I'll post the day to day trip report here and then once I am done writing, I'll post the full report in the trip report section!
Day 1
I can’t believe I was able to keep this trip a secret from the kids right until we pulled up to the port and they first noticed the Wonder. My ds8 said “Grandpa, you made a wrong turn” as he was told we were going to go see the Muppets. It wasn’t until we actually pulled up to the drop off curb that I asked if they wanted to get on the Mickey boat that all the kids said yes but that we didn’t have any luggage. My sons were so engrossed in their DS games on the ride to the port that they never even paid attention to what was stacked in the back of the car. They didn’t jump up and down like I thought they would even though they were excited. I think they were in shock for a while!
We had a 11:00 arrival time and we got there around then. Drop off was quick and easy. Went right up the escalator to fill out the health form and then went to the concierge check in line. No one was in line there but I didn’t really see lines anywhere. This was vastly different from when we sailed last Feb. It was raining, however, so maybe people were just delayed getting there or taking their time. I was in a hurry to get into the concierge area because I knew my friend’s family was not too far behind me and we were surprising the kids. I did manage to get the kids their club/lab bracelets before going into the concierge area.
If I remember correctly, they actually started boarding around 12. We were one of the first onto the ship! So exciting.
I went to Guest Services to inquire about some tickets. I was bummed to find out they were not having gingerbread house making on this cruise and that it they would start having it until the cruise after ours. BUMMER! I was able to get tickets to the Disney Friends Tea Party.
After going to GS, we headed to Parrot Cay for lunch while I told my friends to go eat at BBB so that we wouldn’t run into each other. The buffet was good. After lunch we went to the concierge reception in the Cadillac lounge. Lawanda, my concierge host, was fantastic! What a nice guy! The kids were getting restless so I let them play their ds’ some more while we were waiting for our room to be done. Ds6 needed to charge his ds and when he tried to plug the charger into the game system, it wasn’t working. The slot on the system, was bent and I needed something small to be able to bend it back. A CM saw that I was trying to fix this and he offered to help. He left and came back with a tool kit and within minutes had it fixed! I truly cannot say enough about the Disney staff! Even after the same ds spilled my diet coke all over the table and the floor, the same CM came over to help clean it up with a smile on his face!
Rooms were ready around 2. This was the first time in a suite. We had a 1 bedroom suite, room 8032. This turned out to be a great room with one exception. The wood work creaked like crazy when we had any type of rougher seas. This kept me up a little bit so I started sleeping with the door opened to the balcony so that I could have the sound of the waves put me to sleep. Worked like a charm. The creaky wood didn’t bother the kids. After staying in the kids club/lab almost every night until midnight, they were asleep before their heads hit the pillow. The lay out of the room was great. The kids slept on the pull out sofa and the Murphy bed while I had the bed in the bedroom. Very spacious and never once felt cramped and trapped with the kids while in the room.
My friend showed up at the room shortly after we did and the kids were quite surprised and happy to see their friends. What’s great is my friend has 3 kids the exact ages and genders as mine so they are all really good friends. One thing I did soon after arriving in the room was to send out the boys shirts to be pressed. What a great tip I learned on this board! For $10, I had 6 shirts pressed and back to me by 4 the next day. I loathe ironing so this was great!
It was raining so the sail away party was held inside in the atrium. You could stand on decks 3-5 to get a view but it was really crowded. I definitely prefer for it to be outside. It’s great they give the kids streamers to wail about, they love them. This one kid kept hitting me in the face with it. After it happened a few times, I turned around to nicely ask him to be careful when I realized it was the mom doing it!! She obviously knew she was hitting something. Another lady was pushing my friend’s son away from the railing with her elbows. After the characters came, we decided to head back to the room to unpack.
Dinner was at Parrot Cay. I was happy that I got the rotation I requested,. I did not get the server I requested because he just left the ship that day for vacation. We instead had Salomie and Jorge, both of which were fantastic.
The show was good but both my dd and my friend’s dd fell asleep so no kids club for them that night which meant no mommy free time. The boys went for a little bit but were in bed by 10:00. I didn’t get much sleep that night because of the noise all the wood made. The kids, however, slept fine!
We are a small group so far but I'm hoping we will still be able to put together an FE and a group meet 
