*UPDATED 3/31* First Cruise on Disney Wonder: Mexican Riviera 2/26-3/4

I took a bit of video with my dSLR on our trip, and put it all together in this one video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jc60lybqis&feature=channel

It includes parts from:
-Sail Away! Party
-Sideshow Bert
-The Northern Lights
-Route 66
-Minnie's Fiesta Grande
-Wonder Quest (I don't have this part on video, but he asked for a receipt, but we didn't have one, so we wrote "receipt" on a piece of paper! The crew member (I'm blanking on his name...) brought it back up afterwards and showed everybody! lol! :lmao:)
-Margarita Grill in Puerto Vallarta
-Views of Cabo
-Superfi (and the horn! lol!)
-Flag Parade
 
Thank you for sharing!
This was a great trip report! And awesome photos. :goodvibes
We're sailing on the wonder for the first time next year and after reading your trip I'm even more excited! :yay: Thank you.
 
Thank you for sharing!
This was a great trip report! And awesome photos. :goodvibes
We're sailing on the wonder for the first time next year and after reading your trip I'm even more excited! :yay: Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed my TR! It was lots of fun to put together. Your going to have a great time on the Wonder, she's a beautiful ship!
 


Now that's awesome! We saw the first show, though... But The Lion King part was so funny!

AWESOME trip report, you are a great writer! Do you happen to know how much you paid the taxi van driver to take you around? We are looking at doing the same thing. Thanks!
 
Great job! You are well on your way to becoming an awesome TR writer! You should do them for you DL trips as well! You have a nice style and it will develop more as you get older, but you are already on the way to a great start!

Me personally, I love :love: more food pics, I can't get enough, it really helps to know what is available and if I will have choices that I will like! Your whole family is very young, especially the GPs! You have many fun years ahead of you!
 
Wow - great TR - I just read through it late last night and finished just now. I will be showing your report to my kids - it should really help them see what's to come on our trip next week (4/8). Can't wait - thanks for sharing and loved the photos. If you get a chance, we would be interested in seeing a glimpse of what the daily navigator itinery looks like. Thx
 


Great job! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your pictures and story. You seem like a truly lovely young woman. :cloud9:
 
AWESOME trip report, you are a great writer! Do you happen to know how much you paid the taxi van driver to take you around? We are looking at doing the same thing. Thanks!
Thanks! I'm pretty sure we payed $80 plus tip for all eight of us for all day. It worked out great for us!

Great job! You are well on your way to becoming an awesome TR writer! You should do them for you DL trips as well! You have a nice style and it will develop more as you get older, but you are already on the way to a great start!

Me personally, I love :love: more food pics, I can't get enough, it really helps to know what is available and if I will have choices that I will like! Your whole family is very young, especially the GPs! You have many fun years ahead of you!
Thanks for the encouragement! I was thinking the same thing about doing DLR trip reports as well. That would be lots of fun and our next trip is next year! Whoo-hoo! :goodvibes

I know what you mean and once I got home and was looking through all the pictures, I was disappointed that I didn't take shot of every meal. I'd definitely do that right next time, though, along with a few other things that I wish I had taken photos of.

Wow - great TR - I just read through it late last night and finished just now. I will be showing your report to my kids - it should really help them see what's to come on our trip next week (4/8). Can't wait - thanks for sharing and loved the photos. If you get a chance, we would be interested in seeing a glimpse of what the daily navigator itinery looks like. Thx
Glad you enjoyed them! Cruising is so much fun and your whole family is going to have so much fun!

kimmiepie1 was on the same cruise and uploaded her navigators. You can check them out here: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=44258825&postcount=14

Great job! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your pictures and story. You seem like a truly lovely young woman. :cloud9:
Thank you! Well, I love sharing about things I really enjoy, so putting this all together was quite fun! And this cruise was definitely on the top of the best vacation ever, right next to our Disneyland trips! :goodvibes
 
Thanks for the encouragement! I was thinking the same thing about doing DLR trip reports as well. That would be lots of fun and our next trip is next year! Whoo-hoo! :goodvibes

I know what you mean and once I got home and was looking through all the pictures, I was disappointed that I didn't take shot of every meal. I'd definitely do that right next time, though, along with a few other things that I wish I had taken photos of.

The first report is always the hardest because you don't realize how many things you'll want to talk about when you get back, until you are already back. Now that we all have digitial cameras I find that you can never take too many pictures. If you don't like them, just delete them, it doesn't cost anything to have them developed!

