What it's like on board a Disney Wonder cruise. Photo / Supplied
What it's like on board a Disney Wonder cruise. Photo / Supplied
Disney Wonder, one of 5 (soon to be 7) Disney Cruise Line ships, is returning to New Zealand in October. Is it worth booking?
Expectation: A Disney cruise costs a lot of money
The cheapest Disney cruise you can book on board the Disney Wonder when it returns to NZ from October 2024 to February 2025, is a two-night round trip from Auckland in an interior room, priced around NZ$960 per person. A big Disney blowout comes in at roughly $7000 per person for a five-night sailing in a Concierge Room, fully kitted out with a separate bedroom, living room and a walk-in wardrobe. In between these two fares, you’ll find Oceanview rooms with a porthole and Veranda rooms with a balcony. *Price correct at time of writing but subject to change.
While there are cheaper cruises out there, no cruise line is quite as family-focused as Disney, and that’s where Captain Mickey earns his higher price tag. A better way to describe a Disney Cruise is child-focused because they really do put their pint-sized guests first. There’s a mass of dedicated (and multi-age range) kids clubs, including a nursery for babies as young as 6 months, several swimming pools, cinemas, theatres, help-yourself-icecream, free-flowing soft drinks, deck parties and discos. Disney characters parade every corridor and entertainment is around the clock. All this (and more) is covered in your fare, alongside every meal, copious snacks and 24-hour room service. When you start adding up the “land” price of stage shows and three-course dining experiences, as well as the price of an international return flight you don’t have to pay for, the cost looks pretty good.
Top tip: It’s possible to keep spending to a minimum once onboard. Gratuities are additional, and customary, but avoiding alcoholic drinks, specialty dining, Wi-Fi packages and the gift shop (good luck!) will help.
Add up the price of every on-board show and themed experience, and a Disney cruise is good value. Photo / Supplied
Expectation: A Disney cruise is for kids
If your 6-year-old could design their ideal holiday, it would probably resemble a Disney cruise, complete with character meet-and-greets, hot dogs for dinner, Spider-Man encounters and a non-existent bedtime. We imagine if parents designed their perfect holiday, there would be palm trees and infinity pools, champagne on ice, afternoon naps and child-free bliss. And Goofy ain’t serving the mimosas, is he?
Reality: Adults love it
Anything Disney-related is undeniably a dream come true for children; none more so than meeting your favourite Disney characters in real life. A child’s excitement is to be expected. What’s surprising is how easily parents break the shackles of adulthood. Like Robin Williams’ transformation in the hit movie Hook, you’ll unexpectedly find yourself reborn as an enchanted younger self. Childhood memories will flood back with an intoxicating amount of nostalgia (such as picking your favourite Disney VHS and — shock horror for anyone born after 1996 — rewinding the tape! Long-forgotten Minnie Mouse toys; trying not to cry in front of your mates while watching The Lion King. Et cetera). Disney is a 100-year-old institution and there is no one on Earth immune to its magic.
Top tip: There’s also the dedicated adults-only area featuring a serene, splash-free swimming pool, hot tubs, Cove cafe and Palo, an a la carte Italian restaurant. With several youth clubs on board, you can easily make sulks and snotty noses a Mickey problem, not a parent problem.
Aboard a Disney cruise, adults will find childhood memories flood back with an intoxicating amount of nostalgia. Photo / Matt Stroshane
Expectation: The pools will be crowded with children
Let’s hazard a guess, you’re expecting screaming children, toddlers throwing tantrums, pool bombs, and dare we mention it, a code brown.
Reality: Calm, calm, everywhere
Perhaps Captain Hook makes the most heinous kids walk the plank, but I found Disney Wonder to be a sanctuary of calm. Of course, you can find pockets of hyperactivity, notably if you want to queue to meet headline acts such as Mickey and Minnie, but overall, my family and I stole moments to ourselves all the time. On the first day, we had the entire top deck to ourselves, presumably while other families lunched, we often found the French Quarter Lounge empty, save for a live band and a sprinkling of grandparents; we walked the deck at sunset and barely saw a soul, and while our son napped, we enjoyed the sanctum of our Veranda Stateroom, with Disney movies on tap, and a delightful man who comes around at 1pm with treats. Never devoured a plate of macarons in bed? Do it — nothing says “holiday” more than crumbs you don’t have to vacuum.
