The 10 Biggest Misses on the Disney Adventure

Last week I talked about my biggest hits on the Disney Adventure. This week I’ll talk about some misses. Because there were some! Here are 10 of them.

1. Wayfinder Bay Show – While I think Wayfinder Bay on the back of the ship is a beautiful space, and Royal Caribbean has some similar spaces on their big ships, the Singapore heat makes it tough. Moana: Call of the Sea was a fun show, but the heat was oppressive. There’s absolutely no shade unless the ship happens to be facing in a particular direction, so the sun is beating down on the entire space. Everyone had towels on their head trying to enjoy it. We only made it 10 minutes before we had to give up. Sooo hot.

2. Outdoor Bars – Outdoor bars like the cute Taverna Portorosso also were too hot to enjoy most of the time, and were usually empty. There were ceiling fans in Mike and Sulley’s right across from Taverna Portorosso, but none in Taverna for some reason. There were probably 10 Dyson fans scattered around to try to help, but unfortunately it didn’t help much.

3. Awkward Placements – There are some awkward placements for some things. Enchanted Summer, for example, is a main dining room and the Olaf side of it is smack dab in the middle of Deck 6. To get across Deck 6, you have to walk right through the middle of the restaurant. The Maximus side isn’t much better, it’s right off the Town Square stage, and if there’s a performance taking place there, you hear every word. It’s unusual for music and sound from an adjoining space to interfere with another space onboard. And the Oceaneer Club is in the middle of Deck 8. There’s no way through unless there happens to be an open house going on.

4. Mike & Sulley’s Flavors of Asia – Let me start by saying I thoroughly enjoyed our meals there. Teppanyaki on a cruise ship is so fun. The Japanese steakhouse meal was delicious. Both were very expensive, but I was expecting that. What I wasn’t expecting was kids running around these upscale meals. It’s a family ship! Totally get that. But I’ve become used to paying more to enjoy a quiet, adult-only atmosphere for upcharge dining. Mike & Sulley’s was not that.

5. Quirky Staterooms – Don’t get me wrong, some of the staterooms are beautiful, and it’s great to have a huge variety of stateroom types to choose from. But the layouts are quirky. There’s no door on the closets, and many of the bathroom doors are frosted, which means lots of light if the light is turned on in the restroom at night. The hairdryer setup is also a bit crazy; it’s attached below the vanities near the couch, with a cord short enough to ensure you’re almost bending over to use it at times. So not unusable by any means!  Just quirky.

6. Mocktail Tasting – The Adventure is the first Disney ship to offer a mocktail tasting onboard, and it was very popular and sold out. I enjoyed it, but I was a bit surprised to learn during the tasting that there’s a difference between Zero Proof drinks and Mocktails, and Zero Proof drinks actually contain minuscule amounts of alcohol. Which made it even more amusing when every single drink that we had was Zero Proof. Not a single Mocktail to be had in our Mocktail Tasting.

7. No Ports – In the case of the Adventure, Disney has presented the ship as the destination. I’m not against that in principle! We spent several days in Singapore before and after our sailings, and we loved our time there. The reality on the ship, though, was that there were never quiet times. There are no days when a significant portion of the guests are ashore. I missed that. I suspect the crew misses that, and the opportunity to get off themselves occasionally!

8. No Name Announcing – I really had no idea that people cared so much about the family name announcements that Disney typically does on cruises when passengers board. I’m stunned by the number of complaints I’ve seen online and in my messages about it. While you’re not entering into a grand atrium as you usually do upon boarding, Disney could still have someone at the entrance door announcing names on a microphone and crew members clapping and welcoming you. I’ve seen Disney do that before when a ship docked at a port where entering the atrium wasn’t possible. It does add something to the start of your cruise!

9. Concierge Smoking Section – The Concierge Lounge has its own private, large smoking verandah right off the lounge. I am sure smokers appreciate the convenience of it. What non-smokers did not appreciate was the smell of smoke that permeated one side of the lounge every time the doors opened. It definitely made relaxing in the lounge slightly less appealing to me.

10. Deck Plans – The deck plans for the Adventure are just wrong. I walked every deck and filmed so I could use the videos as a reference while updating the Unofficial Guide to Disney Cruise Line for 2027, and I was shocked by how often I ran into walls that were not supposed to be there according to the deck plan on the app. Disney’s app! The deck plan on Disney’s website contains the same errors. There were also times when a wall was not there, which was clearly referenced. These mistakes were almost all in the stateroom areas, and they need to be fixed. Some of them may influence stateroom decisions based on convenience or lack of convenience. We’ll update all the maps for the book, but come on, Disney. Fix those!

Those are the big ones for me! Do you have any questions? Have you been? Do you have anything to add?