Just back from our first Disney Cruise and thought I would would leave a trip report on our 5 night trip from San Diego last week. We traveled with a 17 year old and after pre-searching the YouTube's and such our comments:
The good:
Ship: Immaculate. Small. enough to get around, cruise sold out due Holliday week but never really felt crowded for the most part. Easy ship to navigate.
Cabin steward/hostess: Can only say great things, two cleanings a day the second with turn-down for kids's bed.
Meal staff on rotational dining at dinner: Very pleasant, working hard and the assistant server was obviously somewhat new and young but they were all great. We had very few requests outside the menu but they were happy to oblige. Table next to us had vegetarian diet (Indian diet) and the servers/ship took great care of them. Impressive.
Animators was the absolute best dining experience with the drawing show by guest animated on the screens at the end. A real treat for ALL ages. We ate there twice for dinner and last morning breakfast BUT menu was different each time for dinner.
Tianas' was twice - once for Pirate night and once for regular rotational. Menu was good both times.
Tritons - we skipped this dinner. The menu (you can see on the app) seems not to have changed on a long time and the YouTube's all with same menus indicated this was the one to skip. YMMV.
The beef servings on all dining rotations were good - the fish (sea bass, etc) very very good. The crusted pork chop at Animators on show night was huge, juicy and our kid ate it all - which was surprising.
Cabanas: Well done. Something for everyone and for sure things not for everyone. They had chilled Dungeness crab with the shrimp daily. That's a west coast thing and in season. It was as perfectly good as you will find anywhere - sweet, large and tasty.
Staff overall: All very friendly, professional and fun.
Drinks: Really the cost of cocktails and beer was in line with what you pay ashore - or probably somewhat less. A 16 oz Blue Moon was I think 8.16 with gratuity and if you bought 5 you got one free. they give you a plastic ice bucket free to use for them. Specialty cocktails were about 12 bucks each with gratuity - on the high end, less for regular cocktails. Not outrageous.
Sodas: Free 24/7 from the fountain (coffee and tea as well) so that was great and free of course at meals and Cabanas buffet.
Movies: Strange World, Ant Man, Avatar were showing and a couple others. We saw the names ones. Theaters good, no issue with seating.
Shows: A magic show that was super entertaining. I was skeptical and pleasantly surprised - really fun. Golden Mickeys and Frozen were super good as was the show on the last night - Enchanted Dreams or something like that.
Boarding: We had a 2:15 boarding time and got on about 20 minutes early. Had lunch.
Shore excursions: We self toured Cabo as I've been there before and we were not fishing. Got off the beaten track to the Wine Store (by McDonalds but over on the same street down and across from the fire station). The art and wine shopping here was much nicer, more reasonable and high quality compared to the pier area. Ensenada we did the family wine country trip. That was a fun excursion - the first stop at Cetto was great - the second stop, meh, a local place but not comparable. Weather in Cabo perfect in low 70's and sun. Ensenada low to mid 60's and sun. The wine excursion was 49 each (plus tips - which were well deserved) so for 60 bucks a person it was a bargain
Cafe: The Cove cafe on board was fine. Yea you pay for a Latte but no more than Starbucks or Peets and the pastries are free and the cafe longe is a great get away.
Wine: Disney allows two bottles of wine per adult at boarding and each port call ONLY as carry-on. We brought 4 bottles on board and left with one we had brought and two we had bought in Ensenada.
The bad/not great:
The internet access Disney sells. Garbage - Simply does not work. They should not offer it as you won't load a full browser page on a phone or tablet with a clean cache. I only bought the cheapest package to try and it was a complete waste of 20 buck. Selling a product that does not work is simply wrong.
The work-around (for us) is to use cellular at sea via AT&T directly, either by roaming (as I did) or purchasing a day package before you go. I did the former and will pay dearly for the very few times I used it. The latter is 10$ a day I think for the base package - but my advice is to avoid any wifi sold by Disney on the Wonder. YMMV.
