DCL Buys Unfinished Mega Cruise Ship - Genting Golden Dream ???

[Disone]

I think my main complaint is it doesn’t feel like a Disney ship, despite having 3 previous classes of ships they all feel very similar, this one doesn’t.

A few examples:

On all the other DCL ships you start your vacation with a huge “wow moment” when you enter into the huge atrium and are welcomed by name, this ship doesn’t have that, it reminded me of our Princess cruise where you just walk into a hallway with a bank of elevators, as DCL regulars we were very underwhelmed by this on Princess and I had the same feeling watching the videos of the Adventure.

On all the other DCL ships the Atrium is the heart of the inside activities and the pool area is the heart of the exterior activities, from the atrium you can look out the portholes while waiting for characters or shows, on the pooldeck you are surrounded by water, this ship doesn’t focus on either of those areas, it’s centered around the interior courtyards. No portholes, no views, just walls.

The rooms are small compared to the other ships, the inside rooms look like prison cells and the veranda rooms (I’ve seen) have all looked over interior courtyards, I’ve watched a half dozen videos now and haven’t seen the ocean once yet from a Veranda, ocean views obviously exist, I just haven’t seen one yet.

The other DCL ships are very well laid out with walkways around the lounges, restaurants, kids areas, etc, the walkways on this ship all seem to be interior, many oddly going through dining rooms and restaurants. The walkways on the other ships bypass this problem by being on the outside edges which makes getting around easy but also means walking by portholes everywhere you go, this is just interior hallways as far as the eye can see.

We cruise to see the water, the sea life, the views, and enjoy the ship… I haven’t seen any of that on the half dozen videos I’ve watched, this ship may as well be a hotel on land because without portholes and ocean views are you even cruising?

My biggest complaint with the Wish class is you don’t see the ocean from a lot of the areas, this ship is 1000 times worse, if I can’t see the ocean I may as well just book a hotel.

If this were a Disney hotel I think I’d be raving about it, as a cruise ship it has none of the ocean liner feel I associate with DCL though.

Hummmmmmmmm

Going to disagree.

The atriums on the Disney Cruise line are a nice place to enter the ship, but they are not a wow moment. They're not that big. Especially on the magic and on the Wonder which even though the magic remains my favorite ship, it's not because of the atrium.

The heart of the Disney Adventure, is just in a different location. Everyone says it's the imagination courtyard. And that's okay.

The Disney Adventure has plenty of Ocean view balconies. These are clearly visible from any exterior shot of the ship at sea. I know you mentioned that all you've seen online is the courtyard verandas but surely you know that it absolutely has 's a plethora of Ocean view verandas. A literal boatload of them

Those room sizes..... they do have some smaller choices. The interior standard staterooms do seem a little bit basic. I'll accept the criticism on those but they're also quite common on cruise ships. Here I'll agree that overall that the state rooms could have been a little nicer. Some of the bedding looks very thin and stiff which I guess could be commonplace regionally but eventually that ship's going to have to cater to other markets and that's not going to go well.

Layout...... Having been on the wish class I don't think the Wish class has any bragging rights for layout and flow.

The reason you're not seeing oceans on video blogs is because the vlogger is trying to show off the ship. But just like the ship has tons of Ocean view verandas, it has tons of places to view the ocean. It's a ship. You're judging it from videos and not from being on it but consider this, where else are you going to watch a Moana show where the real ocean is literally in the background.

Agreed it does not have the Ocean Liner feel to it. Truthfully I'm not sure how well the wish class achieves this either. The first four excel at it. The wish class kind of has the look on the exterior but definitely not the interiors. Still I will miss that vibe while I'm on Adventure. However I'll appreciate it for the other things that it offers. It's basically a Disney version of an oasis class cruise ship.

So often Disney needlessly gives up something to add something. Such is the case with cars Land and villians Land replacing Rivers of America at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. They needlessly gave up existing real estate America instead of just genuinely expanding.

Disney Cruise line did not do that with the Disney Adventure. It is an additional offering to the current fleet. Nothing was given up to provide this so you still have your favorites to enjoy but you can try something that is a little different and not just a bigger version of what they've already built.

Disney Cruise line deserves some credit for that.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Hummmmmmmmm

Going to disagree.

The atriums on the Disney Cruise line are a nice place to enter the ship, but they are not a wow moment. They're not that big. Especially on the magic and on the Wonder which even though the magic remains my favorite ship, it's not because of the atrium.

The heart of the Disney Adventure, is just in a different location. Everyone says it's the imagination courtyard. And that's okay.

