Disney Dream getting new spaces, including Star Wars play area

Disney Dream’s young guests can pretend they’re on the Millennium Falcon. Photo Credit: Disney Enterprises

When the Disney Dream emerges from a 20-day drydock in late October, the cruise ship will have new spaces, including a Star Wars play area in the Oceaneer Club and a sweet shop.

Star Wars: Millennium Falcon, a play area open to kids ages 3 to 12, is inspired by Han Solo’s spacecraft from the first three Star Wars films.

Upon entering the area, kids can “pilot the spaceship through hyperspace and trigger light-speed jumps to different locations around the galaxy,” Disney said.

Children also can do Star Wars-themed crafts, games and activities; watch episodes from the Disney XD animated series “Star Wars Rebels” on a large screen; and play video games.

The Disney Dream also will feature a shipboard version of the Jedi Training Academy, a popular activity at Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park in Florida.

In the Disney Infinity Toy Box area, the complete set of Disney Infinity character figures will be on display and available for gameplay. Kids visiting the room will be able to unlock Disney Cruise Line content that they can continue to enjoy when playing Disney Infinity at home.

On a life-sized Disney Infinity Base, children take the place of character figures for a group gaming experience. An interactive floor will light up in response to gameplay on a large screen.

On the pool deck, Vanellope’s Sweets & Treats will resemble the whimsical candy land of the Sugar Rush race car game in the film “Wreck-It Ralph.” The sweet shop’s decor will feature nods to the film, including a race track and checkerboard patterned floor, gas pump-style gumball dispensers, Vanellope’s race car and King Candy’s throne.

Vanellope’s will serve gelato and ice cream and an assortment of candy and novelty treats for purchase.

Also, there will be a Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at sea. The salon for kids, located on land in the Magic Kingdom and Downtown Disney, is known for pixie-dust makeovers.

Adults will have their own splash pool on the Dream, called Satellite Falls. It will have benches and a gently falling rain curtain.

The Dream sails three- and four-day cruises to the Bahamas from Port Canaveral, Fla. The ship will make its debut with the new spaces on four-day voyage departing Oct. 26.

Disney Cruise Line Fun Facts!

– The Disney ships are painted in Mickey Mouse-inspired colors – black hull, white superstructure, yellow trim and two giant red funnels, each with the Disney Cruise Line Mickey Mouse logo.

– Disney Cruise Line was the first cruise line to have yellow lifeboats, instead of the traditional regulation orange. Disney was granted special permission from the U.S. Coast Guard to paint the lifeboats yellow, to keep with the special color theming of the ship.

– The Disney Magic was built in two halves… one hundred miles apart! Part of the ship was constructed in Ancona, Italy then towed 100 miles to meet the stern in Marghera (just outside Venice) to be perfectly joined and welded together.

– Disney Cruise Line ships use the iconic first seven notes of the “When You Wish Upon a Star” song melody as their horn signals.

– Disney ships are the only cruise ships to have four captains – the ship’s captain, Captain Mickey, Captain Hook and Captain Jack Sparrow.

– Measuring 964 feet in length, the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder are each longer than Main Street U.S.A at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.

– The anchor on the Disney Magic weighs 28,200 pounds – about the same as three full-grown elephants. Each ship weighs 90 million pounds.

– Taking place every cruise onboard the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder, the “Pirates IN the Caribbean” deck party features the only fireworks display at sea.

Guest Experience
– Seventy-five percent of staterooms on the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder are outside, ocean view cabins. Of those, nearly half offer a private verandah.

– In a cruise industry first, most staterooms on Disney Cruise Line ships feature a split “bath-and-a-half” design, providing families the added convenience of a sink and tub/shower in one room and a sink and toilet in a separate room.

– Onboard each Disney Cruise Line ship, there are about 950 crew members representing more than 60 different nationalities. That is approximately one crew member for every three guests.

– Disney Cruise Line was named the top large cruise ship experience by the readers of Condé Nast Traveler magazine in the ninth annual “Reader’s Cruise Poll.” In fact, Disney Cruise Line has won more than 50 different awards and accolades since launching in 1998.

