Disney Wish Experiences and Thoughts
Before we get to my thoughts on the ship and experiences it is important to illustrate the pre-sailing experience I had, to present the state of mind and expectations I went into my trip with. We originally booked the third sailing of the ship (after it was open to the public). The initial sailing was twice the price of all other trips, the second was DVC-points exclusive (which I've never deemed a worthwhile use of my points), and the third was the first trip reasonably priced. When the ship was deemed not ready for the initial dates, we opted to rebook for a half-price sailing rather than get a full refund, and we opted for the first-available open sail date (the tenth sailing of the ship). We opted for the cheapest stateroom available, as I always do. We opted for the second dinner seating, again as typical. We went to book our activities and excursions at the maximum window for my Gold Castaway Club status (on the initial booking, the rebooking placed us on the wrong side of the window). We downloaded the Navigator app prior to our sailing and made sure to make all of the necessary logins and reservation linkages. I made sure to have the only credit card on the account be the one I wanted to have charged, and informed my servicer I was travelling outside the country on a cruise. We took time to familiarize ourselves with the new app layout (my last sailing was in August of 2016, my partners' in 2017). By all accounts, I treated the preparation for this trip exactly as I have the six cruises I've taken prior to this. We made decisions and priorities based on my learned experiences as a not-frequent but not-new customer of Disney Cruise Line. As will become evident, some of this foreknowledge was a benefit, and some was a detriment.
Day One
The port entry is quite the grand event
Arriving at the port we got our COVID tests verified, checked in before security, and passed through the metal detectors. During the check-in process our citizenship documents were verified, as was the card for our onboard account, our Castaway Club status, dining rotation, and stateroom. We got our Key To The World cards, and they verified that we had linked our staterooms to our Navigator apps (if we didn't have the app or hadn't already linked our room while waiting on line they would have assisted). The process was a breezy minute and a half, and security was even faster than at the parks with a bag thanks to the x-ray machine. An important note is that at the end of check-in the hostess informed us that we'd be able to book shipboard activities in the app while we waited for our boarding group to be called upstairs. We went up the escalator and grabbed a seat to make Hyperspace Lounge reservations and check if any tasting experiences had been added, as well as reservations for Palo and Enchanté. We hadn't been able to book tastings or the adult dining experiences beforehand due to all the pre-boarding slots having been booked in advance. I haven't verified the dates of things beforehand to know if those experiences were all taken up by Platinum Castaway and Concierge or if our rebooking put us on the wrong side of the general booking window. Playing around in the app in the terminal, it quickly became evident that there was no ability to book anything. It would verify our party, show us available experiences, offer times, show pricing, confirm pricing and payment, and fail on confirming the booking. For everything. Every time. This was not a problem just for us, as talking to others revealed that it was a system-wide issue. We were told by crew it might be better on the ship, and just after that our group was called. We boarded quickly and easily, with the hallmark announcement of our party on arrival in the atrium (now called Grand Hall). In light of our hunger we decided to head straight to Marceline Market for lunch, thinking we'd be able to book our activities while we ate.
Marceline was excellent, featuring welcome hand-wash stations before entry and a crew member who, while they didn't instruct people that washing was a requirement, by standing in the walkway near the sinks effectively socially pressured everyone into washing before entering. The food was somewhat standard DCL buffet food, with the added touch that everything was served by servers behind glass and plates were passed across the counter. I highly prefer this setup, it leaves other's breath and fingers out of my food, and has the added benefit of leading to food that is more fresh. Nothing ever sits out, because when things to the person managing that station swaps the trays for fresh ones. We made a point to find the lone POG dispenser (on our sailing it was the aft-most dispenser on the starboard side), here labelled "Orchard's Best". We ate outside, after discovering the doors to the outside had touch pads next to them to activate the self-open mechanism. While eating we discovered that we were unable to book any activities. Noting the time, and the approach of the end of the kids club open houses, we opted to walk through them all as our next activity.
Exploring was made decently complicated, as the Wish has several breaks from the design language of the other ships in Disney's fleet. There is no one deck where you can walk the entirety of the ship outdoors, as the shipside promenade is spread across three separate decks. The topside overlook deck is only outdoors between the two smokestacks, with two decks above fanning out toward the forward and aft edges. There are several walkways and hallways that are simply dead-ends, with no way to communicate that to the guest until they stumble into a wall and have to turn around. The carpets are devoid of directional markings or ship-side markings (on the other ships, the port side carpets have fish and the starboard side carpets have starfish [the fish swim toward forward and the starfish point toward forward ("fish" has four letters like "port" and "starfish" starts with "star" like "starboard" [not everyone notices these details on a conscious level, but the subconscious communication is there from the consistency])]). Restroom banks are on opposite sides of the ship, separated by gender, but which side is which changes with each. There are only two elevator lobbies instead of three, completely removing the concept of "midship", and muddying where the aft and forward sections cross. The detail that got me most frequently turned around was in the Grand Hall, where the stage and the staircase are on opposite sides of the room. Coming from several cruises where the stage and the staircase are both on the aft side of the atrium, to a split room, had me consistently walking in the wrong direction. Due to the inconsistencies across the ship in the layout and the lack of any sort of mirroring or constant, I was never fully comfortable in my sense of direction or placement.
The teen clubs were really cool. To my memory they had a better atmosphere than The Stack, the only teen club I got to experience (on the Wonder, in 2007). They seemed like fun places to hang out, and I was a bit envious there wasn't an adult equivalent of that particular warehouse-loft atmosphere. The Marvel Hero Zone felt like a school gym that Tony Stark built, which I suppose was the vibe they were going for. Due to scheduling tradeoffs, we never made it back there after the first day walking the ship. We heard from other cruisers that the obstacle course was fun, but they only offered that the first two days. Most of the trip, Hero Zone was simply a basketball court. If I'm editorializing, I'd venture to guess he basketball layout requires fewer or no staff, but that is speculation on my part.
Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let my partner hit me with the frying pan and stuff me in the wardrobe
The Oceaneer's Club is simply spectacular. We entered into the Marvel area and it was like walking into one of the movies. The Black Widow and Captain America suits are really cool, and the suit designer seemed fun (there was a line of kids in every room, so we tended to look more than touch/try). There were tons of great little design touches and easter eggs to the movies and the story they tell in the restaurant. The Star Wars area feels like a cross between the engineering room on the Galactic Starcruiser and the chess room on Smuggler's Run. There are references to the movies, the Galaxy of Creatures shorts, Galaxy's Edge, and the Halcyon. All of the creatures in their cages were adorable and well-done animatronics. There was a porg's nest in a corner of the ceiling. There was porg poop dripping from it. I'm the kinda Star Wars fan who geeks out over knowing that porg poop is a blue/green color, so I was very happy to exist in that space for a few minutes. The Imagineering room is a happy place for parks fans. There are maquettes and mock-ups and ride diagrams for all of the hits. Concept art with parks-exclusive IP's, a full-on Rivers of Light costume (RIP), all of the big parks books, hard hats and high-viz vests, a replica of Cinderella Castle that was either the one they used for Happily Ever After projection mapping or a remake of that one (we didn't ask). There was a Sum of All Thrills dupe, drafting tables, it was like stepping into every episode of Imagineering Story all at once. The princess area was similarly wonderful. It used a hub layout, with a generic castle-courtyard center, and ceiling lighting at each doorway, depicting in turn a sun, an icicle, and a rose, for Tangled, Frozen, and Beauty and the Beast respectively. The Tangled room was a small mockup of Rapunzel's Tower, heavy on the art. The Frozen room was I think a spare room in the Sommerhus, based on the art outside the club depicting that building. The Beauty and the Beast area was a room in Beast's castle. We wanted to do whatever activities the kids were doing in those rooms. The littles area was themed to the ship itself, heavy on the Mickey and Friends theme, but in a Mary Blair-esque art style. It felt a touch more Paper Mario than Mary Blair to me, but that could just be the way they depicted the 2-D characters on 3-D objects. The small world nursery was absolutely to die for and convinced me that bringing film-IP characters to WDW small world in the way they exist in Disneyland would be a good idea. Not even riding Disneyland's small world did that for me. It was an incredibly effective space.
Oh how I wish I was only here once
At this point we were becoming increasingly concerned about our continued inability to book reservations on the app, despite multiple crew members explaining that was weird and should sort itself out, so we headed to Guest Services stopping only for a quick selfie in Hyperspace Lounge on the way. When we got to Deck 4 and found Guest Relations, the line was already stretching all the way around the Grand Hall and beginning to encroach upon other areas of the deck. A crew member estimated it would be a 45 minute wait when I got on the line in the doorway of the far corner of the Grand Hall, and within seconds of me getting in the line there were several parties behind me and the line stretched into one of the event spaces (Luna, for those of you looking at maps while reading). After 45 minutes of waiting and having covered only half of the ground to go, the emergency announcement began, which halted all operations for a period of 20 minutes. After the conclusion of the drill my partner and I remembered that there were only 40 full-cruise Rainforest Passes being sold (thank you Twitter for that info), so she left to go purchase those while I continued to wait for Guest Services. We lucked into some of the last passes and she got back to me while I was at the desk. After waiting on line for two hours I was told that all activities for the entire voyage had been completely booked up. When I expressed disbelief I was told "Sir, there are four thousand people on this ship, we cannot accomodate everyone". This is a line I would hear multiple times during our voyage. I responded "that's incredibly disappointing" and as I was saying that the Guest Services crew member found a reservation for a short while later for Hyperspace Lounge, which we opted to take. We left Guest Services, having missed the Sail Away party, to go get ready for Hyperspace Lounge, which was conflicting with one of the only two stage shows that were ready in time for our sailing.
Hyperspace Lounge was amazing. It made me feel like I was in Sublight Lounge on the Halcyon again, and the drinks were excellent. The hallikset on display in the corner had me geeking out quite hard. I had one of everything and while it wasn't all to my palate, it was all expertly crafted. My favorite was the Batuuan Spire Sunset. We ran in to a family that I had previously sailed with, on the initial Star Wars Day at Sea cruise in January of 2016. Once we all recognized each other we had a great time catching up, and they let me take plenty of photos with their Kai Burr crystal camtono, since they opted to buy the trip to Skywalker Ranch. It felt like the sort of community moment that Disney can be so good at cultivating. After Hyperspace we adjourned to our room to change and unpack.
Our stateroom was on Deck 2, aft, on the starboard side. We had an interior room, and on the Wish there are no magic portholes. We did not have a split bathroom. The room felt a bit smaller than on other ships, normally I'd expect the couch to be offset from the bed by its full width but ours was only offset by about 8 inches. Overall, the room was about 70% the size I expected it to be. Curiously, I have many memories of marketing VHS's, then DVD's, then Travel Channel specials, featuring DCL Imagineers boasting their rooms were 30% larger than the industry standard.
We dined at 1923 on the first night. We were seated at a table with two other couples. Our drink orders were not taken until the full table had been seated, and we were slightly further delayed by opting in to the wine package. The value of the wine package is well worth it in my opinion, if you're someone who likes wine with your dinner. Every menu has pairing recommendations for each dish. Our server quickly learned that nearly everyone at our table would be ordering several dishes with each course. Focusing on the meal itself, dinner on the Wish is just like any other ship in Disney's fleet. Looking at the trip as a whole I did find the menu's to be somewhat less daring in their options, but significantly more varied in their dressing. Gone are the days of rabbit and boar offerings, but in exchange each night's meat options of beef, chicken, and pork are dressed and prepared in far more creative ways and with varying spice palettes.
From a decor and environment standpoint 1923 brings a welcome degree of elegance. In plenty of pleasing shades from brown and beige (no seriously, it's classy and relaxing in a studious manner), there's a warm atmosphere. The restaurant is divided into two sides, and we sat on the side devoted to Walt (they didn't let us walk around and look at the Roy side). There are maquettes, animation cels, and concept art all around, from the entire Walt Disney Animation Studios catalogue. I'd guess that every movie is given something, but since we weren't allowed to wander to the level we wanted, we were unable to confirm.
After dinner we headed on down to Nightingale's to catch the first of several performances of Michael Mastroianni, a piano player we befriended and saw several performances of. He played a set of music from the Disney Parks, including several delightful arrangements of parade and night show music he put together himself. His Spectromagic was simply divine. Once his set was over (around 10:45 pm) it was late enough in the night that no other events or activities were happening outside of the teen club, so we went over to The Bayou for drinks. We managed to have a couple before last call at 11:30 pm. Taking one last walk above decks in the evening breeze we called it a night and went to bed.
Day Two
Day two began in Nassau. Breakfast at Marceline was delightful, I recommend the grilled tomatoes and the corned beef hash. We went ashore a little after docking and spent our morning walking the city. We headed back to the ship for lunch and to prepare for our afternoon spa appointment.
For lunch instead of dining again at Marceline we decided to get some pool-deck food from Mickey's Festival of Food. This is a series of five quick-service style counters on the pool deck with different options. We had them all, ice cream, burgers, bbq, pizza, and tacos. The ice cream was DCL's usual low-fat offering. The burgers and pizza were exactly what can be found in the theme parks. The bbq was solid, on par with what's served at Castaway Cay or at some of the Epcot Festival booths, but nothing truly remarkable or outstanding. The tacos were a basic build-your-own bar. We didn't expect to have our minds blown by the food on the pool deck, and were happy to have our expectations met. No matter how many cruises I take, it remains a strange experience to simply take food from someone, go eat it, and walk away.
This is technically in Marceline, but I have this problem where I eat my lunch before I take a picture of it
After lunch we decided to head to the spa early to make use of our passes for the Rainforest Room. We informed the front desk we were there for the Rainforest, but that we also had an appointment in two hours. They reassured us that they would send people into the Rainforest to collect us when it was time to go change and get ready for our service. We were unable to find robes in our changing rooms and when I asked I was told "I'm sorry, we don't have enough to accommodate everyone". We proceeded to spend the next two hours napping on the floating couches, using the aromatherapy showers, spending time in both the wet and dry saunas, as well as the ice room and the hot tub. There were several moments in the hot tub and on the floating couches where we were ogled by other guests. The couches and hot tub are on a sun deck, and the shipside promenade passes around the exterior one deck above, with a railing along the overlook into the rainforest room. It is common for people to be on the walkway gazing down into the spa area people-watching. Of significant discomfort was when one gentleman made eye contact with me from above, gestured to my sleeping partner in her bathing suit (spa rules state bathing suits are the required dress for the Rainforest Room), and gave me a big smile and "two thumbs up". Quite the relaxing spa experience. Eventually the time for our appointment came and went, and after no one got us five minutes into the experience we decided it was best to go to our respective changing rooms and prepare in case they forgot us. Fortunately, the robes had been restocked at this point. After a further ten minutes waiting in our robes in the waiting rooms we were finally collected by a very concerned crew member "There you are! We thought you were a no-show!". We waited in the hallway of the spa for a couple minutes while they tracked down a pair of sandals for me to wear (spa staff were apparently completely unaware that the changing rooms had been out of sandals the past two days). Eventually we found our way in to the massage suite for our two hour Escape experience. The service started with a foot scrub while our therapists talked to us about our experiences with massage, our lifestyles, and our relationship. There were several questions about our marital status and if we had children, wanted them, etc. After the scrub we were given twenty minutes in the hot tub alone, with a five-minute warning to give us time to dry off and get onto our massage tables. The tables were an improvement on other Disney spas, featuring a gel-based face cushion and multiple points of articulation. My therapist heeded my request of "please, beat me up", and kicked the absolute crap out of my body. She got knots I didn't know I had and sent my entire muscular system into a deep state of healing and relaxation. After the hour was up we were told to get up incredibly slowly and make our way back to the loveseat. Our therapists returned with a platter of fresh fruit cut up whimsically and glasses of tea of our choosing. we were given plenty of time to lounge and snack while they explained all of the complimentary services the spa was including with our booking (acupuncture and footprint consultations [these are also available to all guests on board the ship at no extra charge]). We went back to our changing rooms to shower and get ready for dinner. The spa changing room was of a similar size to the other ships, despite the spa being quite a bit larger. The men's room had a bank of 40 lockers, two showers, one toilet stall, two urinals, two sinks, one two-person bench, one four-person steam room, and four chairs in the relaxation area. The grooming area was stocked with shaving cream, razors, aftershave, gauze, hair gel, and hairspray. There was no hair dryer, there were no combs, and there were no nail clippers (I mention this because these items are in every other Disney spa I've been in). The bathing suit dryer worked one day out of the trip. There was always a line multiple people deep for a shower.
