Disney Cruise Line has confirmed that its next ship, the Disney Believe, will homeport at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale for its maiden season, with the first sailing set for December 18, 2027. The news came out of a livestreamed event held aboard the Disney Dream, where Tracy Wilson, the line's senior vice president and general manager of operations, laid out the plan.
The Believe is the fourth ship in Disney's Wish class, following the Wish, Treasure and Destiny. It's being built at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Germany and will carry around 2,500 passengers across roughly 140,000 tons. Once it arrives in Florida, the programme is straightforward and family-friendly: a run of four- and five-night Caribbean and Bahamas cruises, ideal for a first cruise or a short holiday with kids.
As with every Disney ship, the real selling points are the themed spaces. The Believe will lean heavily on Disney and Pixar favourites — public areas inspired by Zootopia, Monsters Inc., Tangled, Moana and Inside Out. Two new venues stand out. Oaken's Table is a family entertainment restaurant drawing on Frozen and its Arendelle setting, while Sea Notes is a piano bar themed to The Little Mermaid's underwater world. For something more grown-up after the kids are in bed, that piano bar might be the quiet highlight.
The signature accommodation follows the pattern set by Disney's recent builds: a two-story Tower Suite inspired by Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, sleeping up to eight across separate living areas and bedrooms. Outside, Toy Story's Buzz and Woody appear on the stern, alongside Tinkerbell with a special crest.
If you want first pick of cabins and dates, mark your calendar: bookings for the maiden season open on October 19, 2026. Launch-season sailings on new Disney ships tend to sell fast, especially short Caribbean itineraries over school holidays — and a December 18 debut puts the maiden voyage squarely in the festive period, when demand from families is at its peak.
For travellers, this matters on a practical level too. Port Everglades is one of the easiest cruise ports in the US to reach, sitting right next to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and about 45 minutes from Miami. Four- and five-night Bahamas and Caribbean sailings are a low-commitment way to try a Disney cruise without the price tag of a week-long itinerary, and they usually include a stop at Castaway Cay, Disney's private Bahamian island.
Worth noting: Disney already sails from Fort Lauderdale with other ships, so the Believe slots into a proven operation. If December 2027 feels far off, the maiden-season dates are the ones to watch — new-ship launch sailings sometimes carry extra entertainment and events that later rotations don't repeat.
