Largest-Ever Disney Cruise Ship Units Course for Sea Trials

Key Elements:
- Disney Journey departed the Meyer Werft shipyard on Monday, September 1, 2025 to move for her sea trials.
- The ship is the biggest ever in-built Wismar, Germany. Her deep draft introduced technical challenges for safely leaving the harbor.
- Initially World Dream, Disney Cruise Line purchased the ship in late 2022 and she’s going to lastly be welcoming her first company in December 2025.
Greater than seven years after development of the vessel started, Disney Cruise Line’s upcoming Disney Journey has lastly left the shipyard.
The ship is now enroute to start her sea trials, one of many final steps earlier than she will probably be handed over to the cruise line forward of her public debut.
The World-class ship, which would be the largest ever constructed for Disney Cruise Line at 208,00 gross tons, left the Meyer Werft shipyard in Wismar, Germany on Monday night, September 1, 2025.
In response to North German Broadcasting, the maneuver started at 6:30 p.m. with three blasts on the ship’s horn to alert these close by that the ship was underway.
The ship was initially scheduled to depart on Saturday, however temporary delays to Sunday after which to Monday had been mandatory on account of poor climate and native water ranges.
Tugboats assisted Disney Journey as she moved away from the docks and into the harbor. To be clear, the vessel just isn’t but completed, as is customary when setting forth on sea trials.
Even incomplete, nonetheless, Disney Journey is the biggest ship to have ever been in-built Wismar. Her sheer dimension, 1,122 toes lengthy and 152 toes large, makes even easy repositioning or turning within the harbor a technical problem.
The ship’s deep draft, simply over 31 toes, additionally created some issues. The ship’s completed draft is roughly three toes deeper than the utmost draft sometimes permitted by the harbor.
Luckily, as a result of the ship is unfinished with some gadgets – together with her funnels – not but put in, she was not as deep are her most draft and was in a position to sail safely out of the harbor.
Further ending work on the outer decks in addition to the vessel’s inside will probably be mandatory within the coming weeks forward of Disney Journey‘s December debut.
First, the ocean trials will put the ship by her paces. These intensive checks intentionally stress numerous mechanical and technical techniques, together with navigation, propulsion, and emergency responses, to make sure the ship responds appropriately.
Relying on the ship’s efficiency, a second set of sea trials could also be mandatory. In any other case, closing ending work will start and inside a number of weeks, Disney Journey will probably be handed over to Disney Cruise Line.
The brand new ship’s 3-night maiden voyage is scheduled to depart on December 15, 2025. She’s going to stay homeported from Singapore year-round, providing immersive 3-, 4-, and 5-night sailings to as many as 6,000 company onboard.
A Very Lengthy Building Timeline
It’s uncommon for a contemporary cruise ship to take so very lengthy from her metal chopping to sea trials. What some Disney Cruise Line followers could not notice, nonetheless, is that Disney Journey was not initially Disney Journey.
The ship was first ordered and meant to be the World Dream for Dream Cruises, an organization of Genting Hong Kong.
Building started in March 2018 with the ceremonial metal chopping, with anticipated supply of the ship in 2021. Three years just isn’t uncommon for cruise ship development.
For instance, Star of the Seas‘ metal chopping was held in February 2023. The second Icon-class ship sailed by her sea trials in Might 2025, and simply welcomed her first company in mid-August, 30 months after her development started.

Disney Journey is now 90 months previous her metal chopping, and nonetheless has three months earlier than she’s going to welcome company.
After development started on World Dream, nonetheless, the COVID-19 pandemic radically disrupted shipyard operations and development was quickly halted in 2020. Many cruise ships had been delayed right now, together with Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras.
Genting Hong Kong filed for chapter in January 2022. The corporate’s belongings, together with the unfinished World Dream, had been put up on the market.
Disney Cruise Line bought the ship in November 2022. Although the ship was roughly 75% full at the moment, the design wanted to be tweaked and adjusted to suit Disney’s signature fashion.
This contains such iconic particulars as her stern sculpture characters, revealed to be Captain Minnie and Captain Mickey, which is able to convey the enjoyable of Disney cruises to Asia for the primary time.
The hull was accomplished and floated out on the shipyard in April 2025, a vital step in bringing a brand new vessel into service.
Luckily, it seems that Disney Journey is now nicely on her solution to easy crusing as her development is accomplished and the one-of-a-kind ship ought to debut on schedule.
Largest-Ever Disney Cruise Ship Units Course for Sea Trials