Live From (maybe) Wonder 1/13-1/20

Hi Everyone!

Starting this one a day early. We are pretty excited about this cruise that has been more than a year in the making. I put in "possibly" a live from as I am not sure how far the 50MB will get me. We do have a stop in key west so I will definitely post an update while we are there and will do a full review when we get back. Feel free to ask questions and I will do my best to answer them.

We are going on the 7 Day from Galveston with stops in Nassau, Key West and Castaway Cay. Its myself, DW and my sister in law (DSIL) in a verandah cabin. We came in as per usual a day early and are staying in Houston and will make our way to Galveston tomorrow for our 12-1230 PAT.

Thanks for following along!

Hope you are able to watch the game Sunday! Go steelers!!!

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Hope you are able to watch the game Sunday! Go steelers!!!

 

 

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I am hoping the same thing. Nothing better than a cold beer with a playoff game!

Have an awesome cruise!

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Hoping you have a fantastic cruise!

And don't spend too much time wasted on here telling us, we can wait until you return! Enjoy the moment!

ex techie

Happy sailing!

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We woke up this morning to a wonderfully cloudy day in Houston and I checked the port of Galveston webcam to see nothing but fog, literally.

And then I saw this....

And I started to tear up a little bit, lol. We have cruised from Galveston and Houston and are very familiar with the fog game. In fact one cruise from Houston we were delayed in boarding until around 5pm, due to the ship arriving late and didn't leave until after noon the following day.

So it looks like it will be a delayed boarding for us here even though I havent received anything from DCL yet, probably cause they have no idea when the ship will actually be able to dock.

Good luck. We had a Princess cruise where the ship couldn't get in until the following morning, which of course caused our boarding to be delayed for 24+ hours. That's part of why Princess pulled out of Houston.

Galveston is usually better though, so maybe only a short delay.

We just got the call that the Wonder is in the process of docking now. We are supposed to arrive 5 hours after our PAT.

As a very unexpected gesture they credited us $25pp OBC due to the delay. Just another Disney touch that you wouldn't get anywhere else.

Have fun! We were on the Wonder in early December. Hope your cruise is as great as ours was.

Clair

We just got the call that the Wonder is in the process of docking now. We are supposed to arrive 5 hours after our PAT.

 

As a very unexpected gesture they credited us $25pp OBC due to the delay. Just another Disney touch that you wouldn't get anywhere else.

They will also try to rush the turn around as much as possible...so you'll have as little delay as they can manage.

Wonder how often fog is an issues for DCL. It must happen often based on the number of times I hear about the ships having fog delays.

Wonder how often fog is an issues for DCL. It must happen often based on the number of times I hear about the ships having fog delays.

Fog is a huge issue at Houston. It is less of a problem at Galveston, but can still cause delays.

Houston subsidized Princess to the extent of many millions of dollars to get them to use the terminal there...and despite the subsidies, they have pulled out. Of course, the flip side is that those cruise delays were not cheap. In our case, Princess paid for transportation to and from a hotel as well as the overnight hotel stay. Multiply that by a full ship....they kept us at the terminal till about 6 pm before making the decision that there was no way to get the ship in that day. It was a long, unpleasant day but at least we were in the terminal. The poor people waiting in their cars had only a port-a-potty. We had some heat and a restroom! The vending machines were empty within the first hour.

Steelers0854,

I hope the rest of your cruise is plain sailing!

ex techie

We were on the Wonder for the Dec. 16-23 sailing and we were delayed coming into port on Dec. 23rd because of the fog. We were on a 4 hour delay which we enjoyed because they brought out characters and we got to enjoy it a little longer. It was a good thing we didn't put our luggage out the night before because we had a 15 hour drive back home. Once we docked we were able to walk right off the ship with no problems. I often wonder about people who have flights if they are able to make other arrangements when this happens.

Have a fun trip.

We were on the Wonder for the Dec. 16-23 sailing and we were delayed coming into port on Dec. 23rd because of the fog. We were on a 4 hour delay which we enjoyed because they brought out characters and we got to enjoy it a little longer. It was a good thing we didn't put our luggage out the night before because we had a 15 hour drive back home. Once we docked we were able to walk right off the ship with no problems. I often wonder about people who have flights if they are able to make other arrangements when this happens.

 

Have a fun trip.

