October 16, 2011 Mexican Riviera on the Wonder

[dopeyfanatic]

It's OFFICIAL. We are booked for our cruise Can't wait!

 

[jenpaige]

It's great to see so many faces already. We've finalized our wedding plans. We'll be joining you all for our first cruise (along with 27 of our other friends in the group). Primarily an all adult group - one child, looking forward to relaxing at the spa and enjoying the wedding!

Starting to look at some of the excursions offered by Disney for us, any recommendations from anyone? Looking to relax and have fun!

DB 31
DG 30

 

[phred84044]

It's great to see so many faces already. We've finalized our wedding plans. We'll be joining you all for our first cruise (along with 27 of our other friends in the group). Primarily an all adult group - one child, looking forward to relaxing at the spa and enjoying the wedding!

Starting to look at some of the excursions offered by Disney for us, any recommendations from anyone? Looking to relax and have fun!

DB 31
DG 30

Congratulations and welcome aboard!!!

 

[Jathanis]

Okay, we're officially in, just booked this morning - deck 7, can't remember the exact room right now... Only 264 days to go!

 

[jenpaige]

So because it looks like it has affected our ports of call. The shooting last month in Mazatlan has impacted our ports of call for our Oct 16th cruise, according to the site here's our new schedule:

7-Night Mexican Riviera Cruise

October 16 to October 23
Disney Wonder

Day Port
Sunday Los Angeles, California
Monday At Sea
Tuesday At Sea
Wednesday Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Thursday Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Friday Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Saturday At Sea
Sunday Los Angeles, California

 

[LuvIt]

My thinking on the Mazatlan port change is that Disney has pulled that port stop but may reinstate it by late summer or Fall (when we'll be cruising) if things in Mazatlan settle down in the next few months. JMHO

However, if Mazatlan is not put back on the itinerary, I really love the fact that we'd be docked in Cabo for 2 days in a row 'cause I'm thinking that means we wouldn't need to be hurrying to get back on board in the afternoon by a certain time because the boat will be pulling out of port.....this translates into longer days/evenings in Cabo to do more on-shore port stuff if one desires.

 

[Denine]

I don't really care about Mazatlan. If we go, we go.

I guess if we have 2 days in Cabo, it will make up for us missing the port when we went on our PC cruise several years ago.

9 days until WDW!

 

[jenpaige]

I'm actually kind of excited, the excursions for Cabo looked more interesting/varied than Mazatlan...no complaints either way from us

 

[Jathanis]

I really love the fact that we'd be docked in Cabo for 2 days in a row 'cause I'm thinking that means we wouldn't need to be hurrying to get back on board in the afternoon by a certain time because the boat will be pulling out of port.....this translates into longer days/evenings in Cabo to do more on-shore port stuff if one desires.

From what I've read, this won't be the case - my itinerary for day 1 in Cabo says we're back on board by 4pm, and the following day is 2:30...

Personally, I'd prefer stopping once on the way to PV and once on the way back, but either way it's done, I'll likely stay on the ship one of the two Cabo days anyways...

 

[LuvIt]

Oh rats, why wouldn't they allow us late afternoons and evenings in Cabo? Will they have to move the boat out to sea and putter around in the ocean and then redock in the morning?

 

[Jathanis]

Not sure why no overnight, but this is one place I've read it (3rd paragraph):
http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/news/news.cfm?ID=4332

Almost sounds like they're basing it off what a Carnival ship is currently doing, so who knows why? I'm not so opposed to them having to leave port for the night and return the next morning, but why have onboard @ 4pm? My cruise last year didn't leave Nassau until after 2am, and still made it to Castaway Cay by 7am, so it should be possible to go out to sea, pull a u-turn and head back in to port in what, 2 hours or so? Dinner on shore in Cabo would be nice...

 

[kindsoul73]

Hello! First time cruisers here from San Diego! I am Mindi (38 yesterday), and my DD (will be 6 at time if cruise) and DS (Will be 4) Can't wait!
What is the deal with fish extenders, etc.? Do I need to go get some?
TIA.

 

[Jathanis]

Welcome to our cruise thread! So far, it seems we have a very small contingent of DISboard members on this sailing, but here's hoping it picks up as we get closer to October!

For more info on the fish extenders, go here: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=33184281#post33184281
or here: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1219607

This will only be our second cruise, and I didn't find the thread for our last cruise until way too late so I've never actually participated in an FE. But on that last thread, someone took charge of arranging it by compiling a list of anyone who wanted to participate, their room numbers, gender and age of family members, and any food allergies involved. Then it's basically a matter of bringing enough SWAG to spread around to any other participants throughout the cruise!

I'm sure we'll see some more activity around here as it gets closer, especially if DCL offers a kids sail free package later in the year...

late edit: Here's a great ongoing thread discussing FE ideas: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1522535

 

[boiseflyfisher]

Add is to the cruise count. We did the MR cruise in late January and the October dates work perfectly with our fall break. While I loved our January cruise, it would be nice to experience our second cruise without KSF. It will be a tough call if they add it and we may want to change to the Western/Magic if they do, but then again, I love a bargain!

