Wonder ~ February 6 2011 ~ Mexican Riviera

[MamaSue]

Wow, that's scary. The poor family. Makes me think twice about letting my toddler play on the beach.

 

[BelleMulan]

Wow...this in Cabo. Who'd have thought.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/04/fr..._lnk3|199360

This is actually not completely unheard of along Divorce Beach, Lover's Beach and the Pacific side beaches of Cabo. (We travel there often as we own a timeshare on the Pacific side.) The waves are rough there, and completely unpredictable. There are always red flags posted along these beaches and there are no lifeguards. I heard yesterday DCL is offering a kayak excursion that includes snorkeling on Lover's Beach. Ummm...I wouldn't do that. But it's just because I know about these occasional incidents and the unpredictable tides there. We walk along the beach on the Pacific side, but we stay well away from the water line.

That said, Medano Beach, which is NOT on the Pacific side, is very calm and safe for swimming. Toddlers should be fine there, with adequate adult supervision.

Have a safe and fun trip everyone! We leave the week after you!

 

[totallymickey]

Hope everyone is safely traveling or already arrived for our cruise. We are headed to the parks in moments. See everyone tomorrow!

 

[Steveston]

Disney cruise rookie here, Could someone please tell me how the pool towel system works? Do you just use your cabin towels for the pool and if so what if you want to hit the pool before you get into your room? Thanks.

 

[Our 2 Princesses]

Disney cruise rookie here, Could someone please tell me how the pool towel system works? Do you just use your cabin towels for the pool and if so what if you want to hit the pool before you get into your room? Thanks.

There are lots of towels right by the pool...

 

[Our 2 Princesses]

It was great meeting everyone and hope you all had as great a vacation as we did!!!

 

[moomy-san]

We had such a great time after the ship got over it's Suoerbowl mania... I was very annoyed at that whole situation.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the FE exchange. My kids loved all of the surprises that would greet us in our pouches! Hard to pick a favorite, they were all so FUN!

 

[betsy2010]

Hi everyone,
those of us leaving on the 2/20 MR cruise are really anxiously awaiting anyone who can post your navigators! You had the first "itinerary a" route which is the same as ours so if anyone can post you'll make a whole lot of us very very happy! Hope you all had a great trip!

 

[joyjanet]

How do I post them? I scanned them into a PDF file but not sure how to get them to everyone?

 

[Mrs.Goofy39.3]

Whom ever gave the chap stick - THANKYOU!!!

 

[joyjanet]

Hi everyone,
those of us leaving on the 2/20 MR cruise are really anxiously awaiting anyone who can post your navigators! You had the first "itinerary a" route which is the same as ours so if anyone can post you'll make a whole lot of us very very happy! Hope you all had a great trip!

Try this

sunday link
monday link
tuesday link
wed link
thursday link
friday link
saturday link[/QUOTE]

 

[bethnkatesmom]

Back to reality today. It was really good getting to meet you. We had a great time.
Thanks for all of the FE gifts. My girls loved racing down the hall every day to see if they got mail.

 

[53-Tink]

Well day 2 back at work and all I know is that myself, my husband and our gilrs want to be back on the Disney Wonder. It was our first cruise and by far the best vacation ever as a family. Florida comes in second! Both my hubby and I ate and ate and ate! But it was well worth it. The food was amazing, the cast members were awesome and those that we met on this trip were really great people! Our head server treated us like VIPs durring the whole trip. We missed the first night at AP and he brought us in on Saturday afternoon and did the whole color changing show for us. It was great. My youngest who loves pancakes, even got them at lunch! The night before her birthday was the night they had swordfish and she loved it, so she requested it for her birthday the following night and she got it. They really do share the magic and Disney for sure made this vacation one so smooth and perfect. No complaints from us!

 

[bethnkatesmom]

Well day 2 back at work and all I know is that myself, my husband and our gilrs want to be back on the Disney Wonder. It was our first cruise and by far the best vacation ever as a family. Florida comes in second! Both my hubby and I ate and ate and ate! But it was well worth it. The food was amazing, the cast members were awesome and those that we met on this trip were really great people! Our head server treated us like VIPs durring the whole trip. We missed the first night at AP and he brought us in on Saturday afternoon and did the whole color changing show for us. It was great. My youngest who loves pancakes, even got them at lunch! The night before her birthday was the night they had swordfish and she loved it, so she requested it for her birthday the following night and she got it. They really do share the magic and Disney for sure made this vacation one so smooth and perfect. No complaints from us!

My husband also ate at ate and ate and gained 13 pounds! We loved our server but felt that our assistant was lacking quite a bit. We usually had our appetizers before we had anything to drink. The first night my husband had coffee with dessert. The second night he was offered and told that he wanted it but it never came. Never offered again the rest of the week. Like I said though the server was picking up a lot of her slack from getting the girls ketchup to clearing our plates and the assistant was usually MIA so we did not suffer but I felt bad for him. Every night he did a different magic trick with the girls and we all loved him.

 

[moomy-san]

Our servers with just 'meh', not at all what I was expecting. We were always one of the last tables out of the restaurants because they were just SLOW!! Our server was friendly but mixed stuff up constantly... never offered anything above and beyond exactly what was on the menu. Our ***. server BARELY comprehended English. He couldn't follow conversation past "I'd like a coke, no ice". We had great table-mates so at least the nights were enjoyable. The food was okay, very inconsistent. That being said- we were not expecting the food to be great so no loss there. Our servers forgot to remind us about our character breakfast so we missed it- had no idea about it actually. No magic tricks with this pair, that's for sure! (we would have been happy if they magically could have got us out of the dining room by 10:00!)

