into the slot next to the door. This automatically returns those elements to their last on/off configuration. It’s meant to be an energy saver but can also be less than desirable sometimes. So rather than just leaving your KTTW inside the slot, use any (credit-card size) card that fits into it. Even the slip of paper on which they write your stateroom number at check-in is reported to do the trick!

Get to Know Your Bath/Shower
One of the coolest (and hottest!) elements of the Disney Dream staterooms is the combination bathtub and shower. It’s also one of the strangest to learn how to operate (this is where having a photo would really come in handy). In the absence of a photo, here’s my attempt at explaining just how to make most of the innoventive bathroom appliance:

There are three controls to the bath/shower: The temperature knob, the water valve and the drain control. The drain control is by itself and will be right below you as you look into the bath/shower. Simply flip the square knob on the top from side to side to open/close the drain.

To turn the water on/off, use the lower lever below the temperature knob. Pull it out to turn on the water, push it back down to turn the water off. To switch between bath, overhead/’rain’ shower and the removable/adjustable showerhead, turn the lever between left, right and center positions.

The temperature knob is the easiest to understand, but has an additional feature: a child safety temperature control. With the lock engaged, the water temperature goes to a very warm and comfortable level. If you wish to get the water even hotter, press the tiny button on the top of the knob in and continue to turn in the heat direction. Warning, it can get VERY hot.

You spent how much!?!
Although you can go to guest services to get your current balance statement, you can also use the MENU button on your in-room television remote and select the Guest Services option to view your current statement (although it can be a bit confusing). While you’re there, check out the on demand services where you can choose from many on-demand films, even non-Disney ones, if you ever get tired of the live ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN and CNN offerings. And they’re all at no additional cost!

The AquaDuck Always Has a Minimum Wait of 20 Minutes Posted
Yes, you read that correctly, it always at least 20 minutes posted. This is simply because the wait time is on a wheel whose times start at 20 (and subsequently go in five minute increments to 60). On the Maiden Voyage, I never even saw the number go higher than 20, although I’ve been assured it has, at least on earlier cruises.

So how do you know if the wait time is really 20 minutes? You can just ask the crew member at the ride’s entrance. One crew member told me an easy way to guess is the staircase that’s out in the open. If passengers reach the lowest platform on the stairs, it’s 40 minutes. When you can barely see someone at the top of the steps, right before it goes inside, it’s about 15-20 minutes. If you can’t see anyone at the top, it’s a 15 minute wait at most.

Midship Detective Agency (the Enchanted Art Game)
If you followed all the Imagineer previews of the Disney Dream and read initial trip reports, you’re already familiar with this interactive game which uses augmented reality technology to take you on a ship-wide tour of the enchanted art to solve a whodunit mystery featuring several Disney villains. Here’s your tip: Other than two decks, the enchanted art you need to visit alternate between the Forward and the Aft of the ship as you move up and down decks. Don’t make that journey for each deck, but simply do every other deck at one time. So for example, if you go to 5 Aft, just continue to 7 Aft, 9 Aft, etc., then cross the ship (maybe even on one of the mid-ship levels) and do the same on the Forward side. Also note that the game is only operational from 9 am – 9 pm as a courtesy to fellow passengers (it does get a bit loud).

You can only see each show once.. unless…
Known for its amazing staged performances, Disney Cruise Line has three amazing shows on board the Disney Dream with one (and a half) exclusive to just her. Each show is performed three times nightly so that all passengers on board have the opportunity to see the show. As a necessary precaution, you will have to check in for your show with your Key to the World card to ensure you’re going to only the show you’ve been assigned to. But there is still hope if you wish to see a show more than once: the standby line. Five minutes before each performance, passengers in the standby line will be permitted to enter the theater on their non-scheduled times, available seating permitting.

Some shopping lines can get very long, but not all of them!
If a line in one of the shops (I’m looking at you, Sea Treasures) is too long for your tastes, you’re actually allowed to simply walk to one of the many other open shops and complete your purchases. Don’t believe me? Ask a crew member!

Elevators are not your friends (sorry)
This is a couple of tips rolled into one, especially since the first part applies to all ships, but especially the Disney Dream where there are many more passengers to share them with. Try to avoid using the midship elevators as much as possible since they are the most popular and you’ll be waiting the longest for them. Instead, go forward/aft depending on your destination and choose the elevators less traveled [in]. Also note that if you’re planning on hitting deck 12, you won’t have much luck doing so via the Aft elevators (not sure about forward). This is because 12 Aft is where you’ll find Palo, Remy and Meridian and no exit to the deck. Instead you’ll have to go to either 11 (through Cabanas, which keeps its doors open all night) or 13 and walk down/up the steps. If 13 is your deck of choice, be forewarned that only the first elevator car on either side of the bank goes to 13. The other pair top out at 12.

