April 3, 2011 Wonder Trip Report

[TinyG]

Disney Wonder - Mexican Rivera April 3-10, 2011

A little background on our little group of four. Hubby, myself (TinyG) daughter (19) & Son (13). This was our daughter’s graduation trip, from last year. We waited to sail on the Wonder. This has always been what she wanted to do.

We usually cruise on Carnival since we are platinum, so this would be a new experience as first time Disney cruisers and having an inside cabin. The kids have done these before, but not us. We always book either a balcony, OV or PT when we cruise. We could not get past the idea on spending an extra $500.00 for an OV on either deck one or two. So we would use the extra money on the kids and shopping.

Our trip is under way we left the house at 9:36 . Our oldest daughter who is in college is home and she will be driving us to the port. So we can leave on our own schedule, rather than a shuttle. We arrived here at the port of Los Angeles at 9:58 unloaded and we walking up to the health screening paperwork area. The terminal has just some people around. We are now off to the open window to get our KTTW cards. We have boarding group number three. The lady had number five in her hand but our excitement proved to be a three checking in.

We were not able to get the wifi to work, it was on the farthest part of the terminal, and it was by the kids club checking in area. So that was fine not to have wifi. It proved to be a great time to get the trip report started. We do like the Disney music to keep us company while we wait.

I do think that they need to have more air in the terminal. A little hot, but we are not here for too long.

The announcement are coming that they are ready to start boarding and with no time they are calling for group one, then two, not too many people wall up so they then call three. At 11:45 we are walking the gangway to the ship. We head to deck 9 and sit out at the back of the ship and have a wonderful lunch.

We decide that we want to explore even with luggage in tow. We are on board early and it is nice, not too crowded yet. We drop off our items to be signed at Guest Services and put our shopping excursion money in the account. At 1:30 we head to deck 6 to if they have opened the rooms up. We are in room 6111. My luggage is already at the door. I quickly unpack since the cabin is tighter quarters than we are use to for four people to move around.

Time to go to Promenade lounge for the DisBoard meet and great. We were able to meet a few families. Which was great. Time was approaching for the lifeboat drill we have location N on deck 4 we were on the port side.

We get a drink of the day to celebrate our sail away. We are at least 1/2 hour late leaving for some reason we only heard that they were loading other provision and something else. We had fun at the sail away party pretty warm weather to start the trip. We stand a few decks above the bridge extension. We see Captain Guss he waves at us we were saying hello, then he motions to someone to sound the horn! Okay, that works too.

It was cute to see the Disney staff make the pushing motion with the white Mickey gloves as the boat start to move away from the dock. The horn sounds a few more time along the path to open water, lots of people watching us depart. My parents are at this concrete bridge and we can see then wave us Bon Voyage. We now have some awesome photos of us sailing away, from the other side.

We head back to the room to check for more luggage and decorate the door. Two more bags to unpack. We refill our drinks and head back out to see the show for tonight we are 15 minutes late but we did not miss too much Ronn Lucas is on with his ventriloquist show and to see the characters come out was a great way to start the cruise.

We have our first gifts in our fish extender. We decide to empty the large duffel bag that sitting the bathtub, there just is not enough room! We pass out our first gifts and we have more saved for later. It is fun and we take pictures of the doors and decorations.

We are ready for dinner now and our rotation is Triton's and since we had only eaten lunch at 12 noon, we were pretty hungry and getting use to eating at a late hour might take getting use to. Dinner was yummy I had the beef fillet, tomato soup dessert was the crème brûlée and to finish the meal a Mickey bar. Dinner was over at 10:00PM wow that's late. Daniel our head waiter asks how we liked it and we did, but we would like service faster, he asked if we wanted it slower too. Our server Felipe and assistant server Serbi (for short) we had table 73 was for a table for 4 in the middle of the dining room. We like our seats.

We visited a few lounges and ended up going back to the room.

