After a good night’s sleep, I woke up early on the second day of our back to back Disney Wish cruise due to a light near the door of our stateroom which was shining brightly and which definitely had not been left on the night before – I even tried to turn it off but was unable to which seemed very strange. We switched on the television to look at the map and we were only just sailing past West Palm Beach so we really had not sailed far at all overnight as we were in no hurry to be anywhere due to our first full day onboard being a day at sea.

We were both still trying to work out how to switch the light off by the door when we realised that no other lights in our stateroom were working and apart from the television and the air conditioning, we had no other power at all – it turned out that the light we were trying to turn off was an emergency light which had illuminated automatically when the power went out. As we were both now wide awake as well as hungry, we decided to go and get some breakfast and as we left the room, one of the officers as well as some electricians were already working in the corridor so there was obviously a problem in this area of the ship. We let them know that our stateroom was affected as well before walking up to Marceline Market on Deck 11. Compared to our previous cruise on the Disney Dream last year, there was so much choice for breakfast at Marceline Market (everything looked fresh and healthy instead of beige and fried) and it was the perfect morning to sit outside and enjoy our breakfast and it felt great to be on our way to the Bahamas in the sunshine.

After finishing our breakfast we decided to explore a few areas of the ship that we had not seen yet starting in an empty Hero Zone which is located one deck above Marceline Market. The Hero Zone is a dedicated sports and event area and as it is indoors, it can be used in all weather and we even had a quick game of basketball to start the day and to help work off the delicious breakfast we had just eaten.

From here we walked next door into the adult only area where The Rose, Palo Steakhouse and Enchanté are located. This area is subtly themed to Beauty and the Beast however we did not explore either of the restaurants as we only wanted to see them for the first time when we dined in them later that week.

It was 8:00am when we walked outside onto a completely empty and deserted pool deck which was the complete and total opposite to how it would look a few hours later. At this time I also managed to get a photo of the “Castaway Cay or Bust” Chip and Dale which can be found close to the exit on the AquaMouse.

When we got back to our stateroom on Deck 8, one of the officers as well as the electricians were inside and several of the ceiling panels were down as they repaired the electrical fault. We had already checked the Disney Cruise Line Navigator App and as some areas of the Oceaneer Club which we wanted to look around were in Open House at this time, we collected our cameras so we could leave them to work in the room before walking down to the Grand Hall.

One of the great features onboard the Disney Wish is that there is a slide which goes from Deck 3 of the Grand Hall directly down to the entrance of the Oceaneer Club on Deck 2 and the good news is that anyone – no matter what their age – can go down it during Open House times so of course we had to use it to get to Deck 2! Our first stop was the Fairytale Hall which is split into three sections based on Tangled, Beauty and the Beast and Frozen.

The Tangled area is decorated with paintings from Rapunzel on the walls (just like the ones in her tower) and you can also find Pascal sitting on one of the shelves as well as her hairbrush and the purple flag with the sun emblem that Flynn bought for Rapunzel on their trip to Corona to see the floating lanterns. A hidden detail in this room is that the clock is set to 11:10 as a nod to November 2010 when Tangled was released.

In the Frozen area, there is the toy Olaf (from Olaf’s Frozen Adventure) on one of the shelves that Anna made for Elsa when they were younger and the clock in that area is set to 11:13 for the November 2013 release date of Frozen.

Our next stop was The Walt Disney Imagineering Lab which was the one area on the Disney Wish that I was most excited to visit. I have always loved all of the hidden details that go into making all of the different parks and attractions as well as the ships around the world and this one small area was like heaven for a Disney geek like myself – I am so grateful that these Open House times exist just so we can see these areas for ourselves.

Throughout this area is various concept art and designs for different areas on the Disney Wish as well as hard hats belonging to the Imagineers that actually worked on the ship whilst she was being constructed.

There was also a globe and if you looked at it closely, all of the Disney Parks from around the world – Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland – as well as Castaway Cay and Aulani are marked.

