Wonder in Alaska - August 9 to 15

[DMMarla07860]

Haha cruise with me on a cruise that have the late night dessert buffet and it will be listed, guess I've got lucky, because it was on all the navigators I had, yet I've only made it to it twice

 

[rsjj]

wonderful trip report!! loved reading it!! i was on the same cruise as you! i think i met you briefly!

anyways...we ate at twisted fish too!! it was super yummy!!

 

[godalejunior]

Just off the boat today and had the same,exact experience with service and food quality you did...down to the character breakfast. We did complain to the head server and it did change after the first day and a half. We were travelling with other cruisers that have sailed on other lines and said Disney food was really poor in comparison. Palo was excellent however!

 

[HiMagicFan]

thank you for posting a great trip report! am looking forward to getting on board next week!

 

[cyclenut]

thank you for posting a great trip report! am looking forward to getting on board next week!

Thanks! I really hope it helps. If you have time, the Mt Roberts Tramway is a great addition to whatever else you may have planned in Juneau. I'm still kicking myself for not doing it after my wife and daughter did and told me all about it.

 

[cyclenut]

wonderful trip report!! loved reading it!! i was on the same cruise as you! i think i met you briefly!

anyways...we ate at twisted fish too!! it was super yummy!!

Perhaps we did meet. I know I met a couple at BBB one morning from here in Cali and had a very nice conversation. Not sure if that was you or not. I am terrible with names but usually pretty good with faces. We were all wrapped up in our own little world. It was totally funny to be that way when there were so many people around. I guess that is what happens to us when we're from an area like So Cal where people are packed in anyway.

 

[cyclenut]

Just off the boat today and had the same,exact experience with service and food quality you did...down to the character breakfast. We did complain to the head server and it did change after the first day and a half. We were travelling with other cruisers that have sailed on other lines and said Disney food was really poor in comparison. Palo was excellent however!

Wow ... that is interesting. I realize that they can't fix everything right away but this is something they must know by now needs to get fixed ... and soon. Maybe that's why all we're getting is an "I'm Sorry" instead of DCL making any sort of effort to keep us sailing with them. I've got two future cruises booked and after meeting with a travel agent last Friday, I really can't see any reason to keep those bookings. She has a contact at DCL and is going to reach out to them. I told her I'll transfer my reservations to her if it helps her to be "authorized" to speak on my behalf, but I don't want to transfer if I'm just going to cancel.

 

[godalejunior]

We ate at Twisted Fish while in port and their chowder was excellent. I really planned on booking onboard but after the food and service issue we did not. Our fellow family who travelled with us said we really need to branch out and try another line because the food does not compare to Princess....and Disney cruise was more than what some of the other lines charge.

I was really bummed at first as we are loyal Disney customers and DVC members but I am still not willing to count the whole cruising situation out yet.

 

[joyride27]

i was on the july 5th trip and the food was not good at all and are server was not great at all.

 

[WDWJonasGirl]

I was on your cruise. I may have met your only under 18, not sure.

 

[DMMarla07860]

I wasn't on the ship with you, but last time I was on the Wonder in April/May 2011 the food was good, servers(not so much, but I think that's because after having some good ones you notice more) but servers were friendly.

 

[LAWalz23]

We were on the same cruise and I agree 100% about the "character breakfast", and I wrote about it on the comment card. It was more rushed than the previous cruises (Magic 2007 and 2009) we have been on.
Regarding the dining room, this was our 3rd time with this set of menus (Magic 2009, Wonder 2010) and it was the best tasting and quality food. Our head server did say there was a new head chef and the server said this chef was much more stringent with quality than the previous one. I will say our server and assistant tried hard but seemed a little confused at times which was a little disconserting but no where as bad as our experience on Carnival in 2008 when we were the last ones out of the dining room every night.
If you choose to cruise on DCL again, you might want to try having lunch in one of the dining rooms. I personally do not care for BBB (Topsiders on the Magic) but my father loves it.
Another suggestion I made on the comment card was to have the "quick serve places" have longer hours because we had early dinner and would have liked to have something around 10:30-11PM but there were few choices other than room service if you weren't 18 years old.

Overall we thought it was a great cruise and will go on DCL again.

 

[godalejunior]

We were on the same cruise and I agree 100% about the "character breakfast", and I wrote about it on the comment card. It was more rushed than the previous cruises (Magic 2007 and 2009) we have been on.
Regarding the dining room, this was our 3rd time with this set of menus (Magic 2009, Wonder 2010) and it was the best tasting and quality food. Our head server did say there was a new head chef and the server said this chef was much more stringent with quality than the previous one. I will say our server and assistant tried hard but seemed a little confused at times which was a little disconserting but no where as bad as our experience on Carnival in 2008 when we were the last ones out of the dining room every night.
If you choose to cruise on DCL again, you might want to try having lunch in one of the dining rooms. I personally do not care for BBB (Topsiders on the Magic) but my father loves it.
Another suggestion I made on the comment card was to have the "quick serve places" have longer hours because we had early dinner and would have liked to have something around 10:30-11PM but there were few choices other than room service if you weren't 18 years old.

Overall we thought it was a great cruise and will go on DCL again.

We moved to the buffets because the dining room food was so not so good....

 

[eandesmom]

We just returned today. It's funny, I think we had a rather opposite food experience, much happier with the dinners than the breakfasts and lunches and our server was outstanding. I mean truly truly outstanding. Assistant server was a sweetheart, missed things sometimes but not anything awful. We barely saw the head server, my DH didn't even know who he was. However it didn't matter as our server, Wayan, was so outstanding.

