Just off Wonder 6-night Merrytime Cruise from Galveston to CC

[drnp]

Am back home and going through the typical withdrawals of leaving the ship. I'll try to answer some questions that I know people like to ask. Some quick notes below:
- Had cabin 8534 (cat T 1BR concierge). Great location, just off mid ship elevators, with the murphy bed in the living room not the bedroom and the triple verandah. Not too much noise from upstairs, but tons of noise from creaking in the cabinetry during night mostly due to the choppy seas. Beautiful room, but its definitely showing its age. Carpet was coming off the floor next to the TV in the living room, the tiles in the bathrooms are faded with stained grout, there are chips and scuff marks on many of the wood furnishings, etc. Nothing egregious, but more in line with what you expect from a 16 year old ship that needs a full dry dock.
- Common areas look great, especially on decks 3 and 4.
- Yes, Star Wars is playing, and it is fantastic. Saw it on the night of departure on the 18th in the Walt Disney Theatre in 3D. Played multiple times, mostly on our CC day, where it played in each theatre 3 times after everyone came back on board. Other movies were Ant man, Inside Out, Good Dinosaur, Bridge of Spies off top of my head. Movies on TV were Jurassic World, Mr. Holmes, Pixels, Christmas Story.
- Concierge team is Rodrigo and Glenn. We were assigned to Rodrigo, whom we met before. Ironically, when he was training Glenn. Both were great. Rodrigo came through on every request, and seemed to genuinely care that we had a good time. Concierge reception is twice a night at 5 and 7. We only went twice, neither time had many others in the cafe. Drinks are served, and there are some canapés. Kids liked getting shirley temples. You do get free specialty coffee in Cove Cafe as well now. Internet was a free 100MB, but I didn't use it.
-Tickets for gingerbread house making, disney jr breakfast, Frozen, and princess gathering were already waiting for us. Cabinet above cooling box was full of Mickey rice krispie treats and the requested sodas were stocked. Rod replenished the drinks daily.
-Princesses seen onboard were Cindy, Mulan, Belle, Ariel, Anna, and Elsa.
-CMs: Room host was Neil. I really liked him. Responsive to all requests like the princess sheets for DDs and those small pink robes. Gave us some of the old H20 products since DW didn't care for the Elemis. He was also incredibly fast. We never once came back to the room after breakfast or dinner without having the room been made up. He always did a thorough job as well. Server was Baha (Turkey) and Levy (South Africa), with Vitor (Portugal) as Head server. The first night was a bit slow service wise and not much interaction. The second night we got to main seating at about 550, and by 620 we still didn't even have our drinks yet or our order taken. Also, the waves were choppy and many kids were vomiting in and around AP. It was not a good situation so we actually just left and went back to the room and ordered room service. We told Vitor we were leaving on our way out and he offered to send any food up to the room immediately so we didn't have to wait. We did call him and Rod later and ask if we could change servers before the next night. Vitor said he couldn't but that if we come back, we would be well taken care of. He apologized for everything being so slow and attention lacking, citing the multiple children getting sick on the second night. On third night and for rest of cruise, both Baha and Levy were very good. They were speedy, made conversation with us, magic tricks for kids, called us by our names, etc. Everything that was missing those first two nights was present thereafter. Maybe we just caught them on a bad couple nights. Baha always gave his recommendations for each menu, and i have to say he was always right. He was happy to give us two options if we couldn't decide, and gave the DDs desserts that weren't on the menu if he could. He also gave up his seat on the CC tram so we could sit together when he saw us trying to get back to the ship in the rain. Just goes to show you, if you feel like something is off - say something. We feel like trip was so much better after we brought it to Rod and Vitor's attention. And, don't be too quick to write off a CM, they could just be having an off night. Also want to mention Martin, who delivered our Room Service every morning. He was great. He once delivered 7 plates of food when DDs and DW were sleeping and did it perfectly without waking anyone up or turning on a light.
- Castaway Cay:The weather was awful for the first 2-3 hours. It rained sometimes very heavily for about until just before lunch. After that it rained off and on, but mostly off. Had cabana 4. We were so glad to have the cabana to hide in when the rain came down. Location is great, close to Cookies and Restrooms (which were surprisingly clean). Even with the weather, we had a great time. Air temp was 75 ish, and water temp was cold at first. But, again, if you just dunk yourself and stay in, then you will get used to it. (This is coming from a longtime TX resident).
-Animation classes were on Mickey, Donald, and Goofy.
-Bingo was fun as usual, bingo leader is still Chris, who we had 2 years ago and he is still a hoot.
-Still had Frozen deck party, Pirate night was on Monday (CC day), Santa made an a few appearances, my dining rotation was TAAPTA, and any dish made with tuna was excellent.
-Seas were choppy for most of trip, especially getting in and out of Galveston. I took a dramamine once a day and it didn't bother me, but I saw plenty of others get sick.