However the one main reason why I was so excited to visit the Imagineering Lab was the Balinese Music Box on display from Mystic Manor at Hong Kong Disneyland – my most favourite attraction in the world at the park that I have always called my happy place and used to visit at least once a month before the pandemic. My last visit to Hong Kong Disneyland was in December 2019 and I cannot wait for the day when I can finally visit there once again – I seriously miss it and my friends at the park so much.

There are also other artefacts from different Disney attractions around the world including a Spiderbot from Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, various gems from Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, a Hollywood Tower Hotel plaque from the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, ride vehicles from Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Dumbo the Flying Elephant and Tron Lightcycle Power Run amongst many other items – it was fascinating to be able to look at everything up close.

There is also a microphone alongside a replica of the Disneyland dedication plaque as well as a miniature version of the Partners statue.

To the side of the Imagineering Lab is another area with a large scale model of the Disney Wish along with blueprints and other items from the design and construction of the ship, clocks showing the local time at all of the different Disney Parks around the world, a ride simulator where you can design your own roller coaster as well as The Walt Disney Prop Shop displaying more items, signs and costumes from all of the parks.

We did not have time that day to look around the Marvel Super Hero Academy or Star Wars Cargo Bay areas before the Open House finished for the morning at 9:00am, but thankfully we knew that we had plenty more opportunities during the rest of the week to come back and look at everything else in the Oceaneer Club.

Thankfully everything in our stateroom was back to normal and working perfectly once again after the electrical issues earlier that morning so we took some time out to sit on our verandah in the sunshine with a much needed cup of tea before heading to the Enchanted Sword Cafe on Deck 5 just off the Grand Hall ready for our Walking the Wish tour.

We were able to reserve this tour on the Disney Cruise Line Navigator app whilst we waited to board the Disney Wish in the terminal at Port Canaveral the previous day and there were several different times and dates available throughout the cruise. The Walking the Wish tour is free of charge to book and lasts for one hour and is a look at the different guest areas onboard the Disney Wish – there are no tours that go backstage and behind the scenes if that is what you are looking for. There were about thirty people on the tour in total and we had to show the confirmation of our booking in the Navigator app before we were each handed a headset.

Ash began the tour by telling us that the theme of the Disney Wish is Enchantment and she is currently the largest ship in the Disney Cruise Line fleet. Despite being the largest ship and having more crew, she has the exact same passenger capacity as the Disney Dream and the Disney Fantasy even though she has a total of 1254 staterooms – four more than the Dream and the Fantasy which have 1250 each.

The Disney Wish was designed to contain as many Disney stories as possible and everywhere onboard is themed to a different story no matter where it is. The Enchanted Sword Cafe where we started the tour is themed to the Sword in the Stone and you can actually see the sword in the railings as well as in the carpet and there is a line from the song “That’s What Makes the World Go Round” from Merlin in the mirror behind the bar.

The first stop of our Walking the Wish tour was the long corridor at the entrance to Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure on Deck 5 Aft which features portraits of all of the characters from the films throughout the years.

Further along the corridor is artwork that can be seen in the first film during “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” when Anna is talking to all the pictures on the walls (Hang in there Joan!) as well as the clock where Anna watches the hours tick by.

We were also told that the two bronze busts of Anna and Elsa that are on display in the restaurant were actually the fourth set that were made – the first set had the crown on Elsa instead of Anna, the second were wearing the wrong dresses, the third set ended up on display in Burbank before the fourth set finally made it onto the Disney Wish.

Inside Arendelle the restaurant is divided into three sections – each one representing Anna, Elsa and Kristoff. Along with more artwork, in the Elsa section you can find her gloves, a snow globe as well as her childhood stuffed puffin toy called Sir Jorgenbjorgen. The Kristoff section features snow shoes, an ice pick and trolls whilst in the Anna section her dolls from when she was a child are on display. There is also another great hidden detail in a painting of Anna and Elsa as children where you can see the Royal Sommerhus and the Norway pavilion at Epcot (where you can meet Anna and Elsa in the parks) in the background.

