The Disney Wonder Details I Never Stopped Discovering

Aug 19

7 min read

I have spent the better part of the last year living and working on the Disney Wonder. After spending that much time on the same ship, I started noticing little details throughout the ship that I had never really paid attention to before.

One thing I have always loved about Disney is the attention to detail. There is so much thought put into even the smallest parts of the guest experience, and once you start looking for it, you realize just how much there is to discover.

I wanted to share some of my favorite Disney Easter eggs, hidden details, and design choices that make the ship so special.

Crown & Fin Pub

The Crown & Fin Pub is truly a Disney fan’s playground. The venue is packed with Easter eggs, and it was always one of my favorite places to explore during my time off. With the tagline “A Proper English Pub,” it comes as no surprise that the venue is filled with nods to classic English Disney films.

One of the first things you may notice is Mary Poppins’ iconic peacock umbrella. After entering the pub, turn around and look behind you. You’ll find a shelf displaying the umbrella alongside Tinker Bell’s Pixie Hollow house, the car from The Great Muppet Caper, and a red dog collar from 101 Dalmatians. In that same entryway, you’ll also find concept artwork from the story of the boy who never grew up, Peter Pan.

Venturing a little further into the space, you’ll find that Doctor Who has hung his memorable scarf on the coat rack. Nearby, you’ll find newspapers featuring headlines about a reckless Mr. Toad, as well as the Daily Chronicle from the beginning of The Great Muppet Caper. You’ll even spot a sword paying homage to The Sword in the Stone and toy blocks spelling out “Crown and Fin,” perhaps a nod to Mary Poppins.

Now, near the bar, you’ll find some additional shelving filled with even more Easter eggs. One of the shelves holds a wine bottle designed to look exactly like one from The Parent Trap. The bar area also features a portrait of Mr. Toad, cleverly blended in with the traditional English artwork surrounding it.

Now for the crown jewel, and my favorite part of the pub: the license plates. At first glance, you might think they’re just traditional plates, but each one holds a secret message. I’m going to decode each one for you:

CRWN FIN = Crown & Fin Pub
GMD 8916 = The Great Mouse Detective, released in 1986
DPW 7161 = Diana, Princess of Wales, born July 1, 1961
AAM WP26 = A. A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh, first published in 1926
BO 676 = The license plate on Beauregard’s taxi in The Great Muppet Caper.
GFW 613 = The license plate from The Parent Trap.

Andy’s Room

Disney Cruise Line is known for its immersive Kids Club spaces. The Disney Wonder has both the Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab for children ages 3–10. Both are located on Deck 5, where the ceiling gets lower because the kids are in charge. The spaces are filled with Easter eggs, but my favorite room is in the Oceaneer Club: Andy’s Room from the Toy Story franchise.

When you enter this room, you feel like you’ve been shrunk down to the size of a toy. Everything around you is huge, and you are essentially underneath Andy’s bed, just like one of his toys would be.

One of the first things you’ll notice is the larger-than-life GameBrain, which has a high score of 01995. This may look like a random high score at first, but 1995 is the year the original Toy Story was released.

There are also playing cards featuring some of the characters. The “2” features Woody, the “3” features Bullseye, and the “4” features Jessie. At first glance, it looks like a simple set of numbered playing cards. But when you put the numbers together, 2-3-4, there is actually another Easter egg hiding in plain sight.

Andy’s house in Toy Story 3 is located at 234 Elm Street.

Buena Vista Theatre

The glitz and glamour of Old Hollywood is alive and well at the Buena Vista Theatre, the movie theatre onboard. Leading up to the theatre in the aft of Deck 5, you’ll find concept costume sketches from real Disney films.

The Buena Vista Theatre is also the only place on the ship that doesn’t play music. Instead, it lets your other senses take over. You can see the change in the carpet, smell the popcorn, and hear the movie playing, just like you would in a traditional movie theatre.

Even the name of the venue has a lot of history behind it. “Buena Vista” is a nod to several important parts of The Walt Disney Company. The Walt Disney Studios in California is located on Buena Vista Street, Walt Disney World Resort is located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, and Disney’s former record label was Buena Vista Records.

I love that the name ties back to the company’s history, especially because the theatre itself celebrates one of the things Disney was built on: making movies.

