Is a Disney Cruise holiday worth it beyond 2022? What you need to know and be prepared for.
From being imprisoned in a windy port for 2 days solid then being offered an open bar which caused a fight; to the magical detail of Disney, a Thacks Awards panelist had 3 very different cruise ship experiences to compare – but says he will probably never go on a cruise again.
Have you been on a cruise? What has been your best and worst cruise experiences? Will you cruise beyond 2022?
“Top 8 Highlights of my Disney Magic Med Trip:
1.Quality time with loved ones on a beautiful ship; visiting three countries in 8 days
2.Seeing sights in various cities like in Pisa – without having to check in and out of hotels
3.Broadway-style shows and bumping into Disney characters randomly
4.The seafood/calamari starter dish at Palo
5.Themed dinner meals at Animator’s Palate and Rapunzel’s Royal Table
6.Friendly service from our serving team with rotational dining – and our cabin attendant
7.Subtle Disney touches in our lovely stateroom with its two bathrooms and quality toiletries
8.Going down ship water-slides with my 75-year old father and middle-aged brother (as if we were all 10)!
Top 3 Disappointments on our Disney Magic Med Trip and Suggestions for the Mouse:
1.The wine and coffee/sparkling water situation as explained below: with costs not seeming reasonable – the alcohol allowance is unlikely to be abused, so charge less for corkage – perhaps $13 per bottle of your own wine instead of $33 ($3 pure profit and still $10 service for the servers which is 10x more than what they get from serving free soda); charge $2.50 for a decent coffee that you can buy for half the price ashore; charge $2 for a European sparkling water that you can buy for half the price ashore
2.The rushed day tours: perhaps the operators are trying to squeeze too much into four hours but we’d probably be charged a lot more for longer tours when we’d just have appreciated more free time at amazing attractions to soak up the destination – make the excursions longer with more free time but don’t charge double!
3.Covid protocol: the lack of service/offering/visible smiles as we reached the end of the covid pandemic by the end of May 2022 was a damper… while understandable as a perpetual excuse, the lack of spinning bikes and spinning classes in the gym – we paid non-covid rates for our holiday – seemed silly and was annoying when other equipment was available
Cruising beyond the Pandemic in 2022
The cruise ship industry took a huge knock in the first few weeks of the coronavirus pandemic when world headlines confirmed virus outbreaks and horror stories aboard cruise ships became known, we saw ship names listed along with countries in cases of infection, isolation and evacuation.
Canada formally evacuated 129 Canadians from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, a British-registered luxury cruise ship which was quarantined off Japan for two weeks when 712 of the 3,711 people on board contracted the virus and some countries refused to allow cruise ship passengers ashore.
I wondered if anyone on board those ships at that time will ever set foot on a cruise ship deck again. Or if it’s just those of us with cherished past memories who might hold onto our future cruise ship dreams to hopefully replicate them.
Disney Wonder in 2003
My first ever cruise ship experience was on the Disney Wonder in 2003 – a memorable and fantastic (dare I throw in some Disney cliché’s and say ‘wonderful’, ‘dreamy’, ‘wishful’ or ‘magical’) 4-day cruise from Florida to Nassau in the Bahamas and to Disney’s own private island, Castaway Cay, near Great Abaco Island. It was heavenly and carefree! And reasonably affordable.
We were a group of 4 friends all in our 20’s sharing a cabin and we had other friends on the ship too. Petra my friend from Croatia was on the ship with her boyfriend (now husband), her parents and their friends as well; so we often bumped into each other between dining rotations and drinks at the adult pool.
Although my adult friends without kids cringed at the thought of a child-full Disney experience, it was actually very easy avoiding kids because the kids club occupied them adequately and the adults-only sections were happily enforced.
