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

[BigJon]

Stacks of plywood on deck 9....

 

[BigJon]

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.

Besides the elevator work on deck 1 forward, I didn't notice any of the other things you mentioned above. What areas were shut down? A/C issue? Water? We watched the last show (Kyle Knight magic) in Wavebands, and then went up to deck 9 for a drink, so we were up until about 11:15 on the last night of the cruise.

 

[BigJon]

Chairs were being "shrink wrapped", so I asked an officer if the chairs were being replaced. He said he didn't know for sure, but he thought that the webbing (fabric) would be replaced, and the metal may be repainted, but he said he wasn't for sure, he was just told to have all the chairs wrapped....

 

[BigJon]

Later Thursday evening, the forward elevator looked like this....

 

[arlopop]

Besides the elevator work on deck 1 forward, I didn't notice any of the other things you mentioned above. What areas were shut down? A/C issue? Water? We watched the last show (Kyle Knight magic) in Wavebands, and then went up to deck 9 for a drink, so we were up until about 11:15 on the last night of the cruise.

They closed the arcade on Weds. Shutdown and took away foosball and ping pong on sports deck on Thursday. Closed off starboard deck 9 on Thursday afternoon (late) to start screwing 1" ply to the deck to hold palates that were to be craned on (the power tools were running late that night and I called guest services to tell them our cabin on 8 was shaking from the process). They yanked all board games out of kids clubs at 5 Thursday and threw them away in front of kids.

The AC collapsed aft on Tuesday so badly that the maitre d of Palo shut his doors and cranked his separate AC to cool palo so high he pointed out the condensation dripping from his ceiling to us. The water break was deck 7om Thursday. Pouring down walls. The room host grabbed bucket and called officers as it started pouring down other wall. Four officers trying to figure out fix for 40 minutes.

That's a partial list.

 

[Dug720]

They closed the arcade on Weds. Shutdown and took away foosball and ping pong on sports deck on Thursday. Closed off starboard deck 9 on Thursday afternoon (late) to start screwing 1" ply to the deck to hold palates that were to be craned on (the power tools were running late that night and I called guest services to tell them our cabin on 8 was shaking from the process). They yanked all board games out of kids clubs at 5 Thursday and threw them away in front of kids.

The AC collapsed aft on Tuesday so badly that the maitre d of Palo shut his doors and cranked his separate AC to cool palo so high he pointed out the condensation dripping from his ceiling to us. The water break was deck 7om Thursday. Pouring down walls. The room host grabbed bucket and called officers as it started pouring down other wall. Four officers trying to figure out fix for 40 minutes.

That's a partial list.

Wow. The closing of areas I definitely get being annoyed with them starting early.

The mechanical stuff *could* have happened on any voyage though. Not saying it's not disappointing, but it's not necessarily due to the dry dock starting early.

Again, not defending at all the stuff that could be helped.

(Does just reinforce my thoughts to never sail the last cruise prior to a dry dock or in the first six months on a new or newly out of a major dry dock ship.)

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Later Thursday evening, the forward elevator looked like this....

Well, they put the plywood up in the elevators that they use for luggage transfers at the end of the cruise anyway. On the walls, not sure about the floor. So that part's not really necessarily part of the re-imagining process.

 

[arlopop]

Well, they put the plywood up in the elevators that they use for luggage transfers at the end of the cruise anyway. On the walls, not sure about the floor. So that part's not really necessarily part of the re-imagining process.

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."

 

[franandaj]

Wow! This sounds like some crazy stuff going on. I had several friends on this cruise, I'll be interested to hear their take on it as well.

 

[AquaDame]

http://www.portcanaveralwebcam.com/ She is headed out now on the port cam~! Bon voyage Wonder!

Does anyone know if they will sell any of her used furniture as they do with the WDW stuff sometimes...? I would love some pineapple chairs or parrots from parrot cay..!

 

[arlopop]

Wow! This sounds like some crazy stuff going on. I had several friends on this cruise, I'll be interested to hear their take on it as well.

I am interested as well since I by no means polled people. I'm basing my comments on what I saw or heard or experienced. That said, I honestly didn't come across anyone who didn't feel at least a little annoyed. One gentleman I hadn't seen on the cruise at all before the last day joined me on the elevator to breakfast yesterday morning. We were just chatting and his comment was that "it was a good 12 day cruise that lasted 14 days." I laughed and agreed and he said DCL would be getting a very long, sharp letter from him. That was the general tone the last couple days from the guests I encountered.

 

[psac]

Have you complained to guest services yet? I definitely would, without question. That's certainly unacceptable!!!

 

[RRB]

Just got back from the 4 night cruise. The Wonder in port with the Dream on 9/9/16, ready to depart....

 

[arlopop]

Have you complained to guest services yet? I definitely would, without question. That's certainly unacceptable!!!

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.

 

[bcwife76]

I understand the need to get a head start on some of the work, but most of what has been described above sounds unacceptable, disruptive, disappointing....it's a shame to end the PC cruise before she heads to dry dock this way. I assume DCL will now be inundated with complaints regarding this.

 

[kjblack3126]

Disney Wonder getting drydock cargo loaded at Port Canaveral​

 

[kjblack3126]

Disney Wonder getting drydock cargo loaded at Port Canaveral

 

[kjblack3126]

Disney Wonder getting drydock cargo loaded at Port Canaveral

 

[kjblack3126]

Disney Wonder getting drydock cargo loaded at Port Canaveral

 

[HoneyHoneyPot]

Wow. The closing of areas I definitely get being annoyed with them starting early.

The mechanical stuff *could* have happened on any voyage though. Not saying it's not disappointing, but it's not necessarily due to the dry dock starting early.

Again, not defending at all the stuff that could be helped.

(Does just reinforce my thoughts to never sail the last cruise prior to a dry dock or in the first six months on a new or newly out of a major dry dock ship.)

We're sailing on the Thanksgiving cruise post dry dock - I believe it's the 2nd sailing. What kind of problems should I prepare for? Is it possible that the cruise could get cancelled if the dry dock has delays?