Just got off a 3 day cruise on the wish and I thought I would post a mini review as most of the ones I saw before the cruise seemed rather negative.
We sailed out of Port Canaveral and stopped at Nassau and Castaway Cay. I goofed earlier and thought we had to complete the safepassage stuff before we could check in so I ended up with a pretty late arrival time (1:45PM). I kept checking and was able to get a 1:30 arrival time about 3 days before the cruise. Due to various timings in dropping off my rental car and taking the shuttle I arrived at port Canaveral early at 12:55. When we arrived no one checked the PAT and we were directed across the street to the testing area. Over there no one cared about the port arrival time and they gave our kid the test and we waited for the results. (Note: I only mention this as everyone we talked to before the cruise said the opposite and that we would be turned away if we showed up early) We ended up going over to the check in area at 1:25 or so and they let us in and we checked in without issue. I don't know how strongly they are enforcing the PAT at checkin as we were technically allowed in early, but by the time we got there they were boarding all groups so I don't know if we had an earlier time if my experience would have been different. Lines were very short but I'm not sure if that was due to the new port arrival time enforcement or if it was just that we boarded so late. At any rate, the checkin process was very fast as everything is now setup online before the cruise and you pick up your keycards on board. We waited maybe 2 minutes in line before getting checked in.
We booked room 6588 which is a "Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Verandah". I had never booked this room type before (I'm more of a fan of the cove balconies) and it turned out to be a great decision as we had a crib in the room for our smallest and the extra room length meant that it would fit without blocking any of the walking area. The stateroom looked brand new (as it essentially was) and everything was in good working order. The room itself had a pullout sofa bed and a bed that could be lowered from the ceiling. One thing I did notice is that the bed on the wish is noticeably taller than the other ships and our large suitcase was now able to be slid under the bed. I also liked a lot that the minifridge is now more of a pullout drawer which makes it easier to load and unload. Also there were a ton of usb ports added to outlets in the room so I didn't need to bring chargers for our phones. One thing I didn't like was that all of the us outlets in the room had that child safety feature on them where you have to push in the plug just so or else it won't go in. They were all still new so it took a bit of finesse to insert our plugs. We are silver so we had a gift waiting for us in our room. Instead of the sling-bag, we had a very nice wish inaugural sailings themed bag.
I saw a lot of negative comments about the food on board, but that was not our experience at all. I thought everything was on-par with the previous Disney cruises we took. One big change was that the buffets are no longer self-serve and you have crew members handing out the food. I do like that this is more sanitary, but it did seem to slow things down in certain areas. The icecream dispensers by the pool are now behind a counter and you have to be served by a crew member. The new BBQ station is great, and I think adds a lot to the poolside dining options. The new themed restaurants were ok. The Arendelle restaurant was a big hit with the kids. The 1923 had the best food in my opinion but was also more like a traditional restaurant. The worlds of Marvel was probably my least favorite. The interactivity with the cylinder on the table was cool and the kids had fun with it, but I thought that the never-ending avengers videos on the screens felt more like I was trapped in an ad then any real entertainment.
We did an open house tour of the kids club read and it was very well done. Our older child ended up spending a few hours in there each day and had a blast. The nursery was open during the sailing (however you could not reserve times on the app before the sailing). We didn't end up using it as this was a fairly short cruise and each day was a port day.
The line for the aqua mouse was vey long (over 60 minutes) during normal times on the ship, and it seemed to break down frequently for 15 minutes at a time. We ended up testing it out while we were docked at Castaway Cay. It was…ok. The ride starts with a very slow video presentation (that could be removed without any loss) and then goes into a more traditional waterslide. The ride itself was short and at least in my opinion was not worth the wait time. They also have a smaller Toy Story themed waterslide that would have been fun but was not well designed. The slide is very slow and pretty much 50% of the adults riding it reported getting "stuck" while sliding down. We also walked though the adults-only area just to take a look. The pool as others mentioned was way too small. I didn't spend much time in this area as it was a pretty short cruise and we always seemed to have other stuff going on.
One sort of strange thing was the horns. I'm used to hearing the Disney horn play a little tune when we leave port. Now they run though a medley of 3 or 4 different tunes which seemed less fun. It's nitpicky but I wish they would have just stuck with one tune. Also they now give a warning before the horn sounds which can be good if your kids are noise-sensitive.
As far as the bars and common areas go, I thought it was good. It's an interesting idea to have 2 smaller movie theatres. I'm not sure how well that works as we never had a chance to watch a movie (because the cruise was so short). The new Orleans themed bar was really cool looking. We did a brief tour of the galaxy's edge bar. As others have mentioned it's way too small and I wish they had either put two on the ship or had made it bigger. Reservations were able to be booked via the app and seemed to have some availability when we looked. I can't really speak to the quality of the drinks as we didn't make use of it other than the open house on the first day. The character experiences were kind of lacking. They are still social distancing the characters from your kids which sort of defeats the purpose.
Overall, I thought this was my favorite ship and we would 100% book it again. However, this was probably our first and last 3 day cruise as it's just way too short and we spent too much travelling and prep for what is essentially a 2 day vacation.
