Disney Treasure Honest Review + Tips

In the week we spent on the Disney Treasure, I had the chance to really explore the ship in depth and all the unique places to hang out in. I’m providing a review here that will include my uncensored, honest options on all the experiences on the ship, from restaurants, room service, to pools and the spas.

Until now, I thought that the Disney Wish was the most beautiful Disney Cruise Line ship, and it was.. until the Treasure came along. I believe that the Disney Treasure is the most beautiful of all the Disney Cruise Line ships – the amount of detail (and easter eggs, if you’re really looking) they’ve put into is very impressive and it added to the experience.

Disney Cruises can be crazy expensive sometimes, so its worth it to know the pros and cons and what you can get out of each ship. The Disney Treasure is a lot of fun, and we had a really fun 7-night sailing on it.

I’m going to show you what the Disney Treasure offers, and give my honest opinions and feedback that will help you plan your own fun vacation on this gorgeous ship. I will nitpick about any negatives, not to discourage you from going on the Treasure, but to give you my honest opinion; so you know what to expect. I’m not paid for this review; its based only on our experiences – as frequent Disney Cruisers, and paying customers.

The Atrium

You’ve likely seen photos of the Disney Treasure Atrium online, but it really doesn’t do justice to how beautiful it is when you can see it up close. It looks better in person than it does in photos, especially because they constantly alter the lighting for the ‘mood’ of whatever event is going on there.

The atrium is usually a relaxed place, but it is used for professional photo ops, concerts, dance parties and entertainment, and for special events such as the Royal Gathering (I’m reviewing the entertainment itself in a separate area below.) In the evening, photographers set up in front of the beautiful staircase and Jasmine and Aladdin statue to take your picture (you can of course take your own too.)

There’s more detail in the Atrium than what I could fit into the photos above – one thing we really liked was the Middle Eastern mosacis on all the pillers. They were a beautiful touch. It feels like the whole ship was really decorated and designed with care. There a lot of fine details in the Disney Treasure atrium that you can appreciate if you take the time to notice them.

Restaurants: Food and Drinks

1923

1923 – From what I read online, most people say that 1923 is their least favourite restaurant on all the DCL ships it exits on. But personally, it was both mine and my husband’s favourite restaurant. 1923 feels smaller than the other restaurants, and has more of a classic restaurant feel. We loved that we got a window seat, which only seemed possible for smaller groups.

Part of what we like about 1923 is that the restaurant is split off into smaller sections, so even though there’s a MASSIVE amount of people dining in there with you, it doesn’t feel like it. So for those who get overstimulated or overwhelmed easily, 1923 might be your kind of place.

Tip: 1923 serves a sit-down breakfast as well. Marceline Market is buffet style, but 1923 will have servers that take your order and bring you your food. Marceline Market can get crazy busy in the mornings, and we found that 1923 was a more chill, and relaxing breakfast.

Plaza de Coco

The Plaza de Coco restaurant is absolutely stunning. The way they’ve decorated this restaurant is so impressive, the hanging lights, the greenery in the ceiling, all the different colour painted chairs -its meant to remind you of a Mexican summer night, and it brought me back to the time I’ve spent in Mexico. There’s great live entertainment on stage, including a Day of the Dead show, which sing mostly in English, but some in Spanish too.

Plaza de Coco replaced Arendelle on the Disney Wish, and I’m surprised I’m saying this (I do have a Scandinavian background) but I liked Plaza de Coco a lot more. We loved the environment there and how they brought the colourful Mexican celebration spirit to light.

World of Marvel

World of Marvel is a asthetically really cool restaurant (you’ll feel like you just walked onto the set of Star Trek.) It can also be very loud in there, because of the entertainment – which is mostly done on large screens on the walls. There’s often a visitor after dinner though, so stick around for that. Marvel is really fun the first time you go, but after a while, (for me at least) it gets old. On a 7-night cruise, we ate here twice, plus I’d been to Marvel before on the Disney Wish. However, we enjoyed the food at Marvel and its definitely a unique dining experience.