We were glad that we had brought earplugs since the cabin had quite a bit of creaking. We could hear a faint snoring noise from the cabin on the other side of us. The cabin was quiet and we did not hear any noise from the theater below us. Our air conditioner needed to be fixed on day one, but it is working great now.

 

[TinyG]

Day two sea day

We woke up to day two refreshed and ready for our first sea day.

They have the scrapbook party they called it, we did get two Disney pages for the scrapbook and could choose picture from some Disney brochure and some foam letters, the rest were glue sticks , glitter, and other things we did not want to use. We drop off our stuff and to head to breakfast again at the end of the ship then off to see Toy Story 3 then off to eat lunch and enjoy the sun and the pool.

We spent most of the day at the Quiet Cove, most of the time it was. I wish that they had more loungers. So many adults and not enough places. We sometimes would take turns or just wait for two. They always seemed to eventually find what we needed. We enjoyed this area, I do wish that they had an adult drink station someplace closer than to the aft elevator area. It made for a few walks for the day, but maybe that was a good thing.

It’s formal night so we head for showers and fancy clothes. Our show time is at 6:15 for the Golden Mickey Show, which we enjoyed.

Tonight is Animators Palate. The first night we do not have the light changing show tonight. Dinner was a good pace today we enjoyed and off to see Tangled then off to bed.

Tiny my giraffe has a new friend and he has chocolate!

Our finished door! Our daughter drew all the pictures for our door. We think that she's pretty good!

 

[TinyG]

Just a little note. I did most of this report while at sea on my iPad, and edited at home. I am having troubles with my Photobucket account at the moment, so no pictures yet.

Day three is Cabo San Lucas, for some reason we did not make up the time that we were late from leaving and some excursions have been canceled.

We are doing our own shopping excursion right on the Wonder with our first shopping excursion of $212.00 spent. It’s time to get ready to go into Cabo, we did not like the long tender wait time. We did wait 45 minutes in the lounge before being called off.

It was pretty apparent that the delays in were the amount of tenders available with the NCL Norwegian Star(they used their own tenders) and the Carnival Splendor all in the port at one time, only so many to share between two ships. We did some shopping and popped into Cabo Wabo ended up at a place by the marina to have some beers, chips, and some fries. On our last trip to Cabo, we had some great tequila so we want to try and find some while we are in port. After looking at quite a few shops we end up stopping at the last liquor shop right on the pier. We talk to Pancho he says that we will try and find it for us. We gave him $20.00 to find two bottles and will get them on the Friday when we return, or I just gave a big tip and we get nothing. It is time to return as it is around 4:15 and we sail at 5:00 today. Going back was faster getting right on to a tender and we see home waiting for us.

We leave the port and then we come to a stop, one last tender boat or something has come with more people. We did love when the horn went off, it's like our boat is better than your boat!

Next stop Puerto Vallarta. We watch the most beautiful sunset and kick back on some loungers on deck 4.

Time for dinner at Animators Palette tonight we have the show tonight. You have to try the garlic, rosemary, and olive oil spread. We loved this stuff we had three dishes! I had the chicken with a roasted baked potato and for dessert was the trio of cream brûlée, chocolate mousse cake and raspberry cheesecake. I can say when I left I have never been so full! Our servers and a happy kid with plate ears LOL

We are off to see Tron in 3D. I am getting a little tired of the 3D glasses at this point. The movie is good but a little noisy like most movies. We get back from the movies and it is 11:45PM and time for bed.

Day 4 Puerto Vallarta
We have a spa treatment at Vista Spa this morning so just a few croissants and coffee for now. The Exotic Rasul was nice and relaxing and we did not get any pressure to buy anything. A clock inside the room would have been nice since the time went by fast and we had no idea. We enjoyed our champagne after and liked the heated loungers. In the ladies side they do have complimentary razors (I wish I knew this the day before. our daughter needed one) q-tips, and cotton face pads too. This area is a little noisy due to the basketball courts above. We change for lunch at Triton's. I had the steak and fries lunch, awesome lunch and it was hot and delicious! We did get off to take pictures of the ship, no need for Wallmart on this trip.

