3 generations and we all survived! Wonder - Jan 13, 2017 - Galveston to Bahamas - Completed

[TestingH2O]

Loving your report! I'm excited to be on the Wonder this summer.

 

[bcwife76]

Ok I've started my report, too

 

[Kari0180]

Following along, we were also on this cruise, so it will be interesting to see your take on everything, I'm still in the process of putting all my notes together and hope to do a report soon, can't wait to read more!

 

[ukintheus]

I really like your trip reports! You have a great writing style. I love it when you post TR's! Have a great day!

Aww, thank you! That's really nice of you, I pretty much write it like I would tell it to somebody if I were ever to bore anyone stupid with a presentation about our holidays!

Awww man, now mixology - that's what I'm sad about most because we would've been in mixology together Looks like you had some really tasty beverages! What is Bailey's XC? Never seen that before, that particular one isn't sold in Canada.

And no Key West? Like you said not a surprise but that would have been another HUGE disappointment for us as I had several excursions we were contemplating doing there, we were not even sure we were going to get off in Nassau. Guess another good reason we chose the Fantasy that week (coincidentally). Like you said, total 1st world problem of course!

The Bailey XC stands for Extra Cream, it isn't one I'm familiar with either, but there were lots of little add ins that he had that I wasn't familiar with. It was a really good mixology, you should have been there. We were only going to have abut 4 hours in Key West, and we were going to have to shuttle in from the Navy pier, so I hadn't booked anything although the plan was to do the trolley tour and get key lime pie. Something always happens on every trip where it gives us a reason to go back, so now we have to plan another one to Key West.

We were on this same cruise. Trying to decide on whether or not to write a trip report. It's been interesting to read your experience and compare it to ours. Did I mention we had four kids in our group: 6, 3, 3, and 2? Our experience waiting for the ship to arrive was a little different!

I can only imagine what it was like with kids having to wait that long. 4 adults and a bar and we were good to go! My nephew, Paul, has 2 kids, 9 and 10 months, and he kept saying he was glad they weren't with him - he knew what a nightmare that was for those with kids!

 

[ukintheus]

Loving your report! I'm excited to be on the Wonder this summer.

Thank you for following along! We just love the Wonder and I really think her dry dock improvements make her our favorite of them all, but maybe it's just because we've sailed her the most.

Ok I've started my report, too

Yes!!! I am off to find it right after I post this.

Following along, we were also on this cruise, so it will be interesting to see your take on everything, I'm still in the process of putting all my notes together and hope to do a report soon, can't wait to read more!

Thanks for following along. Trip reports do take a bit of organizing, but they are so much fun to look back on. I'd love to read about your experiences. No two people have the same cruise experience, that's part of the fun of it I think.

 

[cyclenut]

Hi guys! I remember tipping one back with you in the Crown and Finn. I was also in the Mixology. Love seeing the trip report and all the great pictures. It was fun to see you on the ship and visit with you for a bit. Take care and maybe we'll see you aboard sometime again in the future!

 

[ukintheus]

Hi guys! I remember tipping one back with you in the Crown and Finn. I was also in the Mixology. Love seeing the trip report and all the great pictures. It was fun to see you on the ship and visit with you for a bit. Take care and maybe we'll see you aboard sometime again in the future!

Hello! But I have to admit you've got me scratching my head trying to put a face with the DIS name. Are you from California?

 

[ukintheus]

Day 3 – Sunday, January 15th - At Sea (was Key West)

We had been woken up on and off during the night with a banging noise that seemed to be coming from between the two cabins. I even got up at one point and went to make sure it wasn’t a stray hanger or something else, but couldn’t find anything. At about 8 am a work crew began banging and grinding on the pipes somewhere below us so that was the end of trying to sleep in. I joked that someone gave the mouse a hammer. Via messaging we found out that Mum and Maureen had heard it during the night as well.

At least it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.



To offset the rude start, I went in search of caffeine at Cove Café and got coffee for us and Paul. Mum and Maureen had already ordered from room service.



We all sat out on the veranda and chatted for a while. It was really nice to have the verandah opened up so we could all be together.



Partners in crime. Scott really enjoyed having some extra testosterone along on this trip. He's usually inundated with us estrogen people on these family vacations.



After the coffee was consumed we all decided to go to Cabanas for breakfast. Everyone found something that was yummy and I found this. Eggs benedict, grilled tomatoes and baked beans. You can’t go wrong with that!



It was fairly crowded in Cabanas and so we didn’t stick around after eating to give others the chance to sit, so we decided to head back to Cove and sit outside and watch the world go by.