Row six is just in front of the camera and I’m standing in row 7
Once we had dressed in our pirate garb we went to the movie theatre to see Thor: Love and Thunder. We opted not to get popcorn once we learned it was an additional charge, and managed to get two seats together in the seven-row theater. There were several people coming in behind us that could not be accommodated. The picture quality was fantastic, the audio was good, and the movie itself was one of my favorite Marvel entries.
After the movie there was more live music, and eventually we found ourselves at Pirate Night dinner in Worlds of Marvel. We showed up early and found ourselves waiting in a ten-minute line to be seated. Our whole table arrived around the same time and we got to ordering. Earlier in the day I had perused the menu in the Navigator app in order to save time on ordering in the hopes that dinner wouldn't run so late for us again. However, when we were handed our menus the dish I had selected was unavailable. The server explained to me that the chef had changed the menu and the app was wrong, but the paper menu was correct. I chose two dishes that seemed good based on the server's recommendations and ended up happy with my selections. We finished eating around 10:30 and headed up to the pool deck for the pirate show.
By the time we got to the deck the show was already well underway, but we made it in time to hear the band play some 80s classics, introduce Captain Redd the Pirate, and watch Jack Sparrow fall from the smoke stack. The show ended with a fireworks viewing that remains on par with the fireworks at sea that have existed for years.
After the show we hopped on down to Luna for karaoke. The hostess was wonderfully entertaining and the crowd and room were great. Instead of books with songs they have a search function, you work with the DJ to find the song you want. The selection is wide, but they do have some holes (my partner wanted to sing Monster from Frozen and they couldn't make that happen, so she went with Alone by Heart). The sign-ups closed about an hour before the event ended, and they were limiting to one song per person; "we cannot accomodate everyone". After karaoke ended at 11:30 there was nothing else to do, so we went to The Bayou and got there just in time for last call.
Day Three
The island is most photogenic with the ship in the background, and I didn’t bring my camera to the beach, so have the version in the port
Breakfast on day three was similar fare to day two, but with the addition of a minor stressor in the form of a notification informing me that our port adventure in Castaway Cay that afternoon had been cancelled. I finished eating quickly and proceeded to Guest Services to try to get more information. After waiting on line for a half hour I was told that the sea was too choppy for our kayaking excursion, and they were unable to book me on anything else from the ship. If I was lucky, I could go to the island to see if they could get us on something there. I immediately made my way to Marges Barges on the shore. Upon my arrival at Marges Barges I was told that if I wanted to book an excursion I should have done so months ago and "we cannot accomodate everyone". I explained that I did book months ago and that it had been cancelled, and they told me that if I needed something to do I could go try at the beach rentals to see if anything there was available. The tram line was backed up nearly to the ship, so I walked down to the beach. When I got to the beach I was told that everything had been booked months ago, I should have called ahead or reserved sooner, and "we cannot accomodate everyone". I went back to the ship to get my partner, stopping only to take a picture of the sign at the bottom of the gangway featuring Bob Chapek and Josh D'Amaro as the master ship-building team that made this all possible.
Way to share the credit, Bob
Once my partner and I were ashore we headed to Pelican Point and managed to find a spot near a palm tree, under an umbrella, with loungers and chairs. Deeming it a near-perfect spot we settled in, applied our anti-sea lice cream, and went for a dip. The water was cool and the sun was warm and the morning was lovely. The far-side family beach doesn't get nearly as crowded as the original one, though we were treated to a delightful show of a very loud domestic from one half of a couple that didn't seem to understand that there is no cell service in the middle of the sea. We mostly stayed in the water until lunchtime, when we made our way to Cookie's Too and made sure to get at least one of everything. The food was great, the typical beach food we've come to love at Castaway, and the cherry on top was the high-fat content ice cream at the self-serve machines. I showed off my cone-twisting skills and we hopped the tram to Serenity Bay. A tip for first-time adult cruisers: the buffet at Serenity Bay has a handful of options not offered at the family buffets. The lines normally get longer at Serenity Bay, since it's much smaller and a generally more crowded beach, but that just makes it a great stop for a second-lunch. We feasted on ribeye and fresh fruit, and took the opportunity to grab a couple soda cups and fill them with more ice cream while we waited for our tram back to Pelican Point. We bumped in to some friends we had made in the Guest Services line when we got off the tram and they directed us toward the Pelican Point Bar to get the Castaway Cay-exclusive sippers. When we got to the bar we learned they were out of the coconut sippers and only had bamboo "I'm sorry we ran out, we can't accomodate everyone". The Castaway sippers cost $11 and come with a free drink, I got a Konk Kooler and ho boy was it tasty and strong. The bamboo sipper is a two-drink cup, and we happily floated in the bay with our drinks and the sun warming our backs. By the time we finished our drinks we decided it was a good time to head back to the ship, and we went straight for the AquaMouse when we got there.
