Phonedave
Well-Known Member
I'm glad to see someone else finds my idea as an interesting one. Thank you With that said, allow me to expand on my logic to try and explain where I'm coming from.
First of all, I'm the type of person who has a very short fuse (imagine a combination of Figment's imagination and love of creativity mixed with Anger's temperament...scary I know). With that said, it's not really the kids alone that get to me while on a Disney cruise, it's several elements combined that really push me to my limit. As of right now, I've been on 7 Disney cruises and have pretty much seen everything that the 3-7 day Caribbean cruises have to offer. Because of this, my cruise partner and I skip many of the "usual offerings" such as the shows, dinner in the rotating restaurants, Nassau etc. and mainly just sail for Castaway Cay, the new movies, Palo, Aquaduck and that overall Disney quality you don't see onboard other ships (heck, there's hardly quality in the park anymore).
Now getting back to my many levels of tolerance, as I said it's not just the kids, it's more the combination of kids acting out while the adults proceed to do nothing about it. For example on my last cruise, my cruise partner and I decided to try Cabanas for dinner as we've never tried it before and was wanting a change from the same three rotating restaurants. Well, not even 15 minutes into dinner a grandmother is seated next to us with I'm assuming her granddaughter. Right from the get go, the granddaughter starts bouncing all over the place, screaming her head off, demanding food that wasn't even on the menu, all while the grandmother just shrugs her shoulders and acted like nothing's wrong. Meanwhile because I'm siting in the booth that is connected to the granddaughter's, I'm bouncing up and down in my seat from the motion of the granddaughter. The whole dinner was like that and we had to just skip dessert because this grandmother would do nothing to calm down this child.
On the topic of adult-only areas. This is something that adds to my frustration as well. On two separate cruises I've seen children under 18 in the adult area, not just passing through but full on sitting in the area. On the cruise before last, a family brought their children on the upper deck to watch the firework. When a CM came by and told them they couldn't have children in that location, the family just acted like the CM never said anything. By the end of the show, the family was still there and never removed their children from the area. So, now we have "adult only areas" that are shrugged off by parents and employees yet, I can't go into the kid's area and have fun with their toys.
Finally, because my party and I only get off the ship at Castaway Cay, we tend to develop "cabin fever" after a few days which does not help with my frustration of the fellow guests onboard. All this combined together leads to my annoyance of a Disney cruise. Now would an adult-only cruise solve the problem of everything onboard? No. But if we eliminated the children, maybe things would be 25-50% better, at least in my case. Without kids, adults can't shrug off the responsibility of keeping them in-line. Plus, I'm sure there are plenty of adults who don't have/want kids but want to enjoy all the luxuries that a Disney cruise offers and be a child at heart. That's why I thought offering one smaller ship, or at least one special cruise a year for adults would be a very profitable investment. As to the "weird feeling" it would present on a Disney cruise, it wouldn't bother me at all. In fact, the less people onboard, the better (in my opinion).
Anyway, thanks for taking to time to read my extremely long explanation. Unfortunately, I do agree with everything you said and know that the possibility for this happening are very slim. But hey, I can dream
Edit: As a follow up to the survey involving the % of adults on a Disney Cruise. Could that possibly be because many adult cruisers see Disney cruises AS "just for kids and families" and don't sail because of this?? I've talked to many adult couples who had no idea about all the adult areas and such and just assumed it was a "theme park at sea" Maybe if the option was available, more adults would be inclined to sail?
Celebrity - Just as good as Disney (if you dont have kids with you), a good bit less expensive, and they actually enforce the "no kids in adult areas". I watched the "purser / drink runner / food deliverer / towel person / chair unreserver" person in the Thalassothearapy pool area boot out under 18 year olds (and he did it very nicely too) a number of times - both when they were alone, and with parents.
-dave