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Look at this trove, treasures untold

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Christmas came with an early surprise this year, a sailing upon the newest Disney Cruise Line ship, the Disney Treasure!

I was asked to wrangle our talent of several families, and lot of kiddies on the media cruise the week before the inaugural sailing, and I was very fortunate to get to bring a plus one along! Mike had a lovely vacation while I worked, but got to hang with him on our down time. Luckily we ended up doing more like 6 hour work days, so I had a lot of play time. Our five night cruise would include 2 days at sea and a day stopping at each Disney private island. We boarded on a Sunday, where I got straight to work.

While I was getting talent ready for our first scene, there was a small snag with the fire sprinklers going off in the lobby, soaking the carpet in the main hall, so we sadly never got to set foot in the main hall all week. On board were only invited guests, and most were very important people who either are pretty high up at Disney or were imagineers for the ship itself, which was incredibly cool.

But, Aladdin and Jasmine had greeted us as we came in, so we were glad we got to see them for a minute!

The ship is stunning, with a layout identical to the Wish, it’s basically the Adventureland version of it. I already felt pretty familiar when we boarded, which was helpful. Our stateroom was at the very, very, very front of the boat, which was fine other than the strong up and down movement when we had some pretty rocky weather the first night. The room was an Aladdin theme and with the little slanted window in the front it kind of felt like a treehouse.

That very front window is our room-

One of the best things about DCL is room service is all included so you can have a Mickey ice cream bar delivered any time you want!

After working a bit and checking out the new place for the week, it was lunch time. Food on the ship was pretty good overall. Breakfast and lunch are usually a buffet at either Marceline Market or Mickey’s Festival of Foods. Mike would also bring me breakfast from the buffets when we would start super early and I needed a little pick me up.

And you can’t forget all the ice cream you can eat on board! Some of our favorite flavor combos were mango-pineapple and strawberry-banana.

Dinners on board are all sit down and you are scheduled one of the 3 restaurants in the dining rotation. We had the earlier dinner time and ended up swapping our dinner rotation to include the new Marvel dinner show. On a cruise you can order as many entrees or desserts or anything off the menu as you like. Your servers follow you on your dining rotation so they get to know you. Our first dinner was at 1923, the more upscale restaurant. We had 1923 twice during our cruise, and some highlights were the lobster, lamb, and steak, mickey cookies, and chocolate lava cake.

The second dinner dining location we had was Marvel. We had it twice, the first night was the Quantum show and the second time was a Groot dance party. The Marvel trivia and interactive quantum core on your table add to the fun as well.

Both nights had different menus with highlights being the red pepper dipping butter, chicken schnitzel, gnocchi, pym sundae, and Thai chicken chili salad.

My Shirley temple came with an edible straw. It was lime flavored and it tasted like sweetarts. It stayed in tact pretty well though! This was a straw I would actually eat after and enjoy.

The third dinner rotation we only had once during our five day cruise was the new Coco dinner show. There are two different shows for those who have this dining rotation twice, both nights with different menus. I got to see bits of the second one during filming which was cool since we would be missing it. But the Coco show we saw was more of a mariachi band playing. They did play only one song from the film, but I found it to be nicer atmosphere music to listen to and less of a story to try and follow. I also enjoyed this dinner more than the Frozen version on the Wish because the cruise was at about half capacity so it was less overwhelming. I really enjoyed the chips and I wanted to try the churros, but they were apart of the second menu we wouldn’t get to try. However, our server pulled a little magic and snuck them for me anyways. They were definitely worth the hype and my favorite bite of the whole cruise.

Even though we were a preview cruise, everything was still operating as though it was a full cruise. Entertainment was certainly not lacking. There was something to do almost every night. Because we had the earlier dinner time, that meant we had the later show times. The first night was Seas the Adventure show, which I had just recently watched on the Wish in February. It’s a cute variety show where you get to see lots of familiar characters and hear familiar songs. The next big show was the retelling of the live action version of Beauty and the Beast. This show knocked my socks off. The talent was amazing, the show was really beautiful, and it was the first DCL show I felt truly blown away by.

