Our lucky, last minute, upgraded, OBC winning, Mexican Riviera Cruise 3/27/11

[La2kw]

Some background:
We live in L.A. and decided at the last minute to book a Mexican Riviera cruise for spring break. DW and I are both 40-something teachers and so we have to vacation along with all the other families during school breaks. I looked at our options, and we had the choice of Princess, Disney, NCL, HAL, or Carnival. We have done Disney and NCL, but aren’t particularly brand loyal. We really want to try Celebrity or Royal Caribbean. Celebrity has the best nonsmoking policy and Royal Caribbean also has a better one than most of the others. However, Royal Caribbean pulled the Mariner out of California a while ago and Celebrity doesn’t do the MR evidently. We enjoy the fact that Disney is primarily nonsmoking, but we don’t like that there is no casino and that it is so geared to kids. When our kids would come with us, that was fine, but they are both in college and in their 20’s so they have no interest in vacationing with us anymore and we have no interest in the huge portion of the ship dedicated to children. Add to that the fact that we work with kids every day and you can maybe see where we’re coming from. We love our jobs, but kind of need a break, you know what I mean? So I narrowed down our choice to a Spa balcony cabin on Carnival Splendor (which is a nonsmoking cabin in a nonsmoking section) or an inside guarantee on the Disney Wonder. Both were the same price and clearly we could get a nicer room on the Splendor, but I just couldn’t decide if we wanted to be on a ship that allowed smoking in staterooms, in casinos, in some of the bars, etc. I’m pretty sensitive to smoke and I really don’t like it. I put up with it when we go to Vegas, but I didn’t like the idea of being stuck on a ship that reeked of smoke. We loved our trips on the Wonder over the years and it really is our favorite ship, so DW said to get the inside guarantee on the Wonder because we know what we are getting (as far as the ship goes) and we will just hope for some good luck getting an upgrade. We knew that was a big “if” and just decided to plan on an inside cabin and spending a lot of time on deck.

Booking the Wonder ended up being a great decision!

To be continued...

 

[La2kw]

So we ended up booking the cruise about 3 weeks ahead of sailing. I used Costco as I usually do since their insurance is the best deal considering the price and the coverage, and you get a Costco cash card when you return. Depending on the cruise line you book, you will either get a cash card from Costco, or an on board credit. With Disney, it’s a cash card. We shop at Costco all the time for groceries, gas, and other stuff, so a cash card works well for us- but an on board credit would do just as well. Once our cruise was booked, it was time to do some planning. DW and I had never been to the Mexican Riviera so the ports would be all new for us. We have been to the Bahamas and the Caribbean, but never the country we live the closest to, so go figure.
So I read Cruise Critic to get lots of info and also the Dis boards to scan the cruisers who had returned from the MR Wonder cruises to see what to expect. Thanks to all the Dis’ers who posted information regarding these cruises!

I checked online daily to see what room we were assigned to, and finally a week after booking, we were assigned to 2610. We upgraded from an 11c to a 9c! We were thrilled to have the window, but we did read some reports saying the room was under the kitchens and it was loud, etc. We didn’t care though, we were so grateful for the upgrade.

Well I’m here to tell you we had absolutely no issues with this room being too loud. Once or twice, we heard a loud bang from the kitchen, but we have heard similar noises elsewhere on the ship as well and it really was a non-issue for us.

Here are some pics of room 2610, including some views from our window.

Notice the lack of the steamer trunk. We didn’t miss it. Frankly, I don’t understand the need for them anyway, we never use it.

In the Port of L.A.

 

[La2kw]

Day 1
Finally, we are packed and ready to go. My daughter goes to school in San Francisco, so the Friday before sailing, we drove her back to school after spring break. It’s about a 6 hour drive, and we drove up on Friday and back home on Saturday. We booked our cruise at the last minute, but had intended to spend some time in San Francisco that week after dropping her off, but since we had to be at the port on Sunday, we returned home Saturday instead. It was raining when we left home, but cleared up on the drive. When we got to the bay area, it was raining again. We were hoping for good weather on the cruise, but at this point we knew we had to pack for warm weather as well as wet.

