Swimming In The Mickey Pool On Disney Cruise Line

One of the amazing features of any cruise ship is the pools. Disney Cruise Ships provide plenty of pools to be amazed by. . . adult only pools, the Goofy pool with its retractable covering, the crew pool, and the Mickey Pool. This post is dedicated to the Mickey pool onboard the Disney Wonder and Disney Magic.

Many of you readers may already know that we have experienced three Disney cruises and are about 10 months away from our 4th Disney cruise on board the Disney Dream. On each of our three cruises, the Mickey pool has been a spot for fun and relaxation.

Know that the Mickey pool can get quite crowded, especially on “sea” days. We have found that hitting the pool shortly after boarding or early in the morning gives you plenty of less crowded time in the pool and shorter waits for the slide. We just pack swimsuits in our carry on bags, so we can change right after eating lunch after coming onboard. (This is important to do, as your luggage may not arrive at your stateroom until late afternoon.)

One of the draws to the pool is the slide. The 2-story high bright yellow slide held by one of Mickey’s hands is on every kid’s must do list. The boy is no exception.

The “face” portion of Mickey is the main swimming area with two depths. The pool has a 1 ft depth and another that is about 2 feet deep.

Mickey’s two ears act as shallow portions of the pool. Think of them as mini hot tubs. Before the “diaper” splash zone was built just on the other side of the slide, one of the ears was reserved for children in swim diapers. Now the whole pool is for kids without swim diapers.

It was interesting to watch some parents on our last cruise at the Mickey pool regarding the swim diaper issue. While the signs are posted that lifeguards are not on duty, there are a couple of crew members that man the slide—top and bottom. It is also posted that any children in swim diapers must use the splash zone behind the slide. The crew member at the bottom gets to tell parents that if their child has swim diapers, they must use the splash zone on the other side of the slide—this means no swimming in the Mickey pool. Remember, I wrote that swimming in the Mickey pool is a must do for most kids? Well, it must also be a must do for some parents, too. The moms, yes, mostly moms, would argue with the crew members. When the crew wouldn’t give in to the demands, the moms would whip the swim diapers off their kids and the kids would go about swimming. The moms would complain and argue the rest of the time. So much for a happy, relaxing vacation?!?

The Mickey pool is also in a very convenient location to get food and drink. The drink station is just steps away. Fruit, ice cream, sandwiches, and pizza are also within steps. I remember on our second cruise, the boy swimming for a bit and then telling us he was hungry. Within 2 minutes we had a cup of milk, a bowl of strawberries, and 2 slices of pizza for him to eat. All of it included with our cruise. That is one thing I tell people considering a Disney cruise that have small children. . . there is no easier place to feed your kids. I mean, I couldn’t have whipped up the pizza, strawberries, and milk in two minutes at our house. Easy!

Now that the boy is a bit older, he still enjoys the Mickey pool, but we have backed off a bit. We can now find deck chairs on deck 10 while is in the pool on deck 9. He knows where we are and we can see him in the distance. All good. One day during our last cruise, he chose not to swim, saying that the pool was too crowded. He decided to go to a movie with his dad and the kids’ club instead. Again, so easy!

The only other drawback to the Mickey pool is that if your family has children of multiple ages, it could be difficult to use both the Mickey pool and Goofy pool and feel like you were supervising your children at the same time. Disney is addressing this issue in the new ship, the Dream, by having both pools together on the same deck. There will still be a splash zone for those children in swim diapers with a Nemo and friends theme. The boy is worried that he may be too tall or too big to check it out. We can’t wait to check out the design and the pools!