Originally wasn't going to do a trip report for this one but figured since this cruise was pretty different from our Port Canaveral cruises AND we have 12 hours left to drive home I would get some thoughts on paper...errrr screen 
This was our first west coast cruise although not our first spin on the Wonder. It was me, DH and our 3 boys. For DH and I it was our 8th cruise, for the boys - their 2nd (and their first 7 night).
So here we go....
Day 1:
I will start by saying that leaving from the west coast was entirely different from the familiarity and magic of Port Canaveral. We drove in and stayed the night before at Paradise Pier with a lovely view of California Adventure. Best part was getting to see their World of Color light show from our room while listening to the music through the TV. From there we drove to the port - about a 30 - 35 minute drive, although with the LA traffic and fog that rolled in that day I think I may have lost at least a year of my life
Upon arriving at the port we found it a bit more confusing. I will say that I truly didn't appreciate just how together PC (Port Canaveral) has it until this experience. There really weren't clear signs as to where we could drop the luggage off before parking so we ended up going in and being unable to get back out of the lot without parking. The porters are not allowed to go past the gate of the lot so we had to drag all our luggage to the gate - not the end of the world but definitely not what we expected. Once we parked and had the luggage gone, we were directed into a building where they immediately checked our passports and cruise confirmation - again, different so be sure to have that handy. We then went into the "waiting" area where we immediately did the health form (no recent communicable diseases, etc) and then were directed to the Castaway check in line. We didn't have to wait to long and again, the difference in these "cast members" was quite notable. Also, we only received one lanyard - so for our family of 5 this was a little disappointing as we have always been given enough for everyone.
After this we did the youth signin where the two younger boys received their new mega plastic chunks that sit on a bracelet. These make sure they can track them and we were warned they would cost $25 if lost. The "bracelet" part is similar to the bands you get when you go to a concert. So for my rough and tumble guys, they each had to have them replaced once. MS (middle son) actually tried to repair his own with a sticker......
thankfully we figured that one out in time! LS (lil son) almost lost his in the ocean at Cabo 
while playing in the waves/sand.
After getting this done we sat and waited - no characters, no pictures (although they started taking some toward the end). Then they finally started calling boarding numbers. We had arrived pretty early (about 11) and still were in group 8 for boarding so there were definitely some earlybirds. From what I could tell, the time I selected to board during online checkin really meant nothing.
We walked through the opening and were directed to their "boarding picture" area which was actually set up outside. They had two of them set up and that line moved pretty quick. These pics actually turned out really well - keepers. From there we walked down about 3 levels of gangway until we finally got to deck 3 where we went in as usual.
This was our first west coast cruise although not our first spin on the Wonder. It was me, DH and our 3 boys. For DH and I it was our 8th cruise, for the boys - their 2nd (and their first 7 night).
So here we go....
Day 1:
I will start by saying that leaving from the west coast was entirely different from the familiarity and magic of Port Canaveral. We drove in and stayed the night before at Paradise Pier with a lovely view of California Adventure. Best part was getting to see their World of Color light show from our room while listening to the music through the TV. From there we drove to the port - about a 30 - 35 minute drive, although with the LA traffic and fog that rolled in that day I think I may have lost at least a year of my life
Upon arriving at the port we found it a bit more confusing. I will say that I truly didn't appreciate just how together PC (Port Canaveral) has it until this experience. There really weren't clear signs as to where we could drop the luggage off before parking so we ended up going in and being unable to get back out of the lot without parking. The porters are not allowed to go past the gate of the lot so we had to drag all our luggage to the gate - not the end of the world but definitely not what we expected. Once we parked and had the luggage gone, we were directed into a building where they immediately checked our passports and cruise confirmation - again, different so be sure to have that handy. We then went into the "waiting" area where we immediately did the health form (no recent communicable diseases, etc) and then were directed to the Castaway check in line. We didn't have to wait to long and again, the difference in these "cast members" was quite notable. Also, we only received one lanyard - so for our family of 5 this was a little disappointing as we have always been given enough for everyone.
After this we did the youth signin where the two younger boys received their new mega plastic chunks that sit on a bracelet. These make sure they can track them and we were warned they would cost $25 if lost. The "bracelet" part is similar to the bands you get when you go to a concert. So for my rough and tumble guys, they each had to have them replaced once. MS (middle son) actually tried to repair his own with a sticker......
thankfully we figured that one out in time! LS (lil son) almost lost his in the ocean at Cabo while playing in the waves/sand. After getting this done we sat and waited - no characters, no pictures (although they started taking some toward the end). Then they finally started calling boarding numbers. We had arrived pretty early (about 11) and still were in group 8 for boarding so there were definitely some earlybirds. From what I could tell, the time I selected to board during online checkin really meant nothing.
We walked through the opening and were directed to their "boarding picture" area which was actually set up outside. They had two of them set up and that line moved pretty quick. These pics actually turned out really well - keepers. From there we walked down about 3 levels of gangway until we finally got to deck 3 where we went in as usual.
I wanted to say "slow down - you have days of food to go!" lol 
So we made our way to deck 2 and as we walked to our room were greeted by our semi-frantic room steward who didn't agree with that announcement lol. Thankfully we had 2 rooms for the 5 of us and one was ready so we just set everything in there and set off to explore some more. 
