Art of Animation, Disney Dream, and Swan Hotel Ultra Condensed Trip Report

[BrerGnat]

We just got back yesterday from our last minute trip down to Florida for a 5 night Disney cruise aboard the Dream!

Rather than go into great detail, I've decided to give a summary of each of the Disney related aspects of the trip (of which there were 3).

Part 1: Art of Animation

We drove down to FL this time. We booked the cruise just around 3 weeks ahead of departure, and airfare was just not in the budget. Actually, the cruise was not really in the budget either, but I digress. We left VA around 2pm on Friday and stopped for the night in Florence, SC. On our way down to FL Saturday, we were supposed to stay at a Holiday Inn in Titusville but it seemed like we would arrive in Central FL around 3pm, and we had NO idea what we would do to entertain our boys for another several hours until bedtime at a boring Holiday Inn. Somewhere in Georgia, while we were getting gas, I suggested that maybe we spend the night in Orlando instead, since we could go to Downtown Disney for a few hours and take our son to see the Cars area at Art of Animation, and we "knew" the area better. DH didn't care. Our room at the Holiday Inn was free with points, but we could cancel up to 6pm that night. I figured I'd call WDW and see what could be had with the military discount for that same night. I figured the pickings would be really slim, but might as well see, right? So, I called and was given a few offers WAY over our budget for one night, got a great offer for POR, and then...she said "I've got a Cars Family Suite at the new Art of Animation for $219 total, taxes included." What??? For real? I said, "I thought those were never discounted? My son would LOVE to stay here!!!" She replied, "I've NEVER seen one of these come up, but it's right here. Oh, that's so exciting for you, do you want it?" Uh...YEAH!!! Now, my 6 year old is just about the biggest Cars fan out there. He has over 100 Cars, has Cars wall decals plastered above his bed in his room. Cars clothing, backpack, toys, etc. The kid lives and breathes this world. I didn't think we would EVER stay at this hotel, due to the price tag, but this was a price we could live with, since it was only one night, and it would be an experience our son would never forget. I told her, "We'll take it." I finished up the call, and my husband and I were relishing the secret. Our kids are SO oblivious, they were not even paying attention to this phone call, so they had NO clue. We simply told them, "we are going to a different hotel...not the Holiday Inn...it's a suprise." My older son thought this was a hilarious turn of events, but he got kind of anxious after we refused to tell him where, exactly, we were going. Somewhere around exit 67 on I-4, he finally said "Where ARE we?" It was hilarious. We were surrounded by Disney billboards and signage, and he still couldn't figure it out. He was still baffled after passed through the Disney gates, and I finally had to tell him that, yes, we were in Disney World. . The little guy was not paying attention at all, but as soon as we pulled into the parking lot at AoA, he saw the Mater sketches on the buildings and went ballistic: "Look...it's the Cars hotel!"

Check in was quick, but I found the clever dialogue to be sort of forced. The CM we had just did not deliver the lines naturally, and when he said "You'll be driving over to Radiator Springs", my DH kind of lost it a little and said "I have to DRIVE to the room? How far is it?" (mind you, we had been driving for 2 days; DH was DONE with driving for that day). I quickly told him, "No, it's just the way they say stuff here...if we were in the Nemo section, we would be swimming down the EAC. Get it? The guy was like, "oh, yeah, sorry...no I didn't mean you had to drive." Oops...

Anyway, by then our kids were anxious to see the room, so DH went and parked the car closer to our building and the boys and I headed over to our Cars Suite in Luigi's Casa de la Tires. Lucas (the Cars nut) ran ahead of me so fast, from one car to the next. I had a split second to take ONE photo where he was willing to stop and pose, and off he went. He was in heaven! Literally. This kid is going to simply pass out from excitement when we finally get to Carsland in DCA in a couple months. We made our way to the room (kind of a long walk, but not bad) and checked it out. We then went for a swim in the Big Blue Pool, and got showered and changed to head to dinner at DtD (Wolfgang Puck's...as good as it always is). We hit up the Lego store, Goofy's Candy Co for some dessert, and then back to the room. We were exhausted, and wanted to hit the sack early.

