Disney Wonder Dry Dock Watch - 11/10 Wonder departs on first cruise out of Galveston

[mommy2allyandaveri]

We got off yesterday. I will do a longer post re the PC cruise, but I can assure you the dry dock began earlier. There are a lot of unhappy guests. They shut down numerous areas by the end of the cruise to "prep". Huge mechanical issues: no AC, water pouring out of ceilings, a miserable stench. Contractors aboard taking over guest areas and drunk at night, badmouthing the crew and CMs. The general feeling of guests was at best, disappointed, and at worst, bitter.

I would have been so upset if we were on this cruise. You plan for so long and spend so much money for this to occur, and is totally preventable. I get wanting to get started on prepping but not at the expense of guests vacations.

 

[Flossbolna]

The Magic 2013 dry dock was in total shorter than the time the Wonder is taken out of the normal schedule right now.

According to this: http://disneycruiselineblog.com/cruise-planning/itineraries/itinerary-summary/?itinerary=107 The dry dock started on 9/7/13 in Barcelona after the last cruise and then arrived in Cadiz for the dry dock on 9/9/13. There it stayed for 30 days and then had 15 days of cruising back across the Atlantic and last work being done in Port Canaveral. So, in total it was 48 days. Her first cruise sailed on 10/25/13 (the actual first one that happened, not the date of the cancelled one).

The Wonder started on Friday 9/9/16. She will be out of service for 62 days http://disneycruiselineblog.com/cruise-planning/itineraries/itinerary-summary/?itinerary=278, so 14 days longer than the Magic. Even though there is one additional crossing across the Atlantic to be done, they can already get some work done during that first crossing that she is on now. Her first cruise is not until 11/10/16.

So, they seem to have learned from past mistakes and have given the Wonder a longer time to complete the refurbishment. Also, some things were already updated on the Wonder, so that should free up time for other things, too.

I am really sorry to hear how much the last cruise on the Wonder was impacted by the preparations. That really should not have happened!!

 

[Flossbolna]

Scott on the Disney Cruise Line Blog has posted a new update on the process of getting the Wonder ready:

Preparations Underway as Disney Wonder Sails to Cadiz for Dry Dock

 

[Dakota Red]

My family was and friends of ours were on the Panama Canal cruise (2 families of 4) and the stench was definitely in the air. My wife kept asking what smelled like vomit in the halls. We were annoyed how early they shut things down Thursday night. We did not see drunk contractors but did not spend much time in the adult areas as what I assumed were other passengers kept the adult pool fuller than the kids pool all the time. The 1 time my wife tried to sit in one of the lounge chairs by the adult pool an older man yelled at her that they had the chair, when she got up they put stuff on them.

 

[arlopop]

My family was and friends of ours were on the Panama Canal cruise (2 families of 4) and the stench was definitely in the air. My wife kept asking what smelled like vomit in the halls. We were annoyed how early they shut things down Thursday night. We did not see drunk contractors but did not spend much time in the adult areas as what I assumed were other passengers kept the adult pool fuller than the kids pool all the time. The 1 time my wife tried to sit in one of the lounge chairs by the adult pool an older man yelled at her that they had the chair, when she got up they put stuff on them.

You might like knowing that Karma came a calling for the chair takers. They usually showed up around 7:00 am, used their colorful clips to attach a towel, threw their bag on the chair, and disappeared til noon or so. There appeared to be a group of them (I'm sure they were guests; not contractors.) On Thursday, mid-morning, we hit that quick but serious squall - it dropped buckets. The clippers (as we named them) weren't there of course, and their bags were soaked. I mean drenched. And they had to pack all of it that night. There were plenty of laughs over at the Cove at that.

