SWDAS Cruises - What are your thoughts?

Stasia5

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jul 6, 2012
I'm booked on an upcoming SWDAS cruise and am disappointed that some of what was advertised in the DCL promos isn't actually occurring on these sailings. Now, before anyone starts to blast me :duck:, I've already been berated by someone from my cruise meet and told that, basically, I must be stupid to think that 'A' list celebrities would be on the boat and I should just get over it. Firstly, I never expected 'A' listers. I was thinking maybe bit part actors, voice actors, or those who may have worked behind the scenes on the movies. Secondly, this was one of the main reasons we booked this cruise instead of a non-SWDAS one, the meet and greet with characters being the other. Due to the popularity, this cruise was more expensive than what I would normally pay, but thought it was worth it for what was being offered. Others on my cruise meet have made it seem that I should just be happy Disney was willing to take my money and allow me the privilege to sail with them. :rolleyes:

Sorry, rant over, onto my question! For those who have already sailed, do you think Disney delivered (yes or no) and why? For those saying no, did you contact Disney and did you get a response?

For future cruisers, did you book solely because, hey it's Star Wars!!, or like me was it because of what specifically was being offered.

And I've seen how heated some threads have gotten, so let's try and keep it civil, Ok? :teeth: If you had a great time and thought everything was perfect, that's wonderful! If you were disappointed and felt the cruise that was advertised, this was not, you should get to vent without judgement. Everyone understand the rules? Great! And go........
 
I really wanted to do one of these too, but the timing didn't work out, so I can't speak from actual experience.

It feels like a lot of negative feelings are kind of how I walked away from my Star Wars weekend a few years ago. It was REALLY hard to time seeing specific characters since they did the rotating thing in the parks as well, so I waited FOUR TIMES to see R2-MK in the hot hot sun (no shade at the M&G) and never made it timing wise. They didn't allow you to camp in line to try to see anyone in particular and there was no posted times to try to see anybody so it was all guess work. To get autographs from stars people were showing up at the gates at 4am or earlier so we missed out on that, for which they didn't even say who would be at what weekend until you were already booked with your fingers crossed for a week (unless you lived close by). We missed out on some shows that were filled up too. Seeing the parade was a madhouse of people so we were very far back with a limited view very far in advance. This is an event they had been doing for YEARS mind you, so I am not surprised that they handled it the same way on the ship. I had wished it would be better, but I'm not surprised. I hope they figure out how to give a better experience next time... it seems like with so many fewer people it would be easier, but that is still a LOT that has to be done in one day! :/
 
I've already been berated by someone from my cruise meet and told that, basically, I must be stupid to think that 'A' list celebrities would be on the boat and I should just get over it. Firstly, I never expected 'A' listers. I was thinking maybe bit part actors, voice actors, or those who may have worked behind the scenes on the movies.

I totally hear you. I'm in your FB group for that same cruise and also got sassed for daring to think Disney would be honoring their own PR hype material about having guests signing autographs, etc.
 
AquaDame, I always wanted to do the Star Wars weekends, but those never fit into our schedule. :-) The ones in recent years just sounded way to crowded for us anyway. The one you went to sounds crazy!
 


I was on the 1/23 sailing. While it was a slight disappointment to not have the Cantina or the celebrity guests, I still really enjoyed the day. We got the character meet and greets we wanted and they were fantastic. There were a ton of roaming characters, and based on my personal experience, they were happy to stop for pictures if you asked (the key was asking - if you waited quietly and expected them to just stop, you'd be out of luck). I loved having all of the movies playing throughout the cruise (watched Empire and Jedi). I thought the fireworks were fantastic and nicely timed to the music. The themed dinner was fun, although it would have been nice if the servers had been dressed up (didn't go to the late night buffet). We did not see the guest speaker (Pablo Hidalgo on our sailing), but our table mates did and they said his talk was top notch. Now, I am an adult who was traveling with another adult, so I can't speak for any of the experiences that were aimed at kids/families. And possibly as someone who is not a Star Wars superfan, my expectations were low and easily met. But I had a fantastic time and so did my friend (who IS a Star Wars superfan). Could Disney have done more on the day? Yeah, probably. But this is a brand new thing and I felt they did a great job overall. FWIW, I did not hear any complaints from any of the people we spoke to throughout the day, with the exception of the universal disappointment in no Cantina. However, of course everyone's mileage is going to vary :).
 
I totally hear you. I'm in your FB group for that same cruise and also got sassed for daring to think Disney would be honoring their own PR hype material about having guests signing autographs, etc.

