Stateroom 5022 on the Disney Dream

We have now sailed on three Disney ships—The Wonder, The Magic, and most recently, The Dream.  We have had category 6, 7, and 8 staterooms with category 6 and 7 having verandahs.  On our cruise on the Disney Dream, we booked a category 8a stateroom, specifically, stateroom 5022 and were pleasantly surprised by our accommodations.  I had a hint before our cruise that we might enjoy our stateroom—click here to read more.

There are 12 category 8a staterooms on the Dream, all featuring a similar layout on decks 5 and 6.  They are staterooms 5022, 5020, 5018, 5518, 5520, 5522, 6012, 6014, 6016, 6510, 6512, and 6514. 

The husband warned me not to tell you about these staterooms.  He wanted me to keep them a secret, but I couldn’t resist.  The reason he wanted me to keep quiet?  These rooms are huge!  No more turning sideways to get from one side of the room to another or bumping your leg on the bed.  We are talking plenty of room for moving around and luggage.  We had our bags on the floor in various locations and still had extra room.  We also spent more time looking at the ocean out of our great windows than we ever did on a verandah.

Let’s get started with the tour:

When you enter, you see the queen sized bed with two night stands, a flat screen TV, and a large port hole window with built in seat.  This looks like a typically stateroom, but wait, there's more!

Then you turn to the left and notice that there's another section of the room.  A couch that turns into a bed, a chair, another chair at the desk/vanity unit, and a coffee table trunk for more storage.

The picture above is the wall unit opposite the couch.  The refrigerator is below the desk on the right hand side.  There are drawers and cupboards.  Note:  The hairdryer is in one of the drawers in a cloth bag and is plugged in at the vanity here with the mirror.  There is a special plug in labeled hair dryer.  There's an additional TV, light switches, etc.  You can even see the other portion of the stateroom from here.

The door on the left is if you book connecting staterooms.  We did not, so this was excellent floor space for luggage.  We didn't unpack this cruise, as we had all of our clothes for our trip to Walt Disney World with us, too.  It was easier for us to live out of the suit cases for our stay.

The door in the far back of the picture is the door back out to the hallway and the other door is to the bathroom.  No split bath in this room, but we were just fine with the 3 of us.

Remember to step up when entering the bathroom.  The shower to the left and the toilet.

Here's the sink and mirror.  The white rectangle above the toilet is the button for flushing!

These are the shelves to the right of the sink.  We did unpack our toiletries and there was plenty of shelf space in the bathroom.  There's even another shelf above the toilet and towel rack.  We love the H2O bath products and our stateroom host, Shaun, made sure we were well stocked.  We brought a supply home with us!

You can barely see the full length mirror on the inside side of the bathroom door.

The bathtub/shower was roomy.  The shower curtain is on a curved rod which gives even more room.

Back out to the stateroom.  There's a double closet with shelves.  The stateroom safe takes up a shelf in the closet on the other side.

Here's a video tour of our stateroom when we first boarded the ship:

Okay, so I wasn't exaggerating about the size.  It's huge!

There are/were some cons:

• It only sleeps 3.  Our stateroom host did tell us about a family that booked the connecting stateroom 5020, opened the door between the rooms and Disney added a roll-away bed, making room for 7 between the two staterooms.
• You are near Vibe, the teen hangout.  While we didn't hear music or anything from Vibe, the door to Vibe is just underneath/outside the stateroom on deck 4.  We could sometimes hear the door slamming and the festivities outside of the entrance to Vibe on deck 4, but we didn't hear anything in Vibe.  This wasn't enough noise to keep us up at night or anything, but was worth mentioning.
• One thing I thought was going to be a con was that fact that based on the deck plan for the Dream, guests can't go from forward to midship to aft on the deck.  That is not true!  There was a great hallway on our side of the ship that allowed for walking from forward to midship to aft, which was great for access to the Buena Vista Theater, the Lobby Atrium, and the Kids' Club.  The hallway only goes through on the port side of the ship, which is the side our stateroom was located.

We enjoyed this stateroom so much that we re-booked it for our next cruise on the Disney Dream.  Then the husband tried a little trick, as suggested by Chris at the Future Cruise Sales Desk.  The husband took a small post-it note, as provided by Chris, and placed it on the top of one of the shelves in the closet.  We're wondering if the post-it will still be there when we return in December of 2012.  We'll keep you "posted!"

Update on January 6, 2013:  We stayed in stateroom 5022 on the Disney Dream during our December 23 - 28, 2012 sailing.  One of the first things the husband did when we entered the room, was to look for the post-it note.  Unbelievably, the post-it note was in the same place.  Here's the video:

We enjoyed this room so much, again, that we have now booked stateroom 5022 on the Disney Fantasy in July of 2014 for our next and 6th Disney cruise.

The explanation for the post-it note may be that it was attached to the "top" or "roof" of the shelf and would be hard to reach and see, and most likely, the roof of the shelf isn't cleaned or dusted.  Our stateroom was very clean, minus a few spots on the ceiling near the connecting door.

Our Castaway Club gift was this backpack which included a 

key chain

 and some snacks.

As always, let us know what you find and your thoughts of this particular category of stateroom on the Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy.