What sets a Disney Cruise apart from other cruises

Disclosure:  I attended the 2018 Disney Social Media Moms Celebration at Walt Disney World and aboard the Disney Dream. I paid for my and my family’s transportation and conference admission, which included lodging at Disney’s Coronado Springs resort, discounted park tickets, some meals and many special events. This post may contain affiliate links.

Our family has taken a cruise annually for the past seven years. I don’t know if that makes us cruise “veterans,” but my youngest son was three the first time he stepped aboard a ship and set sail in search of sunshine and warmer weather! We’ve cruised on several different cruise lines over the years — in fact, the first cruise my husband, daughter, and I ever took was aboard the Disney Wonder in 2002 when we were just a family of three. 

Truth be told, while that first experience cruising with Disney was memorable, I wasn’t entirely sold on cruising after that first trip. Everything about the ship was wonderful, and the dining was top-notch, but I honestly was just not sure that cruising was for me. I remember feeling an odd sense of being “stuck” on the ship as we sailed away from Port Canaveral, and no amount of travel research had quite prepared me for the cozy size of a cruise ship cabin. Visiting Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay in the Bahamas, was definitely the highlight of the trip though — it’s everything you’d envision a perfect tropical paradise to be! I loved everything about our day at the island, but I wasn’t quite sold on cruising again. 

Nine years later, in 2011, we took a Carnival cruise with friends. That time around, I felt that I knew much more what to expect when I stepped aboard a cruise ship.  Annual trips followed on Norwegian Cruise Lines, and over the years I became much more comfortable with cruising. To date, our sons have spent more than thirty days of their lives at sea!

So, when Disney Social Media Moms invited us for a 3-night cruise adventure aboard the Disney Dream, our whole family was excited, and I began thinking about our other cruise vacations. How would this compare to our first Disney cruise experience sixteen years ago — as well as to our experiences on other cruise lines?

The experience of Disney Cruise Lines

Think of Disney resorts, and you’ll likely conjure up thoughts of family-friendly relaxation. However, Disney Cruise Lines brings a level of grandeur that’s unparalleled at the hotels. The public areas of the ships are decorated in Art Deco and Art Nouveau theming which exude upscale, inviting luxury. There’s so much on board to see and do!

The quality of the beds and linens in the cruise cabins are outstanding as well. Our first night spent sleeping in this plush bed had me searching the web to find out if you can purchase the same mattress (hint: you can.) I also learned that the Disney Cruise Line linens are made by Frette in Italy, and a set of these amazingly soft yet crisp sheets will set you back more than $600. 

After that, I decided to savor every sleepy moment in those luxurious sheets, because if I happen to have an extra $600 to burn, I’m much more likely to put that cash into our next vacation fund. 

One of our evenings was themed around Pirates of the Caribbean, and Disney provides each guest with a pirate bandanna to dress up and join in the fun! Some sailings also have a Star Wars Day at Sea or Marvel Day at Sea with more dress-up costume opportunities. 

Disney is also the only cruise line that treats its guests to a fireworks show at sea! After a pirate show on the pool deck involving Captain Jack, the fireworks begin. It’s amazing to be so close to fireworks like this — they are going off right above the crowd!

The cabin bathroom (yes, you’ll love it)

The cabins aboard Disney Cruise Lines are about 25% larger than competing cruise lines, and any extra space in your cruise cabin is certainly welcome when you’re cruising with a family. On this trip, I was reminded of something I really liked about our first cruise on the Disney Wonder that is unique to Disney Cruise Lines: Each cabin has a double bathroom.

Instead of one bathroom, Disney’s cruise cabin bathrooms are split into two separate rooms with two separate doors. One room contains a toilet and a sink, and the other contains a sink, shower, and bathtub. Such a simple idea, and yet, it’s something you’ll really appreciate when one person is showering and another is waiting impatiently outside the door to use the toilet! Cruise ship cabin bathroom real estate is already a limited commodity, but having a total bathroom size that’s double most other ships is a fabulous feature. 

The little touches

Disney truly thinks of everything that might make your stay a little more magical. While other cruise lines offer for-pay apps that allow you call and text other members of your party aboard the ship, Disney provides two “Wave Phones” in the cabin free of charge. This was wonderful when our kids wanted to go one place on the ship and we wanted to go another. The boys took a phone, and they knew they could always call us when they were out and about. We were also much more comfortable about them roaming freely knowing we could reach them at any time.

Disney is also the first cruise line we’ve sailed with that provided tubes of solar relief gel in the cabin bathroom along with the typical toiletries you might expect. No matter how much sunscreen you bring (and we always bring a lot) inevitably, someone’s going to end up with pink shoulders or a red nose before the trip ends. The H20 sunburn gel was cool and comforting on those days we spent a little too much time in the sun.

