5-Night Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral (Maiden Voyage)

By Michael

We packed the suitcases into the car and headed to Chicago Midway, flying out of gate B10 on Southwest flight 2914. Somewhere over the sunset we watched the wing glow orange with the ground below. We landed in Orlando a little after ten and stopped for a photo in front of the Disney World 50th anniversary backdrop before heading to baggage claim. From there we drove to Port Canaveral.

By Michael

We boarded the Disney Wish in Port Canaveral. We drove down that morning, masks on, and rode an Uber the last stretch to the cruise terminal. "Inaugural Sailings" banners were everywhere, and we stopped for a photo under one before going in.

Once inside, the ship's photographer caught the four of us in front of a world map backdrop for our first portrait. We boarded a little before noon and spent the early afternoon finding our way around: the kids' clubs, the Star Wars-themed Cargo Bay arcade, and pencil sketches from the Walt Disney Imagineering Lab lining the walls. Lisa had a cupcake at Marceline Market, and later she and I split ice cream cones at Sweet Minnie's.

By Michael

Our first full day at sea on the Wish's maiden voyage. We started at the Avengers Technology Showcase, then Thomas and Lisa sat down for a Learn to Draw class, before spending the late morning on character meet and greets: Donald and Daisy, Goofy, a few princesses, and Chewbacca and Rey in the Star Wars Cargo Bay.

Lisa had her hair washed at the unTangled Salon in the afternoon while Thomas posed for pictures in one of the round windows looking out at open ocean. We picked up a couple of Maiden Voyage pins before getting dressed for the ship's formal night.

Dinner was at Arendelle, where a couple of Frozen characters stopped by our table. Watching Lisa perform 'Let it Go' brought tears to my eyes, it was so beautiful. Afterward Thomas got to meet Pluto, and later Lisa had photos taken with Chip and Dale. Back in the room, a towel animal was waiting on the bed.

By Michael

The Disney Wish called at Castaway Cay, Disney's private island in the Bahamas, on the ship's maiden voyage. We were off the ship by mid-morning and stopped for a family photo at the Castaway Cay sign with the Wish docked behind us. Thomas and Lisa spent time at the water slides and the shallows near the water park, and Kathy caught Thomas jumping through the water. Lisa built a Mickey-shaped sandcastle on the beach. Kathy and I had our photo taken together, and later Thomas, Lisa, and I swam in the pool before we headed back toward the ship. We passed the Mickey and Friends Festival of Foods sign near the food stands, and from the upper decks as we pulled away I could see the whole island laid out behind us.

By Michael

Our second full day at sea aboard the Wish. Lisa and I sat in on the ship's Learn to Draw class, where the artists worked through Moana's Hei Hei and Zootopia's Nick Wilde step by step.

Thomas and I ran into Pluto on deck before lunch, and the whole family had barbecue at Mickey's Smokestack. Kathy spent part of the afternoon walking the ship, from the Grand Hall's gold WISH medallion in the floor to the laundry room.

Late in the afternoon we all put on matching red Wish shirts for a portrait with the ship's photographer, then met Mickey in his captain's uniform and Minnie on the Grand Hall stage.

Dinner was at Arendelle, where the kids colored their placemats and we finished with a chocolate dessert topped with gold leaf. Afterward Lisa got a photo with her interpreters, Kelly and Keara, before we turned in for the night.

By Michael

(Age 51 male, 45 female, 17 female, 13 male, Disney cruise #15, 99 nights total)

TLDR

I love the new ship design. Overall, it is by far the most thought out, and best designed ship in the fleet. There were so many improvements that I can’t list them all. I love the new elevator layout. I love the new pool deck layout. I Love the water ride, the food is the best of any cruise I have been on, I like the photography, I don’t love the shopping options, guest services was disappointing, and there is an opportunity to make the Hyperspace Lounge even better.

