Wonder - January 21, 2011 The Cruise To Nowhere In Particular..

[cmwade77]

Sitting in the terminal, waiting to board! So excited! I got all teary when I saw her, and when we went to check in I totally burst into tears. Am I the only big sap here?

Group four boarding can't come fast enough!

We are in group two! Can't wait.

Also, what do the numbers in the previous post mean?

 

[A Litle Pixie Dust]

Sorry I didn't get to meet more of you! Thank you for all of the FE gifts.

Hope everyone made it home safe and sound!

 

[cmwade77]

Yes, we just got home. I am sorry that we didn't get to meet more of you too. But we had a blast and want to thank everyone for the FE gifts as well. Now it's time for a nap.....we stayed up way too late last night.... darn free room service....LOL

 

[disneyguy537]

We just got home from the ship. What a great weekend, and I saw some of you guys with the CTN logo T-shirts. They looked cool.
Now we're DCL veterans!

 

[lapdwife]

We had a WONDERful weekend. Home and laying in bed watching football here and uploading about 150 pics to Facebook. I'm exhausted! Thank you for the wonderful FE gifts! This was our first exchange and I got some good ideas for our next trip. It was so much fun coming back to the room each time and checking the extender.

My only complaints on the weekend were the food on night one and the chaos trying to leave the ship this morning. Ohhhh, and being repremanded for taking pics of the ship as we were leaving. Please, it's a ship in a public port! Oh well, I got 'em

 

[disfrog]

Home safe and sound, unpacked and relaxed. Just had a great time going back through all the FE gifts. Thanks to everyone. I had more fun checking out all the different FEs everyone has created, as well as the door decor. Anyone know who did the huge tigger face? It cracked me up.

Loved meeting the few of you I got to talk to, and smiling across the hallways at many more as we passed out our FE gifts...

Can't wait until our next cruise!

 

[RaglanRoad]

What a fun trip this was! It was a couple of first cruises for a few of our party and it was so great just a nice 20 minute drive home Now looking forward to my Med cruise coming in May and the fact I'm a Gold Castaway member now. We are all glad to have the Wonder call California home

 

[dsnydaddy]

Sorry I didn't get to meet more of you! Thank you for all of the FE gifts.

Hope everyone made it home safe and sound!

I was more or less MIA on this cruise. Having my In-Laws and a work friends family cruising with me was about all I could handle on a short cruise. We all had a great time, but I was with them mostly. I did look for things that would ID the DIS'ers but didn't see many. Got to meet Zoom and she was very nice. I meant to stop by your cabin Des but by the time things settled down for us it was 10pm and my wife told me that if I knocked on your door she'd have my hide.

We just got home from the ship. What a great weekend, and I saw some of you guys with the CTN logo T-shirts. They looked cool.
Now we're DCL veterans!

Dang! I missed the CTN T-Shirts! I was thinking of making some of them but settled on Buttons instead. Many of the crew commented on the buttons, they liked the design. I hope that the t-shirt family got as many compliments.

What a fun trip this was! It was a couple of first cruises for a few of our party and it was so great just a nice 20 minute drive home Now looking forward to my Med cruise coming in May and the fact I'm a Gold Castaway member now. We are all glad to have the Wonder call California home

Congrats on the Gold Status! We booked a MR cruise in February, again with my In-Laws. they enjoyed themselves so much it was a necessity! After my Dream cruises in Oct I'll be gold status so I'll have the perks during that MR cruise.

 

[dsnydaddy]

BTW: To those of you who dropped off gifts at my Door. Thank you. They were all very appreciated by us. Zoom, your magnet is already gracing our Refrigerator! My wife loved it!

 

[A Litle Pixie Dust]

I was more or less MIA on this cruise. Having my In-Laws and a work friends family cruising with me was about all I could handle on a short cruise. We all had a great time, but I was with them mostly. I did look for things that would ID the DIS'ers but didn't see many. Got to meet Zoom and she was very nice. I meant to stop by your cabin Des but by the time things settled down for us it was 10pm and my wife told me that if I knocked on your door she'd have my hide.

Awww..that's to bad! We had the door prop'd open until about 11 so you would have been welcome but I understand!

 

[Melora]

We ended up missing everyone from here thanks to meeting up with another set of friends.

We loved our cabin but have to honestly say that in comparison to the other Disney cruise we took the food was just awful everyplace but the buffets. (WEIRD).

