Disney Wish 8/11-8/14 Trip Report

[Clarkson U]

Welcome to this trip report. This is for a 3 Night Sailing on the Disney Wish sailing from Port Canaveral and making stops at Nassau and Castaway Cay. This sailing left on a Friday and returned on a Monday.

On this trip were 4 people - myself (49), DW (50) and DS x2 (21 & 19). We went while the boys had a weekend free between the end of the summer semester at college and the start of the fall semester. The weather was fantastic all weekend with hot and humid conditions throughout the voyage.

This was a completely full sailing with no stateroom upgrades and 4000+ guests sailing.

We started out at home Friday morning and left our house around 8:15 AM to begin the drive down to PC. We did make one stop at Buc-ees in Daytona Beach along the way down on I-95 to get some gas and coffee. We arrived into PC at 11:00 AM and we had a 11:30 PAT.

We dropped off our luggage and the porter did ask what our PAT was. After that we went into the PC parking garage (cost about $72 dollars for this sailing), parked our car and headed into the terminal. By the time we got there they were already allowing 11:30 PAT folks to enter into the terminal. We walked right in and we were first in line for the Pearl/Platinum check-in line at the terminal. We were checked in by the concierge team as they had no concierge guests waiting for check-in at that time. We were quickly through security and up into the terminal before 11:30.

Shortly thereafter they started with BG 1 and rapidly moved to BG 7 which was our group for this sailing. We were on the ship by 11:50 AM!!!

Immediately went to GS to ask about a DCL speaker but was told due to the new online ordering process, they no longer have any to purchase on the ship. You have to get it in advance online or no dice. Good to know. As we got to the elevator we immediately noticed that the touch buttons had been replaced with gold buttons that you actually push. Inside the elevator, the same thing, the old buttons that were super sensitive were replaced with gold push buttons to get to the different floors. So glad to see this change made as these buttons are so much better than what was originally on the ship during the initial few months of sailings.

We decided to have lunch up on Deck 11 - at the Festival of Foods!
DW had the impossible burger, DS x 2 had the plant based sausage dogs and I had a Mexican Bowl. Yes we are all vegetarians but the Festival of Foods had some great options for vegetarians.

After lunch, we went to Luna for 1 pm in order to change our dining rotation. We wanted Arrendale on the second night so we could miss that show and go to Palo for dinner instead. That was not our order, but one conversation with George in Luna and he was able to switch my dining rotation. He kept everything else the same even the table number. He explained to me that since the person that had my table on the dining rotation I wanted had not even checked in yet and they had no requests on their rotation it would be an easy switch. Full Disclosure: I did request a very specific dining rotation over a month ago and George said he sees it there but didn't know why it wasn't granted. He apologized and made the switch.

1:30 we went to Disney Trivia in the Bayou. It was definitely easy trivia as we got 18/20 correct and lost to people who got 20/20. After trivia, we went to our stateroom which were available at 2 pm (they announced that on the ship that all staterooms would be available at 2 pm for our sailing).

We played the card game, Cover Your A$$ets in our stateroom waiting for luggage to arrive. Luggage arrived at 3 pm and we unpacked and then went up to Deck 8 to iron the clothes that we brought for Palo dinner and for 1923 (we plan to dress up in 1920s dress clothes).

In between all of that, we had the mandatory drill and before we knew it, it was time for dinner. At 5:30 pm we went to Marvel. We liked our service team on the Wish this sailing - this is our 3rd Wish sailing and so far 2/3 times we have had good servers - one time the service team was horrible.

At Marvel - we enjoyed White Cheddar and Broccolini Soup, Tomato Heirloom Salad and Iceberg Wedge w/o Bacon and Tofu Udon Noodles and Soft Potato Gnocchi. It was all delicious. For dessert we shared the Key Lime Pie (delicious), the Nano Dobos Torta (okay at best) and the Wakanda Flourless Chocolate Beetroot Cake - No Sugar Added (our favorite dessert of the night and no way to tell if was no sugar added). Also, we had coffee with dinner and we were done with dinner service by 7:15 pm.


From dinner we went to Luna to play What is the Villians version of Hollywood Squares. It was a fun game as we played against another family. We won the game. We got DCL key chains and fidget spinners for our participation. LOL.