My condensed thoughts on the Art of Animation Resort are as follows:

Room: Decor was nicer than the concept art. Room was nicer, IMO, than the Nemo or Lion King rooms from pictures I've seen. The colors were more muted and the furniture was actually fairly sturdy and high quality (did not look as plasticy as in the other rooms). Boys LOVED the shower curtain featuring Red, the fire truck. I liked the master bath, but found it had a lot of unused space and I expect those glass doors will become VERY grimy with mildew before long...they were already getting there and the room was only a couple months old. Some shelving along the wall would have been great. Bed was hard, sheets were scratchy, comforter felt like vinyl. Gross. Blanket was thin and useless. Room in general was VERY warm. Only one thermostat, only went down as low as 68 degrees (in theory...it was WAY warmer than 68 in our room). Main vent is in living area; master bedroom has one TINY vent. Room was warm all night. NO way to bypass these thermostats. They turn off in the middle of the night. Fold out beds were okay for our kids, but I would not have slept well in either of them. They felt short. My kids feet were almost at the ends of the beds, and they are only 49" and 47" tall. Once beds are out, living area is unusable and difficult to walk around. On the other hand, "table bed" was pretty cool and very easy to go from bed to table and vice versa. Carpet was super thin and there seemed to be NO padding under it. Floor basically felt like concrete with a towel over it. Doors were very heavy, for some reason. Felt like they were metal all the way through. Lighting was quite harsh and bright, both from the lamps and the fixtures in the ceiling. For some reason, I felt like I was in a bunker of some sort in this room. It was odd. We were on the first floor. I will say the hallways were VERY nice, and I loved the cone shaped lamps throughout. Our cell phones went dead in the room. WiFi was very weak and generally did not work at all in the room.

Grounds: Lovely. Exceptionally well done, for a Value resort. Best part of the resort, IMO. Excellent attention to detail. Excellent themeing. Excellent resort layout. There were CMs actually washing the cars both nights and wiping them down in the morning of dew so they would be shiny. Nice! Lion King area was kind of weird, though. The theming over there was a bit disjointed and just too many plants. More "Jungle Book" than Lion King, with all those plants...and the elephant graveyard looked downright scary. I would have been terrified if I was a kid and had to stay in that building... Nemo area was cute, but Little Mermaid area looks kinda lame, to be honest. Sort of strange that there will be two "sea themed" areas in the same resort.

Pool: Overhyped. Yeah, it's big. Yeah, it's blue. And then what? It's nothing special. The music underwater was tinny sounding and it was just more annoying pop music (and not even synched to what was being played by the DJ poolside, so it was weird). I wanted to hear the Nemo characters. No such luck. And as far as being the biggest pool? I guess I have to believe the stats, but Stormalong Bay is a much larger pool complex and even thought it's techinically 3 pools, it's still the same pool.

Food Court: Chaotic, like every other Value resort. Nicer decor, but still just a cafeteria. Staff seemed to have no idea how to run the food stations. Waits were long, many staff members had no clue what to do and could not answer basic questions about the food. We ate breakfast here. It was an ordeal to get our food, and then it was only "okay", not great. DH waited about 10 minutes for a CM to make him a yogurt parfait, and then realized the yogurt was plain, unsweetened, and ALL the fruit was of the tart, not really ripe, variety. He basically threw it out. A CM saw we had kids and kept trying to give us a kids meal, and we had to tell her about 5 times that we wanted the ADULT Mickey waffle, not the kids one. She seemed to not understand why we didn't want the kids waffle. Seriously? Um, okay, it's because it looked disgusting (dark brown and dry, because it's Buckwheat) and if I tried to give my son Turkey bacon, he'd revolt. Anyway, so it was a food court. And, it was kind of gross to have to scrape the food off the plates into the dirty trash can and then stack everything up on top, especially after a CM came by and took away the trays. We had to make 2 trips up to the trash can with dirty, sticky plates and silverware. I had to wash my hands after that.

Overall: We're glad we tried it. Our son was in heaven and that's what it's all about, right? But, I won't go back. DONE (this time for real) with Values. You can theme it up all you want, and try to make it fancy, but in the end, it's still a Value experience, and that is not how we like to vacation. DH is a Marine, and he HATES the value food courts. As he said, "it reminds me of the chow hall...I don't want to eat in a cafeteria when I'm on vacation."

