March 1st-5th on the Wonder ... Our 10th Anniversary Getaway --COMPLETED 3/23

[sas_mk]

I can't even begin to count how many trip reports I have read since I first found the DIS last April. I have loved every report that I read because it made me even more excited for my first Disney Cruise. Hopefully, I can pay it forward now by posting my cruise experience.

The Cast:

Me: I am a 30 year old who loves Disney. I love holding onto my youth and Disney helps me do it. I have been to Disneyland many times in my life and first visited DW when I was 12 years old. I have dreamed of going back and I finally got a chance! I had never been on a cruise before, but expect to go on many more in my life.

DH: He is my 33 year old Disney supporter. He doesn't love it, but he doesn't hate it. He would rather buy a new car or upgrade our house than pay for a vacation, but he comes along for the ride as long as he doesn't have to think too hard about planning it. DH had also not been on a cruise before, but I think I will be able to "drag" him on a few more in the future.

The Kids: We have a DS(6), DD(3), and a DS(1). Since we were celebrating our 10 year anniversary, we left the kids home with Grandma and Grandpa. There was a lot of guilt involved with leaving our kids behind while we went to DisneyWorld and on a Disney Cruise, but I think they might have had more fun being spoiled at Grandma's house then they would have had with us.

The Plan: Last March, my DH suggested we get away for our Anniversary. He briefly suggested we look into a Disney Cruise -- and I ran with that suggestion. I got on the Internet and started researching. We managed to find a Land and Sea vacation that we could afford, booked it and started dreaming of our time away.

We stayed at CBR from February 25th - March 1st. Then, we boarded the Disney Wonder from March 1st - March 5th.

Since I am posting this on the cruise forum, I will glaze over the Land portion of our trip and jump right into the first day of our cruise. I do want to say that DisneyWorld was crazy fun. We stuffed so much stuff into three days and wore ourselves out. Fortunately, we don't feel like we really missed anything. We did all of our "must-do's" plus a lot more. It is amazing how much quicker you can do Disney without little ones slowing you down! It would be nice to do a more relaxed trip someday, but we weren't sure when we would ever get back!

Feel free to ask any questions. I love reliving my vacation --especially as I look out the window at the blizzard that is coming down outside.

Up Next: Day One -- We make our way to the Wonder and start relaxing...

 

[BrettySpaghetti]

Up Next: Day One -- We make our way to the Wonder and start relaxing...

I sailed right before you (Feb. 22-26) on the Wonder, so I'll be very interested to see if you guys had as great a time as I did! BTW congrats on your anniversary. When I sailed, I met a married couple in the Wonder's internet cafe who were camming with their child (who was being watched by grandma). So you're not the only adults to leave the kid(s) at home!

 

[sas_mk]

I sailed right before you (Feb. 22-26) on the Wonder, so I'll be very interested to see if you guys had as great a time as I did! BTW congrats on your anniversary. When I sailed, I met a married couple in the Wonder's internet cafe who were camming with their child (who was being watched by grandma). So you're not the only adults to leave the kid(s) at home!

Well, you probably had better weather than we did, but I think we stil had a great time!

Thanks for the congratulations! We wore our Happy Anniversary pins to DisneyWorld, and I think we heard some form of congratulations at least 100 times each day. I never got tired of it though!

It was hard leaving our kids behind, but I think it is so important to get away without the kids every once in a while. We are very lucky that our parents agreed to help us out. They split the week, and I am sure we missed the kids more than they missed us. They were well taken care of!

 

[sas_mk]

SUNDAY, March 1st, 2009:

We were both so excited to move onto the cruise portion of our Land and Sea vacation. On Sunday morning, we slept in a little bit and walked over to the main pool at Caribbean Beach to sit in the hot tub. We headed back to our room and threw on some clothes. We had reserved a one-way rental through Enterprise Rental. We spent about $34 total between our car, tolls and gas to get to the Port. That ended up being a huge savings over taking the Disney Shuttle Bus and it gave us a little freedom as well.

We were supposed to meet our Enterprise Rental Car shuttle at 9:00 and we wanted to get over to the Custom House early enough to check-in at the cruise desk for the cruise. However, when we got back to our room, we saw the message light beeping on our phone. We had three messages that had been left the last couple of days, but this was the first notice we had gotten about the messages. The cruise desk was trying to reach us to find out when we were going to check-in and how we were going to get to the port. Unfortunately, the third message told us that we needed to be checked in for our cruise by Saturday (the day before) at 10:00 AM or we would have to check-in once we arrived at the port. Oh well, this just gave us a couple of extra minutes to pack up and get ready.