Quiet Cove

I like that quiet cove is more isolated, and I like that its dead ended, to reduce all the traffic.

The two rounded shallow pools on the sides of the infinity pool should be changed to more of the infinity pool – perhaps with redesigned seats, with slightly less of a recline back.

Elevators

I like that the elevators are narrow and deep to accommodate more elevators in a bank.

I like that there are only two banks of elevators.

I like that the elevators were clearly marked which ones go to which top floor.

The two banks makes navigation less confusing; you are either heading forward from aft or aft from forward. Midship elevators are confusing.

No elevators drop you out in cabanas on the way to the pool. (Reduces pool traffic in the dining area)

I like that when I come out of the elevator, I can only go in one direction (there is a wall on most levels), reduces confusion A LOT, I was never lost.

AquaMouse

It was the perfect amount of exciting. No too scarry, and not too boring.

It was unavailable a lot during the cruise, I’m sure the company is working on its reliability. I was able to ride it 14 times (12 in a row without getting off one evening).

My son LOVED the AquaMouse and rode it 21 times. It really is a great ride.

Pools

VERY well done. I LOVE the 7 main pools.

I like that they are of different depths.

I love that they all have a view of the funnel vision and main stage. The tiered levels are great.

I like that if the Mickey Pool is closed for a stage show, there are still 5 pools available in that area.

I like that the pools appeared to be heated.

I like that if there is an ‘accidental release’, there are other pools that can remain open.

The pool decks were insanely hot, and burnt my feet. In the past, Disney had material that didn’t get so hot. I had to play the floor is lava with a towel to get from one pool to another. – Disappointed.

Food

All the food was exceptional. The best that I have had on any cruise.

Marceline Market

Lunch – Excellent choices, quality was good.

Breakfast – Limited choices, quality was good. Needs more variety.

Mickey & Friends Festival of Foods: Perfect. OMG, Perfect. Great job! 10/10

Joyful Sweets: Well done, good options at reasonable prices!

Wheeze’s Freezies:

Frozen drinks were good, but a little pricy, suggest $4, would sell A LOT more.

Snow cones WAY too overpriced at $6. – imho Should be free… would get more traffic.

Rotational Restaurants Our Service Team (Melissa & I Made) were fantastic, we will request them again.

Arendelle: Show was great, food was great. Don’t change a thing. 10/10

1923: Food was exceptional. Art collection was great. Don’t change a thing. 10/10

Worlds of Marvel: Food was good, entertainment was good. Entertainment could be better. Walking around with a giant Mickey bar some how misses the mark and feels disjointed. The video portion was great. Needs more in-room interaction. Pressing a button and watching a waiter hold a prop isn’t enough.

Shows

Seas the Adventure: Well done. Enjoyed the show, would see it again.

Aladdin: Not performed. – a little disappointing.

The Little Mermaid: was not ready. Many logistical kinks to still work out. I could see white stairs and people backstage… confetti cannons failed to fire, Ursula contraption was not working for some shows. The story felt rushed. I don’t know how to fix it, but the story felt rushed, the songs felt rushed. I’m happy, now I’m sad, now this, not that – very rushed story. Maybe because the original material is so familiar, and this just retells the original story…. Maybe tell less of the story and take your time…or a new Little Mermaid story. Or make the story more unique. – Also, the props felt less grand in scale from some of the other shows. With all that said, I still very much enjoyed the show and would see it again.

Grand Hall

LOVE it. Great use of the space, great redesign. Love the little performances, love the decorations. Love everything about this space. Too many wonderful things to mention them all. Everything is perfect in this space, the design, the use, everything.

Hero Zone

The new Hero Zone on deck 12 helped make the Grand Hall even better by moving appropriate items (Diaper Dash, chip-it golf) out of the Grand Hall, keeping the Grand Hall Illusion intact.

The setup for the Diaper Dash was good.

Air hockey was already broken… disappointed. Would like more scheduled activities in the space.

