My Experience Sailing in the
Disney Wish Funnel Suite (Part Two)

I was so excited to cruise on the Disney Wish in the funnel suite, not just because of the amazing cabin, but also because the Wish is the newest Disney cruise ship. It has been slightly controversial since it set sail, cruisers seem to either love it or they are strongly NOT in love with it and prefer the other Disney ships. Overall, we enjoyed our time onboard and would plan a return trip…but probably not anytime soon.

It took my family a while to decide where to stay for our night before the cruise—we NEVER fly in the day of, in case things go wrong.  We didn’t love any of the options available near the cruise terminal, but we also weren’t sure we wanted to stay in Orlando. Eventually, our love of Disney won out, and the night before our cruise we stayed in a cabin at WDW’s Wilderness Lodge. Getting to watch the fireworks from our private plunge pool was amazing, it really set the tone for the rest of our trip. When we got to the terminal the next morning check-in went well, but we were disappointed to find that the concierge lounge was very small (and already very crowded by the time we arrived). There were no drinks/snacks for our wait, it was hard to hear the concierge team when they came out to introduce themselves before we boarded, but worst of all, when you board from the lounge you don’t pass through the iconic Mickey Mouse ears! Thankfully we knew the earliest we’d get on the ship would be noon, so we didn’t arrive until 11ish. When you are concierge, you are the first to board, which was a great perk since we got to see the ship almost entirely empty.

Once onboard our family was announced and given our special wishing wands, and the Grand Hall was just as impressive in real life as it looks in pictures. Cinderella and Prince Charming were waving from the balcony above the stage, and we were immediately overwhelmed with possibilities. Well, the adults were overwhelmed, the kids just wanted to go to the kid’s club ASAP. We convinced them to have lunch first, and then we all toured the club together, which was amazing. With the different themed spaces and advanced tech games, I couldn’t blame them for wanting to spend as much time as possible there during the cruise. After leaving the kids club (conveniently located in the Grand Hall, and yes, I did take the slide down during the open house), we ran into our first real issue with the ship. As others have shared, it can be very hard to get around. There are a lot of dead ends, and the only elevators are at either end of the ship (no midship elevators). We’re a fairly athletic bunch, so we don’t mind taking the stairs for a few flights, but we struggled to remember how to get everywhere until the last day or so of the cruise. It didn’t help that there was no signage for our private elevator on the tenth deck (I finally took a picture of the cabins at the entrance of the hall and of the cabin across from the entrance), and it took my husband two days to figure out we could enter the suite through the funnel door on deck twelve (not just exit). It’s important to remember that the ship stores cannot open while you are in port, which makes it a little tricky to navigate the best times to explore those spaces (or purchase anything you’ve forgotten).

Our kids are at a prime age (9, 5, and 4) where they either wanted to be on the pool deck or in the kid’s club, and not much else interested them other than the freely available soft serve. Which was fine with the adults because that gave us time to explore the ship and its many fun lounges!  Our favorite was the Bayou, we loved the ambiance as well as the beignets (they’re regular beignets, not Mickey-shaped) but it was frequently taken over during the day for trivia. My husband is a huge Star Wars fan, so we checked out the Hyperspace lounge on day one. While we had a lot of fun, they couldn’t make several of the drinks on the menu and once you sit there for an hour or so you realize it’s really just a small room with a screen and not much else happening. The criticism that most of the lounges are too small to accommodate how many passengers are onboard isn’t entirely off the mark, yes there are a lot of options but when popular activities are happening (like bingo or the shows) the lines get very long and the spaces get overly full. Overall, we spent most of our time in the concierge lounge, both because we could and because of the snacks and sun decks. It also never seemed to get as crowded as the rest of the areas onboard, even during happy hour. The pool on the concierge sun deck is billed as a ‘wading’ pool, but my kids deemed it a ‘foot bath’ and had zero interest in it. Their favorite pool was the one directly in front of the funnel vision screen. We all also liked the sun deck area in front of the lounge, which looked like a really stylish outdoor living room. The concierge staff overall was great, but it was hard to feel as connected with them as you can during other cruises on different Disney ships since there are so many concierge staterooms on the Wish. I did love that they really expanded the lounge offerings onboard (which almost made up for the lack of personal attention) with THREE amazing coffee machine stations as well as a staffed snack counter and a menu you could order from. My kids were not impressed that the desserts went away very early each night, but they loved being able to order Mickey waffles there for breakfast. Like everything else onboard there are a lot of great things but also some real headscratcher choices. The extra perk of being able to enter the shows early is another huge perk for concierge guests that everyone should take advantage of.