We walked over to the Custom House (about a 10 minute walk) and arrived just as the Enterprise shuttle was arriving. The shuttle driver was very talkative and friendly. He gave us very detailed driving directions to get back to our hotel once we got our rental. We picked up our rental without any problems and drove over to Burger King for breakfast. We originally tried to go to McDonald’s (our favorite vacation breakfast), but their power was out and they were temporarily closed. After our quick breakfast, we easily found our way back to the resort, finished packing and started our journey to Port Canaveral.

We left Caribbean Beach Resort at 11:15. We hit a pretty big rain storm and a bit of traffic on our way, but the drive was very straightforward and easy. I loved the moment when we drove over the bridge and got our first glimpse of our home for the next four nights. I wanted to drive straight there, but we still had our rental car and had to ditch it first. We dropped off our car at the Enterprise location near the port and took the free shuttle to the Disney terminal. We finally dropped off our luggage just after 1:00 and went through security.

There was no line to check-in when we got there and we were able to go through that process without any problems. We got boarding pass #19, but only after I asked for one. They weren’t calling out boarding numbers any more, but I wanted one anyway. The line to board the ship was actually quite long and it seemed that the line for the security pictures was what was holding everything up. We finally got our i.d. pictures taken and we chose to walk past the embarkation photo backdrop. We had no plans of spending any money at Shutters, so it was just easier to avoid the photographers so we wouldn’t be tempted.

It was finally time to enter the atrium on Deck 3. We walked onto the ship and we were greeted with a great big welcome to the “McKay Family”!

This is the beautiful, blown glass chandelier in the atrium:

We were then told that our room was ready and that lunch was currently being served at the Beach Blanket Buffet. I wanted to eat at Parrot Cay, but when I asked about that, I was told that the restaurant was already full. I was a little bummed, so we headed to our room on Deck 5 first to stash our carry-on luggage.

Up Next: The first look at our stateroom and the beginning of too much food...

 

[disneychic]

Great start! Can't wait to read more of your trip report

 

[magic-camps]

Can't wait to read the rest. We are going on our first cruise April 5th

 

[BrettySpaghetti]

Wow, awesome photo with the scale-model Disney ship!

McDonald's is your favorite vacation breakfast place? And they were temporarily closed??!!!

Can't wait to read more! You know, we did have pretty good weather, although high winds and rough seas caused the cancellation of our snorkeling adventure at Castaway Cay. My report can be found here:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2103277

 

[sas_mk]

Wow, awesome photo with the scale-model Disney ship!

McDonald's is your favorite vacation breakfast place? And they were temporarily closed??!!!

Can't wait to read more! You know, we did have pretty good weather, although high winds and rough seas caused the cancellation of our snorkeling adventure at Castaway Cay. My report can be found here:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2103277

Maybe I should clarify. My DH loves McDonald's breakfasts, but the only time we EVER go there is on vacation. Eating at McDonald's is a sure-fire way to get him in vacation mode. It never fails.

I just read your trip report and loved it. I am actually feeling like I missed out on some wonderful activities. I wish the days on the cruise could just be longer. Oh well. All the more reason to return someday.

 

[sas_mk]

So...now it was time to find our room.

Our room was great! It was an inside Category 11 cabin on deck 5 (Room #5639). It was always clean and ready for us. Our Room Steward was Alain and he did such a great job!

There was plenty of room for the two of us. We had an Anniversary Card waiting for us on our bed and also four onboard credit slips equaling $325. We actually had $50 more onboard credit than I was expecting. I thought I was going to get $50 for paying for the cruise with my Disney Visa, but it was actually $100. BONUS!! We also got $100 for booking through Dreams Unlimited, $25 for booking online, and I had prepaid $100 of onboard credit. Somehow we managed to only spend $30 more than that while onboard.

I also saw our dining rotation for the cruise and I panicked. We were going to eat at Triton’s, Animator’s Palate, Animator’s Palate, and then Parrot Cay. Unfortunately, I had scheduled Palo for our second night and that meant we were going to miss the show at Animator’s Palate. My DH suggested switching our dining rotation, but I really didn’t want to do that. I was sure we were too late to change Palo, but decided that was our only option.

