Dec 5 - 9, 2004
by Tim Larison, CLIA Master Cruise
Counsellor (MCC)
Does a 4 night Disney cruise with a group of over 180 Disney fans sound like
fun? It was! In early December 2004 I sailed on my first "MouseFest"
cruise. The MouseFest cruise featured Passporter guide authors Dave and
Jennifer Marx and Deb Wills of AllEarsNet.com as our "celebrity" hosts.
As a travel agent affiliated with MouseEarVacations.com, I had many
cabins booked on this cruise. This would be my first experience sailing
with many clients I had only met through email and phone calls previously.
My wife Anne, who had just become a travel agent three weeks before, and our 10 year old sons Andrew and Josh joined me on the cruise.
Below I will review different aspects of the cruise. For a condensed version
see the pictures I took on the cruise by clicking on the "Tim's Pictures" link
to the right.
Pre-cruise night stay
We flew into Orlando the night before the cruise and stayed at the AmeriSuites
Orlando Airport Northwest (5435 Forbes Place). This worked out very well.After we got our luggage we called AmeriSuites and they sent their shuttle to
pick us up. We had only a 10 minute wait and we were on our way to our hotel.
We had a "suite" with two double beds, a refrigerator, microwave, sitting
area, and good sized desk. High speed internet was available at $9.95 for
24 hours or $39 for the week - I used this to check up on my email and it
was simple to setup with a good connection. The room was clean and plenty
big enough for our family of four. That night we walked to a TGI Fridays
that was nearby (10 minute walk) for dinner. TGI Fridays offered a variety
of menu items and satisfied my hungry family.
On Sunday morning the hotel had a plentiful breakfast buffet at no extra
charge. Waffles you could make yourself, cereals, scrambled and hard
boiled eggs, a variety of pastries, yogurt, juices and more were plenty
for us to fill us up for the long day ahead of us (we would not eat lunch
on the ship until the mid-afternoon)
Overall I would recommend AmeriSuites as a good place to stay if you are
looking a reasonably priced place to stay close to the Orlando airport.
Dining
This was my 4th Disney Cruise and I thought the dining was the best yet.
The opening buffet on embarkation day was very good with the succulent
peel and eat shrimp the highlight for me. The first evening we also
ate at Parrot Cay and I thought the ribs I had were tasty. My wife
Anne enjoyed her steak this first night, and the boys quickly ate their
kids meals.
We were pleased with our food at the other dining rooms (Animator's Palette
and Triton's). Triton's had always been our favorite of the three but for
this cruise our experience at Triton's ranked behind Parrot Cay and
Animator's Palette. Our food at Parrot Cay and Animator's was excellent,
while our entrees at Tritons were average.
On this cruise my wife and I got a rare treat on our "at sea" day - the chance
to eat at the adults only "Palo" restaurant twice in one day! We first
co-hosted a brunch at Palo for 10 lucky winners of a free brunch drawing
($10 cover charge normally) with Deb Wills. We had an interesting mix of
first time Disney cruisers, veteran cruisers, and Disney World fans in our
dining party. The food at the brunch was excellent. Anne had filet
mignon and I had chicken cacciatore. There were plenty of other food
options including shrimp, pastries, a variety of pizzas, and
desserts. I would highly recommend the Palo brunch.
Our dinner at Palo was also very good. I was slightly disappointed with
my shrimp and pasta dish. After having excellent shrimp the whole cruise at
the Palo brunch, at Parrot Cay, and for appetizers at other meals I was
surprised that my shrimp with the pasta was not of the same high quality
I had earlier. I did not go to bed hungry, though, as there was plenty
to eat at the Palo dinner (pizzas, appetizers, sampling other entrees,and the signature chocolate
soufflé for dessert).
Breakfast at Triton's was great one morning. The buffet breakfast at
Parrot Cay was good, too (I especially liked the cooked to order omelet
station). If I had to choose between Triton's and Parrot Cay for breakfast,
though, I'd pick Triton's every time.
One other dining surprise for us was Cookies Barbeque on Castaway Cay. We
at at the barbeque shortly after 12 noon yet we had a minimal wait. The
quality of the barbeque was better than I remembered on my past Disney
cruises. Disney seemed to have more employees helping at the barbeque
than I remember in the past which helped us get our food quickly even
though we dined at the busiest time for lunch.
At dinner we had great dining companions - the Zigners from Wisconsin.
The Zigners were on their first ever Disney cruise and it was interesting
to hear the stories of their adventures and impressions at dinner each night.
Children's Programming
Our 10 year olds had last sailed on the Disney Cruise when they were 6 years
old. We were interested to hear their impressions of the older "Oceaneer's
Lab" as compared to the younger kids club they were in last time.
At first our boys didn't like the club. There were so many children in their
age group that the kids had to take turns playing computer games. Our boys
are more quiet and reserved, and they did not like the dance parties and
karaoke night offerings. At a couple of times during the cruise the 10-12
age group were brought to the teen area that used to be the ESPN
club. While this area looks to be great for teens for this age group there
were few computer terminals and not alot to do that interested our boys.
This initial dissatisfaction with the kids club may have been more due to
our boys' personalities than the quality of the club. The 10 year old
daughter of our dining companions loved the kids club while participating
in the same activities.
Our boys' longest stint in the kids club was on the last night of the cruise
and this is the time they enjoyed the most. On this last night the kids
made chocolate chip cookies, and there were less kids in the club which
allowed for more computer time.
One BIG improvement over past Disney cruises we saw was that you could
register your kids in the cruise terminal before you got on the ship. The
kids program registration was in the area of the terminal where the coffee
shop used to be. Pre-registering the kids in the cruise terminal gave
parents one less thing to worry about once they got onboard - this is a good
change for Disney.
