I Wanna Be Where The People Aren’t: Finding Some Calm On The Crowded Disney Dream

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 31st August: Day at Sea 2 (cont)

We hadn’t had ice cream from Vanellope’s yet this cruise so that was our next stop

Lunch had finished in Cabanas so we ate our ice creams in there, it was very peaceful. Alice’s double chocolate which she loved

I love all the little details inside Cabanas, it‘s so easy to miss them during busy mealtimes.

Sandcastles

 

[Tiggerish]

CARAMELIZED SEA SCALLOPS with Roasted Asparagus, Sun-dried Tomato Couscous, Caramelized Leeks, and Red Wine Veal Jus. We both thought this was delicious.

That is one of my favourite dishes in the entire Disney fleet.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 31st August: Day at Sea 2 (cont)

After our ice cream break we thought we’d try to finish our Muppets mystery. Luckily it was much quieter by this time and we successfully solved the case.

The show tonight was Believe. Like our first sea day there had been an afternoon performance as well, so we were hoping it would be less busy at our evening show.

We thoroughly enjoyed the show, again the cast were excellent, and Genie was very funny. But again other guests spoiled the experience a bit.

We were about the middle row of the balcony, sitting on the end. The main distraction was caused by people in the front row of the balcony. A young boy obviously needing to go to the bathroom with his mum, but the people on the end of their row either couldn’t or wouldn’t move out of the way for them. So they then had to climb over the seats into the empty row behind them to get out of the theatre. I completely understand this, when a young child has to go, they have to go. If that had been me and my child I would have then sat in the empty second row when returning to the theatre to avoid any extra disturbance, but they climbed over the seats again back into the front row. Then 20 minutes later the same boy, with his dad this time, had to climb out again. Luckily this time they sat in the second row when they got back. It was all very distracting.

After the show we wandered out to deck 4 for some fresh air, it was quiet out there this evening.

And then back inside to queue for our last night dinner at Royal Palace.

We could definitely hear the music tonight . But they weren’t playing any Disney music

 

[Mr Ferret 75]

Deck 4

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 31st August: Day at Sea 2 (cont)

Tonight was the regular menu at Royal Palace.

To start we all had: ICED LOBSTER AND JUMBO SHRIMP with Green Asparagus, Horseradish Cream and Dill Dressing. None of us remembered to take a photo, but I do remember enjoying it.

Lexi had pasta again, but at least it was fancy pasta. CONCHIGLIE PASTA with Buttered Lobster, tossed in a Tomato Shrimp Tarragon Brandy Sauce with Lemon Basil

Alice had: OVEN-BAKED SALMON ROYALE, crowned with King Smoked Salmon and Horseradish Crust accompanied by Sautéed Swiss Chard, Truffled Cauliflower Purée and White Wine Beurre Blanc

Both girls enjoyed their meals.

I had the same meal I usually have here: CHATEAUBRIAND-ROASTED FILET STEAK, Roasted Filet Steak, crushed New Potatoes with Shallots, Buttered Green Beans, Red Wine Jus, and a Béarnaise Sauce on the Side. This was fine, but not as good as I remembered.

Lexi left us again for her last evening at Vibe.

For dessert Alice had the sundae: STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE SUNDAE, Strawberries, Vanilla Ice Cream, Whipped Cream and Shortcake

I ordered my favourite dessert on the whole ship: GRAND MARNIER SOUFFLÉ, served with Grand Marnier Crème Anglaise

It looked a bit deflated when it was served. I took a bite, then another bite to make sure and it was not good at all. It was lukewarm and had more of the texture of an omelette than a soufflé, I think it had taken too long to serve after being baked and had just gone flat. I just couldn’t eat it and was so disappointed, our server could tell I wasn’t happy and offered to bring something else but I really didn’t want anything. It was a very disappointing ending to the meal.

 

[Mr Ferret 75]

I can confirm the salmon was good

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 31st August: Day at Sea 2 (cont)

On our way out of dinner I stopped to talk to our immediate table neighbours. They were a family of four with a little girl of about 5 or 6 and a little boy of about 3, and the children had been absolutely lovely the whole cruise. With a lot of badly behaved children about, their good behaviour really stood out and I told the parents that it had been a pleasure to sit next to them.

We needed to go back to the room to throw a few last things in our suitcases and put them in the hallway to be collected.

Then up to watch our last funnelvision movie of the cruise.

