Disney Wish - A new style of ship

I have been home from my 3 night sailing on the Disney Wish for about a week and I am finally getting a chance to put together some blog posts about my experience. 

First, let me start off by saying – I loved it!  Although I don’t think I have ever come home from a Disney cruise unhappy.   I spent the first hour just walking around going “oh look at that” and “oh wow look at that.”   Having sailed on all of the other Disney ships it was just fun to walk around something brand new.
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Now, if you are used to the layout of the other ships, you are going be to a little lost at first.   It took us a good day to figure out the different layout and how to find what we were looking for.   While not a completely different layout from the other ships, it is different enough to make you need signs and deck plans to see where you need to go.

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​Let’s start with the Grand Hall.   This is the area where you enter the ship.  On the other 4 ships, it is referred to as the Atrium.   The centerpiece is the beautiful chandelier.   The overall theme of the ship is “enchantment” which mainly is geared towards the princesses.  Cinderella’s story is the focal point of the Grand Hall.  You will find her statue there with Lucifer as well trying to catch some of Cinderella’s little friends.     
   The chandelier represents Cinderella's dress upside down.  It can be lit in different colors, for example it was red for Pirate night.   The ceiling and side columns also light up and there are different times when special things happen.

Photo credit: Sara Ethridge

​As is often the case with Disney, there are so many details in the Grand Hall and around the ship that contribute to the overall theme.   We did the “Art of the Ship” tour the next day to see even more details that we didn’t find on our own

​As you move around the ship, you will see the colors change and a new princess represented.  This is true in the staterooms as well.   Our stateroom was themed for Tiana.   We had a mural behind our bed and another painting above the couch.

As for the rest of the ship’s layout, I felt like venues were a bit “tucked away.”   And I don’t think that is a bad thing.   I felt this was especially true for the three main restaurants.   The entrance to 1923 is right in the Grand Hall but it could be easy to miss.   The Marvel restaurant and Arendelle (Frozen themed) restaurant are in the aft of the ship on different decks and out of the main area.   What I liked about that was it was more immersive when you were in those areas.     We even walked by the entrance to the Star Wars Hyperspace Lounge a few times before noticing where it was.

As for the pools, again I would advice guests to look around.  There are several small pools / wading pools and some are up a few steps.  At one point, I saw a fairly busy pool and then up a few steps was another one with one person in it.   It is worth it to poke around and explore.

I did feel like there were two “misses” when it came to layout.   The outside of deck 4 does not wrap around the ship.   There are stairs that go up to deck 5 on both sides.   I know that guests, including myself, often like to use deck 4 to walk / run for exercise.   I knew about this situation before I boarded and honestly thought “what were they thinking?” 
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The other miss I felt was the location of the adult area and Cove Café.   Both were located on deck 13 in the aft which could only be accessed by the stairs outside from the pool deck or literally two elevators in the aft set of elevators.  You had to look at the signs to see that only those two elevators, in a bank of 8, went up to deck 13.    We really liked the adult area (especially the cushioned rocking chairs) but it was not convenient.  It was especially not convenient to go to Cove Café for a specialty coffee which I usually like to do each morning.   There were a few other coffee bar type areas around the ship, but they didn’t seem to have the same options available. 

Adult area loungers