While Disney Wish arrived Monday to Port Canaveral amid celebratory fanfare, plans to get the cruise ship in shape this week have not gone as originally planned.
Disney Cruise Line confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel on Wednesday that two test cruises planned for a limited number of Disney employees and their families this week were pulled to focus on preparations for next week’s christening event on June 29.
That ceremony, still scheduled as planned, is slated to be followed by a three-night news media preview sailing, the first with any significant number of people on board. After its return, the line will have nearly two weeks before it welcomes a full ship of paying customers.
“We are in our pre-launch period for the Disney Wish and continue to complete finishing touches, as well as test and adjust various components of the ship in advance of our maiden voyage on July 14,” according to an unsigned Disney Cruise Line statement emailed to the Sentinel.
Cruise lines often build in time for shakedown voyages with employees designed to prep crew for sailing with regular customers as well as non-revenue trips for media and travel agents ahead of bookable voyages. Disney removed the two three-night sailings for cast members planned for June 21 and June 24.
Despite not sailing with passengers, the ship did depart Port Canaveral on Tuesday and docked at Castaway Cay on Wednesday, according to ship tracker cruisemapper.com.
The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed it is continuing the required inspections done when a ship first arrives to the U.S., as the Wish did this week.
The Coast Guard’s Port State Control program administers ship inspection laws “to promote safe, well equipped ships that are suitable for their intended service,” said Petty Officer 1st Class David Micallef, the Coast Guard District 7 public affairs specialist. That includes inspections “of sufficient breadth and depth to validate that a ship’s major systems comply with applicable international standards and domestic requirements, and to ensure that the crew can safely operate the ship with sufficient proficiency.”
Micallef would not share any initial results of the inspections, saying “the examination process is ongoing.”
The ship is not under any sort of COVID-19 warning, as it’s not listed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 dashboard for tracking cases on board.
The new ship is the first of three in a new Trident class of vessels, and will sail on three- and four-night Bahamas itineraries year-round from Port Canaveral.
The ship had seen several delays during its construction since 2000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally it was to have made its Florida debut by January, which was then pushed to June.
The omicron variant explosion last fall forced Disney to cancel six weeks of planned sailings, but it has this spring remained on schedule for its official debut next month.
