This post turned out longer than expected. Promised I’d be back to give some thoughts. First time DCL, but relatively experienced cruiser. Royal and NCL primarily with a remote Princess and upcoming Celebrity.
Despite being somewhat cynical on the DCL product I think I’m coming off a bit more impressed than I thought I was going to be. DCL still is overpriced (for cruises, which are underpriced compared to land vacations). But it’s nice to have something premium priced, but still offering a premium experience.
I follow more of the other cruise ‘fandoms’ than DCL and what is happening on DCL doesn’t seem remotely unique to me. Every line seems to have irritable long time cruisers jumping ship to whatever other brand and swearing it is superior. The hilarity is you can follow those detractors in a total circle. I’m seeing the same chatter out of RCL, NCL, Princess and Celebrity. Perhaps the only line immune is Virgin, simply because it hasn’t existed long enough for people to ditch it.
DCL’s most clear comp is RCL these days. I think NCL is attempting to swim more premium, adult focused. As well as leaning into the solo traveler. Lots of their itineraries skew longer and varied, which doesn’t work well for families. You have Disney’s newest ship sailing 3/4 days and you have NCL’s newest ships largely doing 10 days out of Iceland or Eastern Med.
RCL is leaning into directly competing with land vacations and has seen a lot of success with their Perfect Day product. Though like Disney parks they’ve overstuffed the place. Because it’s such a people pleaser the downside is I find this brands itineraries have become less exciting as they basically max Perfect Day Visits. But guest scores do warrant it. I’ve found RCL, which was probably my biggest original preferred cruise line is leaning more family mass market, the food quality has mildly declined. They also exceed everyone in the industry in terms of ship innovation.
So that said my perception of DCL is that the food is a bit better than royal these days, similar to NCL. The entertainment is ahead of NCL (though I still enjoy it greatly). Similar to RCL, though ‘more Disney’. RCL has a bit of entertainment edge simply due to some variety in entertainment venues. Though I find the cast and chorus a bit more fleshed out on DCL. It seems like everyone sings and even the entertainment staff were being put to more multifaceted uses (like the pirate deck show), in a good way! The kids elements are obviously going to be unparalleled and I suspect a large motivating factor behind people’s DCL choice. But RCL is even further fleshing out their product for families and really are declaring it their current direction.
So that said I think DCL has the upper hand. It deserves a premium. I don’t know if I’ve actually changed my stance that it deserves the actual premium it carries though. Unlike the parks, they actually are priced higher than their direct competitors (albeit Icon and Star are quite expensive). Universal and Disney have park parity in pricing (I’m ignoring the hotels). But Disney is still the market leader in that industry, whereas it clearly isn’t in cruising.
I think I’d unambiguously recommend DCL for families (or RCL), but the split is going to be down to the premium one wants to pay for ‘the brand’. If the family is into a lot of Disney’s IP, then sure that may be the tipping point. I’d even mildly recommend it to childless millennials like myself. But again you are paying a premium for the brand. For people who aren’t ‘us’ on the forums though and don’t have a mix of kids under 10yo I’d tell them to go elsewhere and save the money. I think the cruising market is stronger than the parks, which only has one competitor that tries to somewhat differentiate itself from Dis (Universal I think doesn’t do toddlers well). Whereas RCL is not so quietly coming directly for Disney.
I think DCL needs to work towards not being such a niche player. Meaning it needs another round of ships and some of the older ships pricing premium coming a bit more down to reality. This is also why I think their loyalty program is so meager, they really don’t need to work very hard to fill their ships.
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So now onto the Wish itself. I think it’s a great ship! Maybe I lack context or maybe they’ve worked out some kinks, but I think some of the old complaints here I didn’t experience as much. The ship focuses a bit on the micro venue to increase the venue count. I actually happen to like that. But I also know NCL did this with Prima/Viva and they are also controversial ships.
I think with time the entertainment staff are figuring out the venues. Timing things, putting the appropriate activities at the correct times to counter balance one another. As a result the venues are ‘busy’, but I really didn’t have any issues doing anything but showing up mildly early (like 10-15 minutes). So overall I don’t know if I felt the crowds that everyone else has. I found some meager weather to get on the aqua mouse with a few minutes wait.
I really like the dinner entertainment concept. I did not know that was unpopular amongst reviewers. This is something that has me interested in the Triton class. I wish the Treasure also changed up the marvel venue, just for uniqueness. I had a good arrendale table and found the Scandinavian cuisine well done.
Sea day activities were well paced and filled out.
I didn’t find way making or navigating that difficult. The staircase to the Hero Zone is odd for sure. But once you figure out how to transition up to deck 12 with stairs it’s a quick oddity rather than a problem. I’ve never been on a ship that I like the elevator experience, so I largely ignored it. Didn’t seem better or worse than any other one.
A couple negatives with the ship were I also quickly found the adult deck area a bit too small. The only loungers in the sun abutted the Aquamouse unload so you had to tolerate the exit speech looping.
They need to quadruple the number of hot tubs…. At least. Are the other ships that bad? I can’t believe there is one hot tub for the non concierge class. I’d have two hot tubs in lieu of the Weird adult pool flanks and then another symmetrically placed tub on the other side of the adult deck.
The Wish is also a bit funny because all the main venues are positioned so low. When I boarded I asked someone if we were currently on deck 7 or 8 and was thrown for a loop when the lobby was only deck 3. As a result being in the hull largely the venues are limited to port holes (if at all). I find the ship incredibly inward focused and very limited exposure to the sea. To be fair this is complaint is magnified on the Oasis class. But a lot of lines are trying to get back to reincorporate the sea and the Wish doesn’t do so. Needless to say this is a Caribbean ship exclusively. It is not somewhere that should ever sail somewhere scenic.
Anyways, I think that’s more than enough thoughts for now.
