Our fabulous cruise on the Wonder! Jan 25-29

[melsherard]

Ok, ok! I'll write a trip report! I never intended to do one, but tammythetwinsmom inspired me....

We started planning our trip last March... my parents wanted to do this with us, but a series of unfortunate events had them bowing out. So it was me, my husband (dh) and my 2 daughters (dd7 and dd10.)

My husband says this is the best bargain ever, because I got 10 months of planning excitement on the dis boards!!!

Here's the plan... fly into mco Jan 22, rent a car, drive to Tampa, and do Busch Gardens for 2 days... then, drive to Cape Canaveral, rent a room at the Radisson for one night, then take the shuttle to the port on the 25th.

I have to say, this was the best vacation ever! With the exception of a couple of lost swimsuits, everything went great. We got into Tampa just as planned, had dinner at the Olive Garden, and tried to contain our excitement for what was to come.

We had a great time at Busch Gardens! I highly recommend it to any family. There is so much to do and see there, and it is a great value. They have an all you can eat dining plan, which we took advantage of, so we had already eaten ourselves silly by the time we got to the ship lol.

OK, lets get to the part you have all been waiting for... we arrived at the Raddison at about 8:30 pm. We were going to meet up with some dis friends that night, but her kids were all tuckered out after a day at the parks. So we got our swimsuits on and headed for the pool. This is a great hotel... I had heard negative things about it, as well as good things, but I have to say we had a great experience. They have a great pool! It was heated, so we didn't freeze our butts off until we made the mad dash for the room lol. We dried off, them me and dd10 headed across the street for Mcdonalds for a late night snack. Finally, we slept and got up at about 7am. We got breakfast at the Golden Arches Country Club, then got ourselves ready for the shuttle. We met in the lobby at about 9:30. Finally we got to meet our dis friends, mintee and her family. Also we met alot of other dis families at that time.. We all boarded the shuttle and we are finally on our way! Our drivers name was Bong, so of course we had a great time on the way... not that it took more than 5 minutes, but you know in time of anticipation, it seems much longer! Finally, there she was... the Wonder! Yes, I did get teary-eyed! I had to run across the little driveway to get a good pic of the terminal (dh thought I was crazy) here it is...

So we head into the most beautiful ship terminal ever and are immediately surrounded by Disney magic... those people are great! We checked in at the CC desk, got our pics taken, signed in the girls to the kids club, and we were ready with boarding pass #4! A few pics...

As you can see, we got in some character meetings right away! Yay!

We sit down and chat with some nice people, then its our turn to board the ship!!! Amazing that it's finally here after all these months of planning....

 

[melsherard]

We boarded the ship (amazing!) And headed for Parrot Cay for lunch. The buffet was great and we ate it up! Then we went to explore the ship, and before we knew it, it was time to go to our room... after we checked that out, we went up to meet our dis group, then the muster drill on deck 4... not a lot of fun, but neccesary I suppose... then we headed up to the Adventures Away party at the goofy pool...

Then we headed back to our balcony so we could watch Florida go away... here's a pic of my family from our balcony...

I loved waving to all the people at the restaurants and at the park as we were leaving... there were so many people there waving, I felt like a movie star!

Well, we had early dining, so we had to get dressed for dinner, but first we had to hang up our fish extender and decorate our door....

Yay!

Time for dinner at Triton's...

It was my daughter's birthday, so they brought out a cake and sang to her... she also received a cute birthday button. Here is a pic of her with our great servers, Michele and Wayan...

Next we headed up to "Who wants to be a Mousecateer" (I'm sure I misspelled that!). It was fun, we didn't get picked to play, but that's ok. We headed up to see The Golden Mickeys next. I only have one thing to say about that show.... HELLO TARZAN! Sorry ladies, no pics of him, to my eternal regret!

We were pretty pooped after that, so we went back to the room... dd7 wasn't feeling so good, so she went right to sleep... dd10 would have stayed in the kids club all night if we would let her, but we picked her up and we all went to nighty-night.

Just a quick note about our room steward, Noel was WONDERFUL! Towel animals every night, and we loved him! Disney has such great people working for them...

 

[melsherard]

We woke up in time to see the ship pull into port... Just a note, the weather was Perfect the whole time we were on this trip... couldn't have asked for better!

We had to be at the meet up for the dolphin excursion at 9:30, so we hurried to the buffet to get our breakfast. I agree with Tammy, it was really crowded with long lines, but the food was good. Thankfully I got enough food the first time around so I didn't have to wait in line again. After breakfast, we went to the meeting place for the excursion, and we were on our way!