Kids Clubs

Oceaneer Club: Exceptional, my entire family enjoyed it. Knocked it out of the park, 10/10.

Edge & Vibe: Not enough programming aimed at my kids’ interests. Could be an ‘us’ problem, could be a ‘you’ problem... hard to tell with teenagers. But I can say that <12 years old, I couldn’t keep my kids out of the kid’s club (15 Disney cruises), and now I can’t get them to go there (Edge & Vibe). They just are so boring and uninspired. Put 1/10th of the effort from the Oceaneer club into the Edge & Vibe. They are so normal and laid back. Maybe you tried exciting and using your IP and that didn’t work… I don’t know… I just know that those spaces were the most disappointing part of the cruise. They are no better than other cruise lines. And my kids are 13 & 17… not sure why I would pay the Disney price for a teen club that is the same as on the other cruise lines. Have you ever discussed surfing simulators, ropes courses, indoor skydiving? ANYTHING aimed at teens?

The Hideaway: I like that the 18-20 crowd isn’t completely ignored….but I never saw programming for 18-20. One of my kids is 17 this year and will be 18 next year…. But I didn’t see anything aimed at an 18-year-old princess. Not sure if I will choose a Disney cruise for her, as she seems to be overlooked.

Bar/Lounge/Café

I liked having the ‘adult’ areas not hidden down some dark forbidding hall. They were more integrated with the common areas. I liked having many ‘for all ages’ activities in them during the day. This made them multi-use, and more accessible to the whole family. It gave the ship more family use areas during the day. 10/10

There was limited seating in the Hyperspace lounge, which resulted in a wait list/scheduled seating time for a casual use bar. The other bars/lounges have more seating ability. I would suggest expanding the Hyperspace Lounge into the area currently used by Treasures Untold, see section on Treasure Untold for related comments.

Hyperspace Lounge

There was limited seating in the Hyperspace lounge, which is smaller than the other lounges, and resulted in a wait list/scheduled seating time for a casual use bar. The other bars/lounges have more seating ability and no scheduling requirements. I would suggest expanding the Hyperspace Lounge into the area currently used by Treasures Untold. This would relieve the seating/congestion/scheduling problem and open more revenue streams mentioned below.

Add alien characters lounging around the Hyperspace lounge, droids wandering around, and photo opportunities in there with them as well. –would need to make Hyperspace lounge larger to accommodate this. While people are in line to take photos with the alien characters, sell them beverages.

Should have alien entertainment in the evening, signing and a band –upscale lounges such as this have entertainment in the evening both on world and off.

Photography

The photography websites (on board and off board) need a little work.

Off board: you must select at least one photo before the option to download all the pictures is available. It should always be available. When you tell the website to download all the pictures, it runs batches of 25 photos, making them zip files, and opening popup windows for each of them. THAT is not user friendly. It crashed Firefox and would not download all of the photos (511). I switched to chrome and was able to download all the batches of zip files after allowing popups, but then I had 21 zip files to individually uncompressed and empty out. PLEASE make it just ONE zip file. That should fix most of the issues and crashes. At a minimum, perhaps batches of 250. I was on a 5 night cruise and took 511 photos. On the 14 night cruises I take over 1,000 photos. That’s 40 popups, 40 zip files to download, 40 file extractions, then 40 folders to copy photos out of to merge them into one folder of photos. Please don’t do that to me.

Onboard: One of the days, the photo website stopped working for me, and the shutters people were unable to help. (log out, log in, turn internet off, wifi off, wifi on, internet on/off again, log out again, log in again, hold your tongue like this, hop on one foot, do the hokey pokey)… I was using chrome browser on android. – I installed the Samsung browser and was able to access the photos. The next day, the ‘normal’ process worked again. – Guessing it’s a cookie issue since it worked in a different web browser. I upgraded the internet during my stay which might have confused the internet filter… who knows. I have a Samsung GS21 Ultra, with current updates on version network.