One major reason to visit Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure during the day (whether during the Anna and Elsa meet and greet or during the Walking the Wish tour) is this is the only time where you can actually see the Rapunzel and Pascal on the aft of the Disney Wish through the windows. The Rapunzel stern character is eight foot tall, her hair is fifteen metres long and she would wear a size 22 shoe whilst Pascal who looks tiny from a distance is just over two foot in length.

Back in the Grand Hall, we were told that the Disney Wish was designed as a “Castle on the Sea” and just how the castles are in the centre of each of the parks, the Grand Hall is located at the centre of the Disney Wish. The main focal point of the Grand Hall is the chandelier and the Wishing Star at the bottom of the chandelier represents the Disney Wish whilst the other four stars in the ceiling around it represent the other four ships in the Disney Cruise Line fleet – the Disney Magic, Disney Wonder, Disney Dream and the Disney Fantasy.

The character statue of the Disney Wish is Cinderella and if you look carefully you can find Gus and Jaq hiding underneath her dress from Lucifer the cat who is lurking nearby with a teacup trying to catch both of them.

All of the details that can be found in the Grand Hall tell the story of Cinderella – the chandelier represents her dress as it transforms from her rags into her ballgown, the swirl of stars around the chandelier is the magic spell from the Fairy Godmother, her glass slipper is on display at the bottom of the staircase and there are also pumpkins hidden in the railings of each deck.

The light fixtures on each of the three decks of the Grand Hall feature pumpkins in the design as well as ribbons, bows and thread representing the dress that the mice and birds make for Cinderella. There is also a large tile mosaic on Deck 4 next to Guest Services featuring Cinderella and Prince Charming with the phrase “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” which we were told had to be installed twice as the first one fell and broke during the Transatlantic crossing after the Disney Wish left Germany on her way to Port Canaveral.

Despite walking through the Grand Hall so many times since we had boarded the day before, I had no idea there were even more Cinderella details carefully hidden away in the carpet but once we were told about it, we very quickly noticed all of the birds, mice, glass slippers, pumpkins and carriages!

Just like on the other four ships in the Disney Cruise Line fleet, there are several ways to work out where you are on the ship and once Ash explained these to us, we never had another problem working out where we were on the Disney Wish for the rest of our week onboard. The phrase which we were told to remember was “Party in the front, Business in the back” meaning that nearly all of the bars as well as all of the entertainment venues onboard are located in the forward half of the ship whilst all of the restaurants and coffee shops (you can’t get more serious than food and caffeine) are found at the aft.

The forward area of the Disney Wish where the elevators and stairwells are located (including The Walt Disney Theatre) are coloured green and themed to an Enchanted Forest with woodland creatures in the elevators whilst the elevators and stairwells at the aft of the ship are coloured blue and themed to an Enchanted Castle with Jaq, Gus, pumpkins, carriages, glass slippers and birds in those elevators. There are no elevators located midship on the Disney Wish which I know some people have been very vocal about online but it was never an issue for us at all during our time onboard – it seemed to be a lot of fuss over nothing.

On the floors where the staterooms are located, look for the Mickey heads in the carpet to know if you are walking forward or aft.

The Wishing Star Cafe which is located just off the Grand Hall on Deck 4 is themed to Pinocchio and features mosaics of Pinocchio, Geppetto, Figaro and Cleo as well as a tiny statue of Jiminy Cricket on the bar itself – the smallest statue found on any of the five Disney ships.

