*COMPLETED* Boogie to the Bahamas Disney Wonder Very MerryTime 12/11-12/18/15

dglilbit

Mouseketeer
Joined
Oct 4, 2014
We are just back from the Disney Wonder Bahamian cruise and had a great time! We departed from Galveston and sailed to Castaway Cay, Nassau and Key West. Our little party consisted of me :earsgirl: (Dayna), my husband :earsboy: (Rob) and our little girl princess: (Evie), who is 4. Our Pre Trip Report is here.

The service, food and overall experience was fun for all of us. Evie enjoyed some things we didn't think she would (character meets...she's usually scared of characters) and didn't enjoy some things we thought she'd love (kids clubs). But one thing she definitely enjoyed was dancing all over the ship, hence the title of this trip report. Anytime we could hit up a musical performance where she could dance, she was really happy.

Navigators are posted later in this thread and I also sent them to the Disney Cruise Line blog here.

Day 1 – December 11, 2015 – Galveston

Day 2 – December 12, 2015 – At Sea
Day 3 – December 13, 2015 – At Sea
Day 4 – December 14, 2015 – Castaway Cay
Day 5 – December 15, 2015 – Nassau
Day 6 – December 16, 2015 – Key West
  • Personal Navigator – Day 6
  • Attire: Semi-Formal | Show: Disney Dreams – An Enchanted Classic | Dinner Menu: Frozen
  • Drink of the Day: Key Lime Margarita Non-Alcoholic: Passion Cream Freeze
  • Time Change: Back 1 hour before bed.
Day 7 – December 17, 2015 – At Sea
Buena Vista Theatre Movies
The trip report begins in the next post and below are some videos of Evie boogieing away on the cruise!

Pirates in the Caribbean Dance Party

Dancing and singing on the way back to the ship at Castaway Cay and using her sand toys as a pretend guitar

Character Dance Party

Family Dance Party, with awesome couple in the back performing their dance moves too

Dancing at Oceaneer Club
 
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DAY 0 Thursday, December 10th

Our excited little girl was checked out of school just after noon and we were on the road by 2:30 PM. We began our ferry crossing from the Bolivar Peninsula to Galveston Island around 4:30 PM. On the ferry ride we saw dolphins and a Carnival Cruise Ship headed out. Evie was worried the ferry would hit the "big boat." We didn't get that close but the view from our front row seats was neat.

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Once on Galveston Island we headed to our hotel Harbor House on Pier 21. We checked in and I asked for a room that would allow us to see the Disney Wonder coming in to port in the morning. We were assured that our room 212 would have a great view so we headed up to see it. The room was very nice and our excited little girl got even more excited. She just loves hotel rooms and ran around exclaiming over everything, concluding with, "It even has a potty!" o_O :-)

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There was a view from our window, though without the ship it was definitely lackluster. That would change in the AM though!

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View from Harbor House.jpg
 
DAY 0 Thursday, December 10th continued

After settling in to the hotel we headed out to the Rainforest Cafe to get supper. Evie was scared of the waterfalls outside but loved the fish tank inside. It took her a while to warm up to the jungle atmosphere inside, even though we had visited the year before.

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For drinks, I had a strawberry mojito (very good!), Rob had a strawberry lemonade and Evie had a lemonade. For our meals, I had a sample platter (meh), Rob had salmon (thumbs up) and Evie had cheese pizza (thumbs up).

My strawberry mojito!

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Evie presented us with a family portrait as well.

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DAY 0 Thursday, December 10th continued

After supper at the Rainforest Cafe, we drove down to Moody Gardens to check out Ice Land, which is made up of Spongebob and friends in Christmas themed Bikini Bottom ice sculptures. We put on the coats that were given to us and made our way around to the various areas.

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It was super cold (duh!) and after a while we were over it and were hunting for the exit. It didn't help that Evie had earlier refused to put on the extra clothes I brought for her. Once we finally found the exit, Evie said she never wanted to do that again! (The next day she said she couldn't wait to back, lol.)

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Here's a video of her going down the ice slide. My heart stopped when she got up and ran down but everything turned out ok!

As we were leaving, we were greeted with some beautiful lights from the Festival of Lights.

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Rob saw a sign for Ben and Jerry's on the way back to the hotel so we stopped there for a late night snack. After we got back into the room, we got settled in some more and watched tv for a bit. Toy Story happened to be playing, which I took as a good sign for our cruise.

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DAY 1 Friday, December 11th

We got up not so bright and very early but that was ok because we saw a beautiful sight when we looked out the window!

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We knew it was time to have a magical vacation!

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We went to breakfast at the hotel and everyone was brimming with excitement since they were all boarding the Disney Wonder as well! Evie made some friends that we saw repeatedly around the ship during the cruise. After breakfast I had some not so exciting errands to complete. I forgot my running shoes and needed to stock up on a few more items so I went to Wal-mart and Academy. That completed, I headed back to the hotel where we got packed up and waited for a while before it was time to leave.