Additional Places to Eat or Have a Drink on the Ship

As exciting as the above restaurants are, you aren’t limited to just them. There are several other places to get food (free and that cost extra) on the ship. This goes for all ships, but here are the specific other food and beverage services on the Disney Treasure specifically:

• Room service. We really enjoyed ordering room service. The menu was decent, I personally (as a vegetarian) loved their plant based chick’n sandwich, with sweet potato fries. We ordered room service breakfast and lunch, multiple times. The only thing to keep in mind about room service is that it isn’t usually automatic if you’re ordering at busy times (ie: lunch hour.) Sometimes we waited a couple minutes just to connect to someone, and then they’d tell us how long it would be for our order to come – usually 20-45 minutes, if its a busy time.

Pro Tip: All the room service ‘food’ is free, but its kind of an unwritten rule to tip the person bringing it to your stateroom. From everything I was told and read, $1 per item is customary. So if you order two coffees and two croissants, you should give them around $4. If you ordered a tray with two juices, two coffees, and a couple basked goods, its ok to do $5 for the entire meal.

• Marceline Market – Marceline Market is where you get your breakfasts, and lunches. There are other breakfast and lunch options (room service, and 1923 sit down breakfast) but Marceline Market is the standard breakfast place on the Treasure, the Wish and the Destiny. Its buffet style with servers helping you. There’s a mix of healthy and less healthy options. You could eat an extremely high vegetable and fruit intake here and probably lose weight on your cruise if you want to, but there’s tons of more indulgent stuff too, like waffles, pancakes, bagels, different flavours croissants. I started off the cruise eating really healthy, and it kind deteriorated as the cruise went on – but at least there are different options!
  
  Marceline Market gets busy pretty early, and is a little crowded. By 9am, its already full. Its usually not impossible to find a spot, but if you’re extra picky (like me, who always wants a window seat) then it can be frustrating. Just be patient, and remember that people don’t usually linger that long, so seats often open up.
  
• Jumbeaux Sweets (premium icecream) the icecream and the baked goods here cost extra, but the gelato was deliciou!. It was really good, and pretty much made me lose interest in the free soft serve offered on deck 11. My husband bought a small carrot cake, but said it was just average in taste – but still good. They had a couple vegan gelatos, but the rest were all dairy based.

• Premium Cafés (Hei Hei Cafe, Marceline Café and Jade Cricket Café ). My husband and I loved the convenience of being able to just be a hop, skip and a jump away from specialty coffee (this isn’t possible for us at home.) So we ended up buying specialty coffee each morning on the ship, after we tried it – we never went back to regular free coffee after that. lol. However, its well done – they imprint the froth with whatever Disney character you want – unless you specify, they will choose. my favourite drink was the beetroot oat latte – it came out a pink colour.

They gave us a stamp card for our 5th specialty coffee for free – be sure to ask about that if you’re going to order multiple coffees during the cruise.

• Periscope Pub. My husband and I loved Periscope Pub. It’s was a really nice place to duck away have have some one on one time, sans kids. Periscope pub is themed after scuba diving, and made to look like you’re in a submarine. It was calm and quiet most of the time (probably one of the more chill places on the ship); sometimes there are sporting games and events on TV, but not always. I loved the added detail of it looking like hammerhead sharks are swimming over the submarine – just another example of how much detail has been put into the Treasure.

The pretzel is really good. I liked their house wine, and my husband Eric ordered a the chicken wings and I ordered the vegan chicken bites. The plant based chicken were ok; I felt like they needed a sauce. Good that they had the option though. My husband LOVED the chicken wings.

All of the food in Periscope Pub is an extra charge, as are the drinks – you can see prices for food above.

• Haunted Mansion Parlour. The Haunted Mansion is the most anticipated places on the Disney Treasure, so it can get busy in there. But we went in, and it was so worth it! I found everything they did in there so creative and detailed. They clearly put a lot of thought into all the ‘spooky’ elements they could think of. The staff is there was really kind, and gave us light-up icecubes to take home (the ones in our drink which you always get to take home, plus he gave us extra.)