A few pics....

We got to feed, pet, dance with, kiss and hug the dolphin... it was great but the water was COLD! But totally worth it... once in a lifetime for sure!

After the dolphin encounter, we got to hang out on the beach for a while... we didn't know about this, so we weren't really prepared. I would have brought a book to relax with, and some snacks to eat. Make sure you bring bottled water with you... it's expensive there and you will get really thirsty. They did offer lunch, but it was so expensive, we just couldn't justify it. Here is a picture of us on the boat getting ready to go back...

Here's a pic of the beautiful Wonder as we were coming back...

After our fun excursion, we got lunch up at the snack places on deck 9, and then the kids went to the clubs for a while.

It was formal night at Animator's Palette, so we got dressed up and went to see our wonderful servers again. Here are a few pics...

Then we bumped into Peter, our cruise director... we got autographs and a pic...

The kids really wanted to play ping pong, so we did that for a while...

We went up to see Toy Story, the Musical... it was good. A little slow in spots, but we enjoyed it.

After the show, the kids went back to the clubs, and stayed there until quite late... dd10 didn't want to leave, and dd7 was asleep on the bean bags lol.
We got them back into their beds and I couldn't resist these pictures...

I almost forgot to post this great picture, I can't remember when I took it...

 

[1stdisneycruise]

What nice photos. They came out so clear

I see your kids are the same ages as mine. Mine are 6 and 9. I was wondering what kids clubs did your kids love the best. Three days is going to go so fast. The kids want to do the club but there is not a lot of time. So if I find the one that is great each day I will do my best to take them to that Not just the free time or tv time one

Did you get any navigators or menus to show?

I can not wait to hear more about your cruise! You are doing a wonderful job. We are leaving in 15 days and I can not wait.

What did you think of the steak at the dinner?

Ginny aka Mom

 

[melsherard]

What nice photos. They came out so clear

I see your kids are the same ages as mine. Mine are 6 and 9. I was wondering what kids clubs did your kids love the best. Three days is going to go so fast. The kids want to do the club but there is not a lot of time. So if I find the one that is great each day I will do my best to take them to that Not just the free time or tv time one

Did you get any navigators or menus to show?

I can not wait to hear more about your cruise! You are doing a wonderful job. We are leaving in 15 days and I can not wait.

What did you think of the steak at the dinner?

Ginny aka Mom

Hi Gina! Dd10 said the soap car racing and the Atlantis treasure hunt on the island were her favorite activities... dd7 won't commit to just one, she says she loved it all!

I did get the navigators... not sure how to post them, but I will ask dh for help. And I got the pirate night menu...

More about this later... but our favorite meal of the cruise was lunch at Serenity Bay on the island. They were grilling ribeyes and they were WONDERFUL! But honestly, all the food was good, I tried lots of new things...

 

[DisneyWhirled]

Great trip report! I am very much enjoying reading and the pics are awesome! Can't wait to read more.

 

[frdeb1999]

Great TR and pics! Looking forward to the rest!

 

[melsherard]

Thanks for the nice comments! I'm enjoying reliving it all...

OK... Day 3

We decided to order room service breakfast to avoid the crowds at the buffet. It worked out really well, DH went up tp the buffet and grabbed some sausage and bacon to go with it.

We were signed up for the stingray excursion, so we got off of the ship and headed over there. It was a long walk! But we made it... It was really cool, we only paid for dh and the 2 dd's, I went along to take pictures. They did an informative session first, and then gave everyone snorkelling gear and off we went into the water. It was COLD! But after a few minutes you went numb and it was ok. Here are a couple of pictures...

After you feed the stingrays, you get to snorkel with them, and when you turn in your equipment they give you a stingray button to take with you. It was a good value, I think. We enjoyed it...

After stingrays, we were passing the hair braiding station, and the girls decided to get it done. They did say it hurt, but both of my kids cry easily, and they did not cry. So I don't think it was really that bad. Here are some pics...

We dropped off the kids at the kids club, then dh and I went out to the adult beach. For some reason, the girls were really set on having us eat lunch with them, so we told them we wouldn't eat out there. However, as we were passing the bbq there, they had the most fabulous looking ribeyes on the grill that we could not pass up. They literally took up the whole plate! So we had to eat. Salads, fresh fruit, and soft serve cookie dough ice cream is what I ate (besides the steak of course.) It was heaven! Also, we ran into our dis friends, mintee and her friends, so we were able to have lunch with them. That was nice... Just as we were getting ready to veg out on the beach, dd7 paged us So we had to go get her... bummer. Of course they were hungry, so we watched them eat (we were stuffed.) Everyone was really tired, so after that we went back to the boat. The water was too cold to swim in, really. It was uncomfortable for us. We really didn't get back to the ship until about 3pm though, so I didn't feel too bad about wasting part of our day at cc.... Here we are getting back on the ship...