I've never encountered such rudeness on a cruise meet page. If people are discussing things that don't pertain to me or I have nothing to contribute to, I just scroll on by. It seems to be just a few of us that booked this cruise solely based on what Disney said would be occurring, or at least want to hold Disney accountable for the bait and switch, and we should be allowed to commiserate without being slammed for doing so.
 
I was on the 1/23 sailing. While it was a slight disappointment to not have the Cantina or the celebrity guests, I still really enjoyed the day. We got the character meet and greets we wanted and they were fantastic. There were a ton of roaming characters, and based on my personal experience, they were happy to stop for pictures if you asked (the key was asking - if you waited quietly and expected them to just stop, you'd be out of luck). I loved having all of the movies playing throughout the cruise (watched Empire and Jedi). I thought the fireworks were fantastic and nicely timed to the music. The themed dinner was fun, although it would have been nice if the servers had been dressed up (didn't go to the late night buffet). We did not see the guest speaker (Pablo Hidalgo on our sailing), but our table mates did and they said his talk was top notch. Now, I am an adult who was traveling with another adult, so I can't speak for any of the experiences that were aimed at kids/families. And possibly as someone who is not a Star Wars superfan, my expectations were low and easily met. But I had a fantastic time and so did my friend (who IS a Star Wars superfan). Could Disney have done more on the day? Yeah, probably. But this is a brand new thing and I felt they did a great job overall. FWIW, I did not hear any complaints from any of the people we spoke to throughout the day, with the exception of the universal disappointment in no Cantina. However, of course everyone's mileage is going to vary :).

Thanks for the review! I'm glad to hear everyone had a great time! Do you know if they were allowing people to wait for the other character at the meet and greets if the one they wanted wasn't out at the time? We really want to meet the droids, but if we're stuck with Darth Maul, it will be a real let down. Also glad to hear the roaming characters will pose for pictures. Hope we can find people willing to take the picture for us so we can all be in it. Did you mainly watch the movies that day or was that earlier in the week? I guess I'm just worried we're not going to have much to actually do since we don't want to watch the movies that day.
 


We are booked for the April 16th SWDAS. My husband, 6 year old son and I are big Star Wars fans. We booked because of what was specifically offered. Husband and I were really looking forward to the cantina and are now super disappointed that it's not happening. Also thought similar to you in the sense that behind the scenes people would be there to share insider information about perhaps the making of one of the films. We're definitely disappointed in the reviews we've seen because we expected more. I know my son will have a ball but with the increased price I know I was hoping for more than what we're hearing. I'm also sad to hear how limited the Jedi training academy participation is. My son is dying to do this! But at the same time we are pretty easy going and find the fun and positive in most situations so I know once we're there it'll be all good!
 
Thanks for the review! I'm glad to hear everyone had a great time! Do you know if they were allowing people to wait for the other character at the meet and greets if the one they wanted wasn't out at the time? We really want to meet the droids, but if we're stuck with Darth Maul, it will be a real let down. Also glad to hear the roaming characters will pose for pictures. Hope we can find people willing to take the picture for us so we can all be in it. Did you mainly watch the movies that day or was that earlier in the week? I guess I'm just worried we're not going to have much to actually do since we don't want to watch the movies that day.

I don't know if they were letting people wait since everything was ticketed and timed. It would be nice if they did. I will say that I also wanted the droids, and was also initially disappointed at getting Darth Maul, but he turned out to be a great interactive character so I still walked out happy :). The movies were playing throughout the entire week, one or two movies being shown each day. On SWDAS, only Force Awakens was shown, both in 3D and non 3D. So we didn't see a movie that day. And the weather that day was so gorgeous that I spwnt a fair amount of time up on deck in a lounger. But if we had wanted to do all Star Wars all day, I think we could have kept ourselves occupied that way most of the day between the characters, the family shows, the guest speaker and the trivia.
 
I was on the January 9th Inaugural SWDAS cruise and was extremely disappointed. We booked for everything that was advertised and were very upset to see that the cantina was not recreated, the "guest speaker" was not involved in the movies and could not say much at all and that the character interactions were not set up to where you could meet everyone you wanted to. When we showed up for our "interaction" at Bespin, we watched Boba Fett walk out and Chewbacca walk in, while that is ok, my husband was so disappointed because Boba Fett was the only character he was really interested in getting a picture with. We walked around trying to find all the characters that were roaming but stopped after realizing they were just walking around and not really giving many opportunities for photos with them. We expected so much more from Disney, especially since it was so advertised. I did enjoy the cruise overall, despite the terrible weather we had, but did not feel that the premium price we paid was worth what we received. We booked this cruise the day it was announced that it was going to be a SWDAS cruise, so we spent almost an entire year waiting for it. I can't comment on any of the activities for children because we were 5 adults traveling in 2 rooms so we did not attend any of those events. I will say though, the ability to watch the newest Star Wars movie in 3D in the main theater was definitely neat. We enjoyed the dinner menu and thought the menus in themselves were very cool. We did not attend the buffet after the fireworks because we were just overall kind of disappointed with the day. We did email Disney about our disappointment as well as fill out the comment card on the ship and the one we received in our e-mail. We received the standard 'thank you for your thoughts' email back.
 