The Disney Adventure has plenty of Ocean view balconies. These are clearly visible from any exterior shot of the ship at sea. I know you mentioned that all you've seen online is the courtyard verandas but surely you know that it absolutely has 's a plethora of Ocean view verandas. A literal boatload of them

Those room sizes..... they do have some smaller choices. The interior standard staterooms do seem a little bit basic. I'll accept the criticism on those but they're also quite common on cruise ships. Here I'll agree that overall that the state rooms could have been a little nicer. Some of the bedding looks very thin and stiff which I guess could be commonplace regionally but eventually that ship's going to have to cater to other markets and that's not going to go well.

Layout...... Having been on the wish class I don't think the Wish class has any bragging rights for layout and flow.

The reason you're not seeing oceans on video blogs is because the vlogger is trying to show off the ship. But just like the ship has tons of Ocean view verandas, it has tons of places to view the ocean. It's a ship. You're judging it from videos and not from being on it but consider this, where else are you going to watch a Moana show where the real ocean is literally in the background.

Agreed it does not have the Ocean Liner feel to it. Truthfully I'm not sure how well the wish class achieves this either. The first four excel at it. The wish class kind of has the look on the exterior but definitely not the interiors. Still I will miss that vibe while I'm on Adventure. However I'll appreciate it for the other things that it offers. It's basically a Disney version of an oasis class cruise ship.

So often Disney needlessly gives up something to add something. Such is the case with cars Land and villians Land replacing Rivers of America at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. They needlessly gave up existing real estate America instead of just genuinely expanding.

Disney Cruise line did not do that with the Disney Adventure. It is an additional offering to the current fleet. Nothing was given up to provide this so you still have your favorites to enjoy but you can try something that is a little different and not just a bigger version of what they've already built.

Disney Cruise line deserves some credit for that.

We’ve been on the first 5 ships and still feel the first 4 are close to perfect, then there’s a MASSIVE drop to the Wish class, which is why we haven’t done the other Wish class ships, and with this one I can honestly say I have absolutely zero interest of ever stepping foot on it.

Prior to the Wish I used to rave about DCL as the best way to get the Disney experience, the parks had lost a lot of their magic but DCL was still a premium products heads and shoulders above the competition, the new DCL ships don’t feel premium anymore, they’re starting to look and feel a lot like their lower priced competitors.

Prior to the Wish we’d only ever done DCL cruises, after our poor experience on the Wish we decided to give other lines a chance and did a Princess cruise, which we enjoyed more than the Wish, then we did another Disney cruise on the Magic and agreed it was better than Princess… while I still place the original 4 as premium products I don’t think I’d place the Wish class, or this one off, as any better than Princess, Royal, or any of the other major cruise lines, which is fine for other brands but Disney has always been known for being better than the rest, and priced higher than the rest, now they’re just average at a higher price.

Our next 2 cruises are on Viking, if they’re as good as everyone says we may be done with DCL until the next class of ships start coming out in the 2030s, no reason to pay premium prices for an average product when you can pay premium prices for a premium product.

 

[Disone]

We’ve been on the first 5 ships and still feel the first 4 are close to perfect, then there’s a MASSIVE drop to the Wish class, which is why we haven’t done the other Wish class ships, and with this one I can honestly say I have absolutely zero interest of ever stepping foot on it.

Prior to the Wish I used to rave about DCL as the best way to get the Disney experience, the parks had lost a lot of their magic but DCL was still a premium products heads and shoulders above the competition, the new DCL ships don’t feel premium anymore, they’re starting to look and feel a lot like their lower priced competitors.

Prior to the Wish we’d only ever done DCL cruises, after our poor experience on the Wish we decided to give other lines a chance and did a Princess cruise, which we enjoyed more than the Wish, then we did another Disney cruise on the Magic and agreed it was better than Princess… while I still place the original 4 as premium products I don’t think I’d place the Wish class, or this one off, as any better than Princess, Royal, or any of the other major cruise lines, which is fine for other brands but Disney has always been known for being better than the rest, and priced higher than the rest, now they’re just average at a higher price.

Our next 2 cruises are on Viking, if they’re as good as everyone says we may be done with DCL until the next class of ships start coming out in the 2030s, no reason to pay premium prices for an average product when you can pay premium prices for a premium product.

Try Treasure. I think it's pretty much universally agreed upon that while it is another wish class ship, it is superior to the Wish.

 

[parksandtravel]

I think the best thing people could remember is that the ship was already designed, period. Like literally it was fully being constructed when Disney bought it, and they adapted as best they could into a Disney style ship.

We have no idea if this is the kind of ship Disney themselves would design and build from the ground up for the Asian market (I actually doubt they would design it exactly like this), but they adapted it as much as they could.

After watching this informative video I have higher opinion of it.

 

[nickys]

I think my main complaint is it doesn’t feel like a Disney ship, despite having 3 previous classes of ships they all feel very similar, this one doesn’t.