Smoking section - this was the exception to the immaculate comment. I smoke. The areas on the Wonder Deck9 Port forward is perfect and away from everyone. Deck 4 Starboard 6pm to 6am is almost unused. Nobody was bothered in the least by smokers - however the crew did a very poor job of cleaning up the smoking area on deck 9. From poor to embarrassing. Guests using the area cleaned it more often. If you don't smoke you will never notice this. If you do, you will.
Gratuity situation: 18% on everything and how it's applied is a little out of hand. We are west coasters and used to tipping and tipping well, but the blanket policy of 18% on everything ends up stiffing the service workers ant the end of the day and people are fed up a little. Now we did leave extra tips for the housekeeping and wait staff of basically half again of what they got automatically (in the envelopes) - but many did not.
The suggestions and observations:
Disembarkation. We never heard the announcements for groups and really would not have mattered. We had put our bags out the night before, had coffee at the cafe, went to breakfast and sat in the lounge for some time. We are off by 11 am. So DO go to breakfast with your carry off gear. Have your bags collected the night before and don't be in a hurry - unless your travel plans call front - and then good luck. Our afternoon flight was 2:30pm so plenty of time.
Bingo - what a fun thing. You pay for the cards. but they have some amazing prizes (like a 10 grand jackpot one night). Get there 20 minutes before pre-sale time and have one or two in your group hold a couple seats while you line up to buy cards - but don't hog seats you don't need. Be reasonable. It's a lot of fun.
Wander around the shows and activities. Things you might not think are interesting turn interesting very fast.
Disney characters - Always be ready - if you go the the photo sessions you will pay 20$ for each picture. If you get lucky (and you will) you can get your pictures with Mickey, Minnie, etc., around the ship - but you have to be ready - LOL.
Kids are pretty darn safe. Ours is older and the activities all end at midnight. They can roam without much concern at all I would say for the Edge and Vibe age groups. Even though there were lot's of kids - we never thought there were too many. Plenty of adults. Everyone was quite nice
The good:
Ship: Immaculate. Small. enough to get around, cruise sold out due Holliday week but never really felt crowded for the most part. Easy ship to navigate.
Cabin steward/hostess: Can only say great things, two cleanings a day the second with turn-down for kids's bed.
Meal staff on rotational dining at dinner: Very pleasant, working hard and the assistant server was obviously somewhat new and young but they were all great. We had very few requests outside the menu but they were happy to oblige. Table next to us had vegetarian diet (Indian diet) and the servers/ship took great care of them. Impressive.
Animators was the absolute best dining experience with the drawing show by guest animated on the screens at the end. A real treat for ALL ages. We ate there twice for dinner and last morning breakfast BUT menu was different each time for dinner.
Tianas' was twice - once for Pirate night and once for regular rotational. Menu was good both times.
Tritons - we skipped this dinner. The menu (you can see on the app) seems not to have changed on a long time and the YouTube's all with same menus indicated this was the one to skip. YMMV.
The beef servings on all dining rotations were good - the fish (sea bass, etc) very very good. The crusted pork chop at Animators on show night was huge, juicy and our kid ate it all - which was surprising.
Cabanas: Well done. Something for everyone and for sure things not for everyone. They had chilled Dungeness crab with the shrimp daily. That's a west coast thing and in season. It was as perfectly good as you will find anywhere - sweet, large and tasty.
Staff overall: All very friendly, professional and fun.
Drinks: Really the cost of cocktails and beer was in line with what you pay ashore - or probably somewhat less. A 16 oz Blue Moon was I think 8.16 with gratuity and if you bought 5 you got one free. they give you a plastic ice bucket free to use for them. Specialty cocktails were about 12 bucks each with gratuity - on the high end, less for regular cocktails. Not outrageous.
Sodas: Free 24/7 from the fountain (coffee and tea as well) so that was great and free of course at meals and Cabanas buffet.
