Guest Trip Report: November 18, 2019 Very Merrytime on the Disney Dream

This trip report was written by Douglas, who sailed a back-to-back on the Disney Dream beginning on November 18, 2019 on 2 Very Merrytime cruises from Port Canaveral. You can start the trip report from the beginning by clicking here.

Day 1: Port Canaveral

Today is the day, the day we get onto the Disney Dream! When I woke up the ship was already in port.

After checking out the window my parents and I got ready to head down to breakfast before getting onto the shuttle that would take us to port. A few shots I managed to get from the shuttle:

If you stay at Country Inn & Suites, Rob here could be your driver!

When we got off the shuttle, we headed towards the garage entrance (we knew we preferred that after last year’s cruise) but this porter lady came running at us, almost yelling at us to get back over to the luggage. My dad and I went over to figure out what she wanted and all she wanted was to say that tips are optional but her tone said that it was mandatory – kind of rude to be honest. Just wanted to recount this since this was the only time any of us encountered a rude employee or cast member the whole cruise, though the passengers are another story and I’ll recount any notable ones when the time arrives.

It’s nice seeing the ship from the parking garage bridge, along with the maintenance they do while it’s in port.

During the security screening a lady had her banana confiscated. She apparently wanted to eat it while waiting to board, but security wasn’t having it so no banana for her. After getting through with no trouble on our end, we made it into the lobby.

First things first, getting checked in and getting our first silver lanyards!

As you can see, our dining rotation for the 4 night leg of this cruise is AEER.

I forgot to take a picture of our boarding card. We were in boarding group 2 so it would be fast getting on.

I wanted a picture in front of the famous ears.

One of the security guards recommended doing this ear shot:

It was also Mickey’s birthday so everyone got this button. Also here is my birthday button since mine was in a couple days!

At one point my mother and I went out to the observation deck where we watched the ship supplies getting loaded and some crew members leaving. The wait wasn’t very long so before we knew it the boarding process started. It’s nice going through the boarding corridor, skipping the optional photo of course, and seeing that opening into the ship.

After being announced, our first stop was at guest services to load some money onto our account since my mother prefers to use cash versus charging everything to a card and coming home to a credit card bill in the $1000’s.

After going to guest services we went to Animator’s Palate for lunch since Cabanas is always crazy from what I’ve heard. Our servers were Hery and Abadi, both from Indonesia, and they were a great team! Here’s the menu along with the picture on the back:

The Sliced Smoked Salmon (good):

Beef Empanada (good):

Potato and Leek Soup (good):

Chicken Caesar Salad (good):

Pennette Pasta (didn’t taste though dad said it was good):

Raspberry Chocolate Bombe (excellent):

This would be one of the few times I managed to get a picture of my dad’s meal since by the time I finished getting a picture of my food and my mother’s, he was already halfway finished so every food picture is stuff from me, my mother, or extras our server team brought.

After we finished eating we went to go see if we could get into the room and drop our carry-ons off. The ribbons were still up and it was about 10 minutes before they dropped. It got a bit warm in the elevator lobby with all the people packed in the area so that was one negative to waiting. As soon as we got to the room to drop our stuff (room 7090 – full review here), our luggage hadn’t yet arrived so we couldn’t start unpacking yet. Inside a gift was waiting for me:

I will tell you how the Cloudem tasted at a later date when I actually got around to drinking it. The chocolates were tasty and alternated between solid, cookies and cream and having rice crispies inside. To go along with the Cloudem and chocolate was this comfy robe:

A rose was also part of this package!

(For details about how to order gifts like this for your room, click here.)

I wanted to try this so badly!

We also found our Castaway Club gift, which is still the sling backpack:

We noticed what time it was and started heading towards the champagne bar, Pink, for our champagne tasting. On our way out we met our stateroom host, Suta (from Indonesia) and he was such a great host to have. I think he really liked it when he got to our stateroom since we make things easy by not leaving a big mess, just making the beds and putting the towels in one spot, so it’s an easy stop for him.

We got down to Pink, a couple minutes late, to go to the champagne tasting. I’m really not an alcohol person so I can’t really comment on if it tasted good or not (since I can’t get past the taste of the alcohol itself) so I’m just going to say what each is called. The first was a Taittinger Brut that had a vague green apple taste to it and the second was a Moët & Chandon Imperial that had a woody flavor. I forgot to get a picture of these.

