If You See It: Eat It! Via Panama to Disneyland - Completed and Link to New Trip Report 2/24

[kid-at-heart]

On our last cruise we had loved the Outlook Café. Only the Wonder has this, it was added for the Alaska cruises.

I did not know the Outlook Cafe was added for Alaska. This was our favorite place to hang during our "working/vacation" cruise last April. We have not been on the other ships thus did not know that this wonderful room was only available on the Wonder. Now I think I only want to sail on the Wonder.

I am glad they changed your room. I know when I am staying somewhere, if I do not like the room or the view then it affects my enjoyment of my vacation. I like to sit and read and enjoy my "vacation space" as well as vacation excursions.

Yum regarding the strawberries. Much better than an arcade card.

 

[tiggrbaby]

Hooray for the secret porthole room!

 

[Poolrat]

Despite not being the perfect beach day, it sounds heavenly. Man I need a beach day.

So happy for you and Michael that you had the opportunity to switch rooms. Very nice.

Still wondering how one suddenly became available though?
Hoping no one went overboard.

 

[Flossbolna]

I'm glad you were able to move to a better room although I'm sorry you had all the hassle.

Jill in CO

That was the advantage of the long cruise: By the end all that hassle was more an interesting story to tell than something that characterised the trip overall.

I did not know the Outlook Cafe was added for Alaska. This was our favorite place to hang during our "working/vacation" cruise last April. We have not been on the other ships thus did not know that this wonderful room was only available on the Wonder. Now I think I only want to sail on the Wonder.

I think the Dream and the Fantasy have something called Outlook as well, but it appears to be less nice and less in use.

But I agree, the Outlook Cafe is one of the nicest features of the Wonder! However, this vacation I really fell in love with deck 4 as well!

I am glad they changed your room. I know when I am staying somewhere, if I do not like the room or the view then it affects my enjoyment of my vacation. I like to sit and read and enjoy my "vacation space" as well as vacation excursions.

Yes, it was wonderful to be able to start over with a new room. We like to spend some time in the room as well - and we did not mind the inside aspect of the other one for that. But it just did not feel like home anymore there.

Yum regarding the strawberries. Much better than an arcade card.

Exactly!! I would have been so disappointed with an arcade card!

 

[Flossbolna]

Hooray for the secret porthole room!

It was such a surprise to get one of those rooms by accident as they are highly sought after!

Despite not being the perfect beach day, it sounds heavenly. Man I need a beach day.

Me too!! It was 50 degrees and rain all day here today. Summer is over...

So happy for you and Michael that you had the opportunity to switch rooms. Very nice.

It was a real surprise and we were very happy about it!

Still wondering how one suddenly became available though?
Hoping no one went overboard.

We were wondering whether it was a room that was given to one of the entertainers. The ventriloquist already got off the ship in Cozumel I think. But then Michael heard them mumbling something about the room being used by an officer's family that only stayed onboard until Cozumel. So at least we did not benefit from someone's misfortune of having to leave earlier

 

[Poolrat]

We were wondering whether it was a room that was given to one of the entertainers. The ventriloquist already got off the ship in Cozumel I think. But then Michael heard them mumbling something about the room being used by an officer's family that only stayed onboard until Cozumel. So at least we did not benefit from someone's misfortune of having to leave earlier

Glad it was someone getting off and not someone who had to be evacuated off.

 

[GoofyFan1515]

Okay, so I was a little behind......but all caught up now!

Wow, you sure did turn into an alcoholic the first few days......... Can't beat unlimited drinks on the beach for sure!!! And I just want to see, following someone on the pier with a numbered Mickey head just doesn't measure up to follow Marv on a wooden spoon!

Okay, so you're saying don't do my nails and the laundry at the same time.....
Got It!!!!

Sounds like you really got a great improvement on the room! Almost like getting a whole second trip within your trip!

 

[dolphingirl47]

How strange how different the weather and conditions can be only a few miles apart. I got a little confused as what you described matched the experience that we had last December. This time round, a large part of the day was sunny for us and the sea was very calm.

I am glad that they moved you to another stateroom and what a stroke of luck that you got one of the secret porthole cabins.

Corinna

 

[Flossbolna]

Glad it was someone getting off and not someone who had to be evacuated off.

Exactly!

Okay, so I was a little behind......but all caught up now!

