This was definitely a good cruise for kids. If you have a kid over 3, they have the Oceaneer's Club for those kids, and even activities for pre-teens and teens. They have a specific area for the teens as well and I bet that teenagers would love a cruise like this. I did not see any teens on the cruise by the way. They were either off on their own or it was more of the younger kids. There was also an adults only area that we didn't spend much time in but it seemed like a nice area and had a private pool.
For Neil, he might have been too young. BUT we didn't pay for him (other than taxes and nursery time). He really enjoyed the food and took random naps in some interesting places. He got cranky a few times because of lack of sleep. We also missed out on evening activities because of Neil's early bedtime.
The service was hit or miss. I had heard so many rave reviews of how spectacular the service is so maybe my expectations were too high. When we first boarded and had lunch, the cast members that were in the Cabanas restaurant were awesome. They paid a lot of attention to Neil, made a Peter Pan hat out of a napkin, and spent quite a bit of time with him. By the way, he loved the attention throughout the cruise.
However, I wasn't impressed with the cast members assigned to us (dining and stateroom). I kept reading how they learn about you and cater to what you usually do and your needs. But they didn't seem to.
Our stateroom- the first night we were back early and the room was ready. We saw the cast member who took care of the room and he was surprised we were back. I laughed and pointed at Neil and said early bed time, and he nodded. I thought from then on that he would have our room done earlier than the others but it was not, to the point that on the Pirates night I had to ask him to clean our room and we had to find something to do because the room was not ready when we got back from dinner. Neil was really tired, too. That was the next to last night and the cast member did have the room clean when we got back the last night. But I had kind of expected him to clean our room earlier after the first night, especially after he commented on (noticed) how early we were back and was already cleaning other rooms so he could have shifted us to an earlier priority. With that said, though, he did do a different animal towel each night, helped us with the television the first day, and seemed very nice, always giving Neil a lot of attention when he saw us in the hallway.
However, I wasn't impressed with the cast members assigned to us (dining and stateroom). I kept reading how they learn about you and cater to what you usually do and your needs. But they didn't seem to.
Our stateroom- the first night we were back early and the room was ready. We saw the cast member who took care of the room and he was surprised we were back. I laughed and pointed at Neil and said early bed time, and he nodded. I thought from then on that he would have our room done earlier than the others but it was not, to the point that on the Pirates night I had to ask him to clean our room and we had to find something to do because the room was not ready when we got back from dinner. Neil was really tired, too. That was the next to last night and the cast member did have the room clean when we got back the last night. But I had kind of expected him to clean our room earlier after the first night, especially after he commented on (noticed) how early we were back and was already cleaning other rooms so he could have shifted us to an earlier priority. With that said, though, he did do a different animal towel each night, helped us with the television the first day, and seemed very nice, always giving Neil a lot of attention when he saw us in the hallway.
The dining cast members I ran into the same thing (lack of attentiveness). I had read somewhere that they are very attentive to the point that they sometimes even will cut up food for younger kids if they need it. I know that's above and beyond what should be expected. But again there were comments about how they remember your drink order after the first night. That didn't happen either. The first night I had hot chai tea. The server even commented on that being a good selection. The second night he brought me green tea instead (ok he did remember hot tea so he got that right). The third night after bringing the mug and tea bag, he never gave me hot water and I had to ask someone else for it. Now, maybe part of this was us being absorbed with Neil. And again maybe my expectations were too high. Another example- we kept putting Neil's food on a separate plate after we cut it up so that he wouldn't grab whole pieces of chicken/fish, etc. We were using one of the bread plates on the table. But the server kept bringing Neil's plate out with uncut food and setting it right in front of him, in reach. Not a good idea with a 1 year old. And as we tried to move it around (there was a LOT on the table, I will say that), he just looked at us and didn't really try to help at all. This happened each night at each meal.
We also had a very messy kid though and they had to really clean up after us. We did feel really bad about that. Neil enjoyed his food but isn't using silverware and did make a real mess.
We did have a very good time and I'd like to go back again. We didn't do a lot of things because of Neil's bedtime but it was still very relaxing and I slept very well. We loved having a verandah. We couldn't use it at night because the door was hard/loud to open and close and Neil was right next to it. But for his naps we wedged the pack n play between the bed and the wall, used the privacy curtains, and spent time on the verandah and couch just relaxing while Neil slept. If we needed to use the bathroom we crawled over the bed, haha, but it didn't seem to wake Neil up.
We did bring a bottle of wine and corkscrew and it was nice to have free wine in our room.
Disney does rotational dining and your servers follow you. We ate the first night in Animator's Palate, which had my favorite food (and Neil's favorite), then Enchanted Garden the following night and for Pirate's night as well, and finally in the Royal Palace the last night. They had early and late dining. We had early dining, which started at 5:45. We were usually getting dessert around 7. Three of the nights we took dessert back to our room.
The hot tubs had a glass bottom that you could see down. We only went in one at night so we couldn't really see but what a neat concept.
The stateroom had a lot of storage space and we were able to easily put both of our suitcases under the bed with room to spare.
Now that I've written a lot of text, here are pictures from our last day.
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| Our last breakfast on the ship |
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| Waiting in the Orlando airport |
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| We had a long time to wait so we stopped in a restaurant for some beer. Doesn't this look like a Sam Adams ad (but maybe not a good ad if a baby is in it)? |
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| At the Hello Kitty store in Orlando airport |
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| The tram to the gates. We got on the wrong one so Neil enjoyed riding this back and forth |
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| Our plane! |
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| This is the first flight that Neil didn't sleep much. |
Travel Day
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
I read this entire post outloud to Ella.
ReplyDeleteI would have the same comments about servers not remembering too. I have been told I have high expectations for servers but I was one so I know it can be done.
I'm sure she loved hearing your voice!
DeleteI don't know if I'm being too picky. But just the fact that I was trying to move things around to find a place for the plate out of reach of Neil and the one server didn't help and in fact looked a bit put off... I don't know. It made me feel like we weren't "good" enough to be sitting there. I think that's really what bothered me about all that. I felt like maybe we shouldn't have taken Neil and that the staff at dinner were irritated we had him there. (At least he wasn't screaming like a banshee like the girl at the next table- he was happy, eating, and made a huge mess.)