Wheeling TravelingMom

I've not really ever felt the motion of any other ship except in/near a storm. However, the Black Friday sailing on the Wonder was quite rocky for days with no visible storms or any reported nearby. Something had to be happening at sea though because almost anyone on that sailing has mentioned it in reviews. I don't get seasick and neither does anyone in my family so it did not bother me but it was most certainly noticeable. Check where you are reading it WHEN people sailed because it could have been an isolated time period.

I was on the Fantasy media cruise before the Christening and everything was perfect that I saw but as you pointed out it sailed VERY light and they obviously pulled out all the stops for us. It's where I fell in love with DCL.

That said--I totally agree that stuff can and does go wrong all the time on ANY ship and any two people on any cruise will likely have completely different experiences. Thankfully the majority of the time the great majority of the people have a wonderful experience. Especially on Disney

Yellow Taxi. Just tell them you need a wheelchair accessible one. Have used them many times and find the drivers rude every time but it does get you where you need to be

I've tried every browser and every computer in our house. I get a few pages into booking and it locks up, tells me I am not authorized and then won't let me see anything else on the site. I finally called in because I didn't want to lose the rooms.

This summer on the Fantasy they did both Pirate shows. This Nov on the Wonder they did just the younger kid one followed by fireworks.

Both Jess and I reviewed the Nov 25th sailing here on CC. Just read through the threads

I was under the impression the Coast Guard provides most medical emergency transport in the Caribbean and Bahamas. Thought that was standard operating procedure. No?

Here is our viewpoint from a slightly atypical cruising family. Maybe it will help another similar family that is looking at this from a different angle. As of right now we are 4 adults-my husband and I in our mid 40s, a 21 year old and an 18 year old. The 21 year old doesn't always cruise with us anymore.

We started cruising with the kids when they were very little and did Royal Caribbean for most of that. My kids never liked kids clubs of any sort. That was more their personality than RCI and it was 15 years ago when the kids clubs were not what they are now so I cannot compare. My youngest was 17 when we took our first Disney family cruise. So we sort of did it backwards for two major reasons: 1) We couldn't afford it when the kids were little and 2) my sons mobility needs were different. He walked as a younger child in addition to using a chair, was easier to lift on and off things, and didn't tire as easily. Now he is a full time 170 lb chair using adult that doesn't want to roll all over a huge ship.

We are NOT pool people, or zipliners, or rock climbers...both my sons just wants a basketball court. My older one will do all the RCI "extras" but doesn't "need" them to have a good cruise. Both of us will take a spin on the Aquaduck when the lines are small but all in all I am not comparing the "attractions" because they don't mean much to us. We can take them or leave them on either ship.

That said, good shows are important to us and my youngest son is a Disney fanatic. He loves the nightly shows on Disney and is not entertained by the RCI ones. He loves the Pirate night and fireworks and the ability to see a Disney movie at any time during the day. He even loves the characters all over the ship, even though we aren't into the photo ops. It's just fun for him to see Mickey walking around.

Castaway Cay is so wheelchair friendly. That is a very hard thing to find at any beach. We can go to Serenity Bay, hang out in the water and have a great day without any issues. While RCI has their "island" in Haiti there is zero comparison and we had a lot of access issues there even with renting an ADA Cabana.

Rotational Dining is fun and breaks up the monotony. However, I find RCI MDR to feel more relaxed. As with everything Disney, dinners run like clockwork and you definitely feel you are on a time table. I feel like on RCI you have more time to talk to your server, and we really enjoy that. Disney servers are very good at what they do but they are rushed, plain and simple. I honestly find the food comparable. Both have very good dishes and very few bad ones. Maybe we aren't super picky? We have always been happy on both.

The smaller ships are easier to get around when you have mobility issues. Comparing size on flagships between Fantasy and Allure? Forget about it....Allure is MASSIVE and feels like you walk a mile to get to everything. That very thing could be appealing to someone without mobility issues. When fully booked on either it still feels like the same amount of people are everywhere.

All that said, IF I was traveling just my husband and I would be on Celebrity or Royal but with my youngest son we are Disney converts. I, also, am not likely to book Disney for port intensive cruises. I think its perfect for the Caribbean or Bahamas. It's worth the extra money to me to know he is happy and has just the right entertainment for him. There seems to be that perfect balance for us of enough to do and time to read a book and watch the waves go by without feeling like we are missing something.

Sorry he got so sick! I know you said people were going to say its their job or its an act and I GENUINELY believe they care because I have seen it BUT it is absolutely a part of their watch for Norovirus. I have been quarantined on a ship (Royal) and learned a whole lot about the process and what multiple people are looking for. It's one of the reasons they check on you when missing dinners and such. Doesn't mean they aren't genuinely caring. But yes, cast members are watching for who is sick and why.

I was on this cruise with you and the motion was one of the worst I have ever felt. I have only been sick once from motion on a ship and that was on an inside lower deck cabin during a storm the ship was trying to get away from outside Mexico. Not sure what was causing it on this cruise but man it was rocky.

I, also, LOVED the hand washing station on this ship. I wish more ships did that.

I have been to Castaway Cay twice since Zika warnings hit. There are large bottles of Picardin lotion for you to pump out and put on at tables next to the antibacterial gel as you get off the ship--I also noticed it in Nassau two weeks ago. I did not see it in Key West but honestly wasn't looking so it could have been. I pretty much tripped over it on CC and Nassau, it was that obviously placed.

My older son is doing Semester at Sea right now and so has cruised all over the world in the last 4 months and we also had to pack him Picardin lotion-not aerosol DEET for environmental reasons in places like the Amazon, Machu Picchu and Galapagos.

