Disney Wish Was Disappointing

I think one can argue why should they change things just to change them. For example renaming cabanas or the design of the doors. But then the other side one can argue if you’re coming out with a brand new product and making such high anticipation if you didn’t change things people would be like, if you’re rolling out a brand new ship why didn’t you change things?

Concerning drawers, I haven’t look at the exact layout but I would be so annoyed if that means I’m missing that main high drawer under the glasses because that’s where I just threw all of our “junk” that we collected over the sailing. Or maybe they’re going for more a international look as many countries don’t really used drawers like Americans and instead wardrobe shelves to put underwear and socks.

But the more I’m reading about the awish I’m so happy that we canceled our September sailing and instead are doing Norway and Iceland in the magic. Granted one day we will do the Wish and I will enjoy it most likely but when I looked at what I would be paying for those four nights versus a 10 night with the discounts right now it was a simple choice.

Here is a pic our cabin desk area.

DSCN7394.JPG

DSCN7112.JPG

Very little drawer space. In the first pic the big bottom drawer is the pull out cooler. The narrow drawer next to the drawer under the mirror holds the hair dryer. You must fold down the hair dryer handle to fit the blower back in the drawer. Also, on the corner of the unit closer to the bed the trash can is in a cubby. I took the can out and used the cubby space for storage. I still had enough room to walk around the bed.

This was cabin 9666, an 8B ocean view on Deck 9. It connects to 9668



MJ
 
I’ve only seen it posted by the one person, who I assume is the same person who started this thread.

Food is subjected. There are people out there who prefer the food on Royal to Disney which I don’t understand as I found the food on Royal to be not great. Generally I’ll ignore the food reviews unless something was raw.

But a lot of the first reviews say the same thing - hard to navigate, lots of dead end hallways, adult pool area too small, no shade, no promenade deck, adult lounges too small, too much luxury shopping etc. People are allowed to have opinions and honestly based on the reviews I’ve seen all with similar feedback I am going into the Wish with low expectations.
 
We just got off the Wish yesterday. Her are some of our thoughts if anyone cares :)

We paid full price, less the discount from having a placeholder. Our only other Disney cruise was the Dream in 2019. We also sailed a Carnival ship in 2016. There are 3 of us, my husband and I, and our 11 year old daughter.

We didn't find the layout that bad personally. We spent some time on embarkation day trying to familiarize ourselves with where things were, and we also used the app ship plans when we got turned around.

We stayed midship on Deck 6, so we felt close enough to each set of elevators. We are also okay taking the stairs. We personally navigated just fine without midship elevators.

We are not runners but do enjoy going out on Deck 4 - we were fine with the split layout on this one, and my DH and I did make the whole loop one afternoon. Somehow we did find ourselves in the outside area of Senses and ended up having to walk through the spa to get out - it felt awkward but in the end we just had a huge laugh about it.

Some things that we dealt with that weren't our favorites - the in room fridge is not cold at all. We like Pepsi products and had brought some, along with bottled water from home. We will not do that if we ever sailed her again - not worth the heavy bag to have hot drinks all week. And yes the storage areas are annoying; there are only 3 of us so we made do with the shelving and used our packing cubes to hold things like socks/underwear. We had no issues but I could see a larger family struggling. But for the record I WAY overpacked so we probably had enough clothes in there for a couple others :)

My daughter enjoyed Edge but didn't live there, so we didn't really have the need to figure out the adult spaces. I did enjoy one of the adult round loungers one evening (see below) but I wasn't necessarily seeking it out.

We toured Hyperspace one morning before it opened and found that to be suffficient as we are not drinkers and didn't feel the need to have a reservation in the evening.

The evenings shows I feel will come along, but I did feel they were kind of lacking on this cruise. We enjoyed Seas the Adventure and it was probably our favorite. Maybe cause we weren't as tired since it was the first night :) We attended a Broadway singer who I assume replaced Aladdin, and she was fine. I was glad my daughter decided to hang out in Edge that night though as she would have grown bored. Another night they showed a big screen in there are Thor and my husband went to that. I found myself on an adult area couch on deck and it was glorious. And lastly we saw the Little Mermaid production; my daughter said she didn't like it and I thought it was just okay - but hopefully it gets better.

