Disney Treasure — September 2025 — The *almost* Halloween cruise

[morethanfairytales]

My partner and I recently sailed on the Treasure — a first for both of us — and loved a lot of things about our sailing. Here's a recap!

A bit of background: I'm a lifelong Disney Parks fan and fairly recent cruiser. Past cruises have included the Disney Magic (1998), RC Enchantment of the Seas (2018), and the Disney Wish (2023 + 2024). Although I enjoy Disney cruises for their own sake (the theming! The food! The relative peace & quiet!), I typically use them to get some extra time to work on personal writing projects. It may not be the most glamorous reason to take a cruise, but treating that time away from home as a personal writing retreat has felt like a small luxury. I was excited about what a seven-night sailing might offer, too, since my recent four-night sailings on the Wish felt frustratingly short.

My partner, B., has a more contentious relationship with cruising. Until this year, his only experience had been on Carnival, and it was one of those "anything that can go wrong will go wrong" kind of situations. Despite swearing off all future cruises, he started dropping hints that he "wouldn't mind" trying it again and "could definitely occupy himself" while I was writing, so we ended up making it a couples' trip after all.

If you want to skip the full breakdown of each day, here are the highlights (and lowlights) from our week on the Treasure...

What we loved:​

• Overall ship layout + theming​
• Live music @ Scat Cat Lounge​
• Plaza de Coco​
• Palo Steakhouse​
• The Tale of Moana​
• Match Your Mate​
• Jumbeaux's Sweets (pro tip: birthday cake gelato + a chocolate cone)​
• All of the coffee spots: Heihei Café, Jade Cricket Café, Cove Café​
• Pixie dusting our neighbors!​

What we skipped:​

• Deck parties + fireworks at sea​
• Character meet-and-greets​
• Pools + AquaMouse​
• Seas the Adventure​
• Port excursions​
• Spa services​
• Alcohol tastings​
• Brunch at Palo / Enchanté​
• Getting off the ship in Falmouth, Jamaica​

What we wouldn't do again:

• Spa / shopping raffles
• Bingo (B. and I might disagree on this one)
• Beauty and the Beast
• Haunted Mansion Parlor
• Walk around Cozumel, Mexico
• Mickey churro waffles
• Room service "secret menu" cookies

 

[morethanfairytales]

September 5: Pre-cruise arrival

We flew into MCO a day early and, after a 5:00 a.m. wake-up time and a six-hour flight from the West Coast, went straight to our resort: Disney's Coronado Springs. This was already a welcome change from last year, when the airline lost my suitcase and I pulled an all-nighter at the airport right before my cruise (something I hope never to experience again!).



Normally, I book a hotel closer to the cruise terminal to cut down on potential traffic on embarkation day, but staying on WDW property allowed us to secure a slightly earlier PAT (12:00 p.m. instead of 1:15 p.m.), and we got the added bonus of starting our trip off with some extra Disney magic. Add to that the fact that I could just show up and get on the bus the next morning — without having to plan for an Uber or factor in any other logistics or delays — and this was a no-brainer.

While we should have used our first night to catch up on sleep and repack for the cruise, both B. and I are guilty of trying to do too much in too little time. After settling into our room, we explored the resort for a couple of hours, checked out all of the Halloween merch at Panchito's, and grabbed dinner at Maya Grill before catching the bus to Disney Springs for some late-night window shopping. The dinner, by the way, was among the best I've had at WDW, and I don't think we ate anything better on our entire trip than the queso chorizo fundido. It was that good.



Had we not been about to leave for a seven-night cruise, we might have done far more damage at Disney Springs — especially in the two-story Uniqlo, which put our hometown Uniqlo to shame. Since I was already at the point of having to sit on my suitcase to close it, however, we kept things light: a goofy photostrip at the Rainforest Café photobooth and a Snow White ornament from the Christmas shop that I just couldn't pass up.

With that, we closed out our shopping trip with some ill-advised, almost-midnight coffee from Starbucks, then headed back to the resort to get a few hours of sleep before our morning bus ride.​

 

[morethanfairytales]

September 6: Embarkation day

We woke up bright and early at 6:00 a.m. to prepare for luggage pickup, which got to our room around 7:45. After our suitcases were tagged and taken away, we walked over to Barcelona Lounge to meet up with the rest of the DCL group and check in for our bus transfer. (An added bonus: we had plenty of time to sit and have a cup of coffee, which was a necessity after going to bed around 1:00 a.m. the night before. )



The bus ride itself was smooth and quick, and we arrived at the cruise terminal about 30-ish minutes before Boarding Group #5 was called, which gave us just enough time to connect to the wifi, check our MDR rotation, and review some of the plans that were available that day.

