Teeara

If you go to see InTense at the AquaTheater bring earplugs. Sheesh! It was LOUD!!! We could barely hear ourselves talk inside Playmakers once the show started during our dinner.

The onion rings were fantastic. So good!

We had Starlink in October/November last year on Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas transatlantic crossing from Barcelona to Port Canaveral. It was fantastic. Even in the middle of the Atlantic we had fast internet and hardly any issues. I had more problems with Cruise Critic at that time (there was some kind of glitch that affected some of us from being able to post on CC) than I did with the internet itself. So hopefully Princess will be as successful with it as Royal Caribbean has been.

Must be nice to be able to drop $40 a day for a chair you aren't using.

Usually they offer a Kennedy Space Center tour (which is fantastic, by the way) for those whose flights are after 5pm.

During the Wonder TA I asked our waiter Arvin if I could get the prime rib from the MDR on the first night. He got some for me. He brought back a plate with not one, but two massive slabs of meat ;o) I felt bad that I wasn't able to eat all of it and it was sooooo good ;o)

We also had the music festival in the Aquatheater during the Wonder Westbound TA last fall that was really nice. There were also two guest lecturers during the week as well as the Promenade parades and other events. We actually spent most of our time in our cabin due to the relaxed Covid restrictions. Hardly anyone was wearing masks and there were a lot of people just hanging out in Cafe Promenade during the day and other locations. We just didn't feel that comfortable being around the maskless during the TA (although we, like so many others, ended up having Covid after we returned home from the cruise). Since we had an Owner's Suite we stayed there and had a blast. We brought books and magazines, watched TV and surfed the web (the internet was fantastic). We did 5 nights specialty dining which was nice and split our evening meals between Coastal Kitchen and the Windjammer. If you want an idea of what to expect, I posted all the Cruise Compasses on Issuu. You can find them here: Wonder of the Seas WB TA Cruise Compasses

That's what I figured since it didn't have the full refurbishment in 2020 after the WB TA was canceled. Although Wonder was nice (and our Owner's Suite was freaking amazing), pretty much everyone was saying that it didn't have the same feel as the other Oasis class ships.

Any early bird news on whether Allure will have her drydock in 2025? Would still love to do a TA on her in 2025 after getting switched from her to Wonder last year.

I would be all over that!

For around $350 on the Wonder TA in October it was well worth the price.

It was fantastic on Wonder during the transatlantic. Thought it was even better than the Windjammer and the MDR. Go and enjoy!

Pat I agree with you. Hooked was our least favorite meal onboard Wonder during the TA. Everything was way too salty and "meh". We were less than impressed. Service was practically nonexistent and like you, we were the first to be seated for dinner. We were dreading our future meals since we did Hooked on night 2 of the sailing. Thankfully the rest of our specialty dining was much better. 150CP was the best meal AND service was phenomenal. Had great table participation on the last night at Izumi. The table behind us was a very quiet group but we were all participating and had a blast. The food was fantastic and I waddled out of there. Only bad thing was Pam was sick with migraine and a cold (which eventually turned out to be Covid after we got home like so many others did on the ship) so she didn't get to enjoy it like I did. Not super impressed with the Mason Jar for breakfast although there weren't a lot of people there. Service was adequate. Really enjoyed Giovanni's. Would've liked to have sat outside but it was pouring at the time so we sat next to the chef and watched him make lots of yummy looking dinners. Playmakers had good food, service was great, but the Aquatheater show was TOO LOUD! Sheesh! I would hate to be in Boardwalk balcony cabin during any of those shows. Our table in Playmakers was vibrating from the music.

When do boarding times open on the app? We’re 90 days away and everything shows 0 availability. This is our first cruise using the app.

