Continuing our sailing on the Disney Wish in November 2022 – today we look at our second day on the ship, a day at sea!
Breakfast at Marceline Market
If you recall from day 1, our itinerary for this sailing had changed pretty dramatically – instead of a stop in Nassau and a stop in Castaway Cay plus one day at sea, we instead were having two days at sea and a day in Cozumel. I was okay with the extra sea day because there was so much on the Disney Wish I wanted to do and explore!
I started off by heading to Marceline Market for breakfast – Jason is not really an early riser and it is vacation after all, so I let him sleep in while I got food. Just like lunch, they had a really nice variety of items available.
They had all of the typical stuff you’d expect on a breakfast buffet, like sausages, bacon, eggs, and of course Mickey waffles. But if you’re more of a light breakfaster they had a number of different pre-made yogurt cups or you could build your own. There was also a really nice fresh fruit bar where you could request which fruits you wanted to be included.
If you wanted something a bit fancier, they had items like smoked salmon, eggs benedict, breakfast hash, and other specialties. And there were plenty of pastries, including croissants, muffins, and more. I enjoyed an eggs benedict, croissant, yogurt, fresh fruit, and a little bacon – plus coffee and POG juice!
Exploring the Ship
After my breakfast, I decided to just walk around the Wish for a while taking photos. There is really beautiful artwork all over the ship, and especially on every floor on the staircases. You could definitely take some time just looking at all of the art if you’re interested in that.
The main atrium is of course stunning, and you really can take a lot of photos here since there are so many cool things and neat angles (and different levels). But one very special thing I saw while I was walking around the Wish that morning was a wedding! I believe they were supposed to be married on Castaway Cay, but with the change in itinerary they had it in the Atrium – which may not be a beach, but it’s a stunning place to get married (and better than a beach in a hurricane!).
There are also so many smaller places that are just so well-themed and beautiful. In addition to the main theater they have two smaller movie theaters, called Neverland Cinema and Wonderland Cinema. Just the outside areas here are really pretty.
I then came across the entrance to Arandelle restaurant, which is where we were having dinner that night. The doors were open, so I snuck in to take some pictures while no one was in there. Yet another incredibly themed space.
Finally, I headed outside and onto the deck to see what was going on there. Not surprisingly, this was the most crowded part of the ship and the pools/hot tub were in good use. They have Disney movies playing continuously on the big screen there which is fun. The bright side of going to Mexico instead of the Bahamas was that we had warm, gorgeous weather the whole week.
The Shops
Before I went back to the cabin to see if Jason was awake yet (and interested in lunch by this point!), I had one more important area to explore – the gift shops!
Mickey’s Mainsail is your main shop with all the Wish and Disney Cruise Line-themed merchandise, as well as other Disney items. It’s pretty massive so you have plenty of options, and it takes up a good chunk of deck 5. If you’re looking for photos and Shutters, that’s across the way.
Down on deck 3 you’ll find your smaller, “higher-end” shops. These include 3 Wishes and Once Upon a Time (watches), Royal Regalia (fancy accessories like bags and scarves), Enchanted Castle Jewels (jewelry), and Treasures Untold (fragrances, handbags, collectibles). This is definitely not my kind of shopping so I didn’t spend much time here.
However, I did spend some time in Mickey’s Mainsail, doing my typical “shopping” of wanting to buy many things but realizing that’s not a good idea, so instead I take pictures of things I like and then go back to the end of the cruise.
They did have some “inaugural sailings” merchandise and some things were running low, so if there was anything exclusive you really wanted you should buy it right away. Otherwise, they seemed very well stocked and I had no problem heading back on the last day to make my final decisions!
Lunch at Marceline Market
When I got back to the cabin around noon Jason was ready for lunch, so we headed to Marceline Market to see what was available. While it was a lot of the same items as the first day, they switched out some of the soups, salads, etc., so there was some variety. I got a bowl of chicken tortilla soup and a salad (plus some Indian samosas, yum).
Trivia on the Disney Wish
Once lunch was finished I managed to convince Jason to do one of my favorite Disney Cruise activities of all time – trivia! I love trivia in general, but when it’s Disney-themed trivia it’s definitely my favorite. There were two happening that afternoon I was interested in, so we went to the adults-only Disney parks trivia first.
If you read this blog regularly or know me, it’s probably obvious that I know a lot about the Disney theme parks. This trivia was almost completely Disney World based as well, which is my forte. I thought coming out of Orlando there could be some people even nerdier than me… but Jason and I won this one. We received the coveted DCL hats. Apparently, this style of cap can only be received through trivia and not by buying it in the store.
