MR trip reports

[so_oregon]

Christian, Cruise Director, on the last night show, gave facts and figures and I think this trip broke records for eggs and milk consumption.

 

[LKFan]

There was a thread a while ago about how they were going to change the menu on the Wonder to be more compatible with a west coast diet. Could it be that we, on the west coast, eat more eggs and drink more milk?

ETA: Here is the thread. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2615513&highlight=wonder+menu

 

[talie]

There was a thread a while ago about how they were going to change the menu on the Wonder to be more compatible with a west coast diet. Could it be that we, on the west coast, eat more eggs and drink more milk?

And eat more fruits and veggies (given the reviews after the 2 Day cruise).

 

[Vegaslover]

You got off the ship at 7:30? I thought we couldn't disembark until 9.

 

[ryanmcin]

Just back today. I'll try to post a long trip report when I get time, but in short, I was extremely disappointed. This was our first Disney cruise, and I had very high expectations which were not met. The service is 10 times better at the Disney World value resorts than it was on the Disney Cruise line. It was so bad in fact that I will be canceling our Fantasy reservations for next year. The food was TERRIBLE. The service was TERRIBLE. The organization and procedures were TERRIBLE. A short list of the things that went wrong:
1) Animator's Palate was not working. At all.
2) It didn't seem to matter what we ordered, whether it was room service or something in the restaurants, or something from guest services, only half of what we asked for would show up
3) The lines for check-in/out at the clubs were terribly long. You had to budget 20 minutes just to get the kids in our out of the clubs each time.
4) The cheesecake was a running joke among our party the entire time. It didn't matter what kind of cheesecake you ordered, if you didn't tell me it was cheesecake, I would have no idea what it was.
5) The tendering process in Cabo took about 1.5 hours each way -- and we were only in port for about 5 hours.
6) No one seemed to have any idea how to do the dine and play. After a few nights we finally decided to just give up.

I was on the 1/23 MR cruise as well, along with the 2 night cruise to nowhere on 1/21. With regards to the items above:

1. We had late dining with Animators Palate on the first night. The show started and stopped at the wrong time at least twice. Then it kind of happened during dessert service which meant that a lot of the tables were already empty (we had a big party and we were the last table served in our section each night).
2. On the 2 night we had this problem. On the 7 night our table got just about everything we ordered, but the right person didn't always get it. Room service was difficult and took 10-20 minutes on hold to place an order.
3. Don't have any kids so I can't comment on this.
4. We had noticed that some of the dishes served didn't match the description at all and some of the items were different between the 2 night and 7 night even though the menus were the same.
5. I don't think is accurate. The first Cabo day was a mess, but I would assume that was a result of the last minute port change and the traffic from having two large cruise ships in port at the same time. That being said we stayed on board the first day at Cabo. The second Cabo day we tendered over and it was less than 30 minutes each way. The smaller tender ships were definitely quicker than taking the large ship. I do agree that the time in port was way too short considering that tendering takes up a hour of your time.
6. Don't have any kids so I can't comment on this.

I will say that there is a lot of new crew on this ship. I know for a fact that many of the crew members were promoted to a new position, started a new contract or joined the company on this cruise. I never had a serious problem with the service. I did get some responses that were flat out wrong, but everyone was at least trying to be helpful.

The embark/disembark situation is extremely frustrating and tedious. Those who have sailed out of FL will be very annoyed. Much of the check-in staff was new and there were constant computer problems that slowed the process down.

I did enjoy the cruise and even though I don't really care for any of the ports of call I would do it again. The price is right for those of us who live on the west coast since the air fare is removed from the equation. If I lived on the east coast I would stick with the cruises out of FL unless I really wanted to see California.

 

[oktracy]

Sregon, I really enjoyed your trip report especially the information about the upgrade. I hope some of the Wonder's kinks are worked out before 4/3. If the kids let us, we may just sit back, relax and enjoy the ship! Sounds good to me!!!

 

[RVD90277]

long review...

