The toddler report/Sept. 23. Wonder

[jodifla]

Hi all. As some of you may remembered, I questioned whether it was worth taking an unpotty-trained toddler, since they couldn't go to the kids clubs and they were banned from the pools, except for the one splash ear. We did go on the Sept. 23 Wonder (got bumped to a verandah room from an inside room with FRR for only $40 earlier in the summer, so we figured we'd go for it), and here are some of my findings:

I did a bunch of planning to keep my DS, 2 1/2. happy and swimming. We drove to Cocoa the night before and stayed at the Radisson. (Lovely hotel, but the bed was as hard as a rock! We couldn't sleep...our tablemates had stayed here too, and also found the mattress too hard for sleeping.) The pool was fantastic, and we spent a few hours in it before heading over to the port. DS was completely thrilled.

Once at the port, I realized a lot of my plans were shot because we wouldn't be going to Nassau because of Hurricane Jeanne. In Nassau we were going to go swimming at the Wyndham, which welcomes cruise guests. (yes, their pool was close for renovations, but their sister hotel pools were open.) But they said when we checked in that we would be going to Key West, but no Castaway Key. AFter a sleepless night at the Radisson, I wan't much in the mood for this info. Both hubby and I were disappointed, even though we knew it wasn't DCL's fault. In fact, as we sat at the buffet lunch, I really had the feeling like I just wanted to get off the boat and go home. (I got over it.)

Now, for toddler findings:

Even with two sea days, there was enough to do with DS. He loved exploring the ship. In fact, his favorite place was the Promenade Lounge, where he liked to sip Shirley Temples at the bar while his dad had martinis and his mom had a glass of wine. The bartenders in there were great and kept him entertained. We took him to the Oceaneer's Club one time but it was an absolute madhouse. We didn't stay long.

Flounders worked really well for us....we used it four times. It's a small room, but it has all the stuff DS likes, Baby Einstein, the Wiggles, Disney Sing-ALong tapes, toys. The counselors were great with him. He screamed mightily when we dropped him off, but when we stuck our head in a few minutes later, he was fine. We actually got overcharged a bit, because the first night we picked him up early (We were so exhausted from the night before) and the second night, we brought him up later than planned. I had called to adjust the time, but got charged for the full time anyway. It was still worth the cost, and allowed us the evenings to ourselves. We even ate at Palo twice, once for dinner, and once for the brunch they added on our extra day of the cruise (thank you, Jeanne)

Crew is awesome with children. They really bend over backward everywhere on the ship for them. They really make them feel welcome. And they are accommodating. One night, when DS feel sound asleep just as we were supposed to leave for dinner, I had DH ask to move us to the late seating, and they did with no problem.

Shows are great for kids -- unless your child is like mine, and has developed a fear of characters, which of course were everywhere on the boat. But there's also live music everywhere on the boat, and he LOVED that.

Rooms are very comfortable for families. Our room steward made up our bed with bedrails, and our bed was very comfortable. We loved our verandah! Ate room service breakfasts out there, and had drinks and appetizers. ROom has a TV with Disney channel, but it doesn't always work in port. We brought our DVD player, which bought us lounging in time in the morning.

In Mexico, we did the beach break, which was perfect. DS spend four hours in the pool at Playa del Sol (now called something else) and was asleep by the time the bus pulled out to take us back to the ship.

Plenty of food for the toddler crowd. Hot dogs, chicken fingers, pizza, hamburgers. (I kept offering DS an array of the buffet food, but nothing green will pass his lips!) We ordered juice from room service and kept in the beverage cooler so we never ran out. Overall, DH and I found the food hit or miss. Some really terrific things, some things, not so good. Highlights were the room service coffee, the chocolate souffle at Palos, the stone crab claws on the seafood buffet, and the room service pizza.

Pools on board were crowded, as others have said. Frankly, I don't know how they'd know if your child was potty-trained or not. The splash ear was a bit bigger than I thought it would be. Some of the babies were crawling around right outside the ear, still in the water, and parents were chasing after them. Goofy pool was closed because the water was too rough some hours of some days, and the Mickey slide was closed some hours for the same reason.

We landed back in Port Everglades on Monday instead of Sunday. It took a long time to get off the ship, we stood 45 minutes in line. THat is not easy for a toddler. A friend picked me and DS up to take us home, while DH had to ride the bus back to Port Canaveral for our car. As another poster said, it was really not great of Disney to not even offer the riders water on the bus! Especially since you're dropping people off in a hurricane zone, where there is no power and everything is closed. We had missed breakfast, so DH had nothing until he got back to South FLorida at 6 pm.

I booked another cruise on board. Not completely sure we'll go. We had an excellent time, but it's not an inexpensive trip, so it will depend on how we're doing financially at the time.

Feel free to message me with questions.

 

[confal1]

Thanks for the great post. I will be doing the Nov. 6 Western in a few weeks with my DH, DD-5, and DS-14 months. The flounders Nursery looks great in all the pictures I've seen. I have done some research and apparently the time you reserve is what you pay for even if you pick them up 1 hour early or drop them off a little late, they still charge the full time you signed up for. Also for anyone else reading this they will allow a 15 minute buffer for when you say you are going to drop off and if you are not there within the 15 min. the next person on a waitlist gets a call. Don't be mistaken, you still get charged. I am happy to hear that the staff is so great. I think it is well worth the money. We are trying for a couple of hours a day with our cruise if he will go. Well thanks again for the great post.

