Cruising to Mexico, Disney Style: Sept. 25 - Oct. 2, 2011 - ~*~UPDATED 10/30!~*~

[Leshaface]

Super jealous of your ultra VIP Character Invite!

I have a question. When you asked Jose to pick you up at noon, did you have to pay him again, or was it $10 roundtrip?

 

[scrappinmom]

Can't wait to hear about your PARTY!!!! yeah! how cool was that?!

 

[Moby]

I'm really enjoying your trip report and beautiful photos! I just booked our Dec 4-11 cruise today so I've got some planning to do!

I have a quick question I'm hoping you can answer for me. Initially, we were given the late seating for dining, but have now been moved to the main (early) seating @ 5:45 p.m. which I think I prefer. The itinerary says we will be in Cabo & PV on Day 4 & 5 until 7:00 p.m. Because we are assigned to early seating (5:45), will we miss out on the dining room rotation on those two evenings since we don't return to the ship until 7:00 p.m.? Or do they delay serving dinner when we are at a Port?

Do you have a recommendation for early vs. late dining?

 

[goofymom68]

I'm really enjoying your trip report and beautiful photos! I just booked our Dec 4-11 cruise today so I've got some planning to do!

I have a quick question I'm hoping you can answer for me. Initially, we were given the late seating for dining, but have now been moved to the main (early) seating @ 5:45 p.m. which I think I prefer. The itinerary says we will be in Cabo & PV on Day 4 & 5 until 7:00 p.m. Because we are assigned to early seating (5:45), will we miss out on the dining room rotation on those two evenings since we don't return to the ship until 7:00 p.m.? Or do they delay serving dinner when we are at a Port?

Do you have a recommendation for early vs. late dining?

We're on the same cruise.
Dining room times remain constant, so you would miss out on the dining room if you returned at 7:00. We prefer the early time because we have young children. Otherwise, we wouldn't care which time as both times have their strengths.

 

[Moby]

goofymom....I PM'd you with a few questions so as to not hijack Christy's wonderful trip report.

 

[namihos]

LOVING YOUR REPORT!!! can't wait for the next!!

 

[jetskigrl]

I love your trip report and can't wait to read the rest of it!!!! It is making me even more excited about our MR cruise next April

 

[Christy323]

I am living through your TR beause our MR cruise is still 4 weeks away. It is fabulous. Great photos. The beach sounds amazing. I cannot wait to read the details on your Private Meet with the Characters.

Thank you!

Your trip report has been amazing. I have learned so much and I hope we have half as much fun as you did. Thank you for sharing all you tips and experiences.

You are too sweet! I am glad I could help.

I have a question. When you asked Jose to pick you up at noon, did you have to pay him again, or was it $10 roundtrip?

Nope, it was $10 total! I was skeptical about whether or not he would actually pick us up on time, since he already had our money (and therefore nothing to encourage him to come back), but sure enough he did.

Can't wait to hear about your PARTY!!!! yeah! how cool was that?!

Thank you! I still have to edit the photos for that installment of the TR but as soon as that happens I will post!

Because we are assigned to early seating (5:45), will we miss out on the dining room rotation on those two evenings since we don't return to the ship until 7:00 p.m.? Or do they delay serving dinner when we are at a Port?

Do you have a recommendation for early vs. late dining?

Whether you miss out on rotation dining is totally up to you. You can choose to stay in port that late or you can come back early enough for your dinner seating. I guess it just depends on what you plan to do in port. We had late seating by choice, as eating before 6pm was wayyyy too early for either of us. It was nice to have dinner and not feel like we were rushing to get to something else. Also I enjoyed the fact that this meant we went to the 1st showings of all of the shows. But this is strictly a preference thing, of course.

LOVING YOUR REPORT!!! can't wait for the next!!

Thank you!!!

I love your trip report and can't wait to read the rest of it!!!! It is making me even more excited about our MR cruise next April

Thank you! I am glad it is getting you psyched for your cruise. I wish I was going back on the Wonder in April with you!