Sunday morning we got up, loaded the car, and left home at 9:00. We knew that the cruise returning was the cruise that the cm went missing on, so we weren’t sure what to expect at the port. We got to the port at 9:30, and saw a few news cameras stopping cars at the entrance to try and get interviews. Some people were stopping to talk, but not very many. The reporters obviously weren’t allowed on the terminal grounds, which was good. We pulled into the terminal area, dropped off the luggage, and parked the car in the lot. We have sailed from the Port of L.A. before and love how convenient it is to drop off luggage and park. There is so much room at the terminal, unlike the dinky one at Port Canaveral. After parking, it started to rain! What? It was clear all the way until we got to San Pedro, and now it starts raining! We put or raincoats on in the car grabbed the carryons and ran to the terminal. Our passports and cruise docs were checked at the door and we were admitted to the terminal and told to head upstairs. At the top of the escalator, we were greeted by another person and instructed to fill out the health questionnaire and then directed to the Castaway Club line since we were repeaters. The regular check in line was empty, but we were still ushered to the CC line. We didn’t care since we were so early and the line ended up moving pretty quickly. We checked in, got our lanyards, took our picture, and then headed to security. We went through the metal detectors, but it went off on my, so I had to figure out why and remembered the camera in my pocket. So I had to send it through again, and as I was trying to get my stuff off the belt, a woman and her family thought it would be okay to push her way into my space and wouldn’t back off. Meanwhile there were two empty metal detectors she could have gone to instead. I made a rude comment to go along with her rude behavior, and managed to get my stuff together and head to the waiting area.

I had checked in online and gotten a 12:00 noon check in time. No one checked that boarding time that I was assigned online or even mentioned it. After waiting about 90 minutes, we finally boarded at noon. So instead of arriving at noon like our check in time said, we were on board instead.

Here’s a few pics of the terminal.

Down the gangway.

There she is!

Almost there.

We’re in!

 

[La2kw]

So we boarded the ship and decided to have lunch at Beach Blanket Buffet.

The food was so-so. We only ate lunch here twice since we found that the food at Parrot Cay was much more to our liking.

We did enjoy the view of the port, which is industrial but this is the largest port in the U.S. and it amazes me every time I come down here.

After lunch, we headed to Wavebands to try and get ressies for Palo. Since we booked at the last minute, we didn’t get any online. I checked daily and did get on for Sunday (boarding day) but decided we didn’t want to eat there the first night so I let it go. Marco (the maitre d’) recognized us from a previous cruise, which surprised us. He was able to give us dinner on Thursday (Pirate Night) and then offered us brunch as well, which we accepted. We got brunch for Tuesday, the second sea day. We were very happy. Considering this was a last minute cruise, we already got ungraded to a better room, and scored the Palo ressies we wanted. Too bad there’s no casino, cause this was our lucky cruise so far. It gets even better later!

That done, we headed up to The Outlook Café to wait for our room to be ready. This is our new favorite spot and we spent a lot of time there.

Finally, we headed to our room at 2:00. We were very happy with the room and the location. The room was spotless and Teddy, our steward, kept it so the entire week. We hardly saw him, but he did a great job.

 

[smb6]

Nice to hear that you smooth boarding experience given all the hoopla others have experienced! Great pictures. I am especially enjoying your TR, as we will be on the Wonder next month

 

[La2kw]

Nice to hear that you smooth boarding experience given all the hoopla others have experienced! Great pictures. I am especially enjoying your TR, as we will be on the Wonder next month

Thanks! You'll have a great time. It's a great ship and we loved Puerto Vallarta and Cabo.

 

[La2kw]

We unpacked, headed to the lifeboat drill, and then hung around until sailaway. We found a nice spot against the railing on deck 10 and then proceeded to get pushed, bumped, nudged, etc from all the other people who felt they needed to occupy our personal space. I am particularly annoyed by the parents who try to push their kids up in front of us at the last minute, since they are “just kids” and seen to have priority over anyone else. Hello, I was here first, get here earlier next time! Same thing happens at WDW. Not so much at Disneyland but all the time at WDW for parades and such. Remember, we’re teachers, and we are on vacation and don’t have to be nice to your kids on vacation! Ha ha. Actually, I don’t blame the kids at all.

Anyway, we watched the silly show and then did the countdown, blew the horn, and then… nothing. I had never been to a sailaway party where we didn’t sailaway! What the heck? We left the party and went to the outside railing to see if we were ready to leave yet. Evidently not.

See. Still tied up! I love living in L.A., but we were ready to go!

That was at 5pm. Around 5:30, the captain says we will probably sail at 5:45. At 5:45, still nothing. We finally set sail around 6:20! I’m not sure what the delay was, but we were happy to be on our way.

Our show time was 6:15, but we aren’t big show people, so we were okay missing it. We decided to head down around 6:30 to see what was happening. The theater wasn’t very full. Had I known it was mostly the CD giving information, we probably would have skipped the entire thing. We stayed about 15 minutes and then left and walked out on deck 4 to see where we were.

We’re going that way. Here comes Catalina Island.

That's where we've been. Palos Verdes Peninsula and San Pedro to the right of it.

Passing Catalina Island now, looking back at it.

After a while, we went down to our room to rest and then get ready for dinner. We got to our room and found our first towel animal and the first of many, many sales pitches from Disney. We did take them up on one of them though- onboard booking. I am not fond of towel animals. I feel they are a colossal waste of time, towels, and effort. DW however, is infatuated with them. Therefore, you will see a pic of every single towel animal we got this trip.

First up was a lobster.

Don’t worry, there are plenty more for you to see later.

