Disney Dream – Wheelchair Access Report

By Guest Blogger Terry W.

My daughter Anne and I were passengers on the Disney Dream’s first regular 4-day cruise, from January 30 to February 3rd.

We stayed in a standard inside stateroom, category 11, just as we do when we sail on the Wonder and the Magic. We were thrilled with many improvements to wheelchair access.

Here are some things people in wheelchairs will be happy to find. And a few things that still cause problems.

Staterooms

1. The staterooms for people with wheelchairs are at the elevator-end of hallways now instead of at the far end. YEA!!! you don’t have to navigate past the carts every time you go back to your stateroom to use the bathroom!!!!

2. The staterooms with roll-in showers also have automatic doors now. Very cool. Allows for more independence. They open when you tap your ‘key to the world’ card on the entry pad from the outside and when you push the door open button from the inside. Like the other Disney ships, the Dream continues to have wide doors and room for wheelchairs to turn around once you get into the room.

3. The higher beds in all the staterooms worked well for me as a caretaker of a person who needs help dressing and transferring to the wheelchair. I didn’t have to lean over so far and the strain on my back was less on the Dream. But warning for people who are used to having the beds split so they can work from both sides. The beds don’t split on the Dream.

4. The roll-in showers on the Dream have better drains; they have added a center drain as well as the drain around the edge of the shower area. This will prevent overflow and soaking of the bathroom floor when the drains can’t keep up with the shower flow. The bathrooms continue to be well-designed for wheelchair users to transfer to toilet and shower chairs. There is enough room for personal care assistants to help. The counter areas are bigger, which is a help for all the stuff you have to have on hand.

5. Storage in the stateroom on the Dream was less than the Magic. This is partly made up for by the higher beds, which allow you to roll your suitcases under the beds… so you can leave things in the suitcases and get to them more easily. But a person in a wheelchair will miss having storage in reach. There is one really good new feature in the closet. There is a pull down hanging rod so that a person in a wheelchair can hang up and retrieve clothes on hangers!

6. Unfixed from the Magic to the Dream: there are not enough places to plug in your equipment at night in the stateroom. It is a must to bring a plug strip with you if you have to charge a power wheelchair, a speech device, your camera, your iPad etc. over night.

Public areas:

1. Several doors from the elevator lobbies have motion sensor openings and open to let you in/out to the decks without you having to open the doors.

2. Theater seating in both theaters is VERY much better. A person in a wheelchair may now sit in the front, middle or back of the theaters. This is exciting, especially in the Walt Disney Theater, where many of the shows have stuff coming down from the ceiling. Getting to the front and middle level seats in the WD Theater does require a host to assist you; you have to go through a crew area, on special elevators, and though some water tight doors at the front of the ship. The host has to call the officer on the bridge and arrange to have the doors released when the person in the wheelchair is coming through. After the shows you have to wait for a host to come help you back out. But it is really worth it!!

3. Dining Rooms are very tight. It seems to us that a person in a wheelchair can only sit on the main aisle. For our cruise, the table assignment took this into consideration. I hope every guest in a wheelchair will book a wheelchair access room so the team that assigns tables will have the party schedule for the aisle. When you go to breakfast or lunch at one of the main dining rooms, you have to request an aisle table.

4. Cabanas, for casual dining was much easier to navigate with a wheelchair than Topsiders on the Magic, with more tables and much wider spaces around the food serving areas. The tables are packed a little tight, but the hosts can find good ones.

5. Bathrooms in the public areas have very large ‘assist’ cubicles within them. The size of these is excellent. However, I think the solution is not as good as the family/assist bathrooms in the public areas on the Magic and Wonder. Two drawbacks are that only the same gender person can go with the person to be assisted and to get there you have to pass through two doors rather than only one.

6. Hallways in the public areas of the Dream are much wider and do not have as many obstructions. It was always hard to get through deck 3 and 4 on the Magic and Wonder. Getting from restaurants and activity areas on the Dream was much easier.

For people in wheelchairs, any Disney resort or Disney ship is a pleasure compared to the rest of the world. It was great to see that the Dream has incorporated most of the good things from past designs and taken access even farther. We were thrilled with it and look forward to the Fantasy! Please share any of this information that you thing other people will find useful.

Best wishes from a Disney fan
Terry W