 

[Christy323]

We are back in business people! I have access to a laptop! I am uploading the pictures for day 7 of my TR as I write. I should have the post done by the end of the weekend!

 

[Leshaface]

We are back in business people! I have access to a laptop! I am uploading the pictures for day 7 of my TR as I write. I should have the post done by the end of the weekend!

Woot! So glad you have a laptop again.

 

[Dchachos]

We are back in business people! I have access to a laptop! I am uploading the pictures for day 7 of my TR as I write. I should have the post done by the end of the weekend!

Thank you so much I am truly enjoying your TR. I am cruising on the Wonder with my two favorite guys DS(9) and DS(7) for Christmas and DS (7) to turn DS (8). I love your sense of humor and adventure. I noticed you did not do any excursions. I am a little afraid of venturing off in a foreign country on my own but you seemed to have done it with ease, I may just cancel some excursions and be brave. I have a mobility issue and will have a travel scooter on board with me, do you think I can bring it on the tender? It folds up to the size of a standard baby stroller and rolls behind me like luggage.

I can't wait to hear about your private party, sitting on pins and needles.

BTW I will be visiting your fair city for the very first time on 11/11/11, can't wait to ride a cable car and see Fisherman's Warf.

Again thank you for sharing your adventure.

 

[Christy323]

Woot! So glad you have a laptop again.

Thanks Alicia! It's only a loaner for now, but I am a happy camper nonetheless.

Thank you so much I am truly enjoying your TR. I am cruising on the Wonder with my two favorite guys DS(9) and DS(7) for Christmas and DS (7) to turn DS (8). I love your sense of humor and adventure. I noticed you did not do any excursions. I am a little afraid of venturing off in a foreign country on my own but you seemed to have done it with ease, I may just cancel some excursions and be brave. I have a mobility issue and will have a travel scooter on board with me, do you think I can bring it on the tender? It folds up to the size of a standard baby stroller and rolls behind me like luggage.

I can't wait to hear about your private party, sitting on pins and needles.

BTW I will be visiting your fair city for the very first time on 11/11/11, can't wait to ride a cable car and see Fisherman's Warf.

Again thank you for sharing your adventure.

Thank you!

Knowing what I know now about the ports...

I think if we had traveled with children, I would have scheduled an excursion for PV. I wouldn't have felt quite as comfortable walking around with only a general plan. I consider myself a fairly careful person when it comes to travelling (I think being used to living in a big, urban city helps), so I felt perfectly safe walking around the city. However, if I was travelling with my 2 yo nephew, I think I might have felt more vulnerable...also I think my nephew would have gotten bored pretty quickly.

Cabo, on the other hand, I think it would be perfectly easy and safe to do exactly what we did: hire a water taxi to take you around and then drop you off at either Lovers' Beach or Medano Beach. I recall seeing a "Wheelchair Accessible" sign on the tender boat so I think you'd be just fine with a scooter of any size! The tender service that DCL uses is CaboTenders (cabotenders.com). If you look at the picture of the tender boat on the main page, there are three parts of the boat, and the middle part is the part that is ADA-compliant, I think. I would call DCL just to be sure, but I think you will be fine.

I hope you have a lovely time while you're in my City by the Bay! (*cue Journey's "Lights" song here*) We've been having lots of sunshine as of late, so hopefully it will stick around for your trip. When you're on Fisherman's Wharf, avoid buying any of your typical souvenirs there (shirts, mugs, etc.)...they're cheaper at Walgreens, and there are 30+ Walgreens locations all over the city! If you're looking for fun things to do that aren't necessarily tourist-y but still easily accessible for a quick visit, PM me

 

[Christy323]

I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos. With the death of my laptop I also lost my Photoshop so I had to make do with editing these with Microsoft Paint.

Day Seven: Our last day on the ship...closing it out with a bang!

