We did the Wishes cruise in December and we loved it. There were only 5 of us, but I think we could have had 11 or 12 in the boat if we had wanted. The boats are pontoon boats (unless you reserve the boat for the Magical Gatherings--it is bigger). They generally pick you up from any one of the MK resort docks about 45 minutes before Wishes is scheduled to start and then you get a "tour" of Bay Lake and the Seven Seas Lagoon. They will drop you off at a different dock after your cruise if you would like. We had them pick us up at the Fort Wilderness dock and return us to the Wilderness Lodge dock. We had a very good driver, and the info he gave us on the history of the resorts, Discovery Island, etc was interesting (although we already knew most of the info--the DisBoards just make us way too well informed
).
About 5 or 10 minutes before Wishes starts, they park the boats out in front of the Magic Kingdom, about 50 to 100 yards back from the wave-break wall with palm trees that is directly in front of the MK docks to the Wilderness Lodge, Poly, GF. I'm not sure if all of the pontoon boats have the music piped in yet--I've heard that they are still in the process of converting all of them--but ours had music and it made it that much more enjoyable.
I would say it was definitely worth the money--about $125 before tip. I have never done the Illuminations cruise, but the Wishes one was so relaxing and yet exciting at the same time. We even got to see a lot of the Electric Water Pageant up close from our boat.
I'm sure others can give you more details of their experiences, but we loved it and would definitely do it again. Hope this helps.