My family, mom and dad, me and sis (in our 40's), are booked on April 16th. My sister is a huge SW fan since we saw it as children and is celebrating her birthday (40). We discussed the negative reviews, but we have also read fun reviews and have seen great pics on social media. We are planning to have a fabulous day no matter what happens. After all, we are on a Disney cruise vacation and we will have a great time. My sister said she plans to enjoy her birthday no matter what, so we are going into this with an open mind and a positive attitude. Every day on a Disney cruise is a day I am not at work, or cooking, or cleaning.
 
I was on the 9th January one as well.
Totally agree with the roaming characters, people were running aound after them and I found the characters would just stop & then if you went to take a photo, they took off. Weird
Was disappointed the servers that night were not dressed in Star Wars clothes, the only thing was a fancy Star Wars Menu.
The show on deck was crap, just some characters walking on stage, but the fireworks were good.
I spent a lot of the day walking around doing nothing, we saw the movie in the theatre.
We handed in the form for the character meets, but for some reason didn't get tickets???
We are not star wars fans, but I booked this cruise the first day it opened, as we were coming from Australia and had 4 weeks in Florida, so I had to plan the cruise around flights ect.
When they announced SWDAS I thought oh that might be fun.
Anyhow I thought about changing to the cruise the week earlier, but didn't. Stayed with this one.
I was disappointed , even though they had the Pirate Night, it rained so show was inside, which was just way too crowded and there was no Pirate Menu or servers dressed in Pirate outifts. I knew the fireworks were going to be on SW Day, so that didn't bother me.
There were no decorations for SWDAS really, yeh there was music being played.
Then to top it off , no CC, man that was the biggest disappointment, been waiting a year for that day. I know you cant count on the weather, but that was the icing on the cake.
After we saw CC in the distance and then sailed off, I think it started raining a couple of hours later, by then I had had enough and couldn't wait to get off.
The ship was full, and the character meets during the week always had such long lines, we did manage a few photos, we did get tickets for the princess meet & greet & the frozen girls so that was fun.
There were a few other little incidents, but I wont go into them on here
When we got home, the first question from everyone was "how was the cruise"
Well it was good, but it wasn't as good as what I was hoping was my answer.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed most of it and who knows we might venture that way again & give it another shot, but I wouldn't choose a special one like this.
I know a lot of people from my cruise facebook group, who were massive Star Wars fans were disappointed in it and most only got a standard reply to their emails. As they said Disney had 12 months to plan this & it was a bit of a flop.
But then again , everyone is different and you will probably have a ball
Good Luck
 
Thank you Natmac and LivingForDisney for your reviews! Like Ajojo and Seashell82, we are anticipating enjoying the day, but for us, there'll be some disappointment because the things we were really looking forward to simply aren't happening. We we're planning on having a full day of star wars fun, but unless our meet and greet is early in the morning, I think we'll start the day at the pool and do the SWDAS activities later.
 
