Disney Wish Was Disappointing

[Kwami]

We heard someone literally ask if the wine was vegan and to prove it.

So?

 

[3DisneyFanz]

We just got back as well and will agree with some of the others in terms of the layouts and experiences.

The grand entryway looks chintzy with the stage and LED light fixture. It might be nice if you hadn’t been on any of the other ships but when compared to the other four ships it’s just not as elegant.

They talked about the “20 bars” but since they all only hold about 50 people the events trivia, karaoke, etc. just didn’t work well. We were able to get into Hyperspace Lounge by calling guest services. It’s weird they provide nothing ahead of time about it requiring reservations and we didn’t talk to anyone who was able to get the app to work. The guest services team even laughed that it would show reservations available throughout the cruise even though it wouldn’t allow you to book anything. If you do get in though it’s probably a one and done thing. It looks even cheaper in person than the videos you’ll see online and the process is really pushed to get you’re one drink and then move along.

Luna and the theater were really nice but lots of seats in both locations where you couldn’t see huge parts of the stage and parts of the performances they put on.

The dining rooms were really nicely themed but service was really slow. I’m sure part of that is because a good portion of the staff we talked to have never worked on a cruise ship but it’s also impacted by no other dinner options so everyone on the ship is in the dining rooms. The food was okay but outside of 1923 it wasn’t anything to come home excited about. The shows also highlighted how slow the service was since they’d make references to entrees while bread service was coming out and dessert when entrees were just being served.

All of the cast members we interacted with were nice but the servers didn’t really know much about the dishes and despite submitting information about foot allergies ahead of time nothing was flagged. We also got a lovely response one time when asking about ingredients of “If you’re concerned best not to order it”.

The pools were weird but none of them were overly crowded and it was kind of nice to be able to stop and watch the movies while floating. The only weird thing was mid day cleanings of the pools which I don’t recall from any of our other cruises.

The Aqua Mouse and Rex slide were both fun though. The Aqua Mouse having multiple video options was neat and we rode it 8 times and enjoyed it every time.

We enjoyed the cruise and while we of course got our placeholder we have no real desire to do the Wish again. Glad to say we’ve been on every ship but while the Dream/Fantasy seemed like an upgrade over the Magic/Wonder the only thing on the Wish I’d say is an upgrade is the quick service food quality.

 

[DVacationer]

All of the cast members we interacted with were nice but the servers didn’t really know much about the dishes and despite submitting information about foot allergies ahead of time nothing was flagged. We also got a lovely response one time when asking about ingredients of “If you’re concerned best not to order it”.

WOW are you kidding me?! I’d have asked to speak to a manager. That is absolutely unacceptable. A food allergy is no joke. I would hate a server like that following me every night on my dining rotation.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

WOW are you kidding me?! I’d have asked to speak to a manager. That is absolutely unacceptable. A food allergy is no joke. I would hate a server like that following me every night on my dining rotation.

We did and got a “I’m sorry. I’ll discuss that with them and make sure they know where the allergy book is.”

Luckily it was on the last night and I think it’s a result of all of the inexperienced staff and what we were told was a real lack of training for the service team.

 

[Cheburashka]

We heard someone literally ask if the wine was vegan and to prove it.

So?

I think the PP's point is that was a really stupid question. It doesn't really say anything about the Wish, though, just about the ignorance of one passenger.

 

[Kwami]

I think the PP's point is that was a really stupid question. It doesn't really say anything about the Wish, though, just about the ignorance of one passenger.

Yeah, I know that it's a stupid question, but what's it got to do with anything? People ask stupid questions everywhere. I don't see why some other passenger asking a stupid question would ruin a cruise or somehow make the ship itself "woke".

 

[lastbestplace]

Yeah, I know that it's a stupid question, but what's it got to do with anything? People ask stupid questions everywhere. I don't see why some other passenger asking a stupid question would ruin a cruise or somehow make the ship itself "woke".

It’s not a stupid question. Animal products are frequently used during the wine making process. There is a step called “fining” where egg whites or other animal products are used to remove unwanted substances from the wine. Is wine vegan?

 

[Kwami]

It’s not a stupid question. Animal products are frequently used during the wine making process. There is a step called “fining” where egg whites or other animal products are used to remove unwanted substances from the wine. Is wine vegan?

Interesting. I never knew! Thanks!

 

[brentm77]

I literally just walked off the Wish and let me just say this: I wouldn't buy a ticket for my dead Grandmother to sail on this dumpster-fire of a ship! I completely agree with the author's points on so many levels:

FOOD: The food in the "rotating" restaurants, was digestible at best. While the addition of a taco bar (Chipotle on Steroids) and the BBQ joint in the top deck "food court" was a welcome addition (The Pulled pork was off the charts), there was zero involvement by staff to control where the lines actually started. With tables a mere 3-4 ft away from each station, it was nothing short of a "cattle call" come lunch time.