[January-2007]

Thanks for the trip report!

[buzznwoodysmom]

Natalie,

Your review pretty much summed up what I figured it would be like to stay here. The grounds are very, very well done, and the halls (only part of the inside we saw) were very cute. But I was fully expecting the same hard beds, thin, scratchy sheets, and I'm guessing they use the same single ply, hard, scratchy toilet paper the other values use. LOL. We stayed one night at All Star Music earlier this month and I too said we are DONE with the values. However, I imagine we will stay at AoA at least once, for youngest DS. But after that I'm totally with you, it's just not what we want out of vacation!

We ate lunch in the food court here and it was practically empty. The food we got was not that great either. It was good, but not nearly as tasty as it looked. I was a bit disappointed. It's wonderful to have all these unique options, but it has to taste good too. And I much prefer "throw away" stuff rather than real plates and silverware when dining in a food court.

Can't wait to read about your cruise!!!

[BrerGnat]

Part Two: Disney Dream Cruise (5 Night Bahamas, 2 Castaway Cay Stops), August 19 sailing.

This was our boys first cruise. DH and I have cruised twice before together, and I've been on 3 others before I met him. I've cruised Norwegian, Princess, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean, so I feel adequately educated to make a comparison.

Getting to the port was just more driving, but not difficult. Parking and bag drop off were easy and efficient. Parking garage was a nice plus. Check in was chaotic but went by quickly. We were on the ship immediately since we arrived around 1:00pm and general boarding was underway.

I am not going to go into much detail about the 5 days, but I will give my general opinions about the cruise aspects. Suffice it to say, the cruise was very enjoyable and I found that it is true that "you get what you pay for" and Disney delivered above and beyond overall, as far as the cruise experience was concerned. I found the inflated pricing of DCL to be warranted, and that actually surprised me. For what it's worth, we booked this at a rather steep military discount, and the cruise cost about 45% of "rack rate." We paid $150 per person (x4) per night. This cruise (for us) cost less than a comparable 5 night vacation at WDW (comparable meaning, Deluxe Accommodations, Deluxe Dining Plan, theme park tickets), for perspective, so it was too good a deal to pass up.

The ship : is absolutely stunning. Luxurious. Impeccably maintained. Exceptionally high quality finishes (no plastic and neon here!) It was like a floating museum with all the amazing, unique Disney Art. The ambient music in the public areas was awesome...lots of instrumental versions of many, many Disney tunes. Everything was of the highest quality, and looked brand spanking new. Every time the ship was in port, the CMs would come out of the wood work and they were painting the hull, powerwashing the lifeboats, cleaning the windows, doing necessary repairs, etc. We actually saw a metal pipe being cut (sparks everywhere) when they discovered that one of the poolside showers was not draining. Rather than mark it "out of order", they actually FIXED it, right then and there. It was impressive. The entire ship was spotless. I never once saw a piece of trash, a stray glass, etc. It was amazing. Anyone who longs for the days when WDW was like that should take a cruise to experience it again. This ship is a floating work of art. Seriously. I never stopped marveling at its beauty.

The Food: Amazing. Everything was delicious. We ate entirely too much, and loved every second of it. The one weak area were the desserts in the main dining rooms and the powdered eggs at breakfast, but there were little desserts available around the ship at various cafe's that were to die for! I ate way too many brownie cookie bars. I have read criticisms of Disney Cruise line food, and I just have to wonder what these people are used to eating every day, because I am pretty high maintenance as far as food goes (I could eat at Morton's every day), and I found nothing to complain about here at all. All the food was on par with (and in many cases better than) Signature dining at WDW. Loved having soda machines available 24/7 too. Coffee was weak. Not shocking. Specialty coffee (extra $) was excellent.