 

[Dug720]

You might like knowing that Karma came a calling for the chair takers. They usually showed up around 7:00 am, used their colorful clips to attach a towel, threw their bag on the chair, and disappeared til noon or so. There appeared to be a group of them (I'm sure they were guests; not contractors.) On Thursday, mid-morning, we hit that quick but serious squall - it dropped buckets. The clippers (as we named them) weren't there of course, and their bags were soaked. I mean drenched. And they had to pack all of it that night. There were plenty of laughs over at the Cove at that.

Oh that's classic!

Gotta love the "ghosts" as I called them when I was on RCCL Brilliance this summer. You'd walk along the pool deck and a lot of ghosts were clearly in the water as they had carefully folded their towels and such on the chairs. (Since no chair saving is supposed to be allowed, OBVIOUSLY it was ghosts! Right??) I did have to give creativity points to the ones who actually made the chairs look used - rumpled towels and even books left face down open like whoever was there had just run to get a drink or something...only in walking the walking/jogging track - which was the deck above the pool - I never saw them come back - and I did laps to equal 4 miles, so at least an hour. That's a LOOOOOOONG coffee break!

 

[AquaDame]

But the little things (really, too many to list) that kept adding up, and culminated with the last two days, just proved to be very undisneylike and left a sour taste in our mouths.

A long, LONG letter needs to be written it sounds like. I am so sorry they felt it appropriate to allow them to do all that!

Believe me when I say it wasn't the great deal it appears to be. You won't appreciate that fact until it happens to you and you have to juggle the pieces for yourself.

This. We were booked on a 5-night wonder cruise from Miami over my birthday a couple years ago when they decided to do an impromptu dry dock and cancelled a few January cruises a couple months out. While it was nowhere near the carpet being pulled out from under us as it was with you folks on the Magic I was still shocked. We had booked flights and I had a nonrefundable reservation at a DVC with points we rented too. I was tied to those dates due to that so we had to pick something else at the same time - only a 3 night on the Magic fit that bill. It wasn't much fun for various reasons. We had to add in a longer stay at a hotel, had to change our flights (DCL did pay those fees without hassle) and a 3-Night is just so different than a longer cruise... it also just went to Nassau/CC vs. Cozumel, Key West and Grand Cayman which we still haven't made it to. Since we booked it "late" we were not able to get our own table and our table mates were so different than us that it was really awkward - they were Floridian Residents so they mocked the amount we paid for a lesser stateroom, gave us a hard time for not having kids, talked about bringing guns into WDW without issue etc. Not a great birthday cruise...

The plus side was we used the 25% off a future cruise (maybe it was 35%?) to book a verandah on the Southern Caribbean that year instead of the cheaper 3 night. THAT cruise was amazing! I still wish that I had been able to take the intended cruise though.

 

[ahain]

The ply on the floors was to protect the deck and support the large palettes of new stuff that was to be craned on and taken to Cadiz. They also removed the inside doors to outside deck 4 on weds. In addition, they cranked up all 4 engines once we left Cozumel to just shy of 25kts. With the headwind of 17knts we spent the last seaday with gale force winds topside. Beautiful sunny day, but spray flying off the pools and the deck chair cushions blowing across deck. This was done to arrive at Port by 3:30 am, for to cargo containers to be lifted on to forward deck 5 at crew pool, before docking.
The mechanical issues are certainly part of a cruise but the contractors were doing massive work on mechanicals from day 1 of cruise -that's why they were aboard. Lots of plumbing, electrical changes. As the work progressed more and more issues continued to show up.

Most contractors stayed below, out of sight, but there were a few who every morning and evening took over deck areas with buckets of beer. Loud, rude, and impolite (the head of one company with workers told us one night that if they were his employees they wouldn't have remained his employees.) It became a regular routine for a group of us (guests) to clean up after they left since the left beer bottles, buckets (they once used an upside down plastic booster seat for a beer bucket and left that), and worst of all bottle caps scattered on deck. We made complaints to guest services about it (when I finally did on Thursday the CM pulled out a notepad filled with notes and said "we've had a lot of feedback about the contractors," and added my issues to the list.). Sadly, nothing was done until the last day when they contractors didn't appear on deck.