This was my 2nd Disney cruise and 5th overall cruise. 2 summers ago, my wife and I took our then 3 year old son on a 3 day Disney cruise out of Florida. We had so much fun and such a great experience with our son that we really wanted to take him again when he got older.
With my son's 5th birthday on January 25th and Disney coming back to LA in 2011, this was the perfect opportunity to book this cruise.

Embarkation was fairly normal. We got to the port in San Pedro at around 11:30am. We checked in pretty quickly and got our pictures taken and our key to the world cards within about 15 minutes. Yes, I know that this is in contrast to what everyone else wrote but maybe we just arrived at the right time or something.

We received a number (12?) and waited in the big waiting area. I took this time to go stand in line to get my son checked in and to get his wristband. The line took forever. They started boarding the ship at around 12:30. They hadn't even started boarding when I stood in line to get the wristband so I figured that at my group, I would be done in plenty of time. Think again...my number was called as I went to the front of the line. By then I had invested 1+ hours in line so I just waited and boarded with the number after me. The energy in the waiting room was pretty good though and you can sense the excitement in the air. Mickey showed up for a little while to take some pictures. My son didn't like his wristband either but I told him to leave it on and he did.

Once on the ship, they did the whole thing where they announce the family boarding. We were directed to have lunch in Parrot Cay or up on deck 9 at beach blanket buffet. We decided to head up to beach blanket. We just figured there would be less people up there and more room to get a nice table, etc. We were right.

We had a nice lunch and then I went down to Wave Bands to try to get a Palo reservation. I was lazy and didn't make a reservation online. I got to Wave Bands and there was another line. It took me about 30 minutes of waiting but I got to speak to the reservation guy and he was able to make a reservation for me on Wednesday night at 8pm. I had the early seating and wanted a late reservation so that I can still have dinner with my son and then head up to Palo. Turned out Wednesday at Pirate night.

After my reservation, I went to my room because it was ready. The rooms are nice and had been renovated a bit since my last stay on the Disney Wonder about 1.5 years ago. The TV is now a flat panel LCD type TV instead of the tube. The rooms come with 2 wave phones which are basically like cell phones that you can use on the ship to sent text messages to each other, call each other, etc. There was no need for my walkie talkies.

I quickly got settled in...put my luggage under the bed, plugged in my surge protector so that I have enough outlets, etc.

Since this is a 7 day cruise, you eat at all of the dining rooms twice...and the 1st dining room 3 times (in my case, Animator's Palate).

Our server Marko (from Montenegro) was great. Our assistant server Lenka (from the Czech Republic) was also pretty good.

On the first night at Animator's Palate someone spilled some water on the marble floors near our table. Marko fell while carrying 2 dishes. He was able to save the dishes though when he fell.

Our head waiter was Thomas (from Austria). I rarely saw him. The other head waiter Ronald seemed better. Usually on other cruises the head waiter would try to learn our names and open up our lobster for us on lobster night but Thomas didn't do any of that.

The sail away party was great. They handed out big cardboard hands to wave to everyone on shore.

Entertainment on the ship was top notch. Disney definitely brings in some good talent. Their own shows were awesome. Golden Mickeys, Toy Story, and Dreams were great for the whole family. They also had a beat boxing juggler, ventriloquist who played the keyboard, etc.

The kids section was cool. My son spent all of his time in Oceaneer Lab playing video games. He spent a little bit of time at the Oceaneer Club as well but just liked the lab much more. We took him to the lab about 2-3 hours/day. The staff is great.

The kids area do get pretty busy early in the cruise but towards the end, they emptied out a lot more. On Sunday the kids clubs were packed. By Tuesday they had emptied out a lot.

The adult area (route 66) is pretty fun. There's a nice lounge (Cadillac Lounge), a cool pub (Diversions), and a night club (Wave Bands). I spent most of my nights at Wave Bands.

Wave Bands usually had an adult show (comedy, ventriloquist, etc.). These shows weren't really "adult" but they just didn't let kids in during that time. The comedian Don Friesen was freaking hilarious. If he's on your ship, I highly recommend him. These start at 10:30.

The band is called the All Stars and they do a decent job playing the hits.

