The really BIG problem with dinner on the Wish Class ships

[CruiseGoon]

1/10/26 ETA: We just got back from our cruise on the Destiny and I stand on my opinion on the dining venues, especially Pride Lands. The ship is gorgeous. But I'm trying to focus strictly on the MDR food service. We were there for 2 nights. One of them was Pirate Night where they didn't do any show or anything special during dinner. Both nights the food service was extremely slow. Pirate Night took well over 90 minutes from placing our orders to delivery of dessert. The show night was even longer. Our table was positioned near one of the wait stations on the side, so distance wasn't an issue. Our food was at least warm.

I will concede that the size not the only issue. The layout of the tables causes added problems for our wait staff. They are forced to go on one side first and then do the other side. Having the tables crammed tightly together forces this and also forces them to reach from behind to deliver our plates. And we still highly dislike how close the tables are to each other.

OP: The short of it, is that the Wish Class ships are too big.

We went on the Wish earlier this year and we experienced how crowded and slooooow the food service was. I really did not care for the beer-garden style seating in Arendelle. I watched a Youtuber's review of the Treasure where he pointed out this problem is exactly the same as it is on the Wish. We are going on the Destiny at the beginning of January and I'm dreading this aspect of dinner service. We're going to try to skip our Worlds of Marvel night so we can go to Palo. I'm looking forward to the heroes and villains theming, the Hercules show and the adult bars and even the Lion King dinner show. I'm just dreading the food service during dinner.

Contrast that with going on the Magic at the beginning of November that was a mom and dad only vacation. Dinner was among the swiftest and most efficient we've experienced. Our waiters weren't rushed, but they were quick with the plates and still took time to visit and share stories.

The problem is scale. the Wish Class carries around 4000 passengers. Our cruise on the Magic had around 2000 passengers. All of the DCL ships have 3 main dining venues. So double the number of passengers are being crammed in, to 3 dining spaces that have to serve double the number of plates in the same time frame each night. This is why the constant reviews of slow service and cold food.

When the Wish Class was conceived, it seems like the designers took no account of what scaling up passengers would do to their rotational dining model. The solution should have been obvious that a 4th dining venue needed to be added and make the existing 3 a little smaller. That way, they could've kept up with the industrial scale of food service that needed to take place. It's not likely that the problem will be able to be fixed with the 4th Wish Class ship on account of the venue spaces being fixed.

I for one am looking forward the new class being built that is supposed to be closer to the Magic Class size.

 

[disney2you]

But the Wish class is basically the same size as Fantasy and Dream? with roughly 1250 rooms and 4000 guest capacity. Do you avoid the Fantasy and Dream as well?

 

[Kwami]

The problem isn't the number of guests. The Wish-class ships have approximately the same number of guests as the Dream-class ships.

The problem is that the show requires the servers to be strict about serving things at specific times so that they aren't distracting you too much during the show. That means rushed courses and cold food and missed drink refills and ordering dessert before you know how full you'll be. It's all rather annoying.

 

[Wedgeout]

Think it’s all about the passenger to crew ratio they are using on each ship. Much larger ships outside Disney do just fine at the dining service. I think it’s more of the themed dining experience IP choices that is drawing people away.

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

FWIW out of our 4 cruises, our slowest dinner service by far was on Magic. 2nd slowest was Treasure (but even that was way better than Magic), and Dream and Fantasy were quite good. It really depends on so many factors, and doesn't only come down to ship size.

But yes, I did find the dinner shows somewhat problematic for efficient service, and I am also looking forward to the new smaller class of ship (but not because of dinner service expectations).

 

[OKW Lover]

The problem is scale. the Wish Class carries around 4000 passengers. Our cruise on the Magic had around 2000 passengers. All of the DCL ships have 3 main dining venues. So double the number of passengers are being crammed in, to 3 dining spaces

The problem with this analysis is that it assumes the dining spaces and/or the number of servers is the same on the Wish class ships as it was on the Magic class which is not true.

 

[mcd2745]

As mentioned already, the Wish class is pretty much the same size as Dream/Fantasy. So size (and the number of passengers) alone is not the issue.