We haven't seen the Frozen movie and I really liked the play.....not enough to see the movie but the play was so well done. Voices, costumes, special effects were all beautiful.

In regards to our initial issues I wanted to update that we have heard from Disney and agreed upon a generous discount for a future cruise. They were very easy to work with, gracious, and apologetic. It was what you would expect from Disney.

Ex Techie--yes, we were told we would need to deal with shoreside for any price negotiation which I was not happy to do because once I was off the ship and had accepted the downgrade I didn't feel confident shoreside would fully compensate us and no one on the ship could assure us they would. They were basically asking us to roll the dice.

This was early into the situation and I hadn't really grasped that there was very little to be done. This was before they asked others to upgrade and so on.

After all of this they told us again to reach out to shoreside to see what can be done to compensate for all the issues we had. The manager onboard said there would be a report on all of this and his recommendation that they work with us.

Thanks Bartman. I don't think I was clear on the price negotiation issue though. We had paid for room 6654 which is a ADA veranda and quite a large room and deck because that was important to us. They wanted to move us to an interior ADA that was very small but would not discuss what they would be reimbursing us which I thought was only reasonable. Why should we still have to pay for the nicer room? At the least I wanted the cost difference if I had booked that interior. I was initially very hesitant to move since it did not seem fair at all to me. Then it got worse and we decided to go to that room only to find out the bathroom didn't work there so it didn't even become an issue.

Interesting on the dryers--I was on the same sailing and had a new one in the drawer.

RCCL does offer cooking classes and towel folding classes. I have done them several times.

For me? I would say Disney just does entertainment better all the way around. From shows to dining entertainment there is no comparison.

We were aft. Not that far from you. Close enough to wonder why there were fans,but far enough away to not know it was a stateroom and not a crew room. Yeah..sounds like they were just hoping no one would notice there was an issue.

I am so glad you didn't have problems. There was no way not to notice it. My foot squished when I walked over the carpet LOL. That's the funny part. It was VERY noticeable.

Ex Techie-you are right. There wasn't much they could do other than hope we didn't complain too loudly. I have pictures of all of this so I will send it along with a letter to shoreside and hope they do something for a future sailing on the Fantasy or Dream :)

Love your report so far Jess. I recognize you from our cruise group :)

Husband: "Do you want to stay out here?"

Me: "I'd rather go to Jamaica."

End of story for me.

Yousee were you in the back? That is where all the problems seemed to be concentrated. I never noticed midship or forward when delivering FEs or any other reason. We were 6654 so the huge ADA room and deck on the very back.

I'll let you all know what Shoreside says on Monday. Like I said every CM we encountered were very kind and apologetic but due to my sons wheelchair there was no where to move us. They even told us that they contacted other ADA rooms to see if they could upgrade them to move us but everyone needed their ADA room.

We booked a placeholder as well but it won't be on the Wonder and probably not on a cruise just coming out of dry dock. What is perplexing though is that 2 other cruises went before us and we walked into it like this so this was not something new that just happened. They had to know this was happening.

One particularly funny leak was in the Crown and Fin during a presentation on Disney Innovations. The light fixture above the poor CM's head was dripping water on her.

So what they finally figured out was happening is that the drains themselves were leaking. They weren't properly sealed and so as soon as the water hit them it was escaping through open seams under the wall and flooding the carpet on the other side. I have no idea where all the leaks in the hallway were coming from but the carpet was soaking wet out there on a few occasions as well. Didn't seem to be from above.

I was just about to book our first Princess Cruise and now will not be.

First let me say we had a decent vacation overall--its a Disney cruise after all but with my prior experience being on the Fantasy twice I was so sorely disappointed by the Wonder.

We were greeted in our room with soaking wet carpeting. The shower in our ADA cabin back of Deck 6 was flooding and the carpet was completely soaked and moldy smelling (I can't believe housekeeping didn't notice this, it was clearly not a new problem). We worked with Disney but over the next 3 days dealt with commercial fans, air purifiers and workers in and out until they finally "fixed" the leak. We could not move rooms because the only other place they could put us was an inside ADA room that they would not negotiate price on while we were on the ship. Eventually we did agree to move to that room temporarily only to find out the toilet doesn't work so back we went. By day 3 fans were appearing all over the back of Deck 6 in the halls and people were being moved like crazy. Smelled like a sewer. They had options to move. We didn't. We were given a $200 onboard credit for our troubles and were told shoreside may do more when we got home. We will see. The CM were all very nice and professional but there was nothing they could really do short of what they were doing.

Numerous places throughout the ship I saw LIGHT FIXTURES leaking. We were in an elevator that "dropped" two floors....free Tower of Terror ride. Honestly, the ship had issues everywhere we looked. Dorys reef was closed all but two days. It was just a mess.

I was shocked to find no Midship Detective Agency (I just assumed) and a really limited amount of programming compared to Fantasy. Although half the people at Castaway Cay was very nice.

I would never book on the Wonder again. I am shocked this was an improvement to what it was before. I hope they add Tiana's to the other ships because that was really a hit as well as the Frozen production. Both top notch.

I was just there a few days ago on the Wonder. Stay on the ship. Nassau is not at all appealing. We were on and off in 10 mins.

My son is a chair user and it is exactly as described by Mokismommy. Its easy and painless.

I just read on another Disney cruise group that they have changed the requirement to 2 nights for that other hotel (Comfort Suites?) to get into Atlantis. I am not planning on doing that so I just skimmed over it but do check on it and make sure.