We went on the Jan 23rd sailing. I would say overall it was a fun experience but pieces of it were a let down. We booked this itinerary because our 8 year old is a big star wars fan but we are by no means fanatics. I found that the Star Wars theme of the day and the roaming characters and themed food was great. It was also really cool to have the movies playing throughout the cruise and Star Wars Rebels playing all day on Funnel Vision. We went to the morning guest speaker session and that was our favorite part. The speaker, Pablo Hidalgo was from Lucasfilm and worked on the Force Awakens movie and also just authored a book. I was worried at first that the speaking session may be a shameless book sale plug, but it wasn't (the book wasn't even available for purchase and I would have gladly bought it). Pablo provided some great insight into some of the inner workings of the Force Awakens. He also hosted a great interactive Q&A session.
As far as the letdowns, the character "Meet & Greets" were simply photo opportunities and nothing interactive. We had hoped for a droid experience also and received Darth Maul. My youngest was very afraid of him (as the costumes as very lifelike) and wouldn't go near him. The Jedi Trials of the Temple (Jedi Training) needs to be completely re-thought. They randomly pick kids to participate. We arrived very early and my 8 year old still was not chosen and he was very disappointed. You could tell it was hard for him to watch other kids participate as he sat in the theater. They really should have a system which all kids can participate and maybe have the session ongoing rather than at set times. The deck party and show was kind of a bust. It was a bunch of clips from moves with the characters walking out on stage. The Mickey Pirate show was much more entertaining. The fireworks were very nice but too LATE (10:45PM). There were a lot of tired cranky kids on the deck that evening.
As, I mentioned all in all is was still a fun day. I think a lot of the big complaints seem to be from the Star Wars "superfan" types which there seemed to be many on our sailing. People need to keep in mind that SWDAS was not meant to be a Star Wars fan convention, but a fun family oriented themed day. Did DCL over market this and maybe set some expectations a little to high?.....yes, I think that is fair, but it was still fun.
 
I was on the 1/23 sailing & while we had a good time, we were disappointed. I will be up front I'm by no means a Star Wars super fan, but I enjoy it. DH really loves Star Wars.

In my mind I assumed you'd get to meet all the characters you wanted if you were willing to wait in line as they do with the other characters which of course wasn't the case. I only realized of course this wasn't happening when the 1st cruise returned & reported back. We met Darth Maul @ 9:50 on Wednesday & Chewbaca @ 1:30 on Thursday (which was right after our Palo brunch which I didn't like as we didn't have enough time to go back to the room to change so we're in dress clothes & not our Star Wars tshirts). You had no say in the times or who you were able to see which is disappointing. Now the CM did allow one person in our group to go in early to see Boba Fett as he ended at 1:30& then allowed someone in the group before us to wait for Chewbaca, so they pretty much flip flopped- this seemed to work because of the timing & that this particular CM allowed it as it did not happen with the CM on Wednesday. I also assumed there would be cool backdrops for these characters since they were in private rooms, but it was just a screen.

DH went to see some of the later night Star Wars movies initially (those after 10:30p), but he reported that there were a lot of upset little crying kids which made it hard to watch the movies. We totally get its a Disney cruise, but had assumed less kids at a late night show. I think parents wanted to experience the movies of their generation with kids that the thought would enjoy it or they hoped they'd sleep- it didn't seem to happen. So DH stopped going to the movies. Now our friends that went with us gave it another try only to be seated by a young kid that kept telling his parents loudly over & over he had to go "poop," only to be told to wait & he eventually went in his pants. My friends said the smell was horrible & the parents still didn't take the kid to the bathroom. That was their last movie.

We did go to the am Pablo Hildago session & this was quite interesting, but there was no meet & greet or autograph session. I actually would've bought his book if it had been sold.

The dinner was great & the menu itself was cool to look at. The staff were not dressed up, but had on Star Wars name badges.

The night time show was nice to see all the characters, but they only walked out did a little twirl & went back in pretty much. Then all came out at the end together. It was very crowded.

The Star Wars buffet afterwards was quite disappointing. It was only open until 11:30!! By the time you could actually get there (we were on deck 12), the lines were so long & they closed one side of Cabanas at 11:15! Then they directed you to the other side which closed at 11:30. Very weird especially considering the show started at 10:15p & was done after the fireworks around 10:45p.

I think if you go into this knowing it's a Disney Cruise with some Star Wars bonuses it's great. If you go into this thinking Star Wars is the headliner you will be disappointed. It's not worth the premium they charged.
 
Thanks toddsman and Angeejoe! For my family, we were thinking the SWDAS would be like a Star Wars Weekend Lite. :) While having more SW things thru the week, besides just the movies, would have been great, we understood it was just the one day. We too thought there would be several character greetings where you would just line up and see who you wanted. On one hand, I know Disney was between a rock and a hard place in that if the lines were long, people would complain so they went with the tickets, but that limits everyone so they're still getting complaints. I think there was a better way to do this besides two meets over two days. We have Palo booked for the next day so that will stink if our ticket time is close to our Palo time. Its also a bummer with the second meet on a different day that we likely won't be in our costumes, yes we are fans enough that we will be dressing up :teeth:, but I doubt we'll want to go thru the trouble for one picture the next day. The SW T-shirts it is unless we also run into a time crunch with Palo.

I'm lucky in that my son is to old for the Jedi training, plus he did it years ago at Hollywood Studios, and my daughter isn't really interested. Considering how many kids within that age range will want to do this on the ship, it's really sad that only 80 to 100 will be able to.