The line for the AquaMouse was a posted 45 minutes, though to my eye the size of the queue and rider throughput should have had it be a ten minute wait. I quickly learned the accuracy of the sign, as the Mouse is prone to significant downtime. It seemed every few minutes the ride would stop, initiating the 10-minute recovery process from e-stop. When we got closer to the front of the queue we started chatting with the lifeguards handling ride operations and they explained that there are two sensors at unload, one an optical laser and the other a pressure. If either sensor is tripped the ride e-stops and they have to do a full clearance before restarting. Someone had figured out that afternoon that if they asked the guest in the front seat (the Mouse only has two-person tubes) to tuck their feet into the tube rather then let them hang out, there's a lower risk of the optical sensor tripping. There's nothing that can be done about an excited kid bouncing in their seat triggering the pressure sensor, nor anything about a guest getting off the ride too early and tripping the pressure sensor (the sensor is actually located past the point where a guest would think to get off and walk directly down the stairs. Everyone has to stay seated and backtrack after riding or the ride goes down). The ride itself was cute, numerous screens showing scenes of animated Mickey and Minnie getting attacked and hurt while scuba diving, each punctuated by a blast of either water or air to the face of the riders. Once you're over the lift hill the story takes a backseat to the water slide, which plays out as water slides do (with a similar path to the AquaDuck), until you get to a short incline where you go up just a bit longer than one might expect. Through the smokestack and a nice splashdown where you started brings it to a close. Just be sure to stay seated all the way until you're told to stand or you might ruin it for everyone in front of you!
Once we aqua'd the mouse we got another pool lunch and once again made our way to the Rainforest Room. We avoided the prying eyes of the sundeck and relegated this trip to the heated zero-gravity stone loungers, the aromatherapy, and the environmental rooms. At this point I went back to the room early to prep for dinner while my partner took a nap on a heated lounger.
Wanting to wear a dress shirt to dinner, I sought out the laundry room in need of an iron. Laundry services have been relocated on the Wish to a central location on Deck 8, in the middle of the ship. Carrying my wrinkled shirt through a lobby full of people in dinner-wear was an experience. Laundry services is equipped with walls of washers and dryers, with the middle of the room being filled with fold-down ironing boards with irons. All of the irons appeared to be steam irons, though they weren't all full. I had to search for one that didn't have rust stains but also had water (they were tethered to their stations and could not be taken to the sink to be filled). In a bit of double-security against leaving the iron on, there's a dial to activate on a timer the power outlet, up to 15 minutes at a time. This must be activated for the iron to work (I got halfway through my shirt thinking the iron was just bad before I realized). Once going the iron was solid and made short work of the packing wrinkles my shirt had. I returned to the room, dressed, and went to see some more music. I bounced from musician to musician until dinner, where I met back up with my partner and we went to dine in Worlds of Marvel.
Thematic dinner, thematic picture
The second night in Worlds of Marvel was much more thematically consistent than Pirate Night (I always find it strange having Pirate Night in a heavily-themed restaurant, it clashes a bit). We got the Wakandan cocktail flight to split and every drink was utterly spectacular. I wholeheartedly recommend it. Everyone at the table ordered two entrees, most of us ordered several appetizers, and we got a host of desserts. One of the other couples was dining at Enchanté that night, and we still made use of the full table to hold all the food! The show was fun, featuring most of the Earth-based modern Avenger lineup getting into a fight on the ship with Ultron. The quantum core on the table is a beautiful prop that serves as a fun tie-in to bring the dining room into the story and push the meal along. The jokes are a bit campy, but more in a classic Disney theme park sense than a modern Marvel sense. Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly sell the bit wonderfully, and at the end of the meal and conflict both Ant-Man and The Wasp make an appearance to congratulate everyone for helping out. The show serves to capture all the magic of the 90's and 00's theme park pre-show video fun, while also feeling like a 00's Disney Channel mashup. Seriously, it works.
