Looking for Information from the 5 Night Wonder in San Diego

BalooHoo · Oct 9, 2015

Welcome back to those disembarking today (10/9/15) in San Diego from the Wonder. I would love to hear details to know what we might expect when we take the same cruise later this month. In particular:

1. What was the dining rotation? Pirate Night on Wednesday? Semiformal night on Monday? Any special menu for Halloween?
2. What was the schedule of the evening shows each night?
3. What were the events and extras for Halloween on the High Seas? Anything new or different from last year?
4. Were any upgrades available at the port?
5. What time did the port open in the morning for check in?
6. Any specific recommendations for things to see or do in Ensenada or Cabo?

Also, we would be so grateful if someone could post the Navigators here or provide them to the Disney Cruise Line Blog.

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide. I hope you had a great time!

jetskigrl · Oct 9, 2015

And could you give us an update on the merchandise too. Was there plenty of Halloween stuff still available, etc.
We missed out on some of the Alaska items because our cruise was in August and the popular stuff was gone already (tervis cups, etc). I'm hoping that doesn't happen with the Halloween items also.
Thanks!!

Saamh · Oct 9, 2015

BalooHoo said:
Welcome back to those disembarking today (10/9/15) in San Diego from the Wonder. I would love to hear details to know what we might expect when we take the same cruise later this month. In particular:

1. What was the dining rotation? Pirate Night on Wednesday? Semiformal night on Monday? Any special menu for Halloween?
2. What was the schedule of the evening shows each night?
3. What were the events and extras for Halloween on the High Seas? Anything new or different from last year?
4. Were any upgrades available at the port?
5. What time did the port open in the morning for check in?
6. Any specific recommendations for things to see or do in Ensenada or Cabo?

Also, we would be so grateful if someone could post the Navigators here or provide them to the Disney Cruise Line Blog.

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide. I hope you had a great time!

We just disembarked the Wonder this morning. It was a wonderful cruise with amazing CMs as usual.

1. Our dining rotation was PTAPT. Pirate night was Wednesday (Cabo day) and optional dress up night was Monday. The menus were the usual-nothing special for Halloween in the dining room.

2. The shows were; Welcome Aboard Let the Magic Begin, Golden Mickeys, Toy Story, Michael Harrison (ventriloquist) and Dreams.

3. On night 1 there was a Halloween storytelling event in the lobby atrium. The following night the pumpkins appeared on he tree, then there was trick or treating and the dress up day on day 3 (11:30am and again at 2pm) with the characters in costume. They also played Nightmare Before Christmas in the theater with one of the characters showing up after the movie.

4. The supervisors desk was to the far left of the row of check in counters. We didn't inquire about upgrades so I don't know if any were available. Sorry.

5. We arrived at the port at 11:15 and the port was already open with quite a few passengers already inside. We had an 11:00am PAT and received boarding group 3 and were on board before noon.

6. We stayed on the ship in Ensenada but they were providing round trip shuttles to town for $3pp. In Cabo we took a water taxi to Medano Beach for the day. Be aggressive with your bartering as they started out wanting to charge us $20pp and we ended up only paying $5pp. They set a time to pick us up and were there when it was time. It was a great beach day.

I have all the navigators and will send to the blog when we get back to Phoenix later today.

We only stopped into the shops once but I don't recall seeing much Halloween on the High Seas merchandise. Maybe a tshirt but I don't think there was much.

Have a great time on your cruise!

Alohadan · Oct 9, 2015

Thank you for the summary. It's great to hear that you had a good trip. I am looking forward to seeing the Navigators.

Saamh · Oct 9, 2015

Saamh · Oct 9, 2015

Day 2:

Saamh · Oct 9, 2015

Day 3:

Saamh · Oct 9, 2015

Day 4:

Saamh · Oct 9, 2015

Day 5:

wendydarling33 · Oct 9, 2015

Thank you so much! Another question since you stayed on the ship in Ensenada. Was it fairly crowded on the ship that day -particularly the pools?

cats mom · Oct 9, 2015

jetskigrl said:
And could you give us an update on the merchandise too. Was there plenty of Halloween stuff still available, etc.
We missed out on some of the Alaska items because our cruise was in August and the popular stuff was gone already (tervis cups, etc). I'm hoping that doesn't happen with the Halloween items also.
Thanks!!

There was a Halloween on the High Seas zip up sweatshirt, tervis tumbler, and pin. I think there may have been one T-shirt, but I'm pretty sure some were just Dinsey/Halloween themed, not cruise specific. Seemed like a good supply of what Halloween merch they had. I know how quickly they can run out though.

