DisLove Podcast with Vanessa and Kris

DisLove E138: Special Episode Disney Wish Review of Halloween on the High Seas

• Vanessa Ferguson and Kris Johns • Season 5 • Episode 138

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In this special episode, Kris and Vanessa review their recent experience sailing on the Disney Wish. They went on a multi-generational trip that was on one of the special Halloween on the High Seas sailings. 

For all the latest news about our episodes follow us on Instagram @dislovewithvanessaandkris or on YouTube.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Dizzle Podcast with Vanessa and Chris.

Speaker 2:

I'm Vanessa Ferguson and I'm Chris Johns.

Speaker 1:

We would like to welcome you to show number 138 and for any listeners joining us for the first time. Our show features things we love at Disney and in each episode we typically have a guest who creates Disney magic for our listeners at home or on their Disney vacations. From vacation planners to product producers, our guests can bring Disney magic into your life and, as a reminder to our listeners, we appreciate if you take time to review us on Apple Podcasts or any other platform where you listen. That helps the show grow and, of course, that's why we're still here. We just actually celebrated five years of the show.

Speaker 2:

We sure did.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so we'll be. We're trying to figure out what we want to do with that, but anyways, we appreciate everyone who has left us those reviews, and today is going to be one of our special episodes. Periodically, when we go to something pretty big Disney related, we won't have a guest because we know it's going to take us a little bit more time to talk about our review. So on today's show, we are going to review our recent sailing on the Wish. So the Wish is Disney's most recent ship. It did join the fleet in 2022, but this was our first time on it and this was my fourth Disney cruise. And, chris, let me catch yourself on how many Disney cruises have you been on?

Speaker 2:

Three total.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, good, so this is my fourth, his third, and then it was our daughter's second, and then my parents went on and it was their third, and Chris's mom was a first time cruiser as well. So we went on one of the special Halloween on the high seas sailings and I know we're past Halloween. We had some other guests lined up, but we're going to talk about just our experience as a whole. We'll touch on some of the Halloween stuff, but that's not going to be the main focus. We were on the ship for a short sailing. We were on from Friday September 29th through Monday October 2nd. As I mentioned, we went with my parents, chris's, and with Chris's mom. We had three cabins between all of us. We were on deck seven. We had two porthole cabins and then Chris's mom had it inside cabin. She was traveling solo and I was really impressed with the inside cabin.

Speaker 2:

It's good enough, I think, for folks who yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like maybe two people three.

Speaker 2:

Correct and if it's a case where budget is a concern, go inside. Yeah, considering we had a wonderful time, but I don't. We had a porthole. I didn't stare outside the porthole and, having had the experience, if it to me was between saving money on the inside or having a porthole, I would save the money so I could put that other places on the trip.

Speaker 1:

We have had balcony rooms as well before, so we've kind of downgraded from a balcony to a porthole, but definitely something to consider. So a couple of facts about the wish. So, as I mentioned earlier, it did set sail for the first time in summer of 2022. It's the fifth ship in Disney's fleet and, of course, we have the Disney treasure coming online in 2024, which is super exciting. One thing is, this ship is a lot bigger than the other ships we've been on.

Speaker 1:

So last summer if you listened and I'll put links in the show notes too we did a three part review of our Alaska sailing on the Wonder. The Wonder has enough space for 2400 passengers. The wish can take on 4000 passengers and last year when we did our Alaska sailing, they were still doing some reduced numbers for COVID, so that means pretty much there were half the number of people on the Wonder as there was on the wish. I will say I had heard a lot of mixed reviews about how busy they thought the ship was. Aside from the trigger treating, which happened for like a half hour span on the ship, I never really felt overly crowded on the ship.

Speaker 2:

No, not at all.

Speaker 1:

So the way it's set up there's a lot of smaller spaces, so I think that's why you don't feel as crowded. The restaurants are spread out a little bit differently. So that was some things that it didn't feel as overwhelming as I thought it was going to, and I know people have had different, differing opinions on that. But even I mean we were traveling. Chris's mom has some mobility issues, so we had a scooter, our daughter's a little slower Like we had a. I mean there were six of us but I never felt like we're like getting separated or really had trouble staying together. It was pretty smooth and even with the shows and different things like that, I will say we did the second dining seating. So I know that can make a difference. If your family is an early dining group, you might have had a little bit different experience in terms of crowds, because we didn't have trouble getting seats at the shows. We didn't have trouble with like shopping and stuff in between. So I think maybe that could also help us doing that second seating.

