Disney Wonder 4-night Baja March 15, 2021

[scgustafson]

Hello All,

I guess I am the first for this sailing. My name is Scott and I will be travelling with my wife Donna and our daughter, Kenzie, who will be 16 on this cruise. We are from Chandler, Arizona, but have lived quite a few places across the US due to my being a retired Naval Officer. This will be our 20th DCL cruise (and the second leg of a back-to-back), and we have sailed the previous, or currently booked, ones:

•4-night Bahamas on Disney Dream - September-October 2012
•7-night Alaska on Disney Wonder - June 2013
•7-night Eastern Caribbean on Disney Fantasy - October 2013
•12-night Mediterranean on Disney Magic - June 2014
•4-night Bahamas on Disney Dream - October 2014
•7-night Northern Europe on Disney Magic - June 2015
•Inaugural 12-night British Isles on Disney Magic - June 2016
•Inaugural 8-night Western Caribbean on Disney Fantasy - October 2016
•4-night Baja on Disney Wonder - October 2017 (first leg of back-to-back)
•3-night Baja on Disney Wonder - October 2017 (second leg of back-to-back)
•7-night Bahamas on Disney Wonder - December 2017-January 2018
•7-night Mediterranean on Disney Magic - June 2018
•7-night Bahamas on Disney Wonder - December 2018-January 2019
•2-night Baja on Disney Wonder - April 2019
•7-night Alaska on Disney Wonder - June 2019
•7-night Eastern Caribbean on Disney Fantasy - December 2019-January 2020
•14-night Westbound Panama Canal on Disney Wonder - March 2020
•9-night Mediterranean with Greek Isles on Disney Magic - June-July 2020
•3-night Baja on Disney Wonder - March 2021 (first leg of back-to-back)

 

[Canadian Harmony]

Hi Scott! I'm Mary, a retired Canadian Navy member, and my husband (still serving) and our two teenage girls - Rachel and Maggie - will all be going on our first cruise - this one! We're on the west coast and as we'd been to San Diego many times on our navy ships, we're looking forward to showing our girls the Zoo and the Gaslamp district before we go.

By the time we go onboard, our oldest will also be 16 and her sister will be 14. They're both really excited to experience Vibe.

We're all looking forward to this experience and of course I have a ton of questions regarding our first cruise. My goal is to get us on the 14 day trip from NOLA to San Diego for the kids graduation present in a few years.

I hope we can make more friends along the way - after all, we have over a year to go!

 

[slambert805]

Hello All!
I’m Sara and I’ll be cruising with my wife Renee & our 8 year old son. We live in Maricopa AZ and this is our first DCL sailing! We are DVC members and AP holders at DL. We enjoy all things Disney. My son even loves Steamboat Willie! We are so excited for this new experience!

 

[Canadian Harmony]

I'm an AP for DL too - just me, not the kids. I go every year but not the rest of the family.

The kids love Disney - hubby... not so much. He comes along because to him it's a family thing and he should be there. But I've seen him smile during Jungle Cruise and he will go out of his way for a corn dog. He spent 25 years on Navy ships and has been off for the last 8, so I think by the time we go onboard, he'll be happy to go to sea again - especially since he's not standing watches.

The kids and I are so excited to take this cruise. I've already started our door decoration!

 

[Mathmagicland]

Hi - we’ve booked this cruise today! It will be me and my sister, we’ve just returned from the second Wonder sailing out of New Orleans. We are in southern California, also DVC and Disneyland APs, so it is nice to have one almost in our backyard where we can drive to port.

 

[darnheather]

Hello everyone. Today I rebooked two September cruises and this is one I chose as a new one. My daughter Deniz will be just turned 15 and it will be just the two of us. Hopefully, this will be our 5th cruise but that remains to be seen as I do have one tentatively booked for December of this year. We live in Virginia.

I'm trying to decide if I want to do Disneyland before or after the cruise. I think she would enjoy it more before the cruise but I think transportation wise it would be easier after. If anyone has done it or can point me to some trip reports I'd appreciate it. We've never been if that helps your answer.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Hello everyone. Today I rebooked two September cruises and this is one I chose as a new one. My daughter Deniz will be just turned 15 and it will be just the two of us. Hopefully, this will be our 5th cruise but that remains to be seen as I do have one tentatively booked for December of this year. We live in Virginia.

I'm trying to decide if I want to do Disneyland before or after the cruise. I think she would enjoy it more before the cruise but I think transportation wise it would be easier after. If anyone has done it or can point me to some trip reports I'd appreciate it. We've never been if that helps your answer.

