My cruise didn’t show up with any *GTs on this last discount drop, so I just went for the current rack rate. I did book on UCT so I did save a little. It was quickly absorbed with pre-paid gratuities, but it now feels like UCT paid for them. ( traveler math)
I went for the lowest deck I could find and we are going the inside stateroom route. I’m the only family member who has ever done an inside (with a friend) so we will see if DH has strong feelings against them. I died just a little hitting “book.” I could get a suite for a 6-n cruise on one of Carnival’s newest ships for less. But you all helped me past that guilt in my other thread. This really is the now-or-never-time with my youngest two.
I need to get planning. My reservations day is next week - 7/17 to be exact. I need to learn All The Things by then.
I am going to do a shore excursion in Nassau. I’ve had too many do-in-yourself excursions that have made me jumpy on these last two cruises. I won’t start any fights on cruise critic, but I do think the world is a little edgier and I just want the umbrella of the cruise line over me.
Do I want Olaf’s picnic? I just saw that today for the first time.
I don’t want Palo or Remy.
Do I need to reserve princesses before I go?
@lolabear_la ? We like princesses, Toy Story, Marvel, Star Wars, Incredibles. How should I proceed?
I am
Monday - PC
Tuesday - Nassau
Wednesday - CC
Thursday - Sea
PC
Is it for sure my pirate night is Wednesday?
Does that mean that whatever MDR that we have Wednesday will cause us to miss that experience? Like could we have to do Arendelle in pirate garb?
On a four night I believe pirate night will be in the restaurant you repeat so you’ll get that restaurant again sans pirates for the real experience.
And Arrendale is fantastic for the entertainment but apparently 1923 is the best food (DH and skipped that for Remy but the teens went and said that plus the nets say that and we did lunch there on arrival).
Marvel was my least favorite in both food and entertainment aspects.
I think Remy has a dessert only experience if you want to see it for less money. And both Palo and Remy have brunch but I could never find an opening for that on our three night but I didn’t hawk it either.
I didn’t do four on Wish but I did on Dream and we had two nights at Animation. One of them standard and one of them pirates. I’m betting that’s standard on all the four nights so you still get the full experience. Pirates night is definitely different. Like on Dream, Animation didn’t do the wall show.
For Nassau with kids we’ve always done Atlantis water park. The kids have always enjoyed that. I was intrigued last time to do the island beach getaway where they boat you to another island but kids voted Atlantis again.
It looks really cute (have you watched a you tube video of it?) but we passed on it.
We did and it was nice to meet 4 of them in one shot. I think I just got tickets for myself and DD and didn’t bother with one for DH. We did meet Belle roaming the ship one day, but I don’t think we saw any other princesses roaming. I think they might have also been at See Ya Real Soon (?) but we had already met them.
Remy dessert is really good. We wanted Palo - DH wasn’t too excited to go to Remy and went to be a good hubby, but he ended up really enjoying it. Do you want me to post a few pics?
Have you looked online for daily navigators for the same sailing last year to give you an idea of what types of things might be happening on the ship?
Music to my ears! Happy to oblige all the questions!!
Very smart. I bailed on the self-guided walking tour I had put together for the family to see some interesting/fun things in Nassau, but it wasn’t just concerns about the port, it was also more due to the fact we wanted more time on the ship. But if there was anything I wanted that was out of reach of walking distance or that I for sure wanted to make sure we planned to do, I would want the same.
It is spendy. $219/child (12 or under) & $69 adult (over 12), I believe is what we paid. We did it because YOLO and we weren’t doing any big excursions. Was it worth it? For us, it completely was because it gave us:
An extra time in the beautiful setting that is the perfectly themed Arendelle restaurant
Another performance with the adorable Olaf puppet that they use in the dinner show. We are huge Olaf in particular fans
More performances than they do at dinner with pretty much all of the music from Frozen 1 & 2 both. I love love love the music of Frozen, but especially 2 so this was a treat for me.
Secured & organized meeting with the characters (Anna, Elsa, Kristoff) without having to make sure you get to the line (to meet just Anna & Elsa btw) in the 5 minutes that it officially opens with plenty coming early to secure an earlier spot.