A few examples:

On all the other DCL ships you start your vacation with a huge “wow moment” when you enter into the huge atrium and are welcomed by name, this ship doesn’t have that, it reminded me of our Princess cruise where you just walk into a hallway with a bank of elevators, as DCL regulars we were very underwhelmed by this on Princess and I had the same feeling watching the videos of the Adventure.

On all the other DCL ships the Atrium is the heart of the inside activities and the pool area is the heart of the exterior activities, from the atrium you can look out the portholes while waiting for characters or shows, on the pooldeck you are surrounded by water, this ship doesn’t focus on either of those areas, it’s centered around the interior courtyards. No portholes, no views, just walls.

The rooms are small compared to the other ships, the inside rooms look like prison cells and the veranda rooms (I’ve seen) have all looked over interior courtyards, I’ve watched a half dozen videos now and haven’t seen the ocean once yet from a Veranda, ocean views obviously exist, I just haven’t seen one yet.

The other DCL ships are very well laid out with walkways around the lounges, restaurants, kids areas, etc, the walkways on this ship all seem to be interior, many oddly going through dining rooms and restaurants. The walkways on the other ships bypass this problem by being on the outside edges which makes getting around easy but also means walking by portholes everywhere you go, this is just interior hallways as far as the eye can see.

We cruise to see the water, the sea life, the views, and enjoy the ship… I haven’t seen any of that on the half dozen videos I’ve watched, this ship may as well be a hotel on land because without portholes and ocean views are you even cruising?

My biggest complaint with the Wish class is you don’t see the ocean from a lot of the areas, this ship is 1000 times worse, if I can’t see the ocean I may as well just book a hotel.

If this were a Disney hotel I think I’d be raving about it, as a cruise ship it has none of the ocean liner feel I associate with DCL though.

Just to comment on your first point.

Why should all Disney cruise ships feel similar? Disney resorts are different from each other. So people can choose where they stay. Why is it a problem that they now have a totally different cruise ship?

This new ship was not Disney designed from the outset. (Maybe that’s a good thing since the r previous one was designed by someone who had never been on one before, and seems to be less liked by frequent cruisers)! But they’ve created a ship for a specific market.

If they decide to try it elsewhere they can change aspects of it, like traditional meet & greets, more adult entertainment etc. for that market.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Why should all Disney cruise ships feel similar? Disney resorts are different from each other. So people can choose where they stay. Why is it a problem that they now have a totally different cruise ship?

Indeed. I would like to see vlogs from people who have not been on previous Disney cruises.

Tired of hearing "THERE'S NO ATRIUM!! I'm so confused!!!"

It's like someone giving a review of DAK and saying "THERE'S NO CASTLE!!"

 

[Disone]

Indeed. I would like to see vlogs from people who have not been on previous Disney cruises.

Tired of hearing "THERE'S NO ATRIUM!! I'm so confused!!!"

It's like someone giving a review of DAK and saying "THERE'S NO CASTLE!!"

Worth a repost.

Plus I really do not find any of the atriums on any of the original ships to be the wow moment of the ship. And I say that as a fan who has been on 26 Disney Cruises. When I talk up what's great about DCL, the atrium is not on that list.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Just to comment on your first point.

Why should all Disney cruise ships feel similar? Disney resorts are different from each other. So people can choose where they stay. Why is it a problem that they now have a totally different cruise ship?

This new ship was not Disney designed from the outset. (Maybe that’s a good thing since the r previous one was designed by someone who had never been on one before, and seems to be less liked by frequent cruisers)! But they’ve created a ship for a specific market.

If they decide to try it elsewhere they can change aspects of it, like traditional meet & greets, more adult entertainment etc. for that market.

There’s a reason the castle parks do twice the business of the other parks, that’s what people expect from Disney.

Nothing wrong with other types of parks, or ships, but the reality is the newer parks are always going to be compared to DL and WDW and the newer ships will always be compared to the originals also. There will be groups that prefer Epcot, groups that prefer HS, groups that prefer AK, maybe even a strange few who prefer DCA but the majority are always going to prefer the castle parks because that’s what they expect from Disney.

I think the Dream class is superior to the Magic class so it shows they can improve on their own greatness, history has shown us the “new” ideas rarely live up to the originals though.

 

[Disney Analyst]

I just think there is room for all kinds of different ships under the DCL umbrella. Everyone can book the ones they love.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I just think there is room for all kinds of different ships under the DCL umbrella. Everyone can book the ones they love.

Is there a class that is composed of just lots and lots of Atria?

 

[Disney Analyst]

Is there a class that is composed of just lots and lots of Atria?

Disney Defibrillation


(oh you said Atria not Atrial!)

 

[peter11435]

There’s a reason the castle parks do twice the business of the other parks, that’s what people expect from Disney.