They were testing out the lifeboats, so I took a pic of that...

Dinner tonight was again at Animator's Palate. It was pirate night, and the girls dressed up... here they are all dressed up...

At the restaurant, they did limbo with all the servers and kids... it was great fun, dd10 was too shy, but here are some pics of it...

After dinner, we ran into a couple of officers named Joshua and Lloyd. They were commenting on how much they liked the girls' tatoos. We were joking that we had plenty more in our room if they would like to get into the spirit of Pirate night, too. They laughed it off, but just for fun, we ran back up to our room and got them some tatoos and eye patches. The girls gave them the booty and they were really touched that we did that for them. As we were walking away, Joshua grabbed my dh and asked him what our room # was... more on that later....

After all that fun, we went up to see Bolt in 3D.... Here we are with our cool glasses on...

Then it was off to pirate party! I am not a big drinker, but I had drank a Long Island Iced Tea during the movie, so I was feeling pretty good... the dancing is a lot more fun when you have drink in you lol...

Then Oh no! The pirates take over the ship....

But of course, Mickey saves the day....

And then the fireworks...

I think the pirate party was very fun.... we were too full to eat the buffet, though...

After the pirate party, the girls went back to the clubs, and I fell asleep, I think they stayed until it closed... What a fun day! I never knew having this much fun could be so exhausting, lol

 

[melsherard]

I was really looking forward to the sea day so we could relax a little... so we slept in and then went up the buffet for breakfast. We were really wanting to go to Triton's for breakfast at least one day so we could get that french toast thing I had heard about, but we didn't get up in time... oh well... next time we are definately doing the 7 night, so I'll get it in then....

The dds went back to the clubs, so dh and I just hung out on the balcony and relaxed... dh did go to the DVC presentation in hopes of winnning the 400 obc, I read my Twilight books and enjoyed the day. We ordered room service lunch and it was great... dh didn't win the obc, but I think in the future we will be buying into the dvc, it seems like a really good deal. We just don't need another mortgage right now, if you know what I mean...

Dinner that night was at Parrot Cay. I think this was my favorite menu of the 3 restaurants. After dinner the servers did a parade with their country's flags... it was a good moment... I didn't want it all to be over so I was a little sad at dinner that night... Heres a few pics...

Our servers really became our friends, so it was hard to say goodbye... but we got to see them at breakfast the next day...


After dinner, we went to the shop where Captain Henry was signing autographs...

Then on to see Disney Dreams... my fave! I'm a little sad all evening about leaving the next morning, but we still had a great time.

Ok, one thing I forgot to tell you earlier was that when we went to our room the first night, there was a note for us saying that we had been chosen as the family of the week by the youth services team. We didn't know what that meant, but on the last night, hanging over our door was a bag of gifts for us! It was so great! I was overwhelmed by all the things we got... here's a pic...

Very cool!

OK, so remember when I told you about the officers, Joshua and Lloyd? On our bed was a thank you note from them, and 2 stuffed tiggers for our girls!

I'm, like, trying not to cry, because all of this was just so much, and we did not expect any of it We also had on our bed the photo mat we had dropped off, and it was perfect, of course.

We went up to the Till we meet again party to get those last minutes autographs and pics we were missing. We were able to get all the ones we wanted. Then we went to the room and packed... very sad night....

Day 5 is next, but it is the saddest of all, because we had to get off of our new home

 

[john970]

This really has been a GREAT informative review. We have cruised many other lines, and are trying our first Disney cruise soon.

A few questions:
-Are there any must do's, must see's, or must-eats?
-Is it true that there are no live bands (at the pool or throughout the ship)?
-Is there a live orchestra that plays during the "broadway" type shows, or is that prerecorded music?
-Did they bring on any good entertainment?

Thanks for the great review! Glad you had a great time.

 

[melsherard]

Such a sad day... we had to be at breakfast by 6:45, so we head down to Parrot Cay for our last meal onboard.