Our restaurant servers were awesome and personable. Talk to them is my advice. Seem interested in them! They will gladly talk back. Both of ours had been on previous Disney fleet and shared their adventures. The food in the restaurants to me was.... ehh. I had so much higher hopes because the Dream was amazing. Our 1923 filet was AWESOME but our other meals were just okay. Pirate night, as usual, was a huge miss for our family. I do wish there would be some better evening options - it seemed like if we didn't enjoy dinner, then seriously by 7pm, the only other option was ice cream or room service. The Navigator said the pizza place was open but almost always closed. I figure they are short staffed or still dealing with Covid. I'm sure I still managed to gain weight regardless :)
 
We just got off the Wish yesterday. Her are some of our thoughts if anyone cares :)

We paid full price, less the discount from having a placeholder. Our only other Disney cruise was the Dream in 2019. We also sailed a Carnival ship in 2016. There are 3 of us, my husband and I, and our 11 year old daughter.

We didn't find the layout that bad personally. We spent some time on embarkation day trying to familiarize ourselves with where things were, and we also used the app ship plans when we got turned around.

We stayed midship on Deck 6, so we felt close enough to each set of elevators. We are also okay taking the stairs. We personally navigated just fine without midship elevators.

We are not runners but do enjoy going out on Deck 4 - we were fine with the split layout on this one, and my DH and I did make the whole loop one afternoon. Somehow we did find ourselves in the outside area of Senses and ended up having to walk through the spa to get out - it felt awkward but in the end we just had a huge laugh about it.

Some things that we dealt with that weren't our favorites - the in room fridge is not cold at all. We like Pepsi products and had brought some, along with bottled water from home. We will not do that if we ever sailed her again - not worth the heavy bag to have hot drinks all week. And yes the storage areas are annoying; there are only 3 of us so we made do with the shelving and used our packing cubes to hold things like socks/underwear. We had no issues but I could see a larger family struggling. But for the record I WAY overpacked so we probably had enough clothes in there for a couple others :)

My daughter enjoyed Edge but didn't live there, so we didn't really have the need to figure out the adult spaces. I did enjoy one of the adult round loungers one evening (see below) but I wasn't necessarily seeking it out.

We toured Hyperspace one morning before it opened and found that to be suffficient as we are not drinkers and didn't feel the need to have a reservation in the evening.

The evenings shows I feel will come along, but I did feel they were kind of lacking on this cruise. We enjoyed Seas the Adventure and it was probably our favorite. Maybe cause we weren't as tired since it was the first night :) We attended a Broadway singer who I assume replaced Aladdin, and she was fine. I was glad my daughter decided to hang out in Edge that night though as she would have grown bored. Another night they showed a big screen in there are Thor and my husband went to that. I found myself on an adult area couch on deck and it was glorious. And lastly we saw the Little Mermaid production; my daughter said she didn't like it and I thought it was just okay - but hopefully it gets better.

Our restaurant servers were awesome and personable. Talk to them is my advice. Seem interested in them! They will gladly talk back. Both of ours had been on previous Disney fleet and shared their adventures. The food in the restaurants to me was.... ehh. I had so much higher hopes because the Dream was amazing. Our 1923 filet was AWESOME but our other meals were just okay. Pirate night, as usual, was a huge miss for our family. I do wish there would be some better evening options - it seemed like if we didn't enjoy dinner, then seriously by 7pm, the only other option was ice cream or room service. The Navigator said the pizza place was open but almost always closed. I figure they are short staffed or still dealing with Covid. I'm sure I still managed to gain weight regardless :)
Thanks for the review. Glad you liked it.
 
To be fair, it's common knowledge that new ships command a premium over normal prices
No, no, no... I don't think you quite understand. I wasn't talking about the Wish getting a premium over the classic DCL ships, I was talking about almost all other cruise lines. You can take 2-3 cruises on lines like Royal, Carnival, or NCL for what it costs on average for ONE Disney cruise.

That's what I was talking about when it comes to a premium cost. And the fact that the newer ship is even MORE money on top of that makes it even more "not okay" for the ship to have made such radical changes to its design and have them been completely flawed.

It's like whoever designed the layout of this ship had never been on another cruise ship before. And that to me is simply not acceptable when you're paying that much more money.
 
The only Wish cruise I have booked is the DVC MC next year. It seems like it will be the only Wish cruise we take. Coming up before that are two Dream cruises ( one‘s the TA in May) and a Pixar on the Fantasy.

Still, I do want to see the Wish for myself, but I don’t have high hopes. DSis wasn’t impressed.
We too will sail The Wish for the first time next September for the DVC Member Cruise. I'll be open minded about it, but I actually prefer the Wonder and Magic of the bigger ships, so I'll probably always stick with them. Plus, I love the smaller ships itineraries.
 
I think one can argue why should they change things just to change them. For example renaming cabanas or the design of the doors. But then the other side one can argue if you’re coming out with a brand new product and making such high anticipation if you didn’t change things people would be like, if you’re rolling out a brand new ship why didn’t you change things?

