Christmas/Holiday 2011 on the Wonder: 8 night Mexican Riviera 12/18/2011

[SanDeeKath]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! We just booked this awecome Holiday cruise and I am anxious to meet others coming with us. This is going to be our first DCL cruise and I am thrilled to have the Wonder on the West Coast again! Sailing during Christmas will make this extra special!

2 years to count down -- this is going to be a REALLY long wait.

Anyone else coming? I hope do a meet and greet and maybe have an ornament exchange!?!

Katherine in San Diego

 

[IrishCowboy]

Your thread has been added to the 2011 Wonder Cruise meet list

 

[ayumac]

Hi Katherine! We are family of 4 from Cupertino, CA near, or next to San Jose.

We just booked this trip on board becuase it was the very last cruise we could book. I am hoping this is worth the cost with 8 night and holiday and all. Otherwise, we might have to switch to the one duiring Spring Break, 2011 which is about 1/3 of what we will be paying.

So, unless we really change our minds, I will be a regular here.

Ayumi

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

We are in! We actually booked this cruise while on our November 2009 Magic cruise. It had just been released that week. Periodically I'd look around and see if anyone had started a Meets thread, so glad to see you did Katherine!

We are Southern Cal residents as well... we live in Devore, a little town in the Cajon Pass near San Bernardino. This will make cruise number 6 for us! I really wanted to do a Christmas cruise, and in 2011 our DD will be in high school so it's harder for her to miss school then I imagine... so this one it was! We are really excited. I hope to get some family members to join us, but we'll see.

It is a long wait! But I booked my November 2009 cruise in December of 2007...and kept it a secret till Christmas of 2008 for the kids... that I'll never do again!

 

[SanDeeKath]

Hi there!

Yaaaay! We won't be sailing alone?!!!

Pixie: I live in San Diego and never heard of your town! LOL. I grew up in LA. It's great to cruise locally though. We are going on Mariner of the Seas this SUNDAY!! YAHOOOO. Our first MX cruise (and our first cruise without the kids ).

Ayumi: I know where you live! DH and I lived by Stanford for 8 years. Don't switch your cruise! I heard that Disney does AMAZING decor for Xmas on the ships (like the parks)! It'll be a holiday you won't forget. There are special meals and even Santa visits the kids with presents. Yes, Spring Break is much cheaper but it's also something you can do at any time on any ship. The Holiday cruise is going to be special....

I'll check back after our Mariner cruise and see how everyone is doing. Maybe I will post some pix since this cruise will have the same ports (PV, Cabo and Mazatlan).

Till later,

Katherine

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

Go to Stone Island in Mazatlan!! It was $1.50 each boat ride over. We hung out in hammocks all day at Victor's, had the best garlic shrimp in the world, and drank Pacificos all day. It was our very favorite port, and we did it all on our own. We are still talking about that day!

We did the Mexican Riviera cruise in 11/07 on Princess... Also our first cruise and a no- kids trip! You will love it. Although, now we are thoroughly sold on DCL after our 3rd Disney cruise last week. Not that Princess wasn't enjoyable, it's just that we love the Disney servers, parties, clubs for the kids, and the service has been impeccable. I have friends that are loyal RCCL cruisers, and I've always heard good things. Have you cruised them before?

Christine

 

[SanDeeKath]

Hi Christine,

This is our first RCCL cruise and I heard the Mariner is an amazing ship. Most people on Cruise Critic site it as the "best" of Royal Caribbean (for now anyway). It has an ice skating rink, which will be a first for us, LOL. There is an inside promenade with shops and a pub with live entertainment each night, etc. It sounds really fun and I honestly cannot wait!!!

We've sailed Princess 3 times (back in the late 90s and early 2000s) before we had the kids. The ships were beautiful and food/service was great. Our Alaska cruise was our very favorite trip ever!

I have had soooo many friends tell me that the Disney Cruise is really a unique experience and everyone should do it at least once. I hope it will go over well with my kids. My 5 year old will be 7 by then and she has never really been into the Disney characters or princesses but she is very easy to please and as long as there are lots of fun activities, she should be just fine.

My bigger concern is my 10 year old, who will be 12 by the time we cruise. She'll be in that narly pre-teen mode and if she thinks the cruise is "stupid" I might have to slap her upside the head. I am sure Disney anticipates this age though and probably can cater to the thing she finds "cool". She's by no means a brat but those hormones are starting to rage already. She can't help it, the poor girl.