 

[Ga Girl]

Thanks for posting reviews with a toddler. We are about to go with a 2 3/4 and 5 yr old. I plan on my youngest spending a good bit of time at Flounders while Big Brother is at the Club. He is potty trained but not well enough to join big brother. My biggest worry is dinner. Late seating, which is no problem because they are used to eating late, but they are active and don't like to sit down for long periods of time. I hope the servers are as good as everyone says.

Can you tell me some of the things the servers do to keep the kids attention??

Also what times did you eat at Palos?? I am having a hard time figuring out what times to sign up for at Flounders and Palos.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Denine]

Thanks for the report. We sail in 2 weeks with our just turned 2 DD.

 

[momofmeg]

so you went to Cozumel and Key West? I was curious as to where you guys went. We were on the Sept. 19 cruise. We have no babies our"baby " is 20-she was with us. we all went to Palos. Her and hubby had the choc. souffle I went for the tirmasu. I know everyone raved about the choc. souffle but I have had it on other cruises (Princess) and never thought it was so great myself. that is the way I feel about baked Alaska too. Wonder did not offer it but that was no big deal to me-all it is is ice cream with a merangue that has been browned around it. I guess it is a marvel to people that you can have baked merangue and cold ice cream together. I have never been a fan of merangue though-prefer the pies that have whipped cream instead. I understand Cherrie Jubilee was offered our last night but we went to Palos then as we wanted to do all the restuarants and our last night was a repeat of Tritons. I have had cherries jubilee before so it was no big deal.

One thing though we checked out the Palos brunch as we wanted to know the menu-in fact the matr'd said we could eat there that day if we wanted as there had not been many reservations but all I saw was a buffet pretty much the same as the lunch buffet offered in Parrot Cay. I thought it would be nicer or something. If we ever do a Magic cruise though I would like to try the Palos tea.

One thing we felt was great about Wonder and we were not so sure about - it was super the adults only pool and hot tubs. This was really enforced and after looking at the other 2 pools and how crowded they were I was glad our" baby " is an adult.

We also liked the adults only lounges-The Cadillac the piano bar and Route 66 had a great band with a wonderful Beatle's tribute show.

I liked the Disney broadway type shows except for that Hercules-several poor little kids were absoulutely terrified of that Hades guy-to me since lots of the Disney customers are people with small children I felt they could have made a better choice. don't they know they are giving thse poor little kids nightmares?

The same for that Disney show about the oscars or emmys or whatever it was-it was great except for that one small portion where it concentrated on the evil characters. The poor little girl behind us (she was around 3 or 4) was absoulutely TERRIFIED-her mother had to take her out. As far as I am concerned Disney could have left that piece out.

One thing I did feel though was Disney worked hard to make everyone happy. You did not have to have small children toenjoy that cruise and though the cruise had tons of kids it was never a problem for those of us who don't have small children. The other lines could learn from Disney-I say.

To the parent who was concerned about their kids being bored at dinner. The kids are given crayons and pictures to color. Our tablemates 7 year old son seemed very well behaved and not bored at all. At the Animators Palate your kids are entertained by the wall changing colors and pictures. At Parrot Cay they have a live band. I never noticed any children being unduly unruly at dinner- though this has happened to me on other cruiselines. Plus our table mate's son opted to stay in the kid's club for dinner once or twice. The kids can eat dinner there I believe.

Even though the beach blanket is closed for dinner-you can still get pizza, hot dogs and burgers at the other places on the lido too . They also at the dinner places offer the kids things like pizza, hot dogs, grilled cheese if they don't want to more adult fare.

 

[ksjayhawks]

momofmeg

The Palos buffet also has several entrees that you order--breakfast, meat, fish, etc. They were excellent!!! You could try as many as you wanted and could get half orders. Our server prepared special desserts for us as well. We really enjoyed the brunch the best of all. Loved the view out the windows and it was so relaxing!

We did the tea. I liked it, DH is not a great tea fan or fan of the type of foods served.

 

[jodifla]

actually, we only went to Cozumel. They changed the Key West plans when they saw where Jeanne was headed.

As for dinner with a toddler, we had the early seating and still found it tricky. (We don't eat out much with him, so he doesn't have a lot of practice....) The great thing is, everybody has kids pretty much, and so they understand, and DCL just bends over backward to accommodate.

The first night, DS, 2 1/2 stayed with us the first hour, then I took him to Flounder's for the rest of the evening. The second evening we had ressies at Palo at 8:30, so we got room service for DS and appetizer cheese tray for us. He went to Flounders at 7:30. The third night we had no Flounders ressies, so he was with us the whole dinner, and was highly uncooperative. This was at Tritons, so DH took him next door to the Promenade Lounge, which he just loved. (he liked sitting on the bar stools there and drinking shirley temples). I took the menu over to DH in the lounge, he told me what he wanted, and I ordered for both of us. DS came back long enough to eat his chicken fingers, then DH had to take him out again. I got my cherries jubilee to go! The servers are very cooperative that way.

The last night DS feel into a dead sleep about 30 minutes before dinner. DH went to the head server, and got us into the second seating with our same servers. DS went to Flounders around 7 p.m.

Don't be afraid to ask for what you need!

 

[MarcyIn Florida]

It's funny -- my girls have spent loads of time at the Promenade Lounge, too, both this year and in 2002 (when my oldest was 2.5). They love the dance floor there, even when there is no music.