We dropped off our stuff and headed up to Deck 9 for lunch. My DH could tell I was still bummed about not eating at Parrot Cay so he suggested we check it out first. He is so wise! Parrot Cay was definitely not full and the cruise staff eagerly invited us in. We filled up on peel and eat shrimp, yummy sweet and sour pork, and delicious Chilled Strawberry Mint soup. I am sure we tried some other stuff, but now that the cruise is over, I ate too much food to remember what it all was!!

After lunch we headed to Wavebands to check on changing our Palo reservation. There wasn’t a line, and I walked up and told her I needed to see if there was another open reservation. She looked up my reservation and immediately saw my dining rotation. She knew right away why I would “need” to change, and asked me what night I wanted. I asked her if we could eat at Palo on Tuesday night (our third night). Luckily, we had no problem changing the reservation and we were happily on our way.

Now it was time to explore. We walked all around the ship. My DH hadn’t done as much (or any) Disboards "research" before the vacation, so I had to tell him where everything was and what types of activities we could expect.

We made our way to the spa and took a tour. I loved being able to look around the spa, but I felt like I was listening to a sales pitch instead of an informative tour. I didn’t really like wasting my precious cruise time listening to a sales pitch on teeth whitening or a detailed description of facial treatments. However, I was very tempted by the RainForest Room. The tiled loungers are heated and look so comfortable and relaxing. For two people for the length of the cruise it was only $60. Definitely a deal, but looking back, I can only see one day when I would have been able to use it, so I am glad I didn’t sign myself and my husband up for that.

We needed to check-in at home before we sailed away, so we went into the Cove Café where it was nice, comfy, quite and not windy. I was really surprised at how much wind there was and how gloomy it looked outside. We both called our parents to make sure our kids were happy and that everything was OK. We had a nice time talking to some of the cruise staff in Cove Café. It had such a nice atmosphere!

Once we were up on Deck 9, somehow we decided we were already hungry again. We walked around the food counters until we were really tempted by Goofy’s Galley. We both picked a wrap to try and I got some fresh pineapple. We were sure that we would be back for some of those delicious panini’s, but unfortunately never had another chance to try them.

Coming Up Next: The Safety Drill, Adventure's Away and The Golden Mickey's...

 

[sas_mk]

Before long, it was time for the Muster Drill. We headed back to our stateroom, got on our lovely orange life vests and headed to Animator’s Palate where we found station Q. We sat at the tables and waited while they called off quite a few room numbers that had not arrived for the drill. We listened to the safety information and we were on our way.

When we got back to our room, all of our bags had arrived. We changed into our swimsuits and then took about 15 minutes to unpack and get things settled before I made my DH stop so we wouldn’t miss the Adventure’s Away deck party.

We found a place up on Deck 10 and enjoyed some of the party. We waited for the lovely horn (I never get tired of hearing that horn), and then we walked to the Quiet Cove Pool to spend some time in the hot tub.
We were the only people in the hot tub and really enjoyed the peace and quiet. We were probably the only people in the hot tub because of how cold and windy it was. The sun was just starting to come out, but being wet on a windy deck did not work well together. Oh well, we enjoyed it! After a while, the ship started moving and we got out to watch us sail away from the port. It was awesome. We were really on a cruise!!!

The show on the first night was the Golden Mickey’s. I knew I didn’t want to miss the show, so we got dressed again and found ourselves some great seats about 5 minutes before the show started. The show was amazing. Man, those actors can sing!! And…Tarzan was a highlight for me!!!

After the show, we went up on Deck 9 and played some foosball while drinking some hot chocolate and sampling some of the pizza (as if we were really hungry again). We had a great time and I just felt so relaxed and ready for a great time.

Before dinner I made a quick stop at guest services. I had brought three pillowcases for the characters to sign. They were in a Ziploc bag with 4 sharpie markers. The guy at guest services quickly pulled out a form. He wrote all the important information down for me: three pillowcases, 4 sharpies, stateroom number, princess autographs on the pink pillowcase and the “allstar” autographs on the blue and tan pillowcases. He told me that the pillowcases would be delivered to my stateroom on the last night. It was very easy and now I could check it off my list.

Up Next: Triton's, Entertainment and Room Service...

 

[BrettySpaghetti]

I also saw our dining rotation for the cruise and I panicked. We were going to eat at Triton’s, Animator’s Palate, Animator’s Palate, and then Parrot Cay. Unfortunately, I had scheduled Palo for our second night and that meant we were going to miss the show at Animator’s Palate.

