2ND MR group returns today. Any trip reports

[hmtsai]

That is right. It wasn't that we didn't like it but the first half of the Harbor Cruise takes you on a boat to see Lands End rock formations, beaches, etc. You see alot of this on the Whale Watching tour as they do that before they head out more into the pacific to the whales. So that was the bummer for us on making the most of our time to see things in Cabo. And in our case, booking the Harbour cruise was last minute - did it on the ship the first day (Sunday afternoon) since we were in Cabo last Tuesday and had nothing booked. If I had known that, I would have picked something else other than the Harbor Cruise since we had had the whale watching excursion booked for months in Cabo.

Hi, mrosen

Thanks for your detailed report. I also booked for Whalewatching & Deluxe Coastal Cruise. I'm wondering about the weather. You mentioned it was nice, but was it windy and a little bit chilly when the boat went fast? Do I need to bring a light jacket especially for the young kids?

BTW, I was thinking the Lands End tour too. But you mentioned that you were able to see Lands End, Lover's Beach, Los Arches during the whalewatching tour. Then I'll just go with the Whalewathing one. Thanks so much of your experiences.

 

[SpanishForker]

Hi, mrosen

Thanks for your detailed report. I also booked for Whalewatching & Deluxe Coastal Cruise. I'm wondering about the weather. You mentioned it was nice, but was it windy and a little bit chilly when the boat went fast? Do I need to bring a light jacket especially for the young kids?

BTW, I was thinking the Lands End tour too. But you mentioned that you were able to see Lands End, Lover's Beach, Los Arches during the whalewatching tour. Then I'll just go with the Whalewathing one. Thanks so much of your experiences.

We were also on the Jan30 cruise and did the whale watching tour. I would definately recommend a light jacket at least at this time of year. I had on jeans and a long sleeve shirt and I got pretty cold at times and I live in Utah so pretty used to the cold. Other people were in shorts and t-shirts and seemed ok. We saw all the "Land's End" highlights on the whalewatching tour. The boat is pretty big so we didn't get in close like some of the smaller boats could do, but we still got great views.

 

[son3disfan]

It is a DCL excursion; LKFan posted the link. A word of warning, however -- the Cabo day we did that tour the last tender was at 1:30 and the tour dropped us off at the Cruise Services area at 1:15. We didn't get off the boat until well after our scheduled 8:45am meeting time, so we had no free time in Cabo that day. So depending on the schedule of port times and tenders that day if you want to explore Cabo or do anything else you'll need to do it on the other Cabo day or make sure what you want to visit is open at 7am when the first tenders head for shore. The first Cabo day the tenders didn't start running until at least 11am and the all aboard was around 4pm.

Oh no....
For our day in Cabo we are suppose to meet outside the terminal at 8:40!
It's a three hour 4x4 tour.....
So from your experience we might not make the pick up time??????
I was worried about getting back in time.
We are suppose to dock at 7:15am. I was hoping an hour and a bit would leave us enough time to get out there, after Disney excursion guests.......
Not good news...
But appreciate that you posted ....
What time did you line up to get off the s hip?

 

[minie_meese]

Thank you, I appreciate that. Not sure why, but it's not even showing up in our list of available excursions for the 3/6/11 cruise. Many of the excursions on the page you brought me to, in fact, don't appear to be included. Hoping I can book onboard.

We are on the feb 20th MR and booked the Coastal Hilights prior to the itinerary change. After Disney made the change to have 2 stops in Cabo I went into my online reservation to look for things to do on our first Cabo day and I noticed that the option for the Coastal Hilights tour was no longer there but we still have it booked in our itinerary. The end time was also after the onboard time or very close to it. I was worried for 2 reasons - #1- I wondered if the tour had been eliminated but still sows up in my itinerary this way we may end up with no excursion that day and #2 - the time was going to be a problem for getting back on the boat. I called Disney Cruiseline and talked to a very nice cast member who really tried to help but I did not get a very satisfying answer. At first she told me maybe it was booked up and that is why it didn't show up but i explained to her that couldn't be because when things are booked up they are grayed out and it says "No reservations available" in red. There are 3 Cabo excursions that show up like that for the Feb 20th cruise. She agreed with me and then tried to contact the web support to ask why the discrepancy but was never able to get through to them. She then called a supervisor who ended up telling her that if we made a reservation they would honor the time and make sure we got back to the boat. That answered the part of my question about the time but not the part about why it no longer shows up as an option. The woman I talked to said to not change my reservation which I didn't plan to since I probably wouldn't be able to add it back in online if I remove it and we really want to do this tour if it is offered. I went in to check again today and the tour is still not showing up but I am almost positive that the time of the tour has changed - it now says 9:45 - 2:15 (I could be remembering wrong though - too many things going on this week).

