Recently, we were fortunate enough to tag along on a three day sailing of the brand new Disney Cruise Line Ship, the Disney Wish. Our oldest sister Erica is a Travel Agent with Enchanted Vacations. She was invited to come and explore the new ship. The rest of us joined as a bonus to make this the best sister trip ever. The Disney Wish is a beautiful ship with so many areas to explore. Our highlight was the themed dining where we dressed up to match the theme each night! We have so much to share about this incredible ship, so let’s get into it.
Ship Boarding and Stateroom
The process to board was made quite simple through the Disney Cruise Line Navigator app. You can do almost everything ahead of time to make boarding efficient and easy. We chose to do our COVID test two days ahead so that the results were ready to be uploaded onto our file. Be sure to check the most recent know before you sail site for up to date pre-boarding requirements!
Before you go, make sure to download the app. This is where you will find your room information, itineraries, a map of the ship, and do your safety check-in when you initially board the ship. There is limited function before the Cruise, but as soon as you get on board, the navigator app will come alive! You can favourite everything that you want to and do, and never miss a thing!
Your stateroom may not be totally ready when you board, so make sure everything you want and need is available in your personal bag! The floors are themed with different carpets and “fish extenders”. The ship is a totally different layout than the other Disney Cruise Line ships, but if you take some time to get your bearings, you will get the hang of it!
Dining and Events
One of my favourite parts about the evening dining is the fact that you have the same dining room server and assistance dining room server for all of the restaurants. Ours quickly identified our drinks of choice and had them ready for us by the next night. And after night one, our server knew to order us all of the desserts to split amongst ourselves. You even get one last breakfast with them prior to departing the ship!
Worlds of Marvel
This night features an Avengers-themed menu, offering things like a Lamb Shawarma Salad from the “light” menu, as well as a wide variety of other options (seafood, pork, beef, and vegetarian!). We Disney-bounded as some of our favourite superheroes. The Captain America shield that I’m holding is actually a pencil case! A friend lent me this dress, and as soon as I saw it, I thought it was a perfect Captain America blue. It doesn’t need to be complicated! Rather, pick up on the colours that the characters themselves wear. Check out Disney Bound’s website for some more inspo.
Entertainment-wise, there is an interactive movie that plays periodically throughout the meal. Without spoiling too much, the ending features two guests that you’ll want to have your camera out for! This restaurant has my favorite desserts that we tried this trip! If you’d like to know what to expect for food ahead of time, here is the menu!
Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure
Arendelle is an enchanting musical theatre dining experience sure to delight the whole family! There is a stage in the middle of the room. We weren’t super close, but it didn’t matter! I actually enjoyed being able to enjoy the musicians without it being super loud. We loved meeting the Frozen characters, who came right up to our table! This was all of our favourite dining locations between the 3 offered!
The menu here was the most different from how I regularly eat of the 3 menus. I really enjoyed everything I had. It’s very fish/seafood forward. The finale is spectacular!
Of the 3 restaurants, this was the most “pitchy” as far as the ship itself goes. We think this has to do with the location of the restaurant. If you tend to get a bit seasick, we recommend some medicine for this night!
1923
A few years back we had a roaring 20s party for one of our friends. It was so much fun to dress in that era (hello Downton Abbey: A New Era) that this is what inspired dressing up for each night. Most of us already had the dresses and I added my accessories from Amazon*. Danielle also got her dress from there through an independent retailer partnering with Amazon. It is all hand beaded! We will put up the links for you below. Each night when we would show up to dinner the wait staff would oohh and aahhh and it felt fabulous. I think this was a unique concept and it just enhances the whole experience. It’s just too bad our table was always in a corner!
Look the part
We had all of 30 minutes to change, do our make-up, and finish our hair between the show and dinner. I looked up easy 1920’s hairstyles (full disclosure, I am a hairstylist); the secret was to hide as much hair as possible. For Erica, I did a faux bob. There are many tutorials online for this; you essentially just take the bottom layer of your hair, ponytail it at the bottom, roll it under, and then pin it. It looked so real it made her girls back home cry because they thought I cut it!