When they closed the arcade on weds they hung a sign that said "closed for maintenance" and then started emptying it. When I asked why no warning the cm at guest services (same one with list) apologized and said that the decision was made at corporate that morning and that they didn't know either.

Every CM (youth counselor, guest services, servers, hosts) discretely told us they had no idea what was going on and that they thought it was a mess. They also felt it was against everything they are drilled to do - to treat guests as guests.

I began the cruise as the passenger who was telling everyone to roll with it, don't let this spoil the cruise. It's all good. But over the last couple of days even I couldn't ease my way through it. The behavior was appalling. I kept hearing from other guests variations of "why don't they throw us overboard and have us swim home the last day - they don't want us here." And when they roped off the goofy pool deck all around on Thusday evening and took all the deck chairs, but ran the funnel vision anyway, I saw guests tearing deck chairs from their stacks and dragging them back inside the ropes to watch. There just came a point where people kind of said "nope - no more."

Wow! We were on this cruise and did not experience hardly any of the issues you have described. We saw plywood cut & stacked, and there was an issue with AC in the aft public areas one day (to be fair, the deck 1 gangway door was open and it was 90 + degrees F outdoors with 90%+ humidity, and that hot air was rapidly rising up through the aft stairwell)

We had a terrific cruise - amazing weather compared to what we were expecting & Capt Gus did a great job of finding calm seas for us.

 

[Flossbolna]

I just came across an interesting question answering someone's post:

How will they name the dining rotations on the Wonder?

The names of the restaurants are:
Triton's - has always been T
Animator's Palate - has always been A
Tiana's Place - should be T as well!

However, a rotation TAT is not helpful at all. Will they keep the P for Tiana's Place?

On the Magic they went from LAP to LAC with the name change, but that was easy and there is no P in Carioca's.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I just came across an interesting question answering someone's post:

How will they name the dining rotations on the Wonder?

The names of the restaurants are:
Triton's - has always been T
Animator's Palate - has always been A
Tiana's Place - should be T as well!

However, a rotation TAT is not helpful at all. Will they keep the P for Tiana's Place?

On the Magic they went from LAP to LAC with the name change, but that was easy and there is no P in Carioca's.

While I'm sure no one here knows for sure, I'd think that keeping the "P" for Place makes sense.

 

[cherylc4]

We are booked concierge on the Dec 9 sailing and when I was emailing concierge services back and forth at the 125 date discussing dinner reservations I was told this:

As far as the Dining Rotations, there will be 3 that you may be assigned. They are:
T= Triton's
A= Animators Palate
TP= Tiana's Place
Rotation # 1 T, A, TP, T, A, TP, T
Rotation #2 A, TP, T, A, TP, T, A
Rotation #3 TP, T, A, TP T, A, TP

While I'm sure no one here knows for sure, I'd think that keeping the "P" for Place makes sense.

 

[Flossbolna]

We are booked concierge on the Dec 9 sailing and when I was emailing concierge services back and forth at the 125 date discussing dinner reservations I was told this:

As far as the Dining Rotations, there will be 3 that you may be assigned. They are:
T= Triton's
A= Animators Palate
TP= Tiana's Place
Rotation # 1 T, A, TP, T, A, TP, T
Rotation #2 A, TP, T, A, TP, T, A
Rotation #3 TP, T, A, TP T, A, TP

I was more wondering abut how they would write the letters on the Key to the World card. Currently they just have the first letters without any spaces or commas. So, using TP would be confusing, too. Maybe they will find a new design for the Wonder.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I was more wondering abut how they would write the letters on the Key to the World card. Currently they just have the first letters without any spaces or commas. So, using TP would be confusing, too. Maybe they will find a new design for the Wonder.

Our last cruise they didn't put the full rotation on the KTTW card only three letters. The bottom line on the KTTW card said:

Dinner: 6:00 PM-LAC Table 62.