We just did the Wonder TA from Barcelona to Port Canaveral from 10/30-11/13. It was warm (mid 70s) in Barcelona pre-cruise, but they were having a "heat wave" due to some warm air from Africa. Looking over the Cruise Compasses, here were our temps during the TA: 10/30: Barcelona 68 10/31: Palma de Mallorca 72 11/01: Valencia 70 11/02: Cartagena 72 11/03: Malaga 68 11/04: At Sea 71 11/05: At Sea 71 11/06: At Sea 70 11/07: At Sea 73 11/08: At Sea 75 11/09: At Sea 75 11/10: At Sea 79 11/11: At Sea 77 11/12: Nassau 81 11/13: Port Canaveral 79 We had smooth seas when we were in the Mediterranean with a little rocking, but not bad. Once we entered the Atlantic our first day was a bit bumpy. Then we smoothed out until about midway across. By then we were following Hurricane Nicole. We had one day with quite a bit of rocking, but nothing horrible. Then it smoothed out and we were fine the rest of the way. I've had worse rocking in Skagway, Alaska as a stormfront was moving into the area and when we left Port Canaveral in 2004 as Hurricane Jeanne was arriving. In both of those instances everyone was hugging the walls to walk down the corridors. We had nothing at all like that during the Wonder WB TA. I'm almost ready to start posting my Wonder TA vlog on YouTube. I'm finishing up our pre-cruise excursions in Barcelona right now. I have 2 more vlogs to do for Barcelona and then I will start on the Wonder TA itself. If you're interested, my channel is TheEmptyArmchair. I also posted the Cruise Compasses at Issuu in case you want to get an idea of what to expect during a westbound transatlantic. You can find them here: https://issuu.com/theemptyarmchair/docs/wots

I sure like that Adventure TA from Barcelona to PC. That looks like a fun cruise and the prices are fantastic right now even without any discounts. Wish we could go, but we're already doing the Panama Canal in April 24, so that will eat up our vacation time. Next time we go to Barcelona we want to spend more time there. I'm working on my Barcelona videos for my YT channel right now from the Wonder TA and reliving how much we loved it. Wish we could've spent more time there than the 3 days pre-cruise we spent in October.

CruiseMapper

We were on the Wonder TA last month and I'm starting to download videos of our time in Barcelona and the other ports. I will be posting weekly and today was on La Sagrada Familia with Get Your Guide tours. Next week will be our Barcelona city tour including a visit to Montserrat. We used Spain Day Tours for that tour. Both were fantastic. I also include links in the description boxes of any tours we took. If you would like to watch, here's the link to my channel, The Empty Armchair, where you can watch the videos. The Empty Armchair

Cafe Promenade is always open on embarkation day. They will have little sandwiches and desserts. If you look at the RCI app for your sailing, it will tell you exactly which dining options are open and available to you for lunch on embarkation day. You can also check current sailings to get an idea as well if they haven't posted anything yet for your sailing.

We did that with our Indy cruise last year. We rented a car from Alamo and drove directly to the port. The Alamo/National drop off is closest to the pier and they have a big shuttle bus that will take you directly to the terminal. Budget is further away and they use little shuttle vans. The line to catch those Budget vans post-Wonder cruise last month was horrendous because they didn't hold a lot of passengers with their luggage whereas the Alamo shuttle bus was very spacious.

I contacted RCI myself and reserved The Music Hall on Wonder for the TA for our Meet & Mingle. No food or drinks (they wanted to charge me for those and I said no). No officers or raffles. Just the room was reserved for our use.

You can book it for just a few hours. You need to call the hotel directly though to make the reservation. Ask for a "day room" and let them know the hours that you want it for. Our time frame was 10am-6pm, I think, but we left at 2:30 since our flight left at 4:30. It was fantastic. We were able to take showers prior to our flights so that once we got home around 1 a.m. we just went straight to bed. Well worth the $$$. Oh, and we stopped at Publix before dropping the car off at the car rental return at the airport. We got some lunch at Publix which was a lot less than what you would pay to use the hotel's restaurant.

I never saw the soot that bad on the suite sun deck during the TA, but it was there. You had to be very careful when choosing a spot to sit. We also had soot on our Owners Suite balcony chairs as well. Not the only reason we didn't spend time on our balcony, but it was an additional factor. I thought the stacks were putting out horrible amounts of black smoke everywhere we went. It just looks nasty. For a new ship it should've gotten a failing grade for it. Sorry, but that was absolutely disgusting.

For those who are interested in the Cruise Compasses for a transatlantic cruise, here are Wonder's from the WB TA last month. https://issuu.com/theemptyarmchair/docs/wots

For those who are interested, I am starting to download videos on my YouTube Channel (The Empty Armchair) for this sailing. First one just posted (shot a week prior to sailing) and then I hope to have the first "official" one which was our flight to Barcelona by this weekend. I also have some video from the JFK American Airlines Admirals Club Lounge (and shower!) in it. Well worth the money if you're planning on a redeye through JFK. That shower was really nice since we weren't able to check into our hotel until 24 hours later, so it was nice to have that shower prior to boarding the plane. We only paid $59 for a day pass since we didn't have any cards with access to it.