Disney Wonder 9-28-18 (2 night Mexican Riveria Cruise) Trip Report

I realize I haven't sailed yet, so technically, I can't be writing a trip report yet. But I'm so excited I have to share our preparations! And I will hopefully have the details of our cruise to share in a week!

This trip started as I idly looked at weekend cruises leaving from CA ports and discovered a 2 night Disney cruise, that was actually over a weekend and not weekdays. The price seemed high, but I’ve always wanted to sail on DCL and week long cruises are really pricey! Living in CA, we generally would have to fly anywhere to take one, plus the price of the cruise itself. We also have three kids, which meant more expense! But, we are essentially empty nesters now (one young adult moved home for a year long internship, but we'e not responsible for her anymore) and our youngest is in his final year of college. So we are cruising a lot more now.

I suggested we sail for dh’s birthday and his response was that the cruise seemed pricey and why didn't we just go to DL for the weekend and stay at the Grand Californian? I looked at hotel rooms at the Grand Californian as well as passes and it was almost double the cost of the cruise! And that didn’t include food! Epic fail for his suggestion!!!! That meant, yes, we were sailing on Disney!!

Our fare was $518 per person for a double inside cabin, category GTY for 11C, which means we will be given a stateroom chosen by Disney. Basically 11C is the very cheapest inside cabin. I figured for 2 nights, we could handle anything and I wanted to keep the costs to a minimum. Taxes, fees and port expenses are $198.64 for the two of us. I tried very hard not to anticipate what would be the absolutely worst room on the ship, in terms of location and noise, because you know that’s what we’ll get. (I’m the person that gets into the shortest line at the grocery store and end up standing there forever, because the person in front of me is paying in pennies, or they’re arguing the price of ice cream or other such things)

After I booked I was telling a girlfriend about the trip and she decided to come along. She’s been on three Disney cruises and even married recently on a Disney cruise! She’s flying to San Diego on Wednesday to have an extra day before the cruise. My dh and I are flying in early TH evening and we have a 1pm boarding time for the ship on Friday. I took the first time available to me, because I want it to seem like a longer trip!

I considered just staying on the ship on Saturday, but we had an amazing wine tour in Ensenada over Christmas so I wanted to go again. So we can have a leisurely breakfast and then get off the ship. Disney offers a tour for $41 per person, for 4-5 hours. It goes to L.A. Cetto Winery and Casa Doña Lupe and then drops you off for some shopping. This is the same tour that Carnival offers (and I’m sure other cruise lines as well). Shore Excursions Group also offers the tour for $39 per person (a sale, price per their website...normally $49). However, typically when we cruise we plan our own tours and this trip is no exception. We booked with The Wine Route (wineroutebaja.com). Eugenie and Luigi are the guides. They will customize a tour for you. At Christmas we had a crazy eclectic group and they managed to come up with a great itinerary, as well as including wineries I wanted to try.

For this trip I requested Misiones de California and Entre Santos Bodegas de Santo Tomás and requested a surprise for the third winery. I also requested a simple easy place for lunch, because with less time I didn't want to be spending too much time on a meal. Our time in port is shorter than our 4 night Carnival Cruise, so we will visit three wineries this time.

We have been assigned cabin 2011, so deck 2 at the far end of the ship. It appears we might be right below O’Gills Pub, so I am hoping it isn’t too noisy. But as I said above, we went as cheap as we could and our expectations are super low in terms of our room.

We are flying Southwest Airlines for San Diego and staying in Old Town on Thursday night. We plan to Uber over to the cruise pier Friday morning.

I was told that there will be a Pirate Night on Friday night and a Halloween Party on Saturday night. We ordered matching t-shirts for our group of 4 from Etsy for Friday. I will admit it’s a little cheesy but we are “all in” for this cruise and plan to enjoy ourselves. They are from FunCreationsWorld and the total for the 4 shirts plus shipping was $61.80. There were many choices on Etsy, but many had a week or two lead time before shipping (if not more). This seller can have items ready to ship in 1-3 days. We ordered on a Monday and received our order Friday. I was pleased with their promptness!

