3/18 Wonder: The Very Merry Unbirthday "Lovely Cruise" **PICS!**

[nenner1]

i am enjoying your trip report you could write a book

Thank You! Actually, I am in the research portion of doing just that. Its what I call a "serious hobby" and I was anxious to see the reaction to my TR to see if I was good at it or not! At times I can be a bit too wordy!

Sorry to leave you hangin' now that we've finally gottento the part in the TR where we are on the boat! We took a mini-vacation to MK on Fri.

Working on the next part now...hang in there!

 

[mickeyluv]

We are taking our first cruise (me, DH and DD age 10) in November on the Wonder and I am loving your TR!!! You have had me laughing my head off!! I am actually copying this to a word document now and printing it out so I can take the rest of it to my bed and read while lying down!! Nothing like reading about Disney Cruise's to hopefully lead to "sweet" dreaming about Disney Cruises. I'll be back looking and patiently waiting for your next installment. BTW, you are a wonderful TR writer!!!

Your children are beautiful!!

 

[nenner1]

"Nautical Wheelers who call themselves sailors
Play fiddle tunes under the stars
Petticoats rustle, workin' shoes scuffle
Shuffle on down to the bar..."

We bounded through the mouse ears, right behind (guess who?!) the burgundy SUV gang! Right inside, to the left and to the right are the backdrops for the embarkation pictures. Small lines were gathering here. We got in one, and they moved swiftly. The photographer arranged us, first a family group shot of all of us, then one of just the kids. The one of the kids turned out better. We bought both, even though Ron & I look kindof tired in the family shot (we were). Here it is:

Right past the photography backdrops, is where the enclosed gangway to the ship is located. We stopped the kids for a picture as we embarked:

Though it looks like we are alone, there was actually another family right before us inside the boat to the right. They were telling a Cast Member on the right their last name, to announce their arrival. After we crossed the gangplank, the CM on the left asked me our name. They announced the family before us, to a round of applause from the welcoming CM’s in the lobby atrium. As soon as “Welcome the whoever family" rolled off their lips, they immediately announced “Welcome the Fredericks family”…to only a smattering of applause. ?!?!? They ran both announcements so close together like one big run-on sentence, there was only one round of applause, and our announcement was at the tail end of it. But it didn’t even matter that we didn’t get a real round of applause, because I was so happy to finally be on the ship! And I still don’t know how they did it, if the female CM who asked me our name must have been miked or wearing those secret service agent earpieces, because she never told anyone else our name, and a male CM made the announcement almost immediately as the words were coming out of my mouth. How did they do that? (It must be that Disney magic!) So, again, the big emotional moment of our embarkation pronouncement was anti-climactic…I wasn’t expecting it to happen so fast.

We moved into the atrium past about 15 CM’s (the ones doing -or not doing- the clapping). There were hardly any passengers hanging out in there. They were being shepherded rather quickly towards Parrot Cay for the embarkation buffet. I didn’t want to go there so quick. I wanted to get my bearings, as I was already overwhelmed by all the action, excitement, and the grandeur of the atrium. I also had a little list of the things I wanted to do upon embarking. One of which was inquire about the Palo brunch availability. I knew we had to go to Wavebands at 1:00 for that. It was only a little after noon at that point, so I suggested we go see if they had started early so we could get that out of the way. I headed in what I thought was the direction of Wavebands, and as soon as we rounded the corner by Guest Services, I was lost. It seems no matter how many diagrams and layouts of the ship you look at, or how many photos you pore over, you can’t be totally familiar with it until you see it. I had such a fixed idea in my head of how the ship would be. I had pictured a very open floor plan, with big open areas. With the exception of the atrium and the upper decks that isn’t the case. It never occurred to me that there might be hallways to confuse me! Normally I’m pretty good with acclimating myself to an area and directionals. Ron looked at the map and headed us down the little empty hall devoid of any guests or CM’s and around to the entrance to WB. It has the back end of an old car and an old-fashioned gas pump as landmarks across from the entrance, which I duly noted in case I ever wanted to find my way back there again. (By the end of the cruise I knew how to find the back door!!!) Unfortunately, they were not taking reservations yet. We decided to head to the buffet. The plan was to eat quick and come back to get the brunch ressie, head up to our stateroom and drop off our carry-ons and then out to deck 9 to the pools and the Bahama Mamas! We backtracked up the hall where this time we passed a few CM’s, all of whom gave us the “What are you doing here when you aren’t supposed to be?” look.

