3-night Wonder May 12th - 15th (It's long)

[Debbie1967]

3 night Wonder May 12th - 15th

This was our 2nd 3-night Wonder cruise. Introduction my son Bryan 7yrs. old and me Debbie.
We arrived at port around 11 o’clock perfect timing boarding started at 11:45. My son gets a big kick out of them calling out our name as the CM claps. A CM told us to enjoy the buffet at Parrot Cay, but when we got there we were directed to Beach Blanket. I personally like Parrot Cay so I said that we would wait. The CM said that we couldn’t wait and when I asked why she said that it was set up for a private function. After lunch at Beach Blanket we spent time at the Mickey pool. Once again perfect timing only about 5 kids. Around 2 o’clock the pool started to get crowded and we went to our cabin. Our cabin was 7127, no upgrade. Waiting for us inside was our CC Club gift a beach towel and 2 pins and our TA sent us a photo box, photo cards, and a Mickey photo person. Our cabin hostess was Weekly. He was great, very friendly, and always had a smile on his face. We watched from the secret deck 7 as we pulled out of port. Twice we saw a manatee in the water below our ship. Not for sure if it was just one manatee or we saw the same manatee twice. The weather was partly cloudy and windy. We had our disboards meeting at the promenade lounge. We met Mandy & her family, Sharon and her daughter, and Cathy and husband Greg. It’s nice to finally meet everyone.

We had late seating PTA rotation. Our head sever was Judy and assistant was Benedicte. Judy took our order and severed our food and that’s it. No interaction with passengers at all. The first night I felt that Benedicte was pushy. She asked me five times if I wanted wine with my dinner, and when I said no, she said "Why not". It seems like we had slow services. We never finished dinner before 10:00 pm. There were 3 tables in our section with a total of 18 passengers so it wasn’t because they were overwhelmed. When our entree were being sever, other severer were delivering their passengers desserts. The good thing is that we very nice tablemates. Our tablemates consisted of a mother and her teenager daughter from GA, and a couple celebrating their 25th anniversary from NY.

First Night
We skipped the Hercules’ show my son wanted to go to the kid’s club and I wanted to unpack and get things organized. Last year my son didn’t care to the kids’ club, but this year he enjoyed going. Dinner was at Parrot Cay. I love the crab martinique. Last year I raved over the ribeye, but found it to be on the dry side this time. It was served with a twice-baked potato and topped with melted cheese, very yummy. For dessert I ordered the banana bread pudding, it wasn’t what I expected, but I loved the coconut ice which is served on the side. Bridge report was partly cloudy with moderate seas with 4 - 8 ft waves. This made for great sleeping condition.

Nassau
Weather condition was partly cloudy and very windy. We ate at Beach Blanket for breakfast and noticed passengers eating outside on deck was having problems holding on to their food. The Mickey pool wasn’t crowed so we spent so time here. Just be careful not to slip or trip, the flooring mat on the pool was been peeling off even a few pieces were flooding about. I had planned on taking the bus to Cable Beach, but decided to stay on ship due to a few dark clouds rolling in and the wind was strong. We watched “Pooh’s Heffalump Movie” and part of “The Pacifier”. We ate lunch at Pluto’s. They have great chicken tenders. I thing Scoop’s has the best strawberries except they aren’t cleaned. I had to get a cup of water at the drink station to rinse them. We missed part of "The Pacifier" because when I went to pick up Bryan from the lab they were finishing with the Jr. Chef Experience. I pulled up a chair and watched. I was curious how could five counselors pull this event off. There were about 100 kids (with chef hats) all sitting at tables of 10, each seat was label with different jobs. (flour chef, egg chef, the mixer, etc.) Each table had a bowl a counselor would announce when it was time to pass the bowl to the next chef while the another counselors would come around with the ingrentions. The kids learned how to measure and what was the purpose for the ingredients. I was very impressed with the counselors. Kids were having fun while they were learning and of course they got to eat a cookie at the end.

