Not so WONDER-ful cruise 9-12 Wonder

[kaykels]

Just got off the boat yesterday and I'm still a little cranky. My last cruise in November 03 was THE BEST VACATION EVER! So I had high expectations. Unfortunitely there were many hiccups along the way. It started off with Ron Jon cancelling our ressie due to water damage. Then we didn't know which port we were sailing out of. I know DCL did the best they could with the hurricanes brewing all over so I don't blame them for our itinerary, but still a bummer. Our first port was SOUTH CAROLINA! They took us to a flea market on an overcast ugly day. That day wasn't too good. The next day was pretty much a day at sea because we docked in Nassau at 8pm. Can't exactly do a beach at night! The ship spent the night in Nassau and left at 2:30 the next day. So there wasn't much time to do the beach!
On top of that our servers were not so great. I was spoiled by my buddy, Januar on our first cruise. He was WONDERFUL! The server we had was new and forgot to bring many things, served 7 out of the 12, and some of us were eating dessert while others were just getting their dinner. But he was a nice guy so I didn't want to complain.
One of the "dueling piano" guys had no voice and couldn't speak. He was the lead singer.
My 3 year old (that as scared of the kids clubs) got very very sick.
Somebody stole the door magnets off of my door during the safety drill on day 1 !!!
Then to top it all off....... THE BIGGIE........
AAA told me I had $150.00 on board credit for each cabin (I had 2 cabins). When I got on board my cabin card said $50.00. I went to front desk and the gentelman called DCL ressies, said it was a mistake and he would fix it. I checked back twice the next day and he said it was fixed. THEN.... after spending hundreds and hundreds of $$$ on the boat, on the last night of the cruise he called my cabin and said, "woops, it was a mistake. You had a FLa. resident rate and can't combine the on board credit from AAA".
If he would have told me that on day 1, it wouldn't have been a problem, but after spending all that money... he hits me with it on the LAST NIGHT! It ruined my night. I spent time in line at GS, talking to managers, and walking around like I'd been punched in the gut because now I'm out a few hundred dollars more.
SO I CALLED DCL today to get it straightened out and the woman on the phone was REALLY RUDE. I jotted off a letter to DCL and hoping for the best, but not expecting anything.

All in all, I was still able to find a little "disney magic" and enjoy the food, shows and some activities, but it wasn't what I was hoping for. The bar was too high because my first cruise was flawless.
Oh, B.T.W, dh left my packages from South Carolina ON THE BOAT!
I'm glad CC is up and running again for the rest of you!

 

[JenB]

That just stinks Rachel! Guess you will have to keep trying till you get that ole' Magic back!!!

 

[Tluvs2talk]

kaykels,
Sorry to hear your trip did not go well. I live in Charleston and the day you visited was a very dreary rainy day. Charleston is a wonderful beautiful place. Sorry you visited on such an ugly day. You also didn't get to see the real beauty as there is a lot of construction going on here. I have some picture's of the Wonder in Charleston if you are interested in seeing them.

Teri



http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=5222121&uid=471454

 

[cmdobrien]

Kaykels, We were on there 9/12 too and I completely understand! We were on the Wonder 10/03 and had a great time. Well, the shine came off a bit on this cruise. Imagine my surprise when we were told the morning of the cruise we were going to Charlston! Some substitute for CC! I did expect onboard credit for that port change, received nothing, no apology. Sorry but I thought we were buying a cruise to the beach/bahamas/islands -- not Charlston!

The food was not all that great. Most of the deserts seemed like they were pre-packaged. I remarked to my DH that if each of those dining rooms were a local restaurant, we would not return. They could learn a thing or two from Cheesecake Factory, The Keg or PF Changs. Imagine, no entree salads - get with the program folks!

The ice cream from Scoops melts practically before you sit down w/it. Mickey pool was way crowded.

Overall the cruise was ok, although I'm reconsidering the Mexico cruise we have booked....Might be safer on another line that has experience with the ports. I'd be very steamed if Disney cancelled any of those ports, there are only 3 ports scheduled and I can say I'm not on the cruise for days at sea. But alas, the kids love it and if DCL doesn't WOW me in May that is the end of the DCL era for us!

Cathy

 

[kaykels]

Cathy,
I agree about the food. I remember LOVING the food on my November cruise. I actaully sent a dinner back this time because it was gross. The panacotta was my fav on the last one. This time it tasted like rubber. I don't know what happened here but Dis dropped the ball on this one.
By the way, I'm sure Charlston SC IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE! It looked like it had a lot of charm and history. But when you're looking forward to CC, well, it's just not the same. I would love to see pic of the ship in port! A lot of cruisers were actually FROM SC, so they weren't real happy. Oh well, at least we weren't in the eye of the storm. I'm giving Dis one more try as well. We are booked on the October 22 Western. I might rearrange that and get out of hurricane season though!!!!!!!

 

[lookingforward]

I am so sorry about your cruise! I hope your next one goes better for you. I am getting nervous about my Wonder cruise next week. Do you think the fall in food quality was partially due to the hurricane, etc? I sure do hope so, DCL is very expensive and they should have quality food service.

 

[kaykels]

I figured it probably had something to do with the hurricanes. Maybe they couldn't restock properly????? Some of the desserts were like rubber and my fish reminded me a little bit of the flubber that my daughter made in the lab. But the beef at Palo brunch was AWSOME! And I'm still dreaming about the white chocolate mousse dome at Tritons, so it wasn't ALL bad. Just not "Disney Quality" of my last cruise.
Best of luck, hopefully they'll be on the ball for your cruise. I think they were still recovering from Francis!

