just back-A wonderful cruise!

[allicat]

Just wanted to let everyone know that our three day cruise(8/23-8/26) was perfect from start to finish! My only complaint is that it was too short! We have cruised other lines before and this by far-exceeded our expectations!
Food and entertainment was great, Castaway Cay was wonderful, the cruise staff couldnt been more friendly and hard working.
Any questions-please ask!

 

[jhannah]

Welcome back. Glad you enjoyed your Disney experience. I can relate to your feellings about such a short cruise. We've sailed (another line) on a 4-day coastal and it seemed very short to us.

Guess your "cure" now is to book a 7-day eastern or western Caribbean cruise!

 

[eva]

The main question is:

Did You ReBook?????

 

[nickmom]

Hi.
We will be a first time Disney cruiser in Sept. I have a question if you could offer some advice. When you get to Castaway Cay is there any lockers or something to keep your stuff in? I read that you can buy things with your key card or buy stamps with cash. I'm really looking forward to the spending the day on the beach. Did you do any snorkeling? Thanks
Carla

 

[nokidz]

Hi.
We will be a first time Disney cruiser in Sept. I have a question if you could offer some advice. When you get to Castaway Cay is there any lockers or something to keep your stuff in? I read that you can buy things with your key card or buy stamps with cash. I'm really looking forward to the spending the day on the beach. Did you do any snorkeling? Thanks
Carla

Welcome and you will have a blast!!
There are no lockers on Castaway Cay. So my suggestion is to bring a back pack to caryy stuff in. Also you can buy stuff with your KTTW card. But you do need cash to purchase stamps from the Castaway Cay post office.
We did not do the snorkeling excursion or any excursion for that matter. We enjoyed the family beach, swam a little, had some hair braided, enjoyed the food and did some shopping. By that time it was time to head "home".
Again, you will have a blast!!!!

 

[DMMarla07860]

Hi.
We will be a first time Disney cruiser in Sept. I have a question if you could offer some advice. When you get to Castaway Cay is there any lockers or something to keep your stuff in? I read that you can buy things with your key card or buy stamps with cash. I'm really looking forward to the spending the day on the beach. Did you do any snorkeling? Thanks
Carla

you'll love the cruise and deff castaway cay, no lockers, bring a bag to keep things in. I'm going on a disney cruise september 6th, it will deff seem wat too fast, but it will still be awesome for me

 

[nickmom]

Thanks for the advise. I'm excited. How about the stop at Nassau? I was going to plan on staying on the ship to do swimming. Maybe DS age 5 will get to use the big slide at the pool with less kids around. We are DVC members and this is our first use. I'm hoping all goes well. This will the first cruise for our DS that is way we decided to start with the 3night. Can't wait to see all the different things on the ship!! Fun
Carla

 

[allicat]

We did snorkel and it was great. You can go out very far and thats pretty much where we saw the fish.
We also did the sting ray excursion. Im glad I did ti but wouldnt do it again. There was a presentation in the beginning, we got snorkeling gear,then we got in the water (roped off area)and fed them. Once the food was gone, the stingrays left. The rest of the time we were free to snorkel with the stingrays. However,we didnt see any while we were snorkeling and neither did most others on our tour.
We have been to Nassau before but we did get off the ship for a quick trip because Dd likes the straw market. Honestly, I would have preferred to stay on the boat because Ive already been there.

 

[nickmom]

I get confused about the snorkeling...I know you can book excursion, but do you have to reserve the snorkel gear for just going snorkeling? I enjoy snorkeling, but DS is 5.5 and not sure if he can go. I don't want to book an excursion for that.
Thanks again for all the help.
Cruise 9/27/07 also going to Seaworld and spending 2 night at OKW.

 

[Ski-and-Sea]

I get confused about the snorkeling...I know you can book excursion, but do you have to reserve the snorkel gear for just going snorkeling? I enjoy snorkeling, but DS is 5.5 and not sure if he can go. I don't want to book an excursion for that.
Thanks again for all the help.
Cruise 9/27/07 also going to Seaworld and spending 2 night at OKW.

Here's the rule on snorkeling....if you are going in the snorkeling lagoon then you must have the life vest on.

You can go snorkeling in areas other than the snorkeling lagoon. DS can try it out in the family beach area but again, you must wear the lifevest if you are wearing flippers, etc.

My advice is rent the snorkeling gear and have DS try it out in the water on the family beach. If he is comfortable then walk over to the snorkeling lagoon so he can see the fish.

If he freaks out wearing the mask and snorkel then do what my DD did for a few years - just wear swimming goggles and hold your breath. She did fine that way and really enjoyed diving down to the bottom to get up close to the fish. The only rule is he needs to wear the vest.