2nd Night Pirate Night
I dressed my son in his pirate costume and went to the "Little Pirate Dance Party" at Studio Sea. There were about ten kids in attendance. My son was the only dressed up boy pirate. It was cute to see all the little girls dressed in their princess attire. There was a hostess organizing dancing games with the kids. It was a lot of fun. Since we were eating at Triton’s I didn’t keep Bryan dressed up and he wanted to go to the Lab instead of going to "The Golden Mickey's" which I went to see. We didn’t order dessert with our dinner and still didn’t get out of Triton’s before 10 o’clock. We didn’t have time to dress in our pirate attire. We went straight to deck 9. I was disappointed. By the time we got to the Goofy pool area it was so crowed you couldn’t see anything, we went up to deck 10 and still couldn’t see. I could see some parts of the show by peeking over some shoulders but my son couldn’t see. I felt bad because there's this big to-do about Captain Hook and this party and Bryan couldn't see it. There was no problem seeing the fireworks. They were a nice touch to the evening. I would of love to see the show and I think Disney should realize that a lot of people attend this show and perhaps they could make it more assessable so that everyone could view the performance. I remembered from our last year cruise that the late night buffet opened earlier than what was posted. So that’s where we headed for. We picked up some dessert a drink and went back to our cabin. The buffet has a dessert section with all different cakes, fruits, chocolate chip cookies, and those chocolate gold coins and there’s an appetizer section with roasted ham, fajitas, and bbq drumsticks. Helpful Hint: Beat the long line at the buffet and go a little earlier that what’s posted. Bridge report: rough seas 8 - 13 ft waves. The boat was doing some rocking, if we had packed our surfboards we could have done some surfing in the pools.

Castaway Cay
I was nervous that the seas may be too rough for us to dock at CC, but the winds calmed down and the weather was perfect. We were on the beach by 9:20 am. Again perfect timing. We kind of had the beach to ourselves for a while. At first the water was chilly I mean cold, but it wasn't long before it warmed up. We selected a spot down by Cookie's/ restroom area. We ate lunch at Cookie’s BBQ. I noticed that the lobster burgers are replaced with salmon burgers. The ribs are delicious. Though they don’t have many side selections. Their chocolate chip cookies have the chunky chocolate chips, which are different than what is on the ship. Bryan loves them. I only had one bite of the upside down pineapple cake and thought it tasted dry and stale. There’re two different types of frozen yogurt strawberry and chocolate chip cookie dough. I had the strawberry, which was soupy. The CM, who severs it, couldn’t fill it past the rigid of the cone. I noticed our head server from last year working (Arbua sp.? from Scotland). We went up to him and said you properly don't remember us, and he didn't remember us but that didn't stop him from chatting with us for about 10 mins. He was a great server and after having the servers that we have on this cruise I wished that I would of given him a much larger tip last year. We headed back to the ship around 1:00. I was surprised that the Mickey pool was crowed, but I wanted to relaxed in our cabin and start packing. My son was excited that Sponge Bob the Movie was showing on TV. Other words he was contented.

3rd Night
I was seated in the second row waiting for the "Celebrate the Journey" to begin when I received a page that Bryan has stage fright and needed to be picked up. We went to secret deck 7 and watched as we left paradise. I wasn't decided if we were going to attend the Castaway Club reception. We were dressed in shorts and noticed that everyone was "dressed up". We changed and went back, I'm glad we did. They had appetizers and Castaway Cay Punch. Took awhile to get severed drinks, but they were deliciously. My son was so excited to meet Captain John. You thought that he was meeting Sponge Bob. Bryan wanted to go spend time in the Lab (they were going to make Flubber) before the "Disney Dreams" show. Dinner was at Animator's Palate. For my appetizer I ordered the fruit boat from the kids menu. Melon was the ship, a triangle shape watermelon was the sail, and grapes were the waves. The best meal I had was here, the roasted chicken breast. Harold our tablemate agreed. His wife and him wasn’t finished packed yet and it was going past 10 o’clock they asked Judy if they could take their desserts (two strawberry short cakes) to go. She said that one of them would have to order something different, at first I thought she was joking. She said that people in the same party couldn't order the same desert to go. This kind of surprised me, I read that other servers went out of their way to please their passengers.