I know I mentioned this the other day... but really THANK YOU for the FE gifts. Many kept my youngest DD busy during dinner.

I can't wait to do it all again next year- we re-booked on board for the January 23rd, 2012 sailing.

 

[Goofy39.3]

Thank you everybody for the FE gifts. We had so much fun looking in our extender everytime we got back to the room. My son kept saying "we better check my pocket." Our original plan was to spread out our giving a bit longer, but my wife had them all done by Monday because she has no patience. Plus all those hats take up a lot of room.


Our cruise was amazing. I got a little concerned reading the reports prior to our cruise, but the cruise exceded our expectations with only a couple minor complaints. Sorry Moomy-san, but I really enjoyed having someplace to watch the superbowl with plenty of appetizers.


Our server was great, she brought us and our tablemates extra's to try every night. We didnt get out of the dining room until later every night, but that was our choice. we enjoyed the company of our tablemates, our server, and the kids did the dine and play every night. The assistant server was obviously new, and not very helpful. I mostly stuck with water and soda after I realized how slow he was. Our head server stopped by the table every night to say hi, but thats all he did for us. I must admit I tipped him below the suggested because I couldn't justify tipping someone for saying hi to me. I realize they do do things behind the scenes, but there was nothing special he provided.

Our only excursion was a whale watching on the 2nd Cabo day. Before we saw any whales we found a pod of over 200 dolphins. It was like a school of fish, they were everywhere. They were swimming alongside the boat and jumping out of the water, it was awesome. Then we followed two whales for a long time. My wife got some great picks.

Our family pirate night picture was shown during the farewell shows montage.

We booked onboard for a 7 night western caribbean next February on the Magic.

 

[kept]

We were on that whale watching cruise! Those dolphins were so incredible!! I told my friend that it was as if Disney sprinkled pixie dust and it turned into dolphins when it hit the water...MAGIC!

We had such a fantastic time Could not have asked for a better vacation. I went in with realistic expectations, and since we had never taken a Disney cruise before, all of those expectations were exceeded!

We rebooked onboard for a 2012 on Fantasy, but shortly after we realized that we couldn't wait that long. We rescheduled for another Mexican Riviera for Spring Break 2012...YAY!

 

[Schmoopsie Poo!]

Our servers with just 'meh', not at all what I was expecting. We were always one of the last tables out of the restaurants because they were just SLOW!! Our server was friendly but mixed stuff up constantly... never offered anything above and beyond exactly what was on the menu. Our ***. server BARELY comprehended English. He couldn't follow conversation past "I'd like a coke, no ice". We had great table-mates so at least the nights were enjoyable. The food was okay, very inconsistent. That being said- we were not expecting the food to be great so no loss there. Our servers forgot to remind us about our character breakfast so we missed it- had no idea about it actually. No magic tricks with this pair, that's for sure! (we would have been happy if they magically could have got us out of the dining room by 10:00!)

I know I mentioned this the other day... but really THANK YOU for the FE gifts. Many kept my youngest DD busy during dinner.

I can't wait to do it all again next year- we re-booked on board for the January 23rd, 2012 sailing.

Our servers were great, but when I took the galley tour the chef de cuisine said 40% of the Wonder servers and 40% of the Magic servers were moved to the Dream in order to have an experienced staff there. I did notice that some of the servers seemed "new." Hopefully they'll improve with some experience.

We had a great time all in all. My DD was always looking for other pin traders and the lady who sold them by Guest Services asked her to be the "Honorary Pin Trader" of the cruise. The last night she got to stand with the officers and trade like crazy! Unfortunately it conflicted somewhat with the talent show (she played piano and sang "When She Loved Me") but she had to race out after her performance to do the pin thing. Seems like there was so much activity on that last night... I guess we were all trying to squeeze out fun as much as we could before bedtime.

Anyway, back to the real world!

Take care!

 

[pppiglet]

We had a great cruise also. I only gained 3 lbs this time! DH gained 10lbs. This was the first time we didn't have tablemates. Just the 3 of us. Dinner went by quick this way, but I would have loved to have tablemates! Our servers were nice and efficient, but they were fighting with each other most of the time. Not by our table, but I could see them arguing by the serving podium and complaining to the head server about each other.

We had two awesome brunches and one dinner at Palo. By far the best meals on the cruise. I have to say the food was very good on all nights. The buffets we had on our excursions were excellent also.

The only bad moment we really had was on embarkation day. They wouldn't let us eat at Parrot Cay and we had to go up to the buffet and it was packed and no place to sit. Being that you are carrying a tray of food and your carryon, I was just about to drop my tray when one of the servers grabbed it and carried it off to a table clear across the pool area to an empty table. Being that we were so far away, we never went back for dessert or more food.

Our room steward was kind of shy and we had to ask for room service tags and pens. He never supplied the room with extra shampoo or anything.

It was nice to meet you all and see you around the ship.

 

[valbob89]

Try this

sunday link
monday link
tuesday link
wed link
thursday link
friday link
saturday link

[/QUOTE]

Just wanted to post a note thanking you for posting these links to the navigators. We are scheduled on the October 30, 2011 Halloween MR cruise. I know the schedule may change but it is great to have these to review. I have posted them on our very quiet DISboard thread.
We were on the Panama Canal cruise and many of us experienced the same issues you all have mentioned. DCL has set such a high standard that when everything isn't perfect we notice, i.e. food and dinner servers. I think the crew was very unsure about the move to the west coast.
Any tips, or other info you could share would be wonderful. As one of you mentioned, managing expectations is 50% of the battle.
Thanks again. Valerie