Disney Cruise: Disney Dream Vs Older Disney Boats

The Disney Cruise line is very popular. In fact, the Disney cruise has been so popular that it is doubling in size in terms of boats and growing even more in terms of capacity. The first of two new ships has recently been launched. This new boat is named the Disney Dream. Having been on the older boats and the new boat I have noticed some major differences between the boats. If you want to know what is different about the boats and which is better, then you will have to read on to find out.

Most of the time bigger and newer is better, but for the Disney Dream this is not true. In fact, I would now go on only the older boats before I went on the Disney Dream. Anyone who has been on the other Disney boats will know that they are smaller but easy to get around. The Dream is much bigger and not designed in a logical way. You can find yourself on elevators that wont go to your floor. You can be cut off from sections of the ship. Sometimes you can find workers working on the ship and cutting you off from an area you should not be cut off from and be very limited in the ways to get to where you want. The old ships are like big tracks where you can just go along the edges.

One really obvious problem with the Dream is that on the lido deck which is the most popular deck. The lido deck has the pool and most of the food. The mid-ship elevator is the most popular elevator but the exits only has one door on each side. There are always tons of people trying to get in and out of this area and the singe door exits create a major bottleneck. I quickly learned to take the forward or aft elevators or go to another level mid-ship.

Disney is pushing for adults to drink more on the Dream. There is a whole section just for bars and nightlife like the other boats but with many more places then the old boats. Besides the night club area there are lots of other spots where alcohol is sold. It seems that the extra room was to add more places to drink.

Being so much bigger means that you get more people on the boat. It seems that they forgot that with more people you need more things like elevators to accommodate more people. You also need more stuff to do. When you have your day at sea everything gets crowded. Even when you are on Castaway Cay the island gets very crowded even though they have added some extra stuff. Most of the Castaway Cay additions are cabanas that you have to rent. The other new stuff is not enough to handle the extra passengers from the Dream.

The Dinning on the other boats is often better. Pirate Night was better dinning on the old boats. The food times are better on the old boat. The staff on the old boat is also more competent. The late night snacks are limited on the Dream and with more people get taken very fast. The one advantage this boat has in terms of food is that the Dream has Remy's.

Being a new boat the Dream has newer cast members who do not know what they are doing compared to the more seasoned cast members of the other boats. The cast members wont tell you they don't know something but make up answers when they don't know. The cast members are not the caliber you expect from Disney.

Now you might think that there is nothing good about the Dream and at times I thought so too. There are some advantages to the Dream. For instance the Dream does have the Aqua Duck which is the only water roller coaster but it is very tame and lame. It is not worth the long wait it often has. The Dream also has miniature golf which is free but it is also lame. The Dream also has sports simulators which are fairly dated and cost. The sports simulators are not very accurate either. The Dream also does not have the basketball opened all day long. The ping pong is located at the top of the boat with nothing to block the wind so playing is hard as a gust of wind may take your ball. The Dream does offer Foosball which I cant recall the other boats having.

One thing that does make the Disney Dream better is the stuff for the kids. Most of the kids centers are better. The nursery is nothing special. The young kids though get lots of fun stuff to do in their new areas. There is a large screen to watch shows on and a few special rooms like a Toy Story room or Fairy Room. All the kids areas include large screens and lots of computers. The kids area also has these fun hand washers you have to use when going in to keep things sanitary but kids love to use them.To use them you put your hand in and the machine sprays warm soap and water and spins really fast.

The tween center is the weak point but lots of the tween activities are done outside. The tween center is not really any better then the old boats tween center. The teen center on the Dream though is much better. It has the large screen but then it has an additional screening room too. One of the best parts of the teen center is the outside private teen deck where you can relax in a recliner, go in the hot tub, get wet from the misters or water features, and play some games like ping pong. The teen center is really big and you almost want to be a teen just so you can go there.

One final fun addition to the Dream is the interactive paintings and the Mickey Detective Agency. Kids will love looking for paintings and clues on the boat. It gives people something else to do on the sea day. The Dream needs more additional things like the Mickey Detective Agency to entertain the extra guests. A similar feature is inside staterooms have fake portholes that have cartoon characters come by about every hour and you can see what is really happening outside, the bad thing is the characters come randomly, not often, and at night you cant see anything.

Finally one other thing that is better on the Dream is the theaters are bigger. It seems the theaters are the only thing Disney designed that took into account the larger numbers of guests that the new boat has.

As you can see there are a few small things that are better about the Disney Dream. Unfortunately there are many more problems with the Dream then advantages. I would never go on the Dream again. If you are cruising on Disney I would recommend the older boats to the Dream. Trust me skip the Dream and go on another Disney boat.