Did not like the cruise (long) -- Aug. 22nd Wonder

[dianedisney]

Gratuities

"What about gratuities?" from the DCL brochure.....
We'll make it easy. Of course, you should never feel that a reward is automatically expected from you. but it is customary to give gratuities in recognition of service, which you will most likely be treated to in abundance aboard the ship. For you convenience, a 15% gratuity is automatically added to bar, beverage, wine & deck service tabs. All gratuities can be charded to our room charge.

So in my opinion, it depends on the service, if it is good I would tip what is suggested. If it is above and beyond then I would put in extra. And of course if it is below you can certainly tip less.

 

[DonnyFan]

Thanks Magnetic for your honest post and I am sorry the Wonder Cruise was a disappointment.

Our family of 6 is taking the Wonder Cruise on April 10, so I was researching the sites for info since this is our 1st Cruise ever. Thanks for all the warnings. I'm wondering if there are more warnings/complaints where cruisers have not posted.

The balance of my cruise is due this week; I'm continuing my research over the net to see what other problems previous cruisers have encountered since it is a big chunk of our budget.

We're staying in two connecting Category 6 cabins so I'm assuming the room size will not be as big a problem.

My main concern is the size of the crowds; we were planning to be able to relax on the cruise/beach, etc. and not have to deal with lines and crowds, which is why we decided to spend our Spring Break with the Cruise rather than with the crowds/lines at WD World.

Magnetic and anyone else, please feel free to add any other complaints and warnings. It would be a great help for us 1st time cruisers...thanks!

 

[cookie2001]

DonnyFan,

To add to my post above. I thought there were crowds everywhere.

The beach was crowded.

Everytime you ate except for Palo it was in a huge conference room size room. We always got our food before our drinks because that was a different persons job.

When I went up to the pool area to get something to eat I had to wait in two different lines, one for food and one for drinks. In the rain no less.

The Mickey pool was so crowded that you had to keep an eye on your kids all the time.

So I guess it depends on what your idea of relaxing is.

 

[dianedisney]

Ok let me get this straight.....kids are out of school (spring break), you are going on a "Disney" cruise, and you don't want to wait for anything or have it be crowded? Hello........first of all whether it is spring break or 2 days after Halloween, just about every DCL cruise is sold to capacity. So that means the ship is full, alot of people, mainly children. Yes, on any cruise ship, the main dining rooms are large, their are alot of people on cruise ships hence large dining rooms. When you have trouble with the wait staff go to the "Head Waiter", that is what he is there for. If you don't let someone know something is broken, how do you expect to get it fixed?? If you don't want to wait in line (sunshine or rain) order room service, seems pretty simple to me. Obviously cruising for cookie2001 is not her ideal vacation and that's ok, but what I am trying to get across is.......if you vacation with children especially when they are all out of school and going to a kid oriented place you are going to have alot of people and you will have to be patient. You can research and find pro's and con's on just about everything. Only you know what you like, me.....I love to cruise especially Disney, they have always spoiled me rotten and I love it. But you have to decide what you want to do or want to take a chance on. Good luck with your decision.

 

[MomTo2Princess]

I'm here researching for my first cruise. I can't believe some of the notes and personal attacks made against Magnetic and a few others. These people were posting their opinions and perceptions of their vacation. Why are we picking at every words they wrote?

Personally, I appreciate hearing both the good and bad experience. It's good to hear first time cruisers' perception of the ship, the cabins, the crowd, etc... That way, I'm more prepared and know what to expect when I get on the ship.

I didn't write this note to cause more debates. I just hope that the negative comments don't dissuade others from posting negative feedbacks. For first-time cruisers like me, all info - whether positive or negative - is helpful.

 

[meriweather17]

My husband and I went on our first cruise, Dec 1-5 on the Wonder. While there were some great parts and we especially loved Castaway Cay, there were some aspects of the cruise that we really didn't enjoy.

We weren't very lucky in our dinner arrangements. We were seated at a table for four with a cute young Japanese couple who spoke almost NO English. We tried, and they tried, but it was very hard to communicate...sadly, because I would have enjoyed learning something about their country. And having the second seating, we ate dinner two hours later than we were used to, usually finishing at about 10 p.m.--pretty late for me.

The first day the beverage kiosk on deck 9 was open, and we enjoyed the fresh cookies that were provided from 3 to 5 (since dinner was later than our usual). The second and third days we kept going up to check but there was continually a "closed for cleaning, sorry for the inconvenience" sign. It said to go to the Beach Blanket Buffet, which we did, only to find a Closed sign in front of that as well. Finally, when the cruise was almost over, we saw someone coming out of the Beach Blanket Buffet and realized you could get beverages (and cookies from 3 to 5) there even though the closed sign was out. We were supposed to know that? It's a small thing, but was something we ran into more than once...I just didn't feel well informed. Instead of almost grabbing the creamer out of my hand and telling me we weren't allowed to serve ourselves anything (I saw it happen to other people too) why didn't they indicate it with a SIGN and give you a clue? It was weird to have somebody else have to pour the syrup on my waffle for me. The food was pretty good though .
We loved having a verandah and thought it was money well spent. We would have loved to sail during the day at least once to see more, but all of our sailing was done at night.

