The first one I watched was the Disney Cruise Line: Behind the Magic documentary focusing on primarily the Dream and Fantasy showcasing the ships' majestic charms and offerings and what not. Basically a full detailed overview of these recently new ships. This is a brand new documentary as it just debuted today on that channel.
Haven't seen this one! I need to find it so I can see, too! I've been on both new ships now so I just want to watch so I can get the butterflies in my belly some more. I'm such a sentimental loser. LOL!
The documentary featured much commentary from Karl Holz (who's up in age), Joe Lanzisero, Jim Urry, and Lisa Migliorati with occasional comments from Staggs and some other imagineers I'm not familiar with. O and even an appearance from the weatherman at the end. Just by watching this on my tv, I was in awe by the scope in detail and size of these ships. They truly seem great and one of the main points/emphasis in this show was the fact that these ships had something to offer for everyone be it the oceaneers club for little kids, game lounges and outdoor sports courts for teens, or spas for adults just to name a few. I was also truly amazed at the extra little details that are onboard those ships like the interactive art/animation on the ships, the portholes,etc.
I was the anti-cruise girl my whole life. Took Disney to get me to even consider it. It's amazing that a ship can have so much going on all the time. Truly, something for everyone. You can have just as active a vacation as running parks or as relaxing and anti-commando as you want all in the same day. It's all right there at your fingertips. I never imagined a cruise could offer so much more than food at every turn. It really is amazing how so much detail can drip & ooze from every crevice of a ship. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the design of the ships truly showcases what Disney is renowned for. Attention to detail on so many levels. It's incredible. It's Disney fangurl crack.
Lastly, how could I forget the cast members which leads me to my main point. A while back, Spirit went in depth about the great service he recieved on his DCL voyage on the Wonder. Well I can see why he would want to commend DCL on that front and as usual, he knows what he's talking about. These cast members really seem to provide guests with great '5 star like' service and truly care about their guests by making sure they have the best Disney Cruise experience possible.
Spirit and I have discussed it a bit in the past, how going on a Disney cruise reminds me so much of what the legendary WDW service once was. People say all the time that WDW is fine, the service is fine. It's not. Go on a Disney cruise and experience the difference. I remembered things I had long since forgotten. If you can imagine the exemplary service you get on the Disney cruises applied throughout WDW you'd understand more clearly why people have such high standards for Disney, why many people are disgusted at the current state of service at WDW, and just how far TDO has allowed the overall experience to slide over the years. I'm sorry, gadgetry, tech, and frou-frou bracelets will not recapture what once was. Personally, I've written off the possibility of ever having a DCL-service-level vaca at WDW. Not even if I spent for concierge. WDW just doesn't have that in them anymore.
I found it interesting that for the rotational dining, when guests have a certain waiter for breakfast, they also have that same waiter for lunch and dinner as well which really is a great way for the cast to open up/connect with the guests (still can't get out of my mind that they go through 50,000 Ibs of vegetables and 40,000 Ibs of fruit each day). An important thing I took away from the cast was that anytime they went to approach a guest party, they had full eye contact and had big smiles on their faces 24/7. Simply put, they seem to treat you like royalty.
Rotational dining. I love it. Your wait service staff follows you from main dining room to main dining room every night for dinner. It's always the same staff taking care of you
at dinner. If you choose to have breakfast or lunch in the main dining rooms that are open you aren't likely to get your same wait staff because they are usually assigned to other positions on the ship during those meals. For instance, our main server was working the walk-up pizza window in the afternoon one day. He told us to wait just a minute, pulled a fresh pizza from the oven, and gave us THAT instead of what was under the warmers.