My only gripe with Wave Bands was that the place was just sort of dead the whole time. I would go to a show at around 10:30 where it would be packed. At 11, the band would start playing and everyone would leave. A few random people would dance for 1-2 songs and then leave for the night. By around 11:30, the place was pretty much a ghost town. By 12:30, you'd pretty much be the only one in there. I didn't expect Disney cruises to be a party atmosphere but I was hoping for a little more. Maybe next time I'll bring some of my party friends along...

We had most of our breakfasts and lunches in the buffet or the outside casual dining areas. Goofy's galley servers up some pretty good bratwurst, hot dogs, burgers, fish burgers, chicken tenders, fries, etc. Pinocchio's Pizza servers up pretty decent...pizza.

For dinner, there was one night where they served lobster tail. I usually ask for 2 tails and Marko had no problem with that. What I didn't expect was the size of these lobster tails. I was stuffed after eating 2 of these. But like another poster said, one of mine was pretty dry.

At 11pm-midnight, they lay out a small dessert table on deck 3 in front of the Promenade Lounge as well as in route 66. It was usually decent. There was one night when I got there at 11:55 after watching a movie but they had already cleared it out. I was a bit disappointed but probably for the better anyway. Ronald (a head waiter) was reprimanding the staff for closing it out early. Ronald seemed like a good head waiter.

Disney cruises are awesome because of the great movies that they play. Last time, I watched Up a few days before the actual theatrical release. This time we watch a lot of great movies such as Tangled 3D, Tron 3D, Toy Story 3D, Secretariat, Prince of Persia, Alice in Wonderland 3D, etc.

The cruise director is Christian Abbott. I believe he was the cruise director the last time I was on the ship and he's great.

The fitness room is also great. It was pretty crowded in the mornings at around 8am but if you avoided the 8am-9am slot you'd be ok. They have yoga, spin, pilates, etc...for free but there isn't a lot of space. It was a little weird running on the treadmill and having someone doing yoga at the bottom (if I pulled a biggest loser slip and fall off my treadmill, the lady would have been crushed by my weight...). But you can run and look out the big window and see the front of the ship and the ocean so that's great.

The ports were Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas (twice). This is my 3rd Mexican Riviera cruise so I didn't really care too much about the ports. We got off at Cabo and walked the pier and the downtown area a little bit and came back. We went to Wal Mart in Puerto Vallarta. We stayed on the ship the second time we went to Cabo.

Soda is free 24 hours a day up on deck 9. Awesome. I don't drink much soda but I drank some this trip.

Deck 10 has wide world of sports...a nice basketball court and soccer goals.

Deck 4 has shuffleboard which is kind of fun. I only play on cruise ships.

The swimming pools are nice. My son likes the small mickey pool. The adult pool is nice and peaceful. The sun lounges have cushions so that's always nice. The area is also pretty empty so there's no need to fight for chairs like other cruises.

Even on sea days there were plenty of chairs and tables to go around. Of course that didn't stop this one family from grabbing the best table at the mickey pool on the last sea day, putting their stuff on the table, then leaving for 4 hours....only to come back to play for an hours...and leave again for 2 hours. The staff should enforce the rules a bit more and just cleared out their stuff. It was very cold on the last sea day but I was still out at the pool and it was ok. The jacuzzi in the adult area was pretty empty so it was nice in there on a cold day.

The room steward was great. His name was Sam from the Philippines and he made towel animals every day and kept our room clean.

I brought 2 bottles of wine on board and got a corkscrew from room service. I like Disney's alcohol policy. I brought a glass to dinner a few times. I also ordered a wine bottle once as well.

The character pictures were very popular but we didn't really participate. My son doesn't seem to care too much about that stuff.

There was a character breakfast where they all come in and walk around the table for pictures. That was a fun breakfast.

The ice carving demo was also a lot of fun. The sculptor was good.

Disney Dreams is still the best show on any cruise ship. Watch it. Toy Story is also a don't miss kind of show.

