Disney Dreamboat

By Robin Jones

Was it the service?
Could it have been the ports?
Maybe it was the kid-friendly attitude?
So this is freedom
Disney details

© Disney

We were in the Disney Cruise Line Terminal in Port Canaveral, Florida, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen people so excited. Kids were chattering, laughing and dancing. They’d coaxed their parents into lining up to take a picture with Minnie Mouse, who was decked out in a smart sailor dress. And the parents were smiling.

When we passed from the gangway onto Deck 3 of the Disney Magic, a crew member asked my family name, then announced our arrival over a microphone. A dozen other crew members, standing on either side of us, erupted in cheers and applause. They did this for everyone who stepped on board.

My 3-year-old daughter, Natalie, thought this was great fun. But I was a bit embarrassed — and puzzled. Why do people love cruising so much?

It’s not that I didn’t like the idea of a cruise. I just never really thought about taking one, until a friend with a 4-year-old returned from a Disney cruise raving about the experience. My husband, John, though, was a bona fide skeptic. I had to convince him that it could be fun. Once aboard, though, I started to wonder if he might have been right.

But somehow, by our third day, John and I were discussing which itinerary we should sign up for next. By the fourth day, we were in full Disney mode, lining up for a family photo with Mickey Mouse and teaching Natalie to talk like a pirate. By day six, I was trying to figure out how we could stow away so we’d never have to get off the ship. How did this happen to us?

Was it the service?

The reception we got upon embarking should have been a clue, but I was still surprised by how terrific the crew was. This was particularly true regarding our servers in the dining room:

Wilson, an upbeat, energetic man from the Philippines, and Gladys, a gentle, soft-spoken woman from Peru. Sure, they got all the basics just right, never rushing us and always happily complying with any special requests. Sliced bananas may not have been on the menu, but Natalie got them whenever she wanted.

More than that, though, Wilson and Gladys lavished Natalie with attention, and she soaked it up. One morning at breakfast, Wilson fashioned hats out of cloth napkins, then turned another napkin into a mouse. He made it “jump” at Natalie, who laughed like she’d never seen anything funnier.

“You seem really focused on the kids,” John said to Wilson, after he’d served our eggs and waffles.

“Happy kids, happy parents,” Wilson said, with a smile and a shrug.

Wilson told us that he’s served one family 14 times — they request him every time they cruise. According to Daniel Cowan, food and beverage services manager, this kind of devotion isn’t unusual. “When we hire for the dining room, we look for service experience,” he said. “But more than that, we look for the right personality. They have to genuinely like taking care of people.”

The same must go for the hosts, who tend to the staterooms. I knew our host, the charming and cheerful Geronimo, was a step above when we got back to our room after lunch on John’s birthday, halfway through the cruise. There was a three-tier “cake,” made out of white bath towels and decorated with curled ribbon, balloons and chocolates, perched in the middle of our bed. It may not have tasted as good as the big slab of chocolate cake we celebrated with that night, but it was every bit as sweet.

Could it have been the ports?

Lots of our fellow cruisers were excited about shore excursions. The prices were too high for our budget — $75 per person and up — so we decided to see the cities on our own, and didn’t spend more than $25 for all three of us in any one place.

Castaway Cay.
© Janna Graber.

Our first stop was Key West, Florida, where we walked to the Hemingway Home and Museum. We wandered around the grand old house, but Natalie was most intrigued by the 40-odd cats who live there, descendants of a cat given to Hemingway by a sea captain. Once we’d petted every cat we could find, we walked the grounds, marveling at the cats’ domain: their sleeping quarters, their tiny graveyard and their drinking fountain, which Hemingway built out of a Spanish olive jar from Cuba and a urinal from one of his favorite bars.

Grand Cayman, our next stop, couldn’t have been more different. After wandering through a maze of banks and jewelry shops and wondering if we should just get back on the boat, we finally found a van that taxied us, for $4 apiece, to Seven Mile Beach. We set our towels on the soft white sand and plunged into the warm, clear, turquoise water, where we spent much of the next two hours.

Our final stop, Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island in the Bahamas, provided the perfect last day. Comfortable beach chairs lined the sun-kissed crescent beach, the sand was the color of cinnamon sugar and the water sparkled like a sapphire. John and I dragged chairs up to the water’s edge and basked in the sun, the water lapping at our feet, while Natalie played in the gentle waves. Even the shells were perfect: small, smooth, gleaming half-circles. Natalie collected some, and I put them in a bag. Now I pull them out whenever I need to remember how it feels to be totally relaxed.

Maybe it was the kid-friendly attitude?

Almost everyone aboard had young kids, so no one gave us dirty looks when Natalie climbed under the table at dinner or fidgeted in the movie theater. Eating out and seeing a movie with Natalie, without worrying about her behavior? That would have been enough in itself to sell us on another Disney cruise. But the whole ship had clearly been designed with kids in mind, and that made even the littlest things stress-free.

Of course, the big things were kid-friendly, too, particularly the child care. The Oceaneer Club, where Natalie played with other preschool-age boys and girls, was a kid’s dream, with a two-story pirate ship, daily craft projects and constant visits from Disney characters. More than once, we had to drag her out of the place so we could get to lunch or dinner on time.

Knowing our daughter was well taken care of, John and I were at a loss with all our free time. After a couple of laps around the top deck of the ship, we ended up in the adults-only lounge, playing Scrabble over glasses of wine, like a couple of real grown-ups.

We never had to plan ahead, because the Oceaneer Club didn’t require reservations. If Natalie wanted to go play, we’d just drop her off. The counselors gave us a pager in case anything went wrong, and we were free to go.

So this is freedom

When it comes down to it, that’s what won John and me over—the sense of freedom. Freedom from worries, from stress, from even having to make plans. The hardest decisions we made all week were at dinner, when we had to choose between the pan-seared halibut and the grilled steak.

We were free to just relax and enjoy each other’s company for seven whole days. And for a busy family with two working parents, that’s an unfathomable luxury.

Back on land now, we run around every morning to get to work and school on time, and we run around every night doing chores and preparing for the next day. But we also find ourselves slowing down when we can—skipping the Saturday errands, say, in favor of a day out.

I might not have found a way for us to stow away on the ship. But it seems I was able to bring a little bit of the ship home with me.

Robin Jones is managing editor of AAA California’s Westways magazine.

Disney details
Disney Cruise Line’s 2,700-passenger, 83,000-ton Disney Magic sails roundtrip from Port Canaveral, Florida on seven-night cruises, alternating Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries. Its sister ship, Disney Wonder, sails roundtrip from Port Canaveral on three-, four-, and five-night Bahamas cruises. In the summer of 2010, itineraries in the Mediterranean and to northern European capitals will also be offered, and in 2011 sailings will include the Mexican Riviera. AAA Travel can help you plan and book a cruise vacation.

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