49 Days Out (Not That I'm Counting): How We're Preparing for the Disney Destiny
“To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory.” — Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
I came across this quote recently while trying to articulate something I already believed, and it landed so perfectly I had to put it at the top of this post. This outlook is also the reason I have spent a non-trivial portion of the last several weeks reading every available piece of information about the Disney Destiny, a ship I have never set foot on, in preparation for a sailing that is 49 days away.
Not that I’m counting.
(I am absolutely counting.)
Here’s the thing: for me, the planning is the fun. The anticipation is part of the experience. Reading about what we’re going to get to do, building the mental map of the ship, knowing which lounge we’re going to claim as our home base — this is how I savor something before it even starts. If you’re the kind of person who likes to go in totally cold and let the surprise wash over you, this post is probably not for you. But if you’re the kind of person who has already pulled up the dining menus for a restaurant you won’t visit for seven weeks, welcome. You’re among friends.
The ship
The Disney Destiny launched at the end of last year, which means we are sailing on a very new ship. The theming is Heroes vs. Villains — Disney’s heroes on one side, Disney villains getting their full due on the other. I will be honest with you: I am not a die-hard superhero fan. I love some of the Marvel corners (Agatha All Along! WandaVision! Kathryn Hahn deserves every award!), but it’s less the specific IPs that draw me and more what Disney does with any property — the eye for detail, the layers of design, the way every space has been thought through. Give me a beautifully designed themed environment and I will be happy regardless of whether I have strong feelings about the franchise. And on the heroes side specifically, I’m most excited about the Hercules show — my daughter loves going to shows with grandma, and I have a deep and only slightly irrational love for Disney’s Hercules, messy Greek mythology and all.
The villain side, though? That I am here for. You wouldn’t guess it by looking at me, but I have loved a good goth-spooky aesthetic since approximately birth, and I have wanted to be a pirate since I was my daughter’s age. The Disney Destiny is delivering on both counts.
The lounge
On the Disney Wish, the concierge lounge was one of our favorite discoveries — quieter, calmer, staffed by hosts who knew our names, and stocked with tiny smoothies that both of my children treated as a personal gift. (I also treated them as a personal gift. No notes.)
The Destiny’s concierge lounge has different theming: it’s inspired by the Avengers’ Manhattan headquarters, with a sophisticated, elegant aesthetic. I found a good writeup on the specifics over at DCL Cruising Dad if you want the full details.
I’ll be honest: I’m not walking in expecting a carbon copy of the Wish lounge, and I think that’s the right mindset. It’ll be different. It’ll be new. The service level on Disney concierge has been consistently excellent in my experience, and I have every reason to expect that continues regardless of what the walls look like. I’ll report back with a full comparison once we’ve lived in it for a few days.
The bars, ranked by how excited I am
This is the part where my husband and I do our due diligence. On cruises, we tend to find our favorite lounge and post up — drinks, Steam Deck, Switch 2, good conversation, kids off having the time of their lives somewhere else. On the Wish, the Star Wars Hyperspace Lounge was our spot. They had a drink called the Moons of Endor where they captured smoke inside sugar bubbles and blew them across the table. We took the kids to witness it because some things transcend bedtime. They were delighted. So were we.
The Destiny’s lounge lineup, in descending order of my personal anticipation:
The pirate lounge. This is probably where we’re going to live. Cozy, nautical, and based on everything I’ve read, it has the energy of a good pub — which is exactly what we often end up in anyway. On many ships we find the Irish pub equivalent and we stay there. (I didn’t think the Star Wars lounge would be our spot on the Wish, and yet. Ships surprise you.) This appears to be it.
The Haunted Mansion bar. I am very interested in what they do with the drinks here. Disney’s Haunted Mansion theming has an incredible design language and I expect whoever designed the cocktail menu had fun with it. We will be conducting thorough research.
The Cruella lounge. Live piano music. I don’t need more convincing than that.
The Doctor Strange lounge. Probably least relevant to our personal tastes, but almost certainly has the most dramatically presented drinks on the ship. We will stop by for exactly that reason.
The part I’m most excited about
Both kids are over three. Both kids are potty trained. Both kids are going to the Oceaneer Club.
Last year on the Wish, our daughter spent most of the cruise in the Oceaneer Club and emerged each day glowing like she’d had the best day of her life, which she probably had. Our son — then two, not yet eligible — watched her disappear into its depths during the open houses and was visibly devastated each time. He has been waiting for his turn with the patience of a three-year-old, which is to say barely any patience at all but enormous determination.
This year he gets to go in. I cannot wait to hear what he gravitates toward. His sister knew immediately what she loved: playing with the bigger kids, dance time, the Descendants movies, and any kind of art or hands-on project she could get her hands on. He is a different kid entirely and I genuinely have no idea what’s going to capture him, which makes it all the more exciting to find out.
The Oceaneer Club on the Destiny also has an Imagineering Lab attached — a dedicated space for building and inventing. I would bet a significant amount of money that my daughter does not leave willingly. She is going to love it.
What this means in practice: my husband and I will have actual, unscheduled time together on a moving ship. We have not fully processed this yet.
The midnight email
I wrote about the concierge booking process in detail in the previous post — the midnight Eastern send time, the priority order, Barbara’s masterful organization — so I won’t rehash all of it here. What I’ll say for this sailing is that we have a cabana booked for Castaway Cay, the Adventure Tea is on the calendar, the kids are doing the Pirate League, Enchantée is secured, and Palo brunch is happening on a sea day.
We also specifically arranged our dining rotation to minimize our nights at the Marvel restaurant. This is not a moral position. We just know ourselves.
The second sailing
The day after we return from the Destiny, we board the Fantasy from Port Canaveral — a separate sailing, non-concierge, with an expanded crew. My brother-in-law, his wife, and their daughter are joining us for this one.
Their daughter did her first Disney cruise last December at almost one year old. She is firmly a baby who prefers to be near her parents at all times, which is a completely reasonable position to have when you are one. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s shifted at all by May. Either way, we’re getting to spend time with her, and she is an absolute delight — the kind of baby who is endlessly charming right up until she isn’t, which as far as I can tell is the universal baby experience.
Two ships, two itineraries, two very different group configurations. I’ll be writing about both.
49 days
I know that walking onto the Destiny is going to be one of those moments. New ship smell. Kids who have been vibrating with anticipation for weeks finally getting to see what all the fuss is about. Barbara, who has been planning this since long before I started counting down, watching her family walk onto something she made happen.
The planning is part of savoring it. But I’m ready for the thing itself.
Have you sailed the Disney Destiny yet? I’d love to hear what surprised you — drop a comment below or subscribe to the newsletter for our full trip report when we’re back in June.