I think it is mostly the design of the restaurants. First, the tables are simply too close to each other. Makes it incredibly difficult for the severs to maneuver and slows them down greatly. Also, our server on the Wish told us the number (I think there are less) and placement of the server's stations was very problematic for them and has a big impact - negatively - on their efficiency.

 

[vrneuroh]

We have been on the Dream, Fantasy, Magic, and Wish and out of those ships, the Magic was by far the worst dining experience we have had. When our servers took our dinner orders, they also wanted us to pick dessert at the same time. Without knowing how hungry we would be after our main course, it wasn't ideal for us. We were also never offered drink refills (we had to constantly ask) and our assistant server disappeared after the first night. It was extremely rushed and we were done with our meal in maybe 45 minutes. We never had the same issues on any of the larger ships. I also felt Rapunzel's Royal Table had a horrible layout (by back was towards the stage, so I couldn't eat and see the show at the same time). We have been in Arendelle three times now and two of the times we have been further away from the stage. It wasn't a huge issue for us, but it was a little harder to hear the music at times.

 

[happycamper47]

Don't forget the servers have no control over the kitchen which could be the problem in how fast the food comes out.

 

[RedHead0186]

The short of it, is that the Wish Class ships are too big.

We went on the Wish earlier this year and we experienced how crowded and slooooow the food service was. I really did not care for the beer-garden style seating in Arendelle. I watched a Youtuber's review of the Treasure where he pointed out this problem is exactly the same as it is on the Wish. We are going on the Destiny at the beginning of January and I'm dreading this aspect of dinner service. We're going to try to skip our Worlds of Marvel night so we can go to Palo. I'm looking forward to the heroes and villains theming, the Hercules show and the adult bars and even the Lion King dinner show. I'm just dreading the food service during dinner.

Contrast that with going on the Magic at the beginning of November that was a mom and dad only vacation. Dinner was among the swiftest and most efficient we've experienced. Our waiters weren't rushed, but they were quick with the plates and still took time to visit and share stories.

The problem is scale. the Wish Class carries around 4000 passengers. Our cruise on the Magic had around 2000 passengers. All of the DCL ships have 3 main dining venues. So double the number of passengers are being crammed in, to 3 dining spaces that have to serve double the number of plates in the same time frame each night. This is why the constant reviews of slow service and cold food.

When the Wish Class was conceived, it seems like the designers took no account of what scaling up passengers would do to their rotational dining model. The solution should have been obvious that a 4th dining venue needed to be added and make the existing 3 a little smaller. That way, they could've kept up with the industrial scale of food service that needed to take place. It's not likely that the problem will be able to be fixed with the 4th Wish Class ship on account of the venue spaces being fixed.

I for one am looking forward the new class being built that is supposed to be closer to the Magic Class size.

You are comparing max capacity to what the capacity was on your sailing-not a fair comparison. Max capacity of the Wish is about 4,000 passengers, and the max capacity of the Magic is about 2,700. Neither ship typically sails at max capacity, though (they may have all staterooms full, but that doesn't mean every stateroom is full to hit max capacity, which is how many people can fit into lifeboats).

I'm not arguing that there aren't issues with crowing at dinner on the Wish class ships sometimes, but it's not fair to compare passenger count from a typical sailing to the posted maximum capacity of another. Do you know how many people were actually sailing on your Wish voyage?

 

[Kwami]

You are comparing max capacity to what the capacity was on your sailing-not a fair comparison. Max capacity of the Wish is about 4,000 passengers, and the max capacity of the Magic is about 2,700. Neither ship typically sails at max capacity, though (they may have all staterooms full, but that doesn't mean every stateroom is full to hit max capacity, which is how many people can fit into lifeboats).

My two cruises on the Wish were both full at about 4k passengers. Dinner service was actually great, excepting the problems caused by having dinner shows. One of the top two serving teams that we've ever had! Service on the Treasure was less good, but a big part of that was because we had a brand new assistant server who didn't understand English very well. And we had bad neighbors at the next table over. But that's not really Disney's fault.