We caught a couple songs in The Bayou by one of the bands, and spent the remainder of the evening sharing drinks and beignets with some shipboard friends.
Day Four
If it’s a small world is the Happiest Cruise that Ever Sailed does that make this The Most Magical Cruise that Ever Sailed?
We slept in a bit on our Day At Sea, for the first time since leaving NY. We spent the majority of the day bouncing from trivia session to trivia session, earning ourselves a whole mess of drawstring bags as prizes (we're good at trivia). Our friends from the night before were nice enough to let us tag along for their Princess meet and greet reservation, so we got to have conversations with Tiana, Moana, Belle, and Rapunzel. The meet and greets were distanced, and they had rubber floor dots to stand on. There was a shared queue to meet all the princesses, and then small standby areas to buffer between groups. Photographers were there at each station, and would take photos regardless of whether you asked. We were also able to use our own cameras to take as many photos as we were comfortable holding up the line to take.
After photos we went to get coffees from the Cove Cafe. My partner got a vanilla latte with oat-milk and I got a cappuccino. The coffees were good, but the roast was a bit harsh. The barista informed me after paying that my account had been locked by Guest Services for a card denial. After another half-hour line and several minutes of Guest Services insisting I had not actually notified my servicer we determined that they had somehow had the wrong card on file, and had been authorizing it daily. They allowed me to skip the line after I returned with the correct card, and adjusted everything. They assured me that my account would be open the next time I went to make a purchase and would remain open for the rest of the trip. Naturally, our next stop was the gift shop!
The shop was well-stocked with all the typical merch for a ship, an inaugural sailing, and plenty of tie-ins to the properties on board. I nearly bought a spider-bot, but decided against activating that particular synergy machine. We ended up making a couple of purchases, and for each one the merchandise crew-member had to call down to Guest Services to have my account unlocked. On the second purchase, they requested my account stay unlocked, and they were able to accomodate that for the rest of the trip. After shopping it was time for lunch, a final trip to the Rainforest Room, and then we got dressed for a couple live music shows before seeing The Little Mermaid in the Walt Disney Theater.
I was incredibly lucky to get this second-row seat
The Walt Disney Theater was an interesting experience. To my memory it was a bit smaller than on other ships, and that was highlighted by the fact that we had a difficult time not finding two seats together, but simply finding two seats anywhere. We arrived well before showtime, and the house was absolutely packed. I cannot recall being unable to find a seat at one of the stage shows on any of the other ships, and when I did eventually find a seat (we gave my partner the first one available since I have an easier time standing for a show) there was a railing straight across the middle of the stage from my vantage point (I was in the second row of the only balcony in an aisle seat). The theater seemed a bit more spartan in its decor than other versions of it, for reasons that became apparent later. The stage itself also seemed a fair bit smaller, but again the reasons for that were obvious in retrospect. The show itself was well-written with updated versions of the classic songs. The new orchestrations are a nice refresh, and the modern take on the story brings a welcome breath to some aspects of the plot that frankly are not aging well. Being a 60-minute cruise version, parts do feel a bit rushed, but on the whole the performances were solid. The technical aspects of the show were another story. The audio was poorly eq'd and mixed, it was incredibly difficult to hear dialogue that was muddy and low, and songs were piercingly shrill and far too loud to make out clearly. Instead of manually operated spotlights all of the spots were motorized and remote-controlled on cues, so half of the show featured performers running out of their light to stand on their marks in darkness until the spot jumped over (the most egregious of this was when Ariel was in complete blackness during 'Part of Your World', meanwhile there was a wonderfully painted rock set-piece on the opposite side of the stage beautifully lit). The show made heavy use of full-theater projections and had an LED wall in place of a drop. It was a technical beauty that more often than not played hyper-realistic content that was stylistically at odds with the aesthetic of the two set pieces and functional-yet-minimalist wardrobe. Looking into the booths I counted two operators, an A1 (audio mixing) and a combo lighting/projection/video op. Over the course of the show there were dozens of people wandering in to the theater only to be turned away unable to be accommodated with a seat. After the show it was time for an engagement party, so we set off to Arendelle for dinner!