Nothing wrong with other types of parks, or ships, but the reality is the newer parks are always going to be compared to DL and WDW and the newer ships will always be compared to the originals also. There will be groups that prefer Epcot, groups that prefer HS, groups that prefer AK, maybe even a strange few who prefer DCA but the majority are always going to prefer the castle parks because that’s what they expect from Disney.

I think the Dream class is superior to the Magic class so it shows they can improve on their own greatness, history has shown us the “new” ideas rarely live up to the originals though.

The Wish class scores highest in the fleet among first time Disney cruisers. For a rapidly expanding business that’s very important.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

The Wish class scores highest in the fleet among first time Disney cruisers. For a rapidly expanding business that’s very important.

Where are you seeing this? The articles I found that look at the big cruise review sites have the Wish last based on customer reviews.

As a Disney fan I hate seeing DCL following the parks from “great” to “good”. For what DCL charges an “average to good” overall guest review just doesn’t cut it for me.

 

[peter11435]

Where are you seeing this? The articles I found that look at the big cruise review sites have the Wish last based on customer reviews.

View attachment 913255
As a Disney fan I hate seeing DCL following the parks from “great” to “good”. For what DCL charges an “average to good” overall guest review just doesn’t cut it for me.

Your data is not filtered for first time Disney cruisers like I was referring to.

The fact that your chart has the Treasure ranked last by one source and first by another should be a good indication of its lack of reliability.

 

[DCBaker]

Disney Cruise line has teased a celebration show for the arrival of the Disney Adventure in Singapore.

The 10 minute showcase, "Adventure Begins: A Magical Bay Celebration", is in collaboration with United Overseas Bank, Marina Bay Sand and Singapore Tourism Board with views from all around Marina Bay. The show will feature fan-favorite tunes including "When You Wish Upon A Star”, “Let It Go”, “Under the Sea” and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”.

The celebration show will run from March 13 to 15, 2026 at 8:30pm.

Disney has shared video of "Adventure Begins: A Magical Bay Celebration":

 

[NotCalledBob]

Here's my experience of sailing out of Singapore so far.

We are currently on vacation in Malaysian Borneo ahead of our cruise. We booked DCL transfers for the Adventure back in January once they started selling them for Singapore. Our friends we are travelling did the same, a week apart. Both through the central DCL booking office via phone. We were honest and said we aren't staying in their partner hotel, but across the street. We were both told that was totally fine and we booked the transfers.

We were emailed a couple of days ago and told the policy has changed and that we can no longer get the transfers. We need to contact DCL reservations for further information. I tried emailing them. And emailing again. No response. I tried CCing in Singapore ground services. They sent me a cut and paste response about disability access at the Cruise terminal, that had no relevance at all to the email I sent.

Our port arrival form obviously says transfer. We don't have a PAT. I can't select one. As transfer is the only option on my booking.

I gave up and called the cruise line call center. The call cost me $204 from Malaysia.

They said they would refund the transfers so I could book a PAT. They said they were doing us a favor giving us a refund. As it was less than a week until the cruise. Even though they had told only us a week before the cruise about the transfer policy change..

That was yesterday. They've not refunded the transfer. I still can't select a PAT.

They are still not responding to emails. I'm a $204 international phone call poorer. I don't have a PAT time. My cruise is Thursday.

DCL were not ready to sail out of Singapore.

 

[NotCalledBob]

To add to the above. I'm a loss at what to do.

I've been told we won't be allowed to board the transfer. I've been told I'll be refunded the transfer to unblock my account so I can book a non transfer PAT. But that hasn't happened. Emails aren't responded to and I can't call again because I've already spent $204 on the first call.

Does anyone with more DCL experience than me have any idea what I can do?

We've lost our 11am PAT as well through all of this. And only 3pm is left available.

Honestly the DCL customer service couldn't have been any worse.

 

[NotCalledBob]

Bit of an update.

I am now home. I have many thoughts on the Adventure. It is a genuinely beautiful ship. We actually really liked the ship. Yes, it has some layout issues. Most definitely. But, they've done such a good job with the theming and the communal spaces. Cabins are average.

Operations are ouch at the moment.

With exception to the entertainment team which are absolutely amazing. They knocked it out the park with every single show. With special mentions to Avengers Assemble and Remember. Incredible. Both of them.

I will write a longer review outlining in more detail the good and bad over the next couple of days when I am over the jet lag!

With regard to the transfer situation. We just had to keep emailing until we got an answer. Many hours of precious vacation lost trying to find out what we were supposed to do. In the end we ended up going to back to Changi Airport and getting the transfer from there instead. It wasn't ideal, as we were downtown less than 2 miles from the port, so we had to travel out the city to the airport, to come back via coach from where we started! But, once we were on the coach everything was smooth. Disney also refunded us for the international call.