Concerning drawers, I haven’t look at the exact layout but I would be so annoyed if that means I’m missing that main high drawer under the glasses because that’s where I just threw all of our “junk” that we collected over the sailing. Or maybe they’re going for more a international look as many countries don’t really used drawers like Americans and instead wardrobe shelves to put underwear and socks.

But the more I’m reading about the awish I’m so happy that we canceled our September sailing and instead are doing Norway and Iceland in the magic. Granted one day we will do the Wish and I will enjoy it most likely but when I looked at what I would be paying for those four nights versus a 10 night with the discounts right now it was a simple choice.
You won’t regret it! Magic in Europe is definitely the best. Enjoy!
 
I am curious, the people coming off the ships after the MV all seem a bit disappointed in thw Little Mermaid show. I thought it was like BatB, Tangled, Frozen, Aladdin etc, a 1 hour version of the movie on stage. Is that the case or is it a new story about Ariel?

Or is it the execution that is lacking? I have seen several musical theater adaptations of this fairytale, Disney and others, and I have come to the conclusion that it never succeeds in giving a good under water feeling, like you can in animation. Due to the limitations we have as humans with gravity, you never get the sense of floating and weightlessness you have in the water.
Is that what is disappointing on the Wish as well?
 
I’m sure they can figure out the underwater scenes on a stage show. I mean look at the finding Nemo show in. animal kingdom, which they do really well. They can just put Ursula and Ariel on moving trolleys while they’re sitting in singing when the underwater and there are scenes were She’s Walking anyways. And in Aladdin they get the carpet to float too. I am curious also why people don’t like it.

The kiss the girl scene they can easily do on stage really nicely with moving water backdrops, boat rocking etc.
 
I’m sure they can figure out the underwater scenes on a stage show. I mean look at the finding Nemo show in. animal kingdom, which they do really well. They can just put Ursula and Ariel on moving trolleys while they’re sitting in singing when the underwater and there are scenes were She’s Walking anyways. And in Aladdin they get the carpet to float too. I am curious also why people don’t like it.

The kiss the girl scene they can easily do on stage really nicely with moving water backdrops, boat rocking etc.
Disney wasn't able to do it on Broadway, where they used heelies to give a sense of floating. It was okay,but still felt a huge step back from the animation.
Putting them on a cart would limit their movement to get from a to b quickly. On Broadway Ursula was never scary because she couldn't get close to Ariel as her costume was in the way and it slowed her down. Ariel was quicker in her heelies than Ursula could chase her.
The heelies gave a certain freedom over the use of wires other mermaid productions usually use, which restrains the actors even more.

Nemo works because it is puppetry.

As a mermaid is a humanoid, it always disappoints on stage and the best they can do is 'okay'.
 
Disney wasn't able to do it on Broadway, where they used heelies to give a sense of floating. It was okay,but still felt a huge step back from the animation.
Putting them on a cart would limit their movement to get from a to b quickly. On Broadway Ursula was never scary because she couldn't get close to Ariel as her costume was in the way and it slowed her down. Ariel was quicker in her heelies than Ursula could chase her.
The heelies gave a certain freedom over the use of wires other mermaid productions usually use, which restrains the actors even more.

Nemo works because it is puppetry.

As a mermaid is a humanoid, it always disappoints on stage and the best they can do is 'okay'.
I have to laugh seeing people skating about in heelies on stage
 
I think one can argue why should they change things just to change them. For example renaming cabanas or the design of the doors. But then the other side one can argue if you’re coming out with a brand new product and making such high anticipation if you didn’t change things people would be like, if you’re rolling out a brand new ship why didn’t you change things?

Concerning drawers, I haven’t look at the exact layout but I would be so annoyed if that means I’m missing that main high drawer under the glasses because that’s where I just threw all of our “junk” that we collected over the sailing. Or maybe they’re going for more a international look as many countries don’t really used drawers like Americans and instead wardrobe shelves to put underwear and socks.

But the more I’m reading about the awish I’m so happy that we canceled our September sailing and instead are doing Norway and Iceland in the magic. Granted one day we will do the Wish and I will enjoy it most likely but when I looked at what I would be paying for those four nights versus a 10 night with the discounts right now it was a simple choice.
I was looking at that Norway / Iceland cruise. That is a really good price for that cruise! We had also been looking at Norway cruises with other lines because my in laws don’t care for DCL and they want to go to Norway again.
 
Devils advocate here. I wonder if some of the negative sentiment are from people who have cruised are ready during Covid? By that I mean are these people who go from an experience of having an often less than half full ship, no lines or wait And a relative calm and more exclusive like experience since you’re not fighting over things with other passengers- to a crowded ship . From my understanding the sailings so far on the Wish have seemed Crowded and with wait times. I wonder if some of the comments on the pool situation have to do the fact that these are also crowded.?

