4/13 Wonder Cruise - some notable changes

[dianagisme]

Just returned from a 4 night Wonder cruise to Cabo. We sailed this same itinerary in October and there were quite a few noticeable changes from our previous post-Covid cruise that I can share.

First, on previous post covid cruises from San Diego where there were more than one ship at port, we were bussed to a different location for testing. This time, we walked across the street to a ballroom at the Wyndham hotel to be tested. It was much smoother and quicker (because we didn't need to go on a bus and because it was an antigen test). We were one of the first groups taken to testing and got our results within 15 minutes.
Secondly, other than at the port and at testing, no masks were required.
Other than the following few things, the cruise was felt nearly the same as pre-covid: still no Palo brunch, a cast member still is serving the soft serve ice cream, no deck party or sail away party and I believe the FE was still not allowed but it changed while we were cruising.
There was food at the pub at night, paper menus at each MDR, no restrictions on seating or social distancing, cabanas was back to self serve with more options than our previous cruise.

We were told the cruise had 1800 or 1900 guests onboard and that it was the most guests the Wonder has had since the restart. Bingo was a big hit and surprisingly they returned to having a final snowball jackpot on the last night. It wasn't previously announced but they sold out and had to turn away guests from the last few bingo sessions because it was so popular so I suspect they hadn't had enough people participating in previous cruises to do the snowball jackpot before. The final jackpot was $3900!

 

[Lillebelle]

Thanks for the update! It's so interesting to hear how things have been evolving.

I wish they'd keep the CM-served soft serve forever. That in particular seems to get overrun and nastified by small children when it's self-serve.

Excited to hear about pub food being back! I only learned that was a thing during the pandemic so I've never actually gotten to take advantage of it. Will have to check that out on the next one!

 

[kucanhead]

We just got off this cruise too. To me it still felt limited in regards to entertainment offerings. No Art of the Theme Show Tour, no DVC meetup/presentations, no pin trading, no cooking classes, no towel folding. Just lots of trivia. LOTS of trivia. I've never been to so many trivia sessions on a cruise before!

We didn't get paper menus at the MDR except disembarkation breakfast due to app issues, and at Palo. I assume we could have gotten paper menus if we asked, which we didn't, but they weren't automatically given to us. We were on the Wonder over Christmas and pretty much avoided Cabanas due to the limited offerings. It was great having the full selection back including the carving stations.

The lack of required masking was nice. I hope we get to a place where the crew can safely remove theirs if they want. And the kids club was pretty much back to normal operation, which was great.

We were at that final bingo session as well. I'm glad we got there early! It was packed! Maybe one of these days we will actually win something. Shake it up, Betty!

 

[dianagisme]

We just got off this cruise too. To me it still felt limited in regards to entertainment offerings. No Art of the Theme Show Tour, no DVC meetup/presentations, no pin trading, no cooking classes, no towel folding. Just lots of trivia. LOTS of trivia. I've never been to so many trivia sessions on a cruise before!

We didn't get paper menus at the MDR except disembarkation breakfast due to app issues, and at Palo. I assume we could have gotten paper menus if we asked, which we didn't, but they weren't automatically given to us. We were on the Wonder over Christmas and pretty much avoided Cabanas due to the limited offerings. It was great having the full selection back including the carving stations.

The lack of required masking was nice. I hope we get to a place where the crew can safely remove theirs if they want. And the kids club was pretty much back to normal operation, which was great.

We were at that final bingo session as well. I'm glad we got there early! It was packed! Maybe one of these days we will actually win something. Shake it up, Betty!

I agree with the limited entertainment offerings. Also, I feel like the decision to not have a club host and instead only having the entertainment/activities crew members drops the level of entertainment for the adult evening activities. There wasn't towel folding this time but they had napkin folding which I don't remember seeing before.
We didn't ask for the menus, we were offered them from the first night and just automatically given menus at each dinner after that

 

[Calantha]

agree with the limited entertainment offerings

I noticed this in January but because it was four nights and I was with my son I didn’t really worry about it. Hope as things move into the summer that that improves because for seven nights we will need more things to do!!

 

[SnowWhite2]

I was upset that I was charged "full price" while having nothing to do on board except trivia on my January cruise. I'm going again next week but got a good rate of $133/pp per night which is a good rate if I don't get any adult entertainment except trivia. I'm sure I'll like this cruise much better.

 

[HeatherLassell]

I was upset that I was charged "full price" while having nothing to do on board except trivia on my January cruise. I'm going again next week but got a good rate of $133/pp per night which is a good rate if I don't get any adult entertainment except trivia. I'm sure I'll like this cruise much better.

Wow I do hope that is changing soon. I like trivia but there is a limit.

 

[CarolynU]

I must admit endless trivia being delivered by a non club host bored me by the end of the cruise. And no outside entertainers either definitely impacted upon my enjoyment and as I paid a small fortune for the cruises I didn’t feel as if I got value for money. I was back in my room by 9:30pm a couple of nights because sitting in a bar on my own just didn’t seem like fun.

 

[lklgoodman]

I must admit endless trivia being delivered by a non club host bored me by the end of the cruise. And no outside entertainers either definitely impacted upon my enjoyment and as I paid a small fortune for the cruises I didn’t feel as if I got value for money. I was back in my room by 9:30pm a couple of nights because sitting in a bar on my own just didn’t seem like fun.

I felt the same on our Fantsy a few weeks ago. Our Jamaica day became a seaday and the only thing they had was either trivia or paper crafts. We ended up not getting to have the entertainers for 2 nights because they were suppose to get on the ship at Jamaica. We did enjoy karaoke one night, although it would have been nice if the DJ would have limited how many groups could do the same song. We heard We Don't Talk About Bruno by nearly everyone, it was brutal after awhile.