There's no place like home!

That catches me up tonight now sitting here in Quite Cove enjoying the warmth and beautiful weather we are having. Time to get back to my drink!

Just want to interrupt the trip report for some thank you's on our FE gifts. Some of the gifts were just what we needed. Our son forgot his sunglasses at home and had to wear mom's spare pair from the car (insert 13 year old not happy look) to the fun pins, nail kits (also forgotten) to the girl scout cookies which I am pretty sure will be saved for home when we are missing all these great desserts. Hubby like his new beer coaster! Thanks to the OZ FAMILY (Brad & Suella) for the key chains & stuffed toys. We have been to Australia 3 times and never got those for ourselves. We also enjoyed our chats at sea with you.

We did drop off our photo page to get the characters signatures thanks to the Riddle Family, there are so many more, all the other great gifts back at the room. The great magnets! Some we have inside the cabin, those will sure be coming home!
So thanks to all the FE gifts exchangers out there you all were awesome! With days to come we can't wait to see what is to come.

We arrive early for Toy Story the Musical. We enjoy 3 smoothies with a lighted Buzz Lightyear clip. Those were $23 bucks, for the three and they were fun and yummy and they added to the experience.

We have Parrot Cay tonight, I hope this will be good since I have heard from a few guests that the food has not been so great. Both a breakfast and a dinner comment. Let's cross our fingers for tonight.

We are showered and ready for dinner. The table for 73 is way in the back and near a station so I feel just like I am in the middle of the road. I have the crab dip thing and skip the other things and have another steak, just as delicious as lunch maybe better. Dessert I have the trio again which is the mini cream brûlée, a mini key lime and the chocolate rocky road cake. We head into the outside deck to watch us sail away since they said to be back on board at 10:00 so we thought we would be sailing at 10:30. A crew member said that they had a special excursion for the crew members to go to Las Caletas so the departure time would be 1:30AM. I am glad that they were able to enjoy Las Caletas. We did this last August and have a wonderful time. Back at the room we watched some TV. They had a program on the Magic dry dock. Pretty interesting the amount of work to keep a ship going and in good shape.

We are up for day, well whatever day it is. Off to scrapbooking party, which was the exact thing from the first time, other than the two scrapbook pages we should have skipped this one. At least we missed the future cruise pitch.

After having the weakest cup of coffee ever. It was time for our character breakfast at 9:45. We had an awesome breakfast eggs made just right hot food and the characters were a plus, and an okay cup of coffee.

Off to do more damage in the shops and attend the DVC seminar for the raffle. It ran long at over an hour too long of a presentation for me. We met the Disboard OZ Family for a little get together.

My daughter and I then went to high tea at Palo, which was very good. I was finally able to get a beverage with caffeine, it was tea and my brain did not care.

Off to deliver the last of our FE gifts, in our pirate costumes! We were able to get a few pictures taken, but we need to go back before dinner to complete them. We did buy the 10 photo package before we left, but we upgraded to the next level of 20 credits.

We had pictures with Mickey, Stitch, and Jack Sparrow. We wanted one with Minnie, but the lines were closed. I wish they had a better way of doing pictures.

We are dressed and off to Triton's, they say that they will keep us moving to get to the pirate show. I start off with the pot stickers and have the prime rib sweet potato fries and we skip dessert since we are told that they will have a dessert and other food buffet up on deck 9.

We get into a line that was too long and we should have had dessert in the dining room. After waiting 10 -15 minutes in the first part of the line which has hot food then to the next line for the dessert. It was just okay. My Hubby did enjoy the turkey leg.

I think that if they had Disney music for the fireworks show it would have been even better show, but it was such a fun night and everyone had a great time.

