Starting in 2023, the Disney Cruise Line will hold Pixar Day At Sea aboard the Disney Fantasy on select cruises. One day of these select seven-night sailings will be dedicated to the tales that come from the iconic animation studio. According to the announcement, special entertainment offerings and character encounters will be taking place on the Pixar Day at Sea.
Characters from Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Inside Out, Up, and The Incredibles will be present to dance, play with, and take photos. While that may have been expected, a specialty line-up of entertainment will also be offered, including a new nighttime show featuring The Incredibles. Frequent cruisers may immediately think of other entertainment on Star Wars, Marvel, or even regular Pirates night aboard the ship where villains of some kind come aboard and heroes must save the day.
A dance party featuring the characters has also been revealed, as well as a first-of-its-kind theatrical experience featuring Miguel and his family, retelling the story of Coco through live music and puppetry.
Seasonal Coco Show at DCA
The announcement also promised specialty dining, including a new experience hosted by Woody, Jessie, and Bullseye, to kick start passengers’ day with all the country fixin’s and lively entertainment. Dinner dishes will be inspired by California cuisine, paying homage to the Pixar Studios home location. Personally, I would have at least offered some kind of all you can eat cereal bar, but I’m not the one in charge here.
In fact, if you were to say to me, “Hey Tony, they’re doing a Pixar cruise,” you’d have to ignore me while I look up and zone out into a world of fantasy for a moment. While yes, we are thinking of a real ship in the ocean, I will likely think immediately of The Axiom, the starcruiser setting of their 2008 film, Wall-E, and how they can translate it aboard a Disney Cruise Line vessel.
Wall-E (2008) Axiom Concept Art
In the film, Humans have had to evacuate Earth and have boarded massive space cruise ships for what was intended to be 5 years while cleaning robots took care of the damage that humans caused to their home planet. Spoiler Alert: The ship was so luxurious (and the planet so devastated) that they remained aboard the luxury space liner for 700 years.
The gigantic space vessel featured a peoplemover system, thousands and thousands of staterooms and cabins, plenty of recreational areas like tennis courts, beauty salons, restaurants, and a pool that the human passengers didn’t seem to know about.
Robots assisted with everything, holographic screens would advertise the latest swimwear and meals (in a cup!), but passengers mostly stuck to their personal devices while experiencing massive amounts of bone loss in zero-gravity. That part likely wouldn’t translate well to an Earth-bound ocean liner, and most of this idea wouldn’t be feasible for special event cruises.
Of course, I’d have to have a second thought and remember that the scenario given was in fact a Pixar cruise, not a Wall-E cruise. Even though the film has been time-tested (becoming only the second Pixar full-length title to be preserved for future generations by the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry), marketing only a 13-year old film as the center of a promotional event aboard Disney ships doesn’t seem to fall into the current corporate leadership’s wheelhouse.
Lately, Disney Parks and Experiences has had a tendency to group Pixar into a singular entity that includes all the titles in the catalog. Over at Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort, the controversial rebranding of one of the park's original districts, Paradise Pier, took place, turning the area into Pixar Pier. The land now consisted of four “neighborhoods” where The Incredibles, Toy Story, Inside Out, are represented through attractions, and another that the other titles just sort of fall into. A Bug’s Life, Wall-E, Toy Story 2, and the short La Luna are all represented via midway games, and the rest of the titles, including Ratatouille, Coco, Cars, and others, are found on the ride vehicles of the Pixar Pal-A-Round ferris wheel. Other details, including railings, light fixtures, shop and restaurant decor complete the Pixar filmography in terms of representation in the area.
Disneyland Resort has also held a seasonal festival called Pixar Fest with special fireworks and the return of the Pixar Play Parade and the popular Disneyland After Dark event also held a Pixar Nite that featured special entertainment and character meet and greets with favorite characters from the Pixar catalog, as well as special photo ops throughout the park themed to Up, Toy Story, Soul, and shorts like For The Birds and Geri’s Game. The fountains of Paradise Bay, normally home to World of Color, were also reprogrammed for a special show for the evening, the Colors of Pixar.
While Star Wars and Marvel have their own unique cruises, those both come from the same story universe and ways to incorporate the cruise into part of those stories. A Pixar cruise will have at least 26 titles to work with by the time they launch in 2023, all from different story universes so I would not expect that kind of story play during the event. I would expect them to likely incorporate it the same way Pixar Pier or Pixar Nite did with different entertainment offerings, activities, and meet and greets. In my fantasy world, this would also be aboard a ship on the Pacific, so that a stop in San Francisco and special excursion opportunity to go to Pixar Studios in Emeryville could be offered, something I was shocked never occurred with Star Wars cruises (Lucasfilm is in the Bay Area as well) opting just for the special entertainment and characters.
The Pixar brand is already represented on the Disney Cruise Line ships. On the Disney Dream for example, you will find all the fast food options on the pool deck are themed to Flo’s V8 Cafe and other Radiator Springs businesses from Cars. The Ice Cream station and Smoothie bar are themed to Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles respectively. Speaking of The Incredibles, the fan-favorite Jack-Jacks Diaper Dash pits infants against each other, crawling for the prize. The superhero family will also be the primary focus of the Hero Zone aboard the new ship, the Disney Wish. The youth area, Oceaneers Club and Oceaneers Lab also feature a Toy Story themed area aboard the Disney Dream, and a splash pad on the pool deck is themed to Finding Nemo.
Finding Nemo can also be found in mural form and subtle details throughout the buffet, Cabanas, and even during dinner at the Animator’s Palate, where guests enjoy dining alongside Crush the sea turtle, a la Turtle Talk with Crush at the parks. More upscale offerings also include the specialty adults-only restaurant, Remy, loosely themed to Ratatouille.
While knowing what is typically offered on a Disney Cruise, I can’t imagine what has already been announced will be all that we can expect to see. In my opinion, I feel like there would also be Pixar trivia contests offered, drawing lessons of Pixar characters, maybe even Pixar themed bingo. I’m also sure there will be Pixar movies and shorts playing in the Buena Vista Theater. With the cruises still on the horizon, I’m sure more details will come in the future. Until then, I’ll probably still book this one aboard the Disney Fantasy, and then fantasize about a Wall-E themed land-based immersive thing like the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.