May 11-15 Disney Wonder trip report

[momtocss]

I loved reading trip reports on these boards and promised myself I would do one when I got back. My family includes me, DH, DD - 12 and DS - 9 and 9. The boys are twins and I will refer to them as DS1 and DS2.

My husband and I went on a Norwegian cruise on our honeymoon almost 15 years ago. We then went on a Royal Caribbean cruise five years ago for our 10 year anniversary. After that cruise, I told him I wasn't waiting another 10 years to cruise and for our 15 year anniversary, we would take the kids on a Disney cruise. So, for the past five years we knew we would be taking a Disney cruise this year. However, we did not book it until January after figuring out the best date for us to go. We opted to go in May, a month before our anniversary and take the kids out of school to save money. And so, our adventure begins.....

We decided to leave a day early and spend the night in Cocoa Beach. We had always left the day of our cruise in the past and after having flight delays last time making us rushed to get to the farewell party and dinner, we decided we wanted to board the ship as early as we could.

We left our home in Kansas at 9:00 am on Saturday, May 10 to head to the airport for our noon flight. We parked our car at Thrifty and took the shuttle to the airport. The kids were pleasantly suprised to actually know the two kids of the family that rode with us. They were headed to an extended family vacation in Florida. Our flight left right on time and our pilot got us to Orlando early.

We found the Thrifty shuttle at the airport and rode it to the car rental lot to pick up our mini-van. Check in was smooth, but DH had a hard time figuring out how to start the van. You used the key fob instead of the small key on the key ring. We were set. The drive to Cocoa Beach was simple. I can't think of a vacation where DH and I didn't get lost driving at some point. We were thrilled to make it to our destination with no wrong turns! We checked into the Holiday Inn and the kids immediately put on their swimsuits to swim in the ocean. This was their first time. The boys went right in and hurled themselves into the waves. DD thought the water was a bit chilly and hung back more. DH and I dipped our toes, also thinking it was a wee bit chilly. I took some great pictures and then we headed to the hotel pool.

After they had their fill there, we went back to the room to get ready to go eat. We ate at Sonny's BBQ and it was really good. After that, we stopped at ABC Liquor to buy our adult beverages and then Publix to get our bottled water. We went back to the hotel to try to get some sleep before the day we had all been waiting for.......Boarding the Disney Wonder!

 

[Pocahantas]

Great start! I can't wait to hear more. We are taking our very first DCL cruise on May 25th.

 

[frdeb1999]

Great start! Looking forward to the rest!

 

[momtocss]

Sunday, May 11 -

We are up early and check out of the hotel and get some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. We dropped off our car rental at Thrifty and took the shuttle to the port. We arrive just before 11:00 am. Another couple is on the shuttle and they are going to honeymoon on a Royal Caribbean cruise. They get dropped off first and then are are dropped off at the Disney terminal. DS1 decides the chocolate milk he had with his donut is not agreeing with him and gets sick on the sidewalk as we are walking in. -NERVES- Poor boy is getting scared to death about getting on the ship. We go through security and DH takes the boys to the bathroom and DD and I check in . We are given boarding pass number 5. We are given our KTTW cards and see our dining rotation is APPT. We already know we have 2nd seating and that is fine. We learn all 2nd seating will eat at 8:15. This is different from the rotation I had read about earlier. We head to check the kids into the lab. A nice CM behind the computers ask if the boys would like to be moved up to the 10-12 year age group so they can be with their sister. That sounds like a good plan so we say yes. Each of the kids is given a bracelot they will have to wear for the rest of the cruise. They are not happy about that, but they do keep it on for the entire cruise. We sit down to wait for boarding. DS1 is as white as a ghost and we try to reassure his this is going to be fun.

Boarding starts and I believe we are called between 12:00 and 12:15. It is a slow line to get pictures and maybe we should have skipped it but go ahead and have them taken. They announce our name and we are on board!