We didn't get the usual Disney magic but I really felt it was because the crew had just came off a really long cruise and didn't have the energy to invest in people who were just staying for 2 nights.

Very disappointed that Animators Palette didn't have the whole show (even if they just changed the colors). It felt like they were trying to cut corners.

I met a few crew members who were just wonderful but just as many who I would never have expected to see on a Disney cruise (acting like they didn't really want to put out an effort). I went to get some hot chocolate last night from deck 9 and there wasn't any and no one seemed to be able to tell me who could get me some. On the last Disney cruise if I needed something anyone I asked would have gone to find out not just said they didn't know. And breakfast yesterday morning they ran out of donuts early and didn't offer to get my kids some (a usual practice on the last cruise).

Again, we loved our cabin and enjoyed some quiet time together and the kids LOVED the kids club. This wont put us off Disney but it wasn't as magical as the last time we went.

 

[Zoom]

What a fun trip this was! It was a couple of first cruises for a few of our party and it was so great just a nice 20 minute drive home Now looking forward to my Med cruise coming in May and the fact I'm a Gold Castaway member now. We are all glad to have the Wonder call California home

Congrats to your gold status!!! We'll be Gold after our MED cruise in June!! Do you think DCL will cancel Tunisia? Just saw in the main forum that they cancelled Mazatlan due to that violent thing happened this past week.

I was more or less MIA on this cruise. Having my In-Laws and a work friends family cruising with me was about all I could handle on a short cruise. We all had a great time, but I was with them mostly. I did look for things that would ID the DIS'ers but didn't see many. Got to meet Zoom and she was very nice. I meant to stop by your cabin Des but by the time things settled down for us it was 10pm and my wife told me that if I knocked on your door she'd have my hide.

Awww....that's nice of you to say! thanks!

BTW: To those of you who dropped off gifts at my Door. Thank you. They were all very appreciated by us. Zoom, your magnet is already gracing our Refrigerator! My wife loved it!

You're welcome! Didn't want to leave it by the door, good thing i saw your stateroom host (i think we had the same host..) and asked him to put it inside your room.

DH went with me at the meet and greet and met Pizzieduster ( with her chardonnay ), stitch ??? and another couple but didn't get the username. I also met lvstitch at the elevator . I saw Joy a few times but didn't get a chance to say Hi....

Overall, we all had a blast and happy that my bro and sister and their families now understand why we love to cruise! They are now interested of cruising again!! We were at Tritons for dinner. I'm really gonna miss chatting with you guys here!!!

 

[kkmcan]

Have to agree with the previous poster. It just wasn't as great as our previous cruises. The crew was definitely worn out from the Panama cruise. The lack of dinner rotation really was disappointing (we were in Parrot Cay both nights and for this mornings breakfast).

It seemed that there were just lots of lines to wait in which I don't remember at all on our previous cruises. The check in at the port was frustrating- all the CMs were new and learning how to check in. Which I totally understand but again not the Disney experience we are used to. We didn't try to see any characters in the lobby-just too many people.

we had first time cruisers (my parents, and sis and her kids) with us. It turns out that my mom and sis can't handle the motion. They won't be cruising again. They took their motion sickness meds around the clock and wore the sea bands but it still did a number on their stomachs. I felt really bad about the whole thing. They did think that Disney did a great job with customer service and attention to detail. they thought the ship was beautiful and everyone was so helpful and friendly.

 

[PizzieDuster]

Congrats to your gold status!!! We'll be Gold after our MED cruise in June!! Do you think DCL will cancel Tunisia? Just saw in the main forum that they cancelled Mazatlan due to that violent thing happened this past week.



Awww....that's nice of you to say! thanks!



You're welcome! Didn't want to leave it by the door, good thing i saw your stateroom host (i think we had the same host..) and asked him to put it inside your room.

DH went with me at the meet and greet and met Pizzieduster ( with her chardonnay ), stitch ??? and another couple but didn't get the username. I also met lvstitch at the elevator . I saw Joy a few times but didn't get a chance to say Hi....

Overall, we all had a blast and happy that my bro and sister and their families now understand why we love to cruise! They are now interested of cruising again!! We were at Tritons for dinner. I'm really gonna miss chatting with you guys here!!!

That was soooo funny! I did have my plastic wine glass with my Chardoney! I MET CAPTAIN CRASH! AND ZOOM!