Because this was B.'s first Disney cruise, I didn't want to overwhelm him with all of the activities and events that were going on, so we decided to play everything by ear. For the first hour or so that we were onboard, he explored the ship on his own while I waited in line at Triton Lounge to make some dining requests for a private MDR table and a Palo dinner reservation, the latter of which had gotten slightly messed up with Disney's online system (in a nutshell: we were only able to secure two solo reservations at different times on the same night, rather than a table for two). Thankfully, this sailing ended up being fairly light, so getting those requests approved was super easy — and I even overheard other guests getting last-minute Palo, Enchanté, brunch, and specialty seating requests in, too.

One of the best parts about booking a pre-Halloween sailing is that we got all the benefits of the seasonal decor without the crowd levels that a holiday sailing brings. The Halloween "Ginger tree" was set out in the Grand Hall, there were villain decals on many of the portholes, and throughout our sailing, cast members were hard at work rehearsing for new shows (something we were allowed to watch, but warned very strictly not to take any photos or videos of).



I haven't been on any holiday sailings yet, so I can't say how similar or different this is to other festivities on other Disney ships, but it was really cute to experience. Also worth noting: they weren't playing Halloween music or selling any Halloween merch (nor would I have expected them to), so it felt fairly "autumn-light" overall.

After wandering through the ship for a while, we made it to our room on Deck 8 to start unpacking. I had filled my carry-on with as much room decor as I could fit, and wanted to get everything set up before the muster drill at 3:55 p.m. Our room was themed to Up, so I tried to make the space feel as homey as Carl and Ellie's house — with plenty of personal touches from our own home, too. This was the first time either of us had sailed with a verandah room before… and I've gotta say, it won't be the last.



When muster was checked off the list, we walked around some of the lower decks until the ship set sail. I know this is a hot take, but I personally don't enjoy the bigger parties on Deck 11 (including the sailaway party and pirate night festivities), mostly because of the crowds + humid weather. And, with 99% of the ship's passengers on the higher decks, the rest of the ship felt comparatively empty, which made for a very peaceful send-off.

By this point, B. was ready to check out some of the events around the ship, so we made our way over to Sarabi for some of their spa and shopping raffles. Despite never having won anything before, B.'s name was picked twice — once at each raffle — which felt like insane luck right off the bat. After reading the fine print and doing some research of our own, however, we decided against purchasing any jewelry or higher-end spa services, since $50 off of several hundred dollars is still… several hundred dollars more than we were wanting to spend at the time.

We ended up getting another 4-5 spa vouchers in our stateroom door over the course of the cruise, so it's possible that Disney just hadn't gotten enough prebookings in for this sailing. Anything that wasn't directly addressed to us (and therefore not easily redeemable by another passenger) was handed to someone else who might want it, in the hopes that they could put it to better use than we could.

Once the raffles concluded, we wandered through the rest of the shops, grabbed coffee, then returned to the room to change for our dinner at 1923. Our servers on this sailing were lovely and fairly hands-off, giving us a lot of time to chat between courses. (This isn't a complaint, by the way — the dining room was packed and every table in our section seemed to be far busier than ours.)

For our first dinner, I ordered the ahi tuna, green circle chicken, and burrata (for dessert). The chicken was one of the best things I ate on the cruise, and by far my favorite dish at 1923 — purely for the decadent Yukon potato fondant alone. B. ordered the tri-color tortelloni, peppered filet mignon, and the fudge sundae.

This, apparently, is also when I stopped taking photos for the rest of the evening, but B. and I had fun wandering around the ship after dinner (though both of us were really struggling to keep our eyes open at this point!). Thankfully, we still had six full days ahead of us — enough to keep our FOMO at bay for one more night.​

 

[morethanfairytales]

September 7: Sea day

Perhaps another hot take: sea days are my favorite. The ship feels most alive on these days, and there's none of the hectic quality that comes with docking in port. It felt like a great way to ease into this week, too.



I started the morning with a quick workout at Senses Fitness; something I always meant to make more use of during previous cruises, but never really got around to trying out. On this sailing, the treadmills and ellipticals were about 75-90% full around 8:00 a.m., though attendance tended to thin out during port days. Thankfully, it didn't seem like anyone was left standing around waiting for a machine, and the pretty views and fresh fruit made the workout worth it (well, that and using all of my workout time to play Pokémon TCG Pocket).

Back at the room, B. received our first — and only — room service breakfast delivery of the week: chocolate milk, toast, and some pastries. We meant to take advantage of this more often, but neither of us are particularly hungry in the morning, and were often either out of the stateroom completely or fast asleep during most of the offered delivery windows.