I'm confused. Do they only do a "show" at Animator's Palate on Night #2?

Anyway, I'm glad you scheduled a night at Palo. Animator's Palate has my least favorite menu; as much as I love the decor, I would have rather eaten at Palo both of the Animator's nights!

BTW, you guys make a lovely couple!

 

[sas_mk]

I'm confused. Do they only do a "show" at Animator's Palate on Night #2?

Anyway, I'm glad you scheduled a night at Palo. Animator's Palate has my least favorite menu; as much as I love the decor, I would have rather eaten at Palo both of the Animator's nights!

BTW, you guys make a lovely couple!

Thanks! I'll take any compliment I can get!!

They only do the "show" at Animator's Palate on the first night you eat there. The night you repeat the restaurant is Pirate Night, so they do the special Pirate Night menu in all of the restaurants -- I think. We missed eating in our rotational dining room on Pirate Night, but Palo was completely worth it!

 

[LMO429]

great tr!

 

[BeccahRN]

We were on the same cruise! Just haven't had time to do our TR. keep it coming, enjoying reading about your no-kid cruise! (DH and I are going on a 3 night without the kids in September with the $99 bounceback offer!)

 

[DWGal210]

Great start so far, sounds like you guys are having a great time so far!

 

[Pinky166]

Great start. I am looking forward to reading the rest as my DH & I are going on our first cruise in September, I haven't done lots of research yet so am hoping to pick up lots of tips from your report.

 

[sas_mk]

Great start. I am looking forward to reading the rest as my DH & I are going on our first cruise in September, I haven't done lots of research yet so am hoping to pick up lots of tips from your report.

You will have so much fun! Just keep reading the Dis. I got so much info beforehand that I was afraid I would be disappointed once I was onboard. That didn't happen at all. Being informed just helped me to get the most of my vacation!

 

[camarks1234]

great tr! I have so much fun reading these, it brings back magical memories!

 

[sas_mk]

Soon, it was time for dinner. We were seated at table 9 with six other people. I thought DCL did a great job matching up table companions. One couple was on their honeymoon, another couple was celebrating their 10th anniversary (just like us) and the other two people were a dad with his 30 year old daughter. We had a wonderful time getting to know them! I loved our dining experiences because it was such a social time.

Our server was Joani and our assistant server was Mehmet. Our dinners took longer than we would have liked, but instead of complaining about the speed of service we decided to find ways to enjoy the time instead. I thought the service was fantastic! We always had what we needed and our servers were there if we needed to request anything else.

I had one minor pet peeve about our assistant server. I ordered a Diet Sprite and my husband ordered a Diet Coke the first night. Every other night we were greeted with Diet Sprite and Diet Coke. Maybe that is a bonus for everybody else, but I sometimes like to have a different drink each night. I felt weird asking for a new drink when he seemed to be trying so hard to please us. I never even got a real chance to ask because I would have my drink as soon as I sat down and then a refill would appear before I was even done with the first cup. This was just a minor pet peeve and I just decided to deal with it and get a variety of drinks from the drink station at other times. Oh well.

For dinner that night I had the escargot, the tomato and basil soup, the citrus-glaze over baked duckling and the crème brulee. The escargot was something that I would never order in a restaurant where I needed to pay for it, but it was something fun to try. I actually liked it a lot – after I got past the mental image of what I was eating. The soup was delicious. The duck was good, but I am not sure I will order duck again – I guess it is just not my thing. The crème brulee was absolutely wonderful!

During dinner we all noted that the boat was rocking really hard. I was glad that I had taken some bonine earlier in the day. I had read that the first night can be rough, but we were told the boat was definitely rocking more than normal.

After dinner, we headed up to Deck 9 for a big cup full of ice cream (hint: get one of the insulated "hot" cups from the drink station and fill it up with the soft serve. You can get more and it keeps it cold) and took it back down to Wavebands where we watched Match Your Mate. The three couples and the M.C. were so funny!! I loved that the couple that had been married for 42 years was the one that won!

After the entertainment, we headed to Mickey’s Mates to buy a souvenir. We had gotten the “Welcome Aboard Coupon” that we could use for a free pin with any purchase. We also had coupons to be used on Nassau Day and on the Sea Day so we could get the entire set of free pins. Unfortunately, when we got to the store, it was closed with a sign on the door that said “Private Function”. It was just past 11:00 and the navigator said they should be open until 12:00. I was bummed because I wanted to get the entire pin set, and now I couldn’t. I walked down to guest services to see if they could help me. The woman working at the desk was so helpful. She assured me it wouldn’t be a problem to get the pin the next day because they had made an error in the Navigator about the store hours. She told me to just take the coupon into the store tomorrow and explain what happened. I felt better.

