June 19 - 22 Wonder Cruise! FI's birthday and first cruise!!!!!

[Brena]

Pre-Trip Report

I've been reading through all the trip reports here and they've really helped me out in planning our 3 day Wonder cruise in June. I figured that I'd repay the favor!!!!

THE CAST

Me (28) - always been a Disney fan, but my obsession is increasing since I joined the DIS! Princesses are my favorite and I've grown up to be one. I love to plan and organize, for a day job I'm a software project manager.

FI (24) - my fiance' will be turning 25 on June 19th, the day we set sail on the Wonder! He doesn't like crowds so we'll be trying to find a quiet place to enjoy the parties. This is his first cruise.

Together - we're both very silly and goofy. Both of us are a little ADHD and OCD (his vice is cleanliness, mine is overplanning with a side of anxiety). We're both engineers and don't live very far from Disney!

TRIP HISTORY

My 28th birthday was in the beginning of May and we took an amazing trip to Savannah, GA. I really wanted to do something special for FI's birthday in June. As I mentioned, I'm a princess so I LOVE a day that celebrates me and I wanted him to have the same thing. However, FI doesn't really want a big birthday celebration. But in the car one day I spontaneously said "Do you want to go on a cruise for your birthday?" FI surprised me by saying that he wants to go on a Disney cruise, his parents have taken a few and they love it. Of course I agree and find a 3 day Wonder cruise to the Bahamas that leaves on his birthday. Perfect!!!!!!!!

PLANNING

I found the DIS while reading another cruise review forum and I've never gone back! I love love love everyone's trip reports and they've inspired us to go to WDW more than usual. The last adventure was to Beaches and Cream to get a No Way Jose' that I'd seen in a food review!

Since it's FI's birthday I ordered the birthday package for our room. I'm excited to see the look on his face when we enter our room. I've also put together my own cruise gift basket for him that includes swim trunks, shorts, swim sandals, sunscreen, Dramamine, and stateroom entertainment!

FI's parents have taken a couple of Disney cruises before so they will be taking us to the port and picking us up. I'm not really sure what time we should be picked up but his parents may have a better idea. I need to make his dad's favorite banana bread this weekend and pick up a GC as a thank you for being our transportation. They'll also be watching our two cats!

DIS MEET

I found the thread for our cruise and we're planning on a short meet and a fish extender exchange! We'll probably head to downtown Disney this weekend (I'm thinking Sunday afternoon so that we can have lunch at Earl of Sandwich) and get some small gifts. I'd also like to find a pair of Pirate Mickey ears for the Pirate Party.

Only 6 days until we set sail!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ears4all!]

Awesome.....sooooo excited for you. We are going on our first cruise this October. You will have a blast.

 

[CapnJackGroupie]

You'll have to tell us all about your cruise. So excited for you!!!

 

[wilma-bride]

Sounds great - I hope you have a brilliant time and your fiance has a great Birthday on board the Disney Wonder

 

[Brena]

Awesome.....sooooo excited for you. We are going on our first cruise this October. You will have a blast.

You'll have to tell us all about your cruise. So excited for you!!!

Sounds great - I hope you have a brilliant time and your fiance has a great Birthday on board the Disney Wonder

Thanks everyone! We're soooo excited. Now we're into counting hours instead of days! Less than 68 hours until we're on our way to Port Canaveral!

So, I think I may have just had a brilliant idea. I'm hoping it's brilliant anyways.

Last night FI's parents asked me to bring them back a picture of us on formal night. We are not having have formal engagement pictures taken and they would like to have more pictures of us around the house. Now I think that FI and I should really get dressed up for Formal night and use the cruise pics as our engagement pictures! Maybe I could even get my hair done on board. I'll ask FI's mother to bring over his suit along with the suitcase she's going to loan us this afternoon (he hates the suit so much that it still resides at his parent's house).

Can anyone give me a ballpark price of what the pictures run? I'd like to be prepared so that I can hide my "sticker shock" face!!!!

Also, does anyone know if the ship offers special spa prices towards the end of the cruise?

 

[ears4all!]

That's a great idea.

And with the prices......I have no clue, since I am going on our first cruise this October. (Note to self: Need to start a pre-trip report soon)

Not much longer........

 

[ears4all!]

Tomorrow's the big day!

 

[CapnJackGroupie]

Hope you both have a WONDERful cruise!!! Tell us all about it when you get back!

 

[Brena]

The morning of embarkation we had a small birthday breakfast for FI, and finished packing our suitcases (presents and toiletries). FI's parents drove us to Port Canaveral. They have been on 3 DCL cruises before so they gave us tips and told stories of their trips. Only 40 minutes in the car and then we got our first glance at the Disney Wonder! FI was having the best birthday ever!!!!