I'm sure each TR will get better and better! :goodvibes
 
The first report is always the hardest because you don't realize how many things you'll want to talk about when you get back, until you are already back. Now that we all have digitial cameras I find that you can never take too many pictures. If you don't like them, just delete them, it doesn't cost anything to have them developed!

I'm sure each TR will get better and better! :goodvibes
Oh, yes, there is sooo much to share, that's for sure! I usually take tons and tons of photos, but since this was our first cruise, half the time I just enjoyed the moment instead of taking pictures. Now that I'm familiar with everything, the next time we cruise I have more of an idea of what I want to photograph, so I'm sure I won't come home wishing I had taken a photo of such-and-such, if you know what I mean. :goodvibes

Yep, I'm sure they will! It just takes practice to get in a groove and know what works and what doesn't.
 
Since my posts have been pretty much on what we did, I decided to write up a sort of review of our Disney Cruise experience. I used a few pictures that I posted before, but added quite a few new ones as well to keep it fresh. If I left anything out or if something doesn't make cents, please let me know! :goodvibes

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Although we had never been on a cruise before, we're big Disneyland fans, so we're familiar and love Disney quality and service. But cruising was still a whole new thing for us and weren't quite sure what to expect. At the beginning of the cruise, the cruise director, Jimmy, talked about how they wanted to meet our expectations during our trip. Well, to say they met our expectations would be a big understatement. The crew members were friendly and helpful, the shows were fantastic, the activities were a blast, and our servers were amazing! And that's only a small portion of the cruise experience! Our trip on the Wonder was amazing and even better than I ever imagined it would be. Now it's time to save up for another Disney Cruise!

Embarking:
We arrived at the port and began the boarding process, which went well. We had done the online check in, so we went to the desk, checked in, and received our Key To The World Cards. After going through security, we waited about 10-20 minutes before we actually boarded the ship. We made our way to Parrot Cay for lunch, but they didn't have any tables available, so they sent us to The Beach Blanket Buffet. After getting our food, it took us a long time to find an empty table since everybody was eating at the same time, but we soon had crew members helping us find an empty seat. After we ate, we checked out our staterooms, before the safety drill. After the drill, we went to the Sail Away! Deck Party on Deck 9.

Staterooms:
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At 2:30PM we went to our staterooms, 2030 and 2032, which connected. There were four of us in each room, which worked out great for us. Between the closet, drawers, trunk with selves, drawers in the desk, and the shelves above the television, we had plenty (and I think extra) space for all of our stuff. The split bathrooms were perfect, and I loved the mirror at the desk, which came in handy when I did my hair in the morning while the others were using the bathrooms. I slept on the sofa bed, which was really comfortable and in the mornings I'd turn on the TV to either the channel that played Pixar Films or Disney Animated Classics.

The Wonder:
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The ship it's self is beautiful! Just like the parks, the ship is filled with all sorts of little details, which I think makes the experience even more fun. She's kept up very well. My dad went on the Art of the Ship tour, so he was telling us about all these little things that we hadn't even noticed. It's really cool because you're always finding something new that you didn't see before. The ship was very well kept. On deck 9 one morning, there were crew members varnishing the wood and in the afternoons you would see them cleaning the portholes, ect.


Breakfast, Lunch, & Snacks:
The first morning we had breakfast at The Beach Blanket Buffet, but the rest of the week we at Triton's and at Parrot Cay a couple times. I preferred the sit-down restaurant instead of the buffet. The atmosphere at Triton's is really nice and when we were at port we had a nice view out the portholes. The french toast pineapple stack was so good that I had it two mornings in a row. For lunch it was pretty much the same as breakfast, mostly at Triton's, which was a sit down meal, and occasionally at Parrot Cay, which was a buffet.

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Some of the days I'd get a bit hungry between lunch and dinner, so I'd stop by Goofy's Galley on the pool deck and grab a turkey and cranberry sandwich. The rest of the family also got lots of fruit to snack on as well. Mmmmm, such a delicious sandwich!

Dinners:
We chose the second seating for dinner, after hearing that the first seating is typically a bit crazier because families with younger children choose to eat earlier. 8:15 PM is a bit later than we usually eat, but it ended up working well since we were usually full from lunch until close to then anyways. The first night the service was a bit slow. Daniel and Alina got their meals first, since they were the youngest, so they got tired and nearly fell asleep at the table. After dinner that night we told them to serve all our meals at once, so we never had a problem after that.