Hi and welcome! While I’ve not done a specific parks/cruise vacation here, I’ve read some comments across a few sites that suggest parks first is the preferred option for many. People can go strong at the parks for 2-3 days, opening and closing the parks, then relax on the ship to unwind after with the cruise.

Logistically, it could play out like this -

- fly Virginia to SNA airport which is closest to Disneyland. LAX is a lot farther away with a lot more traffic to get to Anaheim and Disneyland Resort, not fun after the long plane flight. You could explore Downtown Disney after arrival as well as the three Disney hotels, each of which has fun and different themes, get some pics in front of the entrance gates, etc. Rest up for an early start at the parks the next day.

-Hit Disneyland resort for 2-3 days. Our parks are so close together it is very easy to park hop, no car or transportation needed on site. Park hopping is like crossing a large street.

-Catch a ride to San Diego for the cruise on Monday morning, it would be about a two-hour drive or ride via Uber or Lyft. If you wanted to drive, Enterprise rent a car has a couple of locations within 2-3 blocks of Disneyland area, walkable to pick up the car, and there is a drop off location in San Diego an easy 10-15 min walk to the San Diego cruise terminal. I’ve found one way rentals with Enterprise have the lowest charges; I’ve done that when we did the pacific coast cruise last year when we ended up in Canada and would not be retuning to San Diego as we are on the other side of Los Angeles.

-The San Diego cruise terminal is very close to San Diego airport, so easy to get to for your flight back to Virginia.

If you reversed & did parks after, you’d likely be at the Anaheim hotel around noon by the time you got off the ship. After check in & drop your luggage, if you went to the parks you’d be at the parks early to mid-afternoon, so lose about half your first day there. We do not have FP reservations ahead of arrival like WDW, only same day FP after tickets are scanned, so arriving later in the day could mean limited FP opportunities available for you that first day. You’d want to weigh that against the cost of the tickets & value you’d get. Our downtown Disney is much smaller than Disney Springs in FL, it would not take half a day & evening to explore it if you did not want to use a park ticket on a partial day.

Adventures by Disney offers a SoCal short escape with a couple of days at Disneyland prior to selected cruises in San Diego, and their order of travel is parks before cruise, if that’s helpful.

Let me know if you have other questions. Have fun planning!

 

[Canadian Harmony]

Hi and welcome! While I’ve not done a specific parks/cruise vacation here, I’ve read some comments across a few sites that suggest parks first is the preferred option for many. People can go strong at the parks for 2-3 days, opening and closing the parks, then relax on the ship to unwind after with the cruise.

Logistically, it could play out like this -

- fly Virginia to SNA airport which is closest to Disneyland. LAX is a lot farther away with a lot more traffic to get to Anaheim and Disneyland Resort, not fun after the long plane flight. You could explore Downtown Disney after arrival as well as the three Disney hotels, each of which has fun and different themes, get some pics in front of the entrance gates, etc. Rest up for an early start at the parks the next day.

-Hit Disneyland resort for 2-3 days. Our parks are so close together it is very easy to park hop, no car or transportation needed on site. Park hopping is like crossing a large street.

-Catch a ride to San Diego for the cruise on Monday morning, it would be about a two-hour drive or ride via Uber or Lyft. If you wanted to drive, Enterprise rent a car has a couple of locations within 2-3 blocks of Disneyland area, walkable to pick up the car, and there is a drop off location in San Diego an easy 10-15 min walk to the San Diego cruise terminal. I’ve found one way rentals with Enterprise have the lowest charges; I’ve done that when we did the pacific coast cruise last year when we ended up in Canada and would not be retuning to San Diego as we are on the other side of Los Angeles.

-The San Diego cruise terminal is very close to San Diego airport, so easy to get to for your flight back to Virginia.

If you reversed & did parks after, you’d likely be at the Anaheim hotel around noon by the time you got off the ship. After check in & drop your luggage, if you went to the parks you’d be at the parks early to mid-afternoon, so lose about half your first day there. We do not have FP reservations ahead of arrival like WDW, only same day FP after tickets are scanned, so arriving later in the day could mean limited FP opportunities available for you that first day. You’d want to weigh that against the cost of the tickets & value you’d get. Our downtown Disney is much smaller than Disney Springs in FL, it would not take half a day & evening to explore it if you did not want to use a park ticket on a partial day.

Adventures by Disney offers a SoCal short escape with a couple of days at Disneyland prior to selected cruises in San Diego, and their order of travel is parks before cruise, if that’s helpful.

Let me know if you have other questions. Have fun planning!

I like this plan! We're thinking of something similar now that the girls' dance weekend in DLR has been postponed a year. It's cheaper for us to fly in and out of the same airport, so we were going to fly into San Diego and drive up to DLR and stay there for 3 days (I could easily do 5, but the family as a whole has a 4 day max). Then we'd drive back to San Diego and check out the city (zoo, etc) for 3 days before heading onto the cruise.