Dining
– On an average seven-night Disney Cruise Line voyage, the following food items are consumed:
• Beef – 5,000 pounds
• Chicken – 10,000 pounds
• Salmon – 1,200 pounds
• Shrimp – 1,300 pounds
• Lobster Tail – 1,000 pounds
• Melon – 12,800 pounds
• Pineapple – 3,300 pounds
• Individual Eggs – 71,500
• Coffee – 57,820 cups
• Soda – 3,125 gallons
• Beer – 12,385 bottles/cans
• Wine and Champagne – 2,700 bottles

– In a single day, each Disney Cruise Line ship uses:
• 10,000 forks
• 5,000 cloth napkins
• 800 tablecloths

– Disney Cruise Line dining room Cast members represent, on average, 60 different nationalities.

– The décor and food of the Palo restaurant are inspired by Italy, the birthplace of both the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder.

– Palo takes its name from the poles that line the canals of Venice. Palo’s extensive reserve wine list features selections that hail from some of the most mature vineyards in the world and highlight some of the greatest Super Tuscans like Sassicaia, Ornellaia and Tignanello.

Onboard Features
– The Disney Magic interior is in the art deco style, characterized by geometric designs and bold, solid colors. The interior on the Disney Wonder is in the art nouveau style, which is characterized by organic influences and curved patterns.

– A bronze statue of Helmsman Mickey adorns the lobby of the Disney Magic and was inspired by the famous “Man at the Wheel” statue in Gloucester, Mass. On the Disney Wonder, a bronze statue of Ariel from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” graces the lobby.

– The main atrium chandeliers on both the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder are each one-of-a-kind commissioned pieces created by celebrated glass artist Dale Chihuly. To meet cruise line safety standards, Chihuly worked within a new medium and fashioned the vibrant chandeliers out of acrylic plastic.

– The décor of the Buena Vista Theatre on both the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder was designed to emulate the elegant movie houses of the 1920s and 1930s, the period when Walt Disney was producing the first Mickey Mouse animated films.

– The main showplace for entertainment onboard Disney Cruise Line ships, the Walt Disney Theatre spans three decks and can seat 977 guests.

– A leader in family entertainment, Disney is the only cruise line to feature first run films from the Walt Disney Pictures film banners, with movies premiering exclusively at sea on the same day that they are released in US theaters. Disney Cruise Line is also the industry leader in onboard enhanced digital entertainment with advanced Disney Digital 3-D technology in all shipboard theaters.

– With ships purpose built for family cruising, both the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder boast nearly an entire deck of space dedicated to age-specific children’s activities.

– Don’t worry about getting a chill! The swimming pools on Disney ships are heated when the water temperature drops below 75 degrees.

– A room with a view! 73% of staterooms onboard Disney ships have ocean views. Of those outside facing rooms, 60% boast private verandahs.

– Stay connected, even at sea! Disney ships feature Wi-Fi service in staterooms and public spaces, allowing guests to surf the web at sea from their wireless-ready personal laptop computers.

Castaway Cay


– Castaway Cay is the only private island in the cruise industry where the ship docks alongside so guests do not have to tender to land.

– Visitors to Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay, can catch a glimpse of the ghost ship Flying Dutchman – the actual, full-size studio prop from the Disney film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest moored in the waters just offshore.

– Guests can mail a special souvenir message to family and friends back home by using the Castaway Cay Post Office. All postcards, letters and packages shipped from the island display an exclusive Castaway Cay postmark.

– Water is procured in Port Canaveral and delivered to Castaway Cay by the ships to an 80,000 gallon fresh water storage tank on the island.

– Feels like home? Approximately 60 Disney Cruise Line crew members live and work full-time on Castaway Cay.

Environmental Programs
– Each Disney ship has an onboard Environmental Officer dedicated to overseeing all environmental systems and procedures, along with shipboard recycling, waste minimization and water reclamation efforts.

– While cruising, Disney ships can convert sea water to fresh water for use onboard. An onboard desalinization plant produces nearly 500,000 gallons of fresh water every day.

– Disney Cruise Line made history by being the first cruise line to utilize an innovative hull coating that is both 100 percent non-toxic and effective in increasing fuel efficiency. The coating helps reduce the ships’ surface resistance in the water, decreasing the need for propulsion power as the ship glides through the sea.

