3-night Cruise on the Disney Dream & WDW - Day 5 - Debarkation, Disney World, and Final Thoughts

Debarkation, Disney World, and Final Thoughts

And just like that, it was time to get off the ship. We were a little later than we should have been leaving the room. Everyone was cranky and grumpy and discombobulated (as seems to be par for the course on disembarkation day) but we made it to breakfast and our serving team already had us a table ready. We finished breakfast and disembarked the ship, found our luggage and then waited on the bus to depart for 45 minutes. Sigh. 

Beach Club was the second stop (first stop was Boardwalk) and we gave our bags to bell services (after a little bit of rearranging) and then walked over to Epcot. I’m not going to continue through the all the details of the Disney World trip (there are enough of those trip reports, but I’ll throw out a few tidbits from our time there). Pro tip: one family on our bus was slated for the very last of 5 stops. Instead of going through all the stops, they got off at the first stop (Boardwalk) with the plan to transfer their luggage with Bell Services from there over to Animal Kingdom Lodge and then walk over to Epcot where they had a park reservation. Genius. Seriously brilliant. I’m sure they gained themselves a couple hours of park time. 

First though, a few final thoughts on our sailing. It was sort of strange being back on the Dream. We honestly didn’t remember it very well. Our first cruise felt like such a whirlwind and I remember just barely getting our bearings and then we had to get off the ship! We had felt like the ship was so big and confusing and had so many people, and then we started sailing the smaller Classics and we liked them much more. Now maybe it felt much less peopley because we weren’t at full capacity on this sailing (2,700 passengers vs. the 4,000 the ship can carry) but it felt way more manageable to us size-wise this time around. I would have been fine not going to Castaway Cay, but it was great that we did get to go because we actually had a lot of fun on our bike ride. We definitely recommend it! We’ll be back there in a month and we have parasailing scheduled for Emmaline and I, and then on the Wish in February we’ll try for the kayak and walking tour again. 

Now, moving on to Walt Disney World. We had a short trip: Monday after getting off the ship at Epcot, two days at Magic Kingdom (Tuesday and Wednesday) and then Thursday morning at Animal Kingdom prior to coming home. 

This was our first time staying at Beach Club Villas and it was nice. At this point, we’ve stayed at every DVC resort (well, only Copper Creek at Wilderness Lodge and only Kidani at Animal Kingdom Lodge but I’m counting them) with the exception of Saratoga Springs (which we will hit next month). I would say my order of preference from favorite to least is: Riviera, Polynesian, Bay Lake Tower, Wilderness Lodge, Grand Floridian, Beach Club, Animal Kingdom Lodge, Boardwalk, Old Key West. We’ll see it stacks up after our stay at Saratoga Springs. 

Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind was absolutely mind blowing (in a good way). We all loved it. I loved it more the first time we rode it when I paid less attention to the story and more attention on the direction we were moving, thus minimizing the motion sickness situation. I felt queasy the second time because I looked at the screens and the story. If you are at all prone to motion sickness look in the direction of the track, not the direction your car is facing. The ride is just nuts and like nothing I’ve ever experienced. We got the same song both times (Flock of Seagulls: I Ran) but it was fine and the music worked really well. 

Our meals were a little hit or miss. It was our first time at Chefs de France and I was so incredibly underwhelmed. Roger enjoyed his dish, but my meal was not super great. The new family style at Tusker House was solid, but I miss some of the selection of the previous buffet. The plant-based dessert was the clear winner of the desserts so I would ask for that, even if you aren’t strictly plant-based. Ragland Road at Disney Springs was a bit of a bummer in that we weren’t in the room with the actual entertainment which was the main reason I booked it. The plant-based shepherds pie was good, but not amazing.

We saw the new Cirque du Soliel show “Drawn to Life.” Being big fans of both Cirque and Disney we had high hopes, but we all agreed it was probably one of the weakest Cirque shows we’ve ever seen. The story was sort of depressing (DISNEY, WHY DOES A PARENT ALWAYS HAVE TO DIE!?!) and the individual acts weren’t as compelling as they usually are. Though the girls who rode the synchronized unicycles were absolutely amazing. And maybe being the parent of a gymnast has made me a little jaded, but while the tumbling act was good, I could just go to Emmaline’s gym any day of the week and see the same tumbling. One of the moves they did, Emmaline had in her floor routine in Level 4! 

We got Genie+ for one of our days at Magic Kingdom and it was as irritating as everyone says it is. It should really hold the time for you once you have it in your “cart” (so to speak) because by the time you get to the end of the “checkout” process, your reservation time often changes. Plus, if you’re even 1 minute late booking, you can watch the times change upwards of 30 minutes later while you wait. On the day we used Genie+ I was able to stack 5 attractions for the evening and we spent the morning at the pool. So, ultimately, I feel like it was worth the price for being able to basically walk onto 5 attractions without waiting, but the implementation is terrible and it’s frustrating to have to pay for something we basically used to get for free. 

Bus transportation was a HOT MESS our whole trip. After the extended evening hours at Magic Kingdom on our last night, we were all completely beat and decided to pack it in and go home around 11:45. When we got to the bus stop, there were already a ton of people waiting. Finally when a bus came, over 30 minutes later we didn’t make it on. Finally 15 minutes later another bus came and we made it on, but the guy behind us was livid and berating cast members (don’t be that guy) and everyone was tired and cranky and it was just bad. We had several long waits and it just felt like the buses were really few and far between, vs the 15-20 minutes they quote. 

We really enjoyed the new nighttime Epcot show, "Harmonious," more than we anticipated. The new MK fireworks show was fine but "Happily Ever After" still wins for me. 

While some of the above paragraphs may sound a little whiney, I will say that we had a great time and the cast members were all super great. We particularly enjoyed chatting with each of the DVC cast members at the various kiosks we went to as we played the “Scenic Selfies” game that took us to various locations where we took selfies in order to get a collection of buttons. We had also purchased a scavenger hunt ahead of time from a former cast member for the Dream, Castaway Cay, and Magic Kingdom. We did the Dream and Magic Kingdom (saving Castaway Cay for next time). It was a cute diversion that we were able to do when wait times were high in the middle of the day. It also had fun little bits of trivia and other information that we enjoyed.

Next up we have 9 nights on the Fantasy booked for the end of July (we had a lot of cruise credit from canceled pandemic cruises, y’all). Next year we’ll give the new ship, the Wish, a try in February and then in July we’re hopeful we can go to Europe to cruise the Dream in France, Iceland, and Norway.