We have recently returned from the first Australian
Disney cruise from Sydney to Hobart and I was wondering what others opinions were of them especially if you have cruised with Disney before. I was expecting to be wowed but although I enjoyed it I wasn’t. Trying to decide why that was. The thing I can mostly go back to was how rough it was and how that made some of the family so sick that they had to have an injection. The baby and 4 year old got really sick. Personally even with medication I felt unwell. Going forward for the money spent and the experience I don’t think our family would sail to Tasmania or try sailing to New Zealand again. I know we might have just been unlucky but my vision of spending days on deck enjoying it and swimming and having fun outdoors like other Disney cruises didn’t happen and we have done an Alaskan cruise and the weather was better.
We have another cruise in January but this time it’s going north so hopefully that will be better.
We did not get sea sick at all during the sailing (perhaps we were on the same sailing, the first cruise out of Sydney) We felt the same as you. We have always been a big supporter of
DCL and raved about it to friends and family. While we enjoyed ourselves during this last cruise, we didn't love it. A few reasons I think we felt this way were:
Food Limitations - Due to allergies, we found the food options very limiting. In the MDRs, they weren't willing to adjust many meals or offer any alternatives. We were given pasta without sauce, salad never had any dressing - it was just dry. Despite ordering the night before, our meals frequently took 90 minutes to complete and due to deck parties every night, we were often racing to get a good spot. Room Service refused to offer us anything after 11pm as the 'allergy chef' finished before this. It was frustrating and we often found ourselves quite hungry. This is quite different to the previous sailings we have been on as the Chef, Servers and Head Server had always been willing to work with us.
Characters - We are huge on character meet and greets. If a character is meeting, we are likely meeting them on board. We would often go from character to character to character. Due to the significant wait times for characters (anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours), that made it impossible on this cruise. The characters is one of the main reasons we adore the cruises but one day we spent around 4 hours in line to for 3 character meet and greets (Princess Gathering, Spiderman and Goofy) . It was just too long even for us to justify. Also due to the deck parties, characters usually had their last meet and greet set by 7:30pm, compared to the other ships where they often meet until 10:15pm
Deck Parties/Evening Entertainment - We really hated the nightly deck parties. Not only were they creating a 'rush' from the dinner to the deck party, it also meant the adult nightly entertainment couldn't start until much later. On other ships, we have had the adult activities start by 10:30pm, whereas on this cruise most nights it wouldn't start until 11:30pm. The clubs were often quite empty after the deck parties as many people simply went back to their cabins with the kids after the parties had ended.
No 'down time' - While we were choosing to participate in various activities while on board, we felt there was very little 'down time'. Between the endless long lines for the characters, nightly deck parties, dinner which always took overly long (we had never had dinner take longer then 45 minutes to an hour before), it felt there wasn't much time to simply relax on board. You constantly felt like you had to 'be somewhere else'.
The cruise was very different compared to DCL overseas and while we had a good time, we were left overly disappointed compared to how experience in the past. We are going again in February and we hope things have been improved by then.
watching waves crash over the port holes on deck 3 was amazing. 
