August 12, 2007 Wonder??? Anyone else booked yet??

[mndisfam]

Have we gotten a kind of list together...?

I am Kathleen, 45 , SAHM
DH is Mark, 45, thinks he is a pirate
DS is William 11 - Star Wars, harry Potter, video games, sports. Thinks he becoming a teen and doesn't like ht ekids clubs sometimes (too bad!)
DD is Claire 8 - girlie stuff and sports. American Girl doll. Loves the kids clubs.

We are all friendly!

 

[goofy4tink]

Us...
Me, Diane a young 58
dh, George, an old 49
dd, 13 going on 21

Can't wait to meet everyone. We fly out tomorrow morning, so I won't be online after early tomorrow am. Hopefully things won't change before we get on board in a week. See you all then!!!

 

[goofy4tink]

Bye guys!!!! We're off, see you all in a week.

 

[Bensma100]

My family is also going on the August 12th cruise. We are first time cruisers, in fact my dh,dd and 2 ds's have never even been to Fl. My ds's are 13 and 6 and my dd is 9. We have watched all the shows about the cruise and my kids are so excited. I think my 13 yr old is more concerned that he won't have anything to do. He is big into sports. I have read on some sites that you can bring your own bottled water with you. Does anyone know if they still let you do this. My kids drink lots of water!!

 

[cocastang]

You are allowed to bring any drinks you want on board. Cases or singles are fine.
I am the other half of the parkranger poster.

 

[goofy4tink]

Well, we're all off the ship now...gone on with our normal, humdrum lives. I didn't get to meet most of you. I was at the Arcade at 3:00, but no one was there....had on my bright lime green shirt, with my DIS button hanging around my neck but didn't see anyone who looked like they were looking for other strangers. Oh well...waited about 10 mins then headed back to the room.
But...I did manage to run into Kathleen at the beach on CC!!!! How cool was that?! It was great talking to her, and her dh. So, met at least one DISer. And a non-posting DISer did notice my green DIS button the first day of the cruise and mentioned being a DISer, but hasn't posted in a long time!

 

[bluehorizonlover]

I am sorry we didn't meet you. Our luggage came and we began to unpack and lost track of the time. We loved the cruise. We loved Disney. We saw all 4 movies that they were showing. We went to all the shows. My teens had a blast and met tons of kids their age even tho they had just turned 17. Our inside cabin was huge. This was my 17th cruise and one of my favorites but I don't think we will cruise Disney again. Price is too expensive and I love trying out new ships. But everything was fantastic. And I was really impressed at how friendly all the workers on the ship are. Never saw a cruise line with such friendly workers in my life. I wish the weather was better at the private island. We stood under an umbrella and waited for the rains to stop. Then enjoyed the rest of the day. Wish it wouldn't have rained so much that day tho as we were so looking forward to it. The cruise was way tooo short. I think I will stick to week long cruises in the future. But I loved everything about it. It is sad to get back to reality at home now.

 

[goofy4tink]

Sorry to have missed you! Yep, it was a wee bit rainy on CC wasn't it!! We were over at the adults beach when the skies opened the first time. We were visiting with Kathleen (quite by accident) and a couple of DVCers we had met at a get-together the day before! Dh and I had to head back in that torrential downpour on our bikes...first time on a bike in 40 yrs for me!!!
Then, the skies opened as we were almost to the ship around 3ish!!!
The CMs on the Wonder are truly wonderful. We found every single one of them to be so friendly and helpful...even the actors. We got to chat a bit with some of them on the last night.
My dd, Kate, loved Aloft. She was out with the other kids every night. In fact, she got in much later than dh and I did at night. We were usually in bed for an hour or two by the time she came in!!!

The one thing that we didn't care for was a situation with our table companions. They are actually from the same state as we are, so we had a nice dinner at Parrot Cay the first night. But, when we started talking about the next night being a dressy night, they got really quiet. Said they hadn't known to bring any 'good' clothes and only had tees and shorts. We joked and said that Disney would never deny them entrance to a restaurant, and not to worry about it. However, we never had a meal with them again!! They didn't show up for dinner, at our table at least, the rest of the time. So, there we sat, the three of us, at a table for six, watching everyone around us having a great time with their table mates.

The other thing that really got to me was the Nassau shopping meeting. Man, I didn't think that would happen on a Disney cruise, but I guess I was wrong. I guess there are a lot of folks who go to Nassau to shop but I wasn't prepared for the full court press to buy a 'coupon book' and to go to only certain shops and to ask for managers in order to get the best deal possible. Poor Pippa...she became a running joke for my family the rest of the cruise.