I head straight to Guest Services to drop off our pillow cases to be signed by the characters. I also pick up a Navigator to skim over while we walk around and eat. We are directed to the Beach Blanket buffet for lunch but the kids want to take a tour on our own first. We go up to deck 9 and check out the pools and basketball courts.

Gee, is it windy! We head to the buffet where we get our first of many santizing wipes to clean off our hands. We go along the buffet line and DS2 goes to the other side thinking they are going to have different items. Four of us head outside to eat. DS2 is lost for a short time, but is eventually found and shown by me where we are sitting. I thought the food was more for adults than children. DS1 gets mac and cheese to be polite but is still too nervous to eat. DS2 and DD get some chicken that looks good. I get my peel and eat shrimp and DH found lots he wanted to try. After hitting the dessert bar, we head downstairs to look around the inside of the ship. As we get off the elevator, there is Pluto! We get a family picture and I am thinking "Christmas card".

We have the kids swimsuits in my day bag, but really we don't have long until our room is ready. We head up to the 8th floor and at 1:28 the barrier is removed and we can go to our room. We have a family stateroom with a verandah and DH and I are impressed. This is huge compared to the other rooms we have stayed in and this is our first time with a verandah. The kids put on their suits and we all head up to the Goofy pool. Gee, it's still windy! No suits for mom and dad yet, but we get some sun (and wind) while the kids play. I check the Navigator and decide to go the the Nassua shopping talk. I check with DD and she wants to go too. We head to our room for her to change and wow, we have luggage at 2:30. DD changes quickly and I get the luggage into our room and head off to the 2:45 presentation.

Jana is the presenter. We get a good map and lots of info. There is a raffle at the end but we don't win anything. We decide we want to shop at Del Sol and go to the Tortuga Rum factory. DD would also like to get the free charm bracelot at Diamonds International. We head back to the room and all the fellows are there and cleaned up. I need to start unpacking which I do while we wait to go to the safety drill. I get busy and finally decide we haven't heard much more over the intercom so maybe we should head up. I notice we are the last ones into Animators for the drill. Not really a bad thing. We get our instructions and I let everyone know this is where we are eating tonight and and we head back to our room. I try to get the kids to take some Bonine. They let it melt a little in there mouths and then spit it out. I do a little more unpacking and then we head up to the Goofy pool for the Sail away party. This was fun, but it was still very windy!

I go back to the room to unpack while DH and the kids stay. I don't even know we are moving until I look out the verandah door and see the landscape going by. We are on our way!

The best thing I brought was our over the door shoe holder. I loved, loved, loved it! As long as we remembered to put things in there, they were always easy to find.

DH and the kids come back and I head off to iron our clothes for the night. This is the first and last time for that. I find the laundry room on the 7th floor. It is not busy, but the iron doesn't do as well as I would have liked. Not great, but good enough. We head to the show which is Mark Eddie. DH and I thought he was great. The kids did not enjoy him as much as we did. He plays the guitar and does lots of singing impressions. DH and I sang along with him and had a blast. After the show, the boys want to check out the Oceaneer Lab. Not enough time to check them in, but they decide to get dressed for dinner and go back. DH, DD, and I get ready for dinner and go get them. It seems like they had a good time. Good, because we are sending all three kids after dinner so DH and I can go to some adult things.

Dinner is at Animators.

We are taken to table 18 and see we are at a table for 8. Good news because I like to visit with others at dinner. A mom and her 21 year old son from Indiana are our dinner companions. Mom also has a six year old daughter, but she is at the club. We meet Felipe our server and Zolton our asst. server. Dinner is great that night and I am very impresses with our boys. They order steak off the kid's menu and eat it all. DD has pizza which she says is very good. After dinner, we take the kids to the club and DH and I go to Wavebands to watch Date your Mate and then dance to one hit wonders. We pick the kids up at 11:15 and are sad to learn they did not have fun in the lab. No special activities were going on and all they did was play video games.