Movies: Strange World, Ant Man, Avatar were showing and a couple others. We saw the names ones. Theaters good, no issue with seating.
Shows: A magic show that was super entertaining. I was skeptical and pleasantly surprised - really fun. Golden Mickeys and Frozen were super good as was the show on the last night - Enchanted Dreams or something like that.
Boarding: We had a 2:15 boarding time and got on about 20 minutes early. Had lunch.
Shore excursions: We self toured Cabo as I've been there before and we were not fishing. Got off the beaten track to the Wine Store (by McDonalds but over on the same street down and across from the fire station). The art and wine shopping here was much nicer, more reasonable and high quality compared to the pier area. Ensenada we did the family wine country trip. That was a fun excursion - the first stop at Cetto was great - the second stop, meh, a local place but not comparable. Weather in Cabo perfect in low 70's and sun. Ensenada low to mid 60's and sun. The wine excursion was 49 each (plus tips - which were well deserved) so for 60 bucks a person it was a bargain
Cafe: The Cove cafe on board was fine. Yea you pay for a Latte but no more than Starbucks or Peets and the pastries are free and the cafe longe is a great get away.
Wine: Disney allows two bottles of wine per adult at boarding and each port call ONLY as carry-on. We brought 4 bottles on board and left with one we had brought and two we had bought in Ensenada.
The bad/not great:
The internet access Disney sells. Garbage - Simply does not work. They should not offer it as you won't load a full browser page on a phone or tablet with a clean cache. I only bought the cheapest package to try and it was a complete waste of 20 buck. Selling a product that does not work is simply wrong.
The work-around (for us) is to use cellular at sea via AT&T directly, either by roaming (as I did) or purchasing a day package before you go. I did the former and will pay dearly for the very few times I used it. The latter is 10$ a day I think for the base package - but my advice is to avoid any wifi sold by Disney on the Wonder. YMMV.
Smoking section - this was the exception to the immaculate comment. I smoke. The areas on the Wonder Deck9 Port forward is perfect and away from everyone. Deck 4 Starboard 6pm to 6am is almost unused. Nobody was bothered in the least by smokers - however the crew did a very poor job of cleaning up the smoking area on deck 9. From poor to embarrassing. Guests using the area cleaned it more often. If you don't smoke you will never notice this. If you do, you will.
Gratuity situation: 18% on everything and how it's applied is a little out of hand. We are west coasters and used to tipping and tipping well, but the blanket policy of 18% on everything ends up stiffing the service workers ant the end of the day and people are fed up a little. Now we did leave extra tips for the housekeeping and wait staff of basically half again of what they got automatically (in the envelopes) - but many did not.
The suggestions and observations:
Disembarkation. We never heard the announcements for groups and really would not have mattered. We had put our bags out the night before, had coffee at the cafe, went to breakfast and sat in the lounge for some time. We are off by 11 am. So DO go to breakfast with your carry off gear. Have your bags collected the night before and don't be in a hurry - unless your travel plans call front - and then good luck. Our afternoon flight was 2:30pm so plenty of time.
Bingo - what a fun thing. You pay for the cards. but they have some amazing prizes (like a 10 grand jackpot one night). Get there 20 minutes before pre-sale time and have one or two in your group hold a couple seats while you line up to buy cards - but don't hog seats you don't need. Be reasonable. It's a lot of fun.
Wander around the shows and activities. Things you might not think are interesting turn interesting very fast.
Disney characters - Always be ready - if you go the the photo sessions you will pay 20$ for each picture. If you get lucky (and you will) you can get your pictures with Mickey, Minnie, etc., around the ship - but you have to be ready - LOL.
Kids are pretty darn safe. Ours is older and the activities all end at midnight. They can roam without much concern at all I would say for the Edge and Vibe age groups. Even though there were lot's of kids - we never thought there were too many. Plenty of adults. Everyone was quite nice
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