Disney Cruise Review: Disney Wish for Families and First-Time Cruisers
March 22, 2024
We just got back on land from our first cruise ever on the Disney Wish. I wanted to post a review so anyone else who’s thinking about this for a family vacation can have some quick facts. In this post, I’m sharing details about our time on the Disney Wish (which leaves from Port Canaveral, Florida), including what we did for both dining and entertainment and what we thought.
This is by no means a complete review of all the tips you need, but it’s definitely a starting point! And if you’re new to cruises us, then it’s the perfect place to start. I’ll also run through a few things to do to prepare that we learned as first time cruisers. As far as what I wore, I’ll put that in another post!
How to Prepare for a Disney Cruise: The Month Before
My sister- and brother-in-law deserve the credit for these tips, because they had been on two Disney cruises before us and made sure to share these with us. They’re things we never would have thought of, so I’m grateful they shared! Here are some things to do to prepare in the month and weeks leading up to your trip.
Make sure to make your itinerary selections as early as you can.
Disney will give you access to plan your dinner times and other things online within a month of your departure. Take the time to register all your passengers and choose dining options. For the family-oriented meals especially, they have two seating times–5:45 and 7:45. We chose 5:45 having younger kids, which made a huge difference in allowing them to have some play time after dinner.
If you want a little time to familiarize yourself with the ship, think about checking in earlier.
The check-in window opens 30 days before the cruise, and you can choose a boarding time as soon as the system opens. We registered for a 1:15 check-in time–on the earlier side–as it was our first cruise, and we wanted a couple hours to familiarize ourselves with the layout before we disembarked at 4:00. You can register for check in as early as noon (or at least that’s what it was for us), so choose a time that works best. An early check-in can mean time to walk around and maybe even ride the Aquamouse.
Pack travel laundry packets if you want to wash your clothes on board.
You know how I feel about travel laundry! lol. When we were in Italy for three weeks, Andrew and I hand washed a ton so that we didn’t have to pack a lot. Obviously this is a much shorter trip, but I like knowing that we could do laundry and even come back with clean clothes from vacation, eliminating that work when we got home. Pack ’em if you want ’em! I ended up doing three loads of laundry and came back with just a few dirty items. Huge laundry room on the 8th floor of the Disney Wish!
Carry on all medications and necessities when you board.
In case there’s a delay in your luggage arriving to your room, pack medicines, vitamins, sunscreen, bathing suits, or anything else you need in your carry-on.
Download the Disney Cruise App before you arrive.
Don’t skip this step! The app is the most important part of the trip because it lists all the activities, helps you book, and you can also use it to chat with the rest of your party. This is important: You won’t have Wifi onboard unless you purchase their connection package, which gives you internet access on two devices for around $80 (as of March 2024, prices may change). So if you want to stay connected but don’t do the Wifi package, the Disney Cruise app is vital! It has a built-in messaging feature. Otherwise, you can pay for access and also text from your phone.
The Rooms on the Disney Wish
Before I get into what we did, a quick note on the rooms: While not spacious compared to a typical hotel room, you can pack a lot in! The Disney Wish says you can sleep six, though I feel that would be a stretch. The bed you see in the picture easily fits two, and we even slept three across a couple nights when the kids didn’t want to sleep in the bunk.
There’s also the aforementioned bunk, which comes down where the picture in the forefront is in the picture right below. And the couch also pulls out into a bed. We did two rooms for the five of us and it was more than comfortable. There are a ton of shelves to store smaller items, like toiletry bags or even clothes, which helped a lot too.
Day 1: Onboarding and First Night
You Should:
Register your kids at the kids’ club! Don’t wait to register them until you drop them off for the first time; get it done right away because the first night when parents start dropping off their kids, the line can get super long. Get it over with as soon as you can!
Ride the Aquamouse
This is a great time for the kids (or you!) to try out the onboard waterslide, the Aquamouse. I didn’t do it this time, but the kids gave it a raving review.
Eat at Marceline
This is the cafeteria-style buffet restaurant on the 11th floor of the Disney Wish that is open every morning for breakfast and lunch. After checking in and while you’re waiting for your luggage to arrive at your room, grab a bite to eat!
What We Did:
Ate a Welcome Lunch at Marceline’s
After onboarding (a relatively simple and quick process), you walk onto the ship into a beautiful reception area/open space with a stage. There are characters floating around, and the mood was so fun and full of excitement. We immediately grabbed lunch at Marceline (see above), then walked around the ship to familiarize ourselves with the amenities.
Drinks at The Bayou
This little bar area right outside the Hyperspace Lounge is so awesome. Most nights they have live music, and we really enjoyed grabbing a drink or snack while waiting for our dinner reservation. The performers are excellent and the music ranged from jazz to pop music–all live.