First drink of the day was one of the morning special mimosa’s and it was delicious.



Captain Gus came on to tell us that the ship had been going with all five engines at full speed since we left Galveston and although we had missed Key West today, he was hopeful that we would make it to Castaway Cay tomorrow with enough time to enjoy the day. I convinced everyone to go and watch Jack Jack's Diaper Dash in the atrium at 10:30 am.



I always think it's pretty funny, and there were plenty of onlookers today.





In the final race one of the babies did a great job at hanging back and looking like he was going nowhere and then had a sprint finish and won, much to the delight of everyone watching, it was very cute and funny.

Having watched the baby racing we decided to head back up to Cove for a little while longer and enjoy the view of the sea rolling past. Of course another drink found its way to us.



Paul, Maureen and Scott decided to have a backgammon throw down and so we all went to Crown and Fin. It was rapidly becoming our “go to” place when we were looking for something to fill a gap of time.



Exciting stuff watching other people play backgammon.






I found this on the menu, it was a pear cider and I really liked it. I usually don’t go for sweeter type drinks like this, but it hit the spot today.



We had big plans for Know It All Trivia at 12:30 pm.



Paul is a huge trivia fan, HUGE, as in really competitive and so we were all duly prepped and ready to do battle. The questions were fairly tricky, but one was “Where was the first regular radio broadcast from?” Well…we all looked at each other with glee!! The first radio broadcast was from a small village (Writtle) near our home town of Chelmsford by a guy called Marconi, and he then moved his broadcasting to Chelmsford. Our home town is called “The Birthplace of Radio” – we had this one in the bag!! And how many people on a Disney cruise would know that??? What?!?! We were beside ourselves with our superior knowledge! In fact, we become known as the giggle group, because we were laughing so much for all the answers. So, we didn’t do great on some of the other answers (Paul said he would have done better if he had been playing on his own. ) Then came the time to get the answers. Answer to the question on the radio broadcast was….(drumroll please)…………New York….huh? what did he say?? Seriously?? We demanded a recount, we demanded to google it, we called foul!! But the final answer was…that’s the answer that’s written down and that’s the final answer. We were robbed!! Still recovering from the shock of the answer (and trust me, Paul brought it up many times that week, and probably will never truly get over it) we went over to Azure to play The Feud. It was another fun game and was played a little differently than the last time we had played it, which was nice, and we all enjoyed it.



We were pretty hungry by now so we decided to go and grab a quick bite to eat on Deck 9. The sharma station was calling my name.



We ended up sitting over by Daisy's Delites, so I went to check out and see what was on the noodle station. I ended up getting some chicken noodle something.



The kebab was delicious and the noodles would have been really good but they put about a tablespoon of hotter-than-fire crushed red peppers on it that made it almost inedible even with trying to pick them out, so Scott ended up finishing it off. This made it to the table too, I think Scott had it.



After scarfing down our food we headed back to Azure to watch Seriously! Scott and I had been chosen to play this when we were on in November and it’s good entertainment for 30 minutes. The couple that won had been married a long time and didn’t get one question wrong! Kudos to them, Scott and I can barely get one right – LOL.



We ended up back in Crown and Fin where there was an adult craft session going on. I attempted to do it but then realized that you needed glue and there wasn’t any left so I gave up on it.



More backgammon happened...of course.



Mum and I went up to look around the gift shop for a little while as she was looking for some Christmas ornaments. She had a couple in mind but decided to wait and see if she could find anything on Castaway Cay before buying one. We made it back down to Crown & Fin for the Movie Quotes Trivia which started at 3:30 pm.



I think we were still recovering from the earlier trivia session because we were terrible at it! Ha ha. I think I knew 2 of them! Paul and Scott carried the team, but we had a miserable score in the end. With all the trivia sessions for the afternoon at an end, Mum and Maureen went back to their cabin. Paul and Scott decided to stay and play backgammon, and I took a slow stroll back heading up and along Deck 5 taking some photos along the way.





Outside one of the windows, I realized that I had found the culprit of all the banging in our stateroom and here he is ladies and gentlemen…..busted!



I have no clue what they were working on, but the banging went on for most of the week, with intermittent grinding as well. It was noticeable but not super annoying. I took a quick look at the movies at Buena Vista and there were a couple that we wanted to see. Spoiler alert – we never made it.