There were quite a few more people in the atrium by now, and I was all too happy to follow them towards Parrot Cay. We walked through the Promenade Lounge(which , thankfully was open space and not a hallway) and arrived at the entryway to PC, where the sound of tropical birds serenade you as you cross the threshold (it reminded me of Rainforest Café). CM’s greet your party at the door and seat you at a table. A server asked us what we wanted to drink. I knew how the rotational dining worked and I knew that this would not necessarily be our server, assistant server or head server that would be with us at dinner time. What I did NOT know was how to handle tips for these “accessory” servers. I decided to watch the people at the table next to us and see how they handled it. We waited at the table for our drinks and plates for the buffet. Our server returned with our drinks and told us we could go ahead and help ourselves to the food, plates were up at the buffet line. We rushed up to it (even though we were still full from breakfast) and filled our plates with goodies. Literally. My plate had nothing but desserts. There was a chocolate cake, an apple cobbler, a pastry puff that resembled an éclair, a cheesecake, a cream pie – lemon I think, a tiramisu type of layered trifle bar, and cookies. (Sorry I didn’t take pics of the food. You will have to go to RV’s or SaintTaris’ TR’s for that!) Oh and there were little sundae glasses with white chocolate pudding. I found these little puddings intriguing as the glasses were fluted and narrow and the spoons were wide. After trying to jam my spoon down into the neck of the glass to reach the last spoonfuls of deliciousness, I realized that I was not going to find a way to make it fit. I looked at the girl sitting at the table next to ours. Lo & behold she had a dessert glass that also had an uneaten, unreachable pudding puddle in the bottom of it. Hmm. But ***I*** had an iced tea spoon! Ah HA! No uneaten pudding for me!. My second trip up I got more of the sweets, and a roll...you know, for balance. I didn’t have anything else, but there were deli meats and cheeses, a full salad bar, some yellow rice, I think there was roast beef, and of course, the peel & eat shrimp. There was a little kids section off to the right that had chicken fingers, macaroni & cheese, and spaghetti & meatballs. Also out in the dining room, not far from the main buffet, was an ice cream table. I didn’t stop there, though…I was full of cake and pudding! It was about this time we noticed we were near our assigned dinner table, #66. We were curious as to whether or not we would have company or would be dining alone. Not that we’re anti-social, it’s just we would have been more comfortable on our own. And at least for our first cruise we wanted to relax and enjoy our meals without worrying if we’re snorting soda, dribbling ketchup, or completely missing the fork while taking a bite of food... and if our tablemates noticed if you know what I mean. Plus our kids can be crazy. Especially if eating a meal with other kids! When we located it we saw it was a 7-top. Unusual. We must be seated with a party of three. Ron & I gave each other an uh-oh look. It would be interesting!
Meanwhile, I watched the table next to us, and I never saw them hand over a KKTW, sign anything, and they did not leave a tip on the table. I looked at hubby, like what are we supposed to do and he said “We can’t use cash on the boat”, which I assume translates as “We have no choice but to stiff the guy, duh” Oky doky, whatever you say. I wonder what happens at lunch & breakfast, when it’s full service???? So after completely stuffing ourselves to the point of near explosion, we rolled on back to WB and now they were taking and changing ressies. We had to wait in line while the people being helped decided they needed to read the entire menu and ask every question you could possibly imagine before making their reservation. Of course, when it was our turn it was:

“Do you have brunch reservations available?”
“Yes”
“What times?”
“10:00 and 10:30”
“We’ll take 10:30”
“Okay”

In & out in less than 90 seconds (not including the 10 minute wait). I’m sure the people behind us appreciated it! Quite a line had amassed while we were waiting.

Now that the to-do list was complete, we had planned to go to the stateroom and check it out and drop off our bags, but it was only 1:15. Hubby says, “Well, let’s go see. Maybe we can get in early”. (Didn’t we do this one time already? Plus I’d read on the DIS that they are pretty strict about the 1:30 thing). But okay. Sure enough when we arrived on Deck 7, the blue “ropes” were still up. We decided to go up and scope out deck 9, then come back after 1:30. We went up the midship stairs to 9. When I booked our stateroom, I knew we wanted to be closer to the top of the ship, where the pools and all of the “activities” were. I wanted deck 8, but that is the penthouse of the boat. Deck 8 has only categories 1-4. So I settled for deck 7, midship. It was a good thing. The elevators were somewhat of an issue. It seemed like every time we were several (or more) decks away from where we wanted to be and needed an elevator, one would never come. Or when it did it was either a) full or b) other people beat us to it. So we traveled the stairs a lot. While midship was an okay location, I would have preferred to be more aft. The beverage station is aft, as is the Mickey pool where we spent most of our time when we were on deck. We came out of the deck 9 lobby by the arcade and walked around to see the Dumbotron. We were wondering if the Wonder got one when it was in dry dock, and there it was…

It’s pretty cool, it automatically adjusts to the amount of light outside so that the display is always bright, clear, and easy to see (unlike my supposedly HD projection set at home that you have to close the blinds to see anything). We got some drinks, and played a little ping pong while we waited.

It wasn’t long before it 1:30 arrived and we walked back down to the deck 7 lobby. We had entered the elevator lobby from the other doors, and as I headed for the hallway and our stateroom, I headed to the wrong side. OOPS. If you think I had trouble down on deck 3, imagine how hard it was for me to find my stateroom on a deck full of nothing but identical hallways and room doors. I looked at the carpet ‘cause in the old (they have since updated it...I just saw the new one the other night) DCL special on the Travel Channel it tells you that the red anchors in the carpet point aft and the blue ones point forward or something like that. But all of the anchors on this carpet pointed the same way. And they were all silver on blue background. Looks like replacing the carpet was something else they did during dry dock. I never did get oriented as to what way was aft and what way was forward, starboard, or port, not even by the end of the cruise. I’m thinking I need a 7-night in order to master those skills!

