Star Wars Day at Sea Debuts with Day-Long Celebrations aboard the Disney Fantasy

Star Wars Day At Sea DCL Logo

Today marks the first ever Star Wars Day at Sea aboard the Disney Fantasy. Passengers can celebrate the legendary adventures and iconic characters from the Star Wars saga during a brand-new, day-long celebration aboard eight special sailings on the Disney Fantasy: Star Wars Day at Sea.

This sailing will include the first official appearance of the heroes and villains of Star Wars aboard a Disney Cruise Line ship… Well, except for those already appearing aboard the Disney Dream. Star Wars Day at Sea promises to combine the power of the Force, the magic of Disney and the excitement of cruising for an out-of-this-galaxy experience unlike any other.

Occurring on the second sea day (Wednesday) during each of eight Disney Fantasy sailings, Star Wars Day at Sea transports guests to a galaxy far, far away — in the Western Caribbean. The event features a full day of Star Wars celebrations, including a deck party, meet-and-greets with favorite characters, Star Wars-themed family and youth activities, unique food and beverage offerings, and special merchandise. Additionally, passengers will have the opportunity to watch all seven Star Wars films and the new Disney XD animated series, Star Wars Rebels.

Throughout the day, Star Wars Younglings, Padawans and Jedi Masters alike can enjoy the immersive entertainment. Intergalactic highlights include:

Force-filled Fun for Everyone

  • Darth Vader, Captain Phasma, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, Boba Fett, Darth Maul, Stormtroopers and other characters from across the Star Wars galaxy are onboard for meet-and-greets, photos and may be seen patrolling the decks.
  • “Star Wars Saga: Tales from a Galaxy Far, Far Away” is an interactive participation show featuring guests retelling their favorite Star Wars stories, with the help of props and special effects.
  • Kids and families enjoy friendly competition during Star Wars trivia games, putting their knowledge of the film and television sagas to the test.
  • Guests are encouraged to bring their costumes and cosplay and participate in the costume celebration held in the ship’s atrium.
  • At noon, guests on deck will be treated to a very special episode – to mark the midday, the Disney Fantasy ship’s horn will resound the opening notes of the “Imperial March.”
  • In the evening, The Tube nightclub transports adult guests to another galaxy with Star Wars-themed specialty cocktails, lively cantina music and a super fan trivia challenge.

Younglings Use Their Power

  • In “Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple,” Force-sensitive children to learn the ways of the Jedi and put their skills to the test in a final battle with the Sith Lord, Darth Vader.
  • In “Padawan Mind Challenge,” Younglings participate in a fun, brain-bending battle of wits and trivia to become mind challenge masters.
  • Star Wars-themed arts and crafts, games and activities are offered throughout the day in Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab youth clubs.
Ludicrous Speed On The Disney Fantasy

Star Wars Deck Party and Fireworks

  • The day concludes with more intergalactic fun when the “Summon the Force” deck party blasts off to an exciting evening filled with music, dancing and games.
  • The party culminates as Star Wars characters converge for a celebration of the saga in an epic show featuring special effects and guest participation.
  • The grand finale is a spectacular display of pyrotechnics, lighting, sound effects and a medley of Star Wars

Merchandise, Food and Beverage

  • Event merchandise exclusive to Star Wars Day at Sea is available on each sailing, including a range of collectible items, customizable nametags and eight special trading pins – one for each of the Star Wars Day at Sea cruises.
  • An epic day is not complete without a feast for the palate so the dinner menu includes creative fare such as Sand People salad, Bantha steak empanadas, Opee Sea Killer shrimp cocktail and Qui-Gon’s crisp chicken. Sweet endings complete the meal with Calrissian velvet cake, Cloud City macarons and a frozen carbonite sundae.
  • Specialty Star Wars-themed beverages include the colorful Galaxy in a Glass made with rum, coconut, mango and strawberry and a non-alcoholic Planetoid Punch.
  • For sipping, there are non-alcoholic beverages in collectible cups like a BB-8 sipper and Chewbacca stein and for snacking popcorn is served in containers themed to Darth Vader’s helmet or a tie fighter.