– On Castaway Cay, an innovative recycling program repurposes used cooking oil from the ships’ galleys and combines it with diesel fuel to power machinery on the island. The program reduces waste and carbon dioxide emissions, saving up to 8,000 gallons of traditional fuel each year.

– Shipboard recycling systems help divert more than 405 tons of aluminum, plastics, paper and non-traditional recyclables from conventional waste streams each year. That’s the equivalent of over 27 school buses or 12 humpback whales.

– Researchers at Castaway Cay are helping to restore the health of coral reefs through a unique research project transplanting native sea urchins in The Bahamas. The urchins help to control harmful algae levels that can choke out corals, and the project is providing vital research for rebuilding coral reef systems that serve as homes for tropical fish and marine life.

Disney cruise ships first to offer WiFi by megabyte

By Tom Stieghorst

Sample rates for Connect@Sea

Pay-As-You-Go
25 cents per MB

Small package 
$19 for 100 MB (19 cents per MB)

Medium package
$39 for 300 MB (13 cents per MB)

Large package
$89 for 1,000 MB (9 cents per MB)

MIAMI — As the cruise industry rushes to expand the availability of WiFi for passengers, Disney Cruise Line has broken from the pack on the model it uses to charge for Internet usage on its ships, offering a system based on how many megabytes are used rather than on how much time is spent online.

The result is a system that costs less for services that don’t use much data, such as email, and more for bandwidth-hungry uses, such as streaming video.

The pay-by-the-minute model is the current standard at sea.

In practical terms, guests who only want to send or retrieve a few emails will pay very little, while those who want to use the Internet as an onboard entertainment system to stream movies or YouTube videos, for example, will pay more.

Disney is the first line to implement the Connect@Sea system developed by MTN Communications. Beyond enabling the cruise line to better match a user’s needs to the price charged, MTN said the data allotment system makes more efficient use of bandwidth. As a result, speeds for all users should increase.

“We think it’s going to be the wave of the future,” said Brent Horwitz, MTN’s senior vice president of cruise and ferry services.

Cruise lines have been pushing suppliers of Internet connectivity to come up with faster and more creative ways to provide access as demand soars and guests’ expectations of seamless, ubiquitous connections grow.

Disney passengers using WiFiLines are especially eager to foster social media use by guests, because postings by passengers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter serve as user-generated marketing messages that are cost-efficient and perceived by the general public as highly credible.

But ships are limited by their dependence on expensive satellite telecommunications when they are out of range of land-based transmission infrastructures.

Disney began rolling out the service in early February on the Disney Magic and finished this month with the Disney Fantasy.

“The data-based pricing is available onboard all four ships,” said Disney Cruise Line spokeswoman Lauren Falcone.

Charges start at 25 cents per megabyte in a pay-as-you-go option that Disney describes as “perfect for guests who are not sure how often they will be online.”

WiFi packages, however, offer passengers savings for buying their megabytes in bulk.

Disney said a medium package of 300 MB would be good for users who want to share vacation photos right away. It costs $39, or about 13 cents per MB, while the heavy-use package of 1 gigabyte costs $89, or 9 cents per MB.

Since many users don’t know how many megabytes their various applications take up, there is a browser-based graphic gauge that provides a readout of how much data has been transmitted on the account.

Previously, Disney had charged 75 cents a minute for pay-as-you-go service, a charge that is typical among cruise lines.

With time-based WiFi services, bulk packages on cruises of seven nights or less range from $27.50 for 50 minutes to $74 for 250 minutes. Packages with more minutes are available on cruises longer than seven nights.

MTN’s Horwitz said that with a data-allotment system, the speed of service will be “multiple-times higher” because it is a more efficient way to use the transmission system. In addition, MTN and other providers are perfecting just-in-time increases in bandwidth capacity that can be used to improve flexibility.

Another advantage of using data metering is that guests can remain logged on to their email for long periods, since there are no per-minute charges. Users of the pay-as-you-go plan can set a predefined spending limit so they don’t inadvertently exceed their budget, according to Disney.

Horwitz said that by stimulating use while making pricing more flexible, MTN hopes data allotment will make Internet access both more profitable for the cruise line and more user-friendly for the guest.

With faster speeds, “the cruise passenger will have something more commensurate with the rest of the cruise vacation,” he said.