If you're not sure about DS then don't book the boat snorkeling excursion.

 

[nickmom]

My advice is rent the snorkeling gear and have DS try it out in the water on the family beach. If he is comfortable then walk over to the snorkeling lagoon so he can see the fish.
.[/QUOTE]

Thanks. I will take this advise. DS loves the water, but is not the best swimmer yet. We will do the rent the gear thing and go from there.

 

[disneydance]

Glad to hear you had a great time as others have said did you rebook????

 

[Figment4Me]

We're just back as well from our 8/23 3-day cruise and I was just wondering if Allicat is the same nice person that sat with me and Officer Tracy during the Castaway Club event and then next to my daughter and me during the final round of Bingo. Even if it's not, you're right, the cruise was perfect! This was our second cruise on the Wonder and they always manage to exceed our expectations!

Just wanted to let everyone know that our three day cruise(8/23-8/26) was perfect from start to finish! My only complaint is that it was too short! We have cruised other lines before and this by far-exceeded our expectations!
Food and entertainment was great, Castaway Cay was wonderful, the cruise staff couldnt been more friendly and hard working.
Any questions-please ask!

 

[Ski-and-Sea]

We're just back as well from our 8/23 3-day cruise and I was just wondering if Allicat is the same nice person that sat with me and Officer Tracy during the Castaway Club event and then next to my daughter and me during the final round of Bingo. Even if it's not, you're right, the cruise was perfect! This was our second cruise on the Wonder and they always manage to exceed our expectations!

Hi Figment,

That was me. I was wondering if you were part of the DIS. Welcome. We didn't have many DISers onboard but we kept running into each other all over the ship.

It was a fantastic cruise. This was our second cruise on the Wonder (have done 4 on the Magic) and both our Wonder cruises have been amazing.

We seemed to have a nice group of passengers on the ship. I mentioned that to Christiaan and he agreed.

That CC reception was darn near empty. How nice to have the CMs to ourselves. Bingo was the same way. Low turnout and low payouts but we had those wonderful CMs to ourselves.

I'm in the process of writing up a big trip report.

Christiaan better be onboard for the Wonder double dips next summer.

 

[allicat]

Figment, although it wasnt me that you met,we did go to bingo on the first night and DD won 125 dollars!
At breakfast one morning, I did have the pleasure of meeting krdisneybound from the boards. She was very nice to talk to!
I will be able to go to a Castaway Club event next time-thats for repeat cruisers, right?
Disneydance we didnt rebook on board-although the 10% discount was tempting,it was too overwhelming to think about our next trip while enjoying this one. However, we will be booking for the double dip Castaway Cay next summer!

 

[Ski-and-Sea]

Figment, although it wasnt me that you met,we did go to bingo on the first night and DD won 125 dollars!
At breakfast one morning, I did have the pleasure of meeting krdisneybound from the boards. She was very nice to talk to!
I will be able to go to a Castaway Club event next time-thats for repeat cruisers, right?
Disneydance we didnt rebook on board-although the 10% discount was tempting,it was too overwhelming to think about our next trip while enjoying this one. However, we will be booking for the double dip Castaway Cay next summer!

That was you at bingo!!!!

That first night of bingo was THE most confusing game I have ever played!!!! I don't like re-using the same card for every game. Even I had a hard time punching and folding the numbers then having to fold them back for the next game.

We enjoyed meeting Krdisneybound, too. She was a huge help answering the trivia questions at the CC reception.

Yup, you're in the CC club now. Though those CC receptions are usually packed with people. DCL will send you your CC cards in the mail and its a guarantee one of your family's cards will be blank.

Definitely come on the double dip cruises next summer - we're on the 8/17 one.

 

[allicat]

We were sitting in the far corner at bingo that first night and I agree with you about the bingo, sea and ski! I had a hard time keeping track of four corners, x's and everything else! Luckily DD didnt! I felt a bit seasick that night too so I probably didnt pay as much attention as was needed to follow what was going on !
Our table mates at dinner won 300 dollars on the last night, so we were a lucky table.
Cant wait to go next summer-just need to set the date!

 

[JoiseyMom]

Hey all!! Alli, you should have come to the little Dismeet we had the first day on board. We just got home from WDW today, we went there after the cruise. Wow, what a cruise, my first first. First Disney Cruise and first ever cruise. I had a blast so did the kids, I can't wait to go back. I never got to do bingo, I wanted to though. Next time, and yes, we did rebook!!

 

[nickmom]

I have another question...do you have to take your passport to get on and off the ship?
Carla

 

[Figment4Me]

In Nassau and again on Castaway Cay, we only needed a photo I.D. and our room key card to get back on the ship. I did take passports but the only time they looked at them was during check-in onto the ship. They scanned all of ours including the kids.