Celebrating my daughter's 18th birthday on the Wonder

[twokings]

My daughter is turning 18 tomorrow.

When I asked her back in November how she wanted to celebrate her birthday, giving the option of a big party with friends or going on a vacation inviting one friend.

She decided she wanted to go on another Disney Cruise. Her choice suited her well. She does not want to be an adult.

Lucky for me Disney was running a special. Kids free with 2 paying adults. Therefore the cruise for her friend didn't cost anymore than just the two of us cruising.

Of course my daughter decided we should also visit the Magic Kingdom one day. Which I agreed to. How could I not go to Disney for at least 1 day if we were going to be visiting the area.

The trip was put into motion. Lucky for the girls the count down to our trip was less than 60 days from the time it was booked. Everyday at school my daughter friends said only X more days. This was going to be her first Disney Cruise and only second visit to Disney.

We decided it best to go down 1 day before our cruise. We live in RI and there was no guarantees we wouldn't have flight problems.

Our cruise was 4 nights on the Wonder leaving on 1/31/2010.

January 30th was finally here.

Our flight took off on time and landed on time. Since there was 3 of us traveling I opted to rent a car both to and from the port. This was considerably cheaper even if I had to pay for our 1st night hotel stay. I used my mileage to get a free night hotel stay at the Orlando Vista Hotel. Which was more than ok. They even provided free continental breakfast.
I managed to get a midsize car for $44 for a 1 day rental through budget, the hotel was free, and a 2 day rental for the trip back for $88. The transfers would have cost me $69 x 3.


Our first day we decided to go shopping at the Premium Outlets. We went directly to the Character Premium Outlet. My daughter is a huge pin collector. They had box sets for $15. Which is what she always buys and then trades with Cast Members.

Later in the evening we had reservations at Chef Mickey's for 8:45. Complements of my Disney Reward Dollars. With this trip I was really looking to economize due to traveling with an extra person.

We arrive around 7 ish. Shopped at the stores in the Contemporary, rode the monorail, and watch Wishes from the deck outside the California Grill.

We had a great 1st day.

January 31st - Cruise day!!

The girls were very excited therefore I had no issues getting them out of bed. I was also excited. Teenage girls can be tough but not when you are going on a cruise. We ate our free breakfast provide by the hotel and we were off to the port. My daughter's friend was extra excited, since this was her 1st Disney Cruise.

The weather was not as warm as we would have liked(65) but the sun was coming out. The only thing that really matter was we were getting on the Wonder, it wasn't any snow on the ground and it was a heck of a lot warmer than RI. It was in the single digits when we left with a negative wind chill.

When the girls saw the shipped they started singing "I'm so Excited".

We arrived in Port Canaveral before 10. I was happy I wanted to get on in one of the 1st 5 boarding groups.

However the Kia I rented for some reason wouldn't allow me to put gas in it. The gas leaked all over my foot. I tried numerous times after verifying the tank wasn't full and eventually asked for help. Nothing worked so I dropped the car off with out a full tank and worked it out with the Budget employee.

This took a little longer than I wanted. We ended up with Group 6 for boarding. Which I was very happy with.

We checked in which went very smoothly. We had plenty of time for photos. We noticed Captain Mickey coming out for photos and ended up second in line. I then got back in line which was quite long at this point. I knew Mickey would switch to Minnie eventually. Which it did. And again we were 2nd.

The last time my daughter I cruise with Disney was November 2007 on the Magic. One of the things I noticed that was different and better was they take your photo a head of time rather when boarding. At least that was how I remembered it.

The time passed very quickly when Group 6 was called for boarding. We were the 1st ones in group 6.

We opted to not eat right away. We started to explore the ship. The sun was shining and it didn't feel all that cold on deck 9. We decided we would go in the jacuzzi when we had the opportunity to enjoy it all to ourselves.

It felt nice in the Jacuzzi. Some of the crew members thought we were nuts and assumed we must be from the north. My daughters friend decided to jump in the pool. She jumped in and out very quickly.

We decided to change and go get some lunch at Topsider's which was very very crowded. We were told everything was crowded due to the weather being cooler. Everybody opted to just hang out in the restaurants until their rooms were ready. Luckily we managed to get a seat right away. Before we were done eating they announced our rooms were ready. We finished our lunch and headed to our room. And lucky for us our luggage was already there.

We unpacked decorated the door with our magnets and the girls where off to explore. I headed to the Cove for a nice relaxing tea.

Very quickly the time passed and it was time for our mandatory drill. After the drill it was time to get ready for dinner and the Golden Mickey's. We like to dress up for Dinner and the show. We had a late dinner 8:15. TAAP rotation. I like the early show and late dinner a lot. Of course there are no young people in our group.

The girls took over an hour to get ready. Teenage girls can be tough.

We arrived at the Golden Mickey's just in time. My daughter and I enjoy this show every time we see it. My daughter's friend was truly amazed. It was nice getting to watch the excitement of a 1st time viewer.

After the show we posed for some pictures with the characters, my daughter daughter traded some pins, I went to see if it was worth rebooking my May 2011 transatlantic cruise and the girls went to Mickey Mania.

I decided to rebook my cruise since it was about $250 less plus 200 OBC.
I met up with the girls at the tail end of Mickey Mania and we headed to dinner.