We spent most of our time on this cruise at the adults-only pool bar – often in the pool and jacuzzies and the adults-only bar areas which included a nightclub (with hanging lights which I remembered were moving one night when we hit a stormy patch but danced the night away). On Castaway Cay we went to the ‘Adults Only’ beach too and had a lovely BBQ meal on the beach. Four days felt too short for this holiday but we had one very memorable meal at Palo (for the ship’s ‘fine dining’ restaurant you paid a small supplement and could eat anything off the menu – repeatedly) and enjoyed all our dining rotations (where you have the same waiting staff at all restaurants) and never spent a penny at meals as we were too young to care about good wines with our meals. So the free sodas were all we needed. The Broadway-style show in the huge theatre was amazing: featuring classic characters within a show: from Peter Pan to The Little Mermaid with troupes of dancers and extravagance that I’d barely seen on any land-based stage. We were so pleasantly occupied and every night you’d get a jam-packed paper programme for the following day delivered to your cabin – with the movies in the cinemas and other events being far too many to contemplate doing everything. I never even got to the onboard cinema as there just wasn’t time! But overall it was one of the best holidays of my life. Taking you back to some childhood memories like only Disney can.
I promised myself that I’d go on another Disney cruise and saw news of the new Disney Wish – Disney’s 4th and latest addition to their cruise ship offering – setting sail in 2022. But living in Spain and planning a hopeful-holiday-of-a-lifetime for six adults (my parents, my brother and our spouses) became a reality when I saw that the Disney Magic had a one-week European itinerary from Barcelona to Naples, Rome, Pisa and Cannes/Nice, then back to Barcelona which looked totally perfect. The leaning tower of Pisa was one of the world’s landmarks I haven’t seen and I had visions of sharing that outing with my family combined with a Disney cruise holiday.
MSC Comparison 2012
My second cruise holiday in 2012 was a disaster. With great memories from Disney, we saw a special-priced cruise trip from Cape Town, South Africa to Namibia (stopping at Lüderitz and Walvis Bay) also for four days which seemed too good to be true. This was on the MSC Sinfonia – owned and operated by the Italy-based MSC Cruises with a capacity of 2,163 passengers. As my brother often reminds me (and I still need to learn this, apparently): You get what you pay for. MSC Cruise ships had offered this Southern African itinerary for their ships and crew to escape the cold Mediterranean winters and offer a year-round summer product when the southern hemisphere basks in the sun.
We again opted for the cheapest cabins (no windows, near the bottom of the ship) as my first cruise experience was so jam-packed and meant little time in the cabin. But these cabins were somehow much more stuffy than our Disney experience where I remembered the 2-bathroom set-up being less pokey even for 4 roommates. We don’t have to do more than sleep in the cabins, right?
During delays in our boarding the ship (apparently the customs officials in the port of Cape Town demanded elaborate cooked breakfasts and weren’t happy with just coffee and continental treats which resulted in us missing our sailing slot and escaping the unfortunate situation we then found ourselves in!) the “Cape Doctor”, the local name for the strong and persistent south-easterly wind of Cape Town, caused the port to close. For 2 days solid!!
No ships were allowed to enter of leave the harbour… We were stuck in the port and the casino and duty-free areas couldn’t open while the gusts of wind on the top deck meant that the pool area was out of bounds unless you wanted to feel like you’re swimming in a wind tunnel. Although we had gale-force windy views of Table Mountain from the windows facing the land, our cabin without windows or fresh air was too depressing and we resorted to mostly eating and drinking. Though not paying local rates we were wary of our drinks bill (in dollars) breaking the budget. By the second day the captain announced that there would be free drinks at two of the onboard bars for a free happy hour. It was carnage with impatient customers getting angry at the short-staffed and slow service bars which clearly couldn’t cope!! Nevertheless it was probably the highlight of our trip – much excitement.
The restaurant service was excellent but the food was only mediocre – reminding me of bulk produced canteen food that looked impressive but tasted bland.
By day two some of the disillusioned and angry passengers had already disembarked and forfeited their holiday (our ship made local news headlines too!) and we were offered a deal to book another subsequent cruise at a 50% discount. We politely declined that offer.
By day 3 we were informed that the ship would no longer set sail for Namibia, so our Lüderitz and Walvis Bay outings were cancelled, but the ship was finally cleared to set sail to ‘nowhere’ so that we could at least leave the port for a few hours – and see that the ship could move. The entertainment shows were very amateurish with a lack of the Disney magic and special effects I didn’t really expect on this cruise. Pasha, the Club Disco on board, was fun – but it too was empty and it seemed that many fellow passengers were just subdued, fed up and depressed by day two.
Disappointed, I vowed that I would never do another non-Disney cruise.
