After many delays, much hype, and even cruising on another Disney ship, we finally made it aboard the Disney Wish. In this post, I’m going to review our 3-night Bahamas cruise aboard the Disney Wish—Disney’s newest (as of publication) cruise ship and the first in the “Wish” class of ships that will see two more ships debut in the coming years. Read on to learn about our first time aboard the Disney Wish!
Contents
About This Post
Our Disney Wish Cruise Experience
About this Post
I’m relatively new to writing about cruises and haven’t quite figured out the best way to break everything up. This post is a bit lengthy, and I try and touch on every aspect of the cruise I experienced—from booking to debarkation—without wasting too much breath. Feel free to skip past the “booking” section if you really just want to hear about the time on the ship, for example. If you don’t have kids, you probably don’t need to hear my strained analysis of the kids clubs.
Booking and Pre-Cruise
The first part of this post is everything before we get onboard the ship. This includes booking the cruise, activity booking, online check-in, and our travel arrangements between home and Port Canaveral.
Picking Our Disney Wish Cruise
FYI: if you’re new to Disney cruising and want to learn more, we have a Guide to Picking the Best Disney Cruise.
Our loyal fan might remember that we were actually booked for one of the first cruises scheduled on the Disney Wish. However, the ship was delayed, resulting in a generous future cruise discount that we used for an Alaska Cruise aboard the Disney Wonder.
Zoe loved our time on the Wonder so much that we decided to prioritize finally getting on the Disney Wish. The Wish currently does 3-night weekend itineraries to Nassau and Castaway Cay and 4-night weekday itineraries to Nassau and Castaway Cay (plus a day at sea). We opted for a 3-night itinerary on Easter weekend.
Easter weekend comes with high flight, cruise, and hotel pricing, but we try and work around Zoe’s daycare schedule as much as possible.
One related downside of choosing this weekend was that it was blacked out from using our onboard booking reservation we’d made on the Wonder. This placeholder gets you 10% off a future cruise. We’ll be able to use it in the future (it’s good for 2 years), so this wasn’t a big loss.
Booking and Pricing for Our Trip
We booked through our travel advisor, Lauren Quirk of Travel With Character LLC. Our costs for the cruise came out to:
One Adult - $1,410
Second Adult - $1,410
Child - $933
Taxes, Fees, and Port Expenses - $334
Prepaid Gratuities - $131
Grand Total - $4,218
Flights cost us another $1,043. We also chose to spend a night in the Art of Animation Finding Nemo Family Suites before our trip, costing a whopping $831.
Finally, there’s the issue of getting to and from the port. Port Canaveral is a bit far from both Disney World and Orlando International Airport. We opted for a private car from Art of Animation to Port Canaveral for $243 including gratuity, and the GoPort bus service from Port Canaveral to Orlando International Airport for $90.
This brings the trip cost up to a pretty significant $6,425, or just under my “baseline” estimate for a the cost of a trip to Disney World for a family of four. (And we still spent a little bit more onboard the ship. I plan to cover those expenses in a separate post.) But wait, there’s more.
This cost doesn’t even account for onboard expenses, including some expensive things I expect to get every cruise (like the Shutters photo package). I have a separate post that dives into every dollar we spend on this 3-Day Bahamas cruise, including expenses during our buffer day at Disney World and our coffees, drinks, excursions, etc. on the Disney Wish.
Activity / Port Adventure Booking
There are several things to take care of after booking but before you get on your Disney Cruise.
First, there is activity booking, including Port Adventures (excursions), adult dining, spa services, and more. These will open for booking according to your Castaway Club level (75 days for first-time cruisers, earlier for returning cruisers, confirm your specific booking schedule in advance).
This was our fifth cruise aboard Disney Cruise Line (Zoe’s second). This means we’d completed four so far, so were Castaway Club Silver members and could book these activities 90 days prior to sailing. After this cruise, we became Castaway Club Gold (Emily and I did; Zoe is still silver).
We didn’t plan on any significant excursions this trip. There are two ports on this itinerary—Nassau and Castaway Cay. We didn’t expect to get off the ship at Nassau, and we thought we’d be fine keeping busy on our own at Castaway Cay. We’re also not interested in adult dining, spa service or anything like wine tastings etc.
At the 90-day mark, there was really only one thing we wanted to book—Olaf’s Royal Picnic. Disney’s quick summary of this is: “Delight in a magical summer picnic, designed for Guests age 3 to 12 and featuring Olaf, Anna, Elsa and Kristoff from the beloved Disney movie Frozen!” Zoe is an average Frozen fan, so it seemed like a fun thing to book. (I reviewed Olaf’s Royal Picnic in a separate post.)
I made this booking right at midnight (eastern time) 90 days before embarkation, snagging a 2:30PM time on our Nassau day since we were planning to stay on the ship that day.
The only other thing I had remote interest in considering was a Family Beach Cabana on Castaway Cay. These are incredibly popular. By the time I got around to looking at them 7 minutes after my booking window opened (I wasn’t really thinking about them at the moment), they were fully booked.
I checked repeatedly until embarkation to see if cabana availability popped up. There was a day-or-so window when some adults-only cabanas opened up, but the family cabanas were always fully booked when I checked.
Online Check In and Royal Gathering
Next, we had to complete online check in 33 days (because we’re Castaway Silver) before embarkation. I opted to skip the midnight rush on this one, instead doing my check in around 6AM. This is a bit of an involved process requiring document and photo submission, so you may want to do some preparation ahead of time.
Most important from my perspective is the selection of Port Arrival time. The earliest arrival time available when I checked in was 12PM. I believe the earliest overall is 11AM, so this seemed fine to me.
The last thing we had to do was secure a time for the Royal Gathering princess greeting. This is a bit of an odd duck. It’s a free activity that you must book in advance, but that opens for booking 30 days in advance of your cruise (i.e. not at the same time as other activities).
If you’re a first-time cruiser with Disney, this means the booking schedule conflicts with your online check in. Best I can tell you can book Royal Gathering before completing check-in, just like the other activities. If you’re interested in Royal Gathering, I’d definitely recommend doing this. Online check-in will take you a few minutes anyways, and Royal Gathering can get fully booked quickly.
In any case, one of the reasons we work with a travel advisor is because she’s able to handle things like this. Lauren was able to book us our Royal Gathering at 9AM on the Nassau day, an ideal time for us since it would allow us time for breakfast, and we weren’t getting off the ship this day.
Travel to Orlando and Our Buffer Day
Final boarding for our cruise was set at 4PM Friday, which meant that if everything went right we could have just taken a Friday morning flight and then a car to the port. This, of course, is never recommended if you can avoid it.
We’ve done the morning flight before with just Emily and me, but that’s because we were confident with two adults coming from major airport on a 6AM flight, we’d be able to find a backup option in time if absolutely necessary. You can also get more aggressive, keeping an eye on weather in advance of your trip and preparing to change your flight to a day earlier if things look dicey.