When I finally got in the right (correct) hall, our stateroom, 7539, was only a few steps from the midship lobby. We opened the door and went in. We had read the Disney staterooms were 20% larger than the industry standard. If that’s the case, then the industry standard is smaller than my closet, and this room is hardly bigger than my master bathroom. Wow. I was thinking it would be difficult with a space so small, but we could manage (the ship was full, what choice did we have?)...that is, until the luggage arrived. Which, BTW, was only minutes later. All (seven?) pieces of luggage were delivered by 2:00. We brought it in, and resisted the urge to unpack. In fact, we resisted that urge the entire cruise. There wasn’t anywhere to put all that stuff anyway. We got our swim suits on, and while the kids were getting ready, I decorated our door. We got the paint chips from Home Depot. I had to cut out the mickey ears shape, and I put an adhesive magnet on the back of each one. The large magnet I made myself in Word. I was doubtful I could make a decent looking one, some of the ones posted on the DIS are so awesome, but I got some practice making Savannah’s dance recital program ad, and I think it came out pretty good. In fact, I heard many comments out in the hall. Most people thought DCL actually provided it! HA! Here is a pic:

Now that we were settled, it was time to find the party. Did I mention there is a deck chair and a Bahama Mama with my name on it awaiting me?

“And it's dance with me, dance with me, Nautical Wheelers
Take me to stars that you know
Come on and dance with me, dance with me, Nautical Wheelers
I want so badly to go”

 

[MagicMe]

I'm really enjoying your trip report. Feel like I'm back on the Wonder!! Also loved your early pictures - again reminds me of my own photo album!!

 

[nenner1]

“The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful
The skies are too clear, life’s so easy today
The beer is too cold, the daiquiris too fruitiful
No place like home when you’re this far away
I don’t care what they say!”

The weather was there, alright. Only problem was, it wasn’t quite what we had hoped it would be. The sun was out and the skies were clear, but boy was it COLD! Go ahead and shake your head at me, northerners...but I’m a born & raised Florida cracker, and to me anything below 75 degrees is chilly. It probably topped out around 70 that day. In & of itself the temperature would be tolerable, maybe even nice…but tornado-like gusts of wind were blowing on deck. Anything that wasn’t tied down was airborne (napkins, empty ketchup packets, towels, straws, cup lids, french fries..(!) We ventured over to the Mickey Pool, which was busy but not crazy yet.

(If you think that’s bad, just wait till you see the pictures from the at-sea day!).

We quickly discovered the first DCL myth : no saving seats, deck chairs, or lounges. Yeah, RIGHT. Every single chair had something other than a person on it. Clothing articles, bags, towels, drinks, food, magazines, etc. Actually a couple of chairs did also have people on them. The kids ran off to the pool and its wonderful 86 degree water, while we surveyed the area. I spotted one lounge in the middle of the back row with nothing but one of the white towels on it. To me, that is not enough to call it occupied and I dragged it out, behind, and around to the end of the front row into the sun. The back row was in shade and it was too cold to be there. Soon a CM happened by with some Bahama Mama’s in a souvenir cup. Now that’s what I’m talking about! I chatted a bit with the woman in the lounge next to me, she had two young boys in the pool. (In fact every time we walked by the Mickey Pool the entire cruise we saw her sitting right there in the same lounge. We wondered if she had saved money by not booking a stateroom and just slept on that lounge chair! !) She said she thought the people next to her were gone and moved some drink cups and slid over so we had two lounges. Perfect. One thing I noticed is each pool area on 9 has its’ own soundtrack..The adult pool area played some soft relaxing background muzak or was quiet, the Mickey pool had kids favorites (including a slightly annoying kidz-bop version of “Mickey” by Toni Basil…you know “Oh mickey you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind..Mickey, Hey Mickey!” Yeah. I heard that one a few too many times over that four days!) The Goofy pool had my favorite background music. The first time we walked on deck we heard Barenaked Ladies and Dave Matthews Band so we thought it was only a matter of time before we heard some Jimmy Buffett! We were wrong though. Even though the Goofy pool has the best soundtrack, it is hardly ever playing because there is always a movie on the dumbotron. Oh well. Anyway, we relaxed, enjoyed our tasty drinks, and watched the kids have fun in the pool:

Brendan enjoyed the slide but Savannah would not try it, even though she goes on much larger slides at Adventure Island, the water park back home. She claimed the air was too cold to get out of the water. It was.

Brendan found himself a little girlfriend in the pool. In just two hours he got a huge crush on her! They were playing some sort of tag game, it was so cute! Her name was Courtney, but he didn’t ask her where she was from. He looked forward to playing with her throughout the cruise! (Sadly, we never ran in to her again) That’s her in the pink bikini:

As we sat and drank, we noticed the deck emptying out. It was getting close to 4:00, time for the boat drill. We dragged (literally) the kids out of the water and back to the stateroom. We dried and dressed the kids and I also changed my clothes. (I had brought enough to change three times daily.) Inside the closet we found three adult and one child life jackets. That would have to do. We put them on and went out in the hall to find our muster station. CM’s were stationed in the lobbies and halls pointing which direction to go. I wondered how they knew where to direct us to, then I noticed the big “C” printed on the front…oh…! Our station was out on deck 4, and we arrived quickly. Although we were about 10 minutes early, many other people were already there. They placed us in order by room #’s, and we chatted with the people in the room next to us, and with some others from Tampa. More and more people kept arriving to that small area of the deck by the midship lobby doors. They weren’t all from deck 7…some were from the same area of decks 6 and 8. As more and more arrived, our CM’s squeezed us tighter and tighter together. In fact they said “Shoulder to shoulder is not close enough. Squeeze in tighter and get to know your neighbors!” I’m sure they thought that was funny. And for a cool breezy day it was like a stifling furnace on that little section of deck. I can’t imagine having an outside muster station on a hot July day…ugh! The only amusement provided was the view of the Royal Caribbean ship docked next to us doing their drill. It was fun to watch them mustering up, almost like a mirror image of us, only in yellow jackets. (I wanted to take a pic of them but we were sandwiched in so tightly I couldn't raise my arms. No joke.) We had to stand out there for a very long time. All of the other TR’s I read reported the drill as quick and painless. Our experience was anything but that. At least I can offer advice : Don’t arrive early. You might as well stroll in fashionably late, as you won’t get dismissed until everyone is there anyway. They called out the stateroom numbers that they hadn’t already accounted for, the horn blew, and finally we were done. Maybe ours was unusually long, but it took a half an hour.

Happy to be free, we ran back up to 7 to get rid of our clunky orange fashion statements and get up to the deck party! Even though we wasted no time and got back up to 9 in short order, the sail away celebration was in full swing. Did nobody else on this ship go to that safety drill? Or more likely, was everybody else on board released before us? It was already so packed. I had thought deck 10 would be the best place to be, and I would have been right as it was much less crowded. However, if you have kids, you might want to stay down on the dance floor over the Goofy pool on 9, because they get to go up on stage and dance towards the end. When we arrived we slid into the back of the crowd on the dance floor.

All of the characters were already dancing up on stage to “Celebration”.

Streamers shot out at the crowd and the kids shrieked and ran after them. (they are easily amused)

We danced some more, and then they called for the kids up on stage to dance to the YMCA and the Casper Slide:

I love this pic, look at the all the girls’ hair!

Right after the kids were done, we heard the ship’s horn go off to “When you wish upon a star”, and my eyes welled up! I felt silly being so emotional, but as you know my hormonal imbalance was in full swing and for the duration of the cruise I would find my eyes filling with tears at all kinds of strange moments! The boat didn’t move for a while, though, and as we waited we walked around deck 9. Finally we started moving slowly, following the Royal Caribbean and the Carnival ships down the channel. I totally forgot about looking back to the CM’s at the port waving their huge white gloved hands. Instead we headed all the way forward, as did much of the entire population of the ship. Most people were too cold to stay right out on the bow and huddled behind the plexiglass. We walked right up to the rail and got the best spot dead center. This first pic really shows the effects of the wind:

A view of the coast of Florida as we are pulling away:

And a super zoom of NASA, as seen from the boat:

The view from the front:

The trip was off to a great start, but it was moving really fast! It was already time to go get ready for the show and dinner!

“I need time for to play...”

 

[mickeyluv]

I may have stated this earlier, but we go on our first cruise in November on the Wonder and I am lovvvvving this trip report!!

 

[nenner1]

I may have stated this earlier, but we go on our first cruise in November on the Wonder and I am lovvvvving this trip report!!

I'm so glad!! I'm trying to put in all the details I can recall, and my hopes are its' perspective from a first time cruiser will help out those who are planning their first cruise. I hope I can remember it all, I didn't take any notes...

 

[nenner1]

“Great God almighty which way do I steer?”


We headed back to our room to get ready for the show. Having been assigned the late dinner seating, we would catch the first show at 6:15 then on to dinner at 8:15. This is when things got a little hairy. There was a lot of stepping over and around each other as we tried to get ready, as the room was not really wide enough for two of us to pass at once (small room, hurried parents, hyper kids, way too much luggage!) It was semi-controlled chaos. Somehow we managed to get done with about 20 minutes to spare before the start of the show. As we headed out, we encountered our stateroom host, Dewa from the Philippines. I cannot say enough about Dewa. He did a fantastic job navigating our disaster twice daily. He actually picked up the room a little for us! (Normally you might expect a stateroom host to do this sort of thing, but our mess was SO cluttered I can’t imagine how he even knew where to start). We warned him of what he was about to encounter and headed downstairs.

