Disney Cruise reveals details about upcoming ships

At D23 2024, Disney announced that four new ships will be joining the Disney Cruise Line, bringing the fleet size to 13 by 2031. This includes the one that will be running in Japan, the ship that will be part of the Oriental Land Co., which owns and operates Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea.  

If you're booked on a Disney cruise for the first time, or are thinking of going on one, here are some things I wish I knew before going on a Disney cruise - to give you an idea of what to expect.

What’s D23?

By the way, if you haven’t heard of D23, it’s the official fan club of The Walt Disney Company. Every two years, there is an event called D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, where there are showcases, experiences and presentations. Exciting announcements such as upcoming TV shows, movies, and theme park developments are usually announced at these events. Here’s more about the last event in 2024. 

It’s usually held at Anaheim, California, but there are destination events that are held at other locations. Often, this just means it’s held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. But there have also been events held in Brazil and Tokyo. 

Growing Disney Cruise fleet 

As of January 2025, Disney Cruise Line operates six ships, with the latest Disney Treasure having started sailing in November 2024. 

Of the four new upcoming ships, one will be of the same class as the newest ships in the fleet - the Wish class. Currently, the Disney Wish, Disney Treasure, and Disney Destiny are part of this class. The new ship is scheduled to be ready in 2027. The ships in this class have capacity for 4,000 passengers.

Smaller ships 

Disney Cruise Line also revealed that three new ships will be ready in 2029, 2030, and 2031. They haven’t announced what class these ships will be, but with a capacity of 3,000 passengers each, these three ships will be smaller than the Wish class. 

While these new ships still won’t be as small as the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder (both with a capacity of 2,700 passengers each), it’s interesting that Disney Cruise Line is steering towards smaller ship capacities. 

With these smaller ships, it seems like Disney Cruise Line is enabling itself to operate from destinations that only allow smaller cruise ships. It’ll be interesting to see what new ports Disney cruises will be sailing from. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what else they announce. 

Personally, I do enjoy smaller cruise ships as this means not having to squeeze and share spaces with large crowds. I can’t imagine how crowded the Disney Adventure will be, especially the dining areas during meal times, and the theatres during the shows! The Disney Adventure is going to be the largest ship in the Disney Cruise fleet, with a capacity of 6,000 passengers -  yikes! 

New ships this year

For 2025, we can look forward to the launch of the Disney Destiny in November, and the Disney Adventure in December. 

Living in Singapore, it’s pretty challenging to go on Disney cruises given we have to fly quite a distance to get one. The nearest Disney cruise sails from Melbourne or Sydney in Australia. And having flown all the way there, we’d want to go on the cruise that’s at least four nights. Counting the flight days, it does add up and we do have limited annual leave days. 

But that’s why we’re excited for the Disney Adventure sailing from Singapore (despite the anticipated crazy crowds)! If people wanted to, they can even return to shore on the morning of the last day and head straight to work, saving one day of leave! Yes, sounds crazy but we’ve seen it before on other cruises! Where a guy was wearing office clothes at the breakfast buffet. Pretty sure he was going to head straight to the office from the cruise.