second time around the magic was gone About This Page:

[CinciSmithFamily]

Let me just say I realize there are some very pro Disney people on here, and if you're the type that doesn't like to read criticism of Disney , then stop now. I'm not trying to flame or antagonize anyone.

first the particulars

this was our second Disney Cruise, approximately 1 year apart. We are a family of 4, a couple with an 11 year old boy and a 9 year old girl.

our cruise was December 20th for 3 days to Nassau.

This is difficult for me to write but I think its important to note for anyone considering a cruise.

I'm going to point out some things I didn't like, and to some people they will sound petty - but I want to give a clear picture of my view of the cruise as a repeat passenger. This is very long as I intentionally put some thought into some of the things I wanted to write in this trip report for several days after the cruise.

Our second trip wasn't so magical as our first. You can find our first trip report from last year here, and it was a great vacation.

I think for me, two things really played a role in me being disappointed in the vacation.

First, perhaps familiarity breeds contempt - now that I was an experienced cruiser, I knew exactly where to go, what to do and when to do it. While that may sound great and a definite advantage, for me, it gave me time to notice things about the cruise I didn't notice before and unfortunately, remember things about the cruise from last year and question why it didn't change.

Secondly, the weather, which I know Disney can't do anything about ruined much of the water related activities that I had hoped to do, and in turn gave me more time to focus on Disney service.

I'm not writing this as a critique of Disney so much as I am a cautionary tale of people making a decision to make a return cruise and having certain expectations.

Ok, so let me start off with my wife got off from work on Friday, December 18th around 3pm. We finished packing and left our house around 6:30pm and planned to drive thru the night down to Cocoa Beach. We had a number of reasons for doing this, including dropping our dog off at a kennel and taking in a day at a beach hotel before the cruise to relax. I would not advise this for anyone.

Although I knew what to expect with driving all night, we hit a snow storm midway around 2am that slowed us down and added a couple of hours to an already long trip.

Again - this has nothing to do with Disney but just to highlight how the best plans gone astray compound the overall feeling of the cruise.

We arrived at our hotel in Cocoa Beach and found the beach to be a brisk 62 degrees. For us, that is barely warm enough for the kids to enjoy an outdoor heated pool, much less the ocean but we tried to make the best of it. While the kids swam in the heated pool, I caught a nap and then we all went out to eat that night.

The next day we arrived at Port Canaveral around 9:30am thinking we'd get a jump on the day and be one of the first to enter the boat once they start boarding passengers. This was unfortunate for us as we were told they weren't ready to receive passengers and we should park in a waiting area until they come get us. About an hour later, an elderly man in a golf cart came to us and asked us to follow him. I found it odd that we were the only people in the waiting area but even more perplexing for me was that once we went in, there were about 200 passengers already checked in ahead of us.

Now its not important for me to be first, its really not that big of a deal and I wasn't trying to be the first one in, but I just felt like that if you drive there, you are a bit handicapped by the process that allows passengers that didn't arrive in personal vehicles to go ahead of those who do.This happened last year as well but we arrived about 30 minutes later so we didn't have to wait. I mean, part of the reason I drove was to maximize my day on the boat, and it worked out that way, but it could have also worked out that 8 busloads of passengers were ahead of us and got thru while I waited for the golf cart guy to come get me.

The check in process was easy, and again, knowing what to do -such as registering the kids, finding a seat in the lounge area, etc., made the process better than the first time we went thru.

I surprised my wife with an early Xmas present by upgrading to a Category 5 room on level 7. While she loved the room, let me just state that for some people who question whether getting a balcony on a 3 day cruise is worth it, IMHO, it is NOT worth it. If I had to put a $ amount on the time we used the balcony (we are big on shore excursions and are not the type to order room service or coffee in the room) then it worked out to about $5 a minute to cover the cost of upgrading from our porthole room. For some Disney cruisers, money is not a big deal. I don't consider myself cheap but I am very value oriented, and there are a number of things on this trip that I felt didn't live up to the cost. This was one of them. I will say this - that our location on level 7 was of more value in terms of proximity to amenities on the boat than the balcony.

We were in group 4 this time which meant we were on the boat around 12:20. Taking advantage of reading here, just like last time, prepped us for going straight up to deck 9 and swimming. When we walked on the boat they tried to steer us toward Parrot Cay but we went up to let the kids swim in the heated Mickey and Goofy pools and made our way over to Beach Blanket Buffet.

We had the pools to ourselves for at least 30 minutes after we got on board.

The remainder of the day was uneventful - lifeboat drill, dinner with the family in Triton (my favorite restaurant on the boat) and watching the Golden Mickeys. I will say that I was surprised to see that the shows were the same as last year, and since I had sat thru them before, I paid more attention to lip synching and what not than enjoying the actual show. How long do the shows run? 12 months later and they haven't added a single new one?

The second day we arrived in Nassau and unfortunately it wasn't much warmer than the day before in Florida. We chose a shore excursion of the Atlantis Waterpark/Aquarium (booked several weeks earlier) and what we found was that only a few of the water rides were heated (and that is used generously) and many others were not. The large pool was heated to a tolerable temperature but my kids were shivering and chattering from the kid oriented rides to the point they refused to do anything water related after an hour or so. We bought a couple of cokes for $9 and went over to the aquarium - which is impressive but good for about 30 minutes.