We arrived at the Walt Disney Theater about 15 minutes before showtime, and once again were re-acquainted with the Disney-No-Saving-Seats-Myth. The place was alredy pretty much packed and every time we thought we’d spotted good seats, we’d see the lone family member seat-saver hovering over the kill and shooting the “don’t even think about it” look. It wasn’t really a big deal, though. Thankfully, everyone in the theatre also followed the “slide all the way in” Disney rule, and I spotted four aisle seats just right of center about 10 rows from the back. We headed down the aisle, and that’s when it happened. The swaying, swooping and tilting. I hadn’t felt the boat moving ‘til now, and it was suddenly intense and overwhelming. It came out of nowhere. I wasn’t sure if I could even make it to the seat, and I don’t know how I did. We had brought Dramamine and Bonine with us for Ron & the kids…not for me, because I was relatively certain I would not feel sea sick. I mean after all, I had grown up on the water, had owned a boat a good portion of my life. I had well established sea legs…or so I thought. I felt dizzy and woozy, lightheaded and heavy all at once. I didn’t really feel nauseous, but definitely unsettled. From the door down the aisle to the row was the longest fifteen feet of my life! It reminded me of the scene in Poltergeist where Carol Ann’s mom is running down the hall and the hall keeps getting longer and longer. Finally I reached my chair, collapsed into it and held on to the armrests tightly as if that would stop the profound movement. Oblivious to our predicament, the kids saw other kids with popcorn, and of course insisted they should have some (they were never affected by the rough seas, not for the entire cruise). I needed some water also, so Ron headed to the snack bar, with a stop back at the room for Dramamine. Meanwhile I sat in a transfixed daze watching the curtain lurch to the left…right…..left…..right. It was almost as if the whole theater noticed it instantaneously, because suddenly there was an audible buzz. Ron returned, perturbed that he could not find the Dramamine, only the Bonine. He passed me some and took some himself. I wondered how it was even possible for the actors to perform with the stage pitching so much. Mercifully we did not have to wait long for distraction. Hercules the Muse-ical began. I have never seen the movie Hercules, so I wasn’t too familiar with all the characters nor with the story line. I don’t know if that really would have helped, as preoccupied as I was with the boat shifting. Still, the show was fantastic. Maybe it was because I had lower expectations, having heard raves about Golden Mickeys and Disney Dreams. I loved it, though. Hercules is the most comedic of the three, and I was laughing my you-know-what off! The fourth Muse – who is a dude- was a trip. Pain & Panic were also excellent, but Hades stole the show. An example, at one point Hercules, in his “skirt” is pinned to the ground (by something I can’t recall) and Hades says “Hey Britney!” and motions for him to cross his legs (a reference to Britney Spears and her pantyless paparazzi scandal). I do the joke no justice in my retelling, but it was hilarious! All in all, a wonderful show. Afterwards we had about an hour to kill before dinner, so we stopped in the Atrium for some photos. We got lucky and happened upon Mickey & Minnie, one of only two times they appear together the entire cruise:

The kids also got to meet Lilo & Stitch and we took some pics in the Atruim:

I don’t care how seasick we were. We were HUNGRY. We had been waiting six months for this food! And it was finally time. We walked towards Animators Palate, and found ourselves passing smack dab through the middle of Shutters! (A-HA! I found it!) We had spent a lot of time in the atrium, and were a little late for dinner, so we didn’t stop to look at our embarkation photos yet. We arrived at Animators and were escorted to our table. So far, our dining partners had not arrived yet. I wondered if they were at Palo, or if we were going to get lucky! We were then introduced to our serving team. Jeff was our head server (I want to say he was from South Africa, but I could be wrong). Simona from Romania was our Assistant Server. She quickly poured us water, obtained our drink order, and served the bread. Simona did a very good job throughout the cruise. She was sweet and pleasant, and very attentive to the kids. She made origami with the kids’ menus and they really liked that:

JoJo from the Philippines was our main server. He was extremely friendly, knowledgeable and efficient. He made the mistake of doing magic tricks for the kids (only a mistake because the kids demanded he keep doing them over & over!). We were very happy with our serving team. We ordered our food, and sat back to enjoy the “show”. In Animator’s Palate- for those who don’t know- dining is a whole sensory experience, with a visual show for the eyes, and a fantastic choreographed symphony playing in the background for the ears, and of course…the meal for your taste buds! Both Ron and I selected the Wild Garlic Mushrooms appetizer. It was to die for! Mushrooms in a creamy garlic sauce served over a puff pastry shell. We devoured it. It was about this time JoJo asked us is anyone was joining us. I said I did not know. I guess he had meant were there any more people in our party, because he then cleared off the extra three place settings. Woo-hoo! We were on our own! I no longer had to suck my stomach in (as if that was even going to be possible after too much longer!) The dinners moved along rapidly and it was time for our next course, which for both of us was the Caesar Salad with shaved parmesan and focaccia croutons. I am not a huge fan of Caesar salad, but this one was great. We ate all that up , and awaited our main course. Again, we had chosen identically, the Bacon-wrapped Filet Mignon with Seafood filled Pastry Shell (No, not a cheeseburger!). The filets were cooked traditionally, bacon wrapped and seared to perfection. The meat was tender and flavorful. I truly have to say that up until that point was the best steak I’d ever had. The seafood filled pastry shell I had thought I probably wouldn’t eat. I had pictured it as a traditional stuffed shell, but it wasn’t that at all. It came out as a fish shaped patty- almost like a hash brown- with a small amount of seafood in the center and a drizzle of tomato/feta sauce. It was really good! I cleaned my plate, as did Ron. Brendan had pizza, which he surprisingly ate very little of (too much popcorn), and Savannah had macaroni & cheese, and she only ate one bite (it is the more traditional cafeteria style- not Kraft Dinner!). They had fries but didn’t eat many of them. Bring on my favorite- dessert! I chose Boston Cream Pie and Ron got the Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie. We each tasted each others but ate mainly our own. The Boston Cream Pie was delicious with soft, spongy yellow cake, dense Boston cream filling, and rich chocolate glaze. The chocolate peanut butter pie was also sinfully rich, but a bit too peanut-buttery for me. The quality of our first meal was excellent, and we were both stuffed to the gills. But don’t forget, this is the Merry Unbirthday cruise, and next thing I know, I had a Happy Birthday serenade from our servers and was presented with a HUGE chunk of Celebration Cake!

