9/9 Wonder Quickie Update

[inkkognito]

Just back from the 9/9 cruise...lots more details later, but here's some quickie info.:
We rented a car from Thrifty and drove to Fort Lauderdale with our friends from Celebration. It was a loooong drive...with a couple of stops, it took us from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thankfully, Thrifty is right by the port, and they took us in the shuttle right away. It took us a while to find the Wonder because it wasn't on any of the signs!
Boarding was a new life experience. The computers were not working, but thankfully there was hardly anyone there so it went smoothly for us (I pity the people who arrived by bus in the crowds). It was great to see familiar faces, though, as they had brought in the Port Canaveral crew. Everyone was busy making the best of a difficult situation. You walked outside and then boaded through a door on deck one...it was funny to see the cruise staff greeting line in the hallway in front of the medical center!
We ended up having a great time...I missed Castaway Cay but found the sea day very relaxing, and there were lots of activities scheduled. We stayed all night in Nassau, but we didn't bother to get off the ship. The ocean was absolutely calm...amazing with all the storms around. They have everyone a $100 stateroom credit to make up for some of the inconvenience. It didn't impact us too badly because we rented a car, but some of the poor souls on buses did not arrive until 7:30 p.m. and many came around 5. I would not have been happy about that...that's why I believe Disney should have allowed cancellation without penalty. Actually, I'm wondering if they changed their minds on that because we had less than 2000 people on board and heard there were many cancellations. I can imagine that hundreds of people would have agreed to lose so much money.
But overall I'm glad that we went, and I was so happy to return to Port Canaveral. We took the Disney buses because we didn't know for sure where we would be returning, and that reminded me why I prefer Happy Limo...nice buses, but too much of a cattle call for my taste.
We'll have lots of updates, including some minor menu changes and "hurricane naviagtors" to show the changes they make. We almost got a Palo brunch, but not enough people booked it, so it was cancelled...darn!
The damage to CC is mainly cosmetic...all of the buildings pulled through but there is lots of sand and rocks where it shouldn't be and visa versa. Should be back in operation pretty quickly this time tho'.
Barb

 

[MO64RN]

Thanks for your quickie report Barb. Glad to hear you had a great trip and the seas were calm. We sail on Thursday and am so thankful it will be from PC. I will miss CC though. I think it will be unlikely it will be ready by then.

Can you tell me since there were so many cancellations, Was Disney giving any free upgrades? Thanks again. I look forward to reading your trip report.

 

[inkkognito]

No upgrades in our party, but could have been because our friend is in a wheelchair and was in a handicapped stateroom, and I was in my all -time favorite 5650...nothing short of a suite could get me out of there! But the inside staterooms in our hall all seemed to be occupied...maybe with all the confusion and insanity, they didn't have time to move people around...I couldn't believe that the last cruisers got in at 7:30 p.m.! DCL probably had no idea which staterooms would be occupied and which wouldn't until after dinner. Quite a unique sailing!
Barb

 

[Honeychild]

I too was on the 9/9 Wonder. This was our first cruise and all I can say is interesting. We had originally booked a room at the Radison in PC, but due to the hurricane they were not open. So, we booked the night at the Poly. I called DCL and the CM I spoke with said she would note my resort and room number and we would receive a letter instructing us what we need to do. At 11:00 pm I went to the lobby and asked about the letter and instructions, the CM said it should arrive soon. Long story short, no letter ever arrived. Around midnight I was told we would be bused to Port Everglades, yes it was a long bus ride! We arrived to the Port late, missed the conceirge meeting for all the reservations, there was no conceirge check-in either.

On a positive note my children loved the cruise. My DS (11) has cried all afternoon due to his sadness of leaving the ship and he has already started begging about our next cruise.

Also, on the day at sea my DH, DS and I went to pajamma bingo and I won three out of five games. BINGO!

I'm very tired and will post more information later.

 

[JanDave]

Hi Barb: I'm looking forward to reading your 9/9 trip report. We're on the 9/18 Magic, which means we're scheduled to arrive at CC on 9/24. Did you hear any definitive date about when CC would be able to receive cruisers? Jan

 

[gshoemate]

Hey Barb, glad to see you had a good time. We enjoyed a very empty ship. We were lucky and I think we were on the first bus to arrive. We were on the ship I would say by 1:30. We went to the sail Away party and compared to our cruise last year, it was so empty. We kept commenting about how the ship didn't seem full at all. There were empty tables at dinner, lots of emtpy seats at the shows. And the weird thing was, we kept seeing people that we recognized from the bus and shows and such. That wouldn't happen on a full boat. We had a great time but we have all been depressed today. We are sad that we had to leave.

On another note, the Club Counselors annouced that last nights childrens show (the one that all the children from the club participates in on the last night) was the last one. Does anyone know why there are no longer doing this?

 

[BuncoHappens]

I was also on the 9/9 Wonder......a first Disney cruise for us. We were not happy about the long ride on the Disney bus from OIA since we live near Daytona, but we appreciated the continental breakfast at the Hilton and the bagged lunch. The $100 credit was great! We arrived around 12:30.

Tony/Barb~ I didn't get a chance to introduce myself to you, but my daughter and I were in the Animal Towel Folding demonstration when you were there. I knew right away that it was you when they asked how many cruises you had been on! Actually, folding towels into animals isn't as hard as it looks!

We had a GREAT time and GREAT service and food...now it's back to reality!
I loved having a nearly empty ship!

Tracy

 

[inkkognito]

We were told that the damage to CC was mostly cosmetic (lots of sand and rocks deposited where it shouldn't be and moved from where it should), but the buildings and dock are intact. The Wonder crew was over there working on it during the cancelled cruise, and workers are there getting things together...if all goes well, it may be as soon as a matter of a couple weeks! No guarantees but things look good.
Barb

 

[rjones69]

I called yesterday and spoke to Disney regarding C.C. being possibly open for our 9/16 cruise. She said that they were close to having it done and they were hoping to have it open for our cruise. We will have to wait and see I guess.

 

[westjones]

Originally posted by gshoemate
On another note, the Club Counselors annouced that last nights childrens show (the one that all the children from the club participates in on the last night) was the last one. Does anyone know why there are no longer doing this?

Oh No! That's so sad! I love the show. My kids are going to miss it. Oh well, nothing ever stays the same.

DJ

 

[KMovies]

Barb -

It's also possible that there was less people on the 9/9 cruise due to the land and sea package. For those booked on the land and sea package, there vacation would have started 9/5 and quite possibly would have cancelled due to no flights. I'd be sure that those people could have cancelled with no penalty since there were no flights, the hurricane was still there, and WDW was closed. They may have still flown in on Tuesday or Wednesday, but most of their land portion of the vacation would have been missed then.

I wonder what percentage of each Wonder cruise was the land and sea package and what percentage booked just the cruise.