 

[princessmommyx3]

We were on the Wonder last month in room 8532 (next door to you) and had Neil also for our room host and I agree with everything you said! He was awesome, probably our best room host in 6 cruises. We also asked for the H2O products instead of Elemis and he gave us tons every day. I was so happy to have lots left over to take home. I tipped him extra and he stopped by our room in the last night to thank us in person for the tip. I have never had that happen before. We also had Martin deliver our breakfast every morning and he was awesome as well, so kind and great at setting out the whole spread and then coming back to clean up the mess. One day he was 10 minutes late and tried to refuse my tip but I wouldn't let him. On our last day I gave him a huge tip because he had been so wonderful to us all week. Sorry you had rough seas, but glad that you still had a great cruise.

 

[drnp]

Thanks pm3. I actually read your blog beforehand, so I knew exactly what to do when DW stated she didn't like the new Elemis . We had 8532 in 2013 and decided to mix things up and go next door this time. I think in terms of location those two rooms can't be beat on the entire ship.

 

[Golden Rose]

We were on the same cruise, getting back today, in 8030 (Walt Suite), and we had Glenn. We remembered Rodrigo and Glenn from a previous cruise in November 2013 (and they remembered us, which was nice.) We loved Glenn. He's a serious Star Wars fan, and we had fun talking and speculating about upcoming films with him. He definitely went above and beyond with us, and I can't say enough good things about him.

As far as the ship goes, we agree that she is showing her age, but think she is still such a beautiful ship. We also noticed that the cabinetry was very creaky, and we had a wave phone charger not working, and one cabinet door completely broken. We didn't worry about it, but we noticed. We were traveling with a large group, and one of our friends had real problems with their toilet. I'm glad the Wonder is getting serious work done next year. We just love the Oceaneer's Club, and think it has the best playground at seas, and I'm afraid they'll make her more high tech and less climb, play, and slide focused, which would be a shame.

Our cabin steward was Paul, whom we loved in some ways (he has an AMAZING personality), but it was his first week back after his time off and we had one issue. The media room in the royal suite has a pull down murphy bed, which only the steward can bring down, and the room was not made up two nights when we tried to put our barely 5 year old to bed. I said something early on in the trip, about please having the bed made up earlier, but I guess he didn't catch it. I finally lost my temper on the 4th night when my exhausted 5 year old was sitting on the floor weeping from exhaustion asking where her bed was at almost 8:45 at night (when by her body time it was 9:45.) I'd been calling since 8, when we got her back to the room, trying to get someone to come and let her bed down. I think he just hadn't gotten his timing figured out. I think he was leaving our suite for last because it was so big, not thinking about the fact that we had a little one who turned in earlier than most people many nights. Our daughter just loved him, and he had the friendliest and most fun manner. I liked him a lot, except for the repeat issues with the timing of bedtime.

There were a huge number of activities on this sailing. It felt like they had all the regular activities PLUS a bunch of Merrytime activities. Oh, yeah, and the premiere of a certain little movie called Star Wars. We were insanely busy, and we were really exhausted by the end of it. (My daughter, who no longer naps, napped for almost 3 hours one day late in the cruise.) This was a less relaxing cruise for us, despite the three sea days. That was our own fault, of course, there was just so much we wanted to do! And we still didn't make it to half the things we'd have enjoyed doing. We did Star Wars 3 times, the sailaway party, all but one of the big night time shows, Freezing the Night Away, the pirate party and fireworks, Winter Wonderland Ball, the big princess gathering, Anna and Elsa and Olaf meet, Disney Junior character breakfast, Gingerbread house making, palo brunch and dinner, full days ashore in Key West and Castaway Cay, multiple days swimming in the pools, the magic workshop, origami class, mixology... the list goes on and on. It was an amazing trip, and we shared it with really great people, both in our party and on the ship in general.

We thought the food was better than our last sailing on DCL. (Interestingly, some of our friends, whose last cruise was in the Dream, thought the food was worse than their last cruise.) We thought our servers were amazing. They handled our large group extremely well.

My son did get queasy in the rough seas, and another member of our extended group got very sick. Interestingly, I often have sea sickness issues and didn't this trip for some reason. The seas were definitely rough a couple of days.

Our embarkation was smooth, and our disembarkation was the easiest we've ever had. That was a nice plus this morning.

We have great memories, and I would really recommend Merrytime cruises on the Wonder to anyone. My 5 year old daughter thought it was the best vacation ever, and cried when we made her get off the ship. She has been asking all day to get back on her ship.