How I Became a Disney Cruise Person

I have a confession to make.

For the better part of a decade, I’ve written about Disney Cruise Line.

What I haven’t mentioned is that I’ve never actually gone on a cruise.

As a travel writer, this sort of thing happens where you cover a story you know as a third party rather than a first party.

Recently, my status changed. Disney invited me on a cruise, and the five days I spent at sea fundamentally changed me.

Here’s how I became a Disney cruise person.

Disney Shows Confidence in Cruises

Long before I set foot on the Disney Dream, I was acutely aware of the evolution occurring in the travel industry.

As often discussed, the next generation of tourists craves experiences more than prior ones.

We’re witnessing a changing of the guard throughout the entertainment industry, and it has spilled over into tourism.

That’s one of the primary reasons why the cruise industry somehow survived the existential threat of the pandemic.

 

You have probably repressed the memories, but many of those horrific early COVID-19 stories involved (non-Disney) cruise ships.

Ostensibly, cruises should have taken many years, possibly even decades, to recover from all the negative media.

The fact that this didn’t happen never made sense to me…until I set foot on a Disney cruise for the first time.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s first discuss Disney’s conviction in this form of the hospitality industry.

The Walt Disney Company recently announced that it will more than double the current number of vessels in its fleet.

Disney Cruise Line (DCL) consisted of only four vessels (or fewer) for the first 24 years of its existence.

With the introduction of the Disney Wish and the Disney Treasure, the fleet expanded by 50 percent over the past three years.

Still, DCL is far from done with its current expansion. Current plans call for the fleet to consist of 13 (!) ships by 2031.

As a reminder, as of April 2025, DCL owns and operates six ships.

So, we’re currently in the middle of a massive expansion that DCL will follow with an EVEN LARGER massive expansion!

Disney wouldn’t do that unless it had complete confidence in the cruise industry…and it should.

Love at First Sight

Here’s what I realized after two hours on my first Disney cruise. I never wanted to leave.

That’s neither hyperbole nor insincere hype.

I boarded the ship for the first time, I headed to an adults-only area, and I was home.

A kindly Cast Member came over and asked me if I needed an adult beverage. I informed them that I didn’t drink, and the servers basically left me alone for the rest of the trip.

Contrast that to the infamous stories about Margaritaville cruises. You will get harassed until your bank account is empty.

On Disney cruises, the opposite is true. These vacations legitimately are all-inclusive.

I’ll obsess on this topic in the coming weeks as I write several articles about my various cruise experiences.

Consider this article the prelude to all of them, as it’s the Occam’s razor of the discussion.

I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF MY CRUISE!

Seriously, I can prove this by discussing what I did two days after debarking from the ship.

My wife and I went to dinner with my older brother and his family.

We promptly spent 80 minutes lavishing praise on our cruise experience to the point that they just said, “Fine. We’ll go, too.”

They knew how hyper-critical I can be about all the imperfections of life. On a Disney cruise, I found none of note.

Sure, I experienced trivial issues like the weird way the lights work in the bathroom (you need a room key to activate them), but who cares?

That’s like complaining about Mickey Mouse not acting like an actual mouse. You’re missing the point by focusing on it.

A Totally Fun Thing I’ll Do Again

Throughout my trip, I found myself thinking about David Foster Wallace, the author of Infinite Jest.

The vaunted writer penned a legendary cruise review called Shipping Out.

In the piece, Wallace skewered the cruise lifestyle. His story was loosely the inspiration for a Simpsons episode.

I had the epiphany midway through my cruise that he’d never have written this hilarious piece if he’d just taken a Disney cruise.

Simply stated, Disney cruises are better, and I know this even though I’ve never taken another trip on a competing vessel.

That’s because I spoke with more than a dozen cruise devotees who HAVE sailed on Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and so forth.

To a person, they said that they’ve found Disney cruises possess a sort of kindness and euphoria that’s impossible to find elsewhere.

I believe them due to a random moment that occurred during my sailing.

A father watched in horror as his small child kicked a shoe for distance. The thing went like 30 feet.

He was mortified, and I sprang into action to retrieve the shoe. In the process, I almost smashed heads with another fellow.

He’d also noticed the incident and reacted even more quickly than I. He grabbed the kid’s shoe and handed it to the father.

The three of us stood there for a moment and laughed as we all realized what had transpired.

On a Disney cruise ship, everyone’s on the same team. We jointly work to guarantee that all guests have the same perfect trip.

That sort of civility would be impossible to find on the Icon of the Seas or any other non-Disney ship.

There’s an innate decency expected and demonstrated when you choose a Disney cruise vacation.

David Foster Wallace missed out on that bit of community.

One Big Disney Community

You’re probably thinking that I’m blowing that single anecdote out of proportion.

Au contraire! That moment was but one of several I experienced throughout my trip.

People held elevators for strangers, communicated in myriad foreign languages, and group-parented children.

The sense of community on display during my five days was unlike anything I’ve encountered in many years.

I’m even including Disney theme parks in that. And I say it before I broach the topic of the Cast Members.

I’m on record as saying that the kindest Cast Members I’ve ever met are at Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort.

For many years now, I’ve used them as the measuring stick for the ultimate in customer service, especially in the hospitality industry.

To an individual, every Cast Member I interacted with on the Disney Dream surpassed that level of excellence.

These employees shared their life stories, their vacation tips, and their friendly jokes throughout my trip.

I already miss some of them, and they were rather sentimental in saying goodbye at the end.

How I Became a Disney Cruise Person

I took copious notes throughout my cruise, as this was a working vacation for me.

My comments are a hodgepodge of pro tips and random observations I made while watching excellence in action.

Punctuating my thoughts were giddy quotes along the lines of, “I absolutely adored…” and “It was brilliant when…”

My list of pros to cons is legitimately about 50 to one. I’ll save the specifics for later articles, but here’s a taste.

The food on Disney cruises is probably the best I’ve had anywhere in years.

Palo was simply THE best Disney dining experience of my life.

And I loved that every tenth person I saw was devouring an ice cream cone. Kids often wore ice cream as makeup.

It was a whole thing, and I joked with my wife that I felt like Thor with Mjolnir as I manifested cone after cone of ice cream.

As for the shows, they truly are Broadway quality, and you’ll find one performed (multiple times) every night.

Then, we have the pure joy of the Disney character interactions, which are so plentiful that we couldn’t even do them all.

Debates ensued about whether Mickey Mouse’s fourth costume justified our waiting in line yet again.

There was also a time when three Disney Princesses were standing there, but so were Pluto and Stitch.

How can a Disney fan even choose which one to prioritize? We picked Stitch because…my wife. But still. It was hard to choose.

And I haven’t even discussed the private islands yet, both of which feature breathtaking ocean colors and ample amenities.

Final Thoughts

You’re starting to get the point about how my brother felt as I spent 80 minutes talking about my trip.

I’m not just a Disney cruise person now; I’m an evangelist for the team, too.

You ALL need to go on a Disney cruise, and I mean ASAP. It’s the best way for a Disney fan to vacation. I’m serious about that.

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Feature Photo: DIsney