SWDAS Cruises - What are your thoughts?

[dreadpiraterose]

I just got off the February 20th sailing and completed the lengthly survey Disney asked us to do. I'll do a quick breakdown of our thoughts:

The Good:

• Based on earlier reports, I expected the only "pro" photo ops to be the ones that were ticketed. Fortunately that wasn't the case, and we had chances to do pro photos with stormtroopers and the Imperial Guards. Both were a lot of fun, and the CMs were clearly into their characters and enjoying themselves.
• The interactive photo op with C3PO and R2D2 was AWESOME. No words can really convey how great that was. Phasma was okay. Not super interactive by comparison.
• The roaming characters were fun, especially the Tusken raiders and Jawas.
• The fireworks were so epic.
• Seeing cruise director Darren dressed as an X-Wing Fighter Pilot was delightfully fun.
• Hearing the SW music throughout the ship was a nice touch. Even nicer was the Europa section playing "jazzed up" versions of SW songs. THAT is the Disney level of detail I expect and love.

The Not So Good:

• The SWDAS buffet was seriously lacking decor. It was nothing like pirate night's buffet, which I missed.
• Why couldn't the servers still wear their pirate night outfits on pirate night? It's not like they were swapped for Jedi attire or something. Overall, it felt like pirate night was pushed aside, which was sad.
• The costume "parade" was poorly handled. You have a HUGE two story staircase, and instead of having people stand up there, you have them walking around in a tiny roped off area on the floor so no one on level 3 could even see anything. The host was on the stairs. No one was there to look at him. It seemed an obvious mis-use of space. They should have done one epic parade in the main theater or something so people could actually see something.
• Complete lack of adult activities, aside from a poorly executed trivia at 10:45pm. Everyone got to answer questions, but only 10. Then it went to only 20 people. Basically it became a spectator only activity after 10 minutes.
• The guest speaker was nice and all, but come on Disney. You originally promised SO much more. We had a guy who had the largest private memorabilia collection. Yes, he worked for Lucas for a year, but that hardly counts as an industry insider. At least the other cruises got people involved currently with the franchise. I wish there had been more than one presenter, or at least a better one.
• No cantina. 'Nuff said there. Lame.

I was glad we booked before the price was jacked up. I'd have been pretty annoyed if we'd paid that $1000 extra for what I consider to be a half effort pirate and SWDAS. Disney had a whole year to do something awesome. It was average at best. Certainly not what I'd expect from Disney. If they offer it again, we'll pass.

 

[BrerNashville]

Which day is the SWDAS? We're doing the western carribbean to cozumel and caymans.

 

[BrerNashville]

It looks like from one set of navigators its day 5 -- PC, at sea, port, port, SWDAS, at sea, CC. Is this consistent across all western carribbean cruises?

 

[BrerNashville]

Am I correct that the fireworks on the SWDAS cruise are only on the Start wars day and not pirate night? We were on an NYE cruise, and they did NYE fireworks but not pirate night.

 

[nancipants]

I would have loved to be on the cruise with Steve Sansweet, to be honest. He's such a nice guy (and he worked at Lucasfilm for 15 years, not 1).

SWDAS is Day 5. Fireworks are only on SWDAS.

 

[squirk]

Yes, in the Star Wars community, Steve Sansweet is actually kind of a big deal.

I just don't see DCL bringing on any SW "celebrities" that the general public would recognize or really appreciate. Like, if they got Ben Burtt - I'd LOVE to go see and listen to Ben Burtt, but 99.9% of the other people on that ship would be like, "Who?".

 

[distherapy]

We just returned from the March 5 trip and really enjoyed it. The energy of SWDAS was really fun and the guest's costumes were great and added to the excitement. Looking back, I wish we had dressed up. There were a lot of roaming characters, and some, like the Sand People, were hard for kids to figure out. Sometimes they'd stop for pictures, sometimes they wouldn't. The fireworks with Star Wars music were great. We did get to watch a couple of unannounced rehearsals for the Star Wars stage show, so that was fun.

 

[BlueSkyTraveler]

We also just got back from the March 5th SWDAS cruise on the Fantasy. We had a great time. The speaker was Paul Zinnes, Digital Asset Supervisor for the Star Wars animated series: Clone Wars, and Rebels. He gave a good talk and showed lots of great slides. We actually saw him leaving the port on disembarkation day with his family. We got to take photos with Chewbacca (Bespin) and Darth Vader (Dark side). My 7 year old son also traded a crayon to a Jawa that was wandering around and got a Star Wars band aid in return, and the opportunity to take a photo with the Jawa. I caught the interaction on video, and my spouse got photos. Some cruisers had really elaborate costumes and it was cool to see lines forming of people that wanted to take photos with fellow cruisers.