Once we decided to head out, we brought the bags down to the Jeep. After some pondering we decided to walk the bags to the port rather than driving. We made it to the terminal a little after 10 AM and then found the back of the line to make sure we weren't cutting the line. While waiting, we ran into stargirl0716's mom who commented on how much she loved Evie's dress. :cutie: We also made some new friends who graciously shared toys while we waited in line. :santa: Thank you, Dylan and family!

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Before long, we were directed to turn the 1 long line into 3 separate lines. All of sudden we were very close to the front of one of the lines! Yay! After another wait the lines started moving forward and we went through security. Then we got checked in and got boarding group 7. We scoped out the the kids club registration line and saw it was short so we got Evie registered. We got settled in some chairs after that, looked through the Navigator and got our app set up while we waited for our boarding number to be called.

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Following. Do you have your Navigators to scan?

Yes I saved them all but will have to wait until Monday when I have access to a scanner. Unless anyone has had any success with an app that works?

ETA - I found an app I'll try in the morning to see if it works. I tried an app previously on our first day and wasn't impressed. Hopefully this new app works better.
 
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DAY 1 Friday, December 11th continued

Soon our boarding number was called and we made our way towards the ship, with Evie high-fiving all of the Mickey hands she passed! Once our family was announced, we followed the agreed upon plan, with Rob headed to Guest Services for gingerbread house tickets and Evie and I headed to Wavebands for tickets for Disney Jr Character breakfast, Princess Gathering and Frozen Meet and Greet.

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Once our mission was accomplished, we met up at Parrot Cay for lunch.

Parrot Cay Lunch.jpg

Once we were done with lunch, we headed up to Deck 9 so that Evie could get changed and then get some swim time before the muster drill. As many others have previously stated, this was a good time for the pools as they weren't too packed.

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DAY 1 Friday, December 11th continued

Once our rooms became available, Rob headed down to put our carryon luggage in there and check out Cabin 5634, or as Evie stated "where we lived on the big boat." After a while we swapped places so I could check out the room and start unpacking. Cabin 5634 has a Navigator's Verandah and a split bathroom, both of which were very nice to have on the trip. Before we left I added the Frozen Stateroom Experience with the throw and pillow. It was fun to walk into the decorated room and the throw was as soft as everyone has been reporting!

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I decorated the door with our homemade magnets and set out our fish extender. I loved how the door decorations looked but I should have used stronger magnets because they did slip with the vibration of the ship. It became a game to rearrange the magnets that had slid to the bottom of the door every time we came back to the room.

To make our door decorations, I googled some of our favorite Disney characters Christmas-themed and then printed, cut out, laminated and finally attached magnets.
I also made our family Mickey sun and then blew up a palm tree decorated with Christmas lights.

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Below are pictures that I used to make some of the door decorations.

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DAY 1 Friday, December 11th continued

We also hit the Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab open houses, which left us thinking Evie would really enjoy them based on her initial reaction. Below is her boogieing to the music in the Oceaneer Club.


Soon it was time for the muster drill and once that was done, the sail away party! I got Evie some gold streamers that were being handed out and she danced and watched the festivities from Deck 10. Her excited little face said it all!

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The party continued and soon the boat was moving and we heard the beautiful sound of the horn "When You Wish Upon A Star!" I found this clip of the horn blowing and then listened to it a few times to make myself happy!


After the sail away party, we watched the ship sailing out for a bit before heading back to our room.

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DAY 1 Friday, December 11th continued

In our room we finished unpacking, which was made easier because I put our outfits together in Ziploc bags. We threw the bags in drawers and then stashed our other items. Unpacking completed, Evie and I decided to deliver a few fish extender gifts before supper. We had main dining and our rotation was TAPTAPT. We headed down to Triton's and arrived a few minutes before 5:45 PM.

Evie Day 1.jpg

We sat at Table 18, which was near the kitchen at each restaurant but I didn't mind. We met our table mates and were blessed to be able to share a table with a great family from OKC - Ginger (grandma), Mark, Ashlei, Rylei and Layne. Rylei is so sweet and well behaved and was a doll with Evie. Layne is a 2 year old cutie pie who was hilariously obsessed with Rob. He said Rob's name about 85 times and throughout dinner he'd say multiple times "Hi, Rob!" :teeth:

We also met our amazing servers, Onika from Trinidad and Tobago and Sandro from Italy. I'd highly recommend requesting them as a team if you get a chance to in the future.

I have to admit that I tried to stay as consistent as possible with the food pics but towards the end of the trip I forgot a few times. I also may have remembered to snap a picture after I had already started eating a few times, oops! Since I had read the disboards for a year, I knew the favorite dishes that I wanted to try. Someone graciously posted the restaurant menus in previous threads and I included those postings in my PTR. You can see the menu from Triton's here. You can see my choices from day 1 below.

Iced Lobster and Jumbo Shrimp (yummy!)
Triton's 1.jpg

Potage Parmentier (leek and potato soup - also yummy!)
Triton's 2.jpg

Oven-baked Salmon Royale (very good, sorry about already starting to eat before I took the pic!)
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I don't remember what dessert I got but I know it was Onika's recommendation. I usually went with what she recommended and she was never wrong!
Evie got the first of many Mickey bars for her dessert.

