Wonder Southern Caribbean January 19, 2020

[DietCokeMommy]

Hi Everyone,

I know a bunch of us are on this cruise, I thought I'd start a thread here for it.

I'm DietCokeMommy and this will be our family's 2nd Disney Cruise (also on the Wonder). DH and I have two kids who will be 6 and 3 at the time we sail. We love the Caribbean and are so excited for this cruise.

 

[BlondePirateofSC]

I am really excited for this cruise! I have been wanting to do the ABC route for a while and I was pleasantly surprised by the prices.

I will be cruising with my mom, our first mother/daughter cruise which should be really relaxing. My husband doesn’t like the beach and is sitting this one out.

This will be my fourth DCL Cruise, my Mom’s first though she has gone on many other cruises. I loved the Wonder when I sailed it in 2017 so looking forward to being back on it.

 

[deide71]

Agreed, the price for our go to cabin (6011...sideways cat 11b) was very reasonable. Hoping to reshot when we are on our Wonder cruise this January, but the opening day price was so good I put my deposit down just Incase prices go up.

Really looking forward to Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. Three new ports for us and they look great!

This will our seventh DCL cruise and our third southern.

 

[AquaDame]

Agreed, the price for our go to cabin (6011...sideways cat 11b) was very reasonable. Hoping to reshot when we are on our Wonder cruise this January, but the opening day price was so good I put my deposit down just Incase prices go up.

Really looking forward to Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. Three new ports for us and they look great!

This will our seventh DCL cruise and our third southern.

Have you reshopped yet...? We still saved a little over opening day so we did - many categories are currently showing sold out though (I wonder if this will be true as we approach PIF though...?)

 

[deide71]

Have you reshopped yet...? We still saved a little over opening day so we did - many categories are currently showing sold out though (I wonder if this will be true as we approach PIF though...?)

Our cruise departs Monday. If price doesn’t go up between now and then we won’t save much...but we would get the OBC. It look s like 11B is still available.

 

[AquaDame]

Our cruise departs Monday. If price doesn’t go up between now and then we won’t save much...but we would get the OBC. It look s like 11B is still available.

Yeah, we only saved $60 and got the OBC also. But it seems the price of all cats is down, which was interesting so we played with it and decided to downgrade from a 5B to 7A. A larger veranda opening and glass wall isn't worth that $800 price difference to us when we saw it so plainly. If I play with my original reservation the price difference isn't as extreme (I do need to call in and cancel that one still).

 

[deide71]

Yeah, we only saved $60 and got the OBC also. But it seems the price of all cats is down, which was interesting so we played with it and decided to downgrade from a 5B to 7A. A larger veranda opening and glass wall isn't worth that $800 price difference to us when we saw it so plainly. If I play with my original reservation the price difference isn't as extreme (I do need to call in and cancel that one still).

If I remember correctly there weren’t any 7A available on opening day.

I would love a verandah but it is not in the cards this time...I like the sideways 11Bs so that is my consolation

 

[AquaDame]

If I remember correctly there weren’t any 7A available on opening day.

I would love a verandah but it is not in the cards this time...I like the sideways 11Bs so that is my consolation

I do remember a blog post from Scott about that! I guess they just as quietly came back at some point? Weird... we had an inside last time and my husband REALLY wanted a verandah this time. He was missing it... I could take or leave it since I can always go on deck when I need some air. I DO really enjoy at least looking out a port hole in the room... but mostly I like saving money better. I need to try the sideways ones sometime.. they looked really nice from what I could see walking past with a door open.

 

[deide71]

Successfully rebooked! Only saved $18 but got the onboard credit.

We talked our table mates into booking this cruise onboard as well. Only 364 days to go!

 

[Jeffrey Terry]

This will be our fourth Disney Cruise. Second on the Wonder. Just can not wait to see these islands. Want to upgrade our room a bit but not too concerned with it this trip.
“Beach, Beach and Ummm Beach.”That is all my wife and two daughters keep saying.

 

[StarSeven7]

Hi everyone, just wondering what made you book this cruise instead of the other Southern Caribbean cruise with stops at Antigua, Martinique, St. Maarten, Barbados, and St. Lucia. I'm initially more drawn to the other itinerary, but since we've never been to any of these islands, I'm open to both! We're 2A, 2K(9, 6). Thanks!

 

[DietCokeMommy]

Hi everyone, just wondering what made you book this cruise instead of the other Southern Caribbean cruise with stops at Antigua, Martinique, St. Maarten, Barbados, and St. Lucia. I'm initially more drawn to the other itinerary, but since we've never been to any of these islands, I'm open to both! We're 2A, 2K(9, 6). Thanks!

We've been to Barbados and St. Lucia already, on our honeymoon. We loved Barbados, didn't really like St. Lucia. I'm also not huge on St. Maarten, though to be fair I haven't been there. It seems like the huge draw is that beach next to the airport, which is a big pass from me. On the other hand, I'm incredibly excited about the ABC islands. Bonaire is supposed to have world class snorkeling, and the beaches on Aruba and Curacao seem amazing. We were going to do both as a B2B but I decided that it wasn't worth the money for the cruise if I didn't care about getting off the boat for at least 2 of the stops. So instead we're doing a few days in Puerto Rico afterwards.

 

[AquaDame]

Hi everyone, just wondering what made you book this cruise instead of the other Southern Caribbean cruise with stops at Antigua, Martinique, St. Maarten, Barbados, and St. Lucia. I'm initially more drawn to the other itinerary, but since we've never been to any of these islands, I'm open to both! We're 2A, 2K(9, 6). Thanks!

Like @DietCokeMommy we've been to all the other ports aside from Martinique though St. Maarten only once. Now that they don't fly 747s into the airport there it has lost its luster for my husband! We've also been to Bonaire and Aruba once and we honestly enjoyed those two stops more then the other islands aside from Barbados which we also really enjoy. We found Bonaire delightfully arid and different with many lizards and enjoyed the rocky parts of Aruba also. We were surprised with how many casinos and American fast food places there were on Aruba too but we avoided all that and had a great time renting a car and driving all around. Its a very late night in that port so we stayed out and had dinner and got back to the ship very late which was a treat. We're used to pulling out of ports on Southerns around 5pm.

 

[ASROBERTS]

Hello!
My husband and I are on this cruise. He is a scuba diver. Anyone have recommendations for diving in ABC?

 

[CaseyCruiser]

Hi everyone. Me and my wife are on this cruise. We love San Juan and are doing a couple days there before the cruise. This will be our 7th Disney Cruise and 1st on the Wonder. I'm excited about this one.

 

[QuiltTeddy]

Greetings all! We just booked this cruise this morning. Looking forward to seeing islands we have not been to previously.

 

[AquaDame]

Starting to get more serious about planning over here...!

When we sailed out of SJU a few years ago JFK ended up shutting down but our airline refused to cancel our flight until the very last minute and we lost a fair number of miles booking last minute on another airline.

The next cruise out of SJU we chose to avoid the NE airports and tried going through Charlotte... Well, that didn't end well either and our flight back into charlotte was delayed due to fog or ice... I can't remember. Either way we ended up taking a reroute though Chicago instead and then THAT plane was delayed due to a mechanical issue. In the end we boarded in record time but still had to turn back on the runway because the crew ran out of time so we were stranded at O'Hare with no warm clothing in heavy snow. The next day a blizzard was coming through and we BARELY made it out after more delays before flights for the rest of the day were grounded.

THIS time I kind of want to take the nonstop to MCO since I've had good luck with that flight which leaves the question of how and when to do MCO -> SJU. It seems both jetblue and southwest are contenders though their schedules aren't out yet... does anyone in here live in Florida and have opinions one way or the other on these operators? It seems like JetBlue has a LOT of these flights every day. I'm trying to decide if we should continue on in the evening of the 18th and get into SJU around 10 or 11pm or if we'd probably be OK waiting to fly in the next morning? Has anyone done that?

I went ahead and booked a night both in San Juan and at the Hyatt at MCO just to be safe while I wait for the schedules to come out. I swear flights anywhere else are less hassle - I don't know why we have such bad luck with SJU...!

 

[lwilliam]

People staying before cruise in San Juan, what hotel did u book? Thanks

 

[AquaDame]

We're at the El San Geronimo Hotel. In the past we've also done the Embassy Suites, the airport hotel and Le Terazza de San Juan. They've all been fine - we'd have done the airport hotel again this time but it was actually really expensive on our night so we didn't.

 

[DietCokeMommy]

We're staying at the Courtyard Marriott Isla Verde. We stayed there last year and liked it a lot. It's on the ocean and has a nice pool and great ocean front restaurant. It's also just a few minutes from the port. I think it'll be great to land and head over to the hotel and grab some lunch and enjoy the pool and the beach. Perfect start to a vacation .