The new Disney Dream is fresh out of her first ever dry dock with many new enhancements, one being an all new Disney Infinity interactive video game area in the Oceaneer Club. The Disney Infinity area is located in the room on the immediate left as you enter the Oceaneer Club.
Since the launch of the Disney Dream, this space had been the Monsters Inc. room.
The room’s ceiling and walls are white, it gives off a sterile laboratory vibe or better yet — Animator’s Palate, but quickly comes to life with dynamic lighting painting the blank canvas. One wall features a large HDTV with a life-size Disney Infinity base on the floor allowing children to interact with the game on screen.The interactive experience is reminiscent of the Becoming Ironman experience on the Disney Magic where you are shown on the screen with overlays of the particular character. By moving around, you control your character on the screen.
The other three walls of the room have individual X-box stations set up to play Disney Infinity. The space is fully stocked with all the Disney Infinity characters which are stored in a nice locked, glass display case that will require constant Windex-ing.
When a child requests to play with a specific character, the figure is swapped out by a Youth Activities Counselor. The Disney Infinity figure is placed on the base in a locked box located at each game station to limit the spreading of germs from all the kids handling the figures. It is not obvious by looking around the room, but there is a back stock of Disney Infinity figures in the game station cabinets in the event more than one child wants to play the same character.
In the back corner of the room, is a Disney Infinity big figure of a Disney Cruise Line ship with Mickey Mouse at the helm.
This display area even has a version of Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy.
Below is a video walkthrough of the Disney Infinity space aboard the new Disney Dream. The video includes a look around the Disney Infinity room, a segment showing how the figures are changed out and the beginning of the interactive game play mode using the life size Disney Infinity base built into the floor.
The gift shops have some Disney Infinity merchandise available. Remember when Disney announced there would be some unique Disney Cruise Line unlockables for use at home during the D23 Expo? Well, Disney found a way to sell more Oceaneer Bands because the Oceaneer Bands is the key to unlocking the Disney Cruise Line ship at home. We do not have Disney Infinity, so I am unable to test this out for ourselves. If you have an Oceaneer Band and the latest version of Disney Infinity, throw it on the base to unlock the Castaway Cay Toy Box. Thanks to Veive TwoFiftySeven for this screenshots of the Disney Infinity Disney Cruise Line Special Access Toy Box in action!
The cruise terminal parking garage.
The interior of the Port Canaveral cruise terminal is included with a Disney Infinity ship model in place of the Disney Magic.
Once onboard you can explore the Disney Dream’s atrium, upper decks and other areas.
The Disney Cruise Line Special Access Disney Infinity Toy Box includes Castaway Cay, a perfect place for Hulkbuster to run around.
I would also expect a rash of adults with older kids, or none at all looking for a way to acquire a Oceaneer Band to unlock the special Disney Cruise content at home. In fact, DCL here is a free idea… Sell something in the gift shops for those who do not have kids between 3 and 12 that can get an Oceaneer Band.
The Disney Dream’s Oceaneer Club’s Disney Infinity play area should make for an awesome and memorable cruise experience for the target demographic. Our daughter enjoyed the space and found playing with other kids to be really fun (and this is from a child who maybe plays our Wii six times a year if that).
I will admit I was a bit harsh on the Disney Infinity area in my day 1 trip log. The Disney Infinity area was extremely popular with kids. Each time I stopped in the Oceaneer Club to pick up my daughter, there were kids waiting for their turn at one of the game station’s controllers. However, there is no doubt in my mind this new space will be a great marketing tool for Disney Infinity and I would expect that Disney Cruise Line will see some added sales each cruise with an increase in Oceaneer Band sales.
Any way my 14 year old an take advantage of the Disney infinity area? Maybe during the open house hours???
During open house anyone can go in any play.
Any idea how often the open house hours are? My son will be just turning 14 (he’s a little on the immature side) and is so upset if he has to miss this stuff.
There is always an open house on embarkation day. You will need to look at the schedule on the personal navigator for the open house times on your sailing.
The Edge and Vibe also have “invade the club” opportunities as well where the older kids can go into the Oceaneer Club after it has closed for the younger kids. My 11 year old son just did this on the 30 November 4 night sailing on the Dream. It was a late night but he had fun.
Scott, thanks for taking us along. You never dined in the main dining room? Was it just because you did Remy and Palo? Did you miss it?
You are not the first to ask this question. I may need to do a full write up. Primarily it was because 3 of the 4 days we went to Palo or Remy. This is our second Dream cruise skipping the MDRs and I loved it.
The ship is no doubt a floating marketing tool on its own (not that I mind…) but I appreciated having an area on board that was designed for younger kids to just play and interact with one another. No video game consoles, no products being sold, no isolated children staring at a screen all day.
Also, to me it seemed odd to dedicate an entire space around a video game since the shelf life of many video games is several years at best since kids get bored and move on. As popular as Disney Infinity is now it may lack the long term appeal of something like Pokemon which allows kids to collect, interact and play in a number of different and arguably more affordable ways (that another cruise line hasn’t jumped on a Pokemon experience is a bit of a mystery).
Time will tell, of course, but I suspect that in several years this space will receive yet another makeover with an interactive experience that has much broader appeal.
I don’t think you were too harsh about the infinity area. I don’t want my kids playing with electronics or video games at all so not thrilled about the new area. Mostly I’m sad monster’s Inc is gone, my son is a big fan.
We do not have video games at home and almost all of our friends’ kids also do not have video games at home. We really liked the kids clubs as they were. Also, our kids hate star wars. We have tried to get them to watch it but they say turn it off. Where does this leave us? It seems like they are trying to appeal to one “type” of kid and not all kids.
Just this morning cancelled a 4 night cruise on the dream for August 2016 because we are just not sure we want our young children exposed to that much gaming.
My family just got off the 30 November 4 night Bahamian Cruise on the Dream. I was really impressed with the entire look of the refreshed Oceaneer Lab. Though we do have Infinity 3.0 at home, my son (11) and daughter (8) focused more on the live activities that the club offered. My 8 year old daughter did play on the ship’s Infinity setup during one 30 minute challenge period, but never went back to it though she spent more time in the club and lab than our previous 3 cruises.
My son spent most of his club time in the Edge and while there did a nice balance between its video game offerings and activities like bingo, sports deck fun, four square, etc.
As for the magic band, it does unlock cool stuff on your infinity console. However, as I and my kids are not avid gamers, I had to do some research to actually get the unlock to work for our Xbox based infinity setup. I had to adjust my son’s Xbox live “Share stuff people make” privacy setting to “everybody”, have my son create a Disney account, link my son’s Disney account to his Xbox live account, sign into the Disney account and then follow the steps on the link below:
http://help.disney.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/Special-Access-Toy-Boxes-MagicBands
Took more work than anticipated but the unlocked items are way cool.
This was our 4th Disney cruise and now have sailed on every ship. Having now sailed the Magic and Dream shortly following their drydock periods, it looks like Disney will update the clubs periodically to keep up with kids’ interests. Disney Cruise Line has certainly kept my kids interest and they already want to go back!