My family just recently returned from our first ever Disney Cruise. We did the 7 night Western Caribbean Cruise on the Disney Magic.
I have to say we are not really cruise people. I had not been on a cruise since college because truth be told it was not the best experience. But this Disney Cruise has totally changed my mind about cruising.
The boarding process was extremely easy and this was something that I was nervous about, but it went really well. They even upgraded our stateroom to a better deck because they had availability.
A few of the things that we loved most about the Disney Cruise were the service, the activities, the shows and the character interactions.
Let’s talk about the service first. Disney’s service is always top-notch and the cruise was no exception. The cabin stewards were amazing. They delivered all of our luggage to the room, provided turn down service every night, made a cruise or ocean related animal out of the blanket, placed Ben and Palmer’s toys around the stateroom, and made sure we had everything we needed.
Disney also does this thing called rotational dining on the cruise which means you are assigned a specific restaurant on the first night and then you rotate to the other restaurants throughout each night of your cruise. But not only that, your servers stay with you. So we had the same waiter and waitress throughout our cruise. They were so sweet with the kids, bringing them multiple options of things to eat and drink. They knew our names and were so excited to see us every night. By the end of it, they would already have my Diet Coke waiting for me on the table. Did I mention the food was excellent as well?
The rest of the crew was amazing too. Everyone from the activity directors to the port adventures representatives. Everyone was always willing to go above and beyond to make it the best experience.
Another pro of the cruise were the activities. They had everything from Disney movies in the theater to basketball courts to bingo and trivia to waterslides and swimming pools. They also have a Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique on board the ship. My daughter absolutely loved getting her Snow White princess makeover. The main thing my kids loved though were the Kids Clubs. I know, I know…I know what you may be thinking, I thought it too. How can you leave your kids and drop them off with strangers while on a family vacation? Is it safe? The answer is yes, it is totally safe and secure. They provide an open house, where parents can come in and tour the clubs, meet the staff and see the safety measures that are put into place to keep your kids safe and secure. I will do a more in depth blog post on this soon.
The shows were also fantastic. They were truly Broadway type plays. They were also just about an hour long which was the perfect run time for little kids. We had the late dinner seating so our schedule for the show was before dinner at 6:00 and we actually loved going to the show before dinner. I would highly recommend doing it this way.
The thing we were so surprised by was the character interaction. It was really incredible. The amount of time Palmer got to spend with them was insane and a lot of the time you didn’t even have to stand in line to meet them. Sure, there were scheduled meet and greet times that we did, but most of our interactions just came from seeing them walking around the ship. They would stop and sit down with the kids in the floor and interact and take pictures. It was awesome!
Overall, I am definitely giving the Disney Cruise our stamp of approval. We were overwhelmingly happy with this family vacation.
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