But with Zoe in tow, that’s all less viable, so we went with the safer option of flying in Thursday. We flew in to Orlando the day before our cruise on a mid-morning flight, allowing us an afternoon at Hollywood Studios.
As a quick aside, there are more convenient options for your “buffer” night than the Disney hotels. The airport is closer to Port Canaveral than the Disney hotels are (by about 20 minutes), so you could just stay at the Hyatt Regency in the airport, for example (there are also plenty of shuttles between the airport and Port Canaveral for you to take the next morning).
Alternatively, you could stay at any number of hotels close to Port Canaveral. This condenses all your major transit into one day (home -> your airport -> MCO -> Port Canaveral hotel), allowing you a more straightforward embarkation day.
But getting in the Disney spirit for an extra day is great, and if you have an annual pass (we all do) or don’t mind the cost of a single day ticket, it’s nice to squeeze in some park time.
I spent the morning booking / modifying / stacking Lightning Lanes at Hollywood Studios, allowing us a full afternoon. Zoe got to experience Rise of the Resistance for the first time (but had to stand up perfectly straight for every height check), and I squeezed in a nice 5-mile run around Hourglass Lake the next morning.
We’d scheduled a noon port arrival time, but I planned for us to be there safely by 11:30AM, with a 10:15AM hotel pickup. Disney has buses that can transport you from your hotel to Port Canaveral, but they’re not cheap and you won’t be as in control of your schedule.
You also might Uber, but with Uber Car Seat availability sometimes spotty we decided to have Lauren book us a private car with a car seat. This meant we didn’t have to bring our own car seat (we took Mears Connect from MCO to Disney World and a bus from Port Canaveral back to MCO), which was really nice.
Port Canaveral and Boarding
This was our first time checking in at Port Canaveral in years. We were dropped off right by the entrance to the Disney terminal, and porters were on hand to grab the luggage we’d tagged with the luggage tags that had come in the mail some weeks before.
This luggage gets delivered to your stateroom “by about 4PM” (according to the porter), but basically you shouldn’t part with anything you think you’ll absolutely need before dinner. Our bags actually weren’t even delivered all together—I found Zoe’s a few rooms down the hall later in the evening.
Check-in itself was smooth. Have your documents ready and follow the instructions of the Cast Members. After an 11:30AM drop off we were waiting in the terminal by 11:47AM. The terminal itself is plenty comfortable to wait in.
Happily, our group was quickly called at 11:50AM, putting us on the ship at 11:56AM. As we boarded the ship via the third floor atrium (the “Grand Hall”), Tiana and Prince Naveen waved from above.
Now on their second cruise, Zoe officially has an embarkation routine—go straight to the pool.
Getting to Know the Disney Wish
Next, I’m going to walk through the Disney Wish to give you a sense for the main onboard offerings. I’ll start with an “overview” that quickly discusses most of the ship. Two aspects—the pools and the adult-only area—get larger treatments here. After this section, I’ll move onto more about our specific experiences aboard the ship.
Overview of the Disney Wish
While Emily and Zoe hung out in the pool, I walked around to try and get acquainted with the ship. Some of the items in this overview will get more detailed treatment later, but some things (like laundry and quick service food) will only get mentioned here. If you want to really get a sense for the ship, I’d recommend reading this section with a copy of the deck plans open.
While I’ve sailed the Disney Dream three times, my most recent (indeed, only recent) cruise was our August Alaska cruise aboard the Disney Wonder. The Disney Wonder is much smaller and more straightforward than the Wish. Of course, I was aboard the smaller Wonder for seven nights and the larger Wish for only three, so that plays into it.
In any case, I found the layout of the Wish to be a bit challenging. The bottom line is that the main indoor spaces are on decks 3 through 5 (with the atrium midship 3 through 5) while the main outdoor spaces are on decks 11 through 14. (There are some important indoor spaces on these decks as well, though.)
Unlike the previous ships, Disney gave the Wish only two elevator banks—forward and aft. We didn’t find this to be an inconvenience, but we also have a rule to always take the stairs if we’re going 5 decks or fewer.
Let’s start with decks 3 through 5. Er, actually, we should do deck 2 first. Deck 2 is home to the “it’s a small world” nursery and the Oceaneer Club for kids 3 to 10. If you don’t have kids 10 or under, you’ll have no reason to go to this space unless you want to check it out during Open House hours. (The hallways down here have some cool wall art, FWIW.)
If your little one will be using the Oceaneer Club, you can do drop-off on deck 2 (there are stairs from the Grand Hall on deck 3) or you can drop them off via the slide in the Grand Hall on deck 3. Pickup will always be on deck 2.
I think this specific spot—the drop off for the Oceaneer Club—captures a bit about why the ship is hard (for me, at least) to navigate. I want to mentally organize “deck by deck”, but in this case deck 2 is really more of an extension of deck 3.
Only once did we go directly by elevator to deck 2, and then we had to take some awkward (but well-decorated) hallways to get to the Oceaneer Club. The intuitive way to get to the Oceaneer Club is to go to the deck 3 atrium and take the stairs right next to the slide.
Just off the aft side of the Grand Hall on deck 3 (opposite the Grand Hall stage) you’ll find one of the three rotational dining restaurants—1923. This restaurant is split into two halves (Roy Disney and Walt Disney) on the port and starboard side of the ship.
Heading forward on deck 3, you’ve got four high end stores along the starboard side—Enchanted Castle Jewels, Royal Regalia, Once Upon a Time, 3 Wishes. A fifth, Treasures Untold, is opposite them on the port side.
There’s no dedicated nightlife “district” in the same way as some of the other ships. The port side of deck 3, forward of the Grand Hall, is also where you’ll find two of the main themed bars—Hyperspace Lounge and Nightingale’s. And in the open space in the middle of this area (between the high-end shopping and those two bars) is The Bayou, another bar.
While I think a lot of the organization of the ship is quirky, I have to give major props to the person who decided to put three bars right next to the high end shopping strip.
All the way forward on deck 3 is the main entrance to the Walt Disney Theatre. This is the main theatre onboard for the feature stage shows. There is an accessible entrance on deck 2 and a balcony entrance on deck 4. The deck 3 entrance has the Preludes snack bar outside (both port and starboard), while guests entering the balcony on deck 4 can use the Luna Libations snack bar midship.
Moving up (from deck 3), the deck 4 balcony around the Grand Hall is where you’ll find the Guest Services / Port Adventure desks, along with some seating. The deck 4 and 5 balconies were used a lot for character greetings.
The placement of the Guest Services / Port Adventure desks is a little awkward because you’re meant to queue on one side, but since they’re in an open walkway there’s a lot of foot traffic going both directions.
Forward on deck 4 you’ll find Luna, an entertainment / activity space (with balcony seating on deck 5). Adjacent to Luna is a small bar, Luna Libations.
That bar also serves as the snack bar for the two movie theaters on deck 4 forward—Wonderland Cinema (port) and Never Land Cinema (starboard), and for the balcony seating of the Walt Disney Theatre.