Onboard the Disney Wish you can find Hook’s Barbery (inspired by Captain Hook’s personal quarters) which also features a whiskey bar (hidden behind a map of Neverland) in the evenings alongside the Untangled Salon on the opposite side of Deck 4 close to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique – this area is focused on “Inclusion” which was recently introduced as the Fifth Key to the Disney Cast Member code of conduct to make sure that everyone feels represented – the other keys being Safety, Courtesy, Show and Efficiency. This area also features various portraits of African American children as Disney Royalty proving that diversity matters and anyone no matter the colour of their skin, can be a prince or princess.

We finished our Walking the Wish tour by being told about all of the stories and details that can be found in the different bars onboard however as it was a sea day, we were unable to go into most of them during our tour as there were different seminars taking place at that time so I will post photos from them on future blogs when we were able to visit.

I loved the Walking the Wish tour and seeing all of the incredible details that make up the Disney Wish and I am sure there are so many more to discover – you could do the tour more than once and learn something new each time. It really makes you appreciate all of the work that was put into the design of the ship even more and I cannot wait to discover everything that is planned for the Disney Treasure which is the next ship to arrive in the fleet in 2024.

Once the tour was over, we both needed some fresh air so we headed outside onto Deck 4 and walked around the outside of the ship and up the stairs to Deck 5 as well as out onto the bow of the ship on Deck 6. This area is so quiet and amazing to visit (as it does not exist on the other four ships) and unlike what some people have said online, it is open when the Disney Wish is out at sea – however the gate to this area is locked at night once it gets dark as well as during during any bad weather.

After a busy morning spent exploring the beautiful Disney Wish, we were both ready for some lunch so we made our way up to Deck 11 to go to Mickey and Friends Festival of Foods (which features Mickey’s Smokestack Barbecue, Daisy’s Pizza Pies, Goofy’s Grill, Donald’s Cantina and Sweet Minnie’s Ice Cream) but as it was a sea day, it was incredibly busy. We quickly grabbed a slice of pizza each (as it had the shortest line) before we walked back down to 1923 as I had noticed that the Strawberry Mille-Feuille dessert which we had both loved on our Disney Magic at Sea cruise was on the menu that day – the lunch menu in 1923 changes every day of the cruise so this could be our only chance to order it. I also ordered the Marinated Stem Artichokes to start before getting dessert which was every bit as good as I remembered.

There are two sides to the 1923 restaurant: Walt Disney and Roy Disney and as there is so much artwork as well as different animation cels, props and models on display, we took a few minutes to look at everything on the Roy side of the restaurant once we had finished our lunch.

After leaving 1923 we headed back to our stateroom for a short nap (we both needed it after having such an early start and a busy morning onboard) before getting a latte from Cove Cafe and making our way down to the Triton Lounge on Deck 5 for the “Making of the Wish” presentation which was due to start at 3:45pm. As it was a sea day we knew it would be busy so we got there about twenty minutes early and had no problem finding a seat.

One of the cruise staff introduced different videos about the Disney Wish including clips from the construction of the ship at the Meyer Werft shipyard located in Papenburg in Germany as well as interviews with various Imagineers who talked about the different challenges of building a ship during a global pandemic which no one had ever done before. They also talked about having to make decisions virtually and from a distance as travel was not always possible.

There was also various videos all about the different entertainment, the food, ship operations as well as stories from the crew onboard. It was really interesting (and completely different from the Making the Wish documentary on Disney Plus) and something I would definitely recommend doing when onboard.

We also looked around a completely empty Vibe that afternoon (the teen club) when it was in Open House to look at all of the details inside – I loved the Muppet posters from around the world as well as the Mickey mural on the wall and the floor to ceiling windows with amazing views of the ocean below.

Just after 5:30pm we thought it would be a good time to finally ride the AquaMouse (there had been a long line all day) as it is usually much quieter at this time as the first dinner sitting as well as the first show of the evening are about to start. However it was even quieter than either of us expected it to be as there was absolutely no one waiting in line to ride at all. The AquaMouse is based on The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse animation shorts and is the first Disney “attraction at sea” and there are two different versions of the ride – Swiss Meltdown and Scuba Scramble – which alternate daily.