Just laying it out there.

I just know that that was a teeny little thing that played a role in a setting to cancel and moving to the magic. The wish would be a lot more crowded and to be honest I quite enjoy having ships with less capacity field. Call me spoiled
I have done 19 DCL cruises with one being during Covid last December at 50% capacity. Going from 50% to 87% capacity did not affect my review of the Wish and how crowded the lounges and adult pool was during the MV. We knew it was going to be more crowded. It was the design of these areas that was not thought out properly and reflected in our review and experience. Never thought I would not be able to get into 'Match you Mate' on a Disney Cruise ship due to size and layout of the lounge.
 
I am curious, the people coming off the ships after the MV all seem a bit disappointed in thw Little Mermaid show. I thought it was like BatB, Tangled, Frozen, Aladdin etc, a 1 hour version of the movie on stage. Is that the case or is it a new story about Ariel?

Or is it the execution that is lacking? I have seen several musical theater adaptations of this fairytale, Disney and others, and I have come to the conclusion that it never succeeds in giving a good under water feeling, like you can in animation. Due to the limitations we have as humans with gravity, you never get the sense of floating and weightlessness you have in the water.
Is that what is disappointing on the Wish as well?
I had a wonderful time on the Wish. There were definitely things that were disappointing but my overall trip was great!

It's hard to put a pin point on what exactly tLM needs. The show just felt a bit flat? It's definitely the movie in a 1 hour format. They say they put a twist on it but besides a couple things here and there (I won't say more for those who want to be on the lookout themselves), it was pretty much the movie. I felt like the sets weren't as good as BatB and that maybe the acting or script wasn't up to snuff? I was kinda cringing at Triton. Moments were pretty good, don't get me wrong. I probably wouldn't see it every trip like I would with BatB.
 
I am curious, the people coming off the ships after the MV all seem a bit disappointed in thw Little Mermaid show. I thought it was like BatB, Tangled, Frozen, Aladdin etc, a 1 hour version of the movie on stage. Is that the case or is it a new story about Ariel?

Or is it the execution that is lacking? I have seen several musical theater adaptations of this fairytale, Disney and others, and I have come to the conclusion that it never succeeds in giving a good under water feeling, like you can in animation. Due to the limitations we have as humans with gravity, you never get the sense of floating and weightlessness you have in the water.
Is that what is disappointing on the Wish as well?

To me it felt like interpretive dance. We, as Disney guests, come to expect lavish sets and costumes. This did not have it. I thought the talent was good but costumes consisted basically of leggings and scarves wrapped around the players. None of those beautifully detailed costumes in the other shows on the other ships. The sets were minimal as well. Ariel did not have long red hair, she had shorter curly auburn hair. Triton had a wig beard combo that looked like it came from Party City. As I said the talent was very good but I like over the top costumes I guess.

MJ
 
To me it felt like interpretive dance. We, as Disney guests, come to expect lavish sets and costumes. This did not have it. I thought the talent was good but costumes consisted basically of leggings and scarves wrapped around the players. None of those beautifully detailed costumes in the other shows on the other ships. The sets were minimal as well. Ariel did not have long red hair, she had shorter curly auburn hair. Triton had a wig beard combo that looked like it came from Party City. As I said the talent was very good but I like over the top costumes I guess.

MJ
That I can fully understand, I love Disney's broadway shows because of the very high production value. From Disney I expect as realistically as possible.
Small, intimate shows are nice too, but that's not what you expect with a movie like the Little Mermaid.

And not giving Ariel her long red curls... yes, I have opinions about that too :P With Disney I want recognizable. I want the movie + a bit more.
 
Didn't you hear? The Maiden Voyage cruisers got a 50% discount so their cruise was actually a bargain.

I did hear that, but I never heard what the original fare was.

There seems to be some confusion and hand waving off issues in light of the cost of the maiden due to the "50% off" so I'll lay it flat out. I feel like a lot of folks forget that we paid a huge premium in the first place so the discount really brought it more into line with a "normal" cruise fare. It was another night though, so there is that! :)

Original cost for 2 adults in a 5A GTY - $7,389.04
After our discount, same # of people and cat - $3,771.94

As always Scott's blog has some historic numbers too if you'd like to peruse https://disneycruiselineblog.com/20...ng-revealed-a-look-at-pre-opening-day-prices/
 
I’m skipping for now based on reviews of the pools and water slides. Would love Disney to get this right on the next ships. My kids need more thrilling water slides and pools they can actually swim in. I get the logistics of multiple pools bc our last cruise the family pool was shut down a day but doesn’t look like they executed it well.
 

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