Film Screenings

  • Guests can watch all seven films in the Star Wars saga and follow Darth Vader, Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Rey and Finn along their epic journey.
  • Also showing are episodes of the new Disney XD animated series, Star Wars Rebels.

Star Wars Day at Sea cruises will depart from Port Canaveral on select Saturdays in 2016, the 7-night Western Caribbean itinerary includes Cozumel, Mexico; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands and Disney’s private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay. There is still time to book one of the following Star Wars cruises:

19 Replies to “Star Wars Day at Sea Debuts with Day-Long Celebrations aboard the Disney Fantasy”

  1. Andrea

    I just wanted to say thank you so much for keeping us updated on the Star Wars Day! We are going on the second Star Wars Day sailing on January 23rd, and cannot wait. Thanks for everything you do !

    Reply
    1. Suzette

      Agreed and ditto! We’ll also be on the 23rd cruise and we’re bummed we couldn’t find any details on the SW sea day…

      Reply
  2. Dennis C

    The Star Wars cruise offerings didn’t line up with school breaks which was a bit of a bummer for us (though a brilliant move on Disney’s part). Maybe next time.

    Reply
  3. Andreza

    Do you know what time it is better to the costumes? During the day or at night? We will be in Star Wars cruise in 2 weeks and we are taking our costumes. Thank you very much

    Reply
    1. Jimga

      Someone posted on our April 2 DCL Facebook page the Navigator for that day. From what I could tell, they have the Star Wars meet and greets at various places on deck 3,4,5 at various times, morning afternoon and evening. No specifics was shown as to who was where.

      Reply
    2. Nicole Dugan

      Most people wore their costumes all day. If you have to choose one or the other, wear your costumes during the day, when they have the costume party, and the character meet and greets. Dinner attire on the personal navigator was “Star Wars/Cruise Casual.”

      Reply
  4. Bill

    My family is going on the 1/23 Star Wars Cruise. Does anyone know if the Star Wars day replaces the pirate day usually on the cruise? Or do they have both themed days? Thanks!

    Reply
    1. Nicole Dugan

      Pirate night is the night before Star Wars Day at Sea. Instead of having the stop in Costa Maya, DCL has turned that day into Star Wars Day at Sea, which is a MUCH better choice, in my opinion. The ruins in Costa Maya were really cool, but once we did that excursion, we weren’t interested in getting off the ship on future Western Disney Cruises, and we missed Key West. Pirate night is on Tuesday. Wednesday is the Star Wars Day at Sea. They DO NOT do fireworks on Pirate night, nor the buffet after, but the Pirate night menu is in all of the dining rooms (Animator’s Palate, Royal Court, and Enchanted Garden). Fireworks and after buffet are on Star Wars Day. I hope this helps.

      Reply
  5. Nicole Dugan

    We just returned from the first Star Wars DCL cruise. It was AMAZING! The weather didn’t cooperate, but we had an awesome time at the character meet and greets we chose (yes, you choose out of 3 on a card in your stateroom the first day, and they give you tickets for meet and greets on the Star Wars day at Sea). We had a picture taken with Chewbacca and Darth Vader. On decks 3, 4, and 5, they have characters roaming (storm troopers, sand people, etc), and the costumes were so ridiculous, we started playing “Guest or Crew Member,” and we were WRONG…a lot. Unlike the restrictions in the parks, you are allowed, and furthermore ENCOURAGED to wear costumes, and that does include masks, as well. There was a young man that had a LONG cue line, that turned out to be a guest with a SPECTACULAR Kylo Ren costume that he said took him 3 months to make, mask included. They have a special Star Wars menu in the dining rooms on the evening of the Star Wars Day at Sea, and the fireworks are pretty awesome. I would suggest trying to be on the pool deck, if you want to see the characters that come out onto the stage. It was really hard, being in the 2nd seating, to get upstairs and get a good view. We went to the 11th deck, port side, and had a great view of the fireworks, but we couldn’t see the stage, and since the entire ship was there for the fireworks, we couldn’t see the jumbo screen, either…There were just too many people in the way.
    Watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the Walt Disney Theater, with hundreds of Star Wars fans is indescribable. The cheering! The emotions! It was GREAT!