One of the best spaces on board is the least obvious
Those lucky, lucky teens. Even if you aren’t one, I encourage you to explore Vibe on the first day when it has its open house (don’t forget the Oceaneers Club and Lab too! (you can skip Edge)). The ‘problem’ with Vibe is that despite the ship maps at the elevators showing it on deck 5, its entrance is actually on deck 4. To get to it properly, go to deck 4 forward, go outside on the port side (that’s left for you landlubbers) and go under the jogging track where you’ll find steps leading up to it. There is a wheelchair only access point in deck 5 forward, but use that at your own risk/reward/discretion.

Since I couldn’t get to ten, anyone else have some special Disney Dream specific tips to share? I’d love to hear them.

Report: Disney Dream Maiden Voyage a Nightmare for Many

(Okay, first of all, nightmare is a HUGE stretch here, but catchy titles sell)

Disney Cruise Line’s newest and largest ship, the Disney Dream, saw its official maiden voyage this past week and for all the improvements in both form and function on the ship — which is nearly 150% larger than the ‘classic’ ships — there were also plenty of disappointments to be found for many of its passengers who were essentially guinea pigs for the ship which just may not have been ready for prime-time.

DISNEY DREAM MAIDEN VOYAGE — BY THE NUMBERS
Before we get to the details in which the Devil is patiently awaiting us, let’s toss around a few interesting statistics about the maiden voyage:

While all of the numbers are surprising extremes, the only low number is the total number of passengers. Despite a capacity of 4,000 passengers, the Disney Dream Maiden Voyage saw only 3,100. This was a result not of being unable to sell the staterooms, but rather the large number of single passengers that offset families and the theoretical maximum based on 2,500 available staterooms.

Of the 3,100 passengers, a whopping 500 cruisers were at the Disney Cruise Line Castaway Club platinum level, meaning they had been on at least 10 cruises with DCL prior. Coupled with the number of Silver and Gold level passengers, first-timers, although represented, were in the extreme minority.

Finally, a relatively high number of 100 staterooms had opted in for a back-to-back cruise.

Now it’s time for the nitpicking. What was it about the Disney Dream that sometimes made passengers wish they could wake up and find themselves back on solid ground:

NOT READY FOR PRIME-TIME
As one passenger quipped, ‘you would have thought they would have had five or six cruises by now.’

Passengers noted multiple areas in which glass had broken during the Transatlantic trip and had not yet been replaced, instead having some sort of netting in their places.

Multiple guests reported issue with the in-room safes not working as well as issues with the stateroom Cisco phone system in which messaging did not work at all for most of the cruise and often gave guests difficulty when dialing extensions throughout the ship. One guest informed me that she had much trouble with scheduling her wake-up call which ultimately insisted on calling her stateroom multiple times, even after she had answered the phone to the sound of nothing. Another guest, intent on simply using the provided in-room alarm clock radio had tremendous difficulty trying to operate it.

The worst of the complaints I head, however, came second hand and centered on a passenger who shared an adjoining stateroom with a stranger and was unable to keep the door between the rooms shut. Ultimately crew ‘remedied’ the situation by keeping the door closed as much as possible using plastic tie wraps.

On a personal note, I witnessed a couple of issues with the enchanted art such as the interactive ship’s wheel on deck 5 never working and even one enchanted art monitor appearing to be completely off at one point. Despite reporting it to guest services and even Cruise Director Rachel Quinn, I never once got to see the wheel in action, although I’m told it worked on prior cruises.

On debarkation day, the circular button panel at the elevator bank closest to my stateroom was apparently being held in place by two strips of packing tape.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Choose your room carefully as many passengers learned the hard way (or make that the heard way) that their stateroom location wasn’t inducing the sweetest of dreams.

The largest number of gripes I heard came from those in the Deck 5 Forward area. Despite having an outside (almost hidden) entrance to teen club Vibe on Deck 4, it didn’t take long for the patrons to realize there was a much more easily accessible entry point on Deck 5. Although the door at the end of the hall was meant only for wheelchair access, we hear it was completely unpoliced and unenforced and when it came time for last call at Vibe after midnight, the teens didn’t have to go back to their stateroom, but they couldn’t stay there. And in fact, many teens would congregate in other areas of the ship for hours after closing time.

