Disappointed Review of Disney Wish - Happy to answer questions!

[KatRangoon]

Hey all, we just got back from the Disney Wish, port days in Nassau and Castaway Cay. I'm a Florida Local as well, and happy to answer any questions. Here's my review I wrote up for reference. 🙂

 

 

We've taken a variety of cruise lines for reasons such as affordability, destination, the group we were going with, and room size. We specifically chose a Disney Cruise for a family experience that we thought a 8 year old, 18 year old, and 40 yr olds could enjoy together. We were unfortunately completely disappointed with the experience and can't recommend Disney Cruises for 18-20year olds or adults that can't have alcohol (in our case, I'm currently on meds that the smallest amount of alcohol makes me crazy loopy!).

 

The Good: 
The Service. The dining staff and our room attendant was the best part of the cruise. Very attentive, remembered us, was always anticipating our needs. They're really the reason this cruise wasn't rated a 2/5. 

The Room. We had a balcony, and while with 4 in the room it was tight, it was always clean. Having a separate bath/shower was fantastic. We also enjoyed having the choice of Disney movies, shows, and songs on our TV (though little quibble, there was no Disney+ so we couldn't watch the finale of The Acolyte when it aired). Free Room Service was also nice. We didn't use it but once, but it was nice that it was there as an option.

Random Character Encounters. Our 8 year old loved seeing the Disney characters randomly on the ship, be it waving from a balcony or walking down the hall to an event. They were always engaging with the kids and my little one lit up each time. A surprise cameo at the Marvel Dinner show was especially exciting.

Theater Stage Shows. We saw The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, and both shows were short enough to hold everyone's attention and tell a fun and engaging story. They were great productions and well performed.

The Aquamouse. The water coaster was a lot of fun, my kids loved the little movie inside the tunnel. It was open on Sea day, which some cruise lines close their slides when the ship is moving so that was a nice surprise. 

 

The Could Have Been Good but Disappointed:

The Kids Club. This was one of the big draws to this Disney Cruise. It's advertised as basically a day camp for kids where they get to meet characters and do activities with them all day. No parents are allowed inside, but we got to see it in a open house and it looked magical. Events are listed in the schedule so we know when to drop them off so they don't miss things like Story Time with Belle or Star Wars Creatures with Rey and Chewbacca. What they don't tell you is there is little to no organization inside the kids club. Once you drop them off, they run around in a sort of free play recess. If they're playing video games or simulators or running around playing tag or hide and seek with the other kids they don't automatically do the listed kid events. There is no way to sign them up for them, or make sure they attend. Several times when we picked our 8 year old up after we had dropped them off to attend a event inside the club we discovered she didn't attend it because she forgot or was in line for the video game and didn't want to lose her place. The events she did attend, we have no photos of. We bought the photo package and figured they would be taking pictures of the events and meets inside the kids club and we could see her experiences though that, but no, there was no evidence she was ever even at the club in our photos. The kids club could have been the best part of the cruise, but it's unorganized structure and lack of photos just made it a place for parents to dump their kids off at, instead of the magical memory making event space it could have been.

Arendelle Stage Show. My kids are big Frozen fans, especially of Olaf. The reason we chose WISH over other Disney cruises were the emphasis on Marvel, Star Wars, and Frozen. The Arendelle Dinner Show was on our last night of the cruise and the one my 8 year old had been waiting for. She couldn't wait to see Olaf (for some reason they didn't have a Olaf meet on the cruise, but I promised her she'd see him at dinner). Unfortunately, we were seated near the back of the dining room with the stage barely raised off the floor. We were also seated with a table of Adults in front of us who could care less about the show and attempted to talk OVER the show the entire time. We could only see the human performers heads from where we sat, and only caught snippits of song choruses. The human performers did a quick walk/wave past the table of adults at one point but never looked over at where we were. We never saw Olaf. I told my kid he was off playing with Sven that night and couldn't come. She was heartbroken because we'd been talking about seeing him all week. (At that point I thought I was crazy and had imagined pictures of him as part of the show, but when I got home I looked it up and videos of people up close to the low stage show he's on the stage for most of the show, just that he's short.) This was so poorly set up, it was infuriating. The stage should have been set up higher, with Olaf on a higher platform (maybe an ice sculpture or even just a table). Screens projecting the show could have been placed on the back walls for those that didn't have a good view (they did this for the Marvel show and it worked great!). They should have made an announcement for people to keep their voices down during the performance, and had the mics turned up more. They could have placed families with children near the front so the kids could see. So many little things could have been done to address huge problems that they obviously have to know about after running the show for 2 years.  

The Not Random Character Encounters:  What my 8 year old didn't enjoy was waiting in line for 30-45 min to meet a character and after we did it twice, she didn't want to meet any other characters, even her favorite Donald Duck.  Coming from Florida and used to theme park lines I understand the line ride is a necessity, but they could have made it magical for the kids by providing them an activity or had the meets in a location showing a Disney movie or doing a sing along or something. Also, it was aggravating that there were more ADULTS in these lines than kids and they often took longer than the kids as they needed to tell the character their life story and get videos and multiple phone/camera shots for their blogs etc. Having adult only meets in the adult areas might have solved this. Also having pictures taken with characters in the Kids Club could have shortened the line as well. 