For Saturday, we are dressing up as well. We tried to find something that could be a group of four, but didn’t find anything we’d be happy with it. So my girlfriend and her husband are Captain Hook and Peter Pan and my husband and I are Bert and Mary Poppins. I ordered a costume from Amazon and my husband’s was a DIY. My costume was quite wrinkled and I’ve been steaming it to get them out. I’m not sure how to get it to San Diego unwrinkled. I don’t feel I can iron it at the hotel and I know I can’t carry on a steamer, even a small travel size. I’m hoping by steaming it well at home, packing it with tissue and then maybe spraying it with wrinkle release will work well enough,

Despite costumes, I’m a “travel light” kind of gal, so am not bringing much. I am using my Travelpro carry on, rather than a lightweight tote, but only because I plan to ship wine home in my suitcase and need a sturdier bag. I utilize a packing strategy called "Base 5". Basically you start with 5 pieces: 2 bottoms, 2 tops and a sweater/jacket. Then for every day of travel, add one item, up to 10 days worth. Then I give myself an extra item or two if the trip has special circumstances (like multiple events, or in this case, packing costumes!). No swimsuit, because I don’t think we’ll have enough time to bother. I wear sketchers much of the time as they are comfortable and look a little nicer than sneakers.

Since we'll be dressing up and have gotten "Photo Pass" on varied trip to WDW or DL, I looked into photo packages. But the package to get all the digital photos on an USB stick was $195!! Keep in mind we're not even on the ship 48 hours!! Ten digital images are $150. Needless to say, we're not doing either.

I can’t wait until Thursday!

I love that you’re starting your review before you’ve left! We’ve sailed on Wonder three times and (obviously) we love her. We like small ships, less than 3000 passengers, (and ideally less than 2500) so she fits the bill. Haven’t stayed on deck 2, but have been on deck 1 and twice on deck 6.

Hope you have so much fun! Can’t wait to hear all about your visit to the wineries and your experience onboard. I will say that having the photo package is really nice, despite the price, because you really don’t have to worry about a camera or phone ready at all— and we’ve gotten some great photos on our DCL trips, at various venues, even at the dinner tables. I’m always surprised where the photographers show up.

Enjoy! Can’t wait to read more once you return!

I realize I haven't sailed yet, so technically, I can't be writing a trip report yet. But I'm so excited I have to share our preparations! And I will hopefully have the details of our cruise to share in a week!

Thank you PandaBear for sharing about how you are preparing! It made me so excited as my family will also be on this cruise. I counted that we will be on the ship for 44-45 hours and the price is steep per day compared to other sailings BUT the benefits were too good to pass up (short flight from San Francisco to San Diego, overlap with the weekend and daughter will only miss 2 days of school, no jet lag if you are from the same time zone). We are really looking forward to it. My husband is concerned about the security situation in Mexico, so we will be staying on the ship all day on Saturday enjoying the onboard activities.

Princess Catarina, it would be funny to run in to you! We’ll have to compare notes after the trip. We are flying down from SJC.

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Expect some delays for embarkation, as the "Emerald Princess" will be at the same pier. She is visiting from Vancouver round trip.

Access through security after 1 pm will be slow.

David

Expect some delays for embarkation, as the "Emerald Princess" will be at the same pier. She is visiting from Vancouver round trip.

Access through security after 1 pm will be slow.

 

David

The Emerald Princess is there from 8am to 6pm. Is there a reason access through security after 1 will be slow?

Panda

Emerald passengers will probably start returning to the ship from their excursions in the early afternoon in greater numbers and that could put some pressure on security?

I was THRILLED to find out that the Emerald Princess will be in San Diego the day we board Disney Wonder! She has been in Australia etc. for many years and I have not seen her for ages. I had my wedding on the Emerald, so will be gazing at her longingly from the Wonder! Such a bonus. :D I plan to surprise my husband with this info the morning we head out to port!