Disney Magic 2022
Although we’re not yet out of the woods from coronavirus pandemic days, we eagerly counted down the days along with the Disney Cruise App (the App that wasn’t around in 2003), but we also had a few extra precautions and paperwork to go through like uploading and reiterating Covid vaccinations. The day of departure in Barcelona was chaotic with long queues and wait times as we all needed to have new negative tests in addition to our mounting paperwork. If just one person in your party tested positive, you weren’t allowed to board.
All 6 of us thankfully had the green light (and we’d all flown via the Middle East in the week preceding this cruise to get to this holiday!) but, after more than three hours of painful boarding processes, I did notice at the sail away party that the ship was a lot emptier than the last time I set sail with Disney.
Highlights of our cruise included both meals at Animator’s Palate restaurant (although all kitchens are on the same ship, the food seemed better!), three great shows in the huge onboard theatre (although it seemed they were put on with fewer performers than I remembered in 2003) and the friendly service from our restaurant and cabin teams. Disappointments included additional dining/drinks costs, Palo which lacked its spark (hard to explain – but also perhaps as it was almost empty both times we had dinner there on this cruise), mediocre coffee and one really bad meal at Lumiere’s restaurant where the food looked good but somehow just tasted horrible and bland. We were lucky to get a 2nd night at Palo instead of having to go back to Lumiere’s, but we again had to pay for the privilege. And although we also paid a supplement in 2003 it seemed better value then.
I understand that through the pandemic many workers had left the hospitality industry as a whole – never to return – so it was understandable that some cast members couldn’t tell you where the nearest toilet or smoking area were. It seemed that much of the crew were new recruits – perhaps not having as intensive training? The Disney Magic seemed to be more subdued and less detailed – and somewhat underwhelming when compared to my 2003 dream holiday. Other notable differences from my 2003 holiday was that since all activities were now on the app, you didn’t get a paper list of activities which seemed fewer and often had cost supplements and although Palo restaurant still required a supplement fee you had different menu choices – and our first bill was $470 which didn’t include alcohol – so, more than $70 per head extra on top of what you already pay for the full meals package cruise price. On the first night I also ordered a few bottles of sparkling water to our stateroom and the water bill (for some sparkling water that you could get for under a euro a bottle in our two Italian stops) was a scary $27. When you think that we already paid Disney an upfront fee of $13,707 for this holiday (so, well over $2,000 per person for the week) including food and beverages, I suppose you would have hoped that would at least include sparkling water and good coffee. Yet our onboard expenses, being wary about the bar prices, taxes and 10% gratuity added to everything, totalled another $4,000 (so roughly $600 per person for drinks and the two excursions we’d booked). At first I intended to book the cheaper interior cabins which would have been around $3,000 per couple. But after my 2012 MSC experience I opted for us to all have windows to our 7th level ‘staterooms’ at a cost of $4,569 for each of the three cabins.
On the first morning of our cruise I opted to get a paid-for coffee at the adults-only ‘Cove Café’ coffee bar (the canteen-style eateries and restaurant coffee was not good – although I did have a good paid-for coffee at Palo on our first night) and a simple Americano in Cove Cafe costs $4.43. I wouldn’t have minded paying, but the fact is it was still bad coffee – so I wasn’t going to have another paid-for coffee on this cruise. Luckily I went ashore in Naples, Livorno, Pisa and Nice/Cannes where I could have a really decent coffee for just 2 euros (or less!). The cruise ship doesn’t even offer coffee stations in your staterooms and I’ve heard of people now taking their own instant coffee onto cruise ships! Really? You pay that much for a holiday and don’t get a coffee station in your cabin? Even instant Nescafe would have been better than the dishwater pre-mixed ‘cawfee’ (I didn’t consider it coffee¬) at the buffets and restaurants?!