Small Bars/Cafes. I loved the idea of the Hyperspace Lounge and Tiana's Bayou. Both small themed areas that ended up being a huge disappointment. The Bayou had delicious Beignets, perfectly in theme with Tiana's, but they had no coffee to go with them! They only served alcohol or root beer, which did not fit with Beignets at all. We had to bring a coffee from another cafe when we went back a second time for the beignets. Hyperspace was even more disappointing. They didn't have any bar food to order and only had 2 non-alcoholic drinks (an oat milk drink - eww, and a shirly temple type drink mix that couldn't be adjusted and since I have a pineapple allergy wasn't an option). They didn't even serve soda. It had been one of the draws of the entire ship when choosing a cruise and we left without ordering anything, completely dejected. 

 

The Overall Bad/Disappointing: 
Small Events/Programming. I really got the feeling that this ship only focused on providing daycare for kids and catering to adults who would buy alcohol. I've mentioned the lack of non-alcoholic drinks in the specialty locations, but it's also very evident in the programming. There were tons of daily drinking events you could pay for (types of rum, wine tastings, mixology etc), but nothing for the family like lightsaber building, cooking classes, imagineering activities etc. There were some free events like trivia scattered throughout the day, but a lot of those were 18+ because they were in bars even though there was nothing questionable about the subject material. Those events even felt limited because they were often during evening show/dinner time or after 10pm when we needed to get the kid to bed. It often felt like we were being funneled up to the pool deck to either eat or swim out of boredom. With everyone feeling that way though the pools were almost always overfull and the dining areas crowded. We are used to always being able to find live music somewhere on the ship we could sit and listen to between activities, but there only seemed to be one or two live performances each day, and those were mostly at night. Many times we just aimlessly wandered with nothing to do while we waited for our assigned theater show or dinner.

1820 Society. I'm pulling this out separately because this was also one reason we picked Disney over other cruise lines. We have a 18 year old. They are too old to be in the Teen Club and too young for the Drinking activities. When we saw that Wish had a club for the 18-20 year olds we were excited. I was hoping for activities like video game tournaments, young adult Karaoke, organized sports, age appropriate Trivia, etc. It was a horrible let down. They had one event each day, which was a 10pm meeting, lunch in Marceline's, a bike ride on castaway cay, and another lunch. My 18 year old went to the 10pm meeting the first night, said a couple people were awkwardly sitting around, and that was it. They were visibly upset when they returned to the room and didn't want to go to the boring lunches because they didn't see a point since they weren't doing anything. So my 18 year old was too old to do any of the fun activities the 17 year olds were doing, but too young to do well in most of the trivia since it was geared for older adults, and too young to do any of the drinking activities. 

 

Random Let downs: 
The Incredibles Obstacle Course in all the promotional materials was out only once, when everyone was on shore at the Bahamas. The kids never got to go on it. 

No Arcade. While never listed, it seems like an obvious thing to have on a kid centric ship and the other cruise ships we've been on have had a arcade as part of their casino. A Dave and Busters/Main Event style arcade room with Disney themed Pinball, arcade, and VR games would have made a ton of money from our family, we easily would have dropped a couple hundred a day there going back several times a day when we had a half our or hour between events. 

Dining Times. Having the 2nd Main dining time at 8:15pm is ridiculous on a family cruise. The first course was never delivered until 8:45-9pm and we didn't get out of dinner until about 10pm each night. We would have to go to the quick service for pizza or fries or something around 5 just to keep everyone from starving. Most other ships we've been on have had a 5 and 7 dinner service, and while the 7pm wasn't great, it's a lot better than a 8:15 one. 

Navigator App/Magic Bands Magic Bands are all over the website and App about how once you have it for the cruise it does everything. So we bought 4 for around $200 even though most other cruise lines give you the medallions for free. Then found them pretty useless. Yes they opened doors, but you still needed the door card issued you to turn on the lights. When you went to pay, they asked for your card, and if you showed your band, they would just kind of sigh and then have you take off the band so they could take it to their register to scan. You still had to have your card when you went off the boat even though it says the band will work instead. Yes your kid needs the band for tracking inside the kids club, but they give your kid one for free if they don't have one. Speaking of tracking unlike on other cruise ships, while they have the technology to show location of family wearing the band (see previous comment about using it in the kids club) they don't have it on the navigator app, so we never knew where anyone was unless we texted them. The bands would also glow randomly, but there was no information in the app explaining why. They were also supposed to be important to activating the interactive element of the Marvel dinner show, but they had buttons to push since most people didn't have the bands. 

 

Overall, it was just plain disappointing. We picked this cruise because of the Magical Family Experience, but in the end felt like execution had much to be desired and themed experiences were some of the weakest elements. We will not be recommending the Wish for families in general, but may recommend it for parents with young Mickey's Clubhouse loving kids who don't like Frozen or other Disney IPs.