Anyway, I think if we don't do it in 2011, we'll never get around to doing DCL given how the kids grow up so fast. Our friends are all extremely complimentary about the experience so we are .

Thanks for the Mazatlan tip! We would love to sit around and relax and eat shrimp all day.

I am going to pack on Friday. 2 more work days!!!

Katherine

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

Bumping this up from the basement of the Meets board...

What's everyone up to? SanDeeKath, how was your Mariner cruise? I just read somewhere that RCCL was pulling the Mariner out of California- people were not happy, it's a popular ship.

Any new cruisers joining us?

Christine

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

Bumping us up so new cruisers can find us!

 

[SanDeeKath]

Hi there,

Sorry it's been a while since I have been on this board. We are so busy planning all these cruises that I have been AWOL! LOL. We just booked a 2 day cruise to "nowhere" for Jan 21st, 2011 on the Wonder. SOOO, it looks like we will have a chance to sail her before this awesome Christmas cruise! Yipeee. I am so excited. It's a quick weekend cruise so it's a total no brainer for us to just book it and go!

In the meantime, DH and I got back from the Mariner of the Seas last month. It was AWESOME! We had such a great time!! The ship is just gorgeous and our room (the owner's suite) was huge and spacious and just wonderful. We had a really relaxing time and the weather was perfect. We kept saying how the kids would have loved this ship! We booked a Spring Break 2011 cruise while on board the Mariner and decided to take the kids too.

Well, a week later, I got the call from RCCL saying they are pulling the Mariner from LA permanently as of Jan 2011 and our cruise is cancelled! UGH. We were so disappointed. However, as an apology, they were willing to honor our current rate for any other sailing if we could go in 2010 AND give us $400 OBC. I laughed and told the lady we have no more vacation and already have holiday plans BUT we could possibly go at Thanksgving if she could give us the discounted rate we booked.

She said no problem and allowed us to go Thanksgiving week! So we are going again this year! LOL. It's totally unexpected but we are thrilled to be able to sail her one more time and to allow our kids to experience all of the fun and games the Mariner has.

So then we still have our 4 day brief Mexican Riviera cruise on Princess planned for Dec 18th (booked well before the whole Mariner fiasco) and then we have this new, 2 days to nowhere cruise on the DIsney Wonder in January! I tell you, you think we would be cruiseaholics!!! We are doing more cruises this coming year than we have our whole lives.

But in any case we are really excited for each of them. DH especially really wanted to get on the Mariner one more time, and he hardly ever expresses an opinion about these things so I knew he must have felt strongly. So we are blowing off the relatives and just going ourselves. No one else can afford to go since it's so pricy during Thanksgiving week!

Speaking of pricy, just out of curiosity I got a quote for a week on the Wonder in Alaska and HOLY SH*T! Disney is crazy! They wanted 500 DVC points and $5000 for a party of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids) in category 5, or 1000 points for 4 of us.

The cash price was $7200. I quoted the same cruise on Princess for $3200 for the 4 of us. Now I am not sure if Disney is attracting totally independently wealthy people for those cruises or if we will see some HUGE last minute sales in 2011... but I know that we simply can't afford to go! UGH.

Katherine

 

[ayumac]

Hi Katherine!

I have not been here for a while either. I just started to check on DISboard since we, too, just reserved our spot on the NOWHERE cruise!!!!!

We just booked a 2 day cruise to "nowhere" for Jan 21st, 2011 on the Wonder.

It will going to be different, but I am sure it will be fun.

I will go back and start reading this thread and get back to you and others soon!

Ayumi

 

[SanDeeKath]

Ayumi,

That's great! I hope to meet you on the "nowhere" cruise before we go on this cruise too! How exciting! I can hardly wait. I put a countdown clock on my desktop at home and work with a giant drawing of Mickey! LOL.

Katherine

 

[MazatlanMonica]

Hello to everyone in this group. I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Monica and I live in Mazatlan, Sinaloa Mexico. For anyone on a future Disney cruise to the Mexican Riviera, I am pleased to make myself available to you for any questions about the city of Mazatlan or country of Mexico.

As for myself, I am a resident of both the United States and of Mexico. I speak both English and Spanish fluently and I have sailed on DCL numerous times and have been a lifelong fan of Disney. Let me say right upfront, I am NOT selling anything nor am I affiliated with any business or tour company. I am only here to help and give honest information and opinions in an attempt to make your time in Mazatlan or Mexico a positive experience.