Dinner at “Avengers: Quantum Encounter”
Dinner was at The Avengers; we had the 5:45 seating. It’s an interactive dinner of sorts, where they play videos on nearby screens that are filmed just for the restaurant, featuring all the Avengers characters. There’s a little interactive moment where the kids at the table get to press the button on a “generator” on the table, and it aligns with what’s happening with the video. Super cute! Then Spiderman came out and interacted with some of the kids after dinner. I got the beef tenderloin, which was just okay. Food 5/10; entertainment 6/10.
Day 2: First Dock at Nassau, Bahamas
You get to choose where to spend your first full day. As the ship docks at Nassau, Bahamas, you can choose to disembark to spend the day at Atlantis or Baha Mar or spend the day on the ship.
What We Did:
Breakfast at 1923
This is a smaller restaurant on the entry floor, and I really enjoyed it mainly because it’s a smaller footprint and you don’t have all the buffet lines and traffic. It’s a sit-down restaurant and the food was just decent. But honestly, just having a regular restaurant experience where you’re not bumping into a bunch of people while carrying a food tray was worth it. A good break from the buffet!
Baha Mar
We chose to spend the day Baha Mar, as we’ve been there on vacation before and the kids love the waterslides and pools. You can get off the boat as early as 8:30. Be warned that there is some line waiting for this day! You wait to get off the ship, you wait to get to the bus terminal area, and you wait to board the bus. Not the worst, but it added a solid hour on. And I’d want to know this if I had small kids with me who don’t like waiting in the heat!
When you arrive, you can get a cabana if you want a place to put all your belongings for the day. We are usually cabana people but it just didn’t feel worth it on this trip. It’s great to have a place to plunk down your bags, but you can also leave them in a locker. Since you have to carry an ID to re-board the ship, I brought my wallet with me, so we chose a locker this time just because I didn’t feel great leaving my wallet loose in a cabana.
Baha Mar’s Activities
As far as the activities, I just really love Baha Mar’s setup. The kids loved the lazy river and some of the waterslides. We also spent some time just hanging out on the beach. As a cruiser, you won’t get access to the beachfront that the hotel guests do, but it’s still nice!
The only downside of this day were the lunch lines–insanely long. People were waiting 45 minutes for a burger after placing their order, and we waited almost 50 minutes for a chicken sandwich and tenders! This may have been due to the fact that we were there during a spring break week, but with your day pass menu options (you can choose from 3 food stands), just be aware that getting food might not be a quick process, so time it accordingly so you can get back to the ship!
We chose to take a car back to the ship a little earlier than the boarding time, just because the kids were ready to relax. The regular re-boarding time was 3:30.
Dinner at Arendelle
This was by far the most fun dinner experience for the kids of the trip. While you eat, you’re entertained by live singing and dancing from all of the Frozen characters. If there’s something you can count on with any Disney experience, it’s first-class live entertainment. The singing was amazing; there was a fiddler player; and they even wheeled out a talking Olaf on a wagon! It was so sweet seeing the kids’ faces light up at one of their former favorite movies brought to life. Even though they’re getting a little older and aren’t as Disney-obsessed, this show brought back the magic of their little years for a moment, and I almost cried at how sweet it was.
As far as the food, I found it to be more tasty than the Avengers restaurant. We got the Swedish meatball and egg noodle dish and the scallop appetizer. They were both excellent! Food 7.5/10, entertainment 10/10.
The Little Mermaid Live Show on the Disney Wish
These performers could have been on Broadway! Again, a truly magical experience to see the movie brought to life. The animal characters were puppets, manipulated by the voice actors themselves. Sebastian in particular was incredible! I can’t overstate how talented these performers are. It really felt like a treat to see this level of talent included with our cruise; it felt so good that they could charge separately. Great show; one hour total. Experience 10/10.
Day 3: Dock at Castaway Cay
What We Did:
Beach Day
Castaway Cay is Disney’s private island, and they have it all set up for families! Since its their property, there is less red tape getting off the ship and onto the island. It’s a simple disembarkment.
As far as activities, there’s a ton–parasailing, water bikes, a water ropes course, snorkeling, water slides, rafts and floaties, and more. Our kids loved the water ropes course and just hanging at the beach, and they also really loved the waterslide.
Disney serves a barbecue lunch from 11:30-2pm on the island, so you can also come and go to get all the food you want while you’re there. Alcoholic and specialty drinks, of course, are not included.
This was a more relaxing day for us and the kids. We posted up on a couple lounge chairs and let the kids have fun. Just make sure you’re diligent about sunscreen. My kids don’t burn easily but the sun really was powerful! I reapplied 3 or 4 times just to be sure.
Pirate Dinner
People really go all out for this one! For this pirate-themed dinner, which is also hosted in the Arendelle dining hall, you can dress up as much or as little as you want for dinner. We didn’t bring anything special, but Disney provides red bandanas that the kids tied up on their heads, which was a cute touch.