When in Arendelle….
The Arendelle restaurant was by far the most recognizable to us veteran cruisers. A completely open room with a clear layout and center stage, unlike the winding corridors and vestibules of 1923 and Worlds of Marvel. Nearly every seat has a good view of the stage, which is beneficial as the majority of the meal features performers upon it. The conceit is an engagement party for Queen Anna and Kristoff, hosted by Olaf and calling upon the party-planning services of Wandering Oaken, who had many "hoo-hoo's" for everyone in the audience. There's a trio that plays "traditional" (though more traditionally Celtic arrangements than Nordic to my ear [mostly because of the bodhrán]) arrangements of the songs you know and love. Eventually, Queen Anna, Kristoff, and Elsa make an appearance, sing songs, make the rounds saying hi (no pictures!), and continue the show. Unfortunately, when we dined there Olaf was having technical difficulties (our server explained he spent too much time outside and melted) so he wasn't a part of the show. We assume he was a central element, and that they just cut his parts, because the show hardly lasted through our entrees and felt like it should have been timed to end just as dinner was being served. I ate everything on the menu and everything was good. My partner ordered a Frozen Fractals and it was the most beautiful drink we saw on our voyage, a brilliant blue shimmering with edible glitter throughout. It tasted utterly divine as well.
We closed out our trip with one more piano show at Nightingale's, the theme was "Disney Music By Request" and Michael opened the show with a reference to a conversation he and I had earlier in the trip about our love for the Epcot Millennium Celebration, and he explained that while he had never played the song he was about to before, he was going to try for me (he later told me he spent the better part of Castaway Cay morning coming up with an arrangement for the piece, which was quite touching). He played a beautiful rendition of "We Go On" that brought tears to my eyes. Thank you, Michael. The rest of the set was a fun back-and-forth of audience callouts trying to stump him and him pushing through all of them. A highlight was when my partner asked for "Phineas and Ferb!" and he said "Oh I know just what to play from that!" and proceeded to play the Doofenshmirtz Evil, Inc. theme. We were all invited to sing along, and my partner and I were seated with friends, surrounded by music we love, in a room full of people loving it with us. It was a perfect and magical way to close out the journey.
Home sweet (tiny) home
We went back to our stateroom, packed, and my partner went to bed while I wandered the ship for another couple hours saying goodbye and capturing just a few more photos, luckily with no one in them.
Day Five
We woke early and got breakfast in Arendelle. Since we didn't want to spend all of our final night packing and missing the few activities there were, we were unable to get out bags to the hall to be carried off the ship by the 10pm deadline (in fact, we were still at dinner at 10pm, our service typically ran a course or two behind all the tables around us [despite getting there early and ordering quickly(we suspect that was because there were no children at our table)]). We dropped our luggage at the front of the restaurant and proceeded to our table. We were met with our server team, plenty of coffee and juice and danishes, and given menus to order off of. We only opted for one dish each, but it was clear that we could have eaten as much as we cared for. We both got the french toast, which was delightfully eggy. Since we were opting for "express walk-off" (that's code for "carry your own damn bags!") we got straight into the line to get off the ship. We moved at a decent pace through the gangway, and entered the luggage terminal where we were met with giant murals featuring the characters that had their own areas of the ship on Disney+ ads. A consistent tag was "Continue the [adventure, journey, family, love, friends] now on Disney+". Since we're currently Disney+ subscribers we did not need to activate that synergy machine. We made our way through Customs and Border Patrol and met up with our ride.
All in all there were elements of the trip that were wonderful, elements that were frustrating, and elements that were disappointingly expected. The service was generally fantastic, right up until something went wrong. The ship was beautiful, but our friend told us about how her closet fell on her and her husband waited four hours for maintenance to show up. The menus were plentiful, but half the drinks I tried to order were unavailable. The nautical themes were nonexistent, but the Disney IP's were everywhere. There was something just a little off about the whole experience, but there was still something deeply good about the experience. The benefits of being at sea disconnected from the world with a relatively small group of people for several days in a tropical paradise cannot be fully expressed in words. The heart of cruising Disney remains untouched, but it is definitely painted in the veneer of the Chapek era. A sea-based activation of the synergy machine.