The next trivia was directly after that in another room, so we ran over there (as did several other people at the first trivia). We happened to see some of our tablemates from dinner the night before, so we joined them for a 4-person team. This one was Disney movie trivia, and this is where Jason and I are really the trivia dream team. I know a lot of Disney stuff, but my memory is not always the best for certain details. Jason tends to remember the things that I don’t, and he came through a few times here. So yeah… we won again. This time the prize was a fun rubber medal that said “winner” on it.
I had been eyeing up a third trivia but thought it might be best to retire at this point. So we headed up to the deck for Jason to get more food, and for me to celebrate in the best way – with ice cream!
On previous Disney ships, they have soft-serve ice cream machines available that you can do yourself. While they still have the ice cream here, it’s no longer DIY and you ask for it from behind a counter. The lines were always LONG and while they moved pretty quickly, it was interesting to me that this change resulted in such long lines. Unless ice cream was just way more popular on the Wish (or because it’s bigger and there are more people?). Anyway, they need more ice cream machines.
The flavors change from day to day, though they’ll always have chocolate and vanilla. Certain flavors can be swirled together, but if you want two flavors not in the same machine you can just get them one on top of the other. I went with chocolate and banana for today.
Fish Extenders
After victory ice cream Jason decided to head for the Rainforest Room, but there were a few things I wanted to do that afternoon before joining him. The first one was delivering my Fish Extenders gift.
If you’re not familiar with this, it’s something organized (not by Disney) ahead of time, usually in a Facebook group for your sailing. You get a group of fellow travelers to make/buy small gifts for, and then deliver them throughout your sailing for a fun surprise.
For the gifts I was handing out, I had put together a little bag for each person. Everyone got some goodies for pirate night, which included an eye patch, clip-on pirate earring, and some temporary tattoos. I also made everyone a “Disney Wish” ornament. I have to admit they didn’t come out exactly like I was picturing, but I hope people didn’t hate them. And then since people provided their favorite characters in the group, I made a USB port with a silhouette of that character and one other fun little item (you can see this person’s favorite was Stitch!).
I ran around delivering some of my gifts to staterooms before I decided there was one more place I wanted to check out.
Walkthrough of Star Wars Cargo Bay
The Disney Wish has some really cool-looking kids’ clubs. They have a few themed rooms, which frankly many of the adults were excited about. At certain times they do “walkthroughs” for grown-ups to come in and take a tour of the spaces because they are just cool to see. There was a Star Wars area walkthrough scheduled for that afternoon so I wanted to hit that up.
While the space was awesome, this turned out to be pretty chaotic. They decided to do a Chewbacca meet and greet in the same (somewhat small) room at this time too, and the line for that was out the door and wayyyy down the hallway.
Some people, like myself, just wanted to get in to look around. But others in line thought we were cutting them off and people were getting angry, insisting we still had to wait in that line just to go in. I was surprised there was no cast member right at the door to better handle this. I found one a bit further down and asked about it, and he said if I didn’t want to do the character meet I could go right in. The lady at the front swore a different cast member told her differently, but I wasn’t going to wait half an hour just to walk around a room!
Anyway, there were lots of cool details here. It very much had a Galaxy’s Edge/Black Spire Outpost feel to it with the aesthetic. There were screens on the walls which seemed to have games for the kids when they came into this section. I looked at a lot of the details up close in most of the room (like the porg!), but some I had to see from further away because the character line was wrapping around that section.
After taking some photos and checking it out I met Jason in the Rainforest Room for a little bit. I used the hot tub and the heated lounger and just relaxed before we went to get ready for the show and dinner.
Little Mermaid show
This musical stage show was basically a Broadway-style version of The Little Mermaid in about an hour. The performers are extremely talented. Ursula in particular just brought the house down. There are some cool set pieces and special effects too.
Even so, this was probably my least favorite of the 3 shows on the Disney Wish (though it was still very good). They made some changes to the original story – nothing major, but moreso just the sort of updates you’d expect if you were telling this story in 2022.
To be clear, I’m 100% on board with these sorts of updates. I think they’re important and we need to keep growing and changing as society grows and changes (and learns). My issue was more with the execution of some of the changes. Some worked seamlessly. Ariel is black – great! She was fantastic and it makes zero difference to the story.