We head to our room and have a beauiful swan left by Alex, our stateroom attendant. We are all ready for bed and I get a great nights sleep!

 

[momtocss]

Monday, May 12

I woke up the earliest and we had already docked. I quickly got ready and headed upstairs to get some coffee and check out Castaway Cay.

It was beautiful! (and still windy, I might add) I went back downstairs and got the family going. We headed to Parrot Cay for breakfast. It was a nice buffet. We went back to the room and got our swimsuits and sunscreen on and headed to the beach. DH and I took our adults beverages and relaxed on the family beach as the kids played in the water. They decided they wanted tubes so DH got them each one. They enjoyed swimming out to the play area with the ropes to see how far you could go out before you dropped into the water.

After awhile we went to the BBQ and had a nice lunch. The kids were very impressed with the soft serve cookie dough ice cream and strawberry yogurt they were serving. We decided to head back to the ship after lunch and finish our afternoon at the Goofy pool. It wasn't very crowded which was nice. I took 50 SPF Coppertone Sports sunscreen and let me tell you, that was not strong enough in the Bahamian sun! We all got burnt that afternoon. DS2 had to wear a shirt when he swam the rest of the trip. I forgot to get the tops of my feet and boy did they hurt.

DH likes to golf, so we got cleaned up and went to the Chip-it Golf in the atrium. It was for adults and kids, so the boys signed up to play too. One boy and one man got their golf ball on the 15 point spot and each won a golf ball and tees. DS1 had the next highest score after they won their prizes and was declared the winner! He got an event winner Disney tumbler with a lid. That was pretty cool.

We decided we wanted to kids to try to lab again, so we signed them in so DH and I could walk around a little on the shop ourselves. We only left them for 30 minutes and when we went to pick them up, DD and DS2 told us DS1 had gotten so upset about us leaving him he got sick in the bathroom. Okay, we got the point. No more lab for them! We spent some time in the arcade and then got ready for the show. We decided to go early since I figured there was going to be a full house for Toy Story the Musical. We got great seats in the middle lower section. We thought the show was great! After the show we got dressed and went to dinner. Felipe saw us as we walked into Parrot Cay and he personally escorted me to my seat. This kids thought it was really strange to see mom arm and arm with another man! DH assured them it was okay. We had another great dinner. The kids all got pork chops off the kids menu and again ate everything. After dinner we had all planned to go to Studio Sea for family karoke. Only DD and I ended up going. The boys were too tired. We listened for awhile and then headed to bed. Alex had made a cute dog and used DS1's sunglasses. The kids got a kick out of that.

 

[momtocss]

Tuesday, May 13

Nassau Day - We had booked an excursion before the cruise to go to Blackbeard's Cay Beach and Stingray Adventure. Our meeting time was 10:15at Diversions. We head to Triton's for a sit down breakfast. Many different things to choose from but we just get something basic. We go back to the room to get ready for our excursion and DS1 and DS2 are scared out of their wits to go on this excursion. They are crying and whining and not wanting to go. I look at the tickets and see they are non-refundable. Yes, you have to go. No, you don't have to swim with the stingrays. We get to Diversions and find so many kids younger than they are going on this excursion. We go to the boat for our 20 minute ride to Blackbeards Cay. DD and I sit on the bottom and DH takes the boys to the top. It is a nice ride and we are excited to see how beautiful the Cay is. A swimming area on one side and the sting rays on the other side. We set DS1 in a place in the shade while we get our snorkeling gear. Everyone immediately heads to the sting ray side. DS2 finds that he loves to snorkel and is not afraid of the sting rays. DH and I go right in too. DD hangs back, but at least she is in the water.
DS1 finally decides he is missing all the fun and gets in as well. He loves to snorkel too. The sting rays were amazing. We think there were around 17. Some small, some huge. They blow a whistle and tell us to form two lines to feed them. We are given pieces of fish to hold in our hands down towards the sand. When they swim over us, we are to let go. The kids really aren't interested in feeding them, but DH and I do. We continue to snorkel after that and I think we are in with them for a full hour. We decide to head for lunch and have our choice of hamburger or hot dogs with chips. The food is good, but I miss the soft serve ice cream and chocolate chip cookie yesterday we got at Castaway Cay. We then go into the water to swim. This is the place to be as it is hot, hot, hot! (thank goodness not windy too). At 2:15 we get ready to board the boat back to the ship. It was a wonderful excursion!

