Categories: TRAVEL

Disney Dream: The Aqua Duck

The Disney Dream is the new ship in the Disney fleet of cruise ships. The Disney Dream is less then 6 months old. As you can imagine being a new ship it has many special and new features. One of the most popular and publicized features that the Disney Dream has is the brand new Aqua Duck water roller coaster. If you have not been on the Disney Dream then you may be wondering if the Aqua Duck is all its quacked up to be. You will have to read on to find out.

You are now probably wondering what exactly a water roller coaster is and what the Aqua Duck is. A water roller coaster is a water ride that does not just go down hill but also uses jets of water to push passengers up hill as well. On a water roller coaster you can go down hills and then back up hills to go down again. The Aqua Duck is the first time that such a ride has been put on a cruise ship. So far the Aqua Duck is the only water roller coaster on a cruise ship. Disney seems to be very proud of their new ride on the Disney Dream.

The water roller coaster has been around for a little while now at water parks. The novelty of the Aqua Duck is that it is on a ship and that it even goes out over the side of the ship. Not only does it go over the side of the ship but a majority of the ride is in a clear tube so you can see everything while you are riding.

Disney really is trying hard to sale guests on the Aqua Duck. The stores on board the Disney Dream have shirts with the Aqua Duck and many other Aqua Duck merchandise is also available. I was surprised they did not have a on ride picture for sale at the end but I imagine they will as soon as they figure out where to put it so it wont get wet. Disney not only mentions it before the shows when asking audiences about their day but they even make mention of it in some of the monologue in the shows.

Most of the time the Aqua Duck has a huge line. From what I hear the Aqua Duck averages a 30 minute wait. On the day at sea the wait gets even longer. The trick I found is to ride the Aqua Duck on the day at Castaway Cay. From the top of the Aqua Duck you will get a great view of the island and when I went on it I only had a 5 minute wait.

Kids seem to love the Aqua Duck for some reason. I rode it once after waiting only 5 minutes and I think I might have waited to long even then. The ride is not like any water roller coaster I have been on. The Aqua Duck is slow and reminds me of a lazy river. The Aqua Duck is not a thrill ride and they should not call it a water roller coaster, even calling it a kiddie coaster would be more realistic.

One other problem with the Aqua Duck is that it is not open all the time. This is understandable as the pools are not open all the time either. However one major problem is that the Aqua Duck does have certain hours that it is supposed to be open and at least twice it did not stay open as late as it was supposed to be. It is possible that this is because of mechanical reasons perhaps they have some problems with it. There was one other time during the day when the Aqua Duck was down too during the day.

If you have young kids then they will love the Aqua Duck. I think that this love of the Aqua Duck has more to do with Disney’s hard sale on it and other kids thinking its cool as opposed to it really being cool. Perhaps growing up in LA with lots of theme parks with great thrills jaded me but even as a child I would have not been impressed by the Aqua Duck. But it does appear that my opinion is not in vague on the Disney Dream. If you do have to go on the Aqua Duck like I had to make sure to not go on the day at sea. You should also make sure to ride the Aqua Duck early because it might close earlier then it is supposed to.