FI and his birthday doughnut

The parents dropped us off in front of the terminal and took several
pictures of us. Then they left and we were on our own! We entered the terminal, quickly got through the bag x-rays, and rode the escalator to the check-in area. We had arrived at the cruise terminal around 12:45 and there weren't any lines. We were ushered to the first check-in desk and handed
over our birth certificates and license. FI was worried about my birth certificate (it's a sealed copy from 1987 so the seal is kinda worn down) but our CM barely glanced at it. She was having issues with checking us in. She called another CM over. I started worrying... would they let us on the boat???

Turns out the CM was confused by the computer. It kept telling her to wish FI a happy birthday. She didn't understand why... until the other CM pointed out that TODAY was June 19th! So they wished FI a happy birthday, printed out our KTTW cards, and wished us bon voyage.

We stopped at the cruise model in the check-in lobby and FI took a couple of pics. They're on FI's camera or else I'd show them to you. Then we passed through the ears and had our embarkation pictures taken. They turned out to be the best of the cruise I thought, but we didn't purchase them. I had a strict photo allowance and both our parents wanted formal night pictures.

They announced our family name and we passed into the lobby. It's so beautiful!!!!! I love the Chihuly glass sculpture and the doors to Triton.

The crew started guiding us towards Parrot Cay and Beach Blanket Buffet. I knew that I wanted to eat in Parrot Cay and not at Beach Blanket so when the CM who was in front of Parrot Cay guided us towards the elevator I asked if we could eat in Parrot Cay instead. She said "Oh yeah, sure!" which was kind of funny because 2 seconds before she had said "You must go up the elevators to Deck 9 for lunch".

We sanitized our hands (I want to put handiwipes at strategic locations in the house now) and walked into Parrot Cay. It was so tropical and vacation feeling. We were practically jumping up and down. WE WERE ON VACATION!!!!!!!!!! We were on the boat!!!! My shady birth certificate had held up to not-so-scrutinizing scrutiny!!!!!!

The peel and eat shrimp were really yummy and we tried rice and pasta salads and potatoes and deserts as well. Everything was delicious. Our service was fantastic. FI cleared his plate well.

We had also grabbed a Navigator from guest services and highlighted the activities that we wanted to do that day. They included attending the ship tour, Sail Away, The Golden Mickeys, and National Treasure 2.

We finished lunch right around 1:30 PM so we headed off to find our stateroom, #6521. I had read a review on allearsnet that suggested that our stateroom would be noisy. This was not the case for us. We only heard fellow cruisers that were running and yelling in the hallway and I don't think that was due to our room. We sleep heavily and didn't mind any of the noises.

When we arrived at our stateroom we noticed that our luggage was already there! Perfect! FI openned the door to find a little birthday surprise... I had ordered a cake and decorations. We shared a mushy moment and then dragged our bags inside. I unpacked while FI played with a new birthday present (I was determined that he do as little as possible on his birthday!).

We booked our cruise in late April and in May I discovered the DIS boards. I researched and read threads and made lists and tried to plan the best vacations ever. However there were a few tips from the DIS boards that I did not use and I really should have. One of those was

TAKE AN OVER THE DOOR SHOE HOLDER FOR TOILETRIES

I thought that the holder would not be useful since there were only 2 of us for 3 nights. However it would've been used greatly. We were always searching for sunscreen, toothbrushes, and medications.

I finished quickly and we explored the ship a bit on our own. It was very windy!!!!!

We then headed to meet for the ship tour. I don't recommend this tour. We basically just walked around the decks while a CM pointed out what we were passing. I guess I was hoping for more of a galley tour. Or at least some fun facts about the ship. But nada...

We arrived at our stateroom in time to don our life jackets and snap a picture. You'll see lots of self-taken couple pictures from us. We've gotten pretty decent at it.

The muster drill went quickly. We were at the deck 4, E station. Man, they can crowd a lot of people on that deck!!!!! FI said that he'll just eat so much he'll get bloated and then I can use him as a flotation device.

After the drill we headed up to Deck 10 to glimpse at the Sail Away party. It was crazy!!!!!!!!

We grabbed me a drink of the day (Bahama Mama) from Signals and settled down on deck 10 to watch the sail. The "When You Wish Upon a Star" horn sounded and man is it loud!!!! And awesome. Unfortunately we did not settle down on the side of the Wonder that faced Jetty Park. The parents had gone to eat at Dixie Crossroads and then to Jetty Park to watch us sail off. Maybe it's best that we didn't see them as I might have started crying. They do so much more for me than anyone I know (excluding FI of course!).