We had chairs then found loungers to watch Pirates Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl. The movie was over at 12 midnight so off to bed, I am looking forward to the foam pillow that I requested for tonight

 

[Mindyjoy]

Following along ....

 

[TinyG]

Good morning Cabo! Warm and nice to see beautiful weather outside. We had breakfast in Beach Blanket Buffet. Still no good coffee. We see the Celebrity Infinity, we sailed her to Alaska in 2006. it's nice to see her again.

We walk right on to a tender and see lots of boats and a few sea lions. Back to the shop to see if Pancho was able to get the tequila. Here is the shop.

He could not get the blanco, but was able to get the reposado so we got those and a few smaller bottles of the blanco. We gave him a nice tip for finding it for us. So we get two beers and he gives us a shot of the tequila that we bought. Nice!

We went to a few shops and head back to the ship. We better have a beer in Mexico. It's required!

Time now for some sun and pool time at Quite Cove. Our daughter plays a game and she wins a free drink.

At this point it is really cooking, so hot my husbands ipod says that it’s too hot to work. We hang out at the Quiet Cove till we leave Cabo as we sail away they make an announcement that whales are jumping out of the water on the port side. We get some good shots of three whales one large and two smaller one.

At this point the wind really picks up. And everything is flying off chairs, water is pouring out of the Jacuzzi and we decide the wind tunnel is enough for us and head back to the cabin to change. Some last few great shots of Cabo

We find our daughter at the Promenade Lounge playing charades. We stop for a while to play. Next stop back to look at our pictures and we buy a few more.

Back to the shops for pins again, and lunch.

We went back to the cabin for a while and watched TV, time to head to the show. It’s the Hip Hop show with Alfred & Seymour. We miss a little in the beginning, but were there for most of it. After the show they had pin trading but nothing new that we have not seen or already traded ourselves.

Pictures with the characters again, we were able to visit Minnie, Goofy, Daisy, Donald and Mickey and Minnie together then off to dinner at Animators Palate.

We all had the wild mushroom soup which was very good and very hot, and we all have the grilled shrimp. I had the lobster, I asked for two, they were pretty big and can’t finish both. So more to Hubby. We really enjoyed it and it was delicious. Usually on other cruises we have seen many sized lobsters, this time. One would have been fine. It also had rice and green beans. I had the rainbow sherbet with coconut macaroon. That was just as tasty.

We did go to the chocolate buffet in Triton's at 11:15PM. We just get a few things as we had already had dessert already and we were still pretty full. We don't know why Barbie was missing her top, maybe somebody was really hungry. It was pretty funny!

So tomorrow is last full day and as I type this the room is so creaky, just like the halls and all around the ship. We will be sad to leave on Sunday.

Today on Saturday we wake up and turn on the TV to see the bridge cam and it's has rain spots on the lens and looks a little overcast. We do have our anniversary brunch at Palo at 10:30 this morning. By the time our brunch was over, it was much clearer and we had a pretty view by the window. I brought the camera, but the battery was dead.
Finally a nice cup of coffee. They said it is the same coffee on the entire ship, but since the other areas have such high use it does not have time to be mixed right.

I went to see I am Number 4 movie, I like it and I was amazed to see how many small children in the movie. Hubby is off taking pictures and finds a Hidden Mickey in the clouds! Way to go!

Hubby and I head to the Outlook Cafe to play cards at outlook cafe saw our son run by arms in the air with the scavenger hunt list. He was having a fun time!

Off to get the last if the pictures from shutters. We head to the room to pack, which we don't want to do. It’s time to get ready to go see Dreams. This was a great show and all enjoyed it.

They now have pin trading in the atrium. Which is like a pin frenzy, and we loved it. Needed to reload with more pins from the cabin.