Wow, you sure did turn into an alcoholic the first few days......... Can't beat unlimited drinks on the beach for sure!!! And I just want to see, following someone on the pier with a numbered Mickey head just doesn't measure up to follow Marv on a wooden spoon!

Okay, so you're saying don't do my nails and the laundry at the same time.....
Got It!!!!

Sounds like you really got a great improvement on the room! Almost like getting a whole second trip within your trip!

Maybe I was a bit overenthusiastic during those first days...

I am not sure - the Marv wooden spoon might have more of a cult following and not be (just yet) as universally beloved as Mickey Mouse.

I think my info about nails/laundry is nearly as useful as the long hike to the TTC story...

And the offer to move us was great. It certainly changed the mood of the trip! And made us very happy customers of DCL!

 

[Flossbolna]

How strange how different the weather and conditions can be only a few miles apart. I got a little confused as what you described matched the experience that we had last December. This time round, a large part of the day was sunny for us and the sea was very calm.

I am glad that they moved you to another stateroom and what a stroke of luck that you got one of the secret porthole cabins.

Corinna

That is amazing that you had better weather than us in Cozumel. But that ominous cloud was kind of stuck on one side of us, luckily it never moved closer. We did have sunnier and less sunny times. All in all it was not too bad, as there was not a lot of shade and so I did not have to worry about getting sunburned.

After the cruise I did some checking and found out that the 10As are often pricier than the 9Cs, especially on the Caribbean itineraries, so I guess maybe the secret porthole rooms are no longer so thought after?

 

[Flossbolna]

Day 9, May 6

Day at Sea
Dress Code: Cruise Casual
Dinner Menu: Island Dinner – for us: Palo
Show: The HYPNO-tainment of Matthew Fallon
Weather: Partly Sunny, 81°F/27°C

With all the room change excitedment that previous day we ended up having a rather late night, but this was one day when I had to set an alarm. I had a massage booked for 8am. So, the night ended up being shorter than intended.

I was up and went for a snack before my massage to the Cove Café:

Soon it was time to go and check in at the Vista Spa:

I was greeted by the spa manager and it turned out that she was from Germany as well! I chatted with her a little bit and got a questionnaire to fill out about my health. It wanted to know how stressed I am and if I had any health issues. I had heard that they use your answers for a hard sell on the products they sell during/after your treatment, so it is wise to only write down those things that they need to know – like an allergy against certain type of oils – but don’t mention minor things like dry skin etc. I also said I was not stressed at all, even though that morning I was still not in my absolute cruise bliss heaven with all the moving and not getting that much sleep the last night.

My therapist came to fetch me and take me to the locker room.

The lockers work with a 4-digit-code that you can choose yourself, like for the in-room safe. There were nice products available for use. In the next room there was a nice small sauna, two showers and a few loungers for resting.

My massage therapist than came to get me and we went to the treatment room which was very nice. She tried to convince me that I should upgrade my Swedish massage (which was the cheapest offering) to a hot stone massage. While I think I would love the hot stone massage, I most definitely did not love the price for it, so I did stay with my original choice. It was a wonderful massage. Afterwards she told me that I have so much tension in my neck (which is true!) and that I should use some bath salts for that as they would detox my muscles. This just sounded totally fishy to me as an explanation and I knew that I would not buy expensive products anyway, so I politely declined and she did not try very hard to sell me on it.

After the massage I used the sauna and then had a shower there. The showers are nice as they are more spacious than the one in your stateroom. They are also free for everyone to use as the gym is also part of the facilities and this is the gym locker room as well as the spa locker room.

I also got a picture of the tread mills in the gym:

They look out towards the front of the ship.

After that I was definitely much closer to the perfect state of bliss that I knew from my last cruise!

By now it was breakfast time! And once again I headed to BBB – sitting outside with a view of the ocean is just such a great thing to do for breakfast!

I got some buffet pictures:

And this is my plate:

I tried the French toast today and it was surprisingly good. I kind of love the idea of French toast, but never found one that I really liked in reality. This one came pretty close to my idea of what it should be like. So, most likely it was not very good French toast…

After breakfast I wandered around the ship for a bit. There I saw Captain Fabian walking the pool deck with an officer and a maintenance guy inspecting different things. I had never thought about that the Captain is not only responsible for steering the ship, but actually in charge of keeping the ship in great shape as well!

