REVIEW: ACTIVITIES ONBOARD THE DISNEY DREAM

Pre Disney Cruise- SWA flights and Avis Car rental

Planning a Disney Cruise

ACTIVITIES

Note: At the bottom of this post are the Daily Navigators so you can see all the events

There is so much to do on board this ship, its hard to even know where to start. We spent 3 nights here and I know there are areas we never even made it to. The ship is almost like Venice where you can get lost on it, but getting lost may be the best part. On a 3 night cruise, you almost feel like to have to run around to each attraction like you were at a Disney Park.

When we first got on the ship, we split up. I took the kids up to the pool and my wife went and got tickets for character greetings. (more in a second on that). I wanted to get a few runs in on the aquaduck right away. Around 1 there was about a 20-30 minute line, which was about the average throughout the week. Maybe if you get there at 11 you can ride with no line.

They have a few different pools on Deck 11. They Have the 2 main pools, Donald and Mickeys pool. One is deeper than the other. Then they have Mickey’s slide, as well as Nemo’s Reef spray area for lil ones. My daughter could have gone down the regular water slide all day long, she loved it. The aquaduck was a lot of fun, but its pretty slow. I still don’t get their height restrictions though. First at Seaworld a few days earlier my daughter was over 48 inches and my son over 54 inches. You had to be 54 inches to ride the aqua duct by yourself. Then on the ship both my kids were now under those heights. So neither one of then could ride it by themselves. However if you are over 7, you can ride with another person who is over 7. So they were able to ride together. Doesn’t make sense to me but ends well.

There was always plenty of towels around the pools and lounge chairs. While the Lounge chair area could get crowded, you could still find 2 chairs next to each other. The pool area is close to Cabana’s buffet so its a high traffic area. I was just waiting for accidents to happen though as kids are running around and people are walking through the area with trays of prime rib and ice cream…. While some people would leave the food trays by the pool, and some just throw their towels on the ground, the Disney workers would be there quick to clean up anything and everything.

There are some adult only pools on Decks 11 and 13. These were more than 50% empty. Our kids went to the kids club one day for about 90 minutes and it was very nice to have a little time here. This area has nice lounge chairs as well and a swim up bar. However there was still some teenagers with their parents here. They were behaving but still would have been nice to enforce the adults only section.

Up on the 13th deck, there is a sports area with a 9 hole miniature golf course, basketball hoop, golf simulator, and other activities.

There are numerous character greetings going on at almost all times. You will get a schedule of them in your daily newsletter called the Navigator. You can bring your own book or buy a book from the gift shop for autographs if you wish. Some lines would only be 5 minutes, and some up to 30 minutes. I believe you can sign up for some of the group character greetings a head of time just like a shore excursion. We did not do that so while I went swimming right when we got on the ship, my wife went to guest services and was still able to get tickets for a specific time with the Princesses and with Frozen. Note Some of the princesses were only by tickets while some had other appearances, and Frozen was only by ticket. (No loaf though as he melts in the Bahamas.) Mickey, Minnie, etc had numerous appearances that you did not need a ticket for each day.

They had a very large kids club area called Oceaneers Club and Oceaneers Lounge. They are connected to each other. Our kids went there for 90 minutes but they don’t typically like those kinds of kids clubs. There was plenty of activities for them to do from arts and crafts, to cooking, to science experiments, to video games, to board games, to small sports activities, to reading; but when we went to pick them up they decided they didn’t want to go back again. Another strange thing is that when you sign up for their bracelet online you can select that they can check themselves in our out, which we did. However when we checked them out, we had to give them our password. Luckily I remembered what i selected when registering them 2 months beforehand, but I didnt see the point when they can check themselves in or out. I was impressed by how clean it was. When you go in, the first thing you have to do is wash your hands, when you leave, you have to wash your hands. There are lots of Disney workers at the checkin and checkout areas to make sure no kids pull a jailbreak.

There is also a nursery that we saw lots of people dropping their babies off, but we did not go in.

Just a few misc items. They do have free internet up to 50 MB but you have to sign up by midnight the first day. I did not so I bought a 100mb package for $19 so I could check in my flight online. Before I could even get to my email to get my confirmation numbers, my 100mbs was already used as I had some automatic back enabled on my google photos. However I went down to the internet desk and he gave me another 100 mbs.

There are also photographers everywhere and a photo store on board. They have different packages but the memory stick of all your photos was like $200 or $240. When I first saw that I was like holy cow that expensive and I have my own camera. By the end of the cruise I wish we would have budgeted for it ahead of time and purchased it. Their photographers probably took 200 pictures of us and got some pretty good ones. They have the right speed and right lighting. You have to by them by like midnight your last day, and it gets very crowded there the last day.

You can also book a future cruise on board and save 10%. I am not exactly sure how this works as on the last night it was also very crowded in this area. I didn’t feel like waiting for hours. Next time I would go there towards the beginning of the cruise. I don’t believe you have to pick the exact dates and type of cabin, but you do have to put a deposit down and take it within so many months.

There are 2 main theaters on board the ship. One is the Buena Vista Theater which pretty much plays movies non stop. This also includes 3D movies. We started watching The Last Jedi, and then my kids said we can do this at home and decided to go do other activities. The theater is good for some down time, or if you just want to drop your kids off at one of the clubs and have some alone time.

The Main Theater is the Walt Disney Theater. On our 3 night cruise, they had 2 main productions at night. The first night was a musical called Disney’s Believe. It was an entertaining story about a young girl getting her dad to believe in Magic. Nothing I would go out of my way to see though. The 2nd and 3rd night was Beauty and the Beast. This was full of computer special affects and I would actually pay money to go see this. It was very well put on and the computer generated backdrops were great. Seating is first come first serve and one of the best things is I was able to bring down a bottle of wine I got at port and a few wineglasses into the Theater. Got a lot of comments from the other parents of oh that’s such a good idea.

Another neat activity for the kids is the Detective Agency. They have these kiosks at a few places on the ship and they give you clues to go to different areas to get your next clue and so on and so on. It gets you thinking a little bit and a good way to see the ship.

Our Pirate might was also Fireworks night. It was the night we left the Bahamas. I would say about 40% of people had some type of pirate costume on. A lot of them were the same ones off of Amazon that people probably picked up 2 weeks before they left (like ourselves). A few people go all out too. If you don’t bring anything, they have some bandanas for ya. The fireworks were not a 4th of July caliber celebration, but still awesome to be in the ocean with fireworks going off. They shoot off from the starboard side but when you are up on the top decks you can see them from anywhere. They have music playing that goes along with the 10 minute show.

We decorated our door with some magnets we bought off of Etsy. I would estimate about 50% of the doors had some type of magnets. There are also some groups you can join ahead where you put a lil hanging thing on your door and exchange gifts. Would estimate less than 10% of the doors did this. To me the gift exchange seems like too much preparation and work. I did like the door magnets as it also helps you figure out which rooms is your when your name is literally on it.