I could only manage to eat one bite of it. It is a cheesecake-type fluffy thing, not really cake. Kindof a cross between a jello mold and a cheesecake. It wasn’t bad tasting, only bland after the other rich desserts. The best part is the wide white chocolate curl with the Wonder and Happy Birthday printed on it! I brought it back to the room to eat later (I never would be hungry enough to eat it) . We stopped by Shutters on the way out and snagged our embarkation pics. We didn’t realize at the time we could make stack our pictures in one place and they would stay the entire cruise. (I thought if we didn’t grab them, they might take them down...it is posted that they may possibly do that but they don’t). Since I was terrified of losing pictures, I selected the ones I wanted and purchased the $299.00 package, which was I think six 6x8’s and ten 8x10’s. Then we walked around on deck. It was chilly and very windy.

We were tired, and gorged, and a bit seasick. We had an early morning the next day, so we headed back to the room to call it a night. Dewa had turned down our beds, turned the TV on to the Nassau shopping presentation, and left us chocolates and a surprise:

And just like that, the first day was already over.

 

[wilma-bride]

Just ventured over here for a look-see and happened upon your trippy. All I can say is I so need to go on DCL now. I am going straight home after work to tell my husband we are going cruisin' next year

Your report is great, really detailed and your kids look adorable - and I have to add that I am soooo jealous that you live so near the magic

Please post some more very soon.

 

[1sttimecruz]

Great trip report. Thanks for sharing!

We were getting off the Wonder the same day that you boarded.

 

[pppiglet]

Wow...you got some really great pictures!

 

[nenner1]

Wow...you got some really great pictures!

Thank you! In fact, we got only 659 of them!

It's really hard to narrow down which ones get posted. I get a lot of the kids but not enough of the ship itself...was looking for one of the quiet cove/pool to show my mom and we didn't take a pic of that area at all! And I laugh at the onesin the other TR's I see of the food, only cause when I got my food I wasn't waiting around to take a pic of it!

We were getting off the Wonder the same day that you boarded.

Awww. We were there really early and saw a lot of folks disembarking. I said to my husband "Look, they look like a bunch of sad sacks cause they're leaving" We felt the same way when we left!!!!

 

[catecrew]

Hey Nenner1 we'll be with you on the 9/27/08 cruise!!!

Having fun reading this TR. This is what I do now every night is search for other people's TR's to tide me over till we get to go.

I love seeing our ticker go down a week at a time

 

[nenner1]

Hey Nenner1 we'll be with you on the 9/27/08 cruise!!!

Having fun reading this TR. This is what I do now every night is search for other people's TR's to tide me over till we get to go.

I love seeing our ticker go down a week at a time

Have you seen the thread for that cruise? Its huge! We have lots of company! Check it out!

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1344864&goto=newpost

 

[catecrew]

Oh yes indeed I already know about our thread, I have been on it since the end of February. I was reading your TR and I then I remembered reading your post about booking your cruise on our thread.

 

[j_cwayman]

DH and I are really enjoying your trip report! We have been on 2 Disney cruises and are planning our third for January 2008. We await your next post!

 

[nenner1]

Next Installment Up Tonight!

Sorry, I have been very busy with kids and work and activities this past week.

I am about halfway done with the next chapter...and I do mean chapter....I should be able to put it up tonight after work (which is tomorrow for most of you )

Hang in there!!

 

[nenner1]

“Can’t you feel ‘em circlin’ honey,
Can’t you feel ‘em swimmin’ around?
You got fins to the left….
Fins to the right…
And you’re the only girl in town”


Monday March 19th dawned dark and dreary. Okay, it was dark & dreary to me because I stayed in the stateroom (standard INSIDE….not recommended if you need daylight to regulate your circadian clock). I am a night owl, however (well I work nights so I don’t have a choice), and I could care less. I can sleep when it’s dark, and I can sleep when it’s bright. Anyway, the rest of the family went up to deck 10 for the sunrise, and I stayed in bed for an extra 20 minutes. They said it was spectacular when they returned, and looking at the pics I have to agree it looked pretty cool:

(Approaching Nassau)

But as you can tell from the pictures, most of the cruisers were still in the same place as me, face down on a mattress. The good thing was, the ship was not rocking as much. It was still moving, but not swaying. I theorized that the reason the pitch was so prominent last night was because we were moving at a higher speed, obviously now – close to Nassau- we were going slower….hence less rocking. It had been so bad overnight that the closet doors (sliding ones in cat.11) would slide open and shut with every rock of the boat. Swoooosh BANG…Swoooosh BANG. Swooooooosh BANG! I was too exhausted for it to keep me awake all night, it only disturbed me when the BANG!’s were especially thunderous.