Photo opportunities

The photographers were fantastic. They added value to your cruise.

There was a new prop, a treasure chest (which matched the design of the Little Mermaid stage show treasure chest) which had a glow from the chest. I loved this new prop, and it’s use on Pirate Night was the perfect time to use it.

There was a fair number of photographers on the pool deck on sea days, taking photos.

There was a fair number of photographers on Castaway Cay, taking photos.

During sail away and Pirate night parties, there were photographers, but I personally, feel there should have been more.

Character Photo opportunities

The characters were not in formal wear on formal night. – Disappointed. (It may have had something to do with the sail away stage show being moved to the 2nd night… also a weird decision)

We are still social distancing from the characters… in general, I don’t mind. – But sometimes we are standing SO FAR away from the characters that you can’t even tell that they are supposed to be in the picture. We had a photo in the Star Wars cargo bay, with Rei and Chewbacca… in which you couldn’t tell that they were in the photo with us. – Disappointed.

Future Photo Package Enhancements

Add a camera to the AquaMouse ride, for on ride photos.

Add alien characters lounging around the Hyperspace lounge, and photo opportunities in there with them as well. – probably would need to make Hyperspace lounge larger to accommodate this. See related note about onboard shopping.

Onboard Shopping

Disappointed.

Mickeys Mainsail: for as long as it is… it felt small, perhaps because of it being narrow. Would like to see it have more variety. Very few matching shirt designs in sizes for all family members. No matching water shirts for photos on Castaway Cay. Would love the Wish water shirts the media were given. (2x, xl, sm & sm).

Treasure Untold: Too small, needs to move to the location of and replace; “3Wishes, Once Upon a Time, Royal Regalia & Enchanted Jewels” Those four non-disney ‘Luxury shopping’ spaces should be combined into one small space. Treasures Untold needs to be larger, with more options, like on the other ships.

I would suggest expanding the Hyperspace Lounge into the area currently used by Treasures Untold, and move Treasures Untold across the hall, and expand Treasures Untold.

Dory’s Forget Me Knots: Disappointing. No water shirts. No matching water shirts for photos on Castaway Cay. Would love the Wish water shirts the media were given. (2x, xl, sm & sm). None of the “we forgot this” stuff in the shop… just t-shirts… VERY disappointed.

3Wishes, Once Upon a Time, Royal Regalia & Enchanted Jewels: There can’t be enough sales to justify this waste of valuable real estate. Compress it down to one shop and expand Treasures Untold in that area – Then expand Hyperspace Lounge.

State Room

The state room host was fantastic (Yoga).

There were many charging ports and electrical outlets - great.

The theming was wonderful.

Love the night lights in the bathrooms, and the room was very quiet at night (almost too quiet)

The removable shower head hose is latched to the pole, which limits its usefulness. – I miss the rainforest shower head at the top. – area for improvement

The AC did not cool the room (#8014) enough for my preferences, the ‘cool it quick’ button did not cool it quick. – area for improvement.

Guest Services

I like the option for virtual customer service, and I like the option to schedule an appointment… but I don’t like removing the ability to walk up and get my issue fixed. – It’s all about perception… and the signs said “Appointment Only” on every podium.

I don’t like the new setup. The new location design SHOULD make it feel more approachable, but somehow it feels less approachable. Every podium state that you must make an appointment… I don’t want to be forced to figure out an app to resolve my issue. This is 180 degrees from the Disney Customer Service Experience I have enjoyed in the past. When I had issues this cruise, I didn’t feel that I could report them because there was a long line (did the line have an appointment? Are they just waiting without an appointment? I don’t know.) AND the signs at each desk told me that I HAD to use the app to make an appointment… so I just went away disappointed, when I had even a small 30 second question, or wanted to drop off a letter for the Asst. Cruise director, I felt that I couldn’t. I can not express to you enough how disappointed I am in this new process.