If you booked air thru the cruise line, they make whatever arrangements are necessary to get you home at no additional cost to you. If you booked air independently, what happens is between you and the airline; many airlines charge a "change" fee. Some airlines forgive this fee when weather related, others do not. Bottom line is that you book whatever you can to get home and your travel insurance will cover the additional costs provided you can supply proper documentation. This will often require that you obtain a letter from the cruise line attesting to the delay.

So we decided to head to the port about 3:15 and check things out. We saw a small line outside and a steady flow of people coming in so we decided to park and go to the port vs waiting longer.

We made it through the outside line in about 30 minutes. Moved inside to security which took about 45 min. All checked in and waiting to board with #19 and they are boarding 1-12 right now at 5:15. All in all I feel that's pretty good timing considering the circumstances.

Pretty happy with our dining rotation. We do Animators Palate tonight and 2 other nights. I'm glad we have the late seating for dinner!

All aboard!

Sounds like you are on your way and will be dining in Animator's tonight. Have a great cruise.

My tanker came in to anchor at Galveston last night, around 0200, and Wonder was still at the dock. It's gone now, so they slipped out a couple of hours ago, when things cleared slightly.

Carnival Valor and Freedom are anchored out here with us. Can't see half way down the ship.

My tanker came in to anchor at Galveston last night, around 0200, and Wonder was still at the dock. It's gone now, so they slipped out a couple of hours ago, when things cleared slightly.

 

Carnival Valor and Freedom are anchored out here with us. Can't see half way down the ship.

Good to know...so they are somewhere around 12 hours delayed. Hopefully they can do most of their cruise as planned. Key West, Castaway, and Nassau. It would be lovely if they could reschedule things to skip Nassau (if something must be missed), but somehow I doubt that will work. GUess we'll see how this adventure works out.

She was pretty lucky to get out, don't hold much hope for either Carnival ship to get in today.

Embarkation Day

Due to the late embarkation we had a late muster drill, 8pm. So we went to the welcome aboard variety show and grabbed a small snack from the pool deck before heading to our cabins to grab sweaters for the drill. I love that Princess musters inside in the lounges and really dislike being squeezed like sardines on the deck for Disney's muster drill, seems so unnecessary since the majority of the emergencies will not result in the ship being evacuated.

Our first night's dinner was in Animators Palate. We enjoyed the subdued black and white tones and the very subtle animations that were drawn on the TV's hung on the walls throughout the dinner. It was fun to see the progression of sketches and drawings throughout dinner service. The theme of the restaurant was carried right through to the butter knives which looked like little paintbrushes, great touch! I had one of the best pork chops I have ever tasted for dinner and DSIL had a delicious beef tenderloin that was cooked to a perfect medium and was melt in your mouth delicious.

We were tired from a long day and decided to make it an early evening. The weather seemed to have cleared and while we were still at the port when we went to bed, we were hopeful we would leave during the evening.

Day at Sea

Well, we didn't leave port! I awoke about 7:30AM, which is really late for me, and saw that we were not moving. The fog was so dense I could barely see off the balcony, but I could make out lights across the way and recognized them as the lights on the other side of the port, we were still in Galveston! I was shocked as the visibility at the port was wonderful the previous evening and I was dismayed as to why we couldn't leave. The ship did start to slowly limp out of port, in fog that was much denser that anything we had previously seen, and much worse than the 1-2 mile visibility that I would estimate we had the previous evening. Well, of course this meant that we were going to miss Key West, which was a major bummer as it was one of the main reasons we selected this particular cruise. But, what are you going to do? Its Mother Nature and is the reality of sailing out of Houston and Galveston.

So I ventured forth and hit the gym to try and burn off the dinner from the night before, really more like 1 of the rolls I had at dinner last night, but it still made me feel better about myself!

After the gym I made my way to the buffet as DW and DSIL were still sleeping. The hand washing stations are a nice touch but at the same time really slow the process of getting into the buffet, but better safe than sorry! They had a good assortment of food items and while I prefer the layout of the new Royal/Regal Princess Ships, it was well organized. I would say that the seating space seems awfully small for the size of ship this is. Even being a smaller ship compared to the newer ones, I think they need to have more seating available inside the buffet.

We spent the day bouncing back and forth between activities and enjoyed lounging around the ship and reading. We grabbed lunch at Tritons and they had a great sit down lunch selection to include a hot sandwich and burger. I had one of the best desserts onboard, a delicious chocolate pudding cake which was melt in your mouth delicious!