The worst service that I've had was on the Magic. That was a cruise from NYC to San Juan and it was just over half full. They combined everyone into a single dinner seating and it was horrible. The servers were too busy, the tables were too close together, and we didn't even get the usual thematic table number thingies because they had to make up new table numbers. No live piano music in Lumiere's when they were doing that, either, because there wasn't room for a piano with the extra tables in the way.

By the way, the Wish-class ships actually have the highest crew/passenger ratio out of all the Disney ships. I don't know exactly how they're distributed, but I haven't seen servers on the Wish or Treasure serving more tables than on the other ships.

 

[dllocals]

The problem isn't the number of guests. The Wish-class ships have approximately the same number of guests as the Dream-class ships.

The problem is that the show requires the servers to be strict about serving things at specific times so that they aren't distracting you too much during the show. That means rushed courses and cold food and missed drink refills and ordering dessert before you know how full you'll be. It's all rather annoying.

Yup, we’re not a fan of long and loud dinner shows. We were just on the Fantasy WB Atlantic crossing,13 nights, the only shows were in Animators’ (Crush Talk and the usual animated guest’s drawings) Both don’t interrupt the main service and are fun.
We had excellent service because our team knew how to make the best use of kitchen delivery times and engaging with us.

 

[DCL58]

We have had terrible dinner service on 2 different ships - the Magic and the Treasure. Both experiences were directly related to how many special requests, allergy meals and multiple appetizers/entrees the servers had to deal with.

The funny thing was that we had the same servers on the Magic the week prior and service was exceptional. Very few special requests or trips to different dining rooms and service was quick and efficient. The next week was a different story. Same number of guests and tables, but these tables all needed extra things. Our servers simply couldn’t keep up with the demands and our service was terrible. Same on the Treasure - too many things asked of our servers and they couldn’t keep up.

 

[peder]

Could also be that many people are still doing main dining on the Wish-class ships because 91) they are newer experiences and many people still want to check them out whereas the experiences on the Fantasy/Dream are a bit more tired, and (2) dinner is actually a show, making it a must-do activity for all the Disneymaxers.

I would guess that more people are just grabbing pizza and enjoying some AquaDuck time on the Fantasy/Dream? Dinner for us on the Dream was pretty forgettable, in many ways worse for us than our food on MSC, and there was nothing experiential except in Animator's Palette which had some drawings on the walls? I dunno, it certainly didn't feel like something we *had* to do on the Dream, but on the Wish it feels like you are *supposed* to be there.

 

[CruiseGoon]

The Dream and fantasy are my 2 favorite ships. There are a lot of reason why, but I'm trying to focus strictly on the dinner service. We sometimes had slow service, but it was rectified by the next night. And the food was never at a temperature that made it obvious it had been sitting out for a while. We experienced the same dinner service problems in 1923. There's no live show or "immersive experience" to slow things down there, but it still happened. There are plenty of reviews and Youtubes out there that indicates that dinner service is a problem across the Wish Class. I will concede that the Wish, Treasure and in very short time, Destiny, draws in the bulk of first-time DCL cruisers. That may be a factor with cruiser inexperience vs. returning DCL cruisers sailing on the First Four. I simply think the Wish Class ships would have benefitted by having 4 main dining restaurants. Smaller, more intimate venues and an additional location could have given the Imagineers (If Disney is still using them in ship design, anymore) a great opportunity to "plus things up."

 

[dllocals]

Could also be that many people are still doing main dining on the Wish-class ships because 91) they are newer experiences and many people still want to check them out whereas the experiences on the Fantasy/Dream are a bit more tired, and (2) dinner is actually a show, making it a must-do activity for all the Disneymaxers.

I would guess that more people are just grabbing pizza and enjoying some AquaDuck time on the Fantasy/Dream? Dinner for us on the Dream was pretty forgettable, in many ways worse for us than our food on MSC, and there was nothing experiential except in Animator's Palette which had some drawings on the walls? I dunno, it certainly didn't feel like something we *had* to do on the Dream, but on the Wish it feels like you are *supposed* to be there.