Upon returning to our cabin each night, each of the beds was decorated with towel animals and Ghirardelli chocolates, which also delighted our boys.

Other little touches around the ship are just fun to discover. On our first night aboard the ship, our oldest son took the top bunk bed in our cabin. As he was lying in bed looking up at the ceiling, he noted that the wallpaper above his bed depicted a night sky. Then, he looked more closely and discovered constellations in the shapes of characters from Peter Pan in the stars! 

Another day, my husband and I were sitting in the hot tub, and I happened to look down into the water. The hot tub’s glass floor looked down into the ocean below us, and we could watch the sea waves through the water.

Every cruise ship has photographers snapping pictures of your family throughout your trip. On other cruise lines, these photos are typically displayed in a wall gallery where you browse through all of the day’s photos to find your own. 

Disney Cruise Lines does it differently. Scan your room key card at the photo gallery, and a screen will tell you which photo book to remove from the photo studio’s bookshelves. Inside, you’ll find all of the photos of your family! How do they do it?

Facial recognition. Like other cruise lines, Disney takes photos of each guest at check-in for security check-in and check-out purposes in ports. Unlike other cruise lines we’ve traveled with, though, Disney’s photo system then automatically recognizes and sorts all of the photos that “belong” to the people in your cabin, no matter where they were taken or which photographer took them! It makes it very quick and easy to see and choose any photos you wish to buy.

 

The swimming pools

Disney Cruise Lines have more swimming pools on board than any other cruise line we’ve sailed with — we counted seven different pools, plus additional splash areas, a water slide, and the AquaDuck water coaster!

The AquaDuck is an awesome two-seat tube flume that sends riders over the side of the ship in a clear slide tunnel, then back on board for a wet and wild trip around the pool deck! Lines can quickly get long for this, and we found that the shortest wait times were late at night or while the ship was in port. 

The pools and slides aboard the Disney Dream are also filled with fresh water. Other cruise lines fill the pools with seawater, which stings eyes and leaves a salty film on your skin. My children noticed this difference right away. 

The kids’ areas

With Disney Cruise Lines, you expect a certain level of entertainment value for the children in your party, but Disney delivers far more than any other cruise line we’ve sailed with. There are multiple children’s areas aboard the ship for kids from toddlers to teens to enjoy.

With a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old in our party, our boys split their time between the Star Wars-themed bridge area of the Oceaneer’s Club and the Disney Dream’s tween club, Edge. Edge can best be described as a cool, no-parents hangout with everything from foosball tables and board games to a large, multiplayer video game zone.

This area is just ripe for exploration! Nothing is off-limits, and pressing buttons or flipping switches is rewarded with levitating objects and other surprises around the bridge. 

All of the kids’ areas have open house time each day too, so kids of all ages have an opportunity to check out some of the spaces that they might be too old or too young to hang in during kids-only hours. (Yes, adults can go play too during open house — great news for the adult Star Wars lovers who want to fly the Millennium Falcon or hang out on the bridge.) 

When the kids’ clubs are in session, they also have set times to rotate between the different kids’ areas on the ship. My boys were delighted to “invade” the teen club, Vibe, and they couldn’t believe that Vibe has its own sundeck area with a hot tub and swimming pool area just for teens! 

The adults-only spaces

With so much going on for the younger set, you might wonder what Disney Cruise Lines offers for adults. The answer: so much! There’s an entire nightclub district aboard the Dream with everything from a champagne bar to a British-style pub. Additional lounges feature dancing, a piano bar, and adult games and entertainment. My husband and I were rocking out to ’70s music trivia one night while our boys were at their own club.

Additionally, there are multiple large sundeck and pool areas that are for the 18-and-up crowd only. One of my favorite things to do when we board a cruise ship is to wander around the ship’s public areas as much as possible. Where does that staircase go? Up to a sundeck… but look, there’s another staircase. Where does that one go? You get the idea.

On embarkation day, my husband went to the movies (I should mention that the ship has a first-run movie theater that’s free too!) and I went off exploring. Multiple staircases and sundecks later, I ended up discovering an adults-only sundeck in the front of the ship with plush loungers and the ship’s Satellite Falls swimming pool. I went back to the cabin for my swimsuit and a book, and I left a note for my husband to join me when his movie ended. This deck quickly became our favorite adults-only spot on the ship, and there were never more than a dozen people there throughout our cruise.

The Disney Dream also has a larger adults-only hot tub and pool area with a swim-up bar that we found particularly relaxing at night — again, it was delightfully uncrowded whenever we visited.  