The Staff: Again. Amazing. It's getting old by this point, but there's no other way to describe them. For the first time, we came across MANY American ship employees. You don't see that on other lines much if at all. The fact that there were so many Americans working onboard means that Disney does something right with its employees. I asked a lot of employees how they liked working on the ship and they all genuinely loved it. I heard many stories about how these were (oftentimes) huge Disney fans their whole lives, and working on this ship was truly a Dream come true for them. Particularly from many of the young employees, they mentioned how well this job took care of them..Disney paid for their flights to/from home to the ship, paid for uniforms and cleaning, paid for their food, room and board, etc. They really, truly, seemed to enjoy working on board and it showed. Genuine friendliness all around. I did not once pass by a crew member and NOT hear a "hello, how is your day?" or some similar sentiment. Talking to the bar tenders was great fun. Lots of interesting people and stories to hear. Pirate Night was a hoot. Everyone on board really got into it, even the employees, and even my DH. VERY fun! Anyone longing for the good 'ol days of Disney service? Take a Disney Cruise! It's in full force on board.

The Room: We had a category 4 (Deluxe Family Stateroom with Verandah) on deck 6, starboard, midship. Great cabin! At 299 square feet, definitely large enough for all of us. Very well furnished and laid out in a functional way. Loved the split bath. Loved the excessive amount of storage space! Loved having a verandah (first time for us on a cruise). Loved being Starboard on the Castaway Cay days (best view of the island is from this side). LOVED LOVED LOVED the On Demand t.v. that had, literally, EVERY Disney movie in its library. We watched Dumbo, Mary Poppins, and for our youngest, Cars about 10 times. They also had a HUGE lineup of on demand TV shows from Disney, Disney Junior, Disney XD, etc. And, real channels in the real world. It ended up being great for us as our boys wanted to spend a lot of time in the cabin (not much for organized, social activities, those two). Room hostess was great and had our room cleaned the instant we vacated it, it seemed. Especially LOVED the H2O+ SPA products. Felt like I was at my old home, the Grand Californian, when I smelled that Sea Marine Shampoo. It's the little things...

To be continued...

[BrerGnat]

The Kids Club: Not Amazing. Sadly. Our kids were not fans. Actually, they were fans of the Oceaneer Club during open house (where the fun rooms are). We had a BAD experience with dropping our boys off for an hour one night after dinner. Apparently, our youngest wanted us to come get him after 30 min, so they sent out a page to the wave phones...which we didn't get until over an hour later. I had planned to pick them up in an hour anyway, so by the time I showed up, my youngest was hysterical crying and had been that way for 30 minutes with no way for me to know. Broke my heart. That was on day 2. After that, he would NOT even talk about the kids club and we only went as a family when they had open house. Disappointing, since we had a Palo dinner scheduled which we had to cancel. Overall, in talking with the kids club counselors, I feel badly for them. They were all VERY nice but some of them were more appropriate for the job than others, to be honest. Many were just babysitters, and did not know how to handle the kids. For the most part, kids just ran free and it was chaos. Our boys are both special needs, and I have heard over and over how good Disney is with kids like mine on the cruise. I did not find this to be the case at all. Most of them had no idea how to handle my son once he started to melt down and it was just bad all around. On the LAST day, we finally met a CM who had experience with working with kids with Autism, and she told us that only a couple of her co workers were skilled in that way. She taught my son how to count in Portuguese. She was amazing. Disney needs to have more staff in the kids clubs (at least one for each shift) trained in dealing with special needs kids, or they should make it clear up front that they may not have staff available that can handle your child if they have special needs. I spoke to many people prior to this cruise about this issue and was told over and over (by Disney employees) that everything would be fine, the staff were well trained, and our kids would be just fine being left there. I fault the wave phone technology, mostly. When I inquired as to why it took so long to get the page, I was told "if the ship is rocking a lot or the weather is bad, they don't work too well." Well, geez...that's good to know...after the fact. If I had known the phone wouldn't work, I would have been back at the club every 5 minutes to check in and make sure the kids were fine. My older son had no issues. In fact, he went back by himself one day for an hour. He liked all the computers in there. My little guy did not. He likes to play. With toys. Of which, there are NONE really. When I asked about this, I was told that since they can accommodate kids as young as 3, they cannot have ANYTHING in there that could be a choking hazard, so most toys with small parts, Legos, etc. were not allowed. So, you are left with a beautifully decorated, mostly empty space. Organized activities are great for some kids, but others not so much. Outside of computer games, there is NOTHING to keep kids entertained in the kids clubs. Major fail here. One CM actually told me that they (the counselors) write anonymous letters to the cruise line pretending to be passengers just so they can complain about the kids club. They as a whole don't like the way it's laid out, they HATE the "3-10 year olds in the same space at the same time" and want to go back to the 3-5, 6-8, 9-10 groupings they had before because it was more fun for everyone to have age appropriate toys and activities.