Somehow I managed to drag myself up and into the shower before they returned. I was already running a little behind, due to my extended slumber. We had no hope of making sit down breakfast and I had to move it if we were going to even have time for the buffet at BBB. I thought I got ready as efficiently as possible, with everyone running around, stepping on & over & under each other. But once again they were all ready before me. I had about 10 minutes to go -all I had to do was dry my hair- but Ron was getting anxious. We had to be in Wavebands at 9:30 to meet for the Dolphin excursion. It was a little after 8:30 at this point. I thought we had plenty of time, but told him if he just couldn’t wait, to go ahead and take the kids up to BBB. He did, and I was done about 5 minutes after he left. So I hesitated, wondering if I should go to try & find them, or if they were coming back with food to eat in the room. (Usually when we stay in hotels, we bring the continental breakfast up to our room and eat there). But we didn’t have the 2-way radios to communicate, and I was afraid we’d be endlessly circling the decks looking for each other. I waited a few more minutes and decided they must be eating in the restaurant or on deck, and I headed up to find them. Of course, immediately upon arriving up to deck 9, I got lost. I found myself in a maze of deck somewhere near the Quiet Cove that ended in a dead end. I took a stairway up, so now (I think) I was on 10, and hopefully headed in the direction of BBB. Next thing you know, that ended in a dead end, with a stairway down, and I quickly saw why I wouldn’t be taking that stairway down: it led to the little mini-bridge sticking out the side of the boat. I was so pre-occupied with where I was going, I hadn’t even noticed we were docking in Nassau. The Captain and First Officers were all out on this little area of deck which protruded out. It had glass-bottom panels so the Captain could see where the dock was below him.

I stopped long enough to snap the picture, then backtracked to the first set of stairs down. Once back on 9, I was a little bit more oriented and headed aft towards BBB. As I approached the Mickey Pool, I heard someone yell “JEN!”, and I looked across the deck. Sure enough, there was Ron and the kids, heading in the opposite direction. When I went over there, I got chastised for my ill-advised Boat Exploration Adventures. Ron reminded me that I did not have my KTTW card, and said “What would you have done if you didn’t find us?” I replied that I would have met them in Wavebands at 9:30, of course! (He gives me is the sarcastic eye roll that said “as IF you could find your way down there”) Heh. From the right set of elevators, I could (!) So I told them I had seen that we were docking in Nassau. We went back up to 10 and took some pictures, as I ate a plate of doughnuts and muffins they generously grabbed for me at the buffet:

We made the trek down to Wavebands on deck 3 to meet for the Dolphin Encounter excursion. We were early once again. (TIP- though I certainly recommend arriving to things on time, there really isn’t a need to arrive so early to excursion meetings. Its just more sitting around you have to do). We were one of the first 10 families there. As our eyes adjusted to the very dark lighting of WB, we selected a table up front and gathered our excursion tickets and participation waivers. We waited about 20 minutes for everyone to arrive, and I was shocked at how many people were in this excursion! Wavebands was completely packed with anxious, excited, and slightly impatient excursioners. Ron trekked back up to the beverage station on 9 to grab us all some drinks, as we were all thirsty and bored. He had plenty of time and arrived back prior to it getting started. (I did feel the jealous glances of other parched cruisers wishing they had thought to do the same thing!!). Not too long after that, two CM’s arrived on stage to begin the pre-excursion information inundation! We recognized one of them as the same male CM who ran our boat drill the day before. Ron whispered to me (we were seated directly in front of them) “He looks like Kovac” (Dr. Luka Kovac on ER, played by Goran Visnjic for those of you who don’t know, and for those who are thinking Suzanne Vega “My name is Luka, I live on the second floor”- wrong Luka.) He then said that he thought the very skinny blonde female CM was the same one singing and dancing to “Mickey” at the sail away party. Both had the British accents, but I thought Mickey girl had brown hair, this one had blonde. (Both wore pigtails, maybe that was what seemed familiar?) Anyway, finally they began the speech telling us all about the Dolphin Encounter. They didn’t say anything I didn’t already know, and I amused myself watching some cute girls dancing and playing noisily on stage. As the girls grew in numbers and got louder behind the CM’s on stage, I wondered how long it would be before they were told to sit down. Heee. Not long! Next they had one person from each stateroom bring the filled out waivers to them at the table in the front. We were right there, so we were among the first few done with that. Then, the girls from the Dolphin Encounter came in and sat at a table near the back. They announced for all people participating in the excursion needed to line up at that table to get wristbands. There was a mass exodus and somewhat of a rush to the table. Unfortunately, where the table was situated was a bad area that allowed the line to branch out in a Y. Of course we were in one branch of the Y, trying to merge in, and nobody was letting us. We were kindof thinking it would go like merging on a highway..each car lets one in. But that wasn’t happening. After a few groups went by, we decided we had to just wedge ourselves in there. Ron was first and I don’t know what was transpiring with the folks we slid in front of, but suffice to say he was grumbling under his breath about it. All parties involved got over the merge madness and it was forgotten quickly. After we got our wristbands, we returned to our table. As the line snaked about the room we realized again and were glad that we were lucky (or pushy!) enough to be in the first 20 or so done. A CM arrived and sold bottled waters with DCL lanyards/bottle holders. I already had a water, but I wanted one of those lanyards. I thought about getting one, but it soon didn’t matter, because they sold out of them in minutes. After what seemed like quite a while (in all, beginning to end it was about 45 minutes to an hour), we were ready to head off the boat. When they called for us to rise and follow the DE girl, yet again we were one of the first few up. She led us out the back entrance of WB to (I think!) the forward stairs. We went down to the little embark/disembark lobby, which was just a small nondescript room with a security scanner in the middle and many little scanner terminals staffed with CM scattered around. We handed our KTTW cards to the CM, and we were scanned and exited the boat down the gangway. We waited in a group on the dock for everyone to get scanned out. The weather was good- about 75 degrees. Sunny, but still very windy. While we waited, we took some pics at the dock area:

Once everyone had disembarked, we followed the DE girl holding up the sign, down the dock, into the Festival Place building. I guess this is supposed to be some kind of big touristy shopping mecca, but nothing was ever open. We just passed through it and back out to the other side by the dock. We approached a ferry and prepared to board. I already had to use the restroom, and I remembered hearing that that boat would have a bathroom on it. We were the first people up onto the ferry, and I looked around quickly for a bathroom, or anything that might pass as one (!) and didn’t see one. We headed up the stairs and to nice seats in the back row (this ferry was a double decker, but there was a roof on the top deck. It had plastic roll up windows up a little high. Sitting in the rear, though we could look – and take pictures- out the back. Everyone seemed to enjoy the ride over, as we were all taking in the scenery. As seen from the Ferry Boat:

The Wonder

Nassau Coastline

Atlantis

The Mailboat

We stopped at a dock on Paradise Island to pick up more passengers. Ron & I tossed around the idea of getting off there on the way back, walking over to Atlantis, and catching the later ferry returning from the 2nd DE back to Nassau. I wasn’t optimistic that I could handle the amount of walking that would require, so we decided against it. (I had worn a new pair of flip flops for a very short time that morning -the boat adventure- and had developed some nasty blisters.) After about 10 minutes we were back on our way to Blue Lagoon Island. The whole ride was about 35-40 minutes. As we approached BLI, we could see the dolphins swimming in the crystal clear water. It was beautiful! (FYI Blue Lagooon Island was used for the beach scenes in the movie Splash, and several of the inhabitants are also famous for starring in movies: some of the sea lions were in Andre and some of the dolphins starred in the 1990’s remake of Flipper) (continued)

 

[nenner1]

"Fins to the left...
Fins to the right"

As soon as we got off the ferry, we were directed to a large outdoor porch-type room for instructions. We grabbed seats, and I took Savannah to the bathroom. By the time we had returned the informational talk had begun. It was fairly short, about 15 minutes, and basically it just prepared us for the encounter and how to handle the dolphins. After that, we were split into two groups and taken down to the floating square platforms where our encounters would take place. First, we were instructed to sit down on the platform with our legs in the water. We were then introduced to our dolphin, Stormy:

He swam around the platform splashing us with his flippers.

Then group by group we were led into the water for our kiss/photo op. (Tip: Wear water shoes! The ladder steps and underwater platform are coated in algae and are extremely slippery!) The water was REALLY. FREAKING. COLD! Ron &I had to get down on our knees onto the platform and the kids were in up to their chests. Everyone was shivering and I was so cold my teeth were chattering. Savannah was whining and he only thing that shut her up was telling her she would get the kiss from Stormy. She did and we practically sprinted out of the water to the relative warmth of the tropical air. The picture turned out pretty good:

We are all happily smiling but don’t be fooled. What we were thinking is “WE ARE GOING TO FREEZE TO DEATH IF WE DON’T GET OUT OF HERE QUICK!”

After all of the families took their pictures, the real encounter started. We were divided into smaller groups of eight. The four of us were joined by a mother, grandmother, and two children about 8 and 12 years old. Our group was the first back into the water, which actually I was happy about. I wanted to get back in before we dried off and warmed up too much. Sure enough it wasn’t as bad getting in this time. This time we stood on the underwater plank. We took turns hugging, rubbing, and dancing with Stormy. It was quite an experience and a lot of fun!

The grandma next to me was great! She was probably in her sixties or seventies and she was having a blast! A really sweet lady. When the instructor got to me, she said something in her thick island accent, the only part of which I understood was “Shake it mama!” So I “shook it”, and Stormy quacked and flapped, nodded and splashed and everyone cracked up. Then he moved on to Ron, and after dancing with him, Stormy splashed water in Ron’s face with his snout and shook his head “no”. Everyone laughed more. Savannah was scared and wouldn’t dance with Stormy, but when Brendan did, he made a flatulent-sounding noise out of his blowhole and splashed him frantically, completely soaking him! Then Stormy swam out and did some beautiful jumps high in the air for us. That was the end of our encounter. We could finally exit the water, dry off , and warm up. As we were drying, the DE staff photographers came down and showed us our video. We already pretty much knew we were going to get it. They gave us a card to present at the register. As we waited for our pictures and video to be ready, we wandered out to a small sandy picnic area back by the snack bar and showers. It was sunny and offered beautiful views of the island, and plenty of photo ops:

After thawing out a bit, we ventured over a wooden pedestrian bridge to the Sea Lion Habitat.

They were brought to Blue Lagoon Island after being displaced from their home at Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. You can’t get very close to the Sea Lions, you can only view their habitat from above on a boardwalk and wooden deck. They were super cute and looked to be enjoying that beautiful and chilly water!

Before long, we had to go check on the video and get our pictures. The picture packages were very reasonable, one 8x10, four 5x7’s and two 1x2 magnets for somewhere around $40. (A bargain compared to Shutters).

We grabbed some trinkets at the gift shop, including a blue stuffed “Stormy” for Savannah, and headed back to the ferry. The ride back was not as exciting, as we had already seen everything on the way in. I, along with quite a few others took a catnap on the way back. It was a great start to the day, and true to claim a “once in a lifetime experience”.

 

[scottishwee35]

Hi

Just let you know that I love your photos of early morning with two kids and see sunshine well. Oh bless that.

Love the photos of you all with dolphins

What a beautiful photos.

Scottishwee35