But I didn’t even know what I had coming. The new Moana show debuted on this ship, and because we filmed some of it, I got a sneak peek of the magic that was coming my way. The last night on board was the show and it was incredible. The puppetry is truly breathtaking and tells the story in such an enchanting way. I am hoping one day the world can see the transformation of Ta Caw into Tefiti because, wow.

The nights there were not main stage shows there were still things to do. We got to see Moana 2 in the main theater which was super fun! Complete with popcorn, compliments of our new popcorn bucket, because what’s a movie without popcorn. The movie was great! I really liked it. I thought the story was engaging and the music was pretty catchy. Watching the movie on the high seas with the boat rocking a bit made it feel like we were seeing it in 4D, ha.

The other night without a MainStage show was pirate night! We decked out in our pirate gear and watched the earlier Mickey and Minnie’s Pirates of the Caribbean show, and then later Red’s rockin pirate parlay show late in the evening. Both shows were very fun, and we loved ending the night with fireworks on the high seas.

There were also some smaller shows on board like the game shows, and one of my favorites was Color Spin Dance Party.

On Pirate Night there was a really fun pirate joke show, and we sadly missed the Indiana Jones choose your adventure event but I heard it was not to miss.

The other main event were Sage and Coriander the storytellers on board. These two did a full retelling of Aladdin and they were so talented!

You can't have Disney entertainment without characters. On this DCL, since it was smaller capacity, you often found the characters roaming around and playing because the lines weren't as long as usual. We never really had to wait to say hello to anyone!

The heros greeting location is in the kids club area, but they will allow you to come say hello when the heros are visiting.

I loved getting to visit the kids club during open house though because it's a really creative little space.

The characters on this ship weren't the only familiar faces I saw however. I knew quite a few people on board I was excited to see! The ship was incredibly beautiful, and we definitely discovered every inch of it.

It's no secret one of the most coveted places on this ship is the new Haunted Mansion themed bar. Even during our half capacity cruise, this bar was pretty crowded at all times, so it'll be interesting to see how they handle that in the future. We popped in on pirate night to experience the spooks and thrills and thought the theming was really well done.

We even found the secret drink on the secret menu, but we stuck to trying the Chilling Challenge- 818 Añejo Tequila, Cointreau Noir, Blood Orange, Sour Cherry, Lime Salt Air Foam served in a box with a reflective light, quite tasty!

The other important feature I haven't touched on yet...the water features! You will find the Aqua Mouse on board the Treasure. She is a fun time, but she is cold. We went on it while it was raining, which was fun, but it was still December and not overly heated water.

So you have to warm up in the hot tub after!

While there are endless amounts of things to do on the ship, it is nice to be able to pop off the ship for a while too. We docked at Castaway Cay, Disney's private island, and I had to work for the morning, but Mike had time to explore on his own first. He ran the 5k and got his medal, which was always a bucket list item for him.

He was also able to each lunch (and ice cream) off the boat on the island.

I finally got done with work and had about 90 minutes to run off the ship to join up with him to explore.

Before we knew it, it was time to get back on the boat!

The next day we docked at the new Disney island, Lookout Cay. It was a good thing we wrapped early this day so I could go explore, because it took forever to get to the island from the boat. It begins with a lengthy 10 minute walk-

After the windy pier walk, you wait for the tram and take about a 12-15 minute tram ride to the guest area.

Once you get there it's a beautiful beach retreat with lots of shade options provided.

We got lunch on the island this time together, and it was tasty!

After lunch, there was a small show called Junkaroo, where some of the Bahama locals played instruments and danced in their elaborate costumes.

We enjoyed the nature walk the most. The views were breathtaking and reminded us a lot of Hong Kong actually.

Here is the lighthouse for which the cay is named.

The nature walk is a nice mixture of trees and beach, although it was a nice temperature for us in December, I can imagine it would be quite warm on a summer day. We did pop our toes in the ocean for a moment but it was a little chilly in the water.

Overall, I was glad we got to see the new island, but I do find Castaway Cay to be a more convenient option.

Our cruise was quickly coming to an end. The goodnight moment on the Treasure was a little different because the carpet was still closed, but it was still a nice wrap up.