But some of them felt just a little too forced. Some of Ariel’s lines were changed so that her focus was less on Prince Eric being her main reason for wanting to “be where the people are.” She seems to genuinely be interested in human culture in general and feels like she belongs there. I love this idea as a theme and it makes a lot of sense to see it that way (and fixes the problem that some haters have of “oh she’s 16 and just wants to do this for a boy!”). But the lines that they put in just felt kind of stilted and forced.
Slight spoiler alert here… but one of the major changes in this production is “Kiss the Girl.” Today, the song does feel a bit cringey with some of the lyrics when you think about it. Their solution to this was for Eric to ask Ariel “can I kiss you?” and she nodded yes. Which is good. But it kind of just felt like the line was forced in and made me think about how problematic the song is in the first place.
The ending was a bit different as well, and I will admit it felt a bit disjointed. I’m not sure if it’s because of trying to translate the ending to the stage, or because they are potentially changing the plot to match the upcoming live-action film, but I think it could use a little work. Still a fun show overall, just not my favorite of the trip!
Dinner at Arendelle
Once the show was over we had a little bit of time to get ready and then head over to dinner in Arendelle! This was a dinner combined with a stage show. I know some people feel Frozen is still over-hyped at this point, but I enjoy both movies and the music, so I figured it would be enjoyable.
I have to say that the show portion of this dinner far exceeded my expectations. It’s not just a simple retelling of Frozen, or even just the characters singing the same old songs. It’s hosted by Oaken, and this actor was spot-on and hilarious.
There is an original sort of plot going on here where we have been invited to celebrate Anna and Kristoff’s engagement. In between when the “main” characters were on stage, there was a fantastic trio playing/singing songs from Frozen 2. They were really good, but the violin player in particular had a phenomenal solo.
And are you thinking you’re tired of hearing “Let it Go”? Well you might change your mind with this version (spoilers ahead…)
Instead of Elsa belting it out, Let it Go is done as a duet between Kristoff and Oaken. They encourage the audience to sing along for much of it, but they also play it up with each other, including a part where Kristoff is spinning in circles while Oaken throws confetti “snow” on him. It’s one of the most entertaining renditions of Let It Go I’ve seen!
After the main part of the show, the characters do come around to say hi to all of the tables. They didn’t really pose for photos except with the kids (unlike at Disney World, where the characters will pay just as much attention to you as the little ones!). I get it though because they had a lot of people to get through in that room.
But of course, this is also about the food – it is dinner, after all! They do lean into the Norwegian cuisine just a bit, with more seafood on the menu here than you might normally see. It’s all pretty Americanized and there are lots of typical options as well.
I had a scallops appetizer that came in a really good puff pastry, while Jason had a variety of salmon. We also did a soup/salad course. I had Sven’s carrot soup. I had never had carrot soup before so I didn’t know what to expect, but I like carrots so figured it couldn’t hurt to try. I enjoyed this and thought it was excellent!
For my main meal, I had “King Agnarr’s Dry-rubbed Roasted Pork Tenderloin” (Buttered Chard, Honey Butternut Squash, Yukon Gold Potato Purée, crisp Shallots, Red Currant Port Wine Reduction). I like pork though it’s not usually my first choice – I got this mostly for the accompaniments, which sounds good (and were!). It was a tasty dish overall, just not as memorable as some of the other food we had.
Jason had the Garlic & Thyme Roasted Beef Rib-Eye (Double-baked Potato, Buttered Broccoli, Sweet Honey-Roasted Carrots, Cabernet Jus). He quite enjoyed this, and I stole a couple of bites of everything just to try, though in my opinion the potato was the highlight!
And don’t worry, there was still room for dessert! Jason had the apple cake, and I had Elsa’s coronation sundae (this was a mint chocolate chip ice cream sundae). Mine was good if nothing special.
Our server insisted there was one more dessert we had to try – from the kid’s menu! Olaf’s Campfire S’mores Bar (Graham Cracker, Roasted Marshmallow, Oreo Cookies, Double Chocolate, Vanilla Ice Cream). Yeah, it’s not anything adventurous, but I love s’mores and this was good. I preferred this over my standard ice cream!
It was another pretty long night at dinner, and we were one of the last groups to leave by the time we finished our drinks and that last bonus dessert. So it was off to bed to get some rest before getting up early for our shore excursion in Cozumel!
Video of Day 2
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What do you think of this trip? Would you want to do a Sailing on the Disney Wish?
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