In Swiss Meltdown you join Minnie, Mickey, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto (as well as a very quick appearance from Chip and Dale) on a mountain sledding trip which goes just a little bit wrong when the sun comes out and melts all of the snow – well their excursion company is called Port Misadventures after all! On the way up through the tunnel you pass by nine different screens which also spray water at you before you reach the top and slide down (and shoot back up) the rest of the AquaMouse. It was such good fun (that music is so damn catchy) and I fail to see why some people have moaned (and loudly voiced their disappointment) about it. It’s a waterslide on a cruise ship – what else were you expecting?! As it was so quiet and there was still nobody else waiting in line when we got back down to the bottom of the AquaMouse, we were able to stay on for another ride without having to get off.

As we had nowhere else that we needed to be before dinner, we walked around to the Quiet Cove to watch sunset from the beautiful infinity pool located at the aft of Deck 13. This will always be my favourite time of the day to sit in the pool and it is always so peaceful, quiet and relaxing and a definite advantage of not having an early dinner time.

After having a shower back in our stateroom and getting dressed for dinner, we walked down to 1923: Roy Disney for dinner at 8:15pm and I was really looking forward to dining here as the menu looked so good. The tables still felt very close together and very squashed into the restaurant (just like they had in Arendelle) but as there is no show or entertainment, you do not need to worry about having a good view.

To start I ordered a double portion of the Alameda Porcini Spiced Ahi Tuna which was delicious as well as a portion of the Hyperion Four-Cheese Tri-Color Tortelloni which we shared as we both wanted to try it – it was so good and we both had to mop up the leftover sauce with some bread as we enjoyed it so much. For my main course I had the Buena Vista Soft Shell Tacos which were so nice but impossible to eat without losing half of the contents of each one – they really should have come with a extra tortilla on the plate to catch everything and that way, you would end up with a bonus taco at the end!

Our amazing Head Server JC also asked us about the next cruise and if we wanted to stay with the same dining team or change dining rotations. We were completely happy to stay with the same team but also let him know that we would only be dining with them for one evening of the three night cruise as we had dinner at both Enchanté and Palo booked – it worked out perfectly as he said we would be dining in Worlds of Marvel with them on that one night (as we did not want to repeat Arendelle) and he also said he would arrange a completely private table for us on that evening.

The menu at 1923 was so good that there was three different desserts that we wanted to try so we ordered them all to share – thankfully they are quite small in size so you do not feel too greedy or stuffed afterwards. The Flourless Orange Almond Cake was nice albeit a little heavy, the Burbank Blueberry-Lemon Bavarian Cream was so light in comparison and full of so much flavour but my absolute favourite was the Atwater Fuji Apple Cheesecake – apple and cheesecake just works so well together!

After dinner we had timed it just right to be able to watch the first Kiss Goodnight light show in the Grand Hall which takes place three times every evening of the cruise at 10:00pm, 11:00pm as well as at Midnight – and there is a different version which is shown on Pirate Night. The Cinderella version to the sound of “So This is Love” lasts for less than two minutes but is simply beautiful to watch – we happily watched it numerous times during our time onboard.

After watching the Kiss Goodnight, we took the elevator up to Deck 13 where we laid back and relaxed with a cup of tea on one of day beds that offer views along the entire ship. It was a perfect place to sit in the warm evening air and listen to the sound of the sea below and I could have easily fallen asleep there as it was so comfortable and neither of us wanted to move – we had definitely found our favourite spot on the Disney Wish!

It had been a long day onboard the Disney Wish and we had done and seen so much and when we got back to our stateroom just after 11:00pm, I was determined to sit and finish writing my diary which I do everyday when travelling but as usual I fell asleep immediately! After waking back up and turning off the light, I thankfully fell straight back asleep for the rest of the night ready for our first port of Nassau the following day.

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