No entertainment for this dinner, but they seated us at the exact same spot as the night before, and since you have the same server with you through all your dinners, we just talked with our awesome waiter, who also did magic tricks for the kids!
90s Music Trivia Night
The kids hung at the kids’ club while we went with another couple to the 90s Music Trivia Night, which was right up my alley! You have to name the song and artist for 20 tracks, and the person who gets the most wins… a medal (wah wah 😂). We got there late so we missed the first four tracks, but I’m proud to report that other than that I only missed half of one track! (It was the Vengaboys song “We Like to Party,” which I mistakenly called “Vengabus.” The song of my freshman year of college! haha) Honestly this whole experience was just a fun excuse to sing a bunch of 90s songs with fellow elder millenials, just the best. Highly recommend!
Day 4: A Day at Sea on the Disney Wish
What We Did:
Since you’re on the Disney Wish all day, this is a real choose-your-own-adventure kind of day. We slept in, ate at Marceline (so so so packed, the lines were crazy, because everyone was on the ship), and basically just planned on keeping it a slow day.
Bingo!
The kids were way into bingo, where by the way the cash prizes are crazy! They were over 400, 500 and 600 dollars for each game. We met up with our in-laws and all the cousins for a morning bingo game and it was just so unexpectedly fun! The host had all these little jokes and would interrupt play with little snippets of songs–just the most Disney-fied and fun way of doing bingo. Highly recommend! Note: Arrive early to buy your cards and register! The lines for this get long too, so maybe pop into line around a half hour early just to be safe.
Aladdin Live Show on the Disney Wish
My mother-in-law took the girls to see the Aladdin live show, while the boys played basketball in the Hero Zone and hung out, playing video games at Edge. They loved it! Again, the talent level with all the performers is just astounding; these people could be on Broadway! An hour-long show, but you can come and go as you wish.
Massage
In the afternoon, I got away for a little massage at the Senses Spa on the Disney Wish. The service was great–a deep tissue massage I really needed as my neck tends to seize up when I’m stressed or traveling. I wondered what a spa on a ship might look like, and as always, Disney makes it work! The reception area looks out onto the sea, and the treatment rooms are lined up down a nearby hallway. The waiting area isn’t the largest, and as far as included amenities, there’s just a steam room. You have to pay to access what’s called the “Rainforest Room,” which has a dry sauna and heated ceramic loungers.
For all my fellow product junkies, they carry products from both Elemis and Grown Alchemist. I’m a hard upsell on products as I feel like I have literally tried everything, but I did end up walking away with these Elemis bath sachets with epsom salt and algae that my therapist swore would help keep all the knots in my back away. Will report back!
Dinner at Palo
After getting the kids set up at the kids’ club and Edge (the area for kids 11+), the adults headed to a dinner at Palo on the 12th floor of the Disney Wish.
At the front of the restaurant is the Rose Lounge, famous for the Rose drink, made to look like the flower from Beauty and the Beast. I can’t comment as we didn’t have drinks there, but the view from the lounge and Palo in general is spectacular! You get a look at the ocean and horizon just as the sun sets–absolutely beautiful, and really sets the mood differently.
As a more upscale dining option, we had the pick of an extensive wine and cocktail list, and more gourmet meal options including kobe beef, delicious steaks, fresh fish and gourmet salads. This was by far my favorite meal from the entire experience. I went with the “Prezzo Fisso” (pre fixe) four-course meal option, which included a tomato burrata salad, romaine salad, penne pasta and their famous chocolate souffle. All courses were incredible! Food 9.5/10.
Disembarkment Tips
When it’s time to get off the ship, you can choose to either do express disembarkment/debarking, or group debarking.
Group Disembarkment
For the group, you’ll be able to wake up and have breakfast on the ship, and then you’ll be dismissed by group. The cruise staff hands out tags with characters that you put on your bags, and then they call each group one by one to disembark. You’ll have to set out your bags the night before so the crew can grab them and bring them down for you.
The upside to this is that you have time for one more breakfast on board, and you don’t have to rush out the door. The downside is that you’re back in those lines, waiting to get off the ship.
Express Disembarkment
We went with this option, which is exactly what it sounds like–an express way to get off the ship! With express debarking, you have a 15 minute period (it ended up being a little longer than that) to get into line on the third floor to get off the ship.
By the time our fourth morning rolled around, we were ready to get going. I got everyone packed up the night before and laid out clothes for the morning, and we got out the door by 7:05 to be in line by 7:07. There was already a serious line by then, curving around the third floor, but it moved fairly quickly and we were off the ship, including through customs, by 7:45.
The upside to express disembarkment is that you can get off the ship before the huge crowds gather. Yes, you’ll still likely encounter a serious line, but it’s only a small fraction of who’s left onboard. Plus, we found the line to move relatively quickly. This quick process alone is incentive for me to pack us lightly for next time, so we can get off and going as quickly as we did this time. I highly recommend this process–takes the excess waiting out of the picture!