Speaker 2:

Exactly Just gives you more time to enjoy the afternoon, and then not be rushed.

Speaker 1:

You're at the port, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Correct. And then it's one of those things where you've really had such a busy day that you're hungry and it makes that food and service so much more rewarding.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to talk about there are quite. We're going to go through the dining, which is one of our favorite things, and then we'll move into the entertainment and some of the extras that you have. So first up, we have dining. So if you've never been on a Disney cruise before, you have rotational dining and your wait staff moves with you to the different dining places. You do have a set time. So I think the earlier time is 5, 30 and ours was like 815. But we always do the later time. As Chris mentioned, it gives you some time for some of the other things. So that means you're going to go see the main show before you go to dinner. So we I will just say our staff was amazing Our both of our wait staff. They did an awesome job. I don't think I've ever had bad servers on a Disney cruise, though they're always never, once so the dining rotation is you have worlds of Marvel, a restaurant called 1923.

Speaker 1:

And then you have Arundale, a frozen dining adventure. There is also a French restaurant on Chanté and then there is also Palo restaurant as well. So with the dining we ended up at worlds of Marvel the first night and I will. If you've listened to the podcast long enough, you know that's just not our thing. Marvel and Star Wars, those are just not our interest. But I thought the food was decent, it was fun. They have kind of an interactive show with some of the different Marvel characters, that and they have a thing on the table where you interact with and I thought that was kind of added to the experience where it was a little bit more hands on.

Speaker 2:

Oh, exactly, and I think at one point Spider-Man came out. We have a photo and it was neat. And again I'll reiterate, I have watched one of the Marvel Iron man movies that came out nonsense and all those characters were really brand new, other than the ones you just kind of know. But it was enjoyable. I don't think for me I know some people it would be a highlight. It was enjoyable. Again, I would say the service, trump, the food.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that, I think, was my least favorite food out of the dining rotation.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but overall a wonderful experience. My mom, who watches zero of these movies, found it enjoyable and she's a tough customer, but it's a nice time.

Speaker 1:

I have a picture of her smiling with Spider-Man.

Speaker 2:

And that's rare.

Speaker 1:

So, anyways, worlds of Marvel was our first one and I have lots of pictures of food and everything from all of the dining experiences. Our second restaurant that we ate at was, I will say, my favorite, just ambience-wise, but probably food-wise it was good. It was above Worlds of Marvel and that was the Arendelle of Frozen Dining Adventure, and Frozen is more up our alley and this was so much fun. Like we had already been, we're going to talk about some special events. My mom and our daughter and I had been to Olaf's Royal Picnic, which is in the same restaurant, so we actually spent quite a bit of time in the restaurant that day. But the show at Arendelle is super fun and I think I mean I really enjoyed the Arendelle show.

Speaker 2:

It was excellent.

Speaker 1:

So you have Anna Elsa Olaf. They come out, they have a band there's I don't know what you would call them, but there's a group with them that are playing live and like they're doing fiddles and guitars and the music's all live and it was just super fun. They have a whole experience. Throughout the whole dining time and I will say I felt like I got distracted by the show, where I sometimes was forgetting about getting my food done, because that was our pirate night, so we were trying to get done with eating so that way we could go up to see the fireworks that night. So I really got distracted from my food and that takes a lot to distract me from my food.

Speaker 2:

It takes a lot to distract her from her food.

Speaker 1:

But the food was really good. They had some different things. I had a meatball dish. The desserts were really good. I know it was kind of funny because we had been to Olaf's Picnic earlier in the day, so my daughter and I had on Anna costume, but then by the evening, since it was pirate night, we had on pirate clothes when we went to Arundale. So that was kind of fun, a little bit different. But so you have the frozen dining adventure and that, I think, was a highlight in terms of all of the restaurants. The last restaurant that we went to on our rotation was 1923. And if you know anything, of course we're in the year of the 100th anniversary of the Walt Disney Company and that was the year the company was formed and this was the best food. I'm glad we ended there in terms of, because it was the best food.