 

[ukintheus]

When I got back to our cabin the cabana paperwork had been delivered and so had our platinum gift of Prosecco. When we got a cabana last year, the little paper cabana had been made up and was sitting on our bed. This time it was in an envelope with DIY instructions! LOL



I decided to read my book and just relax for a while. I popped in to see Mum and Maureen at one point and they had the fruit plate Platinum gift delivered. It looked very pretty. The captain made an announcement at 5.30 pm that we were 55 miles from Key West and that they were anticipating us getting to Castaway Cay at about 9 am with all ashore being about 10:30 am. They were also trying to arrange staying a little later with the shoreside crew but fireworks would determine the departure time ultimately.

So at this point it began to dawn on me that Scott and Paul had been in Crown & Fin for pretty much the entire afternoon (think beer drinking). I decided it might be a good idea to go and check on things in a subtle way, and so I took Scott's camera and went to see if he wanted to come up with me to take some sunset photos. The boys were still playing backgammon when I got there but he agreed to come with me. Paul decided he would stay in the bar and wait for him. Hmmm... Sunset wasn’t great and it was really windy up there. I chatted to a young guy who was also taking photos while Scott snapped away.









Susana came and said hello and said that Palo was fairly quiet. I joked that I could do with one of their yummy cocktails and she told us that I could order one at the bar. I don’t know why it hadn’t ever occurred to me before that we could do that. Scott couldn’t go in because he had shorts on, but I got their lemonadey one. I tried to talk Scott into sticking with beer, but he decided he wanted to get a Manhattan. I knew that he was borderline tipsy at this point, and he never really “gets drunk” so I just hoped for the best (silly me .) While we were waiting around the doorway for them to make it, Captain Gus came in for dinner. He chatted with us briefly. He’s such a nice guy, very laid back and “normal”. He told us that this was probably the furthest distance he had ever gone on one of the Disney ships at full speed and so it was a new experience for him. Scott headed off back to Crown and Fin (which I knew was not a good thing – LOL) and I went back to the cabin. After trying to get the boys to come back to get ready for dinner by messaging them, I eventually gave up and I got showered and ready for dinner and left with Mum and Maureen at about 8:10 pm. Tonight we were in Animator’s Palate and as we were about to walk through Shutters the boys came through the door from the outside deck. I could tell right away that my DARLING husband was a little more than tipsy. So the good news is that my husband is a funny, happy, drinker. The bad news is that everyone else seems to find him hilariously more funny than me when he’s been drinking. There were so many funny (the next day kind of funny, that night I was PO’d at him) stories that came out of that dinner though and my family all enjoyed the live entertainment at the table, even if I didn't. We ordered appetizers. Scott, in his happy, carefree state, ordered the truffle pasta pursiettes - he hates cheese and hates pasta.



Paul, who was by no means sober, was trying to help his partner in crime as best he could and switched with Scott to give him his tuna tartare.



I got the pasta and it was good. I don’t remember what I had for entrée but Scott had chicken.



Sigh...he's so happy and I'm....not! HA!!!



As soon as we were done with entrée’s I made the executive decision to get Scott back to the cabin and to bed. We missed the show with Mickey, and I know my sister took photos of it but I can't find them. We were back to the cabin at 9:30 pm.



Scott decided he wanted to watch Beauty and the Beast. Ugg!! LOL Funny now though. I wasn’t tired at all and so I had a couple (or four) glasses of wine and eventually left sleeping beauty in bed and went up to Deck 9 at about 10:30 pm. There were lots of people watching the movie, it was some sort of Star Wars movie but I was drawn to Pinocchio’s and grabbed a piece of pizza and a pretzel.



I took it back down to our cabin and enjoyed the peace and quiet on the verandah for a while before going to bed at about 11:30 pm.

 

[bcwife76]

Haha that photo is priceless!

Scott was happy you were not Oh boy Better try and keep my husband away from Crown and Fin on our Alaskan cruise

That breakfast reminds me of a typical British fry up yum!!

Sorry about the banging noise.....perhaps they could have thrown a little bit of a discount your way for the inconvenience? Can't wait to read about your CC day!

 

[cyclenut]

Hello! But I have to admit you've got me scratching my head trying to put a face with the DIS name. Are you from California?

Yes, originally. Currently North of Dallas.

 

[caspers5]

Enjoying your trip report! We were on this cruise too!

 

[cmph]

I was bored last night, wandered onto the trip reports forum, and was so happy to discover another of your trip reports! I love them!