They do also provide food/drinks/dessert. The non-dessert treats were very much not worth the price point, but there were some treats that were our favorite of any treats/desserts we had on the cruise and one of them has made it so that we would consider paying to do it again if we find ourselves back on the Wish before our youngest has aged out of being able to allow us to book a spot.
The kids also get a TON of swag. Some of it was amazing but all together even for one person it was a lot of stuff so suitcase space definitely needed consideration. This was our haul for x4…
In addition to the swag, each child gets an individual portrait with the characters that is printed off in a leather bound book and delivered to your stateroom. So it’s a lot of $$$ but you get a lot too. It just depends on if the time, experience, treats and stuff are worth the premium price for you.
We love Palo brunch, but it does take up a whole breakfast & lunch slot of stomach space and for only a 4 night, it’s skippable. But it is the best chicken parm and flatbread pizza I’ve ever had in my life ever. So, there’s that.
Remy’s substitute on the Wish is Enchante. The menu there feels unapproachable to my much more simple palette and is also a very high cost. It does seem to be a unique & upscale dining dining experience though so for those who are interested in it, I’m glad they have that option. I probably will never that kind of price to eat that kind of menu. I do hear they are re-doing Enchante’s menu next month, so it may be slightly different by the time you go.
There are princess meets that anyone can join for just one princess at advertised times in the Navigator (that you only find out once onboard). Then there is Royal Gathering which is no additional charge to reserve a timeslot to meet 3-4 princesses in one line all in the beautiful atrium and is done on both Nassau day and the sea day from about 9ish-noon-ish each of those days. Reservations for it open at the same for everyone, 30 days out from the cruise. It’s a bit Hunger Games style right at 12am ET and since that’s also the night first time cruisers can do their online check-in process to get a port arrival time and it’s Disney IT, I have yet to see a night right at midnight ET go smooth sailing for everyone trying. And you’re at the mercy of your internet speed/connection to get the spots available that sell out within 5-15 minutes. If you can get it, it’s so much fun. If you can’t, we’ve had a great time without it and princesses can still be found (one at a time) at other times of days & locations.
If all else fails meeting princesses, then the last night be at the atrium party at 10:15pm where they will have all the characters out for ‘speed meets’. You can get in line for about 15 minutes and they will snap quick photos. Most of the princesses will also be there and you can try to see a few. They may be spread out in far corners and may get long lines quickly especially Rapunzel from what we saw, but you could try to get 2 princesses in that 15 minutes. The Fab 5 & Daisy are also there & only Mickey & Minnie got a long line, so if you are quick to the draw and chose short lines, you can knock out at least 3-4 of them that aren’t Mickey & Minnie and then maybe get one more in demand character like Mickey, Minnie or a princess.
Definitely try for Royal Gathering & do the last night goodbye party in the atrium to get several princesses out in one go. And definitely scope out characters on the Navigator too. You should easily able to find Princesses & Marvel characters on the Wish. And there are Star Wars meets available as well.
Marvel & Star Wars characters will meet in the Oceaneer Club room themed to their story but meets will be during an open house advertised time for the space specifically.
For Marvel this was usually 8-10am and sometimes again at night at like 10:30pm and on our cruise it was Spider-Man or Black Panther that met. Star Wars I saw morning times but I don’t remember exactly which times for meets with Rey & Chewbacca.
Definitely pay attention in the Navigator for the times listed for open houses for the Star Wars and Marvel spaces specifically because almost all Marvel Open house times had a character meet, but they weren’t all listed in the Navigator as a character meet, just an open house.
We only caught on to it, because we wanted to play the interactive games in that room but it was never available during the Open House hours just for Marvel because there were only ever character meets in that space. We were able to play the game whenever it was an open house for the entire club though.
There aren’t any Toy Story or Incredibles characters usually on the Wish, but there are lightly themed spaces to both. For Toy Story, the tame/small water slide Slidasaurus Rex (so a visit to this slide it might be more for the photo op of Rex’s party hart than the thrill). Next to it is a Toy Story splash pad area (splash pad is only for kids 7 & under so the photos of anything in there may not be feasible, but the glass is clear & you can see all the cute features in it if you so desire. The Hero Zone on deck 12 just above Marceline’s will pull out an inflatable Obstacle course that is called the Incredi-Course for families to race each other through. It’s very lightly themed to Incredibles with the name, and maybe signage/the colors of the course??? But it’s also only available on Nassau day from 9am-2:45pm. So if you plan an excursion for the morning that goes for most of the day, you’ll likely not be able to see it.
