Yesterday we reported that select sailings on the Disney Dream would be shifting dates. Today we are reporting that the sailings in late October 2014 through the end of 2014 on the Disney Magic will be switching to the Disney Wonder. This is because the Disney Magic will be moving to Port Canaveral. The Disney Wonder schedule previously was not released so this will not be affected.
So what does this all mean? Here is my speculation:
The Disney Dream already was going to switch sailings from Thursdays and Sundays to Fridays and Mondays around Thanksgiving time. They are now doing that sooner in October. From that point on the Dream will be sailing on Fridays and Mondays. It was indicated that this change is happening because the Disney Magic is moving to Port Canaveral.
We have the Disney Fantasy sailing on Saturdays. Disney Dream will sail on Fridays and Mondays. That leaves the remaining days of the week open for the Disney Magic to sail. I’m guessing that the Disney Magic will sail on Sundays with Western Caribbean sailings. Right now the Disney Fantasy’s last Western Caribbean sailing is scheduled for November 8.
I think the Disney Wonder will be going into dry dock in October. The dry dock would be shorter than the Disney Magic’s dry dock. I don’t think it will be for as long as the Disney Magic will be. There are only 21 days between the Disney Wonder sailing that returns on October 10 and the next sailing on October 22. The 2 night sailing on October 20 has been canceled and not replaced, but the October 22 sailing has been replaced. With three weeks they either won’t do as much or they figure they’ll have it figured out how to do it quicker as the Magic will take 6 weeks.
Additionally, we have heard in the past that the Magic was too top heavy to put Outlook Cafe on it or an AquaDuck. With the dry dock this fall, they are extending the length of the ship, presumably to allow them to add more weight to the top of the ship. They may also be doing something with the materials on the top of the ship to lighten it up. The Wonder doesn’t need these things to be done so it is possible that they won’t need to have as long of a dry dock.
I doubt that we will hear about a dry dock on the Wonder or the Dream before the new Disney Magic itineraries come out. We know that modifications can be made to the existing sailings next Tuesday and Wednesday, however, we have no idea if the new sailings on the Disney Magic will be available then. Stay tuned!
I’m puzzled about the inability to add the features of the Wonder to the Magic without extending the length of the ship. The ship’s are said to be mirror images of each other (same length, width, tonnage, number of decks, and number of accommodations for both passengers and crew/CMs. Why wouldn’t it be able to contain the expanded Cove Café, for instance.
And I understand that if the ships are lengthened, they may not fit into the locks of the Panama Canal (until that renovation is completed) so no more West Coast and/or Alaska cruises?
The materials used to build the Wonder were much lighter than the Magic. We have heard this from numerous officers on the ships.
The gross tonnage is not a weight measurement so we cannot say that the two ships weigh the same. Gross tonnage is calculated from the total enclosed volume of the ship. This is the amount of space that is enclosed on a ship goes into the calculation for gross tonnage. The actual weight of the ships isn’t something disclosed.