Today, anyone can book the inaugural season of the Disney Wish after nearly a two-week period of tiered early booking. This morning, I took a look at Disney Cruise Line’s pricing for the Disney Wish to see how the cruise fares changed since May 17th when booking first opened for Platinum Castaway Club members with 25+ sailings.
Before we get into the pricing, let’s discuss how the Maiden Voyage barely made it to the general Platinum Castaway Club booking day. This tells me Disney Cruise Line anticipated the demand, and knew there were a lot of Castaway Club members in the Platinum category. If you sit back and look at the Castaway Club levels, they are small ranges for Silver (1-4 completed) and Gold (5-9 completed). Then, once you get to Platinum with 10+ completed cruises there is no cap, no next tier – someone with 100+ (yes, these people are real, I’ve had the privilege of meeting a few over the years) is grouped in with a guest with 11 cruises. Even if the extended Platinum breakout didn’t occur, the maiden voyage was still going to book up with Platinum Castaway Club members. Considering the overall demand, it was more of a load management decision to make sure the call center could handle the demand since the early booking was phone only. If there is any argument on the fairness, the only group of Castaway Club members that were truly impacted by the breakout were the Platinum members at the 10+ completed cruise level, as this is the day the maiden voyage finally sold out.
As you will see below, the concierge rooms saw the most activity with all available Disney Wish sailings selling out the category. Aside from the Maiden Voyage, the most popular itinerary seems to be the 4-night Bahamian cruises based on the fare increases across the board for those sailings. For those looking for a “deal”, the pricing for a number of the 3-night Bahamian cruises in July remains unchanged from the initial preview pricing – these are highlighted in the following spreadsheet screenshots.
It is extremely important to remember this information is simply a general overview of the starting from pricing for each sailing by stateroom type such as inside, oceanview, verandah and concierge based on what is displayed on Disney Cruise Line’s website. Plus, there are apples to oranges comparisons within the category type as the original starting from price for a verandah would have been the 7A and now it the cheapest room in that type could be a 4A. Stateroom category availability may vary per sailing. The starting from pricing and availability will continue to change as the sailings book.
Below, I’ve collected the opening day pricing, lowest price per stateroom category, based on double occupancy (2 adults) for all of the Summer 2022 and compared it to the prices listed this morning after the sailings were available to book for anyone. It gets a little busy due to the space so I’m including an actual table and the screenshots from my spreadsheet. D1 = pre-opening day D10 = prices as of this morning.
One last note, the pricing below is representative of a snapshot in time on opening day. As cruises book, prices will increase and stateroom availability will dwindle. The pricing below includes taxes, fees & port expenses for 2 adults.
Port Canaveral, Florida
Disney Wish Maiden Voyage – 5-Night Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral
Port Canaveral, Florida • At Sea • Nassau, Bahamas • Castaway Cay • At Sea (unconfirmed port order)
6/9/22
3-Night Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral
Port Canaveral, Florida • Nassau, Bahamas • Castaway Cay
6/14/22 (DVC Member Cruise), 6/17/22, 6/24/22, 7/1/22, 7/8/22, 7/15/22, 7/22/22, 7/29/22, 8/5/22, 8/12/22, 8/19/22, 8/26/22, 9/2/22, 9/9/22, 9/16/22, 9/23/22, 9/30/22
4-Night Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral
Port Canaveral, Florida • Nassau, Bahamas • Castaway Cay • At Sea
6/20/22, 7/4/22, 7/18/22*, 8/1/22, 8/15/22, 8/29/22, 9/5/22, 9/12/22, 9/19/22, 9/26/22
4-Night Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral
Port Canaveral, Florida • At Sea • Nassau, Bahamas • Castaway Cay
6/27/22, 7/11/22, 7/25/22, 8/8/22, 8/22/22
What do you think about the overall prices for the Disney Wish?
I wonder if the the summer cruises were booked to capacity or if DCL held back rooms in anticipation of the need to restrict passenger levels into next summer?
I think Disney and others have already anticipated a return to normal for next summer and that all sailings will be to capacity.
Based on what I was seeing last night (Thursday), options were limited on four night sailings from June through September so the general will public will primarily be limited to three night sailings of which staterooms are plentiful on all dates in all categories (except concierge).
While I was able to switch our stateroom on Monday afternoon after booking Monday morning, I was curious to see what was available last night and only GTY was available. Best guess is that every four night cruise will be to capacity. On the plus side, prices seemed steady from early in the week.
Cool! Thanks!
We are so thankful for your advance reporting on sailings. It gives us a chance to plan before the opening day booking. That is a God send. Keep up the excellent work.
Happy to hear this has been useful information! Thank you.
I’m just a lowly Silver, but on a whim we are doing a 3 night in July. This is going to be after completing a 9 night Greek Isles on the Magic and having 3 days to get from Rome to Orlando. 2 ships, 2 continents and 3 days separation. I call this, B2B… international style! We might be crazy for trying this, but here’s to hoping for a great experience.
That sounds amazing!
My wife and I (both Silver members) were able to book a 4-night Oceanview in September, and somehow lucked into reserving a Verandah for friends for the same cruise. Couldn’t believe we were able to book ours, let alone our friends’ room!
Is it true that all Wish cruises had to be paid in full upon booking? If that is true, will that always be the case, or just for the first several months of Wish cruises?
We were able to place a 3-day hold on our reservation, and we only required a deposit for about 20% of the total.
What castaway level are you?
@Lisa – Silver Castaway Club. Only two prior sailings. We were able to do the same to help reserve bookings for friends who had never sailed before.