• Fast food on Deck 11 (Mickey and Friends Festival of Food, Donald’s Cantina, etc. Goofy’s is the most popular, because its where you get your burgers, fries and hot dogs that everyone’s craving. I really liked Donald’s Cantina, they had delicious burritos, and bowls. Minnie’s softserve is always a great treat!
  
• Food/gifts delivered to stateroom on embarkation day. This is seperate from room service because there are special treats (and souvenir items) that you can only have delivered to your room on embarkation day. I ordered the fruit platter, and a case of 6 water bottles.

Pools

The layout of the pools on the Disney Treasure is identical to the Disney Wish. So if you’ve sailed on the Wish, its exactly the same.

If you know anything about the different ‘stages’ of Disney Cruise ships, you know that the ships get bigger and bigger, but that doesn’t always equal more pool space. The pools on the Treasure are kinda small, and they can get pretty crazy at busy times (afternoons on ‘at sea’ days are the busiest.)

However, my youngest child loved the pools on the Treasure and wanted to go to them at least twice a day. The crowds in them didn’t bother her. Also, them being so shallow was perfect for her, because she normally needs a lifejacket, but here she didn’t need one.

They take 10 minute ‘breaks.’ Everyone cleared out and didnt immediately come back in after the break. So it helped with crowds.

Want a quieter pool? Chip and Dales pool is the calmest of all the pools on the Disney Treasure, and doesn’t usually get busy. The reason it doesn’t get busy is that its on deck 13, the highest point in the ship. It can be windier there than other decks. My 4 year old didn’t like the Chip and Dales pool as much, because there’s no screen up there (Mickys pool and the others are all on deck 11 with the big screen.)

Entertainment and Activities

The entertainment on the Disney Treasure was fantastic. There was a huge variety of it (concerts, Broadway-style products, movie theatres, games, crafts, kereoke,etc.) The amount of very talented entertainers, especially ones who can play Disney characters, is part of why I think Disney Cruises are so expensive.

Here’s a breakdown of the different kinds of entertainment they had and what our thoughts were:

Disney characters (for meet and greets, photos, dance parties, and character dances) This goes for any Disney Cruise, as well as probably Disney Parks, but I’m amazed at the quality of the actors playing the different characters, how they take on their mannerisms, and even sign their signatures in that character’s style. Disney Treasure had a character dance party, which my younger daughter loved.

Trivia games – They were lots of fun, my older daughter went to them often, and occasionally we all went together. I like how there were different types of trivia, and not all necessarily Disney themed. It was never the same thing over again. They had ones on 80s music, 90s music, etc. They are pretty hard to win, but I think you should go in the spirit of just having fun. They provide free plastic medals to those who win. (The medals look similar to the medal you get if you run the Castaway Cay 5k on Castaway Cay.)

Learn to Draw classes- My older daughter and I absolutely loved the Learn to Draw classes on the Disney Treasure, and we went to several of them. They’re held in the Triton Lounge and in the Skipper Society. They’re facilitated by a cast member, but also have a pre-recorded video component where a real Disney animator teaches you how to draw the characters. It gives you a real appreciation for everything that goes into bringing these characters to life.

I liked how the Learn to Draw classes had a really supportive environment; both the staff member and the Disney animator in the video encouraged a growth mindset, practice and the fact that anyone can be a better drawer if they want to!

Crafts – there were crafts offered every day, and we went to several of them. I was amazed that it was never the same craft twice. Everything you make is pretty lightweight and easy to pack in your luggage. Doing the crafts was a fun way to spend time together as a family, and we used them to decorate our stateroom door and inside of the stateroom as well

Karaoke – Karaoke was held in the evenings; they had some for all ages, and some for 18+. I attended a few of the all ages ones with my older daughter, and she went on her own sometimes too. It was a really fun and positive experience. The cast member who ran the karaoke was very welcoming and inclusive to all singing levels; encouraing us to always cheer people on when they were singing. It was not a talent contest at all; just fun. I highly recommend the karaoke!