Some nighttime pool deck photos.

We chatted a bit about how the cruise hadn’t been quite what we expected, both of us agreeing that we were ready to be going home tomorrow. Wed never felt like that on a cruise before, always wanting to stay on the ship longer.

Then back to the room to wait up for Lexi who was 45 minutes late and not in my good books.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Sunday 1st September: Back to Southampton

We packed up the last of our things and were out of the room and at Cabanas by 7ish. It’s usually only a basic breakfast on the last morning of a cruise, so no Mickey churro waffles . I so regret not trying those earlier.

The empty pool deck when we were leaving Cabanas.

Going into breakfast only a couple of groups had been called to disembark, but by the time we’d finished eating our group had been called.

Our last cruise had been from Port Canaveral and I remember it taking a very long time to get through customs/immigration. Darren was picking us up from Southampton and as I didn’t know how long it would take us to get through I messaged him to say that our group had been called and that I would let him know when we were ready.

I finally managed to get a photo of Donald in a quiet atrium.

We were through customs in about 10 minutes and that’s just how long it took us to walk. No passport checks and just straight through the ‘nothing to declare’ part of customs.

I messaged Darren so he could pick us up, he was waiting just across from the port so it didn’t take long. He’d found a different way out of Southampton that avoided all the traffic lights and speedbumps, and we had a pretty traffic free journey home.

And so the end of a different cruise than we’d had before. I’m going to write one more post with some final thoughts.

 

[Mr Ferret 75]

Thanks for sharing

 

[Tuvalu]

Thank you for allowing me to cruise along!

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Final Thoughts

The Good

I was on a Disney ship with two of my favourite people in the world. Even though I didn’t see that much of Lexi, it was wonderful to have so much quality time with Alice.

The ship is still as beautiful as I remember and the crew are wonderful and helpful. I loved the quiet spots we found: the funnel puddle pool and the late night funnelvision. And deck 4 is and has always been one of my favourite places on the ship.

The shows in the Walt Disney Theatre are amazing, with very talented performers. And wonderful backstage crew, to be able to put on these shows.

We really enjoyed the ports. We’d gone on the cruise for the ship but were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed exploring.

Southampton was a very straightforward terminal to deal with.

Lexi loved Vibe, she made a lot of friends and is still in touch with some of them.


The Not So Good

The dining experience was nowhere near as good as we’d experienced in the past. It was just a bit odd having to read menus on our phones and ordering dessert at the same time as our other courses. The food quality was inconsistent, hot food was sometimes taking too long to be served with quite a few items arriving lukewarm. I did have some very enjoyable food, but some was disappointing.

The weather wasn’t very good (I know that can’t be helped). It was just like our British summer had been this year: grey, sometimes rainy, sometimes chilly, and a random warm and sunny day.

The Bad

People. It was very, very crowded, about 3,800 on board (capacity is 4000). My server from my more recent cruise told me that the short UK cruises that were close to capacity had approximately 50% children, and I can believed that from what I experienced. It seemed that the majority of people were young families. There was not enough capacity in the earlier dining seating for all the children, so a lot of them were in the later dining seating probably contributing to some of the bad behaviour I was seeing. And people in general just didn’t seem as friendly as I’d experienced before. I’ve had some lovely, completely random conversations on cruises (and in parks) with people in the past. The few times I spoke to people on this cruise, I just got short replies. One woman on the first day looked me as if to say ”why are you talking to me”. It all made me just want to keep to myself even more. The only really nice conversations I had were with my servers, room host and other crew members. I know there were probably a lot of lovely people on board, but the not so nice ones seem to stand out.

Finally

We did our best to make the most of our time on the cruise, and had an enjoyable time once we managed our expectations a bit. It might have been a different experience if I’d spent time in the adult areas but I prioritised time with Alice which I don’t regret. I’m not sure I would go on another short UK cruise, it’s just too crowded for me.

It obviously hasn’t put me off cruising as I’ve been on a transatlantic cruise since. I’ll hopefully get around to writing about that one in the next week or so.

Thankyou to everyone for reading and commenting, sorry it took so long to write but the other cruise got in the way a bit.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Thanks for sharing

Thank you for allowing me to cruise along!

Thank you for following

 

[Mr Ferret 75]

@Piglet_the_brave

You might be interested in this video series. It's the Transatlantic cruise you were on .