Trip Log Day 1: Disney Wish – 3-Night Halloween on the High Seas Bahamian Cruise – Port Canaveral, Florida

Trip log, day one. Port Canaveral, Florida.
3-Night Halloween on the High Seas Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral, Florida 
Friday the 13th – October 13, 2023

Guests Onboard: 3:45 pm
Personal Navigator – Day 1

Our captain for this cruise is Andy McRonald. As for our onboard entertainment, Lesley Dallas is our Cruise Director. During this 3-night Bahamian cruise we will be visiting the ports of Nassau, Bahamas, and Castaway Cay.

Before heading to the port, we finished packing our carry-on bags. However, after a brief discussion, we chose to leave these two at home.

We set out on our drive to Port Canaveral earlier than normal to be in position to watch SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch for NASA’s Psyche Mission. We pulled off the road right before the Port Canaveral terminal exit to watch the launch. The real appeal of this launch was that both of the Falcon Heavy’s boosters landed back at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station resulting in two sonic booms!

Following the launch, we resumed our drive to the port, dropped off our luggage, parked and headed to the terminal.

Inside there terminal, there were large wall clings of the Disney Wish blueprints, which are featured on a number of merchandise items available at Mickey’s Mainsail onboard. It was just nice to see the graphics in a large format.

Isabelle had a DisneyBand+ which we pre-ordered for this cruise. At check-in, the Cast Member scanned her band to associate with her account for use onboard to open the stateroom door and make purchases. There was an update available for her band which only took a couple minutes to complete.

Shortly after 11:30 AM, we boarded the Disney Wish which was decked out in seasonal decor for the Halloween on the High Seas voyages.

Our first order of business onboard was lunch up at Donald’s Cantina, part of Mickey & Friends Festival of Foods on deck 11.

This has become my favorite spot for lunch onboard the Wish and it is primarily due to the sauce bar.

Following lunch, we headed to our stateroom (which will be discussed in a future stateroom review complete with a room tour video). I’ll skip to important part, stateroom 11006 is amazing.

For example, the view is incredible. The following video is a time lapse recording from the afternoon.

This cruise was our fourth DCL Blog Group Cruise and second on the Disney Wish. I couldn’t help it, a Halloween on the High Seas cruise departing on a Friday on the 13th day of October screamed for a cool logo – a nautical mashup of the original Friday the 13th movie poster and The Mighty Ducks.

We headed to The Bayou to hang out and distribute welcome gift bags and an updated schedule of events to the group. One of the gifts was a custom Tervis Tumbler.

A small but, really cool seasonal enhancement was The Bayou’s iPad menu featuring different jack-o-lanterns for the various menu sections.

We still had some time before sailing away so we took a walk around the upper decks spotting a couple of the SpaceX support vessels off the port side. Across the port we could see one of the autonomous spaceport droneships, Just Read the Instructions, and Dragon capsule recovery vessel Shannon.

Over on the starboard side, we had a nice view of Disney’s home, Cruise Terminal 8 as well as Cruise Terminal 10.

YEAH, time for the in-person muster drill……said no one ever….., but here were are standing on deck 5…..butt least we were in the shade.

One thing about the Wish Class design that becomes problematic, is the pinch point during peak passenger movement times due to the 2 sets of staircase/elevator lobbies compared to the 3 sets on the Dream Class. The reduction of the 1 route for passengers to move to the upper deck for the sail away party following the muster drill generates a horde of traffic akin to I-4 traffic here in Orlando.

We made it, we finished our required safety drill, ascended the 7 decks, and now we can start our vacation with the Sail on a Wish deck party led by our Cruise Director Leslie Dallas.

After the sail away, we unpacked and headed out to dinner in Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure. This was my 4th cruise on the Disney Wish and to date, this was the best table we’ve been assigned. Previously we were in a corner, behind a support post and back by the windows. The window seats are a close second to sitting by the stage.

When life gives you a nice table assignment, prop up your iPhone on a water glass and hit record.

I did try Icelandic Cod which was a change from the original menu replacing the Pan Seared Chilean Sea Bass. The cod itself was vanilla, but when combined with the pea puree was enjoyable. For dessert, I opted for the and the Kvafiordkake which I still cannot pronounce correctly.

During dinner, we took a family photo because we have the photo package option included at no charge now….let’s see how many pictures we can amass before the end of the cruise.

Exit Arendelle through the gift shop, but not tonight. The back door of Mickey’s Mainsail was not open to lure dinner guests into the Frozen merchandise area. Probably a good thing since the shop was already packed. There was a new-to-us Make-A-Wish spirit jersey in a purple with embedded glitter and a gold Disney Wish logo on the back. One of which found a new home and seemed to weather the washing machine without any issues or transferring of glitter to other clothing.

I snapped the following pictures of a few items that caught my eye on this initial walkthrough. Luggage was lined up by the Arendelle doorway which could have also been a reason they were closed.

Down in Treasures Untold, Emily and Isabelle discovered more 25th Anniversary merchandise than the Disney Dream had all summer, or at least during our sailing to Greece which you can read about here.

I walked right out of Mickey’s Mainsail and walked right into the beginning portion of the first Halloween events in the Grand Hall, the arrival of the Minnie Mouse, Daisy Duck, and Clarabelle Cow dressed up as the Sanderson Sisters during the Who’s Behind the Curtain activity.

Directly following the Sanderson Sisters, guests seated in the Grand Hall were encouraged to turn around and face the Pumpkin Tree for the next Halloween show led by the wonderful Fairytale Players who shared the tale of ‘Boo’, the Disney Wish’s pumpkin tree.

The rest of the evening we spent with in the adult areas for trivia. First, we met up with the group for KnowsMore Presents Trivia: General Knowledge in Keg & Compass. The company and conversation made up for our less than stellar trivia score.

On our way to the next trivia, I noted Luna Libations had a full selection of the Disney Halloween Popcorn buckets including Mickey dressed as a skeleton, Minnie in her Winifred Sanderson costume, Nightmare Before Christmas – Mayor of Halloween Town Car, and a poison apple mug.

Emily and Isabelle ran into a photographer in the Grand Hall to up our onboard photo collection.

Our last get together event of the evening was another KnowsMore Presents Trivia event with 80s music trivia.

And that is a wrap for day 1. Tomorrow we are headed to Nassau.

Complete Trip Log Index

Interesting in joining us on a future DCL Blog Group Cruise? We have two upcoming sailings. In 2024, we are sailing the Disney Wonder to Alaska, and in 2025 we will return to the Disney Magic for a magic sailing from Cay to Cay visiting both Castaway Cay and Lookout Cay.

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