But, we loved the ship, the food, CC...I'm ready to cruise again, dh isn't. He said maybe in a few years. It is expensive to cruise with Disney...I did compare prices. But, you get so much for your money that I don't mind all that much. We upgraded our photo package by the second day. Unfortunatly, the cruise photographers didn't get to our end of the beach at CC and we only got one 'okay' photo from the sting ray adventure..no other CC shots. I was kinda disappointed about that, but we did get lots of other great shots.

So....missed meeting more of you, but hey, there's always the next time, right??

 

[bluehorizonlover]

Goofy -

We had a table for 4. Just our family, no one else and I found that the families at tables around our table were very unfriendly and never tried to start a conversation with us even tho I laughed loudly and tried to engage them in our conversations. The folks working on the ship were much friendlier. We didnt bring fancy clothes for that one night either. My guys wore dockers pants and a button down polo. I had capris and a collared shirt. I didn't realize Disney had a dress up night on a 4 night cruise. And we were off to Universal Studios after the cruise so I packed only summer clothes. No dress shoes either. We all wore sandals to dinner. My husband was the only one who brought dress shoes with. Disney is really double the price of what you would pay for other cruise lines. I don't think it was worth double the price. Granted they had free ice cream and soda. But most ships have free ice cream (Carnival, RCL, Princess during certain hours) and a soda card is only about $40 for the week. We had an inside room and paid like 800 for 4 nights. I could have easily gotten a week long cruise and an inside on another line for 700. But we had never tried Disney so we wanted to try. I personally thought the ship was really small for the number of passengers that were on there. The pools were small, they wasnt alot of deck chair space, the lido deck eating area was tiny. I loved watching all 4 movies in the theater. We saw all 4 of them. The shows were ok. But I think they were really geared towards little kids and not for adults. I enjoy the shows better on other lines. The food was good but on other lines it is fancier. It was more family friendly I think on Disney. This was my 17th cruise, if you can believe it. You either love cruising or hate it. I look for deals and if I find them we go. I have gotten balconies on other lines for 800pp for a week. Disney seems to over price their cruises. Most of the people we met were doing packages. Combining the cruise with the parks and hotels. But I think they got gipped doing it that way. They were paying like 1200 pp for a balcony cabin for a 4 night cruise. That is outrageous.

I loved Disney and would do it again if the ships were newer and bigger and if the price was lower. But since neither of those two things will happen it will probably be our last Disney cruise in a long while. My twins who are 17 had a blast and begged me after to go on another Disney cruise. But we currently have a HAL and Costa cruise planned so I said no more Disney cruises for a very long while.

I wish we could have met up. It would have been fun. I think you are similiar in age to me. I had my birthday onboard and they forgot to bring the cake out. Finally when all the lights were on and the dining room was empty they brought one out. I brought it to the room and put it in the refrigerator. We ate it the next day. We were stuffed after the big dinner anyway.

 

[NowaSki]

Can't believe the trip is already over.

With 16 in our crowd, celebrating my parents 50th anniversary we were quite busy. The one downside to our trip was that I had to go to the ship doctor on the first day. Without going into details, I was unable to enjoy the pools or the water at CC for the entire cruise. I still managed to have fun.

This was our third Disney Cruise and love it. Yes, you pay a premium for a Disney cruise, but we feel it is worth it (especially with young kids). Disney must be doing something right, because the ship was full, as is the case most of the time. Remember, supply and demand will always dictate price. When the two new ships go into service in 2011 and 2012 maybe we will see a price drop or at least a slow down in the price increases.

We were in WDW the week prior to the cruise, and I found that the CM at WDW are just not what we use to see. The CM on the cruise were fantastic and what we use to see at WDW. They would always say hello and were very friendly.

Our server (Agus) was awesome. He did a great job, and made sure we all were happy with our meals.

Also, the medical staff was fantastic. They did a great job helping me out and making sure I was able to enjoy the cruise.

 

[goofy4tink]

We were at WDW the week prior to the cruise as well. While I didn't run into very many not-so-pleasant CMs I did run into a bunch that seemed to have a bit less patience than usual. One CM actually apologized for being short and said the excessive heat was getting to her. That was something I could sympathize with...man, it was brutal in the parks that week.
But, the CMs on the Wonder were all incredible. Our stateroom host, Christopher, was wonderful...he always had a friendly hello and was happy to stop and chat if we ran into him in the hallways. Our servers were terrific...we had Christian and Horie. Our head server was Arnold. My dd was so taken with him that she started calling him 'wonderboy'!!! It boggled my mind when we would enter the restaurant and he would say..."Hello table 61!!!" How do they do that???!!!!! Our servers could not have been any better or nicer. Loved them.