This is the weirdest hodge-podge, nonsensical, thematically vomitous mess I've ever seen. What the heck, Disney?
Lion King Dinner: The Disney Wish Arendelle dinner is in my opinion, an absolute masterpiece. It has face characters that are absolutely beloved by the children on the ship, incredible songs, with a little humor thrown in for the parents (that Let it Go duet--so fun!), and gently soothing acoustic renditions of disney songs to enjoy while I eat between show scenes. So what do they do next with this venue? CATS. We basically get CATS. Instead of face characters beloved by kids of the current generation, we get people dressed vaguely to look sort of like lions with makeup and shaggy wigs, plus essentially a puppet show (per disney parks blog "theatrical props to represent the story and characters"). And they'll be delighting a room full of impatient kids sitting down for a 2 hr dinner by singing songs that haven't been popular since I was young in the 90s. And as parents, I'll get to "enjoy" eating dinner while listening to lyrics about munching on "slimy, but satisfying" slugs, uncontrollable flatulence, and wet warthog backsides. Lovely.
It just feels like a huge missed opportunity to really showcase some face characters and excellent music. Personally, I think the best would have been Disney's Wish movie--Magnifico is such a fun villain, the music is amazing, they could have gotten really playful with darkening the rooms an having the glowing wish orbs come out around the room held by the waitstaff suspended on a stick/string, or having the evil green magic spread across the ceiling like Elsa's magic in Arendelle. But I guess it didn't make enough money at the box office so... *sigh* Or, hear me out--how about a Descendants dinner? Kids and teens would go absolutely nuts for it, the songs are delightful, and its a movie themed entirely to heroes and villains! Heck, I wouldn't mind if they dug back in the past for older movies if they were actually well suited to the dinner live character musical concept, like Beauty and the Beast--picture actually being served your grey stuff dessert to an acoustic version of Be our Guest, while Gaston does his famous villain tavern number, and Belle and the Beast waltz on the center stage of a ballroom themed restaurant to "Tale as old as time...". But instead. CATS.
Edna Mode Sweet Shop: This makes zero sense. When we all were introduced to the sassy, sharp-talking fashion mogul in the Incredibles, the first thing we thought of was sugary sweet candy and ice cream, right? WRONG. She's not actually even a hero or a villain in this movie. At least have it actually be the Incredibles and pretend it's like their secret identity cover--a family business hiding in plain sight as an ice cream parlor but with hidden details that hint at their superhero identities. Or at least have it be something that would result in adorable treats, like Buzz lightyear or Zurg as the hero or villain with toy story themed cupcakes, or a Star Wars bakery with light side and dark side treats. This isn't rocket science, Disney, PLEASE JUST HAVE IT MAKE SENSE.
Frozen stage show: This is an amazing stage show. I love it on the fantasy. Absolutely zero to do with the hero and villain theme. Unless you count Hans as a villain, which is pretty weak. If they were going to repurpose a show from another ship, why not Tangled from the Disney Magic? It has an amazing villain with one of the best villain songs of all time.
Haunted Mansion Bar: Stop disney. Just stop. There is no hero, the ghosts are only villains in the loosest sense of the term, and you just got lazy and didn't want to shell out money to create a new concept so recycled what you had on the Treasure. Except, if you were going to recycle something for this space, why on earth would you pick this over the Wish's bar themed to Star Wars, an epic tale of good vs evil!!!! Ugh, the mental laziness of the concepts or this ship is just destroying me.
Cruella de Ville bar: Okay this is starting to sort of look like what I was thinking of when this theme was first announced. I can get on board with this one conceptually, but looking at the artwork, it just feels a bit bleh--everything is just black with white spots or red, which I get makes sense, but makes for a kind of dark and uninviting space with a one-note motif. I contrast it with something like Tiana's Bayou or Nightengale's on the Wish which have excellent detail to invoke those movies, and are beautiful and stunning to boot, and this just feels kind of phoned in on theme and borderline unpleasant aesthetically. Not somewhere I see myself spending a lot of time, which I guess I wouldn't be able to anyway since this venue is only open in the evenings.
Pirates of the Caribbean bar: This is fine. I guess. It sort of works here since some of the pirates in the movies are sort-of-heroes and some are definitely villains. But what kills me is this would have been absolutely PERFECT for the Treasure, and they didn't put it on that ship. Which is all I am going to be able to think about now when I go here.
Aquamouse Fantasia theme: This is great, actually. Kind of sad this is one of the best hero-villain themed elements on the ship given it often has a 40 minute+ wait for about 30 seconds worth of video before it turns into a regular ol' water slide like any other ship.
Room themes: The Hercules rooms are chef's kiss perfect. The artwork is gorgeous and on point for the theme. But at the end of the day, it's just a picture on a wall in a room that you'll mostly spend time in to sleep. Hercules would have made a magnificent atrium, stage show (which maybe? hopefully? we may still get), lounge, restaurant etc. etc. Just feels like a perfect tragically underutilized. I won't even comment on the concierge suite theming because they are behind a ridiculous paywall and the vast majority of the guests won't experience those rooms, so not relevant to whether this is a well-themed ship or not.
All the Marvel stuff: Okay so here's the deal. I really enjoy Marvel. I thought the Marvel show and kids club on the Wish was super cute. But this is a LOT of Marvel. We get two Marvel dinner shows, the Marvel kids club space, a Black Panther atrium, a Dr. Strange activity venue, AND a Spiderman hull character? With an entire history of disney heroes and villains to choose from, this just felt like they went a little "more cowbell" to me (IYKYK).
So at the end of the day, we get a cute wall painting, an adorable but short water slide video, and one, maybe two, thematically on-point bars, and a massive overdose of marvel. And the rest is just stupid. I've never been more disappointed by a disney reveal.