I'd agree that the character breakfast felt rushed, from a character standpoint but not any less so than some of the WDW ones we've been to. We did not see the dessert buffets advertised either, only heard about them from our tablemates. It didn't much matter to me as with 2nd seating, we were hardly hungry by then anyway. I'd agree dinner was long but I'd expected it to be so that didn't really bother us either, any sit down dinner at WDW seems to take 2 hours so it matched my expectations there.

The only time we had real issues was with our disembarkation day breakfast (today). Very attentive on the drink orders but it took a while to get our food order in. Which really didn't much matter as we weren't in a rush but it was very unusual. The funny part was is I think part of the delay was everyone chatting with, taking pictures and hugging Wayan as they left. I had one small service issue with the spa that took far longer to get resolved than it should have, but in the big picture of things we were thrilled. To be honest, Wayan was as good (perhaps better) than our servers in Palo were either for brunch or dinner (we did both).

I agree that the Navigator is a bit confusing and some of the times just didn't work out. We missed a couple of things we'd have liked to do as a result, but then again, we made other choices so it all worked out.

I think you make a GREAT point about getting the kids to the clubs earlier. We made the same mistake you did and as a result, our boys weren't into Edge, at all, despite having been very excited about it pre-cruise. Luckily, thanks to wonderful table mates, it wasn't an issue and they had a blast but it could have been bad.

I think for us, right now, at the ages our kids are at, DCL is by far the best fit and the only one we are interested in cruising with though it is at a premium. We did feel that our service, overall, was absolutely outstanding and the minor glitches were so very minor as to almost be not noticeable. And while my DH and I might have been underwhelmed with the breakfast and lunch options (and agree about that hidden breakfast room service card, I had to call to figure out where it was lol), our kids were not. As we got off the ship today we were greeted to hugs, thank you's and "That was the BEST vacation ever!" Which definitely gave us pause as we've done some awfully cool trips over the years.

I know everyone's experience is different, I just thought I'd share that we had pretty magical service consistently. We had an interesting experience in Skagway. After our excursion (ziplining) we stopped at the Skagway brewery for a beer and a snack. Our server, who attends college not to far from where we live but works in AK for the summer, made a comment. She mentioned it was Friday and that was her favorite day. She asked us if we were on the Disney Wonder. We said yes and she said "I thought so". She told us that the customers from the Wonder were by far the nicest, the children the most well behaved and that the entire staff looks forward to Friday, when the Wonder is in port.

She said she thought that meant we must be being very well taken care of on board as everyone was always in such a good mood. We thought it was a pretty cool tribute to DCL.

I hear you on the prices though, there's only a few itineraries that appealed to us where the prices work and I'm not sure the dates will really pan out. the summer rates are obscene. We actually chose this week for Alaska as the rates started to go back down and I never thought I'd say this but after checking out some of the other options for next summer, Alaska started to look like a deal!

 

[computerwidow]

Just got home from the Disney Wonder Alaska Cruise 8-23 to 8-30. We were extremely disappointed in the entire experience. The food was bland and tasteless. Luckily we were able to eat at Palo twice and had 2 fantastic meals those two nights . I dreaded going to dinner all the other nights. The kids clubs were a complete joke. Nothing is done to encourage the kids to check them out. Our teenager didn't want to go into the Vibe since she didn't know anyone and our 11 year old took one look at the Edge-proclaimed it was lame and turned around and left. We spent a fortune at the arcade because there wasn't much else the kids were interested in doing. My 11 yr old was told he was too tall for the one slide into the pool and was turned away from the slide-even though there were no other kids in the pool because it was freezing cold outside. My teen wanted to work out in the fitness room and was turned away since she wasn't 18-even though she was with adults and it wasn't crowded. The activities on the ship really weren't all that interesting.

There were some positives. The stateroom was nice and well kept. The staff on board was friendly and welcoming.

We noticed when dining at Tritons at lunch that the servers frequently responded to our requests with the phrase "No problem" and then never followed through with our request. "No problem" became a big joke between my family on this cruise. For the amount of money we spent for 4 people to cruise for 7 days-once you added in excursions, arcade cards, coffee bar trips, Palo meals, etc was around $7000. It was not a good value for our money and really did not reflect the high standards I believed that Disney held.

 

[cyclenut]

Just thought I'd give you folks a brief update on our interactions with Disney over this. We have two future deposits down and have transfered these to a TA. We told our TA the entire story and it was shared with the Disney representative for the TA. We received word yesterday that they are still looking into it. We have told them that we expect to cancel our two future cruises unless we can get some sort of response from DCL other than "gee ... we're sorry".

I think a previous poster on this thread said it well. For the price we pay for a Disney cruise, we expect better. That's really the message.

 

[JOANNEL]

We too were on the 8/23-8/30. This was our 9th DCL cruise. My husband and I both thought it was the best one yet! I thought the dinners were better than the past cruises. We missed all the lunch buffets. Between Palo and our excursions we ate in Tritons used room service for most lunches. Both were always delicious. Our servers were fabulous, and we were a group of 16 which they handled really well.

I just find it so interesting of how many different experiences there are on the same cruise. We went to the dessert buffet. It was listed on the navigator on the back page under late night options.

 

[WDWJonasGirl]

I was on the same cruise as you guys.