Top tip: You’re never going to escape the madness of a Frozen stage show or a themed dinner with a life-size, trumpet-playing crocodile, but the beauty of a Disney cruise is that no matter how much of your body mass is Grinch, happy children are a happy sight.
A near-empty French Quarter Lounge aboard the Disney Wonder cruise ship. Photo / Supplied
Expectation: I won’t feel my child is safe on a cruise ship
Welcome to parenthood where intrusive thoughts reign supreme. Such as ― how am I going to sleep soundly in a room with a toddler that’s obsessed with opening doors? He’s going to karate chop his way out of the cot, swing off the door handle and pole vault into the sea.
Reality: Safety is Disney’s No 1 priority
The Disney Wonder cruise ship seems to have been designed for kids, by kids. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume Disney commissioned a gaggle of wayward children to run amok across a dummy ship to assess their reckless, highly unpredictable behaviour. We didn’t need to worry about our son once. If you’re in a Veranda Stateroom, the balcony doors are heavy — Fort Knox for a 2-year-old, and there’s an additional lock at the top, above your own head height, so there’s no way Houdini is picking his way out of there. In addition, all passengers participate in a compulsory safety drill, there are countless lifeguards on duty and a staff of 1000 team members all making your safety their top priority.
Top tip: Don’t stress the small stuff. The lady at craft hour gave my son felt-tip pens and he can’t stay within the lines — or on the paper — for toffee. They were the world’s most washable Crayola pens.
The Disney Wonder cruise ship is better than bulletproof, it’s childproof. Photo / Supplied
Expectation: The itinerary just says ‘at sea’.
Some itineraries don’t have any port stops so there won’t be any sightseeing.
Reality: There’s an app for that
Who needs a destination when 1700 guests are dressed up as pirates and Captain Hook is chasing Smee around the atrium with a sword? There is so much to do on a Disney cruise that there’s an app detailing hour-by-hour activities. In between all those already mentioned, from stage shows to character encounters, there are trivia quizzes and bingo games, dance parties and DJs. The adults-only area is home to a Cadillac Bar and an English-style pub called Crown and Fin with chessboards and board games. Adults can also partake in workshops such as beer tasting and chocolate and liquor tasting (for a fee). There are regular parties such as Pirate Night and Marvel characters gallivanting across the top deck. Disney Cruise Line is the only cruise company in the world with a fireworks show, and every dining venue showcases something unique and memorable. Our favourite experience was Animator’s Palate, an interactive dining room where what you draw before dinner later appears on the walls as a cartoon. Boredom is simply not possible.
Top tip: Download the app and study what’s happening the next day, the evening prior. Try to visit the Disney Cruise website before your trip so you’re not overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things to do.
Animator’s Palate is an interactive dining venue aboard Disney Wonder and there's nowhere else quite like it. Photo / Supplied
Top hacks for parents with small kids
The first time you drop the kids off at a club, go 15 minutes early to fill in the forms and get a wristband sorted — it also gives younger kids some time to assess their new surroundings and doesn’t eat into your time allocated for mum and dad.
Children have no patience for a queue, right? When the characters leave the photo areas, they tend to walk down Deck 5, past the play centres and nursery. Wait there for a quick meet-and-greet instead.
I’m not saying try it, but twice we spilled coffee on an armchair and both times it vanished with a wet wipe. Disney Wonder is better than bulletproof, it’s childproof.
Look out for the Diaper Dash and enter your baby/toddler into the greatest baby crawling race at sea!
Disney Wonder returns to NZ and Australia from October 2024 through to February 2025. For more information go to disneycruise.disney.go.com