Speaker 2:

By far.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you felt like it was in a more upscale. There's drawings from a lot of different animated Films. There's a waltz side and there's a Roy side. We were seated in the waltz side. I Don't think any of us had something that we didn't enjoy. All the way from the appetizers on through the desserts, it was just a very good meal.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think the great thing about what Vanessa just mentioned something that you didn't enjoy Unlike other restaurants where if you order something that's what you get, you have the ability to change, whether it be add an Additional entree or have maybe have a second helping the staff is they'll bring it to you with a smile. That's really, I think, the nice thing. There were some things that I had ordered in my mom liked and I said we'll order it. And you know, with her being a first-time cruiser, you're just natural instinct is to be limited where not to say that people Didn't order every two of everything, but you have the ability, if you like something gives again, while it's extremely high quality, I would not say the portions are generous.

Speaker 1:

No, I think they assume you're gonna order more than one thing.

Speaker 2:

Correct. So if you were to get a second it's not like you're gonna get twice as much you might really in theory get a single order of it but that said, it gives you that chance.

Speaker 1:

Yes, for sure, and I will say that if you get a chance to eat at night One thing that I was a little disappointed with because we are on such a short cruise we only had every restaurant one time and I felt spoiled from our Alaskan cruise last year on the wonder because we got to go to Each restaurant twice. So some of the things like Chris mentioned, if you had an entree you really enjoyed or you wanted to try something different and you were too full, you had that chance to do it. So there are some other restaurant options there. There's on Chante, which is a French adults only restaurant. There's also Palo, which is on several the other cruise ships which we've eaten at Palo on other Occasions on other sailings. We just all did the regular dining together because we had our daughter with us and the grandparents and so we just all dying together. We didn't do any of the adult dining this trip, but that kind of that rounds out all of the restaurants.

Speaker 1:

Now there's also a lot of other dining options on the wish and I will say that we didn't make it to the Marceline market, which is kind of like the. It's not really a buffet because they kind of serve it to you, it's more like cafeteria style. We didn't make it there. We were on the shorter sailing. So the couple of times that, like my mom and I went to get lunch there one day, they closed that a lot for private events. There was quite a few private events that were on our sailing because it was a Halloween sailing and then if groups do a Private party, on a previous sailing we were at a private party that was in a space so we didn't get a chance to try Marceline market, the quick service area, mickey and Friends Festival of Foods this was the best quick service out of any of the Disney Cruises ships We've been on 100%.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so they had stations just like you have everywhere. Donald's Cantina was a quick Mexican restaurant and they made really good bowls. I enjoyed the bowls from there. Our daughter had tacos lots of great toppings, everything like that. There is Mickey smoke stack barbecue, which had barbecue, and then there was a couple of other ones. There was one that had like burgers and fries and Pizza. I didn't have any pizza on this sailing, did you?

Speaker 2:

very good.

Speaker 1:

And so it was better than on the wonder last year.

Speaker 1:

I can't say that, but it was very good and then, in addition to that, you had the for purchase thing. So you had inside out, which was it's called a joyful sweets. It's a candy shop and ice cream parlor. I went in there and took pictures. I didn't end up buying anything. I was never hungry from my other things, but the festival foods really good. I will say.

Speaker 1:

Disney has stepped it up a notch on their, on their quick service food and then, of course, on every Disney sailing you have 24-hour room service. This time, the only room service we got was breakfast. We always do that. We just were slower starters in the morning and so we. It is continental breakfast, the regular room service during the day. You can get like sandwiches and different entrees and stuff. All of that's included. The only thing that you do have to pay for is there's a few like candy items and some beverages. So, aside from those items, really the only thing you have to do is you need to tip when you get the room service and, like I said, we did it for breakfast all every day and it was really great.

Speaker 1:

Now, moving on to the entertainment I did talk about, there are some crochet of your evening show which we'll talk about, but you had we paid extra in my mom and I took our daughter to Ola's Royal picnic. That we ended up going to that on the day we were in Nassau and they call it. It's a wonder of a kind picnic, with Olaf is hosting it and it's really a fun event. They have the kids get all kinds of great gifts. I'll share lots of pictures. Kristoff comes up and shows them how to play the one instrument. There's a little bit of drama where something happens to Olaf and the kids get to help bring him back and they have the great show. They bring out and they present the kids gifts and these big picnic baskets.