The Pool/Aquaduck: The highlight of the cruise for sure. My kids (and us) LOVED the entire pool deck. Aquaduck was great fun. The pools were adequate (I heard our sailing was only about 65% full, so that helped), the boys loved the Mickey Slide and Nemo's Reef. Cool hot tub with glass floor out over the water! Excellent all around. No complaints about the pool area. Plenty of chairs always. Nice!

The Shows/Entertainment: Loved the character meets! So many of them! Such short lines! Live singers in the Atrium each night were actually good. Only saw ONE show (Believe) and it was overall excellent. Did NOT like having the shows so late, though. We did early dinner (NO WAY could we have done late seating) but then the show was 8:30-9:30 or 10 each night. Our kids were beat every day and never stay up past 10 at home, ever. No different on vacation. We missed the Pirate show and Fireworks because they were at 10:45!!! That's really just way too late for kids. I was even fast asleep by that time on pirate night. And, I don't blame the Tattinger Rose champagne glass and a half I had at ALL for that. Overall, disappointed that SO much of the fun activities and entertainment happened either while we were at dinner, or past 10 pm. Too. Late. However, the show that we did see was Broadway caliber. That good. Oh, and we loved the Funnelvision at the pool. That was neat! Having a dedicated movie theater on board was a treat. I saw Brave in 3D and DH watched Avengers in 3D. We never go to movies (due to the cost and our kids hate them), so it was nice to have this opportunity at sea instead of having to wait for the DVD like we always do.

Castaway Cay: Heaven. Nuff said. Actually, it was really great. Disney spared no expense building up this little island getaway. Loved the Pelican Plunge waterslides. Our kids had a blast the first day. Once my older son saw a fish swim in front of him, he was DONE with the ocean. Freaked him right out. Glad we didn't decide to do some snorkeling. I look forward to returning one day and renting some kayaks or wave runners. Looked like great fun. On our second day, our older son had no interest in swimming with the fish, so I took him to play in the freshwater Spring A Leak play area and he had a ball there. Nice option! Excellent having 2 days here. Sad that this itinerary is being retired in the future.

Okay, is that it? Am I leaving anything out? Feel free to ask questions, and I will answer them, but overall, our impression of the ship was VERY positive and we look forward to sailing with DCL again in the future. Oh, one more thing, 5 nights was just maybe a wee bit too long for our boys. I think 3 would have been too short, and 4 would have been perfect. They just didn't really get "into" the cruise experience as a whole. We were either at the pools or in our cabin, for the most part. After a few days of that, it was getting old, to be honest. It's hard for DH and I to see families all around us having the kind of vacation experience we wish we could have, but our kids have different needs and we have to sacrifice a lot of the stuff we might want to do in their best interest. For our family, a 4 day cruise might be the longest we can do, for now anyway.

Oh, two more things…they use Dyson vacuums onboard to clean. My son, Max, was in heaven! He is a Dyson vacuum fanatic. The vacuums are even THEMED to look like, I don't know, Royal vacuums. They are gold and purple. Also, the hand washing machines in the kids club...GENIUS. These should just replace sinks everywhere, as far as I'm concerned. I want one for my house!

[January-2007]

Sounds absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for reporting!

[emerzmom]

What a great trip and trip report! I was just talking to a friend recently about the "good old days" of WDW when there was never trash, everything was tended to on the spot, and the service was magical. Not that it is horrible but it has really changed in the past few years. I guess I need to go on a Disney Cruise!
Thanks again for sharing your trip.

Julie

[faline]

Given that I've never been on a Disney cruise, I love reading about the experiences others have! Thanks for such a wonderfully, detailed report!

It's clear that some things worked very well for your family and that others did not. Glad you still managed to have a very nice time on your trip!

[joanna71985]

Great review! I enjoyed it a lot

DCL is retiring the 5-day Bahamas cruise?