We had dinner at Tritons the 1st night. Initially there was a woman with her 16 year old daughter at our table but they decided they didn't like anything on the menu and opted to eat at Plutos and room service. We never saw them again. There was also another woman from Mexico and her 15 year old daughter at our table. They were extremely nice. We had George from India and Myriam from Spain as our servers. They were awesome.

After dinner the girls decided to go to the aLoft. I decided to retire early.

Sonia was our stateroom attendant. Our 1st towel animal was a swan.

Lucky for the girls they met 3 17 year old boys. They were very very happy.

An awesome 1st cruise day.

 

[wink13]

Thanks for the report. Great start!!!

 

[DisneyDaddio]

What a great birthday gift! Look forward to day 2.

 

[twokings]

February 1

We arrived in Nassua.

The weather was nice. We were able to wear shorts. We did not book any excursions. My daughter and I had been to the Bahamas a few times staying once at the Atlantis for 4 days. We decided to see what the days would bring us when we got there.

We got dressed and went to breakfast at Tritons. We had a nice breakfast and decided to get off the ship and explore. My daughter asked if we could go to the Atlantis since her friend had never been there. At that point I went to guest services to get the basics on hiring a taxi. I wanted to be sure we were getting a good price and that we would be safe.

The lady at guest services gave me all the advice I needed. We got of the ship approached the group of Bahamians trying to get us to book a tour. I told him we wanted to take a taxi to the Atlantis and asked for a price. He stated $4 per person which was lower than the price that I was told it should be. I confirmed the guy was licensed. The Bahamians wanted to fill up a van before going to the Atlantis. I was okay with this. Power in numbers. They teamed us up with other people from the Wonder.

We arrived at the Atlantis and explored at our own pace. Since my daughter and I had been there before I didn't want to pay a lot to see things we had already scene. My daughters friend was more than content just exploring what the Atlantis allows non staying guest to see.

We walked around and took lots of photos. We then hired a taxi back towards the ship. We were quoted the same price for our cab fair back.

The girls wanted to shop so we headed to the Straw Market. The girls decided they wanted Coach pocketbooks. They both manged to haggle the price of the pocketbooks they wanted. They asked $75 for my daughters purse which she got for $40. And her friends they asked $60 and she also got for $40. The key was they both only had $40 to spend. I let them handle the sale with me watching from a very close distance. I bought myself a nice basket. We headed back to the ship for a late lunch. The girls bought conch shells on the way back. We went to Parrot Cay for lunch.

We then parted our ways. The girls looked forward to there time exploring without me. I honored their wishes as long as they didn't desert me 100% of the time.

For the small amount of time we were exploring outside in Nassua my feet managed to get a bad sunburn. We did not put on sunscreen since we were indoors most of the time while on the island. For some odd reason only the tops of my feet burned. I now had a nice X on both of my feet due to the pattern of the sandals. My feet were very swollen as well. The rest of me and the girls were fine.

1st thing I did was quickly tried to decorate the room with balloons and an 18th birthday banner while the girls were out of the room. We had plans to meet in 10 minutes to get a photo with Pluto. In the mean time since we accidentally left the privacy note on our door the stateroom hostess came to clean the room. I asked for 5 more minutes. In the mean time the girls realized they forgot their cameras in the room. So much for the surprise. The girls left the room and I completed my task all while the stateroom hostess waited outside. This didn't go quite as smoothly as I had planned.

I headed up to deck 9 to photograph the girls with Pluto. They didn't have a watch. Needless to say they never showed so I went the pool, deck 4, shutters, etc.

Tonight was formal night which the girls were looking forward too.

We grouped back at the room and got ready for our evening. I ordered the All hands on deck cheese plater and a pitcher of lemonade. I enjoy nibbling on some cheese while we get ready. I also opened the bottle of wine that I had brought on board with me. We manged to get ready slightly quicker than the night before.

We had time for a few photos before our show which was Toy Story the Musical. None of had ever seen this show. We all enjoyed a lot.
We then had our photos with more characters. The girls really liked posing in there formal wear with the characters in their formal wear. We caught the last 1/2 of Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer. On our last cruise my daughter was selected. She loved this a lot. No luck this time. We still enjoy the show no matter what happens.

We then headed to Animators Palate for dinner. This my daughter's favorite restaurant. She is an artist that is why she loves it so much. We had a great dinner and celebrated my daughter's birthday well as the other young ladies birthday who we dined with. She had turned 15 on 1/28. We had already eaten to much therefore we brought the cake back to the room.

We then posed for a few more pictures. I think the photographers thought the girls were sisters. They like that idea of them being sisters. We posed with Formal Minnie and Mickey together and Formal Donald and Daisy together. l love the characters in there formal wear.

After the photos it was see ya later to me. The girls wanted to meet up with the 17 year old boys. I went to see Ivan Pecel the juggler. I enjoyed this show a lot. I met another lady that was there by herself. We shared a table together. We both stayed for the one hit wonder show after as well. I had a great time. I got back to the room close to 1. The girls got back to the room around 2:15. They decided to wait until the ship left Nassua. They were having fun hanging out at the Cove and in the adult pool and jacuzzi. It turned out one of the 17 year old boys was already 18 and the rest of them figured they were close enough. I would have been a lot happier if they had asked permission first.

We were all having fun. The girls were definitely having a blast.