Just aft of the the deck 4 balcony is one of two nearly identical coffee shops / bars, Wishing Star Cafe.
Deck 4 aft is where you’ll find three places to get yourself styled—Hook’s Barbery, Untangled Salon, and Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.
All the way aft on deck 4 you’ll find another one of the rotational dining restaurants—Worlds of Marvel.
Deck 5 finishes up the main indoor space of the ship. The balcony is used for character greetings and has some open seating. On the aft side, you’ll find a Disney Vacation Planning desk, a DVC office, along with a bunch of Shutters (the onboard photo service) kiosks and a Shutters office. You’ll also find Enchanted Sword Cafe, the sister cafe to the aforementioned Wishing Star Cafe (just below it on Deck 4)
Farther aft you’ll find Edge, the tweens club, and the third rotational dining restaurant, Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure.
Deck 5, along the port side of the balcony, is also where you’ll find the ship’s main store—Mickey’s Mainsail. The placement leads to a very long, narrow store that isn’t super fun to navigate. Here’s a look at some of the stuff for sale here:
Forward on deck 5 is the balcony seating for Luna, right next to the Keg & Compass bar and Triton Lounge activity space. Continuing forward past these brings you to the Senses Spa and Senses Fitness Center.
Outdoor portion of the Senses Spa
The above photo actually brings us to another bit of awkward ship design—the shipside promenade. The previous Disney ships all had shipside promenades on these middle decks that wrapped around the outside of the ship. They were sometimes marketed as running paths, though I never found them convenient for that purpose. In any case, they were great for a casual stroll.
The Disney Wish does not have a proper promenade. Instead, the shipside promenade is not a loop, it’s a multi-deck U shape broken into 5 pieces. On either side of deck 4 is a straight strip of promenade, running from about the aft elevator bank to the forward elevator bank.
Heading forward along either side, you can take stairs up to the deck 5 promenade (also accessible from doors on either side of Senses), which is a short straight strip that ends at another set of stairs to the deck 6 promenade.
This is a spacious, actually pretty cool deck area at the front of the ship. It even comes with this super tempting bell you’re specifically asked not to ring:
The few times I came to the deck 6 promenade it was basically empty, which is a good thing because it pretty awkwardly overlooks the outdoor portion of the Senses Spa, as seen in that earlier photo. Why people in a spa would want to bask under balcony spectators is a mystery to me, but Disney must have felt this was what the people wanted.
This wraps up these lower, mostly interior decks of the ship. Before we get all the way up to decks 11 through 14, I want to stop at deck 8. Deck 8 is mostly staterooms, but it also is home to Fairtytale Fresh Laundry. This is a big laundry room adjacent to the deck 8 forward elevator bank.
For toddler-related reasons I won’t go into, we very much needed to do a load of laundry during embarkation day. I loved the setup here. There were plenty of washers and dryers. It was $3 to wash, $3 to dry, and $1 for detergent. Notifications in the app let you know when your loads were done, but in my case these weren’t accurate (setting a timer on my phone worked just fine, though).
Next up, let’s talk about decks 11 through 14…
Decks 11 through 14 contain the bulk of the ship’s outdoor space, along with some important inside spaces. The organization of the ship continues to be a bit tricky here, so I’m going to jump around a bit.
Let’s start with my favorite organizational aspect of the ship (no sarcasm)—the quick service food. This is the only time in the post I’m going to talk about quick service food, so I’ll give a few more thoughts than the rest of this section.
Deck 11 aft of the pool area is home to Marceline Market, the (mostly) indoor quick service restaurant open for breakfast and lunch. Marceline Market also has a great little cafe / lounge inside, along with outdoor seating.
I don’t think Marceline Market offered anything particularly standout, but there was more than enough variety for a 3- or 4-night cruise. We ate breakfast here all three mornings (it’s open on debarkation day). We really enjoyed sitting outside the morning the ship at Castaway Cay, taking in the sight of the island before it was time to go ashore.
We actually found Festival of Foods (discussed next) to be sufficient for our lunches, but I grabbed a quick item or two passing through Marceline Market for lunch one day.
Deck 11 forward of the pool area is home to Mickey & Friends Festival of Foods, an outdoor (but covered) collection of quick service stands each with a unique cuisine (BBQ, Mexican, grill, pizza, plus the soft serve stand and a bar). These stands vary in hours, but you’ll always find at least one option from before lunch time to late night.
I’m a bit obsessive with having good quick service options, so I was very pleased to see the Wish has ample options organized clearly and efficiently on a single deck. Crowding was a bit of a problem during peak hours, I’ll admit, but we were also on a fully booked cruise, and the problem was never so big as to really frustrate me.
I also just wish Disney would find a way to keep all these spots open from 10AM to midnight / 1AM. I think even operating them as “made to order” for certain hours would be acceptable. It frustrates me to no end that you have to look at the hours to see which will be open for dinner / late night, otherwise your lunch might wind up being exactly the same as your dinner if you’re skipping rotational dining.
Also on the inside of deck 11, just outside Marceline Market, are two smaller shops. Inside Out: Joyful Sweets is a candy / sweets shop. Dory’s Forget-Me-Knots is a small shop with some clothing and swim accessories.
I’m going to come back to the outdoor portion of deck 11 (pools, mostly) in a bit. But let’s wrap up the interior of the ship because we’re basically done.
The interior of deck 12 aft features two batches of spaces. Coming from the elevator bank or the outer portion of the ship, you’ll face the choice of going port or starboard. If you go port, you’ll immediately come to The Rose, which is the fanciest bar on the ship. Through The Rose are the entrances to Enchante and Palo, the adult-only, reservation-required restaurants.
I failed to get a picture of the door to The Rose. It was a patterned / distressed metallic look that wasn’t particularly inviting to the untrained eye. This is one of the design “wins” for the ship, and it basically puts the adult only / high end restaurants in a “hidden” area.
But, as with all things on the Wish, the decisions are a little quirky, as they place this door directly next to an area catering to kids, teens, and young adults…
Going starboard on deck 12 aft, you’ve got Vibe (the older teen club), The Hideaway (an extension of Vibe but also sometimes a space for 18-20 year olds), and Hero Zone, an indoor rec center with a basketball court, foosball tables, etc.
This mostly leaves us the outdoor portions of decks 11 through 14, which are sort of just “the pool area.” I’m actually going to move onto more detail about our time aboard the ship next, and I’ll just start with a discussion of pools and then Quiet Cove (the adult only section on deck 13 aft).
We can wrap up this section on layout by mentioning that the concierge area comprises the lounge on deck 12 forward, and the lounge / concierge pool area on deck 13.
Pools, Slides, and Splash Areas on the Disney Wish
There are pools on decks 11, 12, 13, and 14. That sounds like it might be a lot, but it really isn’t. For starters, the pools on deck 13 are the Quiet Cove (adult) and Concierge pools. Deck 14 has only a single small pool, the Chip ‘n’ Dale Pool.