[BrerGnat]

DCL is retiring the 5-day Bahamas cruise?

I think so. We were originally going to do a cruise NEXT year, and I didn't see any 5 nighters for August 2013, at least. We were trying to decide between and 3 and 4 night on the Dream. I guess it makes sense, since if they alternate 3 and 4 night voyages, they can do 2 sailings each week. Adding in the 5 day sort of messes that up. The Fantasy does 7 night sailings only. We are not interested in the older ships at this time. It was all about the Aquaduck for our boys!

[darthmacho]

Nat, I think it's funny that you describe the AoA food court as "chaotic" because I'm sitting here in Landscapes of Flavor typing this. Why? Because we felt that Everything Pop was too "chaotic"! You can probably imagine how crazy it was!
AoA is gorgeous though, isn't it?

[buzznwoodysmom]

Loved reading about the cruise part of your trip. As I've stated many times before, we have been trying to take a Disney cruise for a while, but for some reason or another we've never managed to. It was great reading all the positives of your trip. It kinda stinks that there were a few things not in favor of your family's schedule, and your boys' needs. But overall sounded like a wonderful experience for you guys.

[mouseketeer mom]

Hi Nat!
We were in WDW the first week of August, and my DD Katie's friend took us on a private tour of AOA resort while we were there! (He and she became friends at the Poly during our stays, he's since worked his way up to management at AOA).
I loved our private tour, all the ins and outs of the concepts and designs and the rooms. I found it large and overwhelming though!!!! I was surprised how the rooms felt., they didn't feel big to me, although the theming in the rooms was so well done, we thought. And we loved the pull down bed!!! We were there as they just finished re- painting one of the "cars" outside in the courtyard. A guest had keyed the car within weeks of the resort opening, isn't that sad?? Loved reading your report!

[BrerGnat]

Nat, I think it's funny that you describe the AoA food court as "chaotic" because I'm sitting here in Landscapes of Flavor typing this. Why? Because we felt that Everything Pop was too "chaotic"! You can probably imagine how crazy it was!
AoA is gorgeous though, isn't it?

Try being there at breakfast. It was crazy...

It is pretty, but pretty doesn't cut it when there are other problems. I just finished up doing a Survey about our stay at AoA that was sent to my email. I railed about the food court experience we had. I hope they make some minor changes to make it all that it has the potential to be.

[BrerGnat]

I was surprised how the rooms felt., they didn't feel big to me, although the theming in the rooms was so well done, we thought.

Lisa, this is absolutely how I felt. My FIRST impression of the room was, "This is it? It seems so small!" Honestly, there is just SO much bulky furniture (which is great and necessary for storage, since there are no closets), that it takes up all the room. Once you put the two beds down, the room is downright dangerous to walk around. I stubbed my toe and my son banged his shin when he got up at night to use the bathroom.

There is a LOT of wasted space in the master bathroom that eats up a lot of the supposed square footage, I feel. That bathroom is unnecessarily large, and with only one sink, there is no reason for it. The other bathroom feels almost too small. There is VERY little room to walk around the bed in the master bedroom as well. You have to be really careful not to walk into furniture.

This is why I said this room is really only good for a family with 4 KIDS. It felt smaller than the rooms at the Beach Club, even, and those aren't even that big! I think, if you are talking about accommodating 4 or 5, a room with a daybed at the larger Deluxe resorts (not WL or AKL) is actually a better, more comfortable option. The ONLY benefit to the AoA suites, IMO, is being able to sleep the kids in a different room separated by a door. Although, it needs to be said, that door is SO heavy that you cannot hear a THING once you close it, so if you NEED to be able to hear your kids, you have to leave it open, which defeats the purpose.

[BrerGnat]

The WDW Swan...our last night on property!

