Questions about The Dream

[Seals 111]

A quick scouring of other websites hasn't given me the answers to these questions (except #4 and the opinions are all over the place). And I have a bunch of questions. We're going on a 3-day cruise at the end of November. First time ever cruising.

1. It says you dine with your stateroom members. We are getting two staterooms because it's less expensive and we will have 2 bathrooms. I made the reservation for one stateroom and then "add a stateroom" for the other. Will we be automatically be seated at the same table or do I have to request?

2. I booked the staterooms as 1 adult/2 kids and 1 adult/1 kid. Do the kids have to sleep in the staterooms I reserved them for or can we swap kids around?

3. What is the atmosphere for tweens/young teen roaming the ship either together or individually? Have you seen kids walking around the ship, eating meals, etc. not with adults?

4. Should we get off at Nassau and if so what should we do? (Note:we are already spending more than our usual vacation $ to go on the cruise and want to limit extra expenses).

5. Can I somehow use Disney gift cards / Visa rewards to tip?

Thanks for any advice.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

You are going to LOVE the Dream!

I will take a whack at the questions.

1. I booked through a TA who handled that...but I seem to recall her saying she had to link the reservations to ensure the dining was linked up too. Might be worth a call to Disney Cruise to make sure.

2. You can sleep in either stateroom. We had the same situation, and we moved the kids around as we saw fit. Our cabin steward caught on right away how we wanted to be arranged and what beds to turn down each night. The first night he may turn down beds you don't intend on using...just let him know.

3. My 12 and 14 year olds went around the ship without us. I felt the environment was quite safe in the public areas. Of course like anywhere they need to be aware of surroundings...even on a ship there are areas that are more isolated. Also, they ate at the buffet by themselves a couple of times when they wanted a snack or a quick breakfast. We felt safe with it.

4. We opted NOT to get off at Nassau. We felt that there was so much to do and see on the ship in our limited time, and we took advantage of the lower crowd sizes onboard during the time in port. Just a judgement call for you to make...look at what is available to do in Nassau and decide if it is more interesting to you than getting in a dozen Aquaduck rides without lines and some quiet time at the pools. It does seem that many of the more interesting things to do in Nassau involved extra money...and when you are spending what you are spending to cruise on the Dream, you may want to take advantage of the ship rather than spend more cash.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

ETA- beat by Dave by a mili-second!

But we said the same thing, LOL!

(He learns quick)

Those are easy questions!

If you have any others, please feel free to ask!

1. Yes, your reservations are automatically "linked," so you will all be seated together at one table. You may or may not have guests seated with you. We have been on five DCL cruises now, On three of them, we had our own table in the dining rooms. On two of them, we were seated with others at our request.

2. You can have the kids sleep wherever you want. On all our cruises, we had the kids in one room and the adults in the other. Just tell you cabin steward when you get on board how you want the beds made up in each room.

3. The atmosphere is great for kids- we always have given ours a lot of freedom on the ships. They now issue portable phones -two per cabin- so in theory each of your kids could have a phone, and you will be able to contact them at all times. We didn't bother with the phones- the only rule is we had to know where they were going and when they planned on coming back.

4. If you want to save money, then absolutely stay on the ship in Nassau. We used to always get off just for a look around, but on our last cruise we stayed on the ship and did not regret it. There is plenty to do on the ship- and you already paid for all the food- so stay on and enjoy it.

TCD

[Seals 111]

Wow! Thanks for the quick and detailed answers. So now you know I will be posting more as I think of them!

I will call to be certain our reservations are linked for dinner. Because we are not the most social people in the world (I'm pretty shy and I'm the most outgoing one in the family) it might be nice not to have dinner companions. There is a famous quote from my husband when we were going to eat at the German buffet at Epcot. When the waitress said it was family style, he said "I'm not paying that much money to eat with other people" and we left. I haven't actually explained that aspect of it to him yet.

I assume the rooms have a rule about an adult being in each room? Even if not, because of the rate we got they will assign rooms later so there's a good chance we won't have rooms near each other so no adults only/kids only rooms. But we may swap kids around.

Good to know about the wandering around. My kids are pretty responsible but I want to set up some rules ahead of time. My older son has already decided he's going to drink all the "free" caffeinated beverages so that he doesn't have to waste even a minute sleeping.

I've read some things about Nassau that make me think we don't want to get off. But my kids have "never been to a foreign country" and want to get off. Maybe we can just touch down and turn around.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I've read some things about Nassau that make me think we don't want to get off. But my kids have "never been to a foreign country" and want to get off. Maybe we can just touch down and turn around.

That is easy enough to do.

You can walk from the ship right into the main shopping district.

I'm sure you have heard of the Straw Market- that is an easy walk from the ship. But, it's worse than the crappiest flea market you can think of.

I have taken the kids off to walk around. I get the foreign country thing. But, honestly, there isn't one thing on Nassau that makes it worth getting off the ship.

TCD