SERVICE: There are no words to describe how bad this truly was. Like a lot of folks here, I too have sailed many times on most of the ships, and regardless of crowd level, the service was always TOP NOTCH, and one of the primary reasons I have refused to sail with anyone else. But this, I don't even know where to start. Our drink lady at dinner was barely around, and when you gave her the order, good luck. We finally had to crawl up the management chain to demand answers when, a very expensive bottle of wine never showed up after waiting damn near 30 minutes. Meanwhile some friends we sailed with (also Castaway Gold), were pissed 8 ways to Christmas because they couldn't even order their drinks since, well...there was NO DRINK LADY to be found. We heard similar complaints from several other tables around us. And this was the SECOND Seating, so no excuse!

COMMUNICATION: ZERO! ZIP ZERO ZILCH! Stand in line for Guest Services, and pray a cast member even acknowledges your existence. Embarkation was a joke. NO family names were announced. No "Ladies and Gentlemen....." nothing. The AquaMoose was almost 30 minutes late opening 2 days back to back, and not one person announced to the 400 people waiting in line, what the hell was going on. Want to find a member of the cruise staff (or whatever the hell they want themselves to be called "this week") who can actually answer a handful of simple questions? Remember looking for Easter baskets as a kid?? Debarkation was even more of a circus act. 12 different lines in the "don't dare call this a lobby because it's not anymore" area, was nothing short of a nightmare to navigate. All other ships, have staff directing you to which lines go where. Want Breakfast? go here.. Want to get the hell of the boat? Go over there. Easy. Simple. Until now...

LAYOUT: Whoever designed this ship was either drunk, high or both! I really wanted to try and like this ship as much as I do the others, but Jesus Mary Mother of God...

GUEST ATTITUDES: Anyone who has sailed on the other ships knows what I'm about to say as an undeniable fact: One of the things that has made our past experiences just as memorable as staff interaction, has been the friends we have made at the "dinner table". Every time we sailed, the people we shared the table with were absolutely amazing. So much so, that almost always contact information was shared by the end of the cruise. In fact, this very trip we sailed with some couples we met almost 4 years ago. But times have changed. And the only thing worse (at least on this cruise) than the cruise service, were the other guests. I never saw more "Entitled SOBS" in my life. And no one said anything about their attitudes or actions towards others.

In the end, until Disney management gets their head out of their wazoo and stops playing politics (which they have no damn business doing), perhaps they should consider renaming this ship to, the DISNEY WOKE!

The way this review slowly devolved into old man yelling at cloud was epic!

 

[lopo1974]

Yeah, I know that it's a stupid question, but what's it got to do with anything? People ask stupid questions everywhere. I don't see why some other passenger asking a stupid question would ruin a cruise or somehow make the ship itself "woke".

I never said that it ruined my cruise or that I have to agree with 100% of post. My family had a good time. Sorry to offend anybody. The Wish was beautiful but it definitely felt unfinished/missing something. We all pay a bunch of money for our Disney vacation. I just felt like it didn't live up to my high expectations (from previous Disney cruises).

 

[sjuncfan]