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I only got an appetizer one night (which was pot stickers on Pirate Night. Mmmm!), since the main course was so filling. One night my dad asked our server for a main course suggestion to go with his drink, but decided on another dish instead. So our server bought out not only the dish my dad had order, but the one that went well with his drink as well! Also, the first few nights I probably over ate, since I felt like I had to finish everything on my plate. After a few days though, I just ate till I felt full, so I felt much better after that. They definitely keep you well fed, that's for sure!

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I loved the whole rotational dinning thing and thought it was great! All three dining rooms, Triton's, Parrot Cay, and Animator's Palate were awesome, so I don't think I could pick a favorite! Even though you only rotate between three dining rooms, you never have the same menu twice, because of all the themed nights. I didn't realize that until we were on board, which I thought was pretty neat.

The food it's self was very tasty. The meats were usually cooked perfectly and thought the menus had good variety of meals to choose from. I really loved the desserts as well. I choose a chocolate dessert almost every night and they were delicious!

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My mom has gluten and dairy allergies, but that didn't stop her from having fantastic food, especially desserts. They had gluten-free rolls, dairy-free creme brulee, and gluten and dairy free chocolate cake.

Servers:
Our servers were fantastic! Our head sever was Geffrey, Ozer was our server, and Marvin was our assistant server. It was fun how they made the ketchup in the shape of a Mickey head and one night Ozer did one in the shape of Pluto! We also loved the magic tricks and the puzzles they had for us to figure out. Such a great way to end the evening! We had no idea how fond we would become of them and were really sad when we had to leave them.

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They worked very well with my mom's allergies, making sure she had just about whatever she wanted and that it would be safe for her. At the end of each dinner, Geffrey (our head server) would bring the next night's menu for her to order what she wanted, so the chef could make it work for her. It was great not having to worry each night about her being able to have something that would be both tasty and something she could eat.

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Alina got sick for about two days and spent most of her time in our stateroom. At the end of our dinner, Ozer would bring the meal we had ordered for her out for us to take down to her, nice and hot, along with a dessert. It was also fun running into our servers throughout the day and chatting with them for a few minutes, it was like bumping in to an old friend.

Entertainment:
I love the live shows at Disneyland, so I was really looking forward to the Broadway styled shows on the Wonder. Since we had second seating for dinner we saw the 6:15PM show every night. At the Walt Disney Theater we saw The Golden Mickey's, Toy Story: The Musical, and Dreams and all of them were amazing! One night was hypnotist show by Ricky Kalmon and it was hilarious!

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We also saw some of the 30-45 minute variety shows in between the show and dinner, which were great as well. One of our favorites was Michael Harrison, who did a ventriloquist act. I liked having something to do in between the show and dinner.

At the Buena Vista Theater they had several different first run movies throughout the day. We saw The Muppets (which I'd been wanting to see since I first heard about it) and the guys saw Cars 2, which was in 3D.

Crew Members:
All the crew members we encountered were every friendly and often said a "hello" when passing my in the halls. The crew members who led the different family activities were really fun as well.

Activities:
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Even though I was seventeen at the time, I never went to Vibe or did any of the activities there. I was always busing doing the other activities, such as golf putting, trivia (we won some awesome DCL baseball caps at one!), paper plane making, Wonder Quest, and Animation. There were so many fun sounding activities I saw on the Navigator to choose from and didn't even have time to do all the ones we wanted.

Characters:
What would a Disney Cruise be without characters? I love getting my pictures with them and I got to see some new ones that I hadn't met at Disneyland before. It seems to be the older I get, the more excited I get to see them!

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There are lots of opportunities to meet different characters aboard the ship. They were scheduled throughout the day on decks 3 and 4 in the Lobby Atrium. Each character has a 15 minute time slot, so as long as you got in line within that time slot, you knew for sure you were going to see that character. When you get to the front of the line, there is a professional photographer who will take your photo, along with a Crew Member who will hold any autograph books during the photos and take a photo with your own camera as well. That worked out well when I wanted to see a character when nobody else was with me.

There were often characters roaming around the halls on decks 3 and 4 as well, mostly in the afternoons and evenings. Peter Pan was the character we saw wandering around the most, but we also saw Cinderella, Snow White, Donald, Goofy, and Mickey. One day Peter Pan walked by in the hallway where we were standing in line to see one of the characters (I can't seem to remember who...) and everyone in the hallway shouted, "Peter Pan"!

