WBPC May 6th 2013 Wonder

[Brixton]

I missed Christiaan, but Lesley was funny! I'm VERY thankful Richard granted my server request on Embarkation Day...Daniel is AWESOME & we enjoy him! Unfortunately, we are still waiting for a DCL room steward who knows our names & dinner seating...and who replaces the shampoo every couple of days.

All in all, a WONDERful cruise & we can't wait to go again next year

 

[neg58]

Just wanted to let everyone know that all the arrangements I made, many with the help of you here, worked out great. We all flew in to FLL from different areas of the country, took SAS to downtown Miami (met Lexi and family in the shuttle), stayed at the Holiday Inn Port of Miami (convenient but not great), taxied to the port. All very easy.

In Los Angeles, took the Supershuttle to LAX. I was stressed because the last flight out for me that day was 11:50 am, but we did walk off and we were through customs before 9, got right to the shuttle, and were checked in to our flight before 10. Supershuttle was half the price of the Disney transfers.

The thing I was disappointed in on the ship was crowd control. There wasn't enough room for Capt. Puckett's talks, there weren't enough loungers on deck 4 (I swear there were many more when I was on the ship at Christmas), lines too long at BBB. When we returned from Cartagena it was about 1:45 and BBB was set to close at 2 and already one side of the buffet had closed. Several of the tour buses returned right when we did. The CM at BBB said it was closing in 10 minutes, so we went out to Plutos, which was very crowded. Later learned that they kept BBB open until 3:30. Well, it doesn't do any good if they don't announce it! Maybe they were telling people as they reboarded the ship, but they didn't make any announcements up on deck and we were led to believe they were about to close when we were at BBB. Things like that.

I also found GS not to be sharp this cruise. No matter what I asked, the CM had to go in the back room and check on it. One ran a gift card I had and something happened and I wasn't credited for it for 4 days. No airline check in at GS. Gave me a hard time about getting an item signed. Just didn't find them outstanding (except one guy who gave me batteries for my camera on Canal day at 6 am!).

Nancy

 

[Lexa]

Just wanted to let everyone know that all the arrangements I made, many with the help of you here, worked out great. We all flew in to FLL from different areas of the country, took SAS to downtown Miami (met Lexi and family in the shuttle), stayed at the Holiday Inn Port of Miami (convenient but not great), taxied to the port. All very easy.

In Los Angeles, took the Supershuttle to LAX. I was stressed because the last flight out for me that day was 11:50 am, but we did walk off and we were through customs before 9, got right to the shuttle, and were checked in to our flight before 10. Supershuttle was half the price of the Disney transfers.

The thing I was disappointed in on the ship was crowd control. There wasn't enough room for Capt. Puckett's talks, there weren't enough loungers on deck 4 (I swear there were many more when I was on the ship at Christmas), lines too long at BBB. When we returned from Cartagena it was about 1:45 and BBB was set to close at 2 and already one side of the buffet had closed. Several of the tour buses returned right when we did. The CM at BBB said it was closing in 10 minutes, so we went out to Plutos, which was very crowded. Later learned that they kept BBB open until 3:30. Well, it doesn't do any good if they don't announce it! Maybe they were telling people as they reboarded the ship, but they didn't make any announcements up on deck and we were led to believe they were about to close when we were at BBB. Things like that.

I also found GS not to be sharp this cruise. No matter what I asked, the CM had to go in the back room and check on it. One ran a gift card I had and something happened and I wasn't credited for it for 4 days. No airline check in at GS. Gave me a hard time about getting an item signed. Just didn't find them outstanding (except one guy who gave me batteries for my camera on Canal day at 6 am!).

Nancy

Now think how crowded would be if ship was in full capacity. I have been on a ship where there is 100s of kids and full of adults...and waiting is looong....last year on Hawaiian cruise and this WBPC to me has a lot less waiting everywhere.....

 

[yukongirl123]

we arrived home about 11:30 last night. I am almost unpacked, just 2 bacKpacks to go. Our daughter and her hubby arrive tomorrow for a visit. We had a wonderful trip and hope you all did as well. Our serving team was Carlo and Steven. We agreed that in 14 cruises Carlo is the best we have had. He did so many extras for us. Steven was wonderful also.

We spent 4 days at DL post cruise, 6 days at WDW pre-cruise. Many, many days of magic.

Carlo & Steven were awesome! We've had great servers, good servers and iffy servers but this was the best team ever!

 

[Agent J]

we arrived back home very early Sunday morning after an extra 5 nights at DLR post-cruise....this was our second wbpc cruise with the Disney Wonder and we loved it...our tablemates were fantastic (Lindababe - will be looking for you on a bus at WDW soon ;-) and our son made a new best friend with the Braysmommy crew (we'll need to figure out a skype schedule for the "zombies")...we'll probably do another wbpc or trans some day - we just love the longer cruises so much....our servers were wonderful (Daniel and Claudia) and were terrific with the boys at our table (encouraging paper airplane tossing - sorry if you were in the line of fire)

the FE gifts were incredibly thoughtful and creative - next time we won't sign-up for the whole list as it is just too much to receive and bring home as much as our son enjoys the fun of finding mickey mail...

all in all another outstanding family vacation!!!

see you real soon!

 

[granmaz]

All I can say is it is a good job you weren't on the Wonder 2011 WBPC as it was very very substandard to this one. They didn't even have chocolate chip cookies in the buffet until we and others complained!!!

However I will agree about the lack of loungers on Deck 4 plus a lack of them round the Cove pool too. Not that I ever wanted to use one but it was something I noticed back in 2011 and is exactly the same now. I guess nobody complained about that back then. Only thing I can think of is that they don't get used in Alaska so no need to have them onboard?? Such a shame on Deck 4 as they always seem so popular.