Atrium

On any Disney Cruise Line ship, the Atrium, or Grand Hall, is really the heart of the vessel.

Each ship has a signature statue in this space that helps set the tone for the rest of the ship. On the Disney Wonder, that character is Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Once you know to look for it, you start to notice little nods to Ariel, The Little Mermaid, and the sea throughout the ship, but we’ll explore some of those a little later.

For now, I want to focus on the Atrium itself. When you take a look at the Ariel statue, you’ll notice that she is sitting as a mermaid with her hair swirled upward. This pose is taken directly from a scene in the song “Under the Sea.” But there is one thing missing: the red flower in her hair.

Or is there?

Look up, and you’ll see that the flower isn’t missing at all. It has actually become the chandelier hanging above the Atrium.

Even the carpet continues the underwater theme. On Deck 3, the Atrium carpet is covered in bubbles. As you move up to Deck 4, the bubbles become smaller and less frequent, almost as if we are making our way toward the surface.

But I’ll talk more about the carpets later.

Another interesting part of the Atrium is the gold plates wrapping around Decks 4 and 5. These plates have different Disney characters engraved in them, each taking on a different role around the ship. Minnie Mouse is helping in the kitchen, Daisy Duck is making a bed, Donald Duck is assisting on deck, Goofy is looking out from the bridge, Clarabelle Cow is leading a fitness class, Pluto is with a life ring, Pete is delivering food, and Mickey Mouse has a microphone and is leading the entertainment (like myself)!

I love this detail because the characters are essentially paying tribute to the Crew Members who work onboard. They are taking on the different jobs and departments that you see throughout the ship.

This can also be seen on the Disney Magic, but when you get to the next class of ship, the Dream Class, the idea changes a little bit. Instead of the characters doing the jobs of the Crew Members, they are doing things that the guests can do onboard.

Wayfinding Carpets

We have made it to my favorite detail on the ship: the carpets!

What may seem like a simple way to elevate the design of the ship is actually a navigational tool on the Disney Wonder.

Most ships around the size of the Disney Wonder have somewhere around 10–12 carpets, but the Wonder has more than 100! Of course, they add to the overall look of the ship, but they also serve a much bigger purpose: helping guests know where they are and helping tell the story of the ship.

Disney uses a technique called “wayfinding carpets.” This means that guests can know about where they are just by looking down, and I will give you my favorite examples.

By every elevator bay on a floor with staterooms, there is a section of carpet that pulls directly from the colors and underwater theme of the lobby Atrium (see, I told you we would come back to it).

The blues and greens are inspired by Ariel’s tailfin, but the real focus is the medallion in the middle, which tells you exactly where you are on the ship. If you see a seashell, you are in the aft. A flower means you are in midship, and a lily pad means you are in the forward.

As you walk through the hallways with the guest staterooms, you’ll also notice carpets featuring a globe with stars, navigational flags, and even more stars arranged in a straight line. The stars on the globe show the locations of Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Resort, and Disneyland Paris Resort, representing the Disney parks that were open when the Wonder was being designed. Tokyo Disneyland was also open at the time, but because it operated under a licensing agreement, it did not get a star. The navigational flags surrounding the globe even spell out “Disney Wonder.”

The stars in a straight line point toward the forward of the ship. In fact, any carpet with a point is designed to guide you toward the front of the ship. So, if you ever get turned around onboard, just look down!

You’ll also notice that the carpets outside some of the ship’s major areas have logos embedded into them to let you know where you are. One of my favorite examples is in the After Hours area, where the logo is a martini glass, signifying that the area is for guests 18 and older.

But, of course, Disney couldn’t just leave it at that.

If you look closely at the martini glass, you’ll notice that the drink inside is actually Mickey’s Sorcerer Hat!

In my opinion, this is one of the best hidden details onboard. It’s the kind of Easter egg that you could walk over dozens of times without ever noticing, but once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

New Perspective

The martini glass in the After Hours area perfectly captures what I love about the hidden details of the Disney Wonder, and Disney ships in general. If you look a little closer or simply change your perspective, you might notice something that you never saw before.

The Disney Wonder is filled with so many hidden details, but these have always been some of my favorites. After spending nearly a year living and working on the ship, I still found myself discovering something new every day. And I think that is what makes Disney design so special.