Adventure Tea with Royalty is an exclusive show that replaced Olaf’s Royal Picnic on the Disney Wish. It costs extra because its a private show that they only do once, and it includes some food, plus some extra interaction with some characters. I didn’t go to the Adventure Tea, but I noticed that it seemed that it wasn’t nearly as popular as Olaf’s Royal Picnic. Olaf’s Royal Picnic is known to fill up fast, but Adventure Tea with Royalty still had spots available even the day up to our cruise starting.

The Broadway Style shows (Aladdin, Moana and Seas) I only went to the first two, and they were spectacular. If you’ve seen any other of these shows on other Disney Cruies, then you know what to expect in terms of quality.

Pro Tip:The lineups for these Broadway shows, sadly, could get long pretty fast. I got there 1 hour and 15 minutes ahead of time but wasn’t even the first person there. I’d say for a decent seat, line up an hour before. Matinee shows have less competition for good seats than the evening shows.

Our Stateroom – Deck 7

We had a deluxe verandah oceanview stateoom (#7074) and we loved it. The extra few feet of floor space beside the ‘couch/bunk bed’ was nice to have, especially for a family of four (including a teenager, so more or less three adults.) The room can fit up to five people.

Deck 7 is a good deck to be on, because it was close enough to Decks 5 and 6 (spa, fitness centre, restaurants) to walk, but not far from deck 11 or deck 3 and 4 which is where the atrium/pools/other restaurants are.

In addition, stateroom 7074 on the Treasure is in the part of the ship that curves out – this meant slightly more verandah space than other rooms. If you see this stateroom available, I recommend grabbing it! It’s a great room. The view of Agrabah from Aladdin was stunning and beautiful to look at.

I do wish the verandahs on DCL had enough chairs for each family member. Only two chairs were out, and I’m not sure if it’s possible to request more.

Staff

The staff on the Disney Treasure was amazing. I dont think I encountered anyone who seemed anything less than happy to be doing their job. They’re very kind, and will help you however they can (within reason, obviously.) I found out from chatting to them that they work 7 days per week long contracted months – and you can’t tell at all that they have so few breaks!

One thing that really stood out to me about the staff was how special they treated everyone, even though they see thousands of people every day. When my daughter had her Bibidi Bobidi Boutique appointment, there were so many staff members who stopped and looked in awe of her and said “Wow! A princess?” They must see little girls dressed up from Bibidi Bobidi Boutique every day, yet they still took the time to make her feel special.

Our dining team were amazing – we had Juan and Venetia, from Peru and the UK.

Pro Tip: One of my Disney Cruise tips is to keep an eye on nametags for people who help make your vacation extra magical. You will be asked for names of anyone who went out of their way on the survey at the end of the cruise. Mentioning them by name helps them a lot; it can lead to extra paid days off work, bonuses and extra incentives. I think making sure they get recognized helps keep the customer service strong.

Senses Spa and Rainforest Room

I did not get any spa services, other than the Rainforest Pas. However, getting the rainforest pass allows you to use the changerooms within the spa.

Senses spa offers complimentary oranges and bananas, as well as tea and coffee, and fresh water are offered to guests – in the guest waiting area, and in the outdoor lounge area of the Rainforest Lounge.

The changerooms are nice, and they have a steamroom inside them that you can use before or after your appointment. What I didn’t like is that I couldn’t find a free locker – literally every single one was full. So I just kept my bag with me in the Rainforest Room.

Is the Rainforest Room pass worth it?

The Rainforest room on the Disney Treasure isn’t the best, compared to other Disney cruise ships, from what I’ve read online. However, I personally have nothing to compare it to because I haven’t used the rainforest rooms on other ships.

It was nice to have daily access to a sauna, which isn’t something you can find anywhere else on the ship. The outdoor lounge area was nice; lots of comfy places to sit (they could fill up, but I always found a spot.) I noticed that the staff at Senses Spa were often trying to ‘upsell’ the Rainforest room to other guests, as they didn’t sell out on our sailing. I felt like the rainforest room was full enough as it was and having much more traffic in there would have been just too many people.

One thing I like though, is that it seemed to have a culture of quiet. It was peaceful and quiet in there, compared to anywhere else on the ship. I liked that I could just veg out, enjoy some peace and quiet.