Honestly I don't remember what I paid in total for my "day" at Atlantis but whatever I did, I didn't get my money's worth. Is it luck of the draw that I was there on a particularly cool day? Yes, but its not like I paid $20 a head for this, this was several hundred dollars for the day and this type of weather wasn't a 100 year climate anomaly. i mean, the lifeguards were wearing hooded sweatshirts and sweatpants. They weren't about to go in the water. Am I wrong to expect that a place on the scale of Atlantis would be prepared for this? Am I wrong to believe that this has the Disney Seal of Approval so to speak that would have addressed the fact that they are taking guests down during winter? Well maybe I am but for a few hundred dollars that results in about 3 hours of tortured fun, I do expect it. I expect that every experience that I encounter thru Disney takes those types of things into consideration. We returned back to the boat early taking a taxi, dropped the kids off at the discovery lab/zone and my wife and I went to the straw market. Before we went to the straw market, we decided to grab a bite at Beach Blanket Buffet. We arrived to find a long line and the hostess handing out sanitary wipes trying to steer people to the Goofey Galley or Pluto's Doghouse. Now for me, there really is no comparison between a buffet and those two, but what I realized was that they were trying to shut the buffet down. I was a bit irritated to see that they started turning people away so they could shut the doors to the buffet. I mean, as a guest, if you show up, even if there is a scheduled closing time of say 3pm (which I also don't understand) - is Disney really going to turn guests away? The answer is yes unfortunately.We were in line safely so we weren't turned away but honestly I'd be upset if the people in front of us were designated as the end of the line and I had to settle for a ceaser wrap sandwich.

The Nassau evening was Animators Palate and Toy Story Musical. It was what I expected although some of the menu items were the same as last year. To be honest here, almost all the menu items were the same as last year, which again, I'm not sure if I'm just expecting too much but I've always felt part of the cruising experience was the culinary quality and diversity you get as opposed to everyday life. Is changing the menu every 12 months for repeat cruisers too much to ask?

My daughter had sinus issues (perhaps from the cold water at Atlantis) so we opted to stay in our room for the late night pirate night and let her sleep to make the most of Castaway Cay the next day.

So the final day arrives and we are pumped for Castaway Cay,except that the day is once again cool - not cold but not tropical either. We purchased a snorkel/bike/tube package (again -weeks in advance) for each of us and left the boat around 9:00am to make the most of the day. We tried to make a valiant effort at snorkeling but it was just too cold, and from the number of people who stayed only ankle deep in the water, we weren't the only ones who thought that.

However that wasn't what frustrated me about Castaway Cay.I fully understand you can't control the weather. While we were on the beach, instead of the peaceful sounds of waves or kids playing in the water, I spent my day listening to the sounds of construction - the back up warning beeping, the front end loader breaking up rocks, the traditional sounds of construction you hear in an urban environment - as Castaway Cay was doing construction for some water rides or whatever. Look - I love Disney but I paid a premium for not only a Disney Cruise, but to take this cruise during the Xmas break. Somehow a "Pardon our Mess" sign just isn't going to get it done for me. How about Pardon My Vacation, I didn't pay all this money so you could make Castaway Cay great for the families who visit next summer Sign? One of the highlights of last years vacation was us relaxing on Castaway Cay on a hammock next to our lawnchairs close to the water . This year they moved all the hammocks to "common areas" I assume to prevent people like me from getting off the boat early and hogging them all day in a prime beach location. So I sat there, on a cold beach listening to bulldozers and what not, basically counting the moments until we were back on the boat and headed back home. I wasn't angry but I will say that while my perspective of this cruise would have changed 180 degree had we seen 78 degree days instead of 62, what really bothers me is Disney didn't do anything different because of it, and because of that I don't see myself spending thousands of dollars on anything Disney related in the near future. What could have Disney done? I don't know but water is such an important part of Castaway Cay and the vacation itself, if you can't take advantage of it (cold weather, rough weather, rain, whatever) then it really takes a huge chunk out of the what is already , time wise a very short vacation.

Finally as a parting shot, when I am a guest on the cruise, I expect that the ships amenities are available to me as long as the cruise is "in service". I was frustrated to see Disney painting the pool the last night at sea returning from Castaway Cay on my first trip. Do families swim at night - I don't know but I do know that on both cruises, the last night, areas were roped off for maintenance. Not to fix something that was broke but to clean, paint or whatever. Just as with the construction on Castaway Cay, I don't like the idea that my cruise has to be...I don't know the right word, let's just say diminished by Disney performing work that I believe should not be done with guests around.

People talk about the Disney difference and I didn't feel it this time as a returning guest. Same food, same shows, less convenience, less concern for me as a guest, more money out of my pocket. If it was my first time, I probably wouldn't have noticed, but the second time around, turning my towel into a monkey just isn't enough to convince me this was worth it. I mean they make such a big deal out of returning guests, yet virtually nothing had changed. I essentially took the exact same vacation I did the first time. I even had the same head server as last year.

For a 3 day cruise, I spent about $1000 a day for a family of four,not counting transportation but including shore excursions and on board activities. I have no idea how that rates with the cost of other peoples vacations or whether they believe that to be expensive, normal or cheap - however for me, the result as you have probably guessed by reading my trip report is that I didn't feel I got my money's worth, and I expected Disney to put more effort into seeing that I did, especially in this economy.