The main pools are those on Decks 11 and 12. These are in the center of the outdoor portion of the ship and comprise two larger (but not large) pools—the Mickey and Minnie pools—with four smaller pools—Donald, Goofy, Daisy, Pluto. Here are the six pools seen from a balcony on Deck 13:
While they did get pretty crowded, the pools ultimately served our needs. Funnel Vision (the giant screen above the number 6 in the above picture) plays movies throughout the day (and into late night).
Most of the pools were 2 feet deep, but Goofy’s Pool and Donald’s Pool were both 54 inches, I believe. If you’re planning a day of poolside lounging, I suggest arriving by about 10AM to grab your seat.
Some of the more family friendly water features—the Toy Story Splash Zone and Slide-a-saurus Rex (38 inch height requirement)—are a bit oddly disconnected from the feature pools, up a deck (on deck 12) and behind Funnel Vision.
This is also where you’ll find Wheezy’s Freezie’s (a smoothie bar) and, up two more decks overlooking the area from deck 14, the small Currents Bar.
The nice thing about this deck 12 forward area was that we found it to be generally less crowded. With deck 14’s small Chip ‘n’ Dale pool also nearby-ish, this is overall a decent spot to make your home base if you have smaller kids. The problem, of course, is that you don’t get Funnel Vision and its movies from this area. Plus the Chip ‘n’ Dale pool isn’t actually adjacent to the area with the splash pad.
Finally, we have to mention the AquaMouse. The AquaMouse is a water slide or, more appropriately “water attraction” on the Disney Wish. It has a 42-inch height requirement, with a 48-inch requirement to ride alone (the tubes seat two; the Disney website says 54 inch, but the sign at the ride said 48-inch, by the way). We didn’t take the time to ride it, but you can find videos of it on YouTube if you’d like to get a sense of what it offers.
Quiet Cove - The Adults Only Section of the Disney Wish
On deck 13 aft, with a small additional sundeck up on deck 14 aft, you’ll find Quiet Cove, the adults only portion of the Disney Wish. While the bars are adults only after 9PM and some activities are adults only, the only full-time adult exclusive spaces on the ship are Quiet Cove and the fine dining restaurants Palo and Enchante.
Quiet Cove has been criticized a lot for its layout, and I have to say I agree with those criticisms. I say this as someone who really doesn’t value adults only spaces at all. It’s not like I had high expectations that weren’t met. I literally just walked through the area to get a sense of it and was sort of surprised at how clunky it was.
The layout of Quiet Cove is basically a J shape around the aft portion of deck 13:
Coming up from the outside portion of deck 12 or from the elevator bank, you’ll see signs prominently telling you this is an 18+ area. This (the top of the “J”, star in the above map) is the only entrance / exit to Quiet Cove. This is good insofar as it limits the issue of families with children “passing through”, which happens on the other ships.
But that intended effect extends to people 18+, too—it really isn’t convenient to just “check out” Quiet Cove. You’ll have to walk from one end to the other and back.
The area starts with a lengthy sundeck with a single, small pool. This specific area is also under a portion of the AquaMouse and pretty close to the center of the ship / Funnel Vision. Some might criticize this, but it’s not as if this is the whole area, and I think this is a good section for adults who want to be in an adults only space without completely leaving the action of the ship.
When you get to the aft of the ship (past more sundeck), you’ll reach Cove Bar, Cove Cafe, and the main pools of the Quiet Cove area.
These pools aren’t particularly big, and there isn’t a ton of seating around the area. As mentioned above, there is the seating closer to midship. There’s also another sundeck up a flight of stairs from the Quiet Cove area:
Since we didn’t spend much time in this area, I can’t say whether there was actually enough space or not. It seemed fine to me. While the seating closer to midship isn’t serene, it was plentiful, and it isn’t as if this area by the bar / pools was serene, either.
The biggest frustration of this one-way design is that Cove Cafe is just about the most remote spot on the ship. This is a presumably intentional departure from the previous ships, where a common complaint was that parents would bring their kids to Cove Cafe when they (the parents) were in search of artisanal coffee. (On all the previous ships, Cove Cafe was literally steps inside the Adults Only section.)
But with the centrally located Enchanted Sword and Wishing Star Cafes on decks 4 and 5, people are hopefully now able to easily get their cold brew fix without a visit to adults-only Cove Cafe.
It is a loss, though. I previously enjoyed popping into Cove Cafe for a quick sit and coffee. This trip, with the cafe a relative hike away, I only visited it as part of my intentional exploration of the ship.
That wraps up the birds-eye view of the ship and our discussion of the pools / adults only area.
Our Disney Wish Cruise Experience
Now we’ll continue on with our experiences onboard, starting with our stateroom. After that, I’m going to just go alphabetically through the following items:
Inside Stateroom on the Disney Wish
At 1:30PM on embarkation day, staterooms were ready. Here’s a gallery of photos (use the arrows to click), followed by a video walkthrough:
Having more recently sailed on the Wonder, I didn’t really notice any significant difference between this stateroom and our Wonder stateroom (I’m sure there are differences, but I just don’t spend much time in the staterooms.)
My only complaint about the room would be that one side of the bed had only a European style outlet with two USB-A ports above it. The other side had two American style outlets, two USB-A ports, and a USB-C port. Just load both sides with outlets so I can charge all my gizmos.
Staterooms are attended to daily by your stateroom host.
Of the five times Emily and I have sailed Disney Cruise Line, four were in inside staterooms and the fifth was our verandah stateroom on the Disney Wonder. If I’m being honest, I have a pretty strong bias toward not overspending on room types at hotels or on cruise ships. I prefer to be outside of the stateroom anyway, so I have no interest in spending more to make my short time in the room slightly more enjoyable.
Even on our 7-night stay aboard the Disney Wonder, I wasn’t convinced of the value of the verandah room. This is all a long way of saying I’m probably not the right person to ask whether an oceanview or verandah room would be worth it. I think the inside staterooms are good, and with so many other places to spend money on your cruise, I don’t feel the need to upgrade here.
Activities on the Disney Wish
Like all Disney Cruise Line ships, the Disney Wish offers a wide range of paid and free activities. Between character greetings, pool time, a full day at Castaway Cay, and other things we’d booked, we didn’t spend much time partaking in the activities (we did one craft as a part of Pirate Night, discussed below, and Emily went to a “Majority Minds” game show). Here are some of the activities:
Crafting
Trivia (Disney Food, Movies, General, Music, etc.)
Portrait / Photo Sessions
Shopping Presentations (“Luxury of Time: Discovery Cartier”)
Spa Demonstrations (“Walk-in Acupuncture: Consultation”)
Beverage Tasting (Whiskey, Beer) ($)
Learn to Draw
Game Shows (“Match Your Mate”)
And here’s a video with a screen recording of the activity schedule from our cruise:
Bars on the Disney Wish
Depending on exactly how you count, you’ll find roughly a dozen bars on the Disney Wish. Several of these, like Currents on deck 14 or Cove Bar in the adults only part of deck 13 are basic pool bars. Others, like Wheezy’s Freezies or Cove Cafe specialize in non-alcoholic drinks (smoothies, coffee, respectively) but have alcoholic versions available.