Speaker 1:

I will say the food was a little lacking. There was some tea sandwiches. They had a lot of desserts. Those were pretty good. Our daughter really enjoyed those a lot, but they kind of rush you through. So that was one bummer because we still had like some big cake pops and stuff and they don't like let you take that with you because they rush you to get in line with the characters. You get some photos with the characters, which was super nice. The next day we had a folio in our room with photos with Anna and Elsa and Kristoff, so that was super cool and last year we did the Royal Court Royal Tea on the Wonder, which is with all the princesses, and if you can afford it it is well worth doing these extras.

Speaker 1:

It's only for kids up to age 12 and the adults are substantially cheaper like $200 less, because you don't get all of the gifts. But it was well worth it, both the Royal Tea that we did last year in this one. Our daughter loved them a lot. I will give Disney Propsies extra. You don't feel like you're. You feel like you're getting your money's worth with it.

Speaker 1:

And then, of course, because we were on a Halloween sailing, there were some special entertainment things for that. There was Trick or Treating. One day there was a special Halloween show which that was after the regular show for the evening, so we got to jam that in there. The characters had special outfits on certain days. But you have to keep an eye out because if you are on a Marvel sailing or a Halloween sailing or a Christmas sailing, those characters are usually only out once or twice and if you miss them you don't get to get them. So we didn't get a lot of the Halloween characters, but we did do the Trick or Treating. We went and saw the Halloween show. So there are some things to keep in mind. It's gonna be very jam packed if you go on one of the special sailings. I think they even have Pixar sailings now.

Speaker 1:

So we had the Halloween day, we had the pirate night because we were on a cruise in the Caribbean, just like last year when we were in Alaska.

Speaker 1:

In Alaska they had the frozen night. In the Caribbean they have the pirate's night, and then they had their Broadway style shows. Every night there was a different one because we were only sailing for three nights. So we had Disney Seasy Adventure, then we had Little Mermaid and finally we ended with Aladdin. These shows are an hour and because we did the second dining, as I mentioned, we went to the show at six I believe it was and then you were able to have the show already done before you went to your dining. In between the show and our dining we did have a pirate show, we had the Halloween show, so you have a lot of stuff going on. The Disney Seasy Adventure is goofy, goes on this experience where he runs into characters from all different Disney experiences. So it was fun and, I will say, like their great Broadway style shows. My mother-in-law is not a Disney person, but she seemed to enjoy every show.

Speaker 2:

She sure did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so these are high quality. We have a friend who loves Broadway and I know just showing when he's talked about when he saw some of the shows in person like a regular Broadway version. These are just kind of condensed versions of that and because the Wish is a bigger ship, there's lots of I mean you're used to. You have the different entertainment in the bars. You have music and trivia and all kinds of stuff. There's a piano bar. There's a Star Wars hyperspace lounge which is pretty neat.

Speaker 1:

We didn't make it there but my parents did and they shared us some pictures. There's the Bayou, which is a jazz club. There's also a hero zone which is a Marvel themed experience, which is where you kind of almost like some of those almost ninja warrior kind of experiences. Now, adults can only go in that at certain times and we just didn't make it there. We were in the lobby area of it for there's a boogie bash Halloween event that we went to. But other than that there's just so much on the ship, the pools we didn't even have time to do the pools. We did do some of the one of the waterslides which I'll talk about that, but there's two pools. There's Mickey's Pool and Donald's Pool and Mickey's Pool is the biggest one. Of course there's also the with by the Donald pool. They have a funnel vision where you can watch movies, and every night they always had fun movies up. They have an adults only pool, which we've done that on previous salons, but we had our daughter with us this time. Of course there's a Toy Story Splash Zone for little ones and then they have the two waterslides there's the Aqua Mouse and the slide of Soros Rex, which goes with the Toy Story Splash Zone. We did the Aqua Mouse the day we came back from Castaway. My parents and I and our daughter went and did it, and my mom doesn't really swim and my dad has some mobility issues, but they both did it and they loved it. Our daughter is just barely made it for the height requirement and she had so much fun. So, if you get a chance, we waited, I think, maybe 20 minutes for the Aqua Mouse, but it's well worth it. It was a lot of fun and we're not real big like pool people, but the Aqua Mouse was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:

Now, we already talked about the dining, because we were in the Caribbean. It was just the two ports of call. We had NASA and Castaway Key. We've done both of those. Before NASA we just did a catamaran boat and a tour. I'll share some pictures from that. We had a good time. But we came back early for the Olaf's Royal Picnic and then on Castaway we just rented some floats and kind of hung out at the beach. Chris went. Chris, what is your thing that you like to do at Castaway?