For the rest of the morning, we were occupied in our own corners of the ship. I headed over to Cove Café for a salted caramel coconut latte and some writing, while B. enjoyed his time in the stateroom with a new SteamDeck and Rogue One (pretty sure he watched approximately 500% more movies than I did on this trip). Between writing sprints, I spent a bit of time admiring the artwork adorning all of the staircase landings; my favorite were the flora and fauna concept art from the Enchanted Tiki Room.



At lunchtime, B. and I met back up at Mickey & Friends Festival of Foods — our go-to spot for the next few days, as we could never quite get the timing right for a long lunch at Marceline Market. We both enjoyed the barbecue and soft-serve ice cream; nothing spectacular on either end, but good enough to satisfy our appetites.

That was kind of the overall feeling we had about a lot of the quick-service options on the ship: the convenience can't be beat, and we were never hurting for options, but the quality of the food itself was just… okay at best. Had Festival of Foods and Marceline Market not been included in the price of our cruise, I doubt we would go out of our way to eat there again. Next time, I think we might try for the sit-down lunch option at one of the MDR restaurants instead.

After lunch, B. and I parted ways again. I split most of my writing time between Jade Cricket Café (a lot of coffee was consumed on this trip!), Skipper Society, and the lounge areas lining the Grand Hall, while B. enjoyed the comfort of our stateroom — with the perfect combo of room service chicken tenders, video games, and more Disney movies within arm's reach.



Since this was the first night that our sailing had scheduled a performance of Beauty & the Beast (both this show and The Tale of Moana were offered on two nights, for a total of four performances each), we got dressed for dinner a bit early and headed down to the Walt Disney Theatre around 5:30 p.m., about 30 minutes before it started. While there was a bit of a line ahead of us, we had no problem getting decent center seats in the lower half of the theatre.

I didn't realize until the show started that it was largely based on the live-action Beauty and the Beast (2017) — and though the performances from each cast member were truly, truly phenomenal — I would probably skip this production in the future, as I'm just too attached to the OG version. B., meanwhile, said that he really enjoyed the show, despite the fact that the woman next to him kept kicking him in the shin and the family directly in front of us insisted on stretching and standing up at frequent intervals. The show itself also needed to be reset about ~1 minute in, which was interesting to see — as best as we could figure out, they had some technical difficulties with the costume changes and the lighting.

For dinner on night #2 (which also happened to be formal night), we were at Worlds of Marvel. Both of our orders were fairly light this time: I got the lemon-marinated shrimp (fantastic) and grilled tuna steak (decent), and B. chose the steamed bao bun (something he insists, even now, "is not bao"), beef tenderloin, and Pym doughnut sundae.



There was nothing particularly bad about this meal, but we both wished that Disney had pushed the envelope a little more on the Marvel theming; it felt like a missed opportunity to have so much of the decor and entertainment be screen-based, rather than incorporating more dynamic elements and performances (like Arendelle or Plaza de Coco). It was funny watching Spider-Man tear through the restaurant at the end, though — we got a great, albeit blurry, "selfie" of him racing behind B. when the dessert trays were coming out.

Because it was formal night, there were several dance parties on the ship, including one in the Grand Hall. I don't know what I expected, but walking past the Fab Five dancing their hearts out — while literally everyone stood still around them — cracked me up.

For the rest of the evening, B. and I entertained ourselves at Match Your Mate, a goofy dating show-style game in which one half of each volunteer couple has to answer a series of questions about their relationship, from first-date details to their more intimate habits. As the title of the game suggests, the other half of the couple has to "match" their answer as closely as possible to be awarded points. I'd caught parts of this show on previous sailings, but really enjoyed showing it to B. We were in stitches by the end of the game, when one of the couples shared a story about the Norway pavilion in EPCOT that will haunt me for years to come (IYKYK).​

 

[morethanfairytales]

September 8: Cozumel, Mexico

About four days into our trip, we finally had our first port stop in Cozumel, Mexico. B. was excited to get off the ship as soon as he woke up, so he went off to explore the area while I finished up my workout, grabbed coffee at Cove Café, and worked on a series of poems I was trying to finish for the day.



We met back up around 12:30 p.m., and decided to go into Cozumel together so that B. could show me all of the spots he'd discovered — and I could get a much-needed break from work. Both of us were melting in the humidity, but we decided to walk along the waterfront for a while before ducking down some side streets: first, to check out Fine Art Workshop (a cute local art gallery), then COZ Coffee Roasting Company (I cut myself off from more coffee at this point, but their pastries looked great).