Some easy pointers: Create a deep side part and curl all in one direction starting from the side with less hair curl away from your face and ending on the fuller side curled towards your face. When you brush this out it creates that soft finger wave pattern. Add a fancy headpiece and you are set!
When possible, show up early to dinner to leave room for photos. There are photographers in the main lobby waiting and ready for you! We were low on time this night so we got the photos after and are still very happy with how they turned out. The photographers go over and above! During dinner, the photographer actually grabbed us to bring us to the front for a picture under the 1923 sign. This turned out to be one of our favourites from the whole trip!
The Menu
The food and theming for this restaurant was no less than perfection. This was the menu that had the most amount of items I wanted to try. I actually had the mushroom pasta with a side of filet mignon! Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want! For the full menu, here is the link!
Mention-able appetizers:
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- Hyperion Four-Cheese Tri-Color Tortelloni Meyer Lemon, Artichoke, Sun-dried Tomato, Baby Spinach
- Burrata Mozzarella Cheese &. Prosciutto di Parma Crisp Cranberry and Sunflower Seed Phyllo, Charred Blood Orange
- Our picks for entrees:
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- Italian Flat Parsley and Rosemary-crusted Rack of Lamb Dauphinoise Potato, Roasted Petite Turnip, Carrot and Zucchini, Zinfandel Rosemary Sauce
- 1923 Peppered Filet Mignon Buttered Long Green Beans, Smoked Bacon, Crushed Fingerling Potato Hash, Pink Pepper Café Au Lait
- Every night we would sample every dessert. These were two of our favourites:
- Atwater Fuji Apple Cheesecake Sweet Dough Shell, Caramelized Apples, Cinnamon Cheesecake, Rolled Oat Crumble
- Burbank Blueberry-Lemon Bavarian Cream Ecuador Vanilla Bean, Lemon Rocks, Dried Raspberry Meringue
Pirate Party
Ar, mateys! Head to the deck for a good time at about 10:00 PM on Pirate Night. Many choose to dress up in their pirate-y best. There are many themed photo areas before and after dinner as well! (The exact times will be on your Navigator app!) Check out your room after dinner, you may even find bandanas to help look the part. Even if you don’t feel like dressing up, make this event a priority! The pool deck puts you in the middle of the action in front of the band, whereas the upper deck does give a better view of the fireworks.
Casual Dining Options
During the morning and at lunchtime, Marceline Market is open and offers full spreads of everything you can think of. Most mornings have egg benedict (regular and specialty!), scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, a custom omelet station, Mickey waffles, pancakes, fruit, oatmeal, cereal, as well as an International station with things such as congee. Often a worker would tell us to take a look down the line (both sides offered the same thing with something special at the middle zone, such as a seafood buffet at lunch) and then you can go to the counters there for the workers to serve you up a delicious breakfast or lunch, included in your cruise price. However, Marceline Market is only open until 3 pm at the latest, but don’t fret!
Out on the main deck at Mickey and friends Festival of Foods, there are several other free “snack” stands (that’s what they label them as at least but these were anything but snacks!) You could build your own tacos, burritos, or bowls over at Donald’s Cantina, grab a slice of Pizza at Daisy’s Pizza Pies, or try out some BBQ at Mickey’s Smokestack BBQ, or grab some soft serve (hot take: the banana flavour was actually delish)!
Joyful Sweets is another fantastic place to check out, however the ice cream and treats here are ones you buy additionally, but you can ask to sample the flavours before you buy!
Stay tuned for our next segment of our impressions of the Disney Wish!
If you’d also like to hear about our experiences on two of the other Disney Cruise Line ships, you can read about Heidi’s time on the Disney Dream here, and Erica’s experience on the Disney Wonder here!
To hear more about our time on the Disney Wish, check out our next post: Exploring the ship!
We’d love to hear your thoughts on social media! What do you think of Disney’s newest ship?
Have a magical day,
Erica, Heidi, Elisia and Danielle
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I love your outfits for each night! I’ve heard some people say that the some of the “everybody” areas of the Wish seem smaller as Disney dedicates more and more space to the “upsell” areas like the spas and concierge lounge. Did it seem that way to you?