Hey Mickey On a Disney cruise, it’s Mickey, Mickey everywhere

Even before we left dock in Miami, I started to get the feeling that our “4-Night Bahamian Cruise” on the Disney Magic was not going to go as smoothly as I had expected.

The self-serve, soft-serve machines near Goofy’s Pool had run out of ice cream.

I asked a uniformed crew member when we could expect the machines to be refilled. Slightly alarmed, she told me she would look into it. While sipping a horribly cloying margarita, I broke the bad news to Anna, my 5 1/2-year-old daughter. We soon headed to our gathering spot for the prelaunch shipwide safety drill — ours was inside the Animator’s Palate, one of five restaurants on the ship. After that, it was back to our stateroom, on Deck 6 of 11, to order room service and watch one of the half-dozen or so channels entirely devoted to Disney-owned content.

A confession: I have been a travel editor for nearly a decade, and yet this was my first cruise. I also haven’t been to a Disney property since my age was in the single digits. Neither thing, frankly, had ever seemed like my bag, but with my wife, Nancy, and I beaten down by a stretch of brutally cold weather in New York, and Anna increasingly Disney-obsessed, the time felt … if not right, then inevitable.

A lot of people go on these cruises every year — a Disney spokeswoman wouldn’t tell me how many, but given the fleet has four large ships (and three more on the nautical horizon) with more than 250 total launches per year, a number in the hundreds of thousands is a fair estimate — including plenty of repeat customers (members of the Castaway Club, in Disney parlance). What was I missing? To try to find out, I paid $2,862.79 (for two adults and a child, as well as a “vacation protection plan,” taxes, fees and port expenses; we would end up spending another $1,500 for booze, onboard incidentals and activities) and booked the trip.

After a night in Miami, we headed to board the ship — although before we could, we had to sign a paper indicating that no one in our party was ailing. We waited on the serpentine line to register and get our cruise cards (they serve as both ID and credit card while on board) and, for Anna, a wristband that she had to wear at all times. Then we took a family photo in front of a sailing-themed Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and boarded the ship, along with more than 2,500 other cruisers.

DAYS 1 AND 2

My relationship with Disney has always been a little fraught. I adore the movies. With Pixar, Marvel and the Muppets now under the Disney umbrella, I could probably list two dozen of them that we as a family love and watch regularly. But the company’s ubiquity can also be unnerving. And that’s just in general culture; once you board the ship, it is — fairly, I suppose — all Disney all the time.

Activities were legion. I had signed up for some in advance. (Tip: Register your children in advance at the Disney Cruise website — many events book up quickly. And download the Disney Cruise app before you leave — it’s how you will communicate with family members.) Other activities were noted on a daily schedule dropped off at our Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom With Verandah. It was all dizzying.

We could have gone ashore to Key West, our first stop. I couldn’t persuade Anna to join me, so I went solo. It turned out Anna had made the right call: It was sunny but cool and very windy; fellow passengers shivered down touristy Duval Street buying their T-shirted kids oversize sweatshirts.

I had signed Nancy and myself up for a couples massage later that afternoon — hey, we deserved a break even on Day 1, OK? — so we dropped Anna off at the Oceaneer Club and headed up to Senses Spa & Salon. The massage, given by two Serbian women (their nationalities, as with all crew members, were noted on their name tags), was a good one, if pricey ($170 per person). We passed on the products they had used during the massage, which were for sale. Almost every activity, it would turn out, ended with a gentle upsell.

It was time for dinner. There are two seatings nightly, and you are directed to one of four restaurants around the ship, the idea being that you get to try each one. Tonight was Carioca’s, supposedly Brazilian-themed, although I couldn’t quite figure out in what way. We were seated with a couple from Miami, whose daughter was about Anna’s age. The food was fine, but the service was stellar, as it was everywhere on the ship. I can’t say that I was thrilled that my daughter was constantly being called “Princess,” but each crew member seemed genuinely enthusiastic and pleased to be on the ship, down to the person passing out sanitizing wipes to every passenger entering a restaurant. (Hygiene is, understandably, a huge deal on the ship. In addition to the wipes, the kid centers have devices that might best be described as washing machines for hands.)

Our servers at Carioca’s at dinner were from Thailand and Scotland and introduced themselves as such, as all crew members did. (There are 950 in total, of 80 nationalities, for an astounding customer-to-crew ratio of less than 3-to-1.) I found all of this charming and touching.

