{"id":5804,"date":"2011-01-05T01:03:39","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T09:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=5804"},"modified":"2011-01-05T01:03:39","modified_gmt":"2011-01-05T09:03:39","slug":"disney-dream-new-cruise-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=5804","title":{"rendered":"Disney Dream Day at Port Canaveral"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for anything Disney, and not just because three little Dunns trekked their parents around both the Florida and California theme parks and almost always came away with souvenir sweatshirts because “it got cold.”<\/p>\n

The three little Dunns all grew up and one of them, Lerrin, realized his “Disney dream” by working at the Epcot Center<\/a> in Orlando. When he came home, he had a bride-to-be (Kim) with him\u2026so it was a double Disney Dream.<\/p>\n

How could we not have a soft spot for Disney?<\/p>\n

The news out of Florida yesterday was about a very different “Disney Dream<\/a>.” This one carries almost 5,500 people \u2014 4,000 of them passengers who will be sailing 3-and-4-day \"\"<\/a>trips to the Bahamas once it opens for business three weeks from today. At daybreak yesterday, the new ship sailed into its new home, Port Canaveral<\/a>, amid temperatures of 72 degrees and cloudy skies. Even Disney couldn’t blow the clouds away.<\/p>\n

It’s been almost 12 years since anybody smashed a bottle of magic dust on the hull of a Disney cruise ship. So, where’s a new one been all these years?<\/p>\n

Most recently, it’s been in Papenburg, Germany, under construction for nearly two years at Meyer Werft<\/a>, arguably the world’s most prolific shipbuilding yard. Disney didn’t take the step of committing to expand its fleet of two (Magic<\/a> and Wonder<\/a>) until 2007, realizing if the company was going to be a serious contender in the cruise industry, two ships weren’t enough.<\/p>\n

On January 26, when the Dream officially becomes a player, Disney’s passenger capacity will explode like theme-park fireworks on New Year’s Eve.<\/p>\n

By 83 per cent.<\/p>\n

The Magic and Wonder, both 10 decks tall, carry 2,400 passengers each. The Dream has 14 stories and carries 4,000. When its clone, the Fantasy<\/a>, arrives in April 2012 Disney<\/a> will add another 4,000 passengers. In 15 months, its capacity will grow from 4,800 to 12,800.<\/p>\n

Or, by 267 per cent.<\/p>\n

As crowded as its theme parks can be, that’s too many ships in the same place, even for Disney. The Wonder’s going west to \u2014 what a surprise! \u2014 Los Angeles<\/a>. It begins Mexican Riviera cruises this month and heads for Alaska in the spring. When the Fantasy arrives, that will complete this stage of the cruise line division’s “Disney Dream” and they’re sure it will be worth the wait.<\/p>\n

Just ask our son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for anything Disney, and not just because three little Dunns trekked their parents around both the Florida and California theme parks and almost always came away with souvenir sweatshirts because “it got cold.” The three little Dunns all grew up and one of them, Lerrin, realized… Continue reading Disney Dream Day at Port Canaveral<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,25,31,19,15],"tags":[86,35,28,48,151,253],"class_list":["post-5804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-people","category-ports","category-ships","category-stories","tag-cruise-ships","tag-cruises","tag-disney","tag-disney-dream","tag-new-cruise-ships","tag-port-canaveral","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}