Had a great time - it was too short and it was sad to leave this morning. (Anyone else think they could have slept in another 1.5 hours?)
My DD12 is working on DH for an Alaska cruise.

I took the advice of filling out a form for a future cruise and dropped it off. Haven't heard anything yet.

We had soooooo much fun with the fish extenders...but I ran out....I had two nights planned but I ended up getting to Deck 6 and had to retrieve the second nights goodies too. We loved everything we got....I put it all out for my older sons and my DH to see. They wished we would have done this earlier when they sailed.

I soooo need to exercise more! Climbing those stairs....lol...I got stopped a couple time by room stewards while delivering my goodies. I got caught a couple times by people opening up their doors I saw A Little Pizzie Dust did have her stateroom door open and we were lightening fast! lol...looked like you guys were having fun. I loved all the magnets. Who had the door with all the blue color circles? It was so pretty! Oh...and a room steward told me that on the PC sailing they had 100 people doing the Fish Exchange They carry little scissors -- because he helped me cut my zip lock on my FE.

ETA: My Alone Time at the Spa was wonderful! This may be TMI - but I wasn't expecting the verandah with the jacuzzi. Had to run back to get the bathing suit! lol It was lovely and I was in heaven! The best time on the ship!

 

[lapdwife]

I watched the Wonder sail away tonight...so sad I wasn't on it!

 

[captaincrash]

Hello all!

We're back from the sailing - and enjoyed meeting a few at the cruise meet and around the ship. Thanks to everyone with the FE gifts! I hope you enjoy mine - they were unlabeled (I messed up and left half my stuff at home in my mad dash out the door - namely the bags and labels). At any rate - we had a good time... and for any who missed it - my spouse and I won the "WHo Knows thier Spouse better" game! As for my embarassing responses in the game I'll leave it to your imagination as to all that!!! < chuckles >

At any rate - we rebooked two sailings - with the Alaska one for 2011 being an UNLIKELY one to go through with. It was more of a "Dummy Date" for use in the future - or in helping my BIL or SIL join us with the OBC discount on one of thier cabins. Or we might end up using it to book another sailing that appears to our taste.

I hope everyone had a wonderful sailing! It was ENTIRELY TOO SHORT... two nights... sigh. \

​

 

[BubbaGrump]

Thanks to all for the fish extender gifts! We were the doofs that forgot our extender and had the awesome plastic bag! But EVERY time we came back to our room there was something special in there! And very interesting how many different experiences people have on the same cruise. Our wait staff were above and beyond excellent!!! And both nights our dinner in Tritons was excellent! We even added four additional people to our table who wanted to join us on the early seating on the second night. They totally took care of us as far as moving us to a bigger table and keeping the same waitstaff, and our waiter(Mihailo and Tita)went above and beyond to make the crashers feel welcome. We also had first time Disney cruisers with us and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.Our Palo brunch was also awesome as always and our waiter was GREAT! Some veteran Dis cruisers with us will even be requesting him on their upcoming repo/Alaska cruise. And we pretty much just walked right off the ship with our own luggage at about 8:30 and were in our car and on the way to the Gaffy Street Diner up the street in about 20 minutes after leaving our room. I guess we were amongst the lucky ones because we did here lots of unhappy stories being told about not only this cruise but about the Panama cruise as well. We also didnt have time to make the meet and greet or chat with hardly any of you but did see a few wristbands and teeshirts around the ship. Now its time to hit the hay and back to reality in the morning! Hope to cruise with you guys in the future on a longer trip!

 

[SanDeeKath]

I agree with the other posters that as our first Disney cruise ever, we were really disappointed. The ship was really run down (very loud hallways, rediculously crowded and tiny elevators) and a nonexistent buffet. Does Disney really not have a buffet after 2pm? My children don't like sit down dinners and the only other option for them was the deep fried junk they had by the pool (hot dogs, brots, deep fried fish sandwitches and chicken strips and FF). BLECH. No salad bar except 12-2. Room service never picked up the phone (we called them 3x)! Good grief. We are probably going to cancel our Christmas 8n cruise unless someone tells me that it was totally not the norm to only have the (tiny) Beach Blanket Buffet only open for 2-3h a day! Never on a ship have I seen such a small buffet with such rediculous hours. Not that we are huge eaters but there was no fresh fruit to be found on the whole ship!