These sorts of spots aside, there are five bars that you really want to make sure to at least pop into once on the Disney Wish:
The Bayou
Star Wars Hyperspace Lounge
Nightingale’s
Keg & Compass
The Rose
On deck 3, just forward of the Grand Hall, you can’t miss The Bayou. With its proximity to the Grand Hall and open setup, The Bayou always has a pretty lively atmosphere. There’s a small stage where you’ll be able to catch a variety of musical performances throughout the cruise. The Bayou also serves beignets, which makes it a winner in my book.
Off the port side of The Bayou is a “blink and you’ll miss it” entrance to Star Wars Hyperspace Lounge (it’s open, just press the button next to the door). This was one of the more hyped spaces prior to the ship’s launch.
The main gimmick is the screen behind the bar that creates the illusion of being in space. This screen-based approach is also used at Skyline on the Disney Dream and Fantasy, along with Skyline Bar at Disney’s Paris’s Hotel New York — Art of Marvel.
Emily pointed out after her visit that, besides the screen, the space is pretty bare. I sat at the bar and wasn’t too observant (mostly focused on my drink and the screen), so didn’t notice, but she isn’t wrong.
I had the bar’s take on an old fashioned, which came with a Darth Vader ice cube. I’ve found old fashioneds come in a wide range, from “tastes like straight bourbon” to “tastes like straight sugar.” This was definitely on the weaker end of the alcohol range, which is probably find for a Disney cruise ship.
Kids are allowed in the bars until 9PM. Zoe wasn’t interested in the Star Wars aesthetic, so we didn’t spend any time here as a family.
Next to Hyperspace Lounge, just off the Grand Hall, is Nightingale’s. Nightingale’s offers a posh piano bar vibe, though it’s location just off the Grand Hall (indeed, with a view of the Oceaneer Club slide) sort of cuts right through any romantic vibes you might hope for.
We were happy with the drinks, though Emily’s had a “smoke bubble” effect that I’d seen a few hours earlier at Hyperspace Lounge. It’s a bit off to me that the piano bar and the Star Wars bar are both using the same gimmicks.
Two decks up is Keg & Compass, the pub-themed bar. There are plenty of TVs that played a variety of live American sports during our time aboard. In keeping with the tradition of Disney Cruise Line pub bars, there’s also a decent “Pub Grub” menu, complete with plant-based chicken and fish options. I had the plant-based chicken strips one night and loved them, even if they were pretty simply the same strips you’d get at any grocery store.
As I noted earlier, the arrangement of these bars is in contrast to some of the other ships that have a nightlife “district.” Overall I found the setup to be a baffling choice.
It’s not as if the bars are distributed throughout the ship—three of the four main bars are right next to each other anyways. And it’s not like the bars benefit by having their “own spaces.” Other than The Bayou, the bars are all a single, closed off room anyways. In Hyperspace Lounge and Keg & Compass there’s no reason you’d care at all what’s next door.
Nightingale’s is, notably, not its own fully closed-off room. The ostensibly posh lounge has been stuck right off the very loud and busy Grand Hall, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking onto the space (specifically the Oceaneer Club dropoff). (As an aside on Disney Wish design oopsies, there’s also a second set of doors on the Grand Hall side of Nightingale’s, but these are right next to tables and it’s really not clear whether the doors are at all meant to be used, but people kept using them and squeezing through the seating.) Nightingale’s effectively winds up operating as a cramped lobby bar.
But there is a redeeming option—The Rose. The Rose is the bar just outside Palo and Enchante, the adults-only / reservation required dining option on the Wish. With its relatively hidden location on deck 12 aft, it’s a much better option if you’re looking for a nicer atmosphere without the hustle and bustle of the Grand Hall.
Castaway Cay
Castaway Cay is Disney’s private island in the Bahamas. With Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point debuting in 2024, Disney’s Caribbean cruise itineraries will start to be split between these two, so check your itinerary to see which you’re visiting (some itineraries visit both).
Castaway Cay offers a wide range of beach activities and excursions, and it’s incredibly easy to fill your day on the island. The island is worthy of its own post that I hope to write one day, and Google will point you to plenty of people who have covered it in depth. For my part, so far I’ve just written a Complete Guide to Running the Castaway Cay 5K. I’ll talk through our time on the island, but it’s not sensible to go into great deal about everything that’s offered in this section.
Our ship stopped as Castaway Cay on day 3 (the second, or last, full day aboard the ship). It is honestly a bit hard to go and have such a fun day on the island just to get back to the ship and realize you’re leaving in the morning. I woke up early to walk around the ship and get a view of the island.
Ashore time for Castaway Cay was 8:30AM, with aboard time at 4:45PM. Even without a booked excursion, you can fill that time on the island with little difficulty. This is partly why we put the two ship things we did book in advance—Olaf’s Royal Picnic and the Royal Gathering—on our Nassau day.
Setting foot on Castaway Cay at 8:37AM, we made the long-ish walk to the first of two family beaches, having our pick of chairs at 8:51AM. There’s also a tram running if you don’t want to walk (the first tram dropped people off right around when we arrived).
The water was a little chilly, and the main play area on this beach was a little too much for Zoe. The main activities are just to climb on the thing and fall into the water. Tons of fun for older kids, but not the sort of adventure Zoe is into yet.
After about half an hour we decided to move to the second family beach. There’s a good photo spot in between the two:
The second beach has the two water slides and the dumping bucket. Unfortunately, Zoe also didn’t have much love for the slides, and Emily lost her sunglasses going down one.
While they hung out swimming, I decided to run the Castaway Cay 5K and walk around the island a bit. We reconnected just before noon, when lunch was starting to be served.
Castaway Cay lunch is a BBQ buffet. Food is available at three spots on the island, two by the family beaches and one by Serenity Bay, the adult-only beach. They had fake meat burgers available on request (Beyond or Impossible, I don’t remember).
There’s also soft serve available on the island, but it has limited hours. (Not to harp on the same thing over and over and over—but what is going on with Disney that they have to close soft serve stations before 4:30PM? Just let the people eat.)
After lunch we took Zoe to Scuttle’s Cove, the younger kids’ club on the island. We made the mistake of changing them out of their swim clothes before this, but we told them they could get wet if necessary (we found out a few hours later it’s mostly beach / water activities).
Scuttle’s Cove is one of the first things you’ll find walking from the ship to the main part of the island. This is great if you plan on dropping off / picking up right as you get off / head back to the ship. But if you’re making midday trips to/from Scuttle’s Cove, you’ll get in a few extra steps. Zoe had a great time at Scuttle’s Cove, but I can’t speak much to what’s specifically offered. Scuttle’s Cove closed at 3PM the day we were there.
After dropping Zoe off just after noon, Emily and I made the walk to Serenity Bay, the adult-only beach. That’s just under a mile if you walk it directly. With a few stops at stores along the way, it took us about 30 minutes.