Now it was time to make our way back to our stateroom. We were greeted by a snake towel animal!! I loved being surprised each night by a new “pet” on our bed. I also love turn down service. It made the room so inviting at night when we were so tired and ready to climb into bed.

Our snake -- I ate one of the chocolates before I took the picture. Oops!

I called room service to order some ham and cheese sandwiches, 2 bowls of fresh fruit, some Big Island chocolate chip cookies and some oatmeal raisin cookies. It took about 20 minutes to get the food delivered. We certainly weren’t hungry again, but we needed some lunch to take with us the next day to Atlantis. I packaged everything up in Ziploc bags, filled some bags with ice and put them all in our refrigerator for our Atlantis picnic lunch. We also filled out the breakfast hangtag for room service, put it outside our stateroom and went to bed. It was a FULL day and we slept really well!

Up Next: Breakfast, exercise, and a taxi on Nassau...

 

[sas_mk]

MONDAY, March 2nd, 2009:

Knock, knock. . . oh crap! I had ordered room service for 7:30 and we were still sound asleep in bed. I stumbled to the door and opened it up. I had ordered juice and bagels. We were planning on going to breakfast at Triton’s, but I love getting room service. We snacked on the bagels while we got dressed.

We went out and ran a couple of miles on Deck 4 before our real breakfast. I love running out on deck with the sea air! It was refreshing and relaxing. After our run, we walked to Triton’s for breakfast. We went to breakfast in our running clothes and my DH was really embarrassed. I didn’t care, it was my vacation and I don’t think I was bothering anybody – I was just wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and didn’t think I was any more underdressed than the majority of other people in the restaurant.

I ordered the French Toast Tower with grilled pineapple. I loved it. But, I am a sucker for any type of French Toast! My DH ordered the Belgium Waffles with dolce de leche on it. It was also delicious.

After breakfast, we got ready to disembark. We had hooked up with another family on our dismeet thread that wanted to share a room at the Comfort Suites across from Atlantis. This made the day much more affordable then doing it on our own or through DCL. I am glad we did it, because the day was not all we thought it would be.

Before leaving, I got the room service sandwiches, fruit and cookies out of the refrigerator and shoved them into an insulated backpack. Now we had a delicious, free lunch to eat on Nassau. I had read conflicting information about taking food off the ship on Nassau, but I decided to chance it. I had read about getting the uncrustable sandwiches (still sealed) from room service, but we weren’t really in the mood for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so I decided to just package up the ham and cheese for our day off the ship. I figured the worst thing that could happen is they would make me throw it away when we disembark so that I wouldn’t have to pay a huge fine. I didn’t end up seeing any signs saying that food was prohibited or any bag checks so I am glad that we did it. Food at Atlantis wasn’t too expensive (around $8-10 per person for the least expensive options), but this saved us a few extra dollars to spend on the ship.

At 9:30 we met the other family at the Deck 3 Aft Elevators. We made it to Deck 1 forward (although we made a few failed attempts because we didn’t realize that you couldn’t go all the way forward on deck 1 and we had to go up to deck 2 to find our way before going back down to deck 1). Once we got off the ship, I realized that I should have brought a jacket and some long pants with me. Oh well – I was sure it would warm up soon! Too bad I was wrong!

We walked through the yellow building and immediately felt bombarded by people trying to get us to take their taxi. I was afraid a fist fight would break out between the different drivers as they argued over who would take us to Atlantis. We quickly settled on a driver and we were quoted $4 per person. The four of us loaded into her van and we were off.

It didn’t take too long to get to Comfort Suites, but it was an exciting ride. The streets in Nassau are very narrow and the person who has the right-of-way is the person who honks the loudest. It was crazy!

Checking in at Comfort Suites took forever. We were the only ones at the counter, but it took us 25 minutes just to check-in and check-out. They were able to let me pay for half of the room on my credit card and they let the other family pay for the other half of the room. That was convenient for us. I was aware of the extra energy fees and the housekeeping fees before booking the room, but I am still bugged that we had to pay an extra $18 per person for energy and housekeeping that we certainly did not use since we never stepped foot into our room.

Coming Soon: A confusing walk around Atlantis and a VERY cold day...