My older son (11) really wanted to be chosen for the Jedi Training; he's never done that before. At first it looked like he wouldn't get chosen, but in the end he did and he had a lot of fun. My tips for that are: it's very important to get to the theater 30 minutes before the show (or whenever they start to allow people in the theater), sit away from any large groups of kids and NOT right at the front of the theater, have your child sit on an isle, if you have two kids in your family that want to do this have one parent with each kid and sit in different places because I saw a couple times they would only take one child per family. There were two cast members choosing kids at our show, one on each side of the theater. They slowly chose kids from all over the theater up until about 5-10 minutes before the show started. Kids in full Star Wars costumes tended to get chosen more, but not exclusively. My son wasn't in costume (he wore a Rebels tshirt) and he did get picked, but only after we moved away from the front of the theater and from a bunch of other kids, and sat about halfway back in the theater on an aisle away from other people. Encourage your child to look interested/alert, but to stay seated, and quiet. They seemed to be looking for well-behaved kids that would follow directions once on stage. The show was really fun and definitely worth it.

The Padawan Mind Challenge was disappointing to my kids, who both know a lot about Star Wars. The questions were crazy easy AND multiple choice, with only 2 choices. The CM would read a question and the answers twice, and then each competitor would hold up a colored light saber corresponding to the answer they thought was correct. It was obvious that lots of kids were just copying each other, and parents in the audience didn't call them on it at all, even though the CMs let the kids who "got out" still participate and try to answer the questions in the "training" area.

On the Star Wars night the deck was crazy packed with people - much more so than for pirate night. We went up on deck about 20 minutes before the show, and we couldn't find a spot where we could see much of anything, and people were still pouring out onto the deck. It was mayhem. I was disappointed and frustrated, so we left that area and found a mostly empty spot on the Starboard side, and just waited for the fireworks that were supposed to be fired off on that side according to our dinner server. That was still fun - the music and the fireworks were timed really well - but I couldn't help be a little disappointed. Then on our last night of the cruise I went up on deck to get a couple sodas to bring back to our room around 7pm, and discovered they were about to have a full dress rehearsal for the Star Wars stage show. I quickly went and rounded up my spouse and my kids and we made it back up on deck 5 minutes before they started the full run through. We got to sit in front row deck chairs and watch the entire show. It was the absolute BEST thing that happened on our cruise! There was hardly anyone up there - the rehearsal was not listed in the navigator or announced aboard ship at all. They wouldn't let us take photos, but I didn't care. We already had lots of character encounter photos from the Star Wars day. It was just so much fun and felt so special to watch the show like that.

 

[Gillyweed]

Okay, so I know that they still have a pirate day, but can anyone tell me if people (aside from waitstaff, obviously) still go all out for it? Do they still give out the Mickey bandanas?

 

[ajo]

Okay, so I know that they still have a pirate day, but can anyone tell me if people (aside from waitstaff, obviously) still go all out for it? Do they still give out the Mickey bandanas?

Our family dressed up for pirate night on the SWDAS cruise and we were definitely not the only ones — lots of people dressed up in their pirate attire. And yes, they still give out the bandanas.

 

[Gillyweed]

Our family dressed up for pirate night on the SWDAS cruise and we were definitely not the only ones — lots of people dressed up in their pirate attire. And yes, they still give out the bandanas.

Excellent, thanks!

 

[ludari]

With the release of additional SWDAS Cruises for 2017 I just booked one and excited.

 

[dreadpiraterose]

Okay, so I know that they still have a pirate day, but can anyone tell me if people (aside from waitstaff, obviously) still go all out for it? Do they still give out the Mickey bandanas?

They don't go all out as much, but bandanas are still given out.

 

[dizanimator]

Okay, so I know that they still have a pirate day, but can anyone tell me if people (aside from waitstaff, obviously) still go all out for it? Do they still give out the Mickey bandanas?

I was on the 3/5-3/12 sailing, and many people had costumes for pirate night. The Mickey bandanas were still given out. I decided to be more of a pirate and wore my costume to dinner on the last night as well. I had worked hard on it, and wanted my tablemates to see it. It was also comfortable on the sunburn I was developing after the day at Castaway Cay.