Time for our last dinner it will be at Parrot Cay. We have the potato leek soup the kids eat it and they said it has some black things I say eat them anyway. Our son says they don't taste like anything after they are done I say that it is caviar. We all have the beef with veggie and a William potato. Which is in a shape of a pear. We all like this too. We have the chocolate decadence and our last Mickey bar. Then they bring us this! We are too full to eat it so we take it back to the room.

Who knew that we could get lobster in our room!

Time to pack the last of the bags and set them out. We drop-off our extra wave phone and they take the 250.00 charge off the account. With a credit now on our account we decide to get some last few gifts so we go back to Treasure Ketch .

We pack the last few things and watch Toy Story on TV and call it a night.

 

[TinyG]

We awaken to our last day on the Wonder and head to breakfast we leave some gifts for Neil our cabin steward and head to Parrot Cay. There are long lines as we all wait for breakfast. Since we need to be out from out cabin, we wait too. As we are standing they announce at 8:35AM that the first character has been cleared. They call a few more characters, but we are still eating and not Donald yet. With our goodbyes all said in Parrot Cay we head to the open lounge right next to us.

We are now in the Promenade Lounge at 9:50 and chip and Dale was the first called, then Daisy, Minnie and now at Tinkerbell. Just a little while we hear Donald called, a lady leaves her purse, and I gave it to a cast member who sends it to guest services. 10:53 we are in line to leave the ship. We exit and go through customs pretty quickly and find our luggage. Our duffel had a big hole on the entire side. Good thing everything stayed in (I hope we still need to sort it all out) so I show a cast member and she says that we need to fill out a report. They take the report and photo and give me the receipt. Out we go and find our ride.

Overall impressions we really enjoyed our time and will sail Disney again, I would like to try a newer ship, maybe one less creaky or with more adult areas.

Stateroom
It felt small with 4 grown people inside, my first ever inside cabin in 12 cruises. Something we won't do again, it was clean and what we needed at the time. We should have gone to the next level with the split bathroom or maybe a room with a steamer trunk. The drawers were small. It seemed that I had my stuff in about 5 places.

We did like the idea of the Wave phones to use. We were glad that we rented another one, since only two were in our room. They do put a 250.00 deposit hold on the credit card till they get it back.

Food
I think that the food was very good, I only had one piece of pizza, they could use real dough and not one from a package it would be good. At least when I was there they were taking it out of a plastic wrapper.

They need to figure out the ratio of off coffee and the amount of people using the machines. I wish we would have brought the Starbucks Via with us, other than the brunch at Palo never had a good cup of coffee.

I do think that Disney desserts were fantastic, especially when you can have small samples desserts of what is offered in a bigger portion. and don't forget those Mickey bars!

Service
Was wonderful, from the CM in the stores to the guest services. The wait staff and the room steward. Awesome Disney style.

Shows-Pictures
We were impressed with the shows and it was nice to see all of them. We could always find a seat no matter what time we came.

We did take lots of photos with the characters, but we missed some because of the locations or long lines. We did try a get them when we could. The Jack Sparrow line was very long and the hallway was too hot. I did use the phone on the wall and tell them. It did get cooler after that.

We did not attend the "Till we meet again" farewell, we did not want to feel sad that we were leaving.

So till we meet again!

 

[TinyG]

Sorry some of the photos are large, but at least they are easier to see.

TinyG

 

[Mindyjoy]

Great report!

 

[TinyG]

Thank you

 

[DisneyCruiser83]

This was a great report! Thanks for sharing your experiences. I always love to read TR's. Sounds like you guys had a great time!

 

[TinyG]

Thank you. Yes, we had a great time.

Update: I did get a check for the luggage that was damaged when we returned. I am almost done with the scrapbook. I can't believe it was a month ago today!

Also have received a few calls from DVC they say that they are sending a package? Anyone who did not purchase, get a package? Is it just more sales materials?

 

[Toria]

Enjoyed your TR and pics!

 

[TinyG]

The package was the same materials from the seminar on board. Why they needed to FedEx them I will never know.