Inside Disney Cruise Line Expansion Plans

On a cool November evening in New York City, a swarm of hundreds of drones gracefully buzzed over the Hudson River, taking shape above a darkened ship floating in the water.

What followed was a veritable procession of Walt Disney Co. intellectual property, paired with music from Disney classics. The drones formed one character or scene after another, including the genie from Aladdin, Madame Leota from The Haunted Mansion, and Dante from Coco.

Finally, as Moana’s “How Far I’ll Go” played over the sound system, the drones formed the Heart of Te Fiti over the ship, and the vessel’s lights flickered on. In a grand finale, the drones formed a popping champagne bottle, and the voice of Disney CEO Bob Iger officially christened the Disney Treasure, the newest cruise ship in the Disney Cruise Line fleet.

Just a few minutes before the drones rose above the water, Iger himself addressed a crowd of invited guests at an event space inside the Chelsea Piers athletic complex on Manhattan’s west side, overlooking the Disney Treasure floating a few hundred feet away in the Hudson.

Joined on stage by Disney Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro and Mickey and Minnie Mouse in full ship captain garb (“I feel like I’m being upstaged here,” Iger quipped as the characters stepped offstage to applause), the Disney CEO touted the Treasure as “a shining example of everything our fans love about Disney.”

“Since the launch of the Disney Cruise Line in 1998 our ships have become brand ambassadors, that bring our world-class storytelling and the immersive nature of our theme parks to new audiences and new places around the world,” Iger said.

Indeed, there is no entertainment company that has had more success exploiting its IP in so many ways, and in so many places, as The Walt Disney Co. The films lead to streaming series which become theme park rides and attractions which can turn into stage shows and ice shows, with the characters making appearances around the globe.

The Disney Treasure, which departed on its maiden voyage Dec. 21, is in many ways a textbook example. The ship features characters and IP everywhere you turn.  

Some are obvious, like an oversized bronze stature of Aladdin and Jasmine that greet you in the Grand Hall when you first board the ship, or when the ships’ horns blare classic Disney tunes, and others are more subtle, like a small statue of Hei Hei, the chicken featured in Moana, who stands on the side of the bar at his namesake Hei Hei Cafe.

There are restaurants and bars that are immersive, like a Coco-themed dining venue that makes guests feel as though they are walking through the village of Santa Cecilia from the Pixar film, with a stage front and center so a live musical show can take place during the meal. There is a bar based on the Disneyland and Disney World attraction The Haunted Mansion that makes guests feel like they stepped off their “Doom Buggy” and into the world of the ride itself.

And there are venues that are more abstract, like a loosely Aristocats-themed piano bar called The Scat Cat Lounge, or the Jungle Cruise-themed Skipper Society, where references to the classic ride are visible everywhere you look in subtle ways.

“We just wanted to make you feel like we had brought a version of those attractions on board, and for you to experience them there in a way that you haven’t before,” says Jason Roberts, senior producer for Disney Imagineering, speaking in the Sarabi Lounge, a venue with subtle nods to the animated classic The Lion King.

While Disney Cruise Line has long developed venues based on Disney films and other IP, the Treasure looked to Disney’s theme parks for inspiration.

“As an imagineer that’s coming from the division that developed these theme park attractions, I think the most important thing was to be authentic to those attractions,” Roberts says, listing off all the details in the Haunted Mansion Parlor, which include ghostly apparitions in the mirror above the bar, portraits on the wall that change over time, and a fish tank where the swimming fish are skeletons. “It’s so authentic down to the details. It’s the wallpaper, it’s those distinctive chair designs, those bat sconces on the wall. We want you to feel like you’re in The Haunted Mansion. We want you to be part of that story. We wanted to immerse you and envelop you there.”  

Or the Skipper Society, which doesn’t quite make you feel like you are on The Jungle Cruise itself, but perhaps hanging out at the pub where all those skippers go after their shift ends to trade quips.

“It’s not quite as immersive, but all of the hints are all around you, those corny, terrible jokes, you see them printed on the wall,” Roberts says. “The canopy above the bar that makes it feel like that’s one of the boats from Jungle Cruise. That’s what we really wanted to convey. We wanted you to feel like the attraction was right there and you were a part of it.”