Disembarkment:
The whole disembarkation process went very well and was set up great. On Saturday they had a video playing on one of the TV stations with Jimmy, the Cruise Director, explaining everything you needed to know for the whole process. The day before, we received a color coded luggage tag with a character, which indicated the order to get off the ship and where to pick up your luggage after you're off. We had the orange tags with Goofy. The dining room where you had dinner the last night is where you go for breakfast the next morning, which for us was Animator's Palate. Since we had second seating for dinner, we had the second seating for breakfast, which was at 8:15 AM. Breakfast was fast, as to be expected, but we didn't feel too rushed. We also said good-bye to our wonderful servers for the last time. Then we disembarked the ship, which we didn't have any problems with, and went to the orange Goofy section, where we found our luggage very easily.

Summary:
I loved everything about our first Disney Cruise. There were tons of fun activities to choose from in the Navigator and had fun choosing which ones we wanted to do each day. I really enjoyed having breakfast and lunch in the main dining rooms. The atmosphere was nice and it was a great time to relax and chat with whoever in our group decided to eat together. To say I loved the live shows would be an understatement, because all of them were amazing! And then we had our servers, who made sure all of us had meals that we loved and became our friends on the ship. Although I would have to say, it's the little things that truly make the cruise even more memorable: Our head server, Geffrey, calling me "the Planner" and asking how well my schedule was going every time I bumped into him, the music from Disney movies playing in the hallways, the servers making the ketchup in the shape of Mickey Mouse heads, the little details in the ships decor, and crew member Ponz who could remember the names of just about everyone. It's all those little details that make Disney vacations magical.
 
Wow, I am just in awe of your report! I have twin girls who are six years old, you give me hope that they will not turn into monsters when they are teenagers. Your parents must be very proud, you are two well behaved, polite, happy, clearly smart young women who dress like you have respect for yourself and you still enjoy Disney cruises and posing with characters! Sorry if that sounds weird, but you give me hope!

BTW, did your servers mention how much longer they would be onboard? I am thinking of requesting them for my upcoming 4/22 MR cruise.

Thanks again for the great report!
 
thanks for the tip and link!
No problem!

Wow, I am just in awe of your report! I have twin girls who are six years old, you give me hope that they will not turn into monsters when they are teenagers. Your parents must be very proud, you are two well behaved, polite, happy, clearly smart young women who dress like you have respect for yourself and you still enjoy Disney cruises and posing with characters! Sorry if that sounds weird, but you give me hope!

BTW, did your servers mention how much longer they would be onboard? I am thinking of requesting them for my upcoming 4/22 MR cruise.

Thanks again for the great report!
Nope, that doesn't sound weird at all! I totally get what you mean. I've been homeschooled my whole life (and so have my siblings), so I've never had any pressure to be or do what is "popular", so most the things I like and do are quite different than what most people would choose.

As for loving Disney, that's partly due to the fact that my first trip to Disneyland was when I was 4 years old. lol! I still don't get how people can say they either don't like or are "too old" for Disney. :confused3 Everybody just has their own perspective on things, I guess... Oh, and I should point out, that my parents love our Disney vacations as well, we have so many fond memories as a family from our Disneyland vacations!

Our server, Ozer, isn't on the Wonder anymore, but will be on the Fantasy in a few months. Our head server, Geffrey, and assistant server, Marvin, didn't mention anything that gave us the idea that they'd be leaving the Wonder anytime soon.

Have a great time on our MR cruise! You going to have a grand time! :goodvibes
 
Wow - what a great trip report :cool1: You did an amazing job - I loved all the details.

We will be sailing on the 14-night Panama Canal cruise in December. I have been reading all the MR trip reports to get info on what is offered - 3 of our 4 ports are the same as the MR. I love seeing pictures of the Wonder.

Can you tell me what model your camera is - your pics are fantastic!

:wizard:
 
Wow - what a great trip report :cool1: You did an amazing job - I loved all the details.

We will be sailing on the 14-night Panama Canal cruise in December. I have been reading all the MR trip reports to get info on what is offered - 3 of our 4 ports are the same as the MR. I love seeing pictures of the Wonder.

Can you tell me what model your camera is - your pics are fantastic!

:wizard:
Thanks! I had fun putting this TR together. :goodvibes

Ooooh, that's going to be lots of fun! 14 nights on a Disney Cruise ship; it doesn't get much better than than! :cheer2:

I have a dSLR, the Sony A580 and all the photos I took were with the 35mm lens. I love it and it was great for me, since photography is a hobby of mine. Oh, and just so you know, some of the photos in my TR were taken my my grandpa, who has a Nikon dSLR and my mom, who has a Panasonic point-and-shoot.
 

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