We were on the Wish this past weekend. We had a good time but there was some magic missing from previous cruises (this was our 7th cruise - we've done Dream, Magic, Fantasy, Dream, Fantasy, Magic for reference. Had the Wonder booked in April 2020 ). Mostly I'm annoyed that the prices for cruises are going up and service and what you're getting seems to be going down... stuff that used to be included is now $$$ or has been discontinued. Just a couple thoughts...
- I didn't mind the layout and found my way around fairly easily. I do like walking around deck 4 on the other ships and don't get why they couldn't create a continuous loop. Huge miss. I did have a little trouble getting to Hero Zone and Chip and Dale pool but figured it out pretty quickly. I kind of liked having lounges and bars spread all over the ship instead of the "adult" area.
- I missed the free treats in Cove Cafe a lot but I did like that there were several places to get specialty coffee including right outside Marceline Market.
- I agree with everyone that says the food at Marvel was bad... I had the heirloom tomato salad and gnocchi were both pretty awful. Food at the other restaurants was better. DH's lambchops at 1923 were awesome. Our service was bad too. We had early dining and couldn't make activities starting at 7:30. Things just weren't paced well at all.
- I enjoyed the entertainment - the games and trivia were fun. I wish they'd had the family silent disco at least once... my son loves it and the only time it was scheduled was adults only at 10:45 on the last night.
- We had an awful experience with the drinks guy walking around Castaway Cay. My son asked for root beer. The guy didn't come back for 45 minutes and told us they didn't have root beer but he brought a diet coke instead and was going to check another bar for root beer. I didn't want to wait another 45 minutes so I said I go to the bar myself. He said he'd void the root beer but it might take a few hours. Left me wondering why he'd rung up the root beer before ensuring they had it. It did show up on my folio and then a few hours later the credit showed up. Maybe he was charging me for the diet coke he'd switched it for? (which in my mind could have/should have been comped - and I didn't want it anyhow since I could walk to the machines and get a diet coke myself.) I went to another bar and they told me no root beer on the island. Also on Castaway Cay we were disappointed they were no longer doing medals for the 5k. Seems like they've basically phased out the 5k as a DCL sponsored activity altogether.
- DH has enjoyed spin classes in the past - they used to be free and first thing in the morning and are now $20 and in the late afternoon. No thank you.
- Couple other things to go in the "pay more and get less" category... removing the OBC as a perk of buying a placeholder (oldie but goodie), removing the free 50MB of wifi data, no free snacks at Keg and Compass, jacking prices WAY up on drink tastings. I definitely started to question the premium price we pay for DCL on this cruise more than I have in the past.
- Service in general wasn't great... I ran into our stateroom host a couple times but she didn't go out of her way to take care of us like we've seen in the past. I don't recall her ever knocking on our door to introduce herself or ask if we needed anything special. My DH usually likes to have a bucket of ice in the room - typically he tells the stateroom host once and it's there every day. I don't even think my DH saw this host... I saw her a couple times when I popped into the room by myself.

I'm not like the people that say "I hated it and couldn't wait to get off." We had a nice time but it was missing that special something.

 

[SL6827]

They removed the OBC from a future booking? Whats the point now?

 

[sjuncfan]

They removed the OBC from a future booking? Whats the point now?

the perks are a lower deposit and a 10% discount. It's been that way for a while.

 

[SL6827]

Oh ok. So you still get the 10% off. For now.

 

[auntlynne]

I never said that it ruined my cruise or that I have to agree with 100% of post. My family had a good time. Sorry to offend anybody. The Wish was beautiful but it definitely felt unfinished/missing something. We all pay a bunch of money for our Disney vacation. I just felt like it didn't live up to my high expectations (from previous Disney cruises).

I am still curious about the vegan wine comment. What was your point? Curiously awaiting your explanation.

(I had just learned about vegan wine in the last few months - someone was promoting their label).

 

[auntlynne]

Oh ok. So you still get the 10% off. For now.

Sadly, that probably is what the Magic 8 ball would say, too.

 

[jiminyC_fan]

- We had an awful experience with the drinks guy walking around Castaway Cay. My son asked for root beer. The guy didn't come back for 45 minutes and told us they didn't have root beer but he brought a diet coke instead and was going to check another bar for root beer. I didn't want to wait another 45 minutes so I said I go to the bar myself. He said he'd void the root beer but it might take a few hours. Left me wondering why he'd rung up the root beer before ensuring they had it. It did show up on my folio and then a few hours later the credit showed up. Maybe he was charging me for the diet coke he'd switched it for? (which in my mind could have/should have been comped - and I didn't want it anyhow since I could walk to the machines and get a diet coke myself.) I went to another bar and they told me no root beer on the island.

I feel so bad for the bar staff that is out in the hot sun running chair to chair, chair to bar, bar to bar and even beach to beach. He was doing his best with what he had. He was trying to be of service to you. I am personal friends with a past bar services CM and we have had many conversations. It made me sick to watch him run in the heat to serve people.

 

[nikem3]

I’m sure part of that is because a good portion of the staff we talked to have never worked on a cruise ship but it’s also impacted by no other dinner options so everyone on the ship is in the dining rooms.

This is pretty surprising. Usually you see cruise lines promote some of the best from older lines to the new ship to make sure they have some of the best staff and put newer on older ships. I guess Disney doesn't believe in this method.

 

[sjuncfan]

This is pretty surprising. Usually you see cruise lines promote some of the best from older lines to the new ship to make sure they have some of the best staff and put newer on older ships. I guess Disney doesn't believe in this method.

I had heard this is what was happening but we ran into a couple people that were on their first contract with Disney. I think they're probably still staffing up in general after the pandemic.

 

[3DisneyFanz]

This is pretty surprising. Usually you see cruise lines promote some of the best from older lines to the new ship to make sure they have some of the best staff and put newer on older ships. I guess Disney doesn't believe in this method.

I don’t know that they had the options this time. When we did the maiden voyage of the Dream we saw tons of people from the Magic and Wonder that had been shifted over and they backfilled them on the older ships. I think they just had to take what they could get this time to fill out the staff.