The first Disney attraction at sea, the Aquamouse, is a lot of fun but the wait to ride was usually around 30-45 minutes for the majority of our cruise. My kids are just small enough that I don’t let any of them wander solo yet, so the girls and I waited in line for it once and then they were ‘over it’. You can see the funnel vision screen for part of your wait (depending on how long the line is), but other than that there is nothing to distract you during that time. The cartoon on the screens during the ride was fun to watch, and the different areas of the ship that you pass through for the actual waterslide portion were very fun. Sure, it’s over fast, but so are a lot of Disney rides we all wait in very long lines for. I thought my little two would like the Slide-a-sarus Rex waterslide, but my middle little one called it ‘too slow’ and convinced the other two it wasn’t worth their time either. The top of this slide is unmanned (the only lifeguard/attendant is at the bottom by the exit), which I thought was a strange choice for a slide geared toward the younger cruisers. They’re expected to follow the red light/green light system, but the attendant at the bottom has a video screen that shows them the top so there is some minor supervision. All three kids liked the looks of the baby splash pad, but it was frequently closed and the middle little kept almost smacking herself on the walls when she went down the slides. Much like the rest of the ship, the pool deck areas feel extremely broken up, and there can be a lot of crowding to contend with if you want to sit near the pools or by Marceline Market.

We did get off the ship at both ports, Nassau and Castaway Cay. In Nassau, we went on the Baha Mar waterpark excursion, which is a new offering (if this hadn’t been offered, we’d have stayed onboard). We ran into another issue at check-in, which takes place at the Marvel restaurant. It was a very disorganized and lengthy process, which led to it also being a very loud and overstimulating experience for both the adults and kids while we waited (I wound up pulling my kids to the side while we waited and it usually takes a lot for me to hit that point). It seemed this excursion was so new that they were still working out some of the processes; if you want to take this excursion during your cruise I do not recommend showing up earlier than your assigned time. We were five minutes early and wound up having to wait around twenty minutes because they were still trying to check in the timeframe prior to us. We were slightly regretting our decision to get off the ship, especially since the Nassau cruise port is still under construction and they had to fold out the extra seats on the small buses that took everyone to the waterpark. Baha Bay is around a twenty-minute drive from the port, it’s new and extremely clean. It is smaller than the Atlantis waterpark, but it had a great variety of options for younger kids and older thrill seekers. Another word of warning; both the wave pool and the ‘lazy river’ can get extremely rough when the waves are turned on. At the wave pool, I know it is to be expected, but the white water on the lazy river took us all by surprise. As a former lifeguard, I have to warn everyone to please keep an eye on your children if you’re going here, especially those that are not very strong swimmers. Lunch was included in the excursion, which I was excited about, but we found out we could only order from a ‘cruise visitor specific’ menu—which wound up restricting us to basic hamburgers, chicken strip fare, and soft drinks. My husband was very unimpressed with the only salad offered, but the chicken restaurant was surprisingly good.  While overall we loved our experience at Baha Bay, we decided to skip the shared ride back and took a taxi to the port early. I’ll discuss Castaway in another post, but it’s my favorite of all the cruise line private islands. Not only is almost everything included in your cruise fare (a HUGE value add), but it’s just such a fun and relaxing experience.

Dining onboard the ship was fun, but again, I have to agree with a lot of the critics that the venues can feel very loud/cramped and service can really drag. It was the first time on a cruise that I actively did not like our head server, but the assistant server was wonderful. We’d asked for prime placement for our table in advance so we could watch the shows, which kind of worked out (our table placement for the Frozen dinner show was pretty good, but for the Marvel restaurant we were in the back corner which was not ideal for many reasons). In the future, I would research the layouts a little more and ask for specific table numbers perhaps, or be more detailed in what I am asking for.  We have small kids, as do a lot of the families onboard, but frequently we’d be waiting for 15-20 minutes before our order was even taken even though they’d always come by just to say hi as soon as we sat down. Curiously, on the first night, our head server also cut our steaks for us and then insisted on feeding us our first bite. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable but I couldn’t figure out how to address it, and while the service was mostly adequate, I think we just didn’t click with his personality and I’m sure he was extremely busy. Normally I don’t mind a leisurely meal, but for the last night’s dinner, we were dreading the slow service and would have skipped it if we didn‘t want to experience the Marvel show. I loved the different menus overall, and it seemed like there was a great variety for those who liked to explore different choices and those that did not. Again though, I have to agree with the critics, the Pirate night menu is not great.

Did I enjoy my time on the Disney Wish? Absolutely. However, there are a lot of things I would do differently if I went back on board, and I won’t be tempted to return unless I find a really great deal or they start offering longer (or at least different) itineraries. I was surprised to find I agree with a lot of the critiques I’d heard before our cruise, mainly since I love cruising and the ship looks/sounds marvelous. The Funnel suite was fantastic, but for the cost, your experience is mostly the same as every other concierge cruiser. The dining was great, but it took up so much of our very limited time and I just did not click with our service team. I always get a little turned around on cruise ships but I spent a lot of time lost/looking at maps/waiting on an elevator. The crowding got very problematic, and we spent a lot of time in the places we knew wouldn’t be jam-packed which caused us to miss out on some things we’d wanted to try. I’d stay onboard during Nassau and I’d skip some of the main dining experiences to get to spend more time experiencing the ship’s activities. However, my kids had an awesome time and that’s what this cruise was really all about for me.

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