I am guessing there is some glitch with the changed itinerary but don't know if it is a web problem or something with offering the tour on the shortened day.

If anyone finds anything out I'd be interested in knowing what is going on.

Elaine

 

[mnsweeps]

Thank you, I appreciate that. Not sure why, but it's not even showing up in our list of available excursions for the 3/6/11 cruise. Many of the excursions on the page you brought me to, in fact, don't appear to be included. Hoping I can book onboard.

same here.. I am booked on 3/6 and this doesnt appear in my itinerary..

I have booked Land's End Coastal Cruise and San Jose city and shopping tour for Cabo. For PV I have booked the PV city tour.

 

[Lissame]

Oh no....
For our day in Cabo we are suppose to meet outside the terminal at 8:40!
It's a three hour 4x4 tour.....
So from your experience we might not make the pick up time??????
I was worried about getting back in time.
We are suppose to dock at 7:15am. I was hoping an hour and a bit would leave us enough time to get out there, after Disney excursion guests.......
Not good news...
But appreciate that you posted ....
What time did you line up to get off the s hip?

Remember that each cruise seems to have slightly different times into and out of Cabo. What might not work for one cruise might work for another. Just be there as soon as you can get there to get on the tender.

 

[SoCal Susie]

The resort is Villa del Palmar and if you do it on your own the resort offers day pass for $50us per adult, 50% off for children from 4 to 12 yo.

I have heard the taxi is approx. $10 to and from the resort.

I think we might be doing this on our own with our 3 kids on our longer Cabo day.

Just wanted to add that I've stayed at Villa del Palmar (back in 2000, on a land vacation) and it is quite removed from where where the ship tenders and the main hotel part of Cabo and if I remember correctly, the taxi cost was more than $15 each way. Also, the seas were SUPER rough by Villa del Palmar. Not really swimable water IMO.

 

[Beachmum]

I got a phone call from DCL today because we had booked a dolphin adventure (for non-swimmers) for the kids in Cabo. We booked at 12:30 times, which, apparently, will make us miss the boat.

So, they rescheduled us for 8:45, which is also a great time.

Yeah DCL for taking care of us when I was going to worry about it once we got on the ship rather than stressing about it now.

 

[Meghatron]

Oh no....
For our day in Cabo we are suppose to meet outside the terminal at 8:40!
It's a three hour 4x4 tour.....
So from your experience we might not make the pick up time??????
I was worried about getting back in time.
We are suppose to dock at 7:15am. I was hoping an hour and a bit would leave us enough time to get out there, after Disney excursion guests.......
Not good news...
But appreciate that you posted ....
What time did you line up to get off the s hip?

I should clarify: we were on a Disney excursion, we had an assigned meeting place (Studio Sea) at 8:45am. We COULD have lined up with the general population of the boat for a tender right at 7:30am and chose not to do so. By joining our excursion group while onboard, it meant we did not have free time after the excursion to explore Cabo. Sorry for any confusion!

If you are booked on a DCL excursion, they will not let you schedule yourself outside the official port times for that day. If your DCL excursion runs late -- the excursion, not you shopping or sightseeing afterwards -- they WILL hold the tenders and the ship.

The first Cabo day we tendered with general population and it took about fifteen minutes from getting our ticket to getting on a tender, then about ten minutes from the ship to port. Not bad at all. Getting back onboard from the pier was about the same, and that was including the security line to get on the pier itself and the wait for the tender to arrive. The longest part was the xray line once we were already onboard, so by that point we didn't need to worry about time.

 

[hmtsai]

We were also on the Jan30 cruise and did the whale watching tour. I would definately recommend a light jacket at least at this time of year. I had on jeans and a long sleeve shirt and I got pretty cold at times and I live in Utah so pretty used to the cold. Other people were in shorts and t-shirts and seemed ok. We saw all the "Land's End" highlights on the whalewatching tour. The boat is pretty big so we didn't get in close like some of the smaller boats could do, but we still got great views.

Thank you so much. I was planning only t-shirts and shorts for shore days. Now I know I need long sleeves and pants for this excursion. Getting more and more excited about the trip.

 

[sabrecmc]

We're doing the repo from LAX to Vancouver and then the first Alaskan cruise...after hearing all these reports about problems with service on the Magic and particularly the Dream, can anyone talk a bit about how the service on the Wonder has been?