As a wine-loving family we also weren’t impressed with the wine lists (or the wine prices) in the restaurants so we brought our allowance of our own wines (you’re allowed 2 bottles per person when you embark and when you go ashore). Although we were initially prepared for the $28 per bottle corkage fee, we didn’t realise that with additional charges, our party of 6 would be charged $66 to enjoy 2 bottles of our own wine at every meal. That is a total of almost $500 for the week – to just consume your own paid-for wines. The cherry on the cake, we found only after leaving the ship and querying a bill, was one night in Rapunzel’s Royal Table restaurant, when we were charged $136 for our own wine! I queried this and we found that in addition to the normal $56 charge ($28 per bottle) and $10 service charge, they billed us an extra $70 as a tip! Though as the signatory on that bill, I don’t think I was drunk enough to be that generous for having my own wine. So in other words, someone in the restaurant must have thought we wanted to add $70 to the $10 service fee for drinking our own wine which more than doubled the nightly dinner drinks bill). That must be some amazing wine service at $80 for two bottles of our own wine… on top of the $56 corkage fee. I explained afterwards that it’s unlikely that we tipped $80 to drink our own wine after already paying $56, so we got a refund of that cheeky bill out of principle. Don’t take the Mickey!! If you enjoy alcohol on your holiday, Disney isn’t the place to drink unless you’re very rich. A glass of wine on happy hour was six times more than you’d pay in a wine bar in Barcelona and although we had the beer glass ‘special’, be prepared to pay a premium for alcohol. We did have some great value at the paid for alcohol/cocktail class but again you couldn’t book all drinks sessions as places were limited.
Also, the nightclub vibes we experienced on the Disney Wonder of 2003 had been replaced by a piano lounge and Irish bar and the only chance to boogie on our week-long cruise was a silent disco attended by around 30 people once.
It wasn’t all bad though (and it’s not all about the coffee and booze!) – and the theatre shows were absolutely amazing! The cast were brilliantly talented and the special effects were as good as in some Broadway shows I’ve seen.
Another cool thing was that I was one of just 3 people in the huge cinema on board to watch Pixar’s latest offering.
And since this was my second Disney cruise, I got a few daily treats I could share with my family (cupcakes, nuts and snacks) and a free backpack!
The afternoon tour we undertook to Pisa was great – seeing the leaning tower as a family was a dream come true. Though the tour itself was rushed and although it was listed as ‘Easy Pisa’ with little walking, my mom and others less able, took strain walking from the bus parking areas to the train stop and city areas which wasn’t ‘easy’ for them. Also, 3 of us just had our timings right to climb to the top of the leaning Tower (needing separate tickets which we had the foresight to book on the bus to Pisa) which no one else in our group managed to do. Although our pictures from this day are great, we actually enjoyed our day in Naples more as it was less rushed and we had personal time to explore on our own.
Is Disney Still Worth It?
It’s hard to put monetary value on memories that can never be taken away and we have to consider that Disney might have a more slick offering once things are back to normal in post-pandemic times. We had a glorious week as a family where none of us had to make our beds, cook or clean and we were able to share many ‘magical moments’ (by now I can’t help the Disney references!) on the Disney Magic. But compared to my 2003 four-day experience, this $18,000 holiday was probably not worth it from a financial perspective.
It was interesting to note how many other people are regular cruisers and have opted into timeshare on the ships, but surely they got a better deal? I am glad that I went and I am happy for the memories, but I definitely won’t be undertaking another cruise holiday (Disney or otherwise) and am not interested in seeing if the Disney Wish is even better.
Would I recommend that my friends go on a Disney cruise? If money isn’t an issue and you are a certified Disney fanatic and possibly don’t like wine: FOR SURE!
But considering other more extravagant recent holidays at that price, we suppose we don’t love the Mouse enough.
Cost and Value for Money
My first Disney cruise in 2003 may have seemed cheaper as we were four friends sharing a cheap cabin ‘camp-style’ – so the gratuity split between 4 people over 4 days in one cheap cabin was probably a lot better than 6 people in three ‘staterooms’ for a week in 2022. Also, the 2003 cruise was a jam-packed 4 days versus a somewhat drawn-out 7 nights cruise in which the adult entertainment options started getting boring. Furthermore, although we thought we’d save money by having our own great quality wines at each of our meals, the corkage costs weren’t worth it and in retrospect perhaps we should have had more beer? For almost $18,000 we could have had an amazing week in our favourite villa in Franschhoek in the South African winelands, eating out every night at amazing restaurants there – and having some world-class wines for less than $33 a bottle (for our own wine).”
Post Pandemic Cruising: On the Disney Magic in Europe written by John T – one of the international Thacks Awards panelists, living in Spain. When not traveling and wine-tasting, John is an iGaming specialist reporting into director level in the sports betting industry with a degree in Information Technology.
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