The weather stayed cool, foggy and windy and thus was not suitable to sit outside on deck as we moved away from Galveston.

We spent some time sitting at the chairs and people watching by Guest Services. There was a steady stream of people lining up to complain about missing Key West as a port of call. I felt so bad for those poor guest service team members. What are they supposed to do? They are not in control of the weather or the port of Galveston?! While I can understand and share in the disappointment of missing a port, why on earth are you people complaining about it to guest services? Ugh, ok I said my peace on that subject.

At 4pm DSIL and I attended mixology, DW is not a drinker, and passed on this activity. The cost was $20 and we booked it at Guest Services on embarkation day. This session was held in the Cadillac Lounge and there were about 20-25 people in total. The bartender did a great job educating us on the different types of alcohol, and combinations of sweet, sour and salty ingredients to make our own drinks at home. We had a total of 5 drinks, all of which I would say were about the size of 2 shot glasses worth of liquid. Don't expect to get 5 full sized drinks during this event, because if you do you will be very disappointed. We tasted each drink and tried to determine what was in each one before he revealed the ingredients and walked us through the flavors. It was a great event and one that I would recommend if your interested in mixology, and not just in getting drunk. There were 2 people picked to make a cocktail under direction of the bartender and they did get to drink their results which were a full sized drink.

We had the Golden Mickeys show which was a great performance. We enjoyed the production and the variety and thought it was one of the better shows we had seen at sea.

Dinner last night was at Tiana's Place. I love the decor of this place, it makes you feel like your walking into a restaurant off the street in New Orleans, they did a wonderful job. This restaurant is loud. Let me give a little more detail, its not rock concert loud, but is loud enough where it interferes with normal conversation. We are at a table of 6, with another couple and their son. We generally had a hard time hearing each other and when the live music was on, forget about it. The live music was a great touch, I just wished it wasn't during the majority of dinner, I think it would have been better had they spaced the music out a little more, but it felt like they played during almost all of dinner service. But the music was great, I enjoyed hearing it and it made dinner a fun experience.

After dinner we headed into the adult lounge area. This is a great space, I love the colors in the hallways, and the lounges have rich details. The azure lounge has soft blue lights inside and it made the space feel cool and inviting. We sat through a couple of shows in Azure before calling it a night around midnight.

Day at Sea (Not Key West :( )

Well it was a little bit sad waking up this morning knowing we should be pulling into Key West and instead seeing the wide open ocean. I have to admit it did make me happy to be able to at least see the ocean today! The weather, while very windy, is beautiful and warm and not a cloud in sight at the moment. So the disappointment quickly faded and I am ready for a great sea day! So I am determined to make this a great day onboard. I have to give credit to the crew who put together a great day full of events to fill in where they thought was going to be a port day.

I knew coming on a Disney Cruise to be prepared for the onslaught of children and Disney theming. And while there has been a noticeably large number of kids on board I haven't really felt overwhelmed by them at all, and the adult areas offer a great sanctuary to have time away from families with their kids.

Really sorry you are missing Key West, and it is such a shame the could not switch out Nassau instead, but I guess port space is the determining factor.

BTW, I love your attitude, and I'm sure the CM's appreciate it and not having someone else whinging about something that is out of their control!

I hope the rest of your cruise goes smoothly and you get some great weather for CC!

ex techie

Bucket's n Boards is either on your cruise or got off when you got on. They posted photos of the fog. If they are still on with you, I strongly recommend you see them. They're one of my favorite acts.

Our day at sea continued with relaxation and various activities and trivia. We decided to do lunch in Cabanas and was pleasantly surprised. I feel the offerings on DCL are much better than any other line. We generally see a wide selection of curries, and exotic dishes in most of our cruise buffets. Here we found an excellent fajita offering with a lot of flavor, 2 meat carving stations with a turkey and ribeye, and various other traditional items (soups salads etc). The food had great flavor but was at best Luke warm which is disappointing but expected from buffets.

We went and watched Moana in the Disney Theater and thought it was a cute movie. We havent seen one if the movie theater yet but the Disney Theater worked well even for movie watching.

So here is the funniest moment of the cruise thus far, let me set the stage for you.