We were on this cruise two weeks prior to you... and I swear, from reading everyone else's stories - ours must have been the only one this season unaffected by the Galveston fog! Everyone else seems to have horror stories either related to departing, or getting back, or both! Ours was so easy (other than our shuttle, which is unrelated). We got lucky, which makes me nervous about what we'll encounter if we try to sail out of Galveston again.

We were at the far back in Tiana's and still thought it was loud. I can't imagine what it's like next to the stage. And I'm chuckling at your trivia stories. My parents love trivia too, and they went to most of them. They did pretty poorly at all but one - the TV show music one, which was thanks to my husband, mostly! He was allowed to watch far, far too much TV as a child, haha! I can't believe how many old shows he watched as a child, for someone still in their 30s to know that many answers!! The few answers he didn't know, my dad did! My mom and I were useless but by virtue of sitting at their table, we all earned lovely little DCL flashlights.

Looking forward to more!

 

[TestingH2O]

When I got back to our cabin the cabana paperwork had been delivered and so had our platinum gift of Prosecco. When we got a cabana last year, the little paper cabana had been made up and was sitting on our bed. This time it was in an envelope with DIY instructions! LOL

I'm jealous! We have had a cabana the past two times and never got a paper one. They look so cute too!

 

[ukintheus]

Yes, originally. Currently North of Dallas.

Hmm....I'm still not 100% sure!

Enjoying your trip report! We were on this cruise too!

Thanks for following along! I hope you had a great time too.

I was bored last night, wandered onto the trip reports forum, and was so happy to discover another of your trip reports! I love them!

We were on this cruise two weeks prior to you... and I swear, from reading everyone else's stories - ours must have been the only one this season unaffected by the Galveston fog! Everyone else seems to have horror stories either related to departing, or getting back, or both! Ours was so easy (other than our shuttle, which is unrelated). We got lucky, which makes me nervous about what we'll encounter if we try to sail out of Galveston again.

We were at the far back in Tiana's and still thought it was loud. I can't imagine what it's like next to the stage. And I'm chuckling at your trivia stories. My parents love trivia too, and they went to most of them. They did pretty poorly at all but one - the TV show music one, which was thanks to my husband, mostly! He was allowed to watch far, far too much TV as a child, haha! I can't believe how many old shows he watched as a child, for someone still in their 30s to know that many answers!! The few answers he didn't know, my dad did! My mom and I were useless but by virtue of sitting at their table, we all earned lovely little DCL flashlights.

Looking forward to more!

Hello, and glad to be of help to a fellow internet surfer when bored. Flashlights sound like lovely little trivia gifts. I'm pretty worthless at trivia too.

I'm jealous! We have had a cabana the past two times and never got a paper one. They look so cute too!

I thought everyone got the little cabana if you have one rented. That's not cool that you didn't.

I need to get busy on Castaway Cay day. I've been slacking the last couple of days.

 

[ukintheus]

Day 4 - Monday, January 16th - Castaway Cay

We woke up around 8 am. As usual Scott had zero hangover, I don’t know how he does it. He didn’t remember a great deal about dinner and I warned him that he was fair game for a LOT of teasing! Mum and Maureen messaged that they were going to Cabanas but we decided to order room service for breakfast. We were due to get to Castaway Cay at about 9:30 am but I could already see the island ahead of us.





Captain Gus came on and said that we were going to be pulling in earlier than they had thought, and that the new estimate for ashore would be at about 10:20 AM.



The "palm tree" tower no longer has it's palm tree cover. The hurricane last year must have taken care of that.



Perfect blue water as we turned to back in.



Breakfast arrived and we ate on the verandah.



We all gathered together to watch us pull into the dock and watch them cast all the lines and watched the unloading process begin.



The captain came on again and said that the unloading team had done an excellent job at getting everything unloaded and that his new estimate was that we would be able to disembark before 10 am.





He also told us that an island cast member needed to be evacuated for medical reasons and that there would be a helicopter arriving at about 10 am that would interrupt debarking from the forward gangway. We decided to wait and watch the life flight helicopter arrive at about 10:15 am.



Thankfully the person being transported was able to walk onto the helicopter (although they had an IV) so hopefully it wasn't too critical.





Having seen all the (non) drama we then decided to make our way off the ship. It did not take long to disembark at all, and we made our way to the tram stop.

 

[ukintheus]

There was time to take photos, so why not.





And this was to remember Scott's constant hugging, poking and prodding of my sister at dinner the night before. Good job we all get along!



We got to scuttles Cove and waited for the tram to Serenity Bay. Once there we were met by our cabana host, whose name was Floyd, and he took us on the golf cart to see our cabana for the day.