One complaint most people have about the Disney Treasure rainforest room is that this outdoor lounge area closes at 6pm. So after 6pm, you can only access the indoor area, which to be honest, is quite small.

We bought a week-long pass to the Rainforest room, which cost us over $300 per person. This I admit, is a lot. Do I think it was worth it? Yes and no. No, because that’s quite a lot to pay for what it was. We realized that if we used it every day, then it would be about $50 per visit, which isn’t bad. As it turned out, our excursions in Cozumel and Caymen Islands were cancelled due to windy weather conditions, which ended up saving us a lot of money and freed up some time, so this gave us more time to use and appreciate the Rainforest room.

Being able to just walk to a place where I can use a sauna was a nice novelty for me; this isnt something that I can easily do at home, and part of what I like about being on cruise ships. If money isn’t an issue at all, then book the pass.

Kids Clubs: Oceaneer’s Club, and Edge

We used two of the kids clubs on the Disney Treasre – the Oceaneer’s Club for ages 3-10, and Edge, for ages 11-14. We found the staff at the Oceaneer’s Club to be very friendly, and great with the kids.

The 3-4 year olds are kept in a group with youth workers; older kids can stay with them as well, but aren’t required to – whereas 3 and 4 year olds must stay in the group.

My youngest daughter (4 years old enjoyed the Oceaneer’s Club.) I’ll be honest, she didn’t always want to go, so we had to basically bribe her to go once a day so that we could get a bit of a break. But when she was there, she ended up having fun and never asked to leave.

Part of what I loved about the Oceaneer’s Club is it isn’t just daycare. They run fun events and parties throughout the day – craft sessions, dance parties, visits from characters, etc. So we’d say to our daughter “do you want to go to the Captain Minne event, or the bubble dance party”? and then she’d look forward to going to something like that.

My 13 year old didn’t love her experience at Edge. Based on our family visit there at the open house on embarkation day when we went in there to register her, I felt like the staff wasn’t super friendly, or welcoming. I know that they’re dealing with older kids but I feel like they could have been a bit more friendly. They didn’t seem like they were excited to be there. My daughter also shared that whenever she went there, it felt like it was mostly pre-teens on screens, and staff doing their own thing. So, it wasn’t her favourite place to hang out.

Luckily, there’s so much to do on the ship, that my 13 year old was never bored. She spend most of her time going to the crafts, Learn to Draw and karaoke. She loved the cruise and hopes we go on another one soon.

Bibidi Bobidi Boutique

We decided to do Bibidi Bobidi Boutique for the first time on the Disney Treasure. My younger daughter is 4 years old and couldn’t wait to get dolled up like a Princess.

I have to say it was a wonderful experience, and it matched up our expectations. We were actually the only ones booked for that time slot, so my daughter had the salon to herself. The ‘fairy Godmother’ was so kind to her. The salon is really pretty and feels special to just be in there.

You select the package for Bibidi Bobidi you want when you show up. But you need to book the actual appointment under My Reservations tab.

Pro Tip: I’d heard that you could save a lot of money on Bibidi Bobidi Boutique if you bring your own dress, so we did that. By bringing our own dress, we were able to choose the Fairytale package ($119.99 USD) which includes hair style, hair pieces, makeup, hair sparkles, nail polish, and a pink Bibidi Bobidi Boutique T-shirt.

I didn’t feel like not choosing a dress there took away from the experience at all. Based on how fun the experience was, I regret not doing it with my daughter(s) earlier.

To Sum it Up: My Honest Opinion on the Disney Treasure

The Disney Treasure was my third Disney Cruise, and so far, I think its my favourite ship of all of them. The newer ‘Wish’ class ships have a different vibe from the older ships, but in some way, the Treasure makes us not want to go on any other ship again.

The Treasure and the Wish are almost excactly the same ship, but I prefer the Treasure a little more because of:

• Plaza de Coco
• Haunted Mansion Parlour
• Periscope Pub

The Wish, the Treasure are basically the same ship, but because of those three options above, I like the Treasure a little bit better. If you’re curious about which of the Disney cruise ships would suit you best, check out my post on the best Disney cruise ship for you.