A Surprise of a Lifetime!

The look on his face says it all - this young man had been asking to go on a Disney Cruise for years and in this moment, he saw the Disney Wish out the window and went a little crazy!

The planning started when we decided to book a trip on the new Disney Wish. This was my first Disney cruise and I was very excited about it! I'd booked other clients and my extended family had been on a couple of them but now it was my turn. We decided to keep it a surprise because my son has a hard time not asking "how many more days?" when we have a trip planned, and I wanted this was just too exciting!

We started the trip at Disney's Coronado Springs hotel for "a weekend away" and just enjoyed the hotel. This was my first time going to a Disney Resort and not the parks and to be honest, it was a blast! We explored the parks, enjoyed the pools and participated in all the special activities you can only get at a Disney Resort like Mickey-shaped smores. When it was time to take the bus to the cruise, I thought my son would definitely figure it out, but he didn't, and just thought we were going on a bus somewhere. It helped that he was also tired from all the pool time.

Then the turn and then the face! He was so excited and couldn't believe it! Check in was fairly smooth and we explored the ship as soon as we got on. Our luggage was already at our room by the time we got there and the first request was the pool area! The Disney Wish has a water coaster, the first of it's kind at sea, and we were ready to ride! We explored the kids pool area but Preston quickly moved past that and just wanted to swim in the smaller family pools. One difference I noticed was that Disney has a lot of small pools, so not a big one. This was a little strange as he couldn't really "swim" but we made it work. He enjoyed the small waterslides in the kids pool area.

Disney is known for their Kids Club and it was amazing. The Disney Wish entrance was beyond amazing - you check them in on one deck and they take a slide down to the Kids Club. It was so much fun! There are a ton of activities for kids to choose from Marvel Heroes to Princesses. My son loved his time there but it did get crowded and it was slightly overwhelming for him. He wasn't there all day every day but he enjoyed it and we enjoyed our adult time as well.

Another new element to the Disney Wish is rotation dining. You rotate between dining rooms and your dining staff stays with you. You visit Arendelle for a Frozen performance and Norwegian food, 1923 for a steakhouse feel, then Marvel for a Spiderman/Antman adventure and then another one for the 4th night. From a food standpoint, 1923 was amazing - everything was cooked to perfection. From an experience standpoint, Marvel was so much fun and a surprise guest made my son's night!

For the adults, we enjoyed a few of the nightclubs and bars, with my favorite being Nightingale, which is a song from "Cinderella", my favorite Disney movie. I had a drink out of a glass bird and it was delicious. The chandelier was made of glass balls to look like bubbles. It was gorgeous. We also checked out the Star Wars bar, but my husband isn't a big fan so we glanced and walked out, as it was very crowded!

Disney's Castaway Cay was simply marvelous as their private island in the Bahamas. My favorite part was snorkeling to see all the buried statues. I'm glad they required lifejackets for everyone because while it didn't look far, it was definitely a long way out there! My favorite statue was the ride car from Dumbo. It was so cute.

Overall, this was a magical adventure and I'm so excited about the new ships coming soon!