Some obligatory pool deck pictures:

They were showing Monsters Inc. on the big funnel screen:

I had meant to see a film up on that screen one day, but we just never got around to it!! I know, shocking!

In case anyone wonders: the pictures were taken at around 10am – and neither the Mickey pool nor the Goofy pool were ever really crowded during this cruise. The adult pool however – there was the madness!!

The entrance to the Cove Café:

Some lovely carpets:

An elevator lobby:

Fun artwork in the staircase:

I headed into the atrium to get a print out of our stateroom account from guest services. All financial transactions on the ship are done via your Key to the World card – like charging to your room at WDW. Also, the cost for all the excursions that you have pre-booked gets charged to your account at the beginning of the cruise (or when you book them if you book them during the cruise) and at the end the gratuities for your stateroom host, your server, assistant server and head server are charged to your account as well. Those gratuities are 12 $ per night as a standard amount, which you can change. However, they more or less make up the salary for those people, so in my mind those are not really gratuities but part of your cruise fare. On a 15 night cruise as ours, it added up 180 $ per person. I recently read that a court here somewhere here in Europe recently ruled that a cruise line that was advertising cruises for only xyz Euros and did not include the gratuities in that number was in fault for doing so. European courts have been very strict with airlines here in Europe in that regard, they are no longer allowed to advertise for flights using prices that don’t include taxes. Will be interesting to see how things work out for the cruise industry here in Europe. Actually, two cruise lines that specifically target the German market, Aida (which is a subsidiary of Carnival) and Mein Schiff (which is a joint venture of a German travel company with Royal Caribbean) have gotten rid of those gratuities and just put them into the general cruise fare.

Ok – back to the Wonder. Once I had the print out and found out that it looked like expected I noticed that there was a character meet and greet going on and the line to see Mickey and Minnie was not long at all. So I jumped into line:

From there I headed up into the shops, which had nothing new to offer. And then I decided to have a look at the cooking demonstration that was about to start in Studio Sea. On the way there I saw that now there were Donald and Daisy meeting people in the atrium:

On to Studio Sea:

There I found the room overflowing with people. They were bringing in folding chairs to accommodate more people and I sat down somewhere. The demonstration was just starting.

I quickly realised that there is a reason why I don’t watch cooking shows on TV. I just don’t find them that interesting and it does not change when it is live. Also, the expectation to get to taste the food afterwards was not something that was able to keep me interested. So I quickly left and made another latecomer very happy as I offered him my seat.

Instead I decided to meet Donald and Daisy. However, Donald was not pleased at all to see me as I had a Mickey on my t-shirt and took great offence to him. I explained that this was not my fault, but Disney’s fault that they have too few Donald t-shirts. I promised him that I would cover up the Mickey and then he grudgingly agreed to have his picture taken with me.

I had a lot of fun with that character meet and greet! Overall, we ended up meeting the characters quite a bit and I found it so much more fun that at the parks. Sometimes you would just meet them in the hallways and they were always happy to stop for a picture. The princesses were often hanging out in the atrium in the time between the dinner seatings and chat with people or play with kids. Also, because of the length of the cruise the characters definitely got to know you and that showed in the interactions.

Up next:
BONUS: New Room Pictures[/URL]
This is a “crumble”?

 

[lilpooh108]

Hi there

I'm just joining in your TR. My parents are on the EBPC right now and I'm living vicariously through your report. Especially those FOOD PICS..... yum.......

I haven't caught up on all the pages, but I was curious what cabin number you had before they moved you to a 10A SPH? We were on the Wonder in May and noticed that a few people were commenting on how "tired" the cabins looked. Just purely out of curiosity.

Hoping to see more pictures from you soon!

 

[Flossbolna]

Hi there

I'm just joining in your TR. My parents are on the EBPC right now and I'm living vicariously through your report. Especially those FOOD PICS..... yum.......

I haven't caught up on all the pages, but I was curious what cabin number you had before they moved you to a 10A SPH? We were on the Wonder in May and noticed that a few people were commenting on how "tired" the cabins looked. Just purely out of curiosity.

Hoping to see more pictures from you soon!

Oh, your parents are definitely in for an interesting trip! I hope the seas are not going to be too rough for them! I just talked with Michael about the EBPC that now starts with 7 straight sea days because they had to cancel the Mexican ports because of the hurricane in the Pacific. And we both agreed that that would be a lot of sea days!! What a shame that they have to miss those two ports, we really loved both of them!