 

The entertainment 

I’ve already mentioned the ship’s onboard movie theater, but the Disney Dream also has a spectacular theater devoted to live entertainment. The Walt Disney Theater brings original, Disney-themed musical entertainment to you each night. Our favorite was their Broadway-quality production of “Beauty and the Beast.” Truly, if this show had been offered a second time aboard the ship, we would have gone to see it again. My usually-fidgety sons were rapt with attention for the entire musical. Here’s a video I found that shares some of the highlights of this beautiful show:

The dining

Disney’s dining aboard their cruise ships is a little different from other cruise lines. There are multiple themed restaurants that you will rotate through for dinner each night. Aboard the Dream, these are Animator’s Palette, Enchanted Garden, and Royal Palace. The food at all three is fantastic, both in quality and presentation. Whether you prefer steak, pork, shrimp, or lobster, you’ll find numerous options at each restaurant.

Over the course of your trip, you will rotate from restaurant to restaurant, but your waitstaff stays the same. They rotate with you, and by the second day, you’ll be amazed at how quickly they’ll have learned your drink and dining preferences. Disney’s waitstaff works on an incredible 4:1 ratio, meaning that each server handles just four tables per dining rotation. They’ll welcome you by name to dinner each night, and many of them will entertain your children at the table with magic tricks or games too.

As with all things Disney, the level of customer service is unmatched. 

Disney Dream’s buffet, Cabanas, is also well-stocked with seafood every day — a huge plus to this seafood lover!

Over the past few years of sailing with other cruise lines, I’ve seen the seafood options reduced more and more each year, to the point that Norwegian went from having unlimited lobster tails to having one tail on “lobster night,” to completely eliminating lobster from their 5-day itineraries.  It was an incredible contrast to see so much fresh, delicious seafood available every single day aboard the Disney Dream! I ate lobster, crab legs, and shrimp as often as possible during our trip.

 

Dessert options abound aboard the Dream too! There’s free ice cream pretty much around the clock at Eye Scream, and Vanellope’s Sweets and Treats offers some out-of-this-world gelato flavors and toppings for a few dollars more. 

Unlike many other cruise lines, Disney does not charge for soft drinks. There are multiple drink stations in the Cabanas buffet area and aboard the pool deck, and you can order soft drinks free of charge with meals too.

We’re not soda junkies, but it was a nice change to have drink options other than water and tea aboard the ship. On other cruise lines, our family has just become accustomed to drinking water all week because the cost of length-of-cruise soft drink packages are usually so prohibitive, and if one person wants a drink package, everyone in the cabin is forced to buy it as well. 

Castaway Cay

Disney’s private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay, is everything you’d imagine a Disney-owned tropical island to be. It’s got beautiful white sand beaches, lush landscaping, and plenty of interesting areas to explore and enjoy.

Castaway Cay was my favorite part of our inaugural Disney Cruise back in 2002, and when my toes hit this beach more than 15 years after my first Disney Cruise, it felt like no time had passed at all. You’re truly on island time here, and everything about this place is designed for fun and relaxation. 

The water is spectacularly clear, and while there were close to 4,000 passengers aboard the Dream during our trip, the island is so spacious that you don’t feel crowded or packed in. The family beach area stretches from the dock to one end of the island, and an adults-only beach wraps around the far side of Castaway Cay.

We started our Castaway Cay day by running a 5K event that covered the island’s entire runway and bike loops. This is a great way to see many of the areas of the island, and you have the added benefit of being some of the first people off the ship! Once our run ended, we hit the beach for some suntan time and ocean time. 

Castaway Cay even has a family-friendly “island” of its own with water slides and a dump-bucket water feature — hard for any child to resist. 

There are several barbecue stations on the island that serve up a delicious lunch of barbecue ribs, burgers, chicken, and fish. The unlimited soft drink stations and ice cream machines are available too, so everyone can enjoy as many refreshments as they’d like. 

There are several fun areas for children to explore, including Monstro’s Point, where they can participate in an archaeological dig — and you never know who might stop by to help the kids in their quest!

The island also has miles of bike trails to explore. Go deep enough into the island, and you can park the bikes to climb an observation tower for a birds-eye view of the island and ship. (Don’t forget your camera — the view is incredible!)

All too soon, our three nights aboard the Disney Dream came to an end — and I have a strong feeling that the Disney Cruise has “spoiled” my children for any other cruises we might take. One of my sons said “Disney just does everything so much better than other cruises!”

Disney recently announced that they will be adding three more ships to their fleet in 2021, 2022, and 2023. We can’t wait to see what new itineraries and ports these ships may take us to!

Disclosure:  I attended the 2018 Disney Social Media Moms Celebration at Walt Disney World and aboard the Disney Dream. I paid for my and my family’s transportation and conference admission, which included lodging at Disney’s Coronado Springs resort, discounted park tickets, some meals and many special events. This post may contain affiliate links.