Disney Dream Stateroom Review

We were staying in a category 5A stateroom which is an oceanview stateroom with verandah. The room was very nicely appointed however, it was noticeably smaller than the category 5A on the Disney Magic & Wonder. The space reduction seems to be in the width of the rooms.

There are many changes to the rooms. Some good, some less desirable. The closets open out instead of sliding side to side. While this will be great in rougher seas, there were a couple drawbacks. There are no lights in the closet and when you have on the hall light, only one closet gets light.

The doors on the bathrooms open out, which is great! This gives so much more room in the bathrooms themselves, but both swing to the right, but the light switches are between the two. This means you have to remember to turn on the shower light before opening the door. You also have to make sure you don’t need to get anything from the other bathroom before you go in or you’ll have to close the door to do so. You cannot get around the doors when they are open, so between the bathrooms and the closet doors that all open into the hallway, you can end up with quite a maze!

There is a great conservation feature built into the rooms. To get the lights or TV on, you must put a key card in the slot inside your door. It does not matter which way your card goes, or even if you use a Key To The World card at all.

The bed is an incredible change! The mattresses were so comfortable as well as the pillows and sheets. I loved the sheets, they had hidden Mickeys all over them! The beds, however cannot separate into two twin beds. This is a big issue, especially with families of three who won’t want to sleep in the same bed. They will need to get a room that sleeps four (has a bunk) but will not be able to get guaranteed one. Because the bed is one unit now, the frame is much more sturdy. You can store your luggage under the bed which is wonderful. We did this before but it was so much easier now than lifting the bed to get it under there. Unfortunately, DCL chose not to go with bedskirts and you can see all your luggage under the bed, but that really wasn’t an issue for us. What was an issue was the bed frame. While it offers better support, it also becomes a weapon when you are walking from one side of the room to the other. The rooms as I mentioned are narrower and we each caught our knees or shins on the bed corner multiple times.

The sofa/desk area also has some good and bad aspects. The sofa was very comfortable. My sister took a nap on the sofa without turning down the bed and felt it was comfy. The table is really neat and can be used for storage, but due to the width of the room, this really gets in the way. The chair by the desk has a back on it so it doesn’t tuck completely under the desk like on the other ships. If you have this chair out at all, another person will have a difficult time getting to the balcony.

The desk area is wonderful however! There are better located outlets here. The room has a nightlight in this area as well, but I felt this was too bright for us. The wave phones are on a 220V outlet (which is also where you should plug in the hairdryer). The desk is not quite as deep as before, however the space is very useable. The desk drawers are no longer split between the two sides of the desk. Instead they are on one side and much larger, more useable. Instead of a chiller, all rooms now have a refrigerator. When this kicked in, it wasn’t nearly as loud as we had expected. The TVs are all flat screen and allow you to do more than watch TV. You could book shore excursions and review your bill without going to guest services. There were also cabinets above the desk to use.

We did have the Portable Wave Phones onboard. They were nice to use on the ship, but still are not working on Castaway Cay. I was disappointed that there were no phone instructions in the room. The ship has newer phones than the Magic and the Wonder, but there were no instructions on how to call someone. The way to do so is not the same as the Wave Phones. On the Wave Phone you dial 41+ the number you are calling. The number is the room number for calling a room and the room number plus 1 for the first wave phone or plus 2 for the second one in the room. You can call a room or another wave phone. Calling from the room, you dialed 7+ the room number. I did not try calling a wave phone from the room phone however.

The verandah door is much nicer than on the other ships. These were like what we had on the Celebrity Solstice. You had the handle pointed down and could easily open the door. If the handle was turned upward, the door was next to impossible to open.

I was impressed with the shower/tub bathroom. It seemed like the tub was wider, but I can’t be sure. The shower curtain however had a curve in the track so you didn’t have the shower curtain clinging to you while taking a shower. The faucet was a bit different. On the right side you had the temperature control and on the left side, you dialed toward you for the shower and away from you for the spigot. Also, there were two clotheslines in the shower. They are not your usual spring-back cord.

On our last of the Dream cruises next week we will be in a category V stateroom which are larger than the 4A staterooms on the Magic or Wonder so we’ll be interested to see the difference in space.