    Reply
  6. George

    I am just off the Jan 9-16 Star Wars day at sea cruise and I really left the ship feeling underwhelmed.

    The SW Day at Sea had nothing that I had not seen at Disney Hollywood studios. The “Interactive Experience” in Bespin, Tattoine or Dark Side was simply a character meet and greet. The Jedi Trial’s of the Temple and the Summon the Force night time show, were taken directly from Hollywood Studios. Having the characters roam around decks 3, 4 and 5 was fun and to see storm troopers patrolling the pool deck was cute but their were only 2 and I truly expected to see a lot more. Honestly the fans costumes really were more interesting to interact with.

    The one thing that I was absolutely disappointed in was the guest speaker series. It was a very nice lady that spoke about the enhancements Disney was making to the parks around Star Wars. However she was new to Disney Imagineering (only 1.5 years) and had nothing to share about the movies. After seeing Frank Oz, Peter Mayhew, and Ray Park at Hollywood Studios and hearing them talk, I was actually stunned that Disney did not deliver better then an newly hired Imagineer. Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t expecting to see Daisy Ridley or John Boyega. But their are dozens of actors that have had parts in Star Wars movies or are voice actors on rebels that I’m sure Disney could have gotten to speak on the cruise.

    Seeing SW-TFA in 3D in the Walt Disney Theater was awesome, but they are showing that on every cruise right now. Being with other Star Wars geeks like me is what was actually the most fun. So I do feel Disney let me down this time. That they simply used Star Wars to get more people to book a cruise during their slow season. Hopefully they can come up with some truly unique things for future cruises.

    Reply
  7. Doug

    I was Also very underwhelmed. My 8 year old cried at dinner when there was no blue milk on the menu. When talking with people about it the following days people that had been to SWW were disappointed and people who had never been to a Star Wars event thought it was great.

    They also ran Jedi training like Disneyland not Disney World, Lots of disappointment in our stateroom that day. We saved our “data” because we though we would be posting character pic after pic that day but to just have two real meet and greats and then some roaming ones did not cut it knowing how many characters you can see in a day at DHS for SWW.

    The lack of a real speaker was disappointing. They also called it a Guest Speaker Series. Not sure how one speaker is a Series. Maybe I needed to book all the cruises to see the Series. James Arnold Taylor would have made a great speaker. My definition of celebrity speaker was not set high. A voice actor would have been great.

    They stage show before the Fire works was frustrating because they just paraded out characters that you were unable to see all day. The Fire works were Identical to Pirate Night. So was the Buffet.

    A little research spent with the team that put together SWW would have been great. Most the Crew has never seen the movie. They had almost a year to prepare and failed. I hope they get it together before the next sailing.

    Reply
  8. SW Disney Fan

    I too was on this cruise and for everyone going on future cruises, please lower your expectations. I am a huge Disney fan and this is the one and only time I have written a letter of complaint about my Disney vacation. We paid a premium price for this cruise and Disney did not deliver! We were most disappointed about the lack if Mos Eisley Cantina that was originally promised, as well as the lack of guest/celebrity speakers.

    Reply
  9. Monique

    I too was on the inaugural cruise and was underwhelmed. DCL over promised and under delivered. Worse yet, those of us who wrote in with our critique of their event received condescending corporate spin form letters. They have refused to admit their failure to deliver or acknowledge the poor quality and execution of what they did manage to throw together. They only admit to failing to deliver the Cantina. They charged us DCL premium prices (which they also deny) and delivered a Carnival Cruise Line quality product.

    They also claim to have provided a celebrity OR (yes they wrote back in all caps) insider. Well, if an imagineer who has been with the company a mere 1.5 years, armed with a 20 minute slide presentation on what is currently in the parks and such is an insider, I think they need reevaluate their use of the term insider. She basically showed us logos of Star Tours, The Force Awakes, Star Wars Rebels, Hyperspace Mountain, etc. When the audience asked questions about Star Wars Land or the films she said she couldn’t answer any questions but she could direct us to someone who could. We are still waiting to be directed to the great insider of Star Wars wisdom.