Thursday September 27th

I’m realizing I wasn’t really specific about the reason for the trip. My dh is turning 60. So it’s a big birthday. I thought about ordering a cake, but since I am also having a dinner party for his birthday I decided to pass. With only two evenings to order dinner, I figured he’d want to choose a special dessert from the menu and not have cake.

Both dh and I worked today and left a little early. We grabbed our bags and decided to head out to the airport, since we had to park the car. We found a spot and the shuttle waited for us as we walked over…….nice of them. We made our way to the SWA gate and checked our luggage and headed to security. We checked bags because dh’s chimney sweep prop was too big for his carry on. So I decided to ship through my small bag.

TSA precheck was quite backed up, so I was glad we allowed extra time because I wasn’t stressed. We made our way to our gate, but detoured just before to stop at the wine bar. We enjoyed a drink and walked to the gate and boarding began. The flight wasn’t that full, so we had the middle seat between us open. After an uneventful flight we landed in San Diego. I swear, everyone must have carried on bags, because there were no bags on the carrousel. So we quickly got our bags and made our way out to the location to pick up our Uber, right near the exit. A $12 Uber ride brought us to the Courtyard Marriott in Old Town. Our friends had been to the zoo and walked up from their ride as we checked in. We enjoyed a great dinner at the Coyote Cafe, an Old Town institution.

This is the large margarita!

Friday September 28

Friday morning we gathered downstairs to decide our morning before heading to the pier. Sharon and I decided to get pedicures. I don’t mind some of the overages for a cruise ship, but just can’t pay cruise ship prices for a pedicure. We went to Paradise Nails in a local mall and both were happy with the services. $32 for a standard mani-pedi. Right there was also an Ulta store where BFF (Best Friend Forever) picked up forgotten items and a CVS, where I got toothpaste. Our Uber driver helped us add to our trip, so we drove back to the hotel, picked up the guys and headed to the pier.

Our driver was able to bring us right to the pier, where we dropped off our luggage and walked right in. It’s way smaller than Miami or Port Canaveral. We breezed through, but our friends (who’ve been on 3 previous Disney cruises) had trouble checking in. You better believe I teased them about that! The people next to me were not happy that they weren’t given lanyards when they checked it. It was explained that these were gifts for returning cruisers, but they were still not happy.

We then went to actually board the ship and we got to enter and they were again held up. The people in front of them must have had the same issue and we were delayed almost a half hour and were not pleased.

Finally we made it on the ship. We tried to eat lunch at Tritons but were told they were full and we had to go to deck 9 to the buffet. I wasn’t happy, because with such a short cruise, I didn’t care for the buffet, I wanted the dining room. So rats. However, I discovered I was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. I loved the food on Deck 9. I walked by chicken tenders, mac and cheese and other non favorites and came across a location with peel and eat shrimp, crab and clams (maybe, not sure, because I wasn’t interested). I love peel and eat shrimp and these shrimp were not small, but quite large, size wise what I’d call prawns.

While the girls got lunch and the guys saved our table, tmy dh was enticed to purchase a beer glass. He bought one for himself and one for BFF’s Dh.

Apparently you get more beer (20 oz) for the 16 ounce price. Logic would say it’s probably not the best deal for just a weekend cruise, but dangle beer in front of my dh and the probably doesn’t make the best decisions, LOL. Let’s see, at $6.75 beer, an extra 4 ounces is $1.68. So we would need to order, what, 12 beers to break even??? On the other hand, the guys are happy, so what do I care?

After our “first” lunch, the girls wandered over to see the other food options. The sandwich bar looked great and I had to have a small bowl. Couscous, onions, carrots and more veggie toppings. So glad I didn’t eat breakfast today!

We headed down to check our rooms and were distracted by the spa, who offered tours. My BFF wanted to see it so we did. She decided to try acupuncture for seasickness