I would recommend seeing Atlantis in Nassau. We didn't do any of the excursions offered, but did take quite an...intereresting...taxi ride and were give "12 minutes, 15 if we really liked it" to look around. It was an incredible place and we wished for much more time there.

All in all we had a good, but not great time like we expected. OK, flame away.

 

[daisy2000]

Sorry you didn't enjoy your cruise. I think most of it was due to bad luck. Your room steward's behavior was definitely bizzare and certainly not the norm for DCL! I could not say enough good things about our room stewards on our 2 DCL cruises. Ditto for our dining servers (all the girls in our party of 10 cried when we had to say goodbye to them!)

You definitely were NOT required to tip anyone and were misinformed by that CM. That is a shame.

DH & I had our honeymoon on Holland America cruise to Bermuda (granted it was 20 yrs ago) and the cabin was much, much smaller than the Cat 11 on DCL.

It doesn't sound like you'll ever go again, but if you ever had a change of heart, I think the 7 day cruises have much better ports of call that you would enjoy. I also don't particularly like Nassau and may just stay on board on our next 4day cruise.

 

[brumley5]

I too am very sorry to hear of your experience on a Disney cruise.
My husband & I had cruised only once before on Princess (short jaunt out of L.A. to Mexico) and hated it - teeny room, lousy food and 4th rate entertainment. Plus my in-laws cruise all the time so we've heard about all of the pros & cons of cruising and which cruise lines are better than others. So that was what we had to compare Disney with. We had some understanding about cruising which can make all the difference in the world.
It is something to remember that the rooms on any cruise ship will be small and those that are inside can make you feel trapped indeed! Only because of our Princess room did we understand the smallness the inside rooms can be and decided to spring for the extra to stay in a Deck 6 Cat 6 Verandah and we will not travel any other way. (I know that sounds snobby but those who have and those who have had smaller know.......) (My mother had a stateroom 11 across the hall from us.)
Another thing to remember, my husband and I travel alot for work and the majority of any hotel now is to NOT change your bedsheets unless requested AND towels too!
Having never been to Nassau, I appreciate your comments on that and will keep that in mind whenever we might visit there some day!
We have done 1 Disney cruise (12/2001 Eastern 7 night stay) and had a great time. We ahd about 30 family members ranging from 6 months to 75 years. All had a great time. But it can be daunting for first timers as they don't know what to expect and the pictures of rooms in the brochures can seem bigger than they are.
Please consider again but a longer trip! (ironic sounding I know).
And as for the cabin boy, he should definately have been reported immediately for coming in at night. No question about that. But my family cruisers felt very comfortable with the 'safety' of the ship.

Please don't give up!
Tammy

 

[brack]

I too am sorry that you did not enjoy your cruise. My wife and I have done two of the 7 night cruises (we even sat at the table with dianedisney who has also posted on this thread). We have loved the cruises so much that we have booked a back to back for January 2004! Yes some things are not always perfect but all the good far outweighs any bad. I too recommend that you do not judge the whole cruise by one short cruise experience. As for tipping: I believe that any service person deserves a tip for doing their job. If you have been around anyone (waitress, etc) you will know that their wages are not adequate. They live by tips. The amount of tip depends on the quality of their service and there is no better way to improve service than by controlling your tips ALONG with comments to them. This does not mean WITH HOLDING! If the service was so bad to even consider this then you should have reported the behavior early.

 

[brumley5]

Just a small correction- it was Carnival Cruise Lines and NOT Princess, sorry about that.
Tammy

 

[bill kellum]

to meriweather 17, we were also on that cruise.we as usual had a great time.there are always a few incidents along the way ,but they don't account for much.I remember the coffee area on deck nine being closed for much of the cruise and having the kitchen workers serve me at a buffet .while that and a few small things did annoy me I would say it was a great cruise.I hope disney reads these and works to keep improving on a great product.

 

[aprilgail2]

I was on a carnival cruise and the rooms on there were a heck of a lot smaller than the ones on the Disney Cruise...I had a catagory 5 room and found it very nice. Also I never gave a second thought to them not changing the sheets on our 4 day cruise...heck I don't change them every 3-4 days when I am at home so I wouldn't even expect them to do so on the ship, seems like a waste of water to me to change them when the cruise is only 3 days!