Guests staying above the Buena Vista theater, where first (and second) run Disney films are shown throughout the day learned quickly that a lot of bass and action in films such as TRON: Legacy made them feel like they were part of the action as well. TRON: Legacy, which has a running time of over two hours, started at 10:30 pm on two nights of the ship, meaning it was well after midnight before those guests received some peace.

Those dining at Remy and Palo on Deck 12 were also in for an added, unadvertised bonus treat: Goofy’s Sports Deck on Deck 13. We have since learned that Disney Cruise Line was aware of the issue already and had even kept that area off limits during initial cruises just to work on dampening the noise of the balls bouncing on the basketball court. Long story short, it didn’t work.

DON’T BLAME THEM, THEY JUST WORK HERE
One significant issue was the inordinate number of new hires for the ship. We hear that up to 75% are new hires, many of whom had never worked for any cruise line. The remaining crew, from the Disney Wonder and Magic, were mostly managerial and on the back-end. In fact, Rachel Quinn wasn’t the only Cruise Director on board, so was Brent Davies who was providing support in the back-offices as Rachel gave more face time to the passengers and media on board.

With the new hires came several inherent problems. Although there were several cruises prior to the Maiden Voyage, this was by far the largest group of passengers they had to support, and it can only get worse here-on-in.

For starters, many of those on board started in Germany back in September/October and that meant that by the time the Maiden Voyage happened, they had already fulfilled about half of their contract. Many had made this the first time they had worked for a cruise line and while none had anything bad to say about Disney in terms of how they were treated, many just weren’t prepared for the harsh realities of giving up their lives and families for several months and have just decided that when February, March or whenever rolls around, they will not be looking to extend their contracts.

Perhaps knowing that much of their staff would already be on short-time, there was little emphasis on training as that seemed to be the heart of many of the trip’s complaints.

For example, multiple guests told us that they opened their refrigerators to find leftovers from cruises prior to the Maiden Voyage. While one simply found canned beverages, another found half-empty bottles of alcohol, which is, of course, a huge safety issue on many levels.

At Castaway Cay, one frantic family was running late for their stingray excursion and went to guest services on the island for directions. The guest services crew member whipped out a map of the island and helped them out by pointing in a direction for them to go only to learn several minutes later when the family angrily returned, that he had given them the wrong direction.

In his defense, he explained to me that this day was only his second on the island and he had never been further than 50 feet beyond the guest services kiosk. He expressed genuine concern in regards to the lack of exposure to the island and its services prior to having to serve it, let alone the lack of training he received. He also was concerned that he had no phone or radio so he couldn’t even turn to anyone else for support. Instead, he could only do the best he could and just hope he was giving the right advice most of the time. To bolster his argument, he added that every single one of the guest services crew was a new hire.

From personal experience, as I alluded to the difficulty of finding the regular entrance to Vibe which was on Deck 4 Forward, I asked no less than six crew members and not one of them had a clue where it was, one even going as far as to send me to the Aft side of the ship (apparently confusing the teen area with the adults-only area, The District).

M STANDS FOR MERCHANDISE, MADNESS, MURDER AND MAYHEM
There’s certainly one area that Disney has never had a problem with and that’s making money, particularly when it comes to merchandise. However the company sometimes has issues with logistics and the Disney Dream was just no exception.

With a high number of SKUs promoting the Maiden Voyage as well as the year-long (but still physically limited) Inaugural Voyages collection, many items became hot commodities at the shops which would open at 6:30 pm on most nights, while the ship was at sea. While this worked out tremendously well for those who would line up early and fight the cramped space, particularly in Sea Treasures which had little space for the guests who crammed into it to grab everything they could — and everything, they did.

The problem lay in the fact that 6:30 pm meant that approximately half of the ship was dining at the time and did not get the first picks at merchandise when the shop would open. An officer involved in merchandising confirmed to me that they did not anticipate passengers with eBay dreams grabbing everything in site so essentially all of the available merchandise was laid out for opening with little or no consideration given to those who were at first seating.

Lastly, to add insult to injury, despite having four or five (or more) crew at Guest Services at most times during the day, the line would constantly be incredibly long and slow. So much so that one passenger recounted being on line when Disney executives happened by and immediately made note of the situation. Shortly thereafter, an area consisting of lounging chairs across from the guest services was replaced with a queue of red ropes so that the line didn’t extend into the elevator area.

It wasn’t all bad however, there were some unanimous decisions in the pro column for the ship. Everyone we heard from raved about the food on the ship and the new staged production, Disney’s Believe failed to leave any dry eyes by the time its curtain fell. And I will gladly go on the record as saying each of the crew I had encountered and dealt with were tremendously helpful and courteous, often going above and beyond the call of duty. If only that level of service ever reached the parks…