 

[La2kw]

Dinner was at Parrot Cay. I love the look of this restaurant.

We met our server Sunil from India, and assistant server Yansen from Indonesia. Sunil was an excellent server and Yansen started out really good, but got slightly less so by the end of the week. He was very personable however and we enjoyed all of our meals with them immensely.

For dinner, I ordered the Baked crab Martinique- just okay.

Cold mango, papaya soup with passion fruit cream (three of my favorite fruits and it was yummy- tasted like dessert)

Mixed grill- fairly good, the meat was lukewarm, but I enjoyed the lamb chop.

Lemon meringue pie- okay.

DW had asparagus soup

Roasted chicken with yummy sweet potato mash

and sugar free cheesecake

We enjoyed dinner and waddled out of the dining room to change clothes. I don’t mind dressing for dinner, unless it’s summer in the Bahamas and then I still do dress decent. However, I could care less if someone dresses down such as wearing shorts in the dining room. IMO, there’s enough to worry about in the world without getting annoyed over what someone else wears to dinner on a cruise ship. I’m more annoyed by poorly behaved children and adults than clothes. Any way, after dinner, I like to get comfortable, so back on with the shorts, t shirt and sandals.

We decided to go see what was happening in Route 66, the adult area after 9pm. Thank goodness, it was child-free! I don’t remember the entertainment, but the AllStars band (Wonder’s house band) was pretty good. We enjoyed some music and then got tired so we went to bed.

 

[remlap]

Subscribing. We're two adults going next April, so enjoying your kid free report.

 

[sunshine girl]

Great photos! Thanks for posting your report, looking forward to reading more!

 

[La2kw]

Subscribing. We're two adults going next April, so enjoying your kid free report.

Great photos! Thanks for posting your report, looking forward to reading more!

Thanks!

 

[La2kw]

Day 2. First Sea Day.

We love sea days. Sleeping in. Doing nothing. I woke up around 7am and went for a run on deck 4. I Ran about 2 miles. DW went to a spin class at the gym. She said it was packed and didn’t even get a bike, so she went on the treadmill instead. I never set foot in the gym on board since I prefer to run on deck. She decided to join me after the crowded gym experience from then on out. I am concerned about running on the Dream this summer since there does not appear to be a complete circuit on deck 4 and it looks like a smaller track up top.

After my run, I grabbed a banana from Goofy’s Grill, and went to take a shower. DW was still at the gym when I got out, so I went and took a few pictures around deck.

The weather was a bit gray, but it was definitely warmer than L.A. and at least there was no rain!

I went inside and took a few more shots with hardly anyone around.

 

[Schmoopsie Poo!]

Great pics! Looking forward to more!

 

[tigger2on]

Lovin' your report!!!

 

[Mindyjoy]

Subbing ... we are two adults without kids who just got off the Wonder today. We are definitely the minority!!!

 

[Shunasee]

Cant wait to read the rest of your report. DH and I are doing the Wonder in October and will be kid free as well.

 

[La2kw]

Great pics! Looking forward to more!

Thanks!

Lovin' your report!!!

Thanks!

Subbing ... we are two adults without kids who just got off the Wonder today. We are definitely the minority!!!

That's for sure. We found out there were 800 kids on our cruise.

 

[La2kw]

Went back to the room and DW was back, showered, and ready to have breakfast. We decided to have breakfast at Triton’s and we got a table for two.

I ordered the eggs benedict, which were very runny. I was grossed out so I just ate the ham and muffin. I was surprised by the fast food hash brown pattie also. Not a great breakfast. We left the restaurant (with most of the slop still on my plate and I went to the buffet to get some fruit and a bowl of oatmeal. Should have started with that, it was so much better. Needless to say, we did not go back to Triton's for breakfast. Instead, we either ordered fruit, toast, and coffee from room service or to the Parrot Cay breakfast when it was open.

DW ordered the veggie frittata with wheat toast which she enjoyed.

After breakfast, we walked around the ship and then saw Tangled in 3D. It was showing in the Walt Disney Theater. I hate seeing movies in there because the screen is relatively small and there is too much light that enters the theater. It was playing later in the week in the cinema and I wish we had waited. The movie was good- we had never seen it before. Of course, there were a number of children in there talking during the movie and their parents did nothing to quiet them down. Now when my kids were that age, we did not allow them to talk during a movie. I guess we understood proper theater etiquette and knew that we were not at home watching a DVD- there are people around you who would like to enjoy the theater. This would become a recurring problem during the entire week for both movies and shows. Fortunately, most of the children were well behaved.

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Great photos and review! Did you book one of the ITY last minute deals? I just booked one of these at 30 days out and am hoping and praying for an upgrade to an outside or better!

 

[La2kw]

Great photos and review! Did you book one of the ITY last minute deals? I just booked one of these at 30 days out and am hoping and praying for an upgrade to an outside or better!

No, that wasn't available.