First Time on DCL - Going on Wish at end of year. Will I actually be able to reserve anything?

[Razzo]

So I've been a long time cruiser with RCL and always have managed to book what we wanted, when we wanted, etc.  Our kids are now at the age where we don't have to bring diapers and all the accoutrements and now that COVID is down, we are starting to go back to cruising. 

 

Because of our kids being little, we wanted to do a Disney cruise because they just seemed to be able to cater to our small little ones a bit better than RCL could.  After doing a bunch of research on the Disney Wish, the vibe I got is there are more concierge level passengers on this ship than others, and thus they take up all the reservations being able to book them 45 days earlier than first time cruisers.  

 

So my question is - by the time the onboard booking options open, will there actually be anything left to book or is it virtually taken up by anyone who has actually cruised DCL before?   I'm just trying to set expectations and focus on what I can as opposed to getting false hope.

 

Thanks in advance for anyone's help!

[Shmoo here]

20 minutes ago, Razzo said:

So I've been a long time cruiser with RCL and always have managed to book what we wanted, when we wanted, etc.  Our kids are now at the age where we don't have to bring diapers and all the accoutrements and now that COVID is down, we are starting to go back to cruising. 

 

Because of our kids being little, we wanted to do a Disney cruise because they just seemed to be able to cater to our small little ones a bit better than RCL could.  After doing a bunch of research on the Disney Wish, the vibe I got is there are more concierge level passengers on this ship than others, and thus they take up all the reservations being able to book them 45 days earlier than first time cruisers.  

 

So my question is - by the time the onboard booking options open, will there actually be anything left to book or is it virtually taken up by anyone who has actually cruised DCL before?   I'm just trying to set expectations and focus on what I can as opposed to getting false hope.

 

Thanks in advance for anyone's help!

Including our first DCL cruise, we've never had an issue booking the activities we wanted.  Sometimes we couldn't get our first choices, but we always got something.  

 

There are lots of activities onboard the ship that do not require reservations, so you'll have a good time.

[hackif]

There are not a lot of things you really need to book on the Wish. Palo dinner, brunch, Enchantee dinner and brunch do require reservations but if this is your first cruise with DCL, I'd definitely suggest skipping those so that you can do the whole main dining room rotation including Pirate night (for the 4 days) rather than doing specialty dining. IIRC the Princess meet and greet is open to everyone at 30 days so prior cruisers don't have any advantage there. Yes, if you want a cabana on Castaway Cay it seems that only concierge get those, but there's plenty to do and experience without having a cabana. And we've never had any issue getting a chair or lounger on the beach. We did our 12th cruise on the Wish, didn't book anything and still didn't get a chance to see and do half the things we planned and we didn't even get off the ship. You really don't need to book anything to have a full and fun cruise.