Then at 8:30 pm went to Keg and Compass to play General Knowledge Trivia. We didn't do as well 10/20 - some were easy some were quite hard. Overall, we had a great time.

After trivia we went to Nightengales to get a few drinks. On previous sailings we had never had any drinks in there so we wanted to get a few drinks. We got The Chocolate Frozen Bubble which has Bailey's Salted Caramel, Absolut Vanilla and Chocolate along with the Dreams Come True which was Empress Gin, Elderflower, White Cranberry and Moet and Chandon Rose. The Frozen Bubble was our favorite. It tasted great and was an interactive drink. The actual alcohol came inside a large frozen ice-cube or bubble that you had to break with a little hammer they gave you.

After that we went to watch Victrophonics on the Main Stage. Having seen them multiple times in Luna, the acoustics on the Main Stage were not that good compared to the sound in Luna. It was still fun to listen to them.

After this time, it was close to 11 PM and we went to bed.

 

[DMMarla07860]

I loved The Chocolate Frozen Bubble Drink and my favorite was Stepmother

 

[Clarkson U]

Saturday 8/12 - Day 2- Nassau, Bahamas

Saturday morning I got up early and went to the fitness center at 6 AM. I always forget that on this ship it is on Deck 5 Forward and not Deck 11 - and I definitely made the trip up to Deck 11 only to realize it is on Deck 5. Why couldn't they have kept it the same - would have been so much easier on folks at that hour. The other difference on this ship is that the locker rooms and showers are in the SPA area which doesn't open until 8 am. So unlike the other ships where you can work out early and then take a shower - you cannot do that on the Wish (or at least I haven't figured that one out yet) before 8 am.

It was quite busy in the fitness center with about 30 people in there at 6 am or so. After about 45 minutes I found DW on deck 13 Forward and enjoyed my first cup of coffee with her. Unfortunately this was the only seating area that was open and it is also the smoking area. I wish (no pun intended) that Disney would open up other spots to sit up top that aren't smoking areas in the early morning hours.

We were not planning to get off the ship, so we went down and got into our bathing suits and then went up to Marceline's Market for breakfast. We had the usual buffet items - they did not have Mickey Churro Waffles on this day!

After breakfast, we went to the adult pool area and enjoyed some time in the adult pool (pool is kinda stretching it) as there was only one other family in the water. We enjoyed that for about an hour just relaxing and enjoying the water.

Since we were wet already we then went and rode the Aquamouse (our one and only time) before going to our room to grab showers and get dressed for a day on the ship.

We did arrive into Port a few minutes early and while all ashore was technically 9:30 - they made an announcement at 9:20 that all gangways were open and folks could go ashore early if they wanted. All Aboard time was 5:15 pm.

We went to Deck 3 lobby area, found a large table and seating area and played Canasta while listening to James Teal. James Teal is FANTASTIC!!! It was sad that not many folks got to listen to him in the middle of the day but we truly enjoyed it and would gladly look to see him again (I looked him up online to see where he is performing in the states) We enjoy these shorter cruises for the ability to play cards and other games and enjoy not having to worry about cooking, cleaning etc as it is all provided to us whenever we want.

For Lunch we went back up to Marceline Market - where they had some excellent Indian food so we enjoyed that today. It was tasty and filling.

At 1 pm we went and played Heard That! in Triton Lounge which is always entertaining (the adult version is better)

At 2:45 we saw the Indiana Jones movie - which everyone in our party really liked. After the move we went up and got dressed for our Palo dinner at 6 pm. We got dressed early so we could go down to the atrium and have some pictures taken before dinner. We were successful in getting a bunch of different backgrounds and then made it up to Palo for 6 pm dinner.

This was our first time ever doing Palo dinner. We had done Palo Brunch before but first time for dinner. It was quite an enjoyable experience and I understand why folks like the dinner option for Palo. Very relaxed, not rushed at all and the waiter was very engaging throughout the entire process.

For Palo dinner we started with a bread basket; we then did most of the meal family style.

We had heirloom tomatoes with burrata along with the Agnolotti for appetizers.