So, we booked this room with Starpoints. I finally had enough after many, many years. I chose the Swan because of the Queen beds. Doubles just don't cut it for me and DH. We wanted a room on property the night we got off the cruise as DH had tickets to attend Star Wars Celebration VI at the convention center Friday. I dropped off DH on the way back from the port, and made a quick stop at Target on 192 for some snacks for the road trip back home. We cheked into the Swan around 10:30am, and I had noted on our reservation that we would be arriving early. Upon arrival, we were immediately greeted by a bellman who offloaded the car for me. Check in was smooth, although the guy helping me was very "blah." No smiles. No nice welcome. Just all business. Our room was ready (yay!) and we were given our keys and up to our room on the 2nd floor. We had booked only a Standard room, but we did receive some sort of upgrade, as our room had a lovely courtyard view and a balcony! It was lovely. The room itself felt VERY small. I was kind of surprised. About the size of a moderate resort, maybe. The bathroom/closet area was quite large and nice. I liked the split sinks/vanity area. The TV was HUGE, looked like a 46" and actually projected in HD. WiFi was included in the $14 daily "resort fee" but worked flawlessly. The beds were comfy, but not overly so. I expected more from the "heavenly bed" claim. The mattress felt kind of old and saggy in spots, and I could hear and feel springs. Pillows, sheets, and comforter were all high quality, though. Towels, not so much. Thin and scratchy. Shower was great...excellent shower head! We appreciated the in room Starbucks pods, after the weak coffee on the ship. I made sure to put our two bottles of water in the fridge and take them with us on the road the next day. Another nice touch! Minor gripe was the $15 daily parking fee, but what can you do?

The boys and I drove to Downtown Disney to get lunch. We ended up at TRex, which I was not planning on. My little guy is way into Dinosaurs lately, and once he saw the restaurant, he wanted to eat there. I took them in just to see it, the gift shop, etc, and he saw tables and people eating and it was a done deal. They DID have those stupid Dinosaur chicken nuggets on the menu that he loves, so I figured it would be an easy option. I didn't need a food battle when I was on my own without DH's help. We ended up having to wait about 30 minutes to be seated (it was lunchtime on a Friday, after all). But, the meal ended up being very tasty and service was excellent. Yes, that place is loud, which I was worried about (this same little boy can't even stand the sound of thunder, and covers his ears when it storms), but he was FINE in here. Go figure. I appreciated the noise, because it meant my kids were not the loudest thing in there. Overall, we had a good experience at TRex and I would return. Food WAS insanely expensive, so I chose the chicken quesadilla appetizer ($10) rather than a $20 entree. The quesadilla was quite good, and so large I could not even finish it! The kids meal portions were much larger than standard Disney kids menus, and I felt they were a good value for the cost. DS even walked away with a new Dinosaur figure!

We did some shopping in DtD (didn't find anything worth buying) and returned to the Swan to swim. We noticed they installed a brand new (awesome!) playground since we were last on property in December. The boys had a ball playing on this playground for a few minutes, then we headed to the pool. The towels are handed out and you have to provide your room key to get them. Finding a chair was difficult, but we found one around the back by the slide. The slide was priority #1 and the boys and I went down a few times. Kind of a lame slide. To be honest, the whole pool area was only "okay." It was quite dirty. The pool water was VERY cloudy and there was green slime all over the place. The rock steps leading up to the slide were COVERED in it. It was so slippery. There was mildew along the inside wall of the pool, up on the rocks, and all over the pool deck (which is rock). The whole area needs a good powerwash! There were no lifeguards on duty, which I found distressing, because there were kids in that pool acting VERY dangerously! Kids were jumping off the rock foot bridges, doing flips into the pool with no regard for people below, etc. I had to keep my kids very close and I never have to do that at pools. A huge thunderstorm moved in very quickly, with bad lightning, and it took the staff a LONG time to clear the pool, and by then, the storm was right on top of us. At a Disney pool, the lifeguards clear out the pool in advance of a dangerous situation like that! My kids and I were IN the pool when a streak of lightning seemed to come down right behind the Dolphin, and the crack of thunder scared my son out of his skin. I practically threw my kids out of the pool and climbed out after them frantically. We gathered our things and an immediate downpour started. We had quite a harried walk/run back to the Swan (it's a LONG way, and I did not appreciate being outdoors next to such tall trees in the middle of a dangerous storm, alone with my 2 kids). As we were walking away from the pool, it still had a good 50 people in it, swimming around, oblivious to the whistles and "Get OUT of the pool!" yells by the staff members. My son was freaking out and I had to carry him back to the room...all 60 pounds of him, because he was frozen in fear. THAT was fun. A little heads up to the impending storm would have been nice.