The next two were a Veuve Clicquot and a Pink Taittinger. The Pink Taittinger is the signature drink of Pink.

This one is a Moët & Chandon Imperial Ice, a champagne made to be served with ice. It kind of reminded me of Martinelli’s apple cider at first before the alcohol became stronger towards the end.

Here’s the bottles for the 5 drinks:

The sommelier, Robert from Romania, explained the history of champagne itself from the monk who first made it to how the bottle evolved and how the process of making champagne has changed over the centuries.

We returned to the room to find our luggage had arrived so we got our clothes unpacked and put away before heading to the Walt Disney Theatre for the safety drill.

After the safety drill was done we didn’t really want to go to the sail away party so we went to the Oceaneer’s Club open house. Everything in here is so cute, though with Disney Infinity being cancelled I do wonder how long it’ll be until this room is replaced.

So adorable!

My mother posing with Tinker Bell, her favorite character:

I thought these mirrors in the bathrooms were neat:

Some Christmas decorations in the Toy Story room:

Looks like this spud is already nervous about meeting the kids:

We were going to go into the Oceaneer’s Lab but it wasn’t doing an open house at this time. Bummer. We passed through the atrium to our next destination and I just had to get a shot of the beautiful chandelier.

Our next stop was Vibe (ages 14-17) for it’s open house.

This space was so cool. I would’ve come here if I was still a teen.

Here’s the Vibe pool deck area:

The cast members working here were so nice so it was hard to leave as the open house came to an end. I guess we went back to the room to watch the ship sail away from the verandah. It’s so peaceful just watching the land go away as the ship heads into open waters.

We got our door decorated at this time. I think we went a bit overboard with the magnets. Sadly the light didn’t like staying put so they only stayed there for a couple nights.

We almost arrived late to dinner at Animator’s Palate because my mother insisted on getting the magnets in good spots on the door. Our serving team for both legs of our cruise were Edi (Indonesia), Shakair (Jamaica) and head server Ivo (Croatia). These guys are amazing so I’d recommend them if you’re ever on the Dream.

A little backstory here, we had specifically asked for Edi after having him as our server last year. He was such a great server and after our trip a tsunami had hit his home country so we immediately thought about his family since he had a newborn at the time. His family is doing well thankfully. We had also asked for a private table because we had tablemates last year and they were just plain weird. I wouldn’t have minded getting tablemates, since they couldn’t be worse than the last ones, but my mother insisted on a private table.

The bread they serve here is so good! We kind of stuffed ourselves on it and couldn’t finish our actual dinner.

Black Truffle Pasta Purseittes (excellent):

Baked Potato and Cheese Soup (excellent):

Butternut Squash Soup (didn’t taste but mother said it was excellent):

Chicken and Walnut Salad (didn’t taste but mother said it was good):

Pennette Bolognese (good):

Herb Crusted Pork Chop (good):

Grilled Tuna Steak (excellent):

Dessert time:

Lemon Icebox Pie (just okay):

Apple Crumble Rice Pudding (excellent):

Birthday Cake (excellent):

To be honest, between the three restaurants, Animator’s Palate ranks at the bottom for me since the food options are pretty average and the Crush Talk wasn’t that good. I would’ve preferred the animation magic show that is on the Magic & Wonder.

After dinner we headed back to the room to find this friend from Antarctica waiting for us:

There was also an envelope on our fish hook. I thought it was for Palo but to my surprise it was a $50 gift certificate to Senses Spa!

These flowers were also waiting inside (click here for all of the details about pre-ordering room gifts):

Needing to walk off some of our dinner, my mom and I headed up towards the pool deck to get some tea and also to Senses Spa to see what I could get with the gift certificate. After looking through their menu I decided on the stone massage for the following day (it expired the day after so I was limited here).

I could tell the ship was rocking quite a bit since the pools kept sloshing. The worst though was Satellite Falls, where the water was coming out and flooded the deck around it. No pictures since it was kind of dark up there. While walking around I found these lovebirds:

Once we had finished walking and got our tea we headed back to the room. On our fish hook was our envelope for dinner at Palo for the third night of our trip.

My dad had been watching the impeachment hearings while we were out and it got silly fast. My mom and I drank our teas and got ready for bed.

Up Next: Day 2 – Nassau

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Guest Trip Report: November 18, 2019 Very Merrytime on the Disney Dream – Day 1

Day 1: Port Canaveral

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Day 1: Port Canaveral

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