Disney's childrens program is open for more hours than any other cruise line
I have sailed on - from 9 am to 1 am on most days. This is particularly
helpful if parents want to eat at the adults only Palo restaurant as we did
twice in one day. The kids program takes care of bringing the kids to the
buffet for their meals. On other cruise lines like Princess and Royal
Caribbean I have found the kids programs shut down at meal times and are
not open late except for an extra fee.
Overall our kids liked the Disney childrens program, though they rated
Royal Caribbean and Princess programs a little better. On these other
two cruise lines our boys were able to make friends easier because there
were a small number of kids in their age group, and they also had better
access to computers and video games.
Life onboard
What made this cruise extra special were the wonderful people we met from
the MouseFest group. I really enjoyed meeting so many of my clients, putting
faces to names. Our celebrity hosts, the Marxs and Deb Wills, went out
of their way to make everyone feel welcome and to chat with the members of
their fan base on the cruise.
There were special activities as part of the MouseFest event - such as a
Sunrise Walk with Deb Wills, Nassau Walking Tour with Dave Marx (more on that
below), adults only meet at Wavebands for a 70's party, group breakfast with
Deb, Dave, and Jennifer, Hidden Mickey hunt with author Steve Barrett, and
a farewell party with prize drawings.
I had written in one of my past cruise reviews that I particularly enjoyed
the deck chairs on deck 4 at sail away - a quieter spot than the party going
on at the top deck. While I was sitting in a comfy deck chair enjoying the
sail away I heard this voice say "there's the guy responsible for me being
in this spot! Are you Tim Larison?" It was Jay Richardson (a reader of
this list) - guess my secret is out!
On this cruise the shows in the Walt Disney Theatre in the evening featured
Hercules, Disney Dreams, The Golden Mickeys, and a comedy/juggler act on
different nights. We had seen Hercules and Disney Dreams several times on
past Disney cruises so we skipped those shows this time. The Golden
Mickeys was new for us and I thought it was outstanding! A good mix of
classic Disney film clips and live singing and dancing. The Golden Mickeys is now my favorite Disney show onboard. We didn't see the
comedy/juggler show but heard good reports on it from several of our fellow
cruisers.
This is my first Disney cruise where I didn't see a movie. I think the Disney
ships have the best movie theatres at sea, and I wanted to see National
Treasure and the Incredibles on this cruise. My busy schedule did not allow
for that. Disney continues to impress me by showing 1st run movies on their
ships (movies currently playing in theatres). Typically on other cruise lines
the movies are 2 to 3 months old.
I did get a chance to see some nfl football in the new Diversions sports
lounge. Diversions is located where the "dueling pianos" were located
previously.
Diversions was a BIG improvement over the old ESPN club. The state of
the art video monitors gave a good view of the game, and the area was far
less smoky than the ESPN club used to be. Smoking is allowed in Diversions
but only in the bar area - I watched a few minutes of NFL Football at the
opposite end of the room and it was relatively smoke free.
Ports
At Nassau Anne and I joined Dave Marx of Passporter for a free 2 hour walking
tour of Nassau. We had been to Nassau four times before but on this tour we
saw many new areas and learned some of the history of the port. We found the
tour interesting.
At Castaway Cay we did not purchase any shore excursions. We received a
wonderful gift from Peggy Sue and David (clients of mine and readers of this
list) of a bottle of wine for the adults and sand castle toys for the kids.
Andrew
and Josh made good use of the two buckets and assortment of toys as they built
their own sand castles on family beach. In addition to time on the beach we
enjoyed playing ping pong at the Grouper pavilion.
I have been to Castaway Cay four times and I have had perfect weather on each
visit. The temperatures felt like the low 80's to me with a cool breeze
keeping it from getting too hot. Anne and the boys reported that the water
was cold but that didn't prevent them from enjoying their beach time.
We liked the extra "at sea" day on this cruise compared to the two 3 night
Disney Cruises we had taken previously. That extra day makes a big difference
in allowing you more time to enjoy more activities and features of the ship.
If you are debating between a three or four night cruise I highly recommend
taking the 4 night!
Our Stateroom
Our stateroom was a category 11 inside stateroom, 7539 on deck 7. This was
the first time we had a smaller cat 11 room (184 square feet compared to
214 square feet for a cat 10 inside room). We liked being on deck 7 (close
to the pools on the upper deck and the kids club on deck 5), and we liked
the midship location. It seemed we never had to walk too far to get to our
stateroom. However I would recommend the larger cat 10 stateroom for a family
of four compared to a cat 11 - we missed the split bathroom in the cat 10
(two sinks in two separate rooms vs one small bathroom in the cat 11) and we could definitely tell we didn't have
as much space in the smaller cat 11 room. Usually a cat 10 deluxe inside
stateroom is only $100 or so more in price - the price difference is worth it.
Internet Cafe
Disney is the only cruise line I have sailed on that offers unlimited internet
access for the length of the cruise. For this four night cruise the cost was
$40. This was a good deal that I took advantage of. I would have spent far
more on internet access had I paid the 75 cents a minute rate also available.
Transfers
We used Quicksilver transfers to take us from AmeriSuites to the port, and
after the cruise from the port to Disney World and back to the airport at
the end of our trip. Our private towncar was comfy and our driver Carlos
was courteous and on time. For a family of four Quicksilver will price
cheaper than Disney's transfers. With Quicksilver you get more personalized
service and get to your destination faster.
Summary
This was a great cruise at a bargain price (among the least expensive 4
night Disney cruises all year). The "extras" on the cruise because of
Mousefest made it an even better value.
Want to join us on the MouseFest 2005 cruise (Dec 4 - 8, 2005)?
Click here for a no obligation price quote or for more
information.
Tim Larison