Turns out, that storm lasted a LONG time. It was a good hour and a half, and it prevented me from being able to pick up my DH when he called, because the downpour was SO bad that there was no way we could have gotten to the car in the lot without becoming waterlogged. When I pulled up the weather app on my phone, I saw that our area had been under a "Dangerous Storm Warning" for quite some time. If I had known that, we would have never went to the pool, but I felt it was irresponsible to keep the pool open in those conditions.

We picked up DH and ended up at Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, which was great. Long time favorite of ours from CA. We all slept okay, but the kids were up at 5:30am the next morning. Ugh. We had a very good breakfast at Picabu the next morning and headed out around 10:30am.

Overall: The Swan is okay. Even though the room was "free", we still had to pay $31 in fees for ONE day. Over the course of a week, that really adds up. I can't honestly say that this is a "deluxe resort at a moderate price." Now that so many moderates have queen sized beds, it's comparable. The ONLY advantage it has is the location. But, overall, I think I prefer the moderates to these hotels. The rooms themselves are very similar, and I think Disney's pool areas are better. Finally, the staff was just very lackluster and indifferent. I did not feel "welcomed" here at all. It was hard to find help when you needed it. The lobby and public areas were VERY nice, but the rooms felt kind of tired. The hallways had a strange fishy/musty odor and the room felt a bit dingy. I'd recommend this place ONLY if you can get the room itself for well under $200, including the daily fees. It is not worth more than that.

[Dsnygirl]

Loved your report, and hearing your opinions on AoA and the Dream! We've considered AoA, but now aren't sure it would be worth the $$, if we can enjoy other accommodations better for a similar price. And the Dream -- it just sounds amazing!! And I liked hearing that you felt the cost was worth it, having had been on so many other cruises... we've never cruised, and have been leery of the price, not being sure it it's truly worth the extra $$. Nice to hear that it really is! The Kids Club, though, sounds like it could definitely use a change in how it's run... sorry to hear that was not such a great experience for your younger guy. Everything else, though, sounded amazing... so glad to hear you had such a nice time!!

[AgentC]

Great report. I really want to go on a Disney cruise. It sounds fabulous. Though the Kid's Club information is disappointing. I expect more from Disney. My 6 year old wouldn't mind playing computer games all day but my 4 year old would be bored.

Your feedback from AOA is very helpful too. I am staying there not month in a mermaid room simply because I needed one night and didn't want to pay more than the value rate. We don't stay in a value very option, but my mom was interested because with the kids getting older, 5 in a room is getting crowded. We've been upgrading to the 1 bed villas and it sounds like that will remain the best option for us.

[BrerGnat]

Great report. I really want to go on a Disney cruise. It sounds fabulous. Though the Kid's Club information is disappointing. I expect more from Disney. My 6 year old wouldn't mind playing computer games all day but my 4 year old would be bored.

BOTH my kids practically live on the computer at home, but even the older one wasn't that into the computers there because they are preloaded with REALLY lame games (NO kids were ever using the computers). He was ONLY interested because the computers in the "girly" area (Pixie forest, or whatever) had Bejeweled loaded onto them, and he loves that game. It was kind of funny, because he kept hitting "CTRL-ALT-DELETE" to bring up the REAL Windows operating system and tried to look for the web browsers.

The problem was, most games required using the arrow keys on the keyboard to play. NOT very intutive in this day and age at all and my 6 year old just couldn't get the hang of it.

The kids club was a HUGE disappointment, especially knowing that the ones on Royal Caribbean are partnered up with Fisher Price and have ACTUAL toys and playsets in them...

The CM's we spoke to in the club said that the Imagineers were more concerned with making it high tech and "cool" but that in doing that, they missed the mark completely on what kids actually want to play with in this type of environment. An actual climbing/play structure in the Monster's room, for example, would have been MUCH better than what is in there, which is a big elaborate structure that you can....walk through. Oooohhh. There are all these buttons and lights, but none of them can actually be pressed or manipulated. So stupid. And, the magic floor was cool, but they said they are only allowed to turn it on in 30 min increments, three times each day.

[joanna71985]

I hope they don't stop the 5-day cruises. I like having 2 days at CC