Robert Downey Jr. is officially the Godparent of Disney’s newest ship, Disney Adventure. Disney Adventure will sail year-round from Singapore. The ship is designed to cater to Asian audiences, and was originally constructed for as the Global Dream for Genting Hong Kong before COVID forced Genting Hong Kong out of business in 2022. The failure of the cruise line forced the shipyard into bankruptcy after being left with an 60-80% complete ship and no cruise line to take it. The ship was originally expected to be scrapped before Disney Cruises bought the unfinished ship in 2022 for €40 million, far below its valuation of €1 billion. Disney spent 3 years redesigning and rebuilding the ship, including lowering the passenger capacity from 9,000 to a more reasonable (/s) 6,700 with a crew of 2,300. The Global Dream/Disney Adventure’s partly built sister ship was scrapped.
The Disney Adventure will begin with 3 and 4 night cruises to nowhere and be based in Singapore exclusively for 5 years, because the ship is the destination (unlike ships leaving the United States, ships leaving Singapore are not subject to rules that mean foreign flagged ships must stop in a foreign port first before returning to port – that’s why Alaska cruises from Seattle often stop for 3 hours at night in Victoria, BC – the Jones Act is a conversation for another day, but note there is only ONE American-flagged ocean-going cruise ship that only sails in Alaska and is not very profitable for Norwegian, and cost far more than expected to build because it began construction in Mississippi before being towed to Germany).
On the way to Singapore, the ship stopped in Florida, where the crew received training, and the media received sneak peeks of the ship, and then traveled through the Panama Canal, to Los Angeles and Tokyo, and on to Singapore.
The Disney Adventure has the longest roller coaster at sea, and Disney’s first castle on a ship. Disney is also the most expensive family-friendly cruise line. Disney Adventure is over twice as large as Disney’s first ships, the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder, and carries 3x as many passengers. The Disney Adventure is also the first cruise ship to have four funnels, and the first ocean-going passenger ship with four funnels since the RMS Aquitania, built in 1914. The Disney Adventure is the 11th largest cruise ship ever built, and the largest ever constructed in Germany (the 10 larger ships were constructed in either Turku, Finland, or Saint-Nazaire, France – it will soon fall to the 12th largest once Royal Caribbean’s Legend of the Seas (which will cost RCCL over €2.33 billion) finishes construction in Finland in a few months, and it will fall even further quickly as Royal Caribbean, MSC, and Carnival compete to build even bigger ships. By 2032, it will probably have fallen below 20th place BUT will remain in the top 10 for passenger capacity.
Here is an artist’s rendering of the ship’s initial design when it was built to cater to primarily Chinese tourists, complete with AI and robot assistants.
Here is a tour of the actual Disney Adventure, with unique areas including San Fransokyo and a Jungle Book-themed restaurant built specifically for Asian guests. The castle is three decks tall at the center of the ship. The ship was also built for multi-generational family groups, so young children through seniors all have activities catering to their diverse interests.
Here are some clips from shore of the Disney Adventure and other ships passing by for scale, including the world’s largest ship, Star of the Seas (which will hold the title for 3 more months). Also featured is the Disney Fantasy blowing its horns at its sister ship for the first time; the two ships will not meet again for several years (this is tradition – I was on the Norwegian Pearl for its first encounter with the Norwegian Viva, and there were lots of horns as the Viva left, except Disney ships have musical horns and not just angry BRMMM BRMMM BRMMM).
Have you ever been on a cruise? And I know a lot of ONTD has environmental impact concerns – as do I – but I will highlight that the Disney Adventure uses cleaner biofuels (including fuels made from vegetable oil) and not bunker fuel like the vast majority of other cruise ships. Everyone has their weird interests, and mine is ships.