 

[Jathanis]

We did the MR cruise in late January and the October dates work perfectly with our fall break.

Sounds great - welcome! Now we have someone in our little group we can ask MR questions of that haven't been answered out on the main board... j/k! (maybe)

 

[boiseflyfisher]

Sounds great - welcome! Now we have someone in our little group we can ask MR questions of that haven't been answered out on the main board... j/k! (maybe)

There are plenty of opinions out there, that is for sure! I'd be happy to answer any questions you have or give my opinion. That was our very first cruise, so I don't have anything to compare it to. We went with no real expectations and found that it was the best vacation we had ever taken. There are a few things we will do differently next time. We will probably get to the port a little later as I don't think we will be looking for an upgrade and there isn't a whole lot to do. We will eat breakfast and lunch in the restaurants more often than we did last time. We will let the kids go to the kid's clubs as much as they want and spend more time up in the adult areas. We had second seating for dinner and we loved it, but dd is 8 and ds is 10, so the later seating wasn't an issue. We encouraged the kids to order from the adult menu and they tried lots of new foods and ended up liking most of them.

I can't speak of any of the excursions. Our neighbors happened to be in Cabo for the week of our cruise, so we met up with them both days we were in port. We stayed on ship for our PV day as the kids had homework to do. It was nice to enjoy the ship when it was less crowded. My kids aren't into getting autographs from the characters, so we never had to deal with the long lines. We saw Tron and Tangled in 3D.

I see that you also own at VGC! We do, too, and will be spending 4 nights there before our October cruise. We did attend the DVC presentation while onboard. They gave away some swag and we won a clock and a throw. You will get a little DVC gift in your cabin and lots of calls to come down to the DVC desk to pick up more gifts: pins, hats, bags, lanyards.

We enjoyed our dining room serving team, but they had both been with Disney Cruise Line for a long time. Our cabin steward was fantastic, too. We thought that all of the CMs we encountered were friendly and professional. Our only complaint was that we wished that it were warmer, but I can't fault Disney for that!

 

[tomoyo]

nm

 

[Denine]

We bought our plane tickets today.

I was looking at shore excursions. Not sure what I want to do since DD isn't old enough for a couple of them. She will be 9 and you have to be 10. I don't really want to leave her on the ship. So, that means we either choose a family excursion which is usually just a beach, hotel or shopping, leave her on the ship and go kayaking or stay on the ship and do nothing.

 

[Andromeda9mm]

For what it's worth, I just got off the Feb 27th sailing, and you can do TONS of stuff when you get off the boat.

I would save money and not go through Disney. There is a zip line in PV that looked SOOOO awesome. You can take a taxi on your own (very cheap) do the zip lines and then eat lunch (we ate lunch, but not the zip lines).

I really wish I could have done the lines, it was about $75.00 pp and it was a weight requirement I believe, not an age requirement.

Just do a google search and see what you find.

Good luck.

 

[betsy2010]

There are plenty of opinions out there, that is for sure! I'd be happy to answer any questions you have or give my opinion. That was our very first cruise, so I don't have anything to compare it to. We went with no real expectations and found that it was the best vacation we had ever taken. There are a few things we will do differently next time. We will probably get to the port a little later as I don't think we will be looking for an upgrade and there isn't a whole lot to do. We will eat breakfast and lunch in the restaurants more often than we did last time. We will let the kids go to the kid's clubs as much as they want and spend more time up in the adult areas. We had second seating for dinner and we loved it, but dd is 8 and ds is 10, so the later seating wasn't an issue. We encouraged the kids to order from the adult menu and they tried lots of new foods and ended up liking most of them.

I can't speak of any of the excursions. Our neighbors happened to be in Cabo for the week of our cruise, so we met up with them both days we were in port. We stayed on ship for our PV day as the kids had homework to do. It was nice to enjoy the ship when it was less crowded. My kids aren't into getting autographs from the characters, so we never had to deal with the long lines. We saw Tron and Tangled in 3D.

I see that you also own at VGC! We do, too, and will be spending 4 nights there before our October cruise. We did attend the DVC presentation while onboard. They gave away some swag and we won a clock and a throw. You will get a little DVC gift in your cabin and lots of calls to come down to the DVC desk to pick up more gifts: pins, hats, bags, lanyards.

We enjoyed our dining room serving team, but they had both been with Disney Cruise Line for a long time. Our cabin steward was fantastic, too. We thought that all of the CMs we encountered were friendly and professional. Our only complaint was that we wished that it were warmer, but I can't fault Disney for that!

Hi All,
another family joining in! We were on the 2/20 MR sailing and as BoiseFlyFisher said it was the best family vacation we've ever taken. We are going to surprise the kids and take them in October. Our 15th Wedding Anniversary is 10/19 and we usually just go to LA (we met at UCLA) for the weekend to celebrate. We're going to drive down on Friday and the kids will think it's just the 'usual' boring mom/dad revisits their youth trip and then voila on Sunday we'll drive to the port. the hardest part will be keeping my mouth shut for the next 6 months!

We are a family of 4 - me, dh, ds (10), ds (6). Looking forward to it!
Betsy