It will for sure be one out of Tuesday or Wednesday. It depends on when they can get you the best experience for running fireworks. You’ll be able to tell for sure which night is Pirate night once bookings open by going to Bibbidi Bobbidi Botique and seeing what night they are offering Pirate Makeovers.
As mentioned before, since you’re on a 4 night cruise, whatever MDR you have for Pirate Night will be a repeat (and usually is done on both night 2 & 3). And whichever one is Pirate Night will have a pirate night themed menu that is the same for all MDR’s ship-wide and no dining rooms that have a show will do one. Then the other night of nights 2 & 3, will be the MDR’s staple menu & if they do a show, their show. So you won’t have to choose between dressing for pirate night or dressing for the MDR and will get to do one of each. (On a 3 night you wouldn’t get the Pirate night menu so you would have to choose to dress for pirate or for the dining room).
And that’s what I’ve got, for now. Feel free to ask, ask, ask away!
Good catch with Remy/Enchante and excellent info. Now I want to do Olaf picnic lol. As adults and older teens we didn’t even consider but I loved the dinner show there.
I just started choking! I only JUST saw it on the app today and never dreamt it was an ADD ON of that caliber!!! Breakfast with the grinch is like $15 pp post-covid and was $5 pp pre-covid. WOW.
That does make me feel better, and the photos are amazing. But we like Frozen, not LOVE Frozen. A similar thing with Encanto or certain Marvel may have me loosening my pockets, but I won’t be able to do this. That merch is fabulous though! and the desserts are gorgeous!
Ah yes - Royal Gathering was what it was called in 2014, as well. And we loved it. I knew about it prior to boarding and signed up the first day for the first gathering. I will make every effort 8/30 @ midnight. I do like the efficiency of it!
I will look for examples for the open houses. They would love to meet Marvel characters. When we went to DLR in 2018 it was prior to these two DD’s loving Marvel.
So Open Houses are good for characters but bad for the interactive games?
Thank you for the warning about Nassau day.
DH would love to not leave the ship for Nassau day… but man - I LOVE THE OCEAN! And so do my girls!
ok - this has already helped!
I don’t love buffets and I am DELIGHTED to see the MDR (Arendelle) was open for embarkation lunch. I was so sad with my two post-covid cruises (one Carnival and one RCCI) not having MDR lunch on embarkation!
I would do it again in a heartbeat! Well, provided it’s been at least a couple of years since I last dropped the cashola for the last Olaf’s picnic, but we have no plans to be back on the Wish anytime in the next 2-3 years. One caveat, in order to book it you need at least one person to be under 12. They don’t allow anyone 12+ to book just for themselves. So bummer for those of us who are children at heart and would totally do it as grown-ups. I loved the dinner show there too!
And our family was the rare birds that LOVED the Marvel show/dinner and loved dressing up in Avengers/Marvels stuff. We also loved some of the food there (the bao & scallops & a ramen dish that we ended up trying that our server said was great from the vegetarian menu so not a place we would’ve actively check). So I’m excited to see two nights of two different shows on the Treasure’s version of the Marvel dining.
I use the same website gingerSnaps linked to peruse Navigators and from what I noticed based on what I found there for both the Wish 3 & 4 nights to what we experienced on our 2 3 nights with one 4 night between was that the Wish has very, very, very, very little variance in their scheduled times of things on certain days. For example, a sea day always has pretty much the same line-up no matter which 4 day you do. Castaway Cay and embarkation day are very much the same on any 3 or 4 night trip.
And so I was able to use those to have the Open House times/Marvel Takeovers of Edge noted and planned for to be able to tackle. (We did this for DS12 who had been counting on getting 10 day’s worth of Kids club to play the Marvel games when we booked it, but when DCL changed it’s ages for Oceaneer on the fly a couple of months before our sailing, that time got condensed down to only whatever open houses or Edge takeovers he could do which was much less).
traveler math)