I'm still a bit miffed that I was on the 2nd Pixar cruise and I still missed out on the pin.

There was a bunch of DCL Star Wars merchandise as well... a tervis tumbler, a couple of sweatshirts, at least 5 or 6 different adult t-shirts and a couple of kids t-shirts.

jetskigrl · Oct 9, 2015

cats mom said:
There was a Halloween on the High Seas zip up sweatshirt, tervis tumbler, and pin. I think there may have been one T-shirt, but I'm pretty sure some were just Dinsey/Halloween themed, not cruise specific. Seemed like a good supply of what Halloween merch they had. I know how quickly they can run out though.

I'm still a bit miffed that I was on the 2nd Pixar cruise and I still missed out on the pin.

There was a bunch of DCL Star Wars merchandise as well... a tervis tumbler, a couple of sweatshirts, at least 5 or 6 different adult t-shirts and a couple of kids t-shirts.

I was on the second Pixar cruise too and missed out on the pin

We also missed out on the Alaska Tervis cups and blankets (all gone by the time we cruised in August).

Thanks so much for the update.

Saamh · Oct 10, 2015

wendydarling33 said:
Thank you so much! Another question since you stayed on the ship in Ensenada. Was it fairly crowded on the ship that day -particularly the pools?

The pools weren't overly crowded on our Ensenada day. It was easy to find a deck chair and not chaotic in the pools. A CM mentioned to us that the 3 night cruise before ours which only stopped in Ensenada only had 300 people total get off the ship that day and it was really crowded onboard.

Alohadan · Oct 10, 2015

The two Mousequerade parties at 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. and the two Sing and Scream performances are important events that I "guessed" incorrectly on. The Mousequerade parties I thought would be later in the day (no biggie there). I also was not expecting two performances of the Sing and Scream (so that is just a plus). Obviously, I like to pre-plan as much as possible, but I also realize that Navigators are subject to change from one cruise to another cruise. Thank you once again for your help.

GrumpyMom1 · Oct 10, 2015

Thank you so much for the info!

Any experience with getting tickets for the meet and greets? Our PAT isn't until 1pm so I'm concerned they will be gone by the time we get onboard.

BalooHoo · Oct 10, 2015

Thanks very much for the great information!

BalooHoo · Oct 12, 2015

How long did the tendering process take in Cabo San Lucas? Were there a lot of people waiting to tender, or were you able to just walk off the ship and have a tender waiting for you?

Saamh · Oct 12, 2015

We didn't do any of the character meets that required tickets but I didn't hear about anyone having trouble getting any.

The first tenders in Cabo started about 730am and required tender tickets which were handled out of the Buena Vista Theater. We left at about 10am and they had just moved to open tenders at that time.

On our meet group there's a lot of discussion about the "feel" of this cruise not being the same as others. It was probably 99% S. California residents and quite a few first time cruisers. Lines for the characters were long and people seemed more frantic to maximize every opportunity. There was also a problem with teens/tweens running all over the ship, having wheelchair races, pushing all the floors in the elevators, using foul language. It was a very different dynamic than our previous 9 sailings. We still had a wonderful time but there's quite a discussion on our cruise meet page about this.

BalooHoo · Oct 12, 2015

Thanks for the additional info, Saamh. Did you get the sense that the "feel" was different because the West Coast cruises are less frequent for the SoCal residents and they were trying to pack everything in while they could? All of our previous DCL cruises have departed from ports on the East Coast, so your post has me looking forward to seeing how a West Coast cruise might be different even while on the ship.

The teen/tween dynamic also is interesting. We've never had major issues with teens/tweens (maybe a few minor things, but nothing worth mentioning), but I'm curious to see whether that also carries over to the other San Diego cruises or if it's just something that comes up sometimes on cruises. Did you notice whether the number of kids on board was similar to your other 9 cruises, or were there more or fewer than you've seen before?

skylynx · Oct 12, 2015

If you are interested in adult Halloween logo shirts, buy them the first day. Everything for adults but 3 XXXL and 1 Medium hoodie was gone by the second night. I know because I bough the last XL! We ran into the merchandise manager at the Gold/Platinum event and she said because San Diego was not a heavily used port for DCL there were delays in deliveries. Plenty of kids shirts and the mugs...just no adult t shirts and almost no hoodies by the second day.

Looking for Information from the 5 Night Wonder in San Diego

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