Disney Cruise: Is Disney Dream a Dream or a Nightmare?

The Disney Cruise Line has become one of the most popular cruise lines. Disney is so popular that they are now making two more boats which doubles their fleet but will more then double the number of passengers they can take. The first of these new and bigger boats is the Disney Dream. Having recently been on the Dream and having been on the other boats I can tell you that the Disney Dream is more like a nightmare and this article will telly you why.

Most of the time bigger and newer is better but in the case of the Disney Dream this is not true. While I love Imagineers they have no place in designing a cruise ship. The problem with Imagineers designing a cruise ship is they are used to changing and tweaking things all the time even after a ride opens. For instance when Test Track first opened during the soft opening they found that it went so fast it burned tires to fast and it had problems with that and had to shut down and replace tires all the time so they slowed it down.

One really obvious problem is that on the lido deck which is the most popular deck with the pool and most of the food they have the mid-ship elevator entrance and exit to a single door on each side. There are always tons of people trying to get in and out of this area and only one door on each side of the ship to go in or out of. Most places have double doors so why is the most popular place the one that only has singles doors?

Other problems abound. Figuring your way around is hard. Often elevators do not stop on every floor. Often areas are cut off because of workers cleaning the deck or various other problems. While the other ships worked like a giant circle that was easy to navigate the Dream is not nearly as easy to get around and being bigger you will have even more problems.

The cast members on the Disney Dream are incompetent. I only went to the sit down dinner twice in the rotational dinning but both times waiters dropped large trays of food and broke everything. When I first boarded I asked where to go to see about adding my father to my Remy reservation and it took me along with a group of about 30 people half an hour of being told various wrong places before finding where we needed to go. One cast member working the line to see Daisy Duck was telling people to come over and have their picture taken with Donald Duck. I know Disney can be a bit liberal but I don't think Donald wears a dress, high heels, and make up. These are just a few of the problems with the cast members. The cast members were mostly new and clearly did not know what they were doing. In fact often I was told different things from different people and a favorite answer when people did not know why they did or did not do something is that it was for security. Even when security does not make sense the go to answer when you are to stupid to know your job is security.

The Disney Dream adds many more people then the older boats but the facilities hardly can take as many people as they have. The adult pool is actually smaller on the new boat though to be fair few adults are ever there though lots of kids are because of a clear design flaw forcing kids to go through the adult quiet area to get to their rooms. The private island of Castaway Cay has been slightly improved but most of the additions are new cabanas you have to rent. Castaway Cay has become much more crowded now that it caters to a bigger boat. I have read they have added things like more hammocks and chairs but not nearly enough to make up for the extra passengers.

Overall I wish that I had gone on the older boat. I will never go on the new boats if I ever even go on a Disney cruise but will only go on the two older boats. I would advise against anyone booking on the Disney Dream.