DD and I take quick showers so we can go shopping. We hit Del Sol, Tortuga Rum Factory, and a t-shirt shop. She had wanted to get her hair braided but all the people asking as we got off the ship scared her and she didn't want to do it any more. We wouldn't have had enough time anyway because all aboard was at 5:15. We got on at 5:15 and I believe we were the last ones on the ship.

We went to the Golden Mickeys. What fun it was to walk the red carpet.
We really enjoyed the show. Tonight was the pirate night. We wore the bandanas given to us at dinner. We were in Parrot Cay again. Another wonderful meal. At the Golden Mickeys, they announced there would be fireworks. I had wanted to keep this a secret because DS1 hates fireworks. He and DS2 ended up staying in the room for the deck party. The buffets were beautiful, but I wasn't hungry since we had just gotten done eating. The pirate show was fun and Mickey saving the day was cool. We headed down for bed and found a monkey had been made by Alex.

 

[MagicMe]

sounds like a great trip so far. Can't wait to hear about your last day.

 

[momtocss]

Wednesday, May 14

DH and I get up to go to BBB for breakfast. The kids are REALLY tired. We bring them some cereal and yogurt to have in the room. We decide we don't want to go to the beach again at Castaway Cay, but I really want to go for a bike ride. Only DH decides to go with me. The kids elect to hang out in the room themselves and watch TV. DH and I rent our bikes and have the most relaxing bike ride ever. The bike paths are wonderfully smooth and no hills to go up and down. We head to the tower to get a scenic view. Another family joins us and we take pictures of one another with the Wonder in the background. It looks really far away.

We then head to the path along the adult beach. DH takes a picture of both of us with the ocean in the background. We never go onto the adult beach, but it looks fairly deserted. We head back and turn in our bikes. We were gone 45 minutes to an hour. We stop and buy some postcards which I fill out to send to family members. The post office is closed for lunch, so we have to came back later to mail them. We stop and get ice cream at the BBQ before we leave also. Only vanilla and chocolate today. We do see a terrific display of fruits and the BBQ. Not sure if we missed this last time, or if it just wasn't there. DH grabs some oranges for the kids. We head back to the ship and the kids are out on the verandah waiting on us. We get them and have lunch at Goofy's Galley and Pluto's. The kids play some foosball and ping pong. DH and I head downstairs to mail the post cards and then hit the computer terminal to print out our boarding passes for Southwest. We head upstairs and decide to hit the pools one last time.

We got there at a great time because the kids got to participate in the poolside jamboree. They did games in and out of the water. It was really fun. I snuck over to the adult pool after the games were over and stuck my feet in the pool. It is a very nice area. DH and I had tried to grab chairs there when we first came out, but they were all taken. DD and I decided we were done at the pool and went back to the room where she took a shower. I told her I had saw hair braiding by the entrance of the adult pool. She decided we should go take a look. The girl sitting in the chair was having a stand of hair wrapped in thread and DD said that was exactly what she had wanted to get. She picked out her colors and a short time later, it was done. She was very pleased.

I go back to take my shower and went to the debarkation talk while DH took the kids to the arcade to spend the rest of the money we had put on a card there. They come back to get ready for the show. We see Disney Dreams and again, it is a spectacular production. We hit the gift shop after the show and buy way too many things. We then get ready for dinner at Tritons. Out of all the meals, this was my least favorite. I had trouble finding something on the menu I wanted. The normandy salad wasn't quite to my liking. DH tried excargot and liked it. I chose the shrimp as my appetizer. I had beef tenderloin for dinner but did not try the smashed sweet peas that came with it. The creme brulee seemed a little burnt on top. DS1 had a meltdown at dinner and DH had to take him up the the room right as our entrees were being served. Felipe put covers on their plates and personally took them their dinners after he had served us dessert.