Next up: The Golden Mickeys and we meet our tablemates!!!!!

 

[okwminnie]

Great report and love the pics! Cant wait for the next installment!

 

[MouseLovinMom]

Enjoying your report. Sounds like a great trip! Do you have any Navigators that you could post? Thanks!

 

[MagicMe]

Enjoying your report! It's always so much fun to read a newbie report!!!! Getting a fresh take on the cruise is interesting! Can't wait to read the rest.

 

[RLccweems]

I'm really enjoying your TR and pics! I can't wait to hear more....

 

[Our2Girls&Disney]

Great first day! Keep writing.

 

[frdeb1999]

Great TR so far!! Can't wait to hear the rest!!

 

[disneychic]

Great Trip Report so far! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE post Navigators for us

 

[Trishde]

By any chance do you know who did Bingo, who was the cruise director & was Millie at the bar in the Promenade lounge.
Brent the cruise director and Leslie the Bingo Queen followed us last year from the Wonder to the Magic and we wondered if they were back on the Wonder.
How much fun did you have? July 13th will be cruise #4 since 2006.
We are so hooked!!
Can't wait to read more of your trip report!!

 

[Brena]

Unfortunatly I left our navigators back in our room (all neatly packaged in a manilla envelope to go home with me) so I can't share them. But if you have any questions about what was going on I may be able to answer them.

By any chance do you know who did Bingo, who was the cruise director & was Millie at the bar in the Promenade lounge.
Brent the cruise director and Leslie the Bingo Queen followed us last year from the Wonder to the Magic and we wondered if they were back on the Wonder.
How much fun did you have? July 13th will be cruise #4 since 2006.
We are so hooked!!
Can't wait to read more of your trip report!!

We had an amazing amount of fun! The 3 day was way too short for us because we didn't have enough time to cram in everything that I wanted to do, including Bingo. We did have a drink in the Promenade lounge but we had a male server. Our cruise director was Clayton, he was fantastic and did a funny dance that is reminiscent of Carlton on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air!

 

[Brena]

We enjoyed being on deck while leaving Port Canaveral, but definitely wanted to make the Golden Mickeys. We got there about 10 minutes before the show started and got fantastic seats (I'm sure this had something to do with our only-2 seat requirement). The show was wonderful and the perfect amount of time. I love villains so I had a very good time cheering for all the bad guys! I think that villains are just misunderstood...

Afterwards we went to Treasures Ketch and Mickey's Mates but they were very very crowded of course. So we just bummed around the ship and took pictures until our dining time. Our rotation was PTA so we were in Parrot Cay that night.

I really like this picture because it looks like we're outside, but we're in the Promenade lounge in front of a porthole.

We were seated at an 8-top table near the back of the room. Our tablemates were 3 groups of 2: a couple from Michigan celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary, a couple from Yorkshire, and a mother and young daughter! Our dinner was off to a late start because the mother and daughter did not speak English so our servers had to find a CM who spoke Spanish. Our server was Donovan and our assistant server was Alvan. Donovan was very robotic and unpersonable. Alvan was much more personable and did tricks and joked a lot. I don't think that I saw Donovan smile once.

We loved talking to our tablemates from the UK we learned so much from them and they were very funny. We saw them throughout the cruise and at one point it seemed like they were following us.

I wish that one of us had spoken Spanish so that our other tablemates could've felt more included. What happened to FI's years of high school Spanish? All he can remember is "My father is green." which doesn't even make any sense! We tried to communicate through body language and I think we did a pretty good job.

I started out with the Island Jerk Conch and Tuna Ceviche. It was ok, a little more citrusy than I expected it to be. FI got the Chicken, cheese and corn fritters (or something like that) and they were delicious! I also had the cold cream of mango and papaya soup and it was absolutely delicious! I should've ordered seconds! And then one to go with me to my room!!!!

For the main course we both had the Island Roasted Rib-Eye of Beef. It was cooked perfectly to order and had fried onion strings with it. Yummy!!!! And the rib-eye was huge!

For dessert I had French Toast Banana Bread Pudding which was superb and FI got the Ice Cream Sundae which he quickly demolished.

We bid farewell to our table mates and headed back to our room for a bit. We wanted to see National Treasure 2 but we were both exhausted. We decided to get some drinks from Cove Cafe' (Italian Cocoa was yummy and sleep inducing) and grabbed some goodies from a table in front of Cadillac lounge (fruit and chocolate covered strawberries). We fell asleep full and content, ready to be in the Bahamas!!!!!!!!

Next Up: Nassau, Atlantis, and seasickness

 

[disneyfan551]

Looking forward to more!! Thanks for sharing with us!!