Travel Agent was onboard the newly updated Disney Magic this past weekend on a two-day sailing from Miami, the ship's new home port this winter. Here’s a slide show that reveals the new or refreshed spaces your clients’ kids will discover in the supervised children's clubs.
Disney’s Oceaneer Club
Serving kids 3-12, Disney’s Oceaneer Club is completely redesigned on Disney Magic. Children are greeted by giant storybook facades. New stories added to the club include Marvel’s "The Avengers," now that Marvel is part of the Walt Disney Company. The ship is the first Disney Cruise Line (www.disneytravelagents.com) ship to have a Marvel experience.
Inside the club’s Marvel’s Avengers Academy, kids head for a secret training base, where they virtually don an Iron Man suit during a simulated experience on a video screen display. They test the suit’s repulsor system and flight mode — and "become" Iron Man.
Disney-Pixar “Toy Story” film trilogy seemingly comes to life at the multi-level Andy’s Room, which has a large Hamm piggy bank and a working Mr. Potato Head. Kids find huge pieces and parts to craft their own creation.
Andy’s bed is the room’s focal point, however. Kids descend from the bed to the toy room floor for play by hopping into the kid-friendly Slinky Dog slide.
In the magical Pixie Hollow setting, tree branches wind around the “forest.” A gigantic Tinker Bell teapot house serves as a closet filled with fanciful costumes for dress up.
Kids make crafts while sitting on stools shaped like mushrooms and acorns. Or, they play on computers shrouded in tree branches.
Another new themed area, The Mickey Mouse Club, is dedicated to Disney’s favorite character and decorated in Mickey's signature colors of red, yellow and black. Kids create crafts and play games on custom, ear-shaped tables.
New short cartoons place Mickey in contemporary settings like Paris, New York, Tokyo and Venice. In Goofy Gears, kids play with wacky, magnetic spinning gears, while Mickey’s Memory Match Game is a version of the classic kids’ memory challenge.
Disney’s Oceaneer Lab
At the adjacent Disney’s Oceaneer Lab, also designed for kids 3-12, children will enter a play world of nautical and pirate theming. Navigation maps decorate the walls. An animator’s studio attracts artistically minded kids. A pirate workshop and lab feature fun experiments and art projects.
At the popular Navigator Simulators, children feel they’re part of the movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean,” by “virtually” taking the helm and captaining a ship through Caribbean waters -- turning the ship and firing cannons at other ships and a fort ashore.
A passageway connects the Oceaneer Lab to the Oceaneer Club so kids can move freely back and forth between the two areas. Unlike many cruise lines, Disney doesn't split kids into totally separate age groups and into completely separate spaces.
The line has learned that kids will naturally navigate to the kids with whom they wish to play. That allows siblings (who so desire) to play together, even though they're of different ages. Trained counselors keep the play time running smoothly and safely.
It’s a Small World Nursery
For the youngest cruisers — ages three months to three years — the new “It’s a Small World Nursery” awaits. The play area has cheery artwork and murals.
Hands-on play features include horns that honk, wheels that spin and buttons to press. While sitting at colorful, kid-sized tables and chairs, toddlers enjoy crafts, books and games with trained counselors.
In the back of the nursery, Disney creates a serene environment with cribs for the little ones to nap and chairs for caregivers to cradle and calm infants. Parents may check on their kids without disturbing them by glimpsing into the nursery’s main play area through a one-way window.
Check back here for more photos of other new spaces on Disney Magic later in the week.