Palo dining was nice. I actually preferred the dining restaurant Sabatini's on the Sapphire Princess because that was more of a tasting menu where you got to try everything on the menu. Palo is great but it's just a regular menu so to get to try many of the items you need a large group of people. We had 4 people in our party so we were able to mix and match a lot of the dishes but we still had a few that we would have liked to try but weren't able to. There is a $15 charge with an additional option for gratuity. I know about all of the regular cruise gratuities but didn't really know about the additional optional gratuity for Palo so I wasn't sure how much to put. For 4 of us, it was $60 ($15 surcharge * 4) so I gave the waiter $10 tip but I don't really know if that was enough or not enough.

Our dining companions were ok. We had 5 in our group and we were seated at a table for 8 with another family of 4 so they added 1 chair so it was a little awkward. The first day we sort of sat across from each other (4 of us on one side, 4 of them on the other side, 1 of us at the head) but that was kind of weird. So after that, we tried to sit where we had us 5 on one side and left 4 seats on the other side for them. But sometimes they would get to the dining room before us and they would take the head so one of us would sit on their side, etc. It was all a bit awkward but worked out I guess. I've always had good experiences with our table companions in previous cruises and this family was pretty nice and cool but we just didn't really click in terms of conversation, etc.

One night was the Gala dessert buffet. It was very pretty but I was so stuffed from dinner that I didn't eat much of it. It was nice to look at though.

The pirate's party is one of the highlights of the trip. It's a really fun time so I encourage everyone to go.

I did the wine tasting. It was fun and worth the $15. You probably got about $10 worth of wine so the other $5 goes towards the setup, sommelier time, etc. I suppose.

Overall, it was a fun trip packed with fun, mixed with relaxation, and sprinkled with the magic pixie dust that is Disney. I plan to cruise Disney exclusively while I have young kids.

 

[JanDave]

Oh, oh, oh . . . I just read this in another thread :

"All alcoholic drinks, non-alcoholic drinks and gourmet coffees are available for an additional charge. Guests who purchase a specialty coffee mug—available in Cove Café and other shops onboard—are entitled to a complimentary coffee in Cove Café."

Your mission, Stinkerbell, if you choose to accept it, is to find out if this is true and how much the specialty coffee mug costs. Thank you.

Glad to hear that the Cove is again offering the Cove Cafe coffee mug. I was on an October 2010 Magic cruise and B2B Wonder cruises in November 2010, and DCL was no longer offering the mugs on either ship. I bought one two years ago and gave it to another Cove Cafe-DCL fan.

I love the 2nd floor Cove on the Wonder. That was my hang out on the B2B cruises.

Will be on the MR cruise this October 23.

Jan

 

[JanDave]

thanks, do you know if it is usually on the ship or the pier

If you are on a DCL excursion, most likely, you will meet at a designated area on the ship.

Jan

 

[RVD90277]

Ok here are the navigators and a few other docs scanned...enjoy.

Cruise at a Glance

Movie / TV Guide

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

 

[Mcky36]

Ok here are the navigators and a few other docs scanned...enjoy.

Cruise at a Glance

Movie / TV Guide

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Ahhhhhhh!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

 

[justkeepswimmin]

Ok here are the navigators and a few other docs scanned...enjoy.

Cruise at a Glance

Movie / TV Guide

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Thank you, thank you!

The fact that they came up in google docs makes it even better. Great way to start my morning- you rock!

 

[hopelea]

Thank you!!!!! What a great way to start the day. Now, if I would get a room # today would be the best

 

[mindy327]

I printed off all of them! Thank you soooo much. Now I can really plan. Now, just for our FE list!!!

 

[talie]

Thanks RVD90277!!!! I can see where a good part of my morning will be spent.

 

[moomy-san]

Thank you so much for the scans. We leave tomorrow AM for Anaheim and this just sent me over the edge from EXCITED to ECSTATIC!

 

[socababy]

Wow, thanks so much for scanning the navigators!! I printed them out as well and I am sure I will read them over and over again over the next 12 days before we set sail. When the kids get hom from school I'll start telling them what to expect. They are going to be so excited!

 

[Quimby]

Many, many thanks!!
Just printed them out, time to read and highlight!!!

 

[Señor DonDuck]

Thanks for the reviews and posting the Navigators!

 

[BelleMulan]

Thanks so much for the detailed reviews and the navigators!!!