The final installment on our Disney-centric vacation series is all about the three days we spent aboard the Disney Dream (read our Art of Animation Tour here and our Magic Kingdom with a toddler rundown here). This is the second time we’ve done the 3-night Disney Dream cruise to the Bahamas but the first with a two-year-old in tow (read a review of our previous cruise sans-baby here).
How much fun did we have? After returning from our long weekend at sea, I can confirm a Disney cruise is a great vacation to take a two-year-old on. Our son Henry had a blast, as did we!
There are characters to meet around every corner.
He loved eating “ice cones” and seeing the “fireplace” (fireworks).
He got to stay up late to watch the shows and played in the Small World Nursery for a few hours (they give each kid a MagicBand that supposedly can track their location). There are so many places to explore, both inside and outside of the “big boat.”
Pepe from the Muppets has his own room aboard the Disney Dream:
Here’s a panorama from the sail away deck party:
New to the boat since our last sailing was a whole Star Wars section inside one of the kid’s clubs including a recreation of the interior of the Millennium Falcon, good for some fun photo ops.
The highlight of the 3-night Bahamian cruise by-far is the day spent at Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay (pronounced “key”). Below is a map of Castaway Cay.
Is this real life?
One of the highlights for me personally was snorkeling at Castaway Cay. I saw lots of different fish and even a stingray! Disney has planted some treasures in the water of the protected bay to look for. Unfortunately, I later found out the Nautilus sub from the defunct 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride was in a completely different area than I was in.
I have to say, by far the biggest disappoint of the cruise was the Shutters Photography service. Whereas the Disney World photographers in the theme parks do a great job, I thought the photographers (and they are not run by Disney) during the cruise were terrible. The costumed character performers were great, but the photographers were seriously sooo bad. There were so many times they failed to realize that the kids or the performers were doing something really adorably or funny and would just stand there, having already taken their one or two required pictures. There were also a large number of times when no photographers were in sight when they should have been. I would not definitely not recommend the Shutters photography service unless you are with a very large group and can defray the cost among a big group.
To recap, the last day of the cruise was the best because we spent the day at Castaway Key, got to eat in the best of the three rotating restaurants aboard the ship – Animator’s Palate – then got to watch the best of the Broadway style productions – Disney’s Believe. It was also a bad day because we knew that the next day we had to go home and would be spending a lot of time sitting in the airport.
Here we are talking with Finding Nemo’s Crush while dining at Animator’s Palate:
Our room was 10166, Deck 10, right on the back of the boat square in the middle. The location was perfect, not only for being right under the Cabanas buffet, but it also provided a great opportunity to get some good time lapse videos using my GoPro camera. You can see some of my time lapse video and other highlights from the Disney Dream in the short video montage below:
Here’s my first attempt to take video underwater with my GoPro while snorkeling in Castaway Cay:
Have you ever been on a Disney Cruise before? I would love to hear what people think about how they compare with other cruise lines.
I went on the refurbed Disney Magic. It was great. AquaDunk rules. And cycling on Castaway Cay was a high-light. Every thing was great, except for the adult “night-clubs” which never reached a good vibe.