Besides encounters with Jack Sparrow, I’m not sure of anything unique Serenity Bay offers. It’s adult-exclusive and relatively remote (no families should accidentally wander through it). You’ll be able to get lunch there, and of course there’s a bar. But most anything else you want to do—shopping, sports, bike rental—is going to be back in the main area of the island. We just grabbed a drink and then walked and talked our way back to Zoe.
We picked Zoe up at 1:30PM and then headed to our one pre-booked activity for the day—bike rentals. I booked the bike rental “Port Adventure” in advance of our trip, but I’ve never heard of them running out of bikes. You can just walk up to bike rental once you’re on the island.
Zoe (40 inches) wasn’t quite tall enough for the smallest bike, and they’re also just a huge fan of the kid seat on the back of the adult bike. Pro tip: don’t let the bike tip backward if you put your kid in the seat before you get on the bike…
Bikes are allows on specific paths on the northern part of the island. You won’t take them back in the direction of the boat. We rode for about 50 minutes, stopping at the main two “highlights” of the bike route, the observation tower:
and a plain lookout spot that’s the farthest north you can access on the island:
Rental is technically for an hour, but this doesn’t seem to be enforced. A standard tour of the bike route should take under an hour. I think it’s reasonable to say if an adult took 75 minutes because they stopped at Serenity Bay for a drink, that’s okay. But if you’re planning a longer trip, you have the tram available if you don’t want to walk.
After our bike ride we decided to spend some time in the shade, at In Da Shade. Here you’ll find things like basketball, billiards, checkers, chess, foosball, and table tennis in a covered space.
We wound up back at the ship just after 3:30PM. My biggest takeaway from our time on Castaway Cay was that I wish we’d sent Zoe to Scuttle’s Cove a little earlier. They wound up only getting to spend about 90 minutes there, and I think having it squeezed into the middle of our day was a bit of a mistake.
Entertainment on the Disney Wish
As with all Disney cruises, there is a ton of onboard entertainment. Various smaller musical performances occur in the bars—primarily Nightingale’s for piano and The Bayou for other acts. There are also the two movie theaters that show newer Disney films most of the day. As always, all the schedules are available in the DCL app once you get to Port Canaveral.
On embarkation day, there’s the Set Sail on a Wish show. This takes place on the Deck 11 stage and features Mickey and co. alongside singing and dancing Cast Members. While I’ve never found the sail away shows to be spectcular, they are “must see” shows simply because they’re entertaining enough and there’s nothing else going on that you can’t make time for later.
The feature entertainment consists of three “Broadway Style” stage shows in the Walt Disney Theatre. These are Disney Seas the Adventure, The Little Mermaid, and Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular, one on each night of the cruise.
We opted to just catch one of these—Disney Seas the Adventure. This show is held on the first night of the cruise and is a shorter show (30 minutes) starring Goofy. Altogether I think Disney did everything right with this show.
It’s a good show that doesn’t stretch your first night any longer than it has to. It’s a great option for families who want to give their young kids a taste of “Broadway style” shows, and after the first night you’ll get a better sense of whether this entertainment makes sense for you the next two nights.
The feature shows are shown twice each night—at 6PM and 8:30PM—so that you can either watch it before dinner (if you have the later dinner time) or after dinner (if you have the earlier dinner time). It also seemed that these shows are transmitted live on the stateroom televisions, if you want to watch from your room.
Zoe—a huge Goofy fan—loved Seas the Adventure, but we passed on the other two shows (8:30PM is still pretty late for us to be starting a show).
Kids Clubs on the Disney Wish
If you’re wondering why this post has taken nearly two months to finish, this section is why. I struggled a lot with how to talk about the kids clubs. The issue is that Zoe did not have a good time at the Oceaneer Club (a huge contrast with the kids clubs aboard the Disney Wonder, which were a massive hit), but it’s up to me to sort of translate Zoe’s complaints-from-a-3-year-old and combine them with my observations into a cohesive message. Here’s my attempt at that.
The bulk of embarkation day (along with the bulk of Castaway Cay day) has open houses at the kids’ clubs—Oceaneer (ages 3-10), Edge (ages 11-14), and Vibe (ages 14-17). There’s also “The Hideaway” which is an extra space adjacent to Vibe that “can be reserved especially for Guests ages 18 to 20” for special events.
Here are quick looks at the older-kids’ clubs, which have games, video games, tvs, and all manner of activities to keep tweens and teens engaged.
Back to the Oceaneer Club. Before I go on, it’s worth remembering this was a full cruise on the very large Disney Wish. My contrasts with our Disney Wonder cruise (a smaller ship, maybe fully booked, but also many, many fewer small kids on an Alaskan itinerary) all sort of have to be taken with a grain of salt. That said, I think it’s reasonable to expect Disney to excel in catering to small children, and I definitely think Zoe’s experience in the Wish’s Oceaneer Club fell short.
We first visited Oceaneer Club as part of the embarkation day open house. During open house hours (mostly on embarkation and Castaway Cay days), the club is open to everyone on board and you are not to leave your kid unattended.
The Oceaneer Club was incredibly hyped before the launch of the ship, with dedicated spaces themed to Star Wars, Marvel, Mickey & Minnie, fairytales, and imagineering.
To some extent, they deliver what you’d expect. The Marvel room is pretty cool and has the interactive games many older kids will love (I heard all about them from a tablemate at dinner). Mickey & Minnie’s Captain Deck is also a great little playground for kids. And Imagineering Lab seems like it’s probably a great activity space.
But the Star Wars: Cargo Bay and Fairtytale Hall areas seemed to just be rooms in search of a purpose. I know there are activities on the schedule that use the spaces, but it’s a shame to waste space on rooms that seemed non-functional except for during organized activities. We tried to make one of the “interactive” screen games in Fairytale Hall work while we were there as a family, but I had no luck.
The amalgam of themed rooms leads to a complicated layout where even adults can’t quite tell what’s offered in any given direction. This is a huge contrast with the kids clubs aboard the Wonder, which were basically large open spaces no one would have trouble navigating.
Our first time dropping Zoe off at the Oceaneer Club started with a hint that things were…not quite the same as we’d experienced on the Disney Wonder. Instead of just being immediately let into the club, Zoe was given a nametag sticker indicating they were in the 3 to 4 age group. The Cast Member at check-in explained this was to help facilitate activities within this age group.
I’m glad that Disney is proactive in making sure 3 and 4 year olds are having a good time, but based on Zoe’s experience, I take this system to be an admission that the Oceaneer Club simply is not well-designed for this age group.
Zoe’s issues were basically threefold. First, they couldn’t find the things from previous visits that they wanted to do again. This makes complete sense, and I already explained that the layout is rather Byzantine. A crowded club also makes for tougher navigation. “Ask for help,” is standard advice, but the limitations on 3-year-old vocabulary have some challenges.
Second, they couldn’t do the things they wanted to do when they found them. The main issue here was a simulated roller coaster machine. Emily had set Zoe up on it during the open house, but Zoe wasn’t able to get help to do it during regular club hours.