While I certainly had my own wish list of things I would have loved for Disney to do, like Jedi Mickey, Darth Vader Goofy, etc., I knew that's all it was, a wish list. My expectations were limited solely to what Disney stated would be provided: Deck party with fireworks, Check.
SW games & Activities at kids clubs, Check.
Special food, Check.
SW movies and special merchandise, Check.
Jedi Training Academy, partial check. It's there, but extremely limited
Out of this world beverages, sorry, having 2 SW themed drinks of the day doesn't cut it.
Meet & Greets, here's where we begin to have a problem with the promos being misleading. It sounds like you can meet all that's listed and more!, but that's simply not the case.
The celebrities, which were advertised, have been replaced by 1 guest speaker. Does anyone else find it interesting that Disney changed the description on these sailings from stating celebrities to guest speakers (which should still mean more than one), AFTER the last cruise's PIF date? :scratchin
 
We are on one of the upcoming SWDAS cruises and my major, all-consuming, worry is that my son won't be chosen for Trials of the Temple. We've started to talk it down, maybe it won't happen, etc, but...yeah, we are going to be in for it if he can't participate.

It's our first family vacation not with other family members, and likely our only vacation for a few years because of school/work schedules. We have a LOT riding on it. Luckily the kids are totally into all the regular Disney stuff too, so that will be great, but we spent a LOT of money to book this cruise over a year ago. We can afford it, but we could also afford to spend a week at an all-inclusive beach resort instead, just thought the Disney pixie dust would be worth the premium. So all these reviews have me very very very nervous.

Anyway. We're hoping it is better than the negative reviews -- we never cared about celebrities or talks (kids are too little), but Jedi training is a BFD.
 
I just would encourage everyone to send their feedback to Disney. As we've seen, they are already sending surveys to people about additional themed cruises, and if they are going to charge a premium for those, I'd like them to hear from guests about the expectations for that premium price.
 
DW and I were on the Jan 23rd. Others have pretty much said the same as I will. Overall, I enjoyed the cruise. The service was of course DCL's usual.

There were parts I was disappointed in. For one, given that it was a star wars cruise, I don't know why they limited the star wars events to one day. I felt it should have prevailed the entire cruise. Some parts did (like merchandise and the showings), but there is no reason they couldn't have churned out storm troopers in a cloning factory in the back. :-)

Storm troopers were also not as prevenlant as i would have liked - but I also get that they were fighting a hot sun in full body armor.

That all said, I got hugged by Chewbacca (with a great picture). I was questioned about rebel activity by imperial officers. I got great pictures of both Disney actors and guests wearing some very good costumes (and there were some really embarrassing guest costumes too). It was nice to see all the star wars films on the big screen again (wellllllll. Lets be honest. I only went to 4+). There was a pretty good story line going on, and the dinner menu was spotastic. I wish they would have let us keep them though.

Were there things I would have dine differently if I was Disney? Absolutely. As I said, I would have made star wars events every day knowing that the people on that ship were fans and were there for one reason. I would have booked better talent. I would have created a special midship detective agency for the event (wouldn't have been that hard - it's just a computer program with simple graphics - maybe a week or two of work for a designer).

THAT SAID.... i still loved it, had a great time, met great people who all shared my love of star wars, and I feel like it was worth doing.
 
We were on the first SWDAS sailing. We didn't book the cruise becuase it was Star Wars. It just happened to be one. We are all Star Wars fans however. My husband & teenage son dressed up. We came away with a feeling of disappointment as well.
When choosing our meets, we didn't really know who we were picking. My husband wanted to see the droids but we got Darth Maul. Not that there was anything wrong with him - he was definitely in character - but he wouldn't have been our 1st choice.
It was advertised that characters would be on decks 3,4 & 5. We never saw any other characters around who weren't guests, apart from stormtroopers in the distance. But we never got close to them. They were on the move all the time.
The guest speaker was a Disney exec. she didn't tell us anything we didn't know.
We really enjoyed the dinner (I thought it was the best dinner of the week) but as has been said before the servers weren't dressed up. We went to the buffet. It was basically the same as the pirate night one.
We went to the Force Awakens at 8pm. It meant that we had no chance of getting close enough seeing the show. Although, from what we could hear, it didn't sound very exciting. The fireworks were great.
There weren't really a lot of Star Wars activities for teenagers/adults.
I did email Disney once we got back. Got a "we're very sorry you were disappointerd. We will pass on your comments" reply.

We still had a great time on the cruise. We had fun even though parts of the day were not as we expected.
 

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