 

[allears]

lookingforward, don't let this post get you down. The experiences people have on this ship or any other are as vastly different as the people. I'm sure there were many, many folks on this cruise that thought everything was great. And, as was said, this was not the greatest logisitcal time for any of the cruise lines. Changing home ports and then changing back again can't be easy. And considering the supply problems faced in Florida that soon after the storm, it is possible quailty was down.

As for some of you other folks, I do hope in the future Disney is able to stop the hurricanes from hitting CC or any of the other ports of call. It is really quite annoying that they let this happen so that it messes up peoples plans. We are probably not going to Grand Cayman when we sail on the 9/25 western. And we have a tour booked because we didn't get off on that island the last time we sailed. Perhaps if they change that port, we'll get some sort of compensation.

 

[hilbil]

Sorry to hear that you had a bad experience. We were also on the 9/12 cruise and had a marvelous time!!! DCL did a great job given the number of hurricanes aimed at all of their ports. I thought Charleston was a nice choice to get us well out of the path of the storms. We didn't get off the boat there because our kids were too excited to explore the ship, but we were impressed that DCL had lined up excursions on such short notice. We did have a crummy excursion at Nassau (Atlantis Beach day took over 1hr 45 min to get to the beach) but the excursions are not run by Disney. (Remember the waiver you sign states that they are independent operators.) We thought the food was fabulous! Every single meal was perfect, our servers were great, and I can't stop thinking about the white chocolate mouse. We had such a great time that we've spent all day today planning our next cruise.

 

[kaykels]

HilBil, I'm very glad that you enjoyed your cruise. Have you ever cruised with DCL before? If I hadn't crusied before, I probably would have enjoyed it more, but since I had a flawless cruise in November, the expectations were high. We were traveling with a family that never sailed DCL before and they loved it. Nothing to compare it to! I know the port shifts were not DCL's fault but the problems with the credits and all of the chaois caused it lose some of the "MAGIC". Maybe next time.

 

[allears]

Gee, this is going to be our 4th cruise with Disney, should I be worried that the incredibly awesome times we had on the first three were just flukes? I hope not, we have very high (but realistic) expectations of a Magical voyage. Which is one of the reasons we choose to keep plowing serious vacation dollars into this company. I don't expect to be disappointed. We haven't been thus far.

 

[MarcyIn Florida]

Originally posted by kaykels
I figured it probably had something to do with the hurricanes. Maybe they couldn't restock properly?????

I am sorry to hear about your bad experience.

As for the food, my guess is that their normal suppliers couldn't get supplies to them and they had to use their back-ups -- here in central Florida, we still don't have everything back on the supermarket shelves because of trucker delays and the like. And Ivan just made that shortage even worse.

 

[SeaSpray]

Originally posted by Tluvs2talk
kaykels,
Sorry to hear your trip did not go well. I live in Charleston and the day you visited was a very dreary rainy day. Charleston is a wonderful beautiful place. Sorry you visited on such an ugly day. You also didn't get to see the real beauty as there is a lot of construction going on here. I have some picture's of the Wonder in Charleston if you are interested in seeing them.

Teri



http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=5222121&uid=471454

From one Terry to another Teri, I enjoyed your pictures! Thanks for sharing them

 

[kaykels]

The pictures are great! Thanks for sharing.

 

[inkkognito]

We sailed on the 9/9 Wonder and didn't notice a difference in the food quality. I do know that some land-based restaurants were having problems with suppliers, as we ran into that at an Orlando restaurant a couple of days before our cruise. But on the ship, everything was delicious. Maybe we were lucky in what we ordered...I did all appetizers at Animators Palate and had the special of the day (cod) at Palo, plus of course chocolate souffle. On the embarkation buffet, I did notice that they had strawberry soup instead of mango...not sure if that is a permanent change or because of supplier problems.
Barb

 

[KaitlinsMom]

Kaykels - I think the difference here is servers -

The same thing happened with us - On our first cruise, NOTHING went wrong - It was absolutely fantastic - Then on our second, I was just not impressed with our servers - We would look over at the next table, and their server was making them laugh and joke around - It really looked like they were having a party! - We were not getting bad service, he wasn't mean or the timing of the food off or anything, but it just was not up to the par of our first cruise -

I think on our next cruise, I am going to try and request great servers that I read about here -

 

[MiaSRN62]

From Ron Jon cancelling your ressie....to SC as a port stop.....no CC stop.....and the mix-up with the AAA, I can understand how your cruise was a let-down from your last one. I'm sorry to hear it. Hope your next cruise will be better.
I'm a little nervous about my Nov 6 Western cruise too. These hurricanes and tropical depressions are springing up left and right.

 

[mrsltg]

I was on the Magic this past week and my DH and I both agreed that the food was sub-par. It wasn't bad, but it was far from excellent on a consistent basis. I get the impression DCL isn't in the business for food.

Erin

 

[cjbamforth]

I too was a little disspointed with the 9/12 cruise. I have heard that Charleston is a wonderful place with a lot of history and an interesting place to visit, however, I was really looking forward to spending time at a beach as I have never been to the Bahamas before and it was my birthday. I didn't think the amount of time given to us in Nassau was enough either. We didnt' get to go to the beach, we only made it over to Paradise Island for a little while, and they cancelled our Shore Excursion. I was impressed with the food and my servers, but I was overall dissapointed with the stops and the amount of time given to us.

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

Originally posted by kaykels
Somebody stole the door magnets off of my door during the safety drill on day 1 !!!

Gee, that stinks. I heard someone else say they got theirs stolen too. I think I will bring 2 identical signs. If one gets stolen, I will keep the other for the inside of the door instead of the outside. I know that will sort of ruin the effect, but I know my DGS would be a bit bummed if someone stole our door sign.

Tink