Before heading back to the ship, we also browsed through a nearby 7-Eleven for snacks. I was more sleepy than hungry at this point, but grabbed a bag of Sabritas Adobadas for the stateroom, which turned out to be fantastic when I tried them… two days later.

Thinking about it now, I wish that we had planned to get a taxi or a tour to other parts of the island. While there were spots here and there that felt interesting, the plethora of souvenir shops, bars, and other tourist hotspots clustered around the pier just weren't our vibe, and it would have been nice to get a better sense of the area outside of those few blocks. Another drawback, though it was outside our control, was the fact that we visited Cozumel on a Monday — and the museum, as well as several local bakeries and shops, were closed for the day. Ah well.



As we were walking through one last market on our way back to the pier, a sudden rainstorm erupted over Cozumel — just enough to get us completely drenched before we could make it inside the ship. We saw quite a few people trying to wait out the rain underneath some of the canopies along the pier, but since we were already soaked (and I fully broke the sole of one of my boots trying to hustle down the sidewalk), we didn't have any options except to return to our stateroom, shower, and get some laundry done.

When the sun resurfaced (about 20 minutes later), we got some gorgeous views from our room — and the pier was once again full of people setting off to visit the city. B. had had enough of exploring for the day, so he chilled in the room while I returned to work for the afternoon.



I feel like I should explain a bit more about the work I was doing here, as I'm probably making it sound more tedious than it was. Usually, these writing "sprints" involved getting a latte at one of the walk-up coffee bars, then settling in at the lounge areas adjacent to the Grand Hall. I write most comfortably when I'm around other people — a habit I picked up after writing in cocktail bars back home — and loved getting to catch snippets of shows and character meet-and-greets while I'm wrestling with a new poem or working on grad school applications. (B. and I also had fun meeting up throughout the day to trade stories of the crashouts we witnessed on this cruise — there were a lot of them.)

Night #3 brought us to Plaza de Coco for the first time, which was our most-anticipated spot aboard the Treasure. Coco holds a very special place in my heart — without going into too much detail, it feels almost serendipitously connected to my own family roots in Mexico — and we both felt lucky that our first night at the restaurant coincided with our port day in Cozumel.

I'm happy to say that our expectations were met — and then some. Plaza de Coco had the warmest, most inviting atmosphere of the three MDRs, the ofrenda was gorgeous, and I was in love with the live mariachi music that played between the stage show segments. (I'm realizing as I write this recap that I often forgot to take photos of my favorite parts of the cruise; whoops!)

For dinner, I ordered the pumpkin seed and garbanzo bean hummus (fine), chicken tortilla soup (also fine, though B. complained that it tasted too much like canned pasta sauce), butternut squash enchilada (my FAVORITE entree on this cruise!), and flan de queso (good flavor; bad texture compared to regular flan). B. opted for the chorizo street croquettes (we both loved these), red and green lentil soup, beef short rib, and "Remember Me" sundae. Overall, it was probably the best meal we had all week — well, maybe second to Palo, anyway.

The wildest thing to happen during this dinner was at the very end. On this night, we were among the last 20 tables or so left in the restaurant, which is when we saw a man walk across the restaurant to grab a decorative skull sipper from an empty table.

I want to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, since I know families often sail in bigger parties, and it's technically possible he was just picking it up for someone he knew. It would have been much easier to give him that benefit had he not been eying everyone else in the restaurant to make sure that no one was watching before he slipped it into his stroller. We had also seen the staff place this sipper on the table at the start of dinner, and whoever ordered it never showed up for their meal.

B., who was the one who pointed this out to me as it was happening, flagged down our server and explained the situation to them. I don't know if the guy was ever confronted about it, since we left the restaurant shortly afterward, but I hope that a replacement was delivered to the person who originally bought it. Also, just… don't be the guy who steals a $23 cup from another passenger. I don't care if they left it out all night; it's not yours for the taking (and honestly, if you can afford a week on the Treasure, you can afford a $23 cup yourself!).

After that whole kerfuffle, we headed back down to Deck 3 to catch some live music at Scat Cat Lounge. I forgot to keep close track of how many visits we spent here, but it felt like we wandered in almost every evening. One of my favorite parts of a Disney cruise is the abundance of live music — bands, solo performers, and dinner musicians included — and I wanted to take advantage of that as much as I could. Both of the piano players at Scat Cat are wildly talented, and it was fun to settle in with a drink (or in my case, the "Parisian" mocktail) and listen to sets themed to Disney Parks music, Broadway, and other popular tunes.​

 

[princesserin1350]

Looking forward to reading more of your report! Your photos are absolutely beautiful.