We were in cabana number 25 and we soon settled in and had a good nose around.







The cabana next to us had two couples from our FB group so we waved at them from time to time.



Ahhh...cabana heaven for the day.



Scott hopped into the hammock. This is about the best spot anywhere on Castaway Cay, I think.





Of course it didn't take too long before we ordered a round of drinks. Mo and I got a Konk Cooler, Mum got a cranberry juice and Paul got a Maitai and he and Scott split a bucket of beer. For some strange reason, Scott wasn't drinking quite as much today.



We spent the the rest of the morning being very lazy and enjoying the cabana. The weather was really nice, warm but not hot, and a very slight breeze.

 

[TestingH2O]

Mmm. A Konk cooler sounds perfect right now.

 

[bcwife76]

Oh dear, hopefully that CM was ok. An IV could mean they were dehydrated, sun stroke perhaps? No fun and hazards of working on an island in the Bahama's I suppose!

Your cabana looks like heaven on earth! So what day were you at CC then, Monday? We were there on the Friday of that week so yes, we definitely lucked out with the weather! Several of the cruises this month have not been able to dock at CC at all!

 

[ukintheus]

As we had arrived at the Cabana check in that morning, Paul had decided to book a massage and got a time of 1 pm so we went to eat lunch at about 12:10 pm. We rang the buzzer and Floyd came and got us. We think the food at Serenity Bay is pretty good, it really has a great BBQ feel. The ribs are really good.



Scott got a bit of a mix of stuff too.



We finished in time for Paul to go to his massage. The rest of us hit the restrooms while we were down there and Floyd was waiting for us with the golf cart. I asked him if he would mind taking us down to the point past Serenity Bay at the end of the bike path as Mum and Maureen had never been down there before. He didn't mind at all and we hopped out and took a few photos.







Floyd then took us back to the cabana where we relaxed and spent the rest of the afternoon.



Paul’s verdict on the massage was that it was just OK. Scott and I have done a Couples Massage on Serenity Bay before and we didn’t think it was as enjoyable as having one on the ship. I probably should have told him that before hand!

We were joined by lots of little birds who were hopping in and out of the cabana looking for bugs. We decided to see if they would eat fruit, and they did. At least it made use of the fruit plate as we didn't eat any of it.



Lounging around and enjoying the peace and quiet....such a lovely day.





Paul, Maureen and I all decided to brave the chilly water and walk out to the sandbar. Scott, however, was not convinced about the cold water and stayed on the beach.

I'm not going to lie - it was cold for those of us that live in South Texas.



Serenity Bay never seems crowded when the classic ships are there.



There wasn't a lot to see but I had my underwater camera so I snapped away.



This pelican was fishing around and got pretty close to swooping over people in the water.



Message in a jar at one point??



We made it out to the sandbar without any of us getting our shoulders wet.



Proof that we got into the water.







More lounging around happened when we got back to the cabana and we still had a couple hours before we needed to leave.



Paul found a coconut under one of the palm trees and so he and Scott made it a mission to get it cracked. Paul and coconuts on tropical beaches go hand in hand, this isn't the first time he's attempted to open one. Armed with a butter knife, Scott went to work.



And believe it or not, they got it open and it was really good! Awww....all smiles at the success of it, such a cute "little" nephew. Fresh coconut water anyone?





We asked for Lloyd to come and get us at 4:30 pm as we wanted to do a little shopping on the way back to the ship and all aboard was at 6 pm due to our later arrival.



Unfortunately, most of the shops were already closing as the CMs had to get back to the ship to their regular duties (and most of them are servers) and so it was a very rushed trip through before we gave up. My Castaway Cay Christmas ornament that I had bought years ago was broken in an "incident" involving the Christmas tree and our cat Sushi a couple of years ago, so I was on a mission to get a replacement. Luckily they had one, and an iphone 7 case, so I managed to get both of them. I had been searching for an iphone case on the ship but they only had about 2. I was disappointed as in the past they seem to have had a bunch.

We decided just to catch the tram back to the ship but as we got to the tram stop Floyd was there. He brought us all the way back to the gangway of the ship, even bypassing the security checkpoint with just Scott having to show his picture ID, talk about door to door service, it was great! The lines to the ship were very short and we were back in our cabin very quickly. We went out onto the veranda to watch the final people coming on board.



There was some type of fire over on the big island.



I thought this was kind of cute with the shadow of the ship on the shoreline.



It didn't take long for them to finalize boarding and we left right at 6 o'clock.