On our final visit, Emily asked a Cast Member specifically to take Zoe to it. (They were more than happy to, and I’ll point out this was our only interference in any of this—we encouraged Zoe to attempt problem-solving on their own, but this was supposed to be a vacation, ya know.)
Finally, they had no idea how to find or participate in the guided activities. This is, again, owing to the complex layout of the club. In the open-layout clubs aboard the Disney Wonder, kids simply could not miss an announcement in the middle about some guided activity, and the Cast Members would have no problem making sure kids were encouraged to participate. On the Wish, attempts at corralling kids are no doubt more difficult. We saw multiple activities listed on the schedule, but Zoe was never able to report participating in them or even seeing them.
I could just have left this section as “Zoe didn’t like the Oceaneer Club,” but the details really struck a chord with me. This wasn’t “I didn’t win the games” or “a kid was mean to me”—standard kid problems that would never make this review if they happened. This was “this space is poorly built for me”—a detail that Disney, of all companies, should not get wrong.
I’m confident some people will disagree, and some kids Zoe’s age surely have a fantastic time (and I’m thrilled for them!). It’s easy to write off Zoe’s experience as “some kids don’t do well in this setting,” but, again, Zoe thrived—at 7 months younger—in the Disney Wonder’s clubs. And in any case, I’m also confident that if the space just worked for most 3 to 4 year olds, they wouldn’t have an ad hoc nametag system to begin with.
Meeting Characters on the Disney Wish
Note: You can reach much more about characters in our Complete Guide to Meeting Characters aboard Disney Cruise Line.
On any Disney cruise, you’ll have a lot of options for meeting characters. For starters, I already mentioned above the Royal Gathering princess greeting. This is a free greeting that has to be booked in advance (it opens 30 days before embarkation). Zoe had a great time doing this, and it was a very efficient way to meet five princesses. I’ve separately written about Disney Cruise Line’s Royal Gathering experience here.
I also already mentioned that we paid for Olaf’s Royal Picnic. I’ve written a separate review of Olaf’s Royal Picnic, but it includes a greeting with Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff at the end.
The other greetings we did were all standard greetings. Opening the DCL app you can see the greetings for each day of the cruise (the full activity etc. schedule is available in the app once you get to Port Canaveral and log onto DCL wifi):
Strategies around these greetings—when to arrive, how to fit in as many as possible, etc.—are discussed in that “complete guide” I linked to above.
While character greetings can be very popular, we were surprised to find them less popular on the Wish than on our Wonder trip (perhaps because the larger Wish offers more to do, or perhaps more characters were greeting).
In any case, I still recommend planning to arrive 10 to 15 minutes early for any greetings you really care about. I also want to note there are some themed outfits, like pirate outfits on pirate night. We didn’t track these carefully, so you might want to do further research on them (and arrive super early for these greetings, just in case).
The character greetings have professional photographers to take photos that are available for purchase onboard. I have accepted that I will always wind up buying the full photo package. Knowing this ahead of time, I make sure Zoe prioritizes looking at the professional camera, not mine. That said, I still take some photos because the professional ones occasionally miss cute moments or just don’t come out as well.
Pirate Night on the Disney Wish
Pirate Night is a themed celebration that occurs on the second night of this 3-night itinerary. I believe if you’re on the 4-night itinerary then your dinner that night will be a special “pirate” menu at the rotational dining restaurant you’re doubling up on, but you might want to look into that.
Pirate Night has a few components. First, during the day there were characters in their pirate outfits. We didn’t notice whether these were all day or how long the lines got, but if unique greetings interest you I recommend inquiring with some Cast Members as to the specifics early in the day. (Also, online forums etc. tend to have knowledgable people.)
Then there are two shows on the Deck 11 outdoor stage. The first is the 7:30PM Mickey and Minnie’s Pirates in the Caribbean. This is a show featuring Mickey and the gang taking on Captain Hook and Smee. It’s a fun show targeted at younger kids, with a dance party afterward.
Then, at 10:15PM, is Pirate’s Rockin’ Parlay Party. This is a show starring Jack Sparrow, complete with the famed fireworks-at-sea finale.
Beyond these core items, you’ll find a variety of activities throughout the day are pirate themed. We did a pirate themed craft (mapmaking), for example:
Rotational Dining aboard the Disney Wish
(Note: I talked about quick service options when discussing the layout of the ship. As always, I prefer quick service to table service, but there’s no need to say more about those options than I said above.)
The Disney Wish has three main dinner restaurants—1923, Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure, and Worlds of Marvel. The idea behind rotational dining is that during a 3-night cruise you’re scheduled at each of these one time (on a 4-night cruise you’ll double up on one of them) and for each meal you keep the same dining time, table, server, assistant server, and head server.
If you want to have dinner at these restaurants, rotational dining is your only option (FWIW, each morning one of these restaurants is open for table service breakfast, unrelated to rotational dining). If you don’t want to go to one or more of the dinners, you can either eat quick service (though not every option will be open), you can book one of the adult-only restaurants, or you can order room service.
The upsides of rotational dining are twofold. First, it’s rigid and you don’t really have to think about it. We ate dinner at 5:45PM every night at the restaurant we were supposed to be in, and that was that. Second, you keep the same server team. This means, among other things, you’ll hopefully only have to explain dietary restrictions once.
As I’ve written before, I’m personally just not a fan of rotational dining. From a scheduling standpoint, I find the rigidity a huge nuisance. This is particularly the case in restaurants like Arendelle and Worlds of Marvel, where the “show” aspect of the meal means it takes an entire 90 minutes. (For reference, the night before I wrote this, Zoe and I had a sit down meal at a local Italian restaurant in 30 minutes. That’s more my pace.)
And while I appreciate the friendliness of the servers, the attention is outside my social comfort zone. Being seated with another family just adds to that (we requested a private table, but with 3 people on a full cruise, it’s not surprising we were seated with a family of 5). Of course it’s always good to do things outside your comfort zone, but for me this winds up being an exhausting 90 minutes a night for every night of a short, expensive cruise.
Our first meal was at 1923. This is the nicest of the three restaurants, and also the only one without a show of any sort. This has pros and cons for however your schedule winds up.
Having 1923 first, we got to / had to socialize with our tablemates more since there wasn’t a show to distract us. With small children, embarkation night is already a bit of a challenge (jazzed and exhausted from travel and seeing the ship), so it’s perhaps nicer to be in one of the restaurants with the shows. But if you had 1923 last, you might be a bit disappointed by the lack of entertainment.
1923 is filled with displays of models, concept art, statues, etc. from Disney films. It is a very nice atmosphere, but you’ll only see so much of it during your meal. It feels like a cool museum, but you only get to see a few displays.
Our second meal was at Worlds of Marvel. The “show” portion of this meal consists of Ant Man and the Wasp showing up on screens around the room to ask for your help with their mission. On the table is some sort of quantum…thing…and they ask you to press the button every so often.
