Welcome to Part 3 of my review of my family’s experience on the first Star Wars Day at Sea on the Disney Fantasy. To catch up, read Parts one and two here!
After dinner and getting a few formal photos of the boys and Daddy in their Star Wars ties, we went up to the pool deck to watch the “Star Wars Saga: Tales from a Galaxy Far, Far Away” show. This was basically a retelling of the Star Wars stories with kids from the audiences acting out the parts. The crew member handed each of them a cardboard cutout that they held up to represent their character. I wouldn’t call this a must-see, but it was a cute show. I was actually surprised that this was only done once. It seemed almost like something that would be a good time filler.
Next, we headed to D Lounge for the Padawan Mind Challenge. My sons, particularly my 7-year-old, are founts of random Star Wars trivia, so I thought this would be fun for them. The kids all went up on stage and were given both a green and a blue lightsaber. As the questions were asked, they had to hold up whichever saber corresponded to the correct answer. The boys made it about 75% of the way through, then answered incorrectly and were eliminated. I know they really enjoyed this challenge, so I’m glad we went.
During this, my husband was actually up on deck saving us a spot for the show and fireworks. Poor guy spent 2 hours up there, but I’m so glad he did, because it was really a madhouse later and my kids wouldn’t have been able to see the show over everyone’s heads. There was a DJ playing Star Wars remixes until the show started, so at least there was something to entertain us.
The finale to the day was the Summon the Force show on the pool deck at 10:30. I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting here, but it wasn’t what we got. The show ended up being basically a parade of all the characters we had seen throughout the day. They each came out on stage, waved, and then left. After they had all come out individually, they all paraded onto the stage together. It was neat to see them all, but there wasn’t even any interaction between them.
Next up was the fireworks. Disney obviously knows how to put on a fireworks show, and these were timed to a Star Wars score. There was a montage of film clips playing along on the FunnelVision, but that was to our backs, so I didn’t even notice it until part way through. Other than not seeing the montage, the fireworks show was great!
The last thing for the night was a late-night buffet in Cabanas. This was nice, but wasn’t anything extremely memorable. There were a few Star Wars decorations on top of the buffet stations and the desserts were themed. Other than that, not much was going on. Strangely, my husband had walked through the area the night before and saw lots of Star Wars decorations up like they were getting ready for the next day. However, these weren’t there during the day and only some of them came back for the night buffet. Maybe it was just a trial run-through to see what they wanted?
I did hear that there was a Star Wars Superfan Contest in the adult club, but after staying up for the buffet, we were ready to call it a night.
A few things that didn’t happen or would have made the day better:
Before the cruise, it had been advertised that one of the adult clubs would turn into the Mos Eisley Cantina from Episode 4, but that never happened. This would have been really neat to see.
It was also advertised that “celebrities and insiders from the Star Wars galaxy will share their experiences, meet fans, and sign autographs.” There was nothing like this happening and this was something that we had really been looking forward to. With this addition, I may have felt more like this cruise was worth the price we paid.
Other than a photo-op backdrop in the atrium, which did remain up the whole cruise, there were no other decorations.
Before I wrap this up, here are a couple photos of the merchandise. We pre-ordered ours, but there seemed to plenty of everything once onboard, so pre-order isn’t really necessary unless you just want to save the hassle. There are exclusive pins for each sailing, so if you want to be sure to get those, you could add those to a pre-order.
Unfortunately, after actually experiencing the day, we were left feeling underwhelmed. By no means did we feel like Star Wars Day was a complete waste, but it was certainly less than we were expecting. This cruise was about 20% more expensive than it normally would have been at this time of year, a premium that I’m not sure the day warranted. With Disney Cruise Line, we expect the best quality and really felt like this fell short of what it could have been.
If you missed them, you can read Parts one and two of the series here!