The same science applies to the entertainment experiences on the ship. Disney, after all, is in the entertainment business, and the Disney Treasure, like all Disney cruises, has no shortage of programming.

Disney is debuting a new Broadway-style stage show on the Treasure, The Tale of Moana, the first ever stage adaptation of the animated film. And it has a pair of comedic actors, Coriander and Sage, who host Indiana Jones-themed trivia contests, and perform intimate renditions of films like Encanto in the Grand Hall in moments meant to surprise and delight guests.

There are movies, of course, playing in two theaters on board and on a jumbo-sized screen above the pool deck, and there are intimate moments of entertainment, like when Chewbacca, Spider Man or Belle surprise children in the kids club with missions or adventures.

Jenny Weinbloom, the VP of live entertainment for Disney Signature Experiences, says that the company uses a few different lenses to figure out what IP it can and should exploit when developing shows for the cruise ships.

“We certainly are thinking about, what do our guests love? What stories are they connecting with and want to spend more time with?” Weinbloom says. “What are the franchises that the company is continuing to invest in long term, and that we anticipate future generations will have relationship with? Because if you think about the shows on these ships, they have a long life. They run for a very long time.”

“But that’s only one angle we look at it through. I’d say it’s actually the secondary angle. The primary is what sings? What’s going to make a great musical?” she adds. “Because it’s not just great songs that make a great musical. It’s actually very much about the structure of the film.”

Moana, she notes, checked all the boxes.

Disney Experiences is in many ways the secret sauce for the company, the place where IP meets the real world, and where emotional memories are formed by fans. The company is pouring $60 billion into the division over the next decade, with billions earmarked for the cruise business specifically.

But Disney Cruise Lines is a particularly unique business. Other entertainment companies have IP in theme parks, but no other company can bring its IP around the world via ship.

At the Disney Treasure Christening in New York Nov. 19, D’Amaro touted “the power of Disney storytelling” when it comes to its cruise business, calling out Disney Imagineering chief creative officer Bruce Vaughn, who was in attendance. The Imagineers, of course, take Disney IP and create ways for fans to immerse themselves in it.

And he noted the “unprecedented era of growth for Disney Experiences,” including the fact that Disney Cruise Line plans to double its fleet of ships by 2031. In fact, it has two more set to launch in 2025: The Disney Destiny, which will cruise from Florida, and the Disney Adventure, which will operate from a home port in Singapore.  

That’s a lot of room to showcase IP.

Doubling the fleet underscores the financial potential for the division. Morgan Stanley analyst Ben Swinburne wrote that the cruise division could have $10 billion in revenue and $3 billion in EBITDA by 2031. “For context, the cruise business exiting this decade could be larger in EBITDA than ESPN in 2024,” he wrote.

Roberts says that for every ship, the Imagineers look at the “rich history of storytelling at Disney” to discover some theme that serves as connective tissue, something that binds the disparate pieces of IP together in a way that makes vacationers feel like they are truly escaping.

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For the Disney Treasure, that theme is adventure.  

“When you think about all of the animated films, they all have a bit of adventure to them, no matter what the story is, whether it’s Mulan or whether it’s Miguel in Coco, they’re all going on an adventure of some kind,” Roberts says.

That applies to Disney’s other IP as well, like a Marvel-themed restaurant that includes a mission to help Groot, or a sports bar called The Periscope Pub based on the classic Disneyland attraction 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, complete with shadowy images of sharks swimming above visitors as they sip their beers and watch the game. Soon it will even apply to non-Disney IP, with the popular children’s show Bluey set to bring it’s characters to Disney cruises originating from Australia and New Zealand in January.

It makes for a unique proposition. Marvel movies play around the world, of course, but Disney only has theme parks in a few locations. What Disney is betting that Disney Cruise Line can do is bring some of that magic to home ports far away from parks, be it Singapore, Australia, the U.K. or Vancouver, Canada.

The Disney Treasure is only one vessel, but it is emblematic of that larger goal that the company is pursuing over the next few years. Live experiences based on IP might be commonplace, but only Disney is doubling down on bringing it by sea to its fans around the world.