On Castaway Cay day (Disney's private island) many of the usual dinner service team crew will be out working food service on the island. Maaaaany dual-roles. Most all the crew have multi-roles throughout a voyage. What you said about rotational dining facilitating the ability to get to know your service team is soooooo true! We just got off the Fantasy this past Saturday. Our server, Malwyn, we had when we sailed the on the Magic just this past January. Same guy! When he saw us walk in the first dinner restaurant the first night his face was beaming. He remembered us! Hugs for everyone! Without even being asked he brought the husband and sons French onion soup every night because he remembered how they loved it. Many nights when the menus are set for all the dining rooms (like Pirate menu or Captain's Gala menu) special items like that would need to be ordered the night before in order to obtain them. Malwyn KNEW us and was ON IT. We know Malwyn is from India, he has 2 kids 1 of which is an infant that was born right after our January sailing. He's trying to get head server. Also during our Fantasy sailing our server from our very first cruise in September of 2011, Ali, spotted us, made eye contact, then came over to speak to us. He remembered us because of a gift I gave him our last night of that cruise. We were so excited to see him because he had made head server just like he was hoping to. Great guy. Exceptional server. Definitely deserved the bump-up he earned. That's just 2 examples of how you get to know your service staff and how they get to know YOU. You do feel like family. And, I'd like to add, that it's not just the dining room teams that you get to know. We've had a stateroom host twice on separate sailings. He remembered us and was fabulous. One of the concierge staff, Andreia, who took care of us when we had a suite on the Magic in May 2012 was part of the concierge staff when the hubby & I cruised in another suite on the Dream in September 2012. She remembered us and made a huge fuss. AND, we saw Andreia again when we were just on the Fantasy! She was working Guest Services one night. Again, she came out to us, hugs & cheek kisses, like finding a family member unexpectedly. You get to know a lot of the crew especially if you take the time to get to know them. They DO remember their guests and they will treat you like family. I like family better than royalty. I treat my family like royalty so if someone treats me like family, it's better than royalty because they don't HAVE to treat me that way. They WANT to. Does that make sense???
This is the first good disney P&R documentary I've seen in a while, and I perferred this over that DCL Lightship Entertainment documentary which focused on the Magic and Wonder. As someone who hasn't been on a DC yet I can say that after watching this show, it has me strongly considering a voyage (the Dream as of now) in the near future and I'm sure if others watched as well, they'd feel the same as me.
I want to see this documentary! Not that I need anymore help lavishing disposable income on DCL (obviously). I just completed my 5th sailing in under 2 years with 4 more currently on the books thru the end of 2014. Just think, this is all $$ I used to throw at WDW. I learned where the bang for my buck is and I'm not looking back!
On a final note, the last scene had Karl Holz talking about the future of DCL and he basically said "we here at DCL and the folks over at WDI are always dreaming of new possibilites to better position the DCL business and also better enhance/personalize our guests future experiences onboard our ships" which to me translates to new ships eventually coming at some point, just a matter of when it happens.
Aaaaah...lots of rumors about more ships. Competition is fierce with this. Royal Caribbean ordered a THIRD of their new class of ships. Wowza! I'm not sure what to think with Disney, tho. The Magic, the oldest ship in Disney's fleet, is getting the royal refit this fall. It's looking like the Wonder will get the same treatment next year. DCL just made a shift of schedules and ships with the Dream, Magic, & Wonder for itineraries later in 2014. I'm not sure why. At that time all 4 ships will be back in Florida, 3 sailing out of PC. The way DCL is pulling all 4 back to Florida twice in 2014 (spring & now later fall) creates a lot of questions for me. Why? Are they not selling good enough during these "off" times in different markets (ie. Galveston, New York, LA)? Do they believe they'll have better occupancy with all 4 ships concentrated so close together during those times? Is there some other reason to pull 3 ships to the same departure port??? Other cruise lines are much more diverse in where they sail from and their itineraries aren't always so repetitive. DCL is sorta bad about diversifying their itineraries. If they aren't sending the smaller ships to other markets where they might not be having much luck with occupancy why would they add more ships? Would that really be a wise decision? It'd be that much harder to have 5 or 6 ships sailing out of Florida at any given time which seems to be DCL's go-to with the 4 they have. So many questions!!! LOL!