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DAY 1 Friday, December 11th continued

After supper we went to the Lobby Atrium to watch the Tree Lighting ceremony. Evie's friend Dylan that she had met in line earlier that day and her family were chosen to be the family to lead the tree lighting!

Evie participating in the pre-lighting activities.

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Evie talking to Dylan and her family before the lighting ceremony.


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Our first Disney fun with characters during the lighting ceremony.

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After the Tree Lighting ceremony, we made our way to the Walt Disney Theatre for the show All Aboard Let the Magic Begin. Outside of the theatre we got popcorn and water and then sat in the back row of the theatre to watch the show. The cruise director Clayton Lyndsey kicked off the show. Did you know he has his own
website? I found it while googling how to spell his last name. It has a little bit of information on his background if you are so inclined to read it.

Back to the show and Clayton, who did a really good job of hyping up the crowd. 'WE'RE ON VACATION!" We loved all of the shows on the cruise and this was no exception, especially for creating excitement on our first day!

After the show we were definitely ready to go back to our room for sleep. But first, we found our first towel animal and our first fish extender gift!

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Evie immediately put on the Mickey ears, watched a few cartoons and then we all went to bed! The couch was turned down into a cute little bed each night!

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It was a full but fun day and we were excited for the fun to come!
 
Love the excitement on Evie's face, you can tell how much fun she is having! Clayton was the cruise director on our Fantasy cruise - he was great! Interesting seeing his website!
 
DAY 2 Saturday, December 12th

If you took note of the date and times on the tickets for the Disney Jr Character Breakfast, Frozen Meet and Greet and Princess Gathering, you'll notice they were all on this day!

First up was the Disney Jr Character Breakfast. Evie insisted on wearing her new ears so she didn't get a napkin hat. You can see in the background some of the interesting napkin hats that were created. We had a good time pointing them out and giggling. We got our food ordered and delivered quickly and soon it was time for characters! Evie got each character to sign her autograph book and took a picture with each one. We thought she'd be scared of them but she enjoyed herself!

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After the Disney Jr Character Breakfast, we decided we would deliver the rest of the FE gifts. That done, we then saw that the Oceaneer Club had open house and the Oceaneer Lab would have Flubber soon. We decided to bring Evie to the Oceaner Lab for her to check things out and possibly get in on making Flubber since we love to do science projects at home. This turned out to be a tactical error as she hated it and that might have contributed to her overall dislike of the kids clubs. I'd definitely recommend leaving your young one in the Club by themselves for the first time rather than the Lab.

While Evie was in the Oceaneer Lab, Rob and I hung out in the Promenade Lounge. I had the drink of the day - a blue margarita - that was very good! We also accidentally played a game of Cruisin' for Trivia. In my trip planning notes I put that the FB group Ornament Exchange was 10 AM on this day in the Promenade Lounge. I either got the date, time or location or all of the above mixed up so we didn't make it to the ornament exchange. We did, however, play a game of trivia. We didn't win with 20/25 right but we had a good time playing.

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Towards the end we were paged that Evie wanted to be picked up so Rob went to get her out of the Lab. After that it was just about time for the Frozen Meet and Greet. Evie had her autograph book out and while waiting in line boogied to the music. She had a great time meeting Olaf, Anna and Elsa and in one of the pictures below you can see her waving excitedly. The lighting was not great so the pictures didn't turn out great but the experience was a fun one.

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After that we headed back to the room to get changed for the Princess Gathering. Evie decided she wanted to wear her Tiana dress.
 
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DAY 2 Saturday, December 12th continued

(Side note: I found these great photo frames for my collages below here.)

We headed down to the Lobby Atrium and first up was Mulan, then Ariel, next Cinderella and finally Belle. The princesses were great with taking time to talk to Evie and the princesses reactions were so in character. It was great!

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Who is that girl I see
Staring straight
Back at me?
Why is my reflection someone I don't know?

Somehow I cannot hide
Who I am
Though I've tried
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?

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The seaweed is always greener

In somebody else's lake
You dream about going up there
But that is a big mistake
Just look at the world around you
Right here on the ocean floor
Such wonderful things surround you
What more is you lookin' for?

Under the sea
Under the sea
Darling it's better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea

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A dream is a wish your heart makes
When you're fast asleep
In dreams you lose your heartaches
Whatever you wish for, you keep

Have faith in your dreams and someday
Your rainbow will come smiling through
No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
The dream that you wish will come true

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Tale as old as time
Tune as old as song
Bitter sweet and strange
Finding you can change
Learning you were wrong
Certain as the sun
Certain as the sun
Rising in the east
Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the beast


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Evie and Belle were discussing her gold shoes and whether her shoes were more sparkly than Belle's dress.
 
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thanks for sharing, where did you get evie's cruise dress?

I got it from the FB group Disney Boutique Clothing Resell (ETA - beware, these ladies are super SERIOUS about rules). Probably the week after Christmas I'll be posting her dresses for sale on that page.
 
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