    The rest of the cruise was lovely, even with the sketchy weather. I have not been soured on DCL as a whole because of their poor event planning and execution, I more soured by DCL because of their inability to accept responsibility for falling short on this specific event.

    The Star Wars Day at Sea was a disappointment to many. I have been to many, many Star Wars weekends over the years so my expectations were apparently too high. I thought this event would be a slam dunk for them. I do not understand how they failed to organize, communicate, and present a Disney quality event when they had over a year to plan it.

    If you are booked on a future Star Wars cruise, you’ll have a good time. Enjoy it, but lower your expectations, especially if you are expecting something akin to the quality and organization of Star Wars Weekends. Star Wars Day at Sea was anything but epic, well an epic failure perhaps.

    Reply
  10. Nicole Schoenig Pristas

    Unfortunately I have to agree with the other comments made. I was on board the first SWDAS as well. My daughter cried when she realized that she wasn’t going to be able to participate in the Jedi Trials. There was no sign up. Children were ‘randomly selected’ which just means that almost all children left terribly disappointed. The cantina never materialized and there was no real guest speaker for autographs as promised. In fact, there were no autographs of any kind. No Star Wars characters were signing, The roaming characters may sound like a good idea in theory but all it did was create a mad dash to see the characters whenever they appeared. ( sometimes up 2 flights of stairs). We missed several characters that we could see in the distance but we were on a different floor; they were gone by the time we got there. There were no orderly lines and no crew member to keep order and no Shutters photographers for the characters you did meet (except for the ticketed experience; we got C3PO/R2D2 and Chewbacca and thankfully we LOVED that). The show was really nothing special at all. The best part of the day was the costumed guests. We were able to pose with several guests who had dressed in full costumes. They were great. Gotta love my fellow Star Wars fans. They’re the only thing that saved that day.

    Reply
  11. Stephen

    I was on the inaugural swdas. I too was diassapointed and do not think it is worth the extra cost/premium. Extremely disappointed with Jedi training academy and lack of communication on how kids selection worked. I lined up 30 min early and was near the front of line expecting that selection was going to be first come first serve. What a waste of time to only find out that selection was completely random. Star Wars character interactions were not actually interactions and were simply take a photo and then leave. They would not even accommodate pose requests with you. One guest asked for a hug from darth maul and was ignored. Another guest asked darth vader to pose for a force choke and was ignored. Nothing like the interactions that you normally get when taking picture with Disney characters where the princesses will actually engage in short conversation with you and the fully costumed characters would accommodate funny poses and even do some playful teasing. The Star Wars character interactions was the least fun of all of the photo ops. I found that the random walk around of Star Wars characters (storm troopers , Tusken raiders) throughout the ship pointless and had no added value to the experience since they rarely stopped to interact with the guests making it difficult to even take a picture with them and some of the guests costumes were just as good if not better than the official costumed characters roaming around. Line ups were forming to take pictures with many of the costumed guests (who were much more accommodating with pose requests). In addition to all this, many of the festivities normally reserved for pirate night were moved to star wars day such as the fireworks and pirate night menu/late buffet further illustrating that Star wars day did not really add much more value to this cruise compared to regular cruise. I am also under the impression that this cruise sacrificed a jamaican port call in order to accommodate star wars day, which, in retrospect, I would have preferred. The star wars day was poorly organized and communicated, the star wars costumed character were too serious which, overall tended to sap the fun and excitement out of the day. There is nothing about the officially planned events on star wars day that I could say got me really excited or think that it was worthwhile. The only saving grace were the costumed guests that put the fun back into the day.

    We had originally planned on booking this cruise before star wars day was announced because the timing was convenient. Unfortunately, I waited too long and the price was jacked up once the announcement was made. At the time, I thought, this might be an added bonus since I enjoy star wars and disney tends to do thing well and hence might be worth the added price. However, In my opinion, it would have been better if they had just held a large star wars costume party for the guests and leave it at that. I would definitely not recommend this cruise for the additional premium they charged, however, I would have been perfectly happy with the cruise if they had left the price unchanged from a regular non star wars cruise.

    Reply

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