Bahamas Disney Cruise {Part I.}

Ever since our first Disney Cruise in 2012, we have been yearning to take another one. We finally made it happen a year and a half later, yay! After four fun days in Orlando, we moved onto the next leg of our trip and boarded the Disney Dream in Port Canaveral, Florida.

Like last time, the embarkation process was seamless. From the minute you drop off your luggages curbside, you are directed by the Disney Cruise staff every step of the way. Friendly faces greet you at every corner, and their logistics are so well thought out that you never have to wait more than 5 minutes in line. Ofcourse, that also requires some homework on our part. The Disney Cruise website allows you to check in and provide all the essential information 3o-60 days prior, which we diligently worked on. We even booked all the port excursions on the website, just so we didn’t need to worry about anything on the ship.

My sister and I decided it’d be cute to dress as a family for the embarkation so we had bought “Thing” shirts for everyone to wear. 🙂 People referred us to the Thing family that day!

One of the girls’ favorite memories of our first Disney cruise trip was how we were greeted once we stepped foot upon the ship. There are two lines of crew members that are there to welcome you, and they would announce on the microphone “Presenting…the _______ family!” as each family arrives. This second time around did not disappoint. The girls beamed from ear to ear as the crew loudly announced “Presenting….the Chuang and Leung family!” It’s cute how such little things could delight people so much. 🙂

We chose a 1pm embarkation time, so we were pretty famished once we got on board. But, one would never have to worry about hunger on a cruise ship. We made our way to the buffet right away, and then walked it all off by giving ourselves a self-guided tour of the ship.

The girls wasted no time in getting into the pools, and trying out the famous AquaDuck, a “water coaster” that allows you to travel 765 feet through an acrylic tube while offering a breathtaking view of the sea around you!

A couple hours later, we attended the mandatory safety drill, and then hurried to the deck to grab front row seats for the Sail Away party. The parties and entertainment on Disney Cruise ships are not to be missed. Every one of them is spectacular! Incredible energy, lots of dancing, and all around fun times. If there’s one single talent to sum up Disney crew members, it’s their ability to entertain like there’s no tomorrow. And I’m not just referring to the ones behind the costumes!

After the Sail Away party, the girls were eager to check out the Kids Club, named Oceaneer Lab. There’s always an open house period on the first day, so that parents could check out the place as well. Once we stepped foot into the lab, it’s hard to imagine having to ever pull our kids away from that place. There’s just so much to do!

Disney thinks of everything. The Disney Dream is one of their newer ships, so the whole experience was even cooler than our last one on the Disney Wonder. The wrist bands that every child wore could easily scan on these cool looking crystal ball like things and there was an app that we could use on our smart phones to plan out our activities everyday!

One of our favorite activities on board is the Family Dance, where we get to free dance for an hour to music ranging from YMCA to Lady GaGa. The girls would dance for the entire hour, while us parents would have to take wine and cocktail breaks in between. 🙂

For dinners on board the Disney Dream, there are 2 seatings. Most families with young children would request the earlier seating like we did last time. Since Brianne and Bridgette were older this time, we took the later seating, at 8:30pm. Each night, we would rotate between the 3 restaurants on board for our dinner but our servers would rotate with us, so that we would always have a familiar face. We love this arrangement as it allowed us to get to know our servers throughout the trip, and vice versa.