In your experience, how soon after docking on the last day do you usually disembark? Our flight back home would leave around 1230 and it'd be an international flight so we need to be there around 9:30. Is that enough time do you think? If not, then we'd need to spend a night in San Diego before heading home.

 

[Mathmagicland]

I like this plan! We're thinking of something similar now that the girls' dance weekend in DLR has been postponed a year. It's cheaper for us to fly in and out of the same airport, so we were going to fly into San Diego and drive up to DLR and stay there for 3 days (I could easily do 5, but the family as a whole has a 4 day max). Then we'd drive back to San Diego and check out the city (zoo, etc) for 3 days before heading onto the cruise.

In your experience, how soon after docking on the last day do you usually disembark? Our flight back home would leave around 1230 and it'd be an international flight so we need to be there around 9:30. Is that enough time do you think? If not, then we'd need to spend a night in San Diego before heading home.

Welcome to our thread and cruise!

The cruise terminal maps as a 10 min drive to the airport, so you are very close. Might be a little busier on a Friday morning when we’d be back in port. If you did the walk-off, where you are in the first group off the ship & carried your luggage with you rather than use the bag tags and retrieve it in the cruise terminal, you’d likely be off the ship no later than 8:00. Allowing time for customs & immigration, you’d easily make it to the airport no later than 9:30.

If you didn’t want the walkoff, you could request the earliest group luggage tags from your stateroom host so you’d be in the first group called & likely still have enough time.

Hard to say how many locals will be on this one as it is not our spring break week for schools & it is during the week. If there are a lot of locals, there could be more walk offs since it’s a short cruise.

While in San Diego, also consider the USS Midway museum -https://www.midway.org It is right there at the harbor at the dock adjacent to where the Wonder will be. It’s very interesting and kind of fun to sail out on The Wonder & be able to see the Midway and all of the planes on the deck & know you were there. If you go, get your tickets Online ahead of line as you can skip the ticket line to go straight to the security entrance.

At the San Diego Zoo, be sure to check out their special experiences for some unique things with some of the animals. Most will have to be booked ahead of time. And not all are available on all days.

if you are interested in animals, also look at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. It’s on the way from Anaheim to San Diego. You could leave Anaheim in the morning, get to the wild animal Park by opening or shortly after as it’s about a 90 minute drive, and spend the day there before heading the rest of the way to San Diego. The wild animal Park Also has some unique animal experiences. And you can get a combo ticket to both park and zoo to save a bit of money. If Sea World interests you, there is a ticket for all three for additional savings. https://zoo.sandiegozoo.org/tickets

And now you know our pre-cruise plan - Disneyland on Friday, wild animal park on Saturday, zoo on Sunday, and cruise on Monday. We are in SoCal & did the Midway before our cruise out of San Diego last year, so won’t be doing that this time. We are staying at Disneyland on Friday and in San Diego on Saturday & Sunday.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[bcwife76]

Hi everyone! Just booked this cruise this morning. Switched from a Dream cruise a week later (which was switched from a Dream cruise that was booked for this August ) Lots of moving around!

We currently have a Wonder cruise booked for this October but will be cancelling it in the coming weeks Ugh, we REALLY need to get back on a ship lol

We are a family of 4 from Vancouver BC, travelling with our daughters who will be 12 & 10. With all the cancelling this will be our 9th cruise.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Welcome! I hear you re cancelled cruises - our Alaska Cruise for August was cancelled. You’ve definitely had more moving around! Is it a plot to keep you from getting to Platinum? LOL.

 

[bcwife76]

Welcome! I hear you re cancelled cruises - our Alaska Cruise for August was cancelled. You’ve definitely had more moving around! Is it a plot to keep you from getting to Platinum? LOL.

Haha quite the opposite, I'm trying to GET to Platinum for our August 2021 cruise lol. We were on track with our 2 2020 cruises but since now one has been cancelled and the second one is about to be, I had to try and get 2 more in in 2021

 

[bcwife76]

Just switched from this cruise to the same itinerary the following week (leaves March 24th) as they are offering a CDN residents rate on that sailing! Have a great cruise everyone!

 

[Mathmagicland]

Just switched from this cruise to the same itinerary the following week (leaves March 24th) as they are offering a CDN residents rate on that sailing! Have a great cruise everyone!

Lucky you - enjoy! We will miss you on this one. We have yet to get any Calif-resident rates on the SD departures.

 

[Mathmagicland]

FYI - the Catalina island port adventures are now out on the DCL website.