And Parrot's Kay as a restaurant was just crazy. It was so loud in there and so warm. It has the ambiance of my college cafeteria. The food was ok but like I said, kids didn't want to do sitdown and there were essentially no alternatives for them except the fast food fried stuff. After 2 nights, I literally couldn't wait to come home and eat a big salad. We made grilled fish tonight to detox from all the fried stuff we ate for the last 3 days.

So bummed! I am such a big Disney nut (own 900 DVC points, etc) but the Wonder was just a HUGE disappointment for us. DH and I are still in shock after all the build up on the boards. We've been on Princess and RCCL and we really can't imagine sailing on the Wonder again. Sadly, we have an 8n Xmas cruise to MX booked that will will likely cancel this week. I can't imagine being on that ship for 8 nights. Wish the Dream was here instead...

On the bright side, we LOVED the shows and the kids enjoyed the kids club. And we though the service was fine. Not exceptional but also not unfriendly.

 

[Melora]

I do not think this was typical for Disney AT ALL.
When we went on the 7 day Caribbean 4 years ago we loved it so much we rebooked on board.

If we had had the same experience as we did this cruise we would not have ever considered doing Disney again.

Sadly it was so hit or miss. The kids LOVED the kids club. Spent basically the entire day on Saturday there and my son spent hours in the teen club.

Our cabin steward was VERY friendly but he seemed totally worn out. Just sort of tired but still always asking if we needed anything. When we got to our cabin the shower curtain stunk really bad. Like a sponge thats been used too much. It was hard to use the bathroom. We mentioned it in passing to the steward and he changed it in about 10 minutes. Smelled MUCH better in there.

I also found the hours for the buffet and the rest of the auxiliary eating places ridiculous! My kids wanted something to eat in the late afternoon and usually on a cruise there is a buffet open most of the day. And twice we went for ice cream and it wasn't working. There was someone there fixing it but he said both times it would be half an hour until we could get some.

Our wait staff was OK, nothing special, but also seemed worn out. I could tell they wanted to do the whole Disney magic thing but didn't seem to have the energy.

One thing that we noticed was that since this was a cruise that you could book and go on for relatively little money there was an entirely different ambiance then any other cruise we have gone on. People who didn't particularly love Disney, they just could afford this cruise. And people who aren't familiar with cruising. So there were a lot of people wondering around the ship not knowing how to take advantage of the amenities. I spoke with at least 3 families who had no idea there was a kids club that they could drop their kids off at.

So overall, I would definitely say this was NOT typical for a Disney cruise and I would certainly be willing to give them another chance. If you need anymore info you can always PM me.

 

[remlap]

The night before the cruise we also went to rush $25.00 HAIR tickets at the Pantages theatre and danced on the stage. If you're in Southern California, I recommend you get to Hollywood this week.

We had a great time on the Wonder.. We wandered by the Goofy pool a few times at 3 PM, but didn't see anyone. We did drop by Pixie Dust's Cat 1. Thank you for opening it up for all of us. VERY NICE.

We had Tritons. We enjoyed the food. (With the exceptions of the mini scallops in the main dining room appetizers) Palo Brunch was fantastic. (Palo had good scallops, along with everything else as good as always.)

We rebooked for a April 2012 Mexican Riviera cruise. The savings and OBC for booking on board made the 2 night cruise virtual free.

For the two night we were booked in an 11-C, which was a bit small for 7 days, and we had found a free secret porthole room on the cruise we wanted, which sealed our decision on booking the 7 night. We put Dreams Unlimited as our Travel Agent of record, which we've never done before, but we figured for $75.00, we had already done the homework, why pass up free $$.

Loved the Outlook Cafe. A great addition to the ship.

Having seen Golden Mickey's previously, we went to see Tangled in 3D on Friday, since we had missed it in the theater. Good movie. Saturday, Palo Brunch, followed by some quality time in the Rain Forest room and adult pool.

In the late afternoon, did the Tequila tasting, and randomly ended up seated with the charming LVStitch and her husband, who were both great company as well as had some great advice on the seven day Mexican Riviera.

Disney Dreams, final dinner with our friends and far too soon, it was all over.

Is a two night cruise too short. Yes, but two nights on the Wonder is better than not being on the Wonder. Plus it is a great cruise that we spent 15 minutes tops packing. At $200.00 total per person it was cheaper than a weekend hotel in Vegas, with food, entertainment and shows thrown in. Sign us up for the next one!

Final comment, that must be a sign. One year to the day of us getting off the Wonder. January 23, 2012, we can book Palo reservations for the next cruise.