For dinner we ordered two types of gnocchi - one was a gnochi made in red sauce and one in pesto. The exec chef personally makes the gnocchi and even came out to our table to ask us how we liked the gnocchi and explained to us why he persoanlly makes it instead of letting one of his sous chef make the dish. Great attention to detail. We also had mushroom risotto. Finally we had 2 pizzas, one was a cheese pizza with burrata and one was the mushroom pizza - both are delicious. For dessert four of us shared the 6 layer carrot cake, the tiramisu and the 14k choc bar. The favorite was definitely the carrot cake with tiramisu a close second.

In case anyone wants to know as vegetarians, our food costs came to $132 - which was all comped using our Platinum benefit of $50 per person at Palo. We don't get any credit back and the $50 could not be used towards the drinks we got. We got an old fashioned and a prosecco. 18% was added on the whole bill which is the right way it should be and we added on an additional gratuity as well on top of the 18%.

After this we went to Brain Teasers trivia at 8:30 in Keg and Compass. This was a lot of fun and it was truly like some logic type puzzles rather than the traditional trivia. We did really well at this one and lost by 1 point.

After brainteasers, we came up to our stateroom, got some drinks from deck 11 and settled in to watch Million Dollar Arm on our stateroom TV. When that was over, we went to bed.

 

[Clarkson U]

Sunday 8/13 - Castaway Cay

Another great weather day - started in the fitness center at 6 am. This time I went to Deck 5 the first time so no mistakes there. Less people present today in the fitness center than yesterday.

This time, after working out I went back to our stateroom as we had coffee delivered for 7 am. So was able to enjoy coffee on the balcony while we all took our turns getting ready for the day. We had breakfast again in Marceline's Market and again no Mickey Churro waffles and we were off the ship at CC before 8:30 AM (we did not have any excursion booked).

DW and younger son went snorkeling while my older son enjoyed reading and hanging out on the lounge chairs in the family beach area. I went into the water - which was quite nice and warm. Plenty of fish to be seen at the family beach area very close to shore and at shallow depths. Met some nice people in the water and enjoyed conversations with new friends.

After a while we played some games at In Da Shade and then rinsed off and went back on the ship. Older DS and I went first as DW and younger DS were still snorkeling. We took showers and got dressed and went up to Deck 11 to get some drinks while DW and younger DS came back to the ship and got dressed. We had a late lunch consisting of Mexican bowls for two people while the other two enjoyed the Plant Based Thai Red Curry dish at Marceline's. This red curry dish was fantastic and one of the best things I have eaten at Marceline's in three sailings on the Wish.

We went back to Deck 3 and played cards, then did some afternoon trivia and then did some packing before dinner. We all were getting dressed up for dinner tonight as it was our 1923 night and we enjoy getting dressed in the 1920s theme for this restaurant.

We had dinner on the Roy side of 1923. For appetizers we split between the tortelloni and the burrata without prosciutto. We had tomato soup. Then for entree we again split 2 for the tacos and 2 for the kambocha. For dessert we asked our server for the Wakanda No Sugar Added Choc cake - as that was our fav dessert along with Churros as who can go to 1923 and not get churros (unless you are allergic of course!). It was a great way to end the meal and we finished off with some fresh brewed coffee. We had a good service team this time around on the Wish and that is always a plus.

After dinner we got the pictures we ordered, (there was one print that was no good - so they did a reprint on the spot and we just needed to wait 10 minutes for it) changed out of our 1920s clothes and then went out to enjoy the ship. We did some more trivia, listened to musicians playing at the various lounges and just enjoyed the last night. We came back to our stateroom around 10 pm, finished packing up a few things and went to bed.


Monday 8/14 - Port Canaveral

We opted not to go to 1923 for sit down breakfast - and we had let our server team know that the night before we would likely not be coming down.

We got ready and then went up to Marceline's for breakfast, leaving all of our luggage in the stateroom. We opted to walk off with all of our luggage rather than put any of it out the night before. After breakfast, we finished putting the last straggling items in the luggage and around 7:30 went down to the lobby where they were already calling folks beyond walk offs to leave the ship. There was no line at customs, walked right through and was on 528 leaving the port well before 8 am. We arrived home before 10:30 am and literally turned on our work computers and went to work for the rest of the day!

That is our short trip report. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.

 

[Calantha]

At 2:45 we saw the Indiana Jones movie - which everyone in our party really liked.

Glad to hear. I hope it will still be there at the end of October.