 

[GoofItUp]

We were on the 1/30 MR cruise. This was our 7th cruise (HAL, Celebrity, NCL, and now DCL) and I have to say we were a little underwhelmed. The food was good, but not outstanding. The service was excellent, but I wouldn't say any better than any other line. We had late dining which we didn't like (our fault) but I found it hard to make lunch & breakfast times which I thought were limited. I also was amazed at the LINES! We've sailed on full cruises before, and I don't remember seeing lines for everything like on this cruise. There were lines for everything, and even if we didn't want to do an activity (we decided meeting characters simply wasn't worth it because of the lines) just maneuvering around the lines was a hassle. We thought the kids would get to enjoy characters at our assigned breakfast, but that was the most chaotic charcter experience I've ever had. The handler rushed to the table, told us to get the kids ready, the characters swooped in for ONE pic per family, and were gone. My 2 year old didn't even get a chance to get a pic since he has to have a minute to wave/warm up to the character before he's comfortable seeing them.

We did our own shore excursions and just negotiated them when we got to each port. Ziplining at Chico's Paradise in PV was wonderful. We didn't do much in Cabo -- just got off the ship and looked around a little. We've been to both of these ports so it wasn't a big deal to us.

The kids club was outstanding. My 4 yo was upset to have to leave. This is the one place that DCL wins hands down over other lines.

I did enjoy the cruise, but not more so than any of my other cruises on other lines. I think I had read too many of the "once you've done DCL you can't go back" reports which left me wanting more.

One other note -- we originally booked a Cat 9C Gty and were assigned a room on deck 2. We did upgrade at the pier to a full verandah room on deck 6 for $490.

 

[BelleMulan]

GoofItUp: thanks for sharing your review -- especially the port upgrade info!

 

[LiserAnn]

One other note -- we originally booked a Cat 9C Gty and were assigned a room on deck 2. We did upgrade at the pier to a full verandah room on deck 6 for $490.

Out of curiousity, what time did you get to the port? Wondering how early we need to get there to *attempt* at an upgrade.

 

[GoofItUp]

We left the GC about 11:15. I'm guessing it was a 30 minute drive to the pier and we got there around 11:45, but I don't remember what time exactly.

 

[rrbar]

At Cabo the second time, I wore pants and a windbreaker for the parasailing that we arranged ourselves once we got there. It was cool and windy- it felt like it was in the 70's so I was glad that I wasn't in shorts. The first day we went to Cabo it was warmer and my kids wore shorts and that was fine. I wore my jacket or a windbreaker a lot of time on deck 8 as it is sheltered but still windy and it felt like it was only in the 70's most days- so not that warm with the wind. The TV said the pool was 80 degrees but we never tried it as it felt to cold to us Southern Californians!

 

[EricaG]

Just curious--I have read several reviews here and elsewhere that talked about the long lines for kids' club registrations.

I vaguely remember this being a quick process when we did it at the Port Terminal in FL. But, if the lines for registration are long in the L.A. port, are there other options for getting my son registered? (I've done all the online stuff, but I know the pager/wristband stuff is the final part that has to be done in person).

 

[LKFan]

Just curious--I have read several reviews here and elsewhere that talked about the long lines for kids' club registrations.

I vaguely remember this being a quick process when we did it at the Port Terminal in FL. But, if the lines for registration are long in the L.A. port, are there other options for getting my son registered? (I've done all the online stuff, but I know the pager/wristband stuff is the final part that has to be done in person).

I wonder if the long lines have to do with the new bracelets. When we cruised in June, 2010, there was a long (and slow) line to register kids at PC. We had already registered online but had to wait in the line again to sign the paperwork accepting responsibility for the bracelet and pager.

Once we got on the ship and arrived at the kids club, there was another long line/crowd of people who I think probably preregistered their child(ren) but didn't realize that there was new paperwork to fill out. Since the kids clubs only have a couple of computers, the people in the registration line blocked the entrance for those of us who were dropping off our kids.

Trip reports seem to be saying that the long lines were only the first day or two which makes me think that it is related to people having to register their kids and the CM at the entrance being tied up with that process.

 

[GoofItUp]

Just curious--I have read several reviews here and elsewhere that talked about the long lines for kids' club registrations.

I vaguely remember this being a quick process when we did it at the Port Terminal in FL. But, if the lines for registration are long in the L.A. port, are there other options for getting my son registered? (I've done all the online stuff, but I know the pager/wristband stuff is the final part that has to be done in person).

We registered our son on-line and didn't have any waits getting him into kids club. I can't even remember when we got the bracelet, so it must have been pretty easy! There are no pagers now since they have the wave phones, so that may be moving things along.

 

[Quimby]

So if we pre-registered the kids online do we have to stand in line at the Port or just go to the Kids Club on board? Can we get the bracelets after lunch on day 1?

Thanks