Departing Day
Only one side of Beach Blanket was open and the line was long, we decided to eat breakfast at AP. The skies were full of dark cloudy and it poured during breakfast. The lines at customs looked long, but went fast. Hope everyone else in our Disboards group had as much fun as we did. Thank you for reading my trip report. If you have questions, ask away. I will post pics soon.

Debbie and Bryan

Theater Movies
Pooh's Heffalump
Ice Princess
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
A Lot Like Love
National Treasure
The Pacifier
The Incredible

TV Movies
Sponge Bob the Movie
Shall We Dance
The Aviator
Shark Tales
The Johnny Depp movie about the writer of Peter Pan

 

[mimidedoodah]

What a cute son you have!

Sorry the service was so slow and unenthusiastic at dinner. We had that kind of service on a Carnival cruise. The head server had asked off and was refused. At the end of the cruise, they agreed he could have time off. Suddenly, he was interested in his customers!

We are cruising with DCL on 5/12! Thanks for the report!
Mimi

 

[mom x4 grandma x4]

Hi Debby,
Glad to hear you and bryan had a good time. We had a fantastic time. Everything seemed to work out perfect for us. when we went to the adult pool and hot tubs we had it all to ourselves. The duo of Don and Tommie in the Promenade Lounge sang a lot of songs we liked, so we watched them often. They talked with us and on the last night they did all our request that they knew. It was great having a personal concert, although lots of people were there too. We too saw the Pacifier and the golden mickeys. We had seen a few times before, but was still very enjoyable.
WE had very slow service too. But not all the servers fault. We dined with 2 grandparents, the parents and one 5year old. They wanted wine, but couldn't seem to make up their minds, once they did, they changed it again. Our waiter kept looking at us, but he couldn't take our orders until they finished their wine debate. Then it seemed they were very slow eaters, and their child was very tired and cranky. I felt sorry for the child, he was really a cute kid, but he needed a nap. we had first dining so at a certain time they turn up the lights as a signal that you need to get out so they can prepare for the next diners. We had just got our dessert at this point. we felt it would be that way everynight so didn't go to the restaurants after that, just got food around the pool. we didn't want to ask for another table as we had already changed from late to early dining.
we did the pirate's museum in Nassau. We really enjoyed it, however smaller kids may not because there is a lot to read and it is a historical museum. That usually turns off younger kids. The first part of it was quite dark for little kids. We were met by a pirate out front. He was great. While talking with us he kept trying to take our watches or rings etc... we also did the horse drawn carriage ride around town. It was fun and worth $10.00 per person. Our driver narrated the trip but it was hard to hear him because of the noise from the traffic. It took about 25 minutes. Then we just browsed and shopped. It was a very relaxing cruise for us. Our only real disappointment was they didnt have sugar free ice cream at scoops and on the afternoon cookie tray there was no sugar free selections. At cookie's BBQ there were no sugar free dessert selections at all. My DH is a diabetic, so this is very important to us. He doesnt have much sweets, but wants sugar free when he does have them. They do have sugar free desserts at the buffet and after dinner, so why not at the BBQ or at scoops. Lots of people either can't have or choose not to eat sugar. They pay just as much for all their cruise as the next guy. Food is a big experience for most people. i did write the cruise line and have received a letter back. I don't know if it will change ,but I do know Disney does listen to their guests suggestions, so maybe we will get lucky. Castaway Cay was beautiful as usual. We walked all over the island and walked the trail to the far end of the island. We do this every trip. Then just sat back and enjoyed the weather.
Hope everyone had a great time too, and made it back safely.
Kathy

 

[3mickeys&me]

Glad you had a good time and your ds is adorable!!

 

[mandymouse]

Hi Debbie

I'm pleased that you and Bryan had a great time, we did too. It was nice to meet you and put a face to your name, as well as the other dis-ers we met.

My trip report is over on the UK boards, and if you'd like to read it you can find it here

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=829776

Take care

 

[MandyMommytoReaghan]

Hi Debbie! That was a very good trip report. I enjoyed reading it. Your son is sooo cute Glad you had a good time and sorry about the service at dinner. You know I have always wondered why 2 people in the same party could not get the same dessert to go. That to me, doesn't make sense but who knows