We were in 2077, that's a 10B I think. It was a great midship location and I like deck 2. We actually talked to quite a few people about our room issued during the cruise and did not meet a single other person who had issues.

And looking at your ticker it seems like you are going to be on the Magic just for the cruise before my sister and I will board her next year!

 

[dolphingirl47]

Sounds like you had a busy, but enjoyable morning. I have started to tell the people at the spa that I will be happy to listen to their recommendations, but that I will do the buying back home as the Elemis products are significantly cheaper in the UK. This has curbed their enthusiasm somewhat.

I had to laugh about Donald being offended by your Mickey t-shirt.

Corinna

 

[Poolrat]

You picked a great morning to have a massage. Sorry it came on the heels of changing rooms and a late night but it sounds heavenly none the less.

I really like the spread at BBB for breakfast. Looks like great options and sitting looking out over the water.

 

[disbride713]

Just loving your photos with Donald and Daisy, especially Donald's reaction! How sweet What a fun character Donald must be to play as well! Reading your trip report makes me all the more excited for my trip..which is still a long time away!

 

[glennbo123]

All caught up. I'm glad that you got moved to a better stateroom. And it looked like you enjoyed your beach excursion even though it was a little cloudy and the water was rough.

 

[Flossbolna]

Sounds like you had a busy, but enjoyable morning. I have started to tell the people at the spa that I will be happy to listen to their recommendations, but that I will do the buying back home as the Elemis products are significantly cheaper in the UK. This has curbed their enthusiasm somewhat.

I had to laugh about Donald being offended by your Mickey t-shirt.

Corinna

I had come up with this whole explanation that travelling back to the EU I am only allowed the equivalent of 430 € to bring back and that I had hit the outlets in Florida and the rest of that was going to be Disney souvenirs from the ship and Disneyland etc. But maybe I will just use yours and claim that I will just pick the stuff up at my next visit to the UK.

Donald was great fun! You can even see it in the picture that he is still pouting over my t-shirt!

You picked a great morning to have a massage. Sorry it came on the heels of changing rooms and a late night but it sounds heavenly none the less.

I really like the spread at BBB for breakfast. Looks like great options and sitting looking out over the water.

I think it was the perfect morning besides the getting up early. It was the start of two sea days and those are always more relaxed and this just set the mood for the next two days. That's why I had scheduled it for then.

I really liked BBB. I have heard lots of negative comments about it and from pictures it looks like Cabanas on the newer ships and the refurbished Magic is indeed better. They have gone away from the long buffet line concept they have at BBB (you enter and then follow along, so really tedious is you just want to more slices of bacon as you have to wait for everyone to pick their fruit, toast etc.). Also the drink stations are not in a good place either. Cabanas is more free flow (like the set up of Boma). And from the pictures I have seen from Cabanas on the newer ship, the spread there is even more impressive!

 

[Flossbolna]

Just loving your photos with Donald and Daisy, especially Donald's reaction! How sweet What a fun character Donald must be to play as well! Reading your trip report makes me all the more excited for my trip..which is still a long time away!

I agree, Donald is a fun character because he shows so much emotion!

I am really glad that we did not plan this cruise until the beginning of the year, so I had far less time to obsess about it. Which did not prevent me from gathering information about PC cruises.

All caught up. I'm glad that you got moved to a better stateroom. And it looked like you enjoyed your beach excursion even though it was a little cloudy and the water was rough.

The beach was still wonderful. Since warm beaches are so far from where I live, I take it even if it is not perfect weather!

 

[mimmi]

After a week in Key West and another one on the Fantasy I've finally vaught up with your trip report and can't wait for my PC cruise next may.

I did the Secret River excursion on our Eastern Caribbean last year and it was a truly amazong experience. The trip to the mainland wasn't bad at all.

The Wonder looks really beautiful and I'm looking forward to being on a smaller ship with less kids.

Do I see that right, is there a lady barefoot on a treadmill in your picture?
I don't know what's up with people but on the Fntasy I saw people wandering barefoot in the Atroum twice, how bad mannered can you be? I couldn't imagine treating the public places of a ship or a hotel like my own personal living room, that's just disgusting.
I'm also surprised that they allow using the fitness center equipment without shoes.

Anyway, I'm really enjoying report, thanks!