DAY 3

What to wear to the Pirate Night party? Ah, complimentary “Pirates of the Caribbean”-branded bandannas that had been dropped off in our room. Anna, however, was insisting on the $60 girl pirate outfit on sale at the White Caps retail shop. What about the $30 accompanying hat? Nope, sorry kiddo. (By end of day, she had gotten both the outfit and the hat.)

But first, up early for the 8:45 “Frozen Gathering” at the Animator’s Palate restaurant. I’m not sure what I expected, but here’s what we got: a shortish line for a photo-op with Elsa, Anna and Olaf. Our daughter was feeling especially shy — despite having talked for weeks about meeting the princesses — so Nancy and I took the photo, and I gave Olaf a hug.

We soon went ashore to Nassau, our Bahamian port of call for the day. The weather had improved, but we failed to stray from the dock-adjacent blocks filled with restaurants (we chose one more or less at random and chose badly), knickknack shops and hair braiders. Immersive travel it was not. We did, though, go on a glass-bottom boat ride, past homes owned, according to our chatty and charming guide, by Tom Cruise, Michael Jordan and plenty of other multimillionaires. We saw brightly colored fish and got a free keychain.

We headed to our pre-Pirate night dinner. But wait, everyone was already in costume. Had we missed a memo? And where did all these adults get their costumes? (They probably brought them, and many had packed special costumes for their kids.) We went to dinner, but Anna — perhaps freaked out by all of the costumed passengers — had a fit of nerves. It took us a while, but we persuaded her to go to dinner, then head back to the room to get dressed.

Because we had been late for dinner, we ended up late to the party, on Deck 10; a stage was set up in front of the pool, which was covered by a wooden dance floor. That means we didn’t get a great view of the show, but Anna was delighted nonetheless. Various Disney characters took the stage, alongside pirate performers constantly hyping up the crowd. There was a lot of dancing to pop tunes (“Uptown Funk,” “I Gotta Feeling”) and a nominal plot about Captain Hook taking over the stage with, for some reason, a bunch of passengers playing air guitar. Mickey saved the day by flying in on a zip line and got the party back on track. There were fireworks.

Mickey, it should be said, was everywhere, which I found sort of sweet — in an age of princesses, the nonagenarian mouse has still got it: He was branded on the giant smokestacks that top the ship and on the toiletries in our tiny bathroom. Three blobs of ketchup poured on Anna’s plate at dinner took the form of his head. I half-expected to come across coral in that shape when I went snorkeling the next day at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private Bahamian island.

DAY 4

Our last full day on the Magic was our most promising. It was Castaway Cay day — a full day to spend on Disney’s private island. We had bought a package that included snorkeling gear, bike rentals and a big floatie ring for our daughter.

But I had also booked something in advance: an appointment for Anna at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for a $200 princess makeover — at 11:15, right in the middle of our day meant to be spent off the ship. And afterward, she’d be covered in princess … stuff. Perfect for sun and swimming!

I met Anna and Nancy at the boutique. Anna had chosen Ariel as her makeover of choice. Although Anna’s “fairy godmother” (the British woman who would do her hair and makeup) urged her to allow the “king” to stay, I was banished. After a while, we all met up; Anna was in her dress, her hair done up in a (fake) bun, tiara and sparkles, makeup on her face, wielding a light-up wand. She was utterly delighted, and I was delighted with her delight.

After some time walking around the ship with Anna, Nancy gently suggested we head down to the beach. “The problem with being a princess,” Nancy began to say, but Anna finished her sentence: “Is that you can’t do anything!” Like, say, swimming in crystal-clear Bahamian waters.

So, Anna’s dress and makeup removed, we headed to Castaway Cay, where we had lunch and camped out on the immaculate beach. I picked up our snorkel gear and floatie — and a frozen margarita at Conched Out Bar, steps from the beach. While we splashed around in the shallow bay water, vivid blue fish swam right up to us, as if they, too, had gone through Disney staff training. I went snorkeling, where I saw more fish — so plentiful and friendly that a thought flashed through my mind: Did Disney stock the area with sea life? I shook off the idea and headed back to pick up Anna. Nancy went on a relaxing bike ride, and we all met up back at the tram station and reboarded.

After dinner, Nancy and I took a brief but romantic walk around the promenade deck and stared off into the blackness of a vast ocean, interrupted only by another cruise ship that glowed miles off in the distance. I thought about the people on that ship, and the ones on the decks below us. I wondered if they were starting to have a good time too.