We had breakfast, and exchanged emails with our servers. I filled out my comment card... those are so important if you are happy with the service you have received. Then we made our way off of the ship As we were leaving, we saw Joshua and Lloyd, that was so great, we were able to tell them thank you for the tiggers. Then we got off, a porter was right there to help us with our luggage. We got on the shuttle for the Raddison right away, there was no wait. When we got to the hotel to pick up our car, the nice people there let us use the business center so we could print off our boarding passes.

Our flight didn't leave until 6:30pm, so we went to the zoo, I believe it was the Brevard county zoo? It was really nice. Not very big, so we were able to get through it in a couple of hours. We fed the giraffes and the lories (parrots.) Then we dropped off our car and took the shuttle to the airport. While we were waiting, we met a few other families that had been on the cruise, so that was nice to chat with them. The time went by really fast, then we were on our way back to cold Kansas City!

 

[melsherard]

This really has been a GREAT informative review. We have cruised many other lines, and are trying our first Disney cruise soon.

A few questions:
-Are there any must do's, must see's, or must-eats?
-Is it true that there are no live bands (at the pool or throughout the ship)?
-Is there a live orchestra that plays during the "broadway" type shows, or is that prerecorded music?
-Did they bring on any good entertainment?

Thanks for the great review! Glad you had a great time.

I feel like the stuff we did was really great... I didn't see any live bands anywhere on the ship, but we never made it to the adults bars, so there night be some there. The music at the shows was all pre- recorded, but it was wonderful. I felt like the entertainement, as far as the shows, and the game shows, and the parties were really good. I think they were all run by the crew members who run the adult activities, though. But we didn't even do half of the things we could have... I'm going to see if dh can help me put the navigators on... that will help you a lot to see what is available.

Pirate party is a must do! Lunch on Serenity Bay is a must do! Golden Mickeys and Disney Dreams are must do's! We never made it to Palo, but I hear that is a must do!

Ask away if you have any more ????

 

[melsherard]

I forgot a few things....

We took the galley tour on the sea day and that was a lot of fun... highly recommed that you do that.

We also saw Bedtime Stories on Pirate Night... that was fun!

Our dis friends were the best! I really enjoyed meeting all of you, and the fish extender gifts were so great!

We didn't rebook onboard, because we have to pay a few things off first, unfortunately. But hopefully we will be on a 7 nighter in the next couple of years.

I'm so glad I wrote this, it let me relive it a little... now it's back to post-vacation depression lol... just kidding!

 

[jennifaerie]

I can't believe that we walked by your room multiple times a day (we were in 6564) and didn't realize it was yours! I kept looking at the fish extender and the name magnets up top, so I totally missed your ID magnet toward the bottom.

Every time we walked by, I pointed to Rob, told him that was what a fix extender was, and how much I loved it.

Wow!

 

[astempel]

Thank you so much for a great trip report. We are taking our first ever cruise in May and reading your report makes me want to go NOW!!

 

[melsherard]

I can't believe that we walked by your room multiple times a day (we were in 6564) and didn't realize it was yours! I kept looking at the fish extender and the name magnets up top, so I totally missed your ID magnet toward the bottom.

Every time we walked by, I pointed to Rob, told him that was what a fix extender was, and how much I loved it.

Wow!

I admit, I saw you guys a couple of times, but I was too shy to go up and introduce myself... I never even knew you were so close to us! It looked like you guys were having a great time, though....

 

[mintee]

Great report! I think I am going to steal some of your pics since we lost all of ours! You really captured all of the excitement and wonder that was on our wonderful shared cruise!

 

[melsherard]

Go for it Brigette.... Check out the meet thread too... so sorry you lost all of your pics... did you guys book another cruise? Just saw your timeline...

 

[1stdisneycruise]

Hi Gina! Dd10 said the soap car racing and the Atlantis treasure hunt on the island were her favorite activities... dd7 won't commit to just one, she says she loved it all!

I did get the navigators... not sure how to post them, but I will ask dh for help. And I got the pirate night menu...

More about this later... but our favorite meal of the cruise was lunch at Serenity Bay on the island. They were grilling ribeyes and they were WONDERFUL! But honestly, all the food was good, I tried lots of new things...

Thank you. I will write those two down. Do not worry that is what my 6 year old son says. We ask what was the best. He says everything. It was all good.

I can not wait to see your navigators and menus. But I understand. I can not post things so when I come back I will have to ask for help from DH also LOL
I see you have added more and can not wait to read

 

[1stdisneycruise]

Wow. YOu did a great job on your kids pirate costumes. I went to walmart and was going to but glow necklaces and tatoos. where did you get your tattoos?