After dinner DS2 went back to the room while DD and I went and had photo ops with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy. Donald Duck, Snow White and Stitch. We just missed Chip-n-Dale. We headed back to our room as all the characters were gathered because I had not packed a thing.

DH and I got us all packed. The kids went to sleep. We then experienced the rockin and rollin you dread hearing about on a ship. I had unlocked the safe to get our things out and it banged open and shut. The closed doors were opening and closing as were the bathroom doors. DH got up and locked the safe and closed all the doors. It felt like we were on an amusement park ride. Eventually we both got to sleep and when we woke, we were docked at the port.

 

[Disney owl]

thanks for sharing

 

[momtocss]

Thursday, May 15

We got up and ready and packed our day bags. We went to Triton's for breakfast. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and then got in line to debark. The line moved fairly quickly and we went through with no problems. We were about the last ones off the ship and Budget had to be called to come back and get us. The shuttle driver asked what the hold up was, and we told him we were just taking our time. We got our mini van and went shopping at Ron Jon's. More souveniers were bought and then we drove to the airport. We bought our lunch (wait, what happened to the free meals?) and then went to our gate to board our plane. We were back home in no time. DS1 was very happy about that!

 

[mdhkitten]

So, how did this compare to your other cruising experiences? My friend and I are going on his first Disney cruise soon (my second), and he loves Disney but isn't sure that it's worth it compared to the other lines (he's done Carnival). I've only done Disney so have nothing to compare it to. Thanks!

 

[momtocss]

Final thoughts -

We had a good time. Not wonderful, not fabulous, but not bad or terrible either. My only worry going into this for our kids was that they would get seasick. That didn't happen, but I never expected them to not like the lab and not want to go, go, go all the time. I knew they would probably get tired and need to rest, but I did not expect them to not enjoy all aspects of the cruise. I learned they are not cruisers. The only way to learn that was to take them on one. I'm happy we did it and glad we did Disney. Will DH and I cruise again? Absolutey! Next time it will be without the kids. It won't be a Disney cruise and while I have no complaints about Norwegian or Royal Caribbean, I would probably try something different just for the newness.

The Disney cruise had SUPER shows. The gal who played Sid in Toy Story the Musical and Cruella in the Golden Mickey's was so fun to watch. I got to tell her that too as on the last night she was with Donald Duck getting people lined up for pictures and autographs. If anything was a magical moment for me, it was the shows.

The food was great in the dining rooms. We even liked Pinnochio's pizza, and I had a great sandwich at Pluto's - chicken breast, ham, pineapple, cheese, and thousand island dressing. The kids ate the soft serve ice cream all the time.

Our stateroom was nice and large. The kids slept comfortably in their beds as did DH and I. This was our first time with the verandah. I enjoyed it, but certainly won't make it a must on our next cruise.

Castaway Cay was a beautiful island. I loved bike riding! The staff was nice everywhere we went, and the ship was clean and well maintained.

Let me know if you have any questions, because these disboards have become addictive for me!

 

[garys12]

We were on this cruise, and I thought I'd add .02 about the kids clubs. My DS (5) loved the Oceaneers club. One day he was the first one there at 9am, and got to cut the ribbon to open the club. They brought him a hat and certificate to the room later that day. My DD (7), not so much. She was in the Oceaneers, but they gave her the option to go to the lab with the 8 YO's. She pretty much stayed with us the whole cruise.

We spoke to a few families with teenagers, and the consensus we got was that most teenagers find their "own thing to do on the ship."

GS

 

[momtocss]

It took over four months, but glad that I finally figured out how to do it.