Just got off the 7 night Eastern on the Destiny
Just got off the Destiny on the 7 night Eastern Caribbean itinerary with stops at Lookout, San Juan, and St. Maarten. This was our 8th cruise, first on the Destiny.
Couple of things we liked, and a few we didn’t.
This was by far our favorite itinerary we’ve ever done. Lookout was beautiful (we actually prefer it over Castaway), and San Juan and St. Maarten were both incredible port days. Highly recommend both ports if you can find either of these — both are rare ports for DCL to call on, though San Juan shows up on a few of the Eastern and Southern Caribbean sailings. The Destiny is actually sailing this itinerary again in mid December and again in early 2027. In San Juan we did a Viator car tour which was easy and nice, and we just grabbed a water taxi to the main beach on the St. Maarten day. Both ports are pretty good ones for multigenerational families with kids and older parents.
Honestly, we didn’t care for the Destiny’s theming at all. In fact, it’s our least favorite atrium/grand hall of the 5 ships we’ve sailed on…by far. Between the Vibranium chandelier which looks plastic, the wallpaper around the awnings of the 4th and 5th decks, the blank walls and minimalist furniture, the whole area just felt overly bland and sterile. It just doesn’t feel like a Disney Cruise ship lobby at all. The stage is basically one giant white wall. It feels like a huge step down from the Treasure (and Wish, for that matter), which has all sorts of textures, plants, tile mosaics, vibrant colors, a beautiful chandelier, and tells a story.
DeVil’s is a great pub, probably our favorite on the Wish class in that location just off the Grand Hall, and our favorite DCL lounge after the Haunted Mansion Parlor.
Frozen was a great show, and the advanced theater tech of the newer ships uplevels the experience from the older ships. We didn’t catch Hercules, though we heard mixed reviews. We also got to see Toy Story 5 in the Walt Disney Theater, which was cool.
The staterooms (theming aside), pool deck, shops, and general amenities are all effectively the same as they are on the Wish and Treasure. Nothing really to note that is better, worse, or different.
In terms of MDRs, it has the standard 1923 and Worlds of Marvel that are on every Wish class ship. We didn’t particularly like the Pride Lands restaurant. IMO, this feels like a bit of a miss by DCL in terms of theming and cuisine, especially compared to Coco or even Arendelle. It’s not really a retelling of the Lion King nor does it have the characters (as do Frozen and Coco), and the food wasn’t very good (again, IMO).
Our main dining team was the best we’ve had in 8 cruises. Shoutout to Sheldon and Lin, who were both fantastic. We hardly ever saw our head server which was somewhat odd, but we didn’t really care.
Our stateroom attendant was far and away the worst we’ve ever had. Every other one we’ve had on 7 prior sailings has been great. We hardly ever saw or interacted with him, he barely cleaned the room, and never even put up the pull down bunk beds or sofa in the mornings, and never put out the bunk ladder, which I kept having to pull out of the closet at night. We just laughed it off. Mid-cruise we found out he was leaving the ship after only having been onboard for a month, so it’s probably one of those “it didn’t work out” situations.
Our daughter has somewhat aged out of Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, so we did the Untangled Salon instead. She did a wash and curl and absolutely loved it. My son got a haircut in Hook’s Barbery, and they do a great job for a good price for kids cuts. Highly recommend both.
Palo dinner was great as always. The Osso Bucco is 👌🏼. We weren’t able to nab a brunch because we booked late.
Maybe it’s just me, but something we found odd was that there were almost no trash cans anywhere in the main areas of the ship on decks 3-5. It’s so unlike the rest of the ships where there are trash cans in every corner and fairly ubiquitous. We found ourselves having to walk long ways or go to a bathroom to throw a coffee cup or bits of trash away. Just a weird choice, or almost like they forgot to put them around. Felt like twice a day I was wondering around decks 3-5 muttering “WTF where are the friggin trash cans??”
Apparently our cruise was somewhat notorious for the number of unruly teenagers, and there have been several posts on here and on the Facebook group of people saying they’ve never experienced anything like
this. My son did witness a fist fight between some Edge and Vibe kids in Hero Zone that became a big deal onboard, and there were tons of reports of bullying and issues in the tween and teen clubs. It’s worth noting that it did seem like the kids on this sailing skewed much older, especially compared to our previous cruises. We never had a line to check our daughter into or out of Oceaneer’s Club, and she said there just weren’t many kids in there at all.
At the end of the day, we loved the itinerary but didn’t really care for the Destiny. We most likely won’t book this ship again unless there’s another great itinerary similar to this one.