That was for a 14 night cruise.

 

[mevelandry]

I have to confess... Deep down inside, since it's going to be our first cruise without a verandah (we have inside staterooms) I'm secretly hoping for those "magic portholes" to magically appear in our staterooms during dry dock.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I have to confess... Deep down inside, since it's going to be our first cruise without a verandah (we have inside staterooms) I'm secretly hoping for those "magic portholes" to magically appear in our staterooms during dry dock.

I doubt that will happen. The Magic didn't get them on her re-imagining. The speculation was it was cost prohibitive to run all the wires and whatnot necessary for them.

On the Dream class ships all the interior rooms are located in a large block over the various deck levels, allowing the "mechanics" for such things to be easier to install.

On the Magic class ships, the interior rooms are all over the ship, meaning more work to install them.

 

[Krissynae]

All I have to say about this was on Saturday about 530pm when the Disney Wonder maneuvered itself around in the water at Port Canaveral to leave it was a beautiful site. It sang When you wish upon a Star then honked 3 times to say goodbye then its musical melody again and it left. The Carnival Magic Honked her Goodbye to a friend as it pulled out 1hr earlier. I did not get any pictures because we had just sat down to dinner at Rusty's and my son wanted to wave Bye Bye...

 

[closetmickey]

I have to confess... Deep down inside, since it's going to be our first cruise without a verandah (we have inside staterooms) I'm secretly hoping for those "magic portholes" to magically appear in our staterooms during dry dock.

I get the feeling! Though I know I should give it up, I'm still hoping for a new slide (in addition to the Twist and Spout)!

 

[psac]

I did, though I just brushed it off and didn't really bother complaining til the last sea day (I was the guy telling others to let it go and don't let it ruin the rest of the cruise.) But the final straws did me in. The arcade closing with no notice - they had delivered arcade cards two days earlier to my kids and our tradition is to play there the last cruise night. Then they closed the sports deck. And then one of the contractors having gone off the night before (leaving Cozumel) to his buddies. Complaining loudly to them about having to bunk with a room host he said he had walked in to the host prepping towel animals and said to his buddies, "It was bull****! It's like being on f*****g Noah's Ark around here!"

Guest services was appalled by that, and that last night the contractors were nowhere to be seen. But they had complaints about them from the first day and even the contractors were saying one of them was in the brig - literally locked in room with 24 HR security at door. No idea what for.

Guest services (and everyone we spoke to) was sympathetic to everything happening but were genuinely bewildered at everything that had come down from corporate. There was a sense that they realized they would be short on prep time and suddenly made changes to the schedule that the CMs were now being expected to explain to guests. More than once I heard from staff that what was happening over the last couple days made no sense to them.

The cruise was listed as sold out, but once aboard it obviously wasn't. There were outside workers everywhere and they were certainly being bunked in cabins. The staff in the clubs said it was the smallest number of kids they'd seen since starting with DCL - there were 200 kids onboard. The dinners were 1/4 empty every night. The servers laughed about being bored. The ratio and length of cruise made for more personal interactions with staff and that was definitely a highlight. The food was more impressive than on any other DCL we've taken. And as a whole we enjoyed ourselves (aside from most guests' experience in Cartagena - but that's another can of worms.)

But the little things (really, too many to list) that kept adding up, and culminated with the last two days, just proved to be very undisneylike and left a sour taste in our mouths.

I hope a letter is on its way! Especially if you have another Disney cruise booked in the future, they could "make it up" through OBC on the next one.

 

[Dakota Red]

I had a birdy on the ship tell me that they might be adding more on top of the boat. But I could be wrong.

 

[Stefileslie85]

I wonder if tropical storm Ian will delay the Wonders arrival to Cadiz for dry dock? I've tried to find the ships location and the websites I have looked at all have the last update of the ships position on September 11 and show her off the coast of South Carolina. Maybe she's slowly heading up the US coast to let the storm pass before heading across the pond?