Just off the Wish - My Thoughts

TL:DR - we just got off the Wish and I was prepared to hate it but loved it more than the Dream and Fantasy. I don’t get the complaints.

So…after sailing on the Dream and the Fantasy last year and earlier this year respectively, I used a TA rate to get a last minute 3 night on the Wish just so we could see the ship, understand the differences firsthand, and see if we would like to either keep our 7 night Treasure we have booked for next year or possibly do the return transatlantic on the Wish.

Honestly, I was afraid of what it would be like based on all of the feedback on the Wish and people discussing how it was awful, layout was confusing, etc - I found none of that to be true. While we certainly enjoyed the Dream and the Fantasy, and would cruise them again, the Wish was the winner between those three for us hands down (and before people say I don’t understand cruising, I had high status with Holland and Princess as a child/teen so I’ve been on a ton of cruises and plenty of more “traditional ships starting on the Nordic Empress in 1997 so I’ve seen a LOT of ships).

We loved Marceline Market, the Festival of Foods is a significant improvement over the other deck food options, the layout of the ship was anything but confusing for our family (and even on a three night I felt like by the end of day 1 we had our bearings and knew where to go). Our room on deck 11 was fantastic with zero deck noise even though we were literally one door away from Smokestack BBQ.

We had a fantastic wait staff, cabin steward, and all of the cast and crew were great in their interactions. We skipped the shows because we didn’t care about Little Mermaid and we have seen Aladdin on the Fantasy but found the evening entertainment to be more than sufficient and enjoyed the adult bars even though they weren’t clustered together.

As for the shops, yes there were more and I didn’t quite understand the need for the high end shops but clearly they’re making money for the vendor and Disney so someone is buying the stuff so to each their own.

For the Oceaaeers Club our kids absolutely loved them over the Dream and Fantasy. For the adults areas, I do understand the criticism on the hot tub placement (those benches that run water down your back could and should absolutely be replaced with hot tubs - I do not understand that decision at all) and the pool could be bigger but I actually liked the location being isolated instead of being a transit area like it turns into on the Dream and Fantasy when there are large numbers of families on board. Castaway was as always fantastic (although we have started leaving the island around lunch and eating on the ship to take advantage of the lower crowds for things like the AquaDuck/Mouse). Which speaking of, we enjoyed the AquaMouse as much as the AquaDuck.

All of this to say for our family we found the criticism of the Wish class ships to be vastly overblown. The food was good, the ship was easily navigable, the staff were great and we will absolutely be back on other Wish class ships. Looking forward to our 7 night Eastern Caribbean cruise in 292 days on the Treasure (and my wife already wants to book the Believe when it becomes available 🤣). I could see if you’ve sailed DCL since the beginning or since the Dream/Fantasy launched and that’s all you’ve known for 15+ years how they are different, but different isn’t the same as bad/poorly designed.