 

[aan1701]

Well here is one were we can disagree. I never had a issue finding a chair or lounger. I thought the cove was well stocked with them. Deck 4 seemed to have the same amount to me as in all my previous cruises.

Sent from my iPhone 5 using DISBoards

 

[granmaz]

I think the Magic had more on deck 4 than the Wonder does. Well on the 2 Transatlantics anyway, can't say if things have changed since Oct 2011 after our last TA. Though still really not enough I think. Plenty up on deck 10 though.

 

[LindaBabe]

I'll agree - I thought Deck 4 suffered a shortage of loungers. The adult pool seemed to have more space between loungers than previously - and of course, due to the chair hogs, what were there were rarely available during prime time. (No problem at 6 am or 10 pm)

 

[aan1701]

I never had a problem finding a lounger around 3:30 at the Cove on the non smoking side.

 

[Crissup]

We did find the chase lounges were hard to find at the Cove Pool around noon. However, we would just ask Gladstone for help finding a lounger and he would have one of his guys bring some of the deck 10 loungers down. Worked for us.

Sent via my iThingy

 

[aan1701]

We did find the chase lounges were hard to find at the Cove Pool around noon. However, we would just ask Gladstone for help finding a lounger and he would have one of his guys bring some of the deck 10 loungers down. Worked for us.

Sent via my iThingy

See that's service.

Sent from my iPhone 5 using DISBoards

 

[Crissup]

See that's service.

Oh, I definitely agree. As soon as we found out Gladstone was on board, we were excited. We knew right away it was going to be an awesome cruise as far as the pool went.

Sent via my iThingy

 

[braysmommy]

we arrived back home very early Sunday morning after an extra 5 nights at DLR post-cruise....this was our second wbpc cruise with the Disney Wonder and we loved it...our tablemates were fantastic (Lindababe - will be looking for you on a bus at WDW soon ;-) and our son made a new best friend with the Braysmommy crew (we'll need to figure out a skype schedule for the "zombies")...we'll probably do another wbpc or trans some day - we just love the longer cruises so much....our servers were wonderful (Daniel and Claudia) and were terrific with the boys at our table (encouraging paper airplane tossing - sorry if you were in the line of fire)

the FE gifts were incredibly thoughtful and creative - next time we won't sign-up for the whole list as it is just too much to receive and bring home as much as our son enjoys the fun of finding mickey mail...

all in all another outstanding family vacation!!!

see you real soon!

We also had a great time on this cruise! Loved all our table mates and our servers, Daniel and Claudia, were amazing with the boys! I am not sure a zombie skype date will be enough for Brayden since he has already began to ask when we are going to Canada to visit!

 

[neg58]

Now think how crowded would be if ship was in full capacity. I have been on a ship where there is 100s of kids and full of adults...and waiting is looong....last year on Hawaiian cruise and this WBPC to me has a lot less waiting everywhere.....

I was on the Wonder at Christmas and there were more than 2600 passengers, but there was never a problem waiting (except for Santa and the characters). The age make up of the passengers was more diverse, so all areas of the ship were used with no area becoming overcrowded. I never had to wait in the Rainforest or for a deck chair, never had a problem finding a seat at a show (sometimes they did do an extra show on sea days).

That's why I said I didn't think they did a good job on crowd control. There were fewer people on the ship, they just didn't offer enough things for the age groups of the people they had.

Nancy

 

[aan1701]

After reading these last few posts, I am wondering if I am the only one who never had a problem finding a seat either up at the cove, or in a show, talk, what have you. I never had a problem with lines either. I think the longest was the one I stood in to get our pic with Captain Fabin. That was maybe 10 min.

 

[Crissup]

I can't say we had trouble finding a seat in the Outlook Cafe. We sometimes couldn't find two together because the would be giving some health seminar up there or people just scattered around. But between the Outlook Cafe, the Cove Cafe and the Cove Pool area, we always found a seat somewhere. And Gladstone always ensured we had a pool chaise when we wanted one. Overall, we didn't feel it was that crowded. The family pool always had open chaise lounges, but we avoided them due to the sun.

Sent via my iThingy

 

[aan1701]

That's good to see I was not the only one. I did just realize I made a error. The longest line I waited in the whole two weeks was at Serenity Bay for lunch. That I think took about 20 min or so, but even with, what seemed to be most of the ship over there for lunch, we found a open table to eat at with no problem.

 

[Crissup]

Agreed on the Serenity Bay lunch line. While the tables usually seem full, there's always someone who just finished eating as we leave the food line looking for a table.

Sent via my iThingy

 

[annichan]

We never had any trouble finding seats either - sometimes there would not be free sun loungers at the Cove Pool, but then we would always find a free table there which was just as well. And our favourite times at/in the pool were about 4 to 6 pm, when there were always free loungers.

That said, we did wait in an absolutely horrible line that didn't make us happy at all ... And that was the non-US citizens' line to get off the ship at the port of LA. They had one counter open for non-US citizens (instead of just spreading us among all counters ), and it moved at glacially slow speed because they took a few minutes to process each individual. There were maybe 30-40 people ahead of us, and we spent until almost 11 am in that line, shuffling alongside the Wonder which we had just left. Next to us, literally about 1,000 US citizens walked past, and when there were no more coming and the ship must have been empty, we were still standing there waiting. Very annoying, and it really made us feel pretty second-class.
(Which we had to think of when we arrived back in Germany: everybody in the same line, with lots of people from the US, nobody took more than a few moments at the counter, and no nationality had to wait longer than any other. So it's possible!)