I don’t think I’m too harsh a critic of cute shows like this, but it was a little goofy in its simplicity (there’s got to be some reason Disney constantly thinks people will find the bare minimum of interactivity—pushing a button—to be groundbreaking immersion). Of course, the kids loved thinking that pushing a button was saving the world, so that’s nice. There’s also a special character appearance at the end of the meal (google it if you want spoilers).
Our last night was at Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure. The show here consists of a group of “local” musicians performing Frozen songs with appearances by the characters. Most of the action takes place on a stage in the center of the restaurant.
Emily thought Arendelle had a better show than Worlds of Marvel, chiefly because Worlds of Marvel took place on screens around the outside of the restaurant while Arendelle was live on stage. I disagreed.
For starters, we had an awful table for Arendelle. Luckily for us, we’d done the ($$$) Olaf’s Royal Picnic experience in the same space, which had more than filled our Frozen cup. And, to be fair, none of the kids at our table complained about the bad view. But besides being far, the view was constantly obstructed by server teams rushing every which way. I know, screens are screenz, but at least Worlds of Marvel had the benefit of taking our attention away from the busy walkways.
The climactic Anna-Elsa musical moment
ICYMI, we’re vegetarian non-foodies. I found the vegetarian options to be better on the Wish than on the Wonder. The only significant shortcoming was that the kids’ menu didn’t always have explicitly vegetarian options, though they were always available (i.e. we had to modify a pasta dish or request off-menu mac & cheese).
Debarkation and Heading Home
There are three topics to cover when it comes to debarkation—gratuities, luggage, and debarkation morning itself.
The default on Disney Cruise Line is that you tip your stateroom host, server, assistant server, and head server a fixed, per person amount. You can prepay this before your cruise or it will be automatically added to your stateroom bill onboard.
The last full day of your cruise you’ll be provided a sheet outlining the tip amounts, along with envelopes. If you’d like to add to your tips, you can put cash in these envelopes and give them to the respective Cast Members. You can also go to Guest Services to modify the amount.
If you don’t want to put cash in the envelopes, the sheet with the tip amounts is perforated into strips you can place in each envelope. The envelopes are just a nice gesture, and Cast Members will get the tips regardless of whether or not you use them.
Along with the tip sheet, you’ll be provided character-themed luggage tags. You can place these on your luggage and leave the luggage in the hallway the night before debarkation by a set time, usually around 10PM. These bags will be collected overnight. Then, the next morning, you’ll retrieve them from the port after you get off the ship. If you want to keep your luggage with you—usually so you can get off the ship ASAP—you can just ignore the luggage tags.
When debarkation morning rolls around, there are essentially only three things you can do—breakfast, visit Shutters (the onboard photo shop), or get off the ship. The bars are not open. The pools are not open. The stores are not open.
Shutters is open debarkation morning on the philosophy that you might need to review photos you took the previous night, and you cannot buy photos once you leave the ship. The bottom line for me is that you should almost always have decided on your photo needs well in advance of debarkation morning.
There might be circumstances where you actually only need one magical photo from the previous night, but with Zoe I just know to buy the full photo package in advance.
You have two options for debarkation breakfast. The standard option is to have table service breakfast at the same restaurant you had your last dinner at. Your server will tell you your breakfast time at the dinner the night before. If you go this route, you’ll have your same table and server as rotational dining. This is a good option if you’d like table service or to be sure to personally hand out your tip envelopes.
The other option is quick service at Marceline Market, which is what we did. The breakfast on debarkation day is more limited than the other days of the cruise, but it’s still more than sufficient if you’d just like to grab a quick bite and get off the ship.
Debarkation itself is straightforward. As luggage is taken off the ship, groups are called according to the characters on their luggage tags to disembark. If you don’t have luggage, you’ll be able to get off the ship as soon as it’s cleared by the authorities. For this cruise, everyone was actually called all at once at 7:20AM.
There was only a small queue to disembark, and we were off the ship at 7:28AM.
Getting from Port Canaveral to MCO
There are a lot of options for getting from Port Canaveral to MCO, from private cars, to cabs and ride share, to shuttle buses. We opted for the GoPort shuttle bus. I reasoned that if our wait was too long or something else went wrong, we’d probably be able to find some way to MCO (though as I write this I recall we’d gone without a carseat this trip, so our options may have been limited).
I had to ask a Cast Member outside where to go, and she directed me to loading zone 1. As it happened, our GoPort experience was so seamless I didn’t feel it would be appropriate to write a separate review post.
We walked up as a bus was loading, and we grabbed three of the dozen-or-so empty seats. Boarding at 7:35AM, we were off the bus at 8:26AM. With TSA PreCheck (we have CLEAR, but the regular PreCheck line was shorter, as it sometimes is at MCO), we were through security and at our concourse 19 minutes later at 8:45AM, about two hours before our flight boarded.
Disney Wish 3-Night Bahamas Cruise - Final Thoughts
There’s no question this was a great family experience. But my immediate two thoughts when reflecting on the cruise were (1) that I vastly preferred our recent experience on the Wonder and (2) that I was excited about our next Disney cruise…on a different ship. Yes—I locked in another onboard booking, so I fully expect to take at least two more Disney cruises in the next two years. (I might even learn to structure a decent blog post about them in that time.)
I think coming from an experience of zero or even one/two Disney cruises, I’d probably have nothing but glowing commentary about this cruise. Zoe loved the character greetings, which were surprisingly efficient to fit into our day. We had a great time on Castaway Cay. The entertainment that we watched was good. The pools were fun. Pirate Night was a hit.
But you know what’s notable about my list of positives? Basically none of them are unique to the Wish. They’re all things that Disney Cruise Line excels at, but nothing about this ship made me fall in love. (Okay, maybe the Wish’s straightforward quick service layout is after my heart.)
It’s mostly things that I didn’t like that were unique the ship. I found the overall layout tricky, and I already discussed in great detail Zoe’s struggles at the Oceaneer Club. There’s no true shipside promenade. The adult-only area was also a bit wonky in design. Poor seating for a dinner show (at Arendelle)…could maybe happen on other ships.
There’s another issue, too—time. If I had a four-night cruise (the other Wish itineraries at this time), maybe I’d have had more time for Hero Zone or the AquaMouse or Enchante. Maybe on day 3, Zoe would have mastered the Oceaneer Club. Indeed, the next cruise I booked (not on the Wish) is a five-night itinerary with what will be, for us, two ship-only days. Part of the fondness with which Iook back on the Wonder comes from feeling like I got comfortable on that ship—I was never comfortable on the Wish. And even four nights isn’t that much longer.
This all leads to a pretty simple conclusion. I think Disney cruises are worth it (though I say that as someone who hasn’t been on a different cruise line in about 30 years). And I think if a cruise on the Disney Wish fits best into your plans, then you should be thrilled. But despite being a newer, hyped ship, I don’t think anyone has to go chasing the Wish. The newer ship has both pros and cons, but what Disney does particularly well on the Disney Wish, they do particularly well on all their ships.