I woke up early on Saturday morning in a sad mood. I was pretty bummed that it was our last day on the ship. I can’t even imagine what a 3 or 4-night DCL cruise would be like – talk about a tease! But, one thing I pride myself on is the fact that I am able to recover from funks quickly. I told myself that yes, it was our last day, but that meant we still had 24 hours left, and we were going to make the most of it. We still had afternoon tea at Palo, and our party!

After getting ready for the day, we went to Parrot Cay for breakfast. I don’t recall anything standing out as particularly exciting...but I don’t remember anything being bad either, so I guess that’s good. After breakfast, we spent some time just wandering around and enjoying the Wonder. We knew that David was going to be hosting “100 Movie Quotes Trivia” in Studio Sea, so we moseyed on over to Deck 4 Midship. Standing right outside, we ran into our two favorite mice!

How many outfits do you think Minnie has on the ship? Pretty sure I saw at least eight.​

We played movie quotes trivia with Ben & Valerie, our dinner tablemates. It was tons of fun, but we did not do well, haha. I think our youth worked against us this time around. If you play this, definitely bring your movie-buff A-game! It was pretty difficult! When David came to chat with us afterwards, I told him that next time he needed to include quotes from movies made AFTER 1980! Haha, I guess you can’t win ‘em all.

After getting our butts kicked, we went to have lunch at Beach Blanket Buffet, where we found the sushi and seafood buffet! To be honest, the sushi rolls were not the best sushi I have ever had, but it was okay. Better than any sushi buffet I’ve been to on land, at least. I tried a little bit of everything but didn’t fill up too much, as we still had afternoon tea at Palo at 3pm.

The food we shared at BBB. I miss having seafood around all the time!​

We wandered around the ship some more, and ended up sitting in Wavebands for a little bit to watch the kids race the “Mickey 200.” From what I could gather, everyone got a chance to build a little car out of vegetables, and then took turns racing them down a ramp. It looked like the kids were having a great time, and the staff running the activity (Robin from the US & Kat from the UK) were super high energy and fun. If you have a little one, definitely highlight that one on the Navigator!

It was getting close to 3pm, so we left Wavebands and headed aft towards Palo...and found ourselves right in the middle of a big character dance party! Lots of people had gathered in the atrium, there was music playing throughout, and lots of characters were dancing around in the crowd! How fun is that? We were on Deck 4, though, so we were looking down onto the party in the lobby...except there were characters on Deck 4 too! They weren’t noticed as much because they weren’t down dancing with everyone else, so we snapped a couple quick pictures with Belle & Cindy. Funny story: when BFF took this picture with Cinderella, Justin Bieber’s “Baby” started echoing through the atrium. I laughed and said, “wow, Justin Bieber and Cinderella.” Cindy exclaimed, “It’s perfect!” OMG! I just about died. Those Disney performers...they do not break character!

I asked Belle what she was reading, and she opened her book...she was reading Sleeping Beauty!​

After pictures, we went up to Deck 10 for our tea reservation at Palo. Tea is only open to ten or so tables (less than 20 people I would guess), once a day on sea days. We were really lucky to get our reservation when we asked after brunch on Monday! Toni, our server from dinner and brunch, had the day off, so Nikolai (from an Eastern European country that I can’t recall) was our server for tea.

Okay, time for a little back story...I have a thing for dark hair and blue eyes. I blame it on Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid, because that movie came out when I was five, right in the middle of my formative, impressionable years. Anyway. Nikolai...he was a very attentive server, and I’m sure he was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable. However I don’t remember much of anything he said, because he fit that Prince Eric profile to a T, and I got lost in his eyes a lot. I know I should be ashamed to admit that, but I’m not, because he was just that cute. BFF made fun of me A LOT during tea.