Speaker 2:

I love going in the hammock.

Speaker 1:

So Chris goes over to the adult side and he hangs out in the hammock and I just kind of hung out in the family area. We had lunch and then we all met up. It's nice because it was such a busy cruise, like they have things on the island, if you've not been, like our daughter, we wanted to do a hair wrap and they had braiding, and so they have individuals that come over and offer those services. So that was nice. We were able to do that even though we hadn't done it anywhere else. The food was pretty good on the island. Was there barbecue over on the adult side? I think it's the same.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it was the same food.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So they had a fruit bar set up with all kinds of fruit fresh fruit cut that you could have, and they have the soft serve ice cream. I don't know, I'm not a huge ice cream person I like cake and they did have very good cookies. Our daughter loved the cookies, but people love getting that the ice cream. They had pop machines, all of that sort of stuff, so you can have your fill of food while you're on the island.

Speaker 1:

And one of the things, too, I'd like to mention is that we paid for the photo package. If you prepay for the photo package, you can get a discount on it. If you wait and buy it on the ship, you do get some. I think DVC is the only discount that you can get on the ship, but our daughter is not the best at posing for pictures, but the photographers on the ship were amazing and they got some really awesome photos. So it's well worth paying that little pack extra for the package, because if you buy one or two or a few, it adds up really quickly. So I think the unlimited was like a hundred and seventy five dollars somewhere around there before the sailing and just to get all the family group photos and all the backdrops. Every night they'll have different backdrops. So on pirate night they had ones for Halloween. The Halloween night they had some really cute backdrops and frames they put on the photos. So really well worth it.

Speaker 1:

And I think, overall, going on one of those, one of the cruises that is, one of those specialty cruises we've done the maritime, the Christmas one, and then now this is our Halloween on the high seas I think the only thing that I would say that I was disappointed in is that it was short. We should have went on a longer one. So that is something to keep in mind. A couple other tips is that if you have anyone with like mobility issues, we had a scooter delivered by Walker Mobility and we've used them for relatives and stuff at the parks before, but they deliver right to the port and Chris went and picked it up and took it back like it was just right at the port itself. It was. We didn't have to go anywhere else. Was that a easy process?

Speaker 2:

Very easy.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so that made it nice. And then you're able to have it on the ship and all that. You can work with your Disney travel agent or whoever that has helped you book, to make sure that you know there's spaces where the scooters can be kept while you're on the ship. And I will say this just kind of reiterated why we love Disney and why we love cruising. It was a great experience. We even paid a deposit. They have where you can offer some future sailing, so we put down a deposit and we have 10% off of future sailing. So it just really reiterates just across the board where we talk about the level of service of Disney is great.

Speaker 1:

As I mentioned, we had our parents with us, our daughter, everybody had a great time. Everybody enjoyed the food, the rooms were awesome. Our room was themed to Cinderella, my parents' room was frozen, the artwork is nice, the rooms have a nice upgrade. So really great experience and we highly encourage you to consider going on a Disney cruise and if it's your first one, maybe try the three or four day. But if you're like us, once you've done the longer ones, like to Alaska, you're not going to want to go back to those short ones. So that is something to keep in mind as well. So hopefully all of you can get a chance to experience these. We'll share some pictures and lots of different information. I'll put links to our previous cruise reviews so that way you can have those as well. So that wraps up our review and let's go ahead and move on to our two minute trivia and our wisdom from Walt Quote and Chris you're up with trivia?

Speaker 2:

So Disney has a lot of cruise ships.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

The wish is which cruise ship in the line of cruise ships?

Speaker 1:

Number five.

Speaker 2:

That is correct, good job.

Speaker 1:

Is that it? You have more.

Speaker 2:

There's not a lot out there about the wish that you haven't already said.

Speaker 1:

All right, good, well, and then, of course, next year we have the treasure coming online, so it'll just keep growing from there. Now I thought this one kind of this quote from Walt really goes along with what we were talking about of how great the service is and how Disney does everything really at a high quality and it is whatever you do, do it well. And I will say Disney Cruise Line staff, they are definitely doing it well. So we appreciate them and look forward to our next sailing and look forward to hearing and seeing pictures from all of your sailings as well. So thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the Dizzle Podcast with Vanessa and Chris. I'm Vanessa and I'm Chris.

Speaker 2:

This podcast is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company or its holdings, and it is intended for entertainment purposes only.