We are cruising out of Texas, thus a large number of Texas residents on board. Now the Packers are playing the Cowboys tonight in the playoffs. They are showing the game in the Crown and Fin bar, which by the way is an excellent place to watch football as they have a ton of TV's. The bar is PACKED, the game is tied and its the 4th quarter. This lady's wave phone rings, its the kids club. The first question out of this ladies mouth is "Are you really sure he wants to be picked up, well let me talk to him." She walked off and came back a few minutes later to tell her husband that it was ok he wanted to know when they would come and pick him up, they could keep watching the game.

Dinner tonight was in Trident. It is the quietest MDR of the 3 and was nicely decorated. They had escargot tonight on the menu, which is a personal favorite of mine. Filet was on the menu tonight and at our table the 3 cuts of meat all came out at the requested medium temperature. I think DCL does the best job I have seen in an MDR at cooking steaks to the requested temperature.

I was off to watch the Steelers game and DW and DSIL called it an early night.. We were told that at Castaway Cay we would be arriving late, disembark at about 10:45, but leave late with an all aboard at about 6pm.

Castaway Cay

We ended docking about 9:30am, due to the late departure from Galveston, but they got everything set up in record pace, and they were letting passengers off the ship by 10am, great job!

Castaway Cay is a great little island. We headed right for Serenity Bay. If I had 1 complaint it is that there is very limited signage. We had to ask how to get the tram to Serenity Bay as there was nothing listed on any of the signs. So we boarded the tram, 2 stops later got off and boarded another tram for the trip down the runway to Serenity Bay. We got off early and had out pick of loungers by the entrance to the beach. This is a perfect area for adults, quiet beautiful beach with wade in depth of water, a bar and restaurant right by the main entrance, everything you need! They also had a gentlemen play the guitar and sing live music at the bar which we could hear from our seats, it was awesome!

After a few hours we ventured to the family beach and I proceeded to ride the water slide, which was a lot of fun. We looked around the little shops and walk around for a while and called it a day around 3pm. The boat stayed at Castaway until 6pm which was a nice solid day.

We came back aboard and got ready for dinner in our Pirate garb as it was Pirate Night! So DSIL and I booked the mojito tasting at 9pm, whoever decided these times needs to reevaluate the target audience as it is right in the middle of the second seating of dinner. So we went to Cabanas instead. Instead of a sit down service it was a buffet as it was Pirate Night as well. I am going to take this time to air my grievances on Cabanas and late night dining.

/begin rant

I really dislike this buffet as compared to any other cruise line. Whoever thought it would be great to have a buffet only open for like 6 hours a day is an idiot. And not only is the buffet not open during long periods of time but you cannot even access it when its not open, they lock that thing down tight. So if you want to eat lunch at 2pm, you out of luck. Dinner before 6:30? Sorry no can do. And dinner from 6:30-8:30, really? I mean we typically eat in the MDR but there are times where you would like to go grab a quick bite and thus your selections are limited. I would like to see this space accessible throughout the day as a place to sit and read for example. And I really think they should have extended hours for food service as these hours really are very limiting.

Also, are you a late night snacker or want a quick bite to eat, well all the food service areas on the top deck shut down by 9:30pm, thus the ONLY place up there to get anything is the pizza place, and trust me thats not a great option at all. Oh there are small snack locations down in the ship, but the chips and salsa only go so far.

So sorry Disney, you fail not he buffet and the late night (and I struggle to even call it late night, 9:30, since when is that late night?!?!) food options.

/end rant

So we come to the Pirate Deck party, what an awesome experience, great music, good hosts/dancers, it was amazing! We had a blast and the fireworks, I mean come on now, fireworks at sea on a cruise ship was just awesome.

After a really cool deck party we headed to the Signals bar for our Mojito testing. We met Sean the head bartender and it was just DSIL and I that had signed up for the testing so it was like a private event! This was the best deal on the ship, and Sean, the best bartender! It cost $20 and we had a total of 5, regular sized drinks, this was awesome. He took the time to explain the history behind the different rums as well as the other components of the cocktails we were drinking. We had a blast and. Sean was a lot of fun to hang out with.

So it was 10pm, we had just drink 5 drinks in an hour, so we wanted food of course! We headed to the pizza place and begrudgingly ate a couple slices of pizza. We walked around the ship for a bit and called it a night.

Nassau

We got to Nassau early this morning and found 3 other ships here with us! Thankfully a lot of people headed out early and breakfast was nice and deserted. We dont have anything planned for today so we are headed into town for a but of walking around and shopping since this is our first, and really only official port stop (sorry I didnt count Castaway Cay as a port stop).