I hope that everyone will welcome me to the discussion and that I can be of assistance to anyone who has a question about my city or country. I will attempt to check the boards once per day, but should I miss a question, please do not hesitate to send me a private message. I look forward to getting to know everyone!

Gracias,
Monica

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

Katherine, sounds like you had a great time! Good for you for having all those cruises. We will be 3x on DCL this year. One is our DVC incentive cruise, then we booked a last minute Western with a category 12 sale, then on that one we decided that the 3 night incentive cruise would be far too short- so we booked another 3 night (it's Thanksgiving week) so as to make a back to back. And it was cheap! I know people think we're nuts for taking 3 cruises in a year- but hey it's so much fun!

Mazatlan Monica, thanks for dropping in. Mazatlan was our favorite port stop in the Mexican Riviera cruise we did a few years ago. I know we will want to go to Stone Island again, but I am also interested in maybe a Pacifico brewery tour. Are those available? Can I do it independently of the ship excursions?

Christine

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

Bringing us up from the depths of the Meets Board...

 

[SanDeeKath]

Hi Christine and all,

I am just checking in after a long hiatus from the boards (just busier than I expected for a summer!). We are getting really excited about our 2 night cruise to "nowhere" that we booked for the Wonder in Jan 2011. The kids are jazzed about being on a Disney ship for the first time ever. We have a GTY room 5B but the ship is totally sold out so I am hoping and praying that we can get an upgrade to a suite! It was the only room left that was NOT a suite when we booked in May. Wow. Now it doesn't even come up at all as a choice on the Disney website. I guess it's just totally oversold.

I also cannot wait for this Christmas cruise. I keep hearing more and more wonderful things about how great the ship looks during the holidays! And being away from the family and all the stress and demands of that time of year is going to be GREAT!

Christine, how are your cruises coming? I don't think you are silly for having a few coming up either! We still have our Mariner Thanksgiving cruise (1st cruise for the kids ever) cooking -- less than 4 months away now. Yeee haaaw.

Ayumi, how are you? What is your next get away??

Katherine in San Diego

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

Katherine, how exciting for your upcoming Mariner cruise! Your kids will have a blast. We looked into a RCCL cruise for spring break, but there are no Royal cruises at all coming out of LA!

So we did the next best thing and booked a DCL Kids Sail Free Mexican Riviera cruise for spring break! We are keeping it a suprise for the kids until this Christmas.

And then next Christmas our 8 night holiday cruise will be here!!!

 

[SanDeeKath]

Katherine, how exciting for your upcoming Mariner cruise! Your kids will have a blast. We looked into a RCCL cruise for spring break, but there are no Royal cruises at all coming out of LA!

So we did the next best thing and booked a DCL Kids Sail Free Mexican Riviera cruise for spring break! We are keeping it a suprise for the kids until this Christmas.

And then next Christmas our 8 night holiday cruise will be here!!!

Wow, congratulations!!! That sounds like a great surprise! I wish my parents would have surprised me like that when I was a kid.

We actually had the Mariner booked for Spring Break 2011 (ours is in April) but then they decided to move her out of LA. They called me one day to say that our sailing was cancelled. I was so mad. They cancelled some 5 months of sailings. That's about a million people! Jeez. Anyway, they offered us $400 OBC and to keep the prices that we originally were quoted to sail any time in 2010. The only way we could make it work is if we went at Thanksgiving since we have holiday plans this year already and the rest of the time the kids are in school. SOOO, we are going at Thanksgiving. Turns out we are all really excited about it anyway and given that it's been a FREEZING summer here in So Cal so far, I don't mind another warm weather cruise in 2010....

We also have coming up the 2 night cruise to nowhere with Disney for Jan 2011. That cruise sold out in like 2 weeks! We have a GTY room with no assignment yet. YIYEKS. And now DH and I are talking about going up to Alaska for my 40th birthday in May!

It's gonna be a great cruise year for us coming up!

Katherine

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

Katherine,

I see you own at AKV and VGC as well! We own at both resorts too. We only have a small 50 pt. contract at VGC... all I could afford right now. But that gets us almost 3 nights in a studio per year. We have 1 night for my birthday in February, and 2 nights in June. I hope someday to add on more points there! We will be at AKV for 5 nights in November, and 2 nights in Vero Beach. We'll actually be spending Thanksgiving in Vero!

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

Time to resurrect this thread!!

Just got back from the 3/20/11 Mexican Riviera and we had a FABULOUS time!! We are SOOOO excited to do this cruise over Christmas. I'm sure lots more people have booked this by now... so if you have or are thinking about it- join in!