I think you’re right… I wouldn’t skip one of the newer dinners/shows. Maybe the classic ships need to create something in their dining rooms.

 

[Mommb]

I simply think the Wish Class ships would have benefitted by having 4 main dining restaurants. Smaller, more intimate venues and an additional location could have given the Imagineers (If Disney is still using them in ship design, anymore) a great opportunity to "plus things up."

Disney wouldn’t have wanted to add a 4th main dining room to a ship that would be offering 3 night cruises. On the shorter cruises, guests would have to miss going to one of the dining rooms, and the “dining changes” area would be much busier as people tried to change to get to the dining rooms they liked best or hadn’t been to on previous cruises.

Given that the same number of passengers works fine in 3 dining rooms on the Dream and Fantasy, the issue probably isn’t the number of dining rooms as much as their layout. I haven’t been on the Wish class ships, but wonder if they have more tables that seat only 2 or 4 people than the older ships. That would result in more tables per server, meaning more time spent taking orders and checking in with groups.

 

[epcotrulz]

I’ve had several dining leaders say the Wish class ships kitchens are too far away from the dining rooms, overall poor designs on Wish class ships kitchen placement… but stubborn leadership at Disney right now refuses to course correct ….

 

[asgur5]

The short of it, is that the Wish Class ships are too big.

We went on the Wish earlier this year and we experienced how crowded and slooooow the food service was. I really did not care for the beer-garden style seating in Arendelle. I watched a Youtuber's review of the Treasure where he pointed out this problem is exactly the same as it is on the Wish. We are going on the Destiny at the beginning of January and I'm dreading this aspect of dinner service. We're going to try to skip our Worlds of Marvel night so we can go to Palo. I'm looking forward to the heroes and villains theming, the Hercules show and the adult bars and even the Lion King dinner show. I'm just dreading the food service during dinner.

Contrast that with going on the Magic at the beginning of November that was a mom and dad only vacation. Dinner was among the swiftest and most efficient we've experienced. Our waiters weren't rushed, but they were quick with the plates and still took time to visit and share stories.

The problem is scale. the Wish Class carries around 4000 passengers. Our cruise on the Magic had around 2000 passengers. All of the DCL ships have 3 main dining venues. So double the number of passengers are being crammed in, to 3 dining spaces that have to serve double the number of plates in the same time frame each night. This is why the constant reviews of slow service and cold food.

When the Wish Class was conceived, it seems like the designers took no account of what scaling up passengers would do to their rotational dining model. The solution should have been obvious that a 4th dining venue needed to be added and make the existing 3 a little smaller. That way, they could've kept up with the industrial scale of food service that needed to take place. It's not likely that the problem will be able to be fixed with the 4th Wish Class ship on account of the venue spaces being fixed.

I for one am looking forward the new class being built that is supposed to be closer to the Magic Class size.

That doesnt make sense. The ship is bigger giving space to more pasengers. There is also more staff. You only have a point if the staff to passenger ratio is lower. I dont think it is. Plus why single out the wish class and not dream class?

 

[asgur5]

The Dream and fantasy are my 2 favorite ships. There are a lot of reason why, but I'm trying to focus strictly on the dinner service. We sometimes had slow service, but it was rectified by the next night. And the food was never at a temperature that made it obvious it had been sitting out for a while. We experienced the same dinner service problems in 1923. There's no live show or "immersive experience" to slow things down there, but it still happened. There are plenty of reviews and Youtubes out there that indicates that dinner service is a problem across the Wish Class. I will concede that the Wish, Treasure and in very short time, Destiny, draws in the bulk of first-time DCL cruisers. That may be a factor with cruiser inexperience vs. returning DCL cruisers sailing on the First Four. I simply think the Wish Class ships would have benefitted by having 4 main dining restaurants. Smaller, more intimate venues and an additional location could have given the Imagineers (If Disney is still using them in ship design, anymore) a great opportunity to "plus things up."

Wait? The wish class does have smaller dining venues. They literally have 5 venues instead of 3. Only the dinner show restaurants are as big as the dream/magic class. Its the dream and magic class that have bigger venues. You cant claim the venues are too big when most of them are way smaller.