Moving on from that ridiculousness...tea was a lot of fun! I’ve had proper afternoon tea plenty of times, and this followed the same general plan. We each ordered our own choice of loose leaf tea which was brought out to steep in white teapots. I chose the chai and it was excellent. I think BFF ordered jasmine tea but I can’t remember for sure. Nikolai brought out a plate of finger sandwiches: cucumber and cream cheese, curry chicken, baby shrimp, and (I think) smoked salmon and cream cheese. I’m not a fan of smoked salmon, so I didn’t try that one, but the other three were delicious! After the sandwiches, Nikolai brought warm scones with preserves and clotted cream. Those scones were especially good. Nikolai offered to bring us more, but we restrained ourselves. Then Nikolai brought a tiered stand of assorted desserts. The macaron was not the best, but the pineapple tart and spice cake with caramel were excellent! Finally, Nikolai brought a dish of white chocolate mousse with strawberry compote and chocolate shavings (absolutely divine).

All in all, I really enjoyed tea at Palo, but wouldn’t consider it a must-do. In order, I’d rank the options as such: Brunch, Dinner, Tea.

After tea, we made our way back to the other side of the ship for 80’s Music Trivia, again hosted by David. This one was an absolute BLAST! The group of folks who all played were loud and fun, and David was a great host. He picked a wide range of different 80’s songs to play, and we had to name the song title and the artist. We didn’t win this one either, but it was so much fun that we didn’t care! I don’t care what anyone says, Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted Snake” is a good song! Haha.

At this point it was 5:15pm, and we had a decision to make. Cars 2: 3D was playing in the Buena Vista Theatre at 5:30. However, if we watched that, then we’d miss Remember the Magic. I didn’t get a chance to see Cars 2 when it was in the theaters, because it came out while I was in my bar exam cave. BFF hadn’t had a chance to catch it in the theaters either.

Another tangent: that was actually a really big deal for me to miss seeing Cars 2, and I cried about it because I am a baby. Pixar is based in Emeryville, CA, just across the Bay from SF (and next to Berkeley, which is my alma mater). Ever since Cars came out in 2006, a large group of my friends and I have gone to see the midnight showing of every Pixar movie at the AMC in Emeryville. There’s nothing like seeing a Pixar movie in Emeryville and then hearing the theater cheer throughout the entirety of the credits (because half of the theater is Pixar and ILM folks, and they’re cheering for themselves when they see their names scroll across the screen).

Anyway, we chose Cars 2. I’d read critics’ reviews saying that Cars 2 wasn’t that great, but I really enjoyed it. Sure, it wasn’t my favorite Pixar movie (three-way-tie: TS3, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo), but I’ll be buying it when it comes out on DVD in a couple of days. Seeing it in the Buena Vista Theatre was a nice experience, as it’s a smaller theater but still has a very large screen. The only thing was that there was a large group of teens sitting in the front who kept talking loudly for the first 5 minutes or so, but there were a few people sprinkled throughout the theater who had NO problem shushing them (myself included) so they quieted down pretty quickly after a few minutes.

I’m a little sad that we missed out on Remember, but from what I’ve read on here it’s probably for the best as I would have been a blubbering mess with all of the “remember how awesome this week was” business.

Our last dinner was in Triton’s, and the menu was the “Till We Meet Again” menu. Another sad reminder that our time on the Wonder was coming to an end, but we took it in stride. To be honest the only thing I liked from tonight’s dinner was my entrée (grilled beef tenderloin). The artichoke dip was bland and the crawfish & lobster bisque was nothing special. BFF liked her satay enough, and same with the seafood linguine.

Clockwise from top left: Artichoke, spinach, & jalapeño cheese dip, grilled chicken satay, grilled beef tenderloin with William potatoes, asparagus, and bearnaise sauce, garlic and rosemary lamb sirloin, seafood linguine, crawfish & lobster bisque.​

Tonight was the night that the chefs came out with the flaming Baked Alaska and the servers paraded around with the flags representing all of the different countries that the crew hailed from. They announced that 92 different countries were represented on the ship! Pretty cool.

I had to take a picture of the Filipino flag, ‘cause I’m Filipino. I was amazed at how many of the crew members were Filipino! Some were even from the same island as my mom ​

As much as we wanted to try some of the Baked Alaska, we had to skip out on dessert, as we had somewhere else to be...We gave our servers their tip envelopes, exchanged hugs all around, and told them we’d see them in the morning for breakfast. We made our way up to Studio Sea where Mark, the Character manager, greeted us and checked to see our invite. We realized that the Mark who signed our invitation was the same Mark we’d chatted with multiple times throughout the week! BFF & I actually referred to him as “Proper Mark” throughout the week, as his English accent made him seem so proper (I think his particular accent is referred to as “the Queen’s English”). Anyway, towards the beginning of the week he’d asked if there was any particular reason why we were cruising, and I told him that I’d graduated from law school and took the bar. He asked when I was to receive my results, and when I told him I had to wait until Nov. 18th, he said, “oh dear, I’m going to have to keep my fingers crossed for you for a very long time!” Every time I saw him after that, he immediately showed me his crossed fingers. So sweet!

Mark told us to take a seat and that the character would be out in a bit. We sat down at a table and looked around...there were maybe ten families in there, most with young children. We sat for a few minutes...and then the characters came out. OMG. The Fab Five, all of the princesses, Stitch, Captain Hook, everyone! Not only that, many of the performers from the shows came out too! Anne Marie from Dreams, dancers and the Lion King performers from the Golden Mickeys, pirates from the Pirate Party, everyone! We basically got to mingle around for 15 minutes, chat with performers, and take pictures with characters. It was overwhelming and awesome and really just such a treat. Even without being able to take pictures with the characters, it was great to be able to talk to the performers and let them know how much we’d enjoyed the shows throughout the week.

When Captain Hook approached us, he pointed at us and motioned towards his mustache, and then made a “where?” motion with his hands. He was asking where our mustaches from Pirate Night were! I told them we shaved them off. LOL!

When I took this picture with Minnie, she motioned towards my dress and gave me a thumbs up. After telling her all week that I liked her dresses, she was telling me she liked mine! Hahahaha​

Soon it became a kind of game for BFF and I. What pictures could we get that would be difficult to get normally? What combinations of characters would be unusual?

That picture of BFF with Minnie and Cinderella might be my favorite. Something about the head tilts, haha.

When I took the picture on the bottom right, originally it was only Stitch and Captain Hook. Then Peter had to sneak in like the rascal he is!

Mark, the character manager, crossing his fingers for me. He’s the best!​

Finally, our time with the characters was at an end, as they had to go get ready for Till We Meet Again. We bid our goodbyes, and stayed on Deck 4 to watch the festivities. All of the characters and performers came out into the atrium to greet everyone and say goodbye.

While we were watching, we bumped into this guy:

Christiaan, our lovely CD. We told him that we’d had a blast the entire week.​

After the characters all left, we went back to our stateroom to fill out our survey and write comments about the crew members who had made our cruise special. I had read on here multiple times that the best way to reward them was by leaving them good comments on the survey, as the cruise management takes them very seriously and rewards them based on those. However, they only give you two little lines on the survey! That was not nearly enough for us, as we’d had such an amazing time throughout the duration of our cruise and so many crew members contributed to that experience. We sat there in our stateroom and spent half an hour (and used all of the stationary in our desk drawer) to write comments. A big thank you to Willy from Thailand, Goran from Croatia, Julia from Peru, Henry from Nicaragua, Kat from England, Gregory from the USA, Robin from the USA, Mark from the UK, and everyone else who made our vacation so magical!

We finished our comments just in time to head over to Wavebands for...

Pub Skit!​

I am bummed to hear that they are no longer doing Pub Skit on the Magic. I had never heard of this tradition before, as this was our first time cruising (not just on DCL). Therefore, this was our first time seeing this show, and it was hilarious! We were crying from laughing so hard. Afterwards, we grabbed some pictures with some of the cruise staff in their funny costumes.¬

Gregory and Kat. Both of them were such sweet, fun, and genuinely nice people. Gregory actually left notes for us on our fish, thanking us for participating in activities. SO nice.

David made for an EXCELLENT ballerina. And yes, he did wear the happy sun under that tutu...you can see it if you look hard enough, LOL.​

We hung out and danced for a bit, and then headed back to our stateroom. We knew that room service would end at 1:30am, so we took advantage of our last chance to order Mickey ice cream bars. Room service must be insanely busy on the last night of the cruise!

After room service, we went up to Deck 10 and walked around for a little while, not wanting the evening (and our cruise) to end, but finally we went back to the room and retired for the evening.

Thank you everyone for reading along. I’ve had a blast writing this trip report. I’m going to write one more installment to detail Disembarkation day and to add some final thoughts.

 

[namihos]

Thank you everyone for reading along. I’ve had a blast writing this trip report. I’m going to write one more installment to detail Disembarkation day and to add some final thoughts.

aww, i've had a blast reading along!!! i leave for my first Disney cruise in 2 weeks, yet i felt so sad for this one to come to an end!!!! thanks so much for sharing your fantabulous trip report!

 

[Milio99]

Awesome report! Thanks for sharing!

 

[tiggerandme]

You have been a WEALTH of great information. Your writing style is delightful. I wish we were close enough to grab a bite together and visit.

We leave on the 11/6 Wonder cruise. I'm about to jump outta my skin!!! Wheeeee!

Thanks so much, Christy!!

 

[LuvIt]

Your trip report includes some great pictures and I love your writing style! We were on the cruise last week and just got home yesterday. We had a fabulous cruise and stayed on the boat for the first Cabo day too which gave us a chance to experience the ship when it was a tad less crowded. My son loved the Dolphin Swim in Cabo on the second day and it was fun to go along as an observer. Beautiful facility and the dolphins are treated well. In PV we did the Las Caletas trip which was really fun so didn't get out to walk around the port area much.

P.S. at the Pub Night skit last week, Kat was the blackjack dealer, Emma was the seamstress and Trent (so funny to see) was in the tutu LOL

 

[HermanTriplets+1]

Thank you Christy!! I've been reading along since your first post - your upbeat attitude is totally infectious! I'll be crossing my fingers for your bar results, too I've heard it's a hard one, so here's hopin'!

 

[Leshaface]

Wow! LOVE the character party! So many characters! What an experience you'll never forget for sure.

Thank you SO much Christy for doing this TR. You were so funny and were very detailed! I feel much more prepared for my MR cruise coming up in about 6 weeks!

 

[swx72]

As much as we wanted to try some of the Baked Alaska, we had to skip out on dessert, as we had somewhere else to be...We gave our servers their tip envelopes, exchanged hugs all around, and told them we’d see them in the morning for breakfast. We made our way up to Studio Sea where Mark, the Character manager, greeted us and checked to see our invite. We realized that the Mark who signed our invitation was the same Mark we’d chatted with multiple times throughout the week! BFF & I actually referred to him as “Proper Mark” throughout the week, as his English accent made him seem so proper (I think his particular accent is referred to as “the Queen’s English”). Anyway, towards the beginning of the week he’d asked if there was any particular reason why we were cruising, and I told him that I’d graduated from law school and took the bar. He asked when I was to receive my results, and when I told him I had to wait until Nov. 18th, he said, “oh dear, I’m going to have to keep my fingers crossed for you for a very long time!” Every time I saw him after that, he immediately showed me his crossed fingers. So sweet!

Christie

Queen's English or Oxford English. I was raised with Oxford English and then moved as a 10 year old to the outskirts of London. My Dad used to tell my brother and I off for switching to the local dialect and not using our Oxford English!

Peter Pan (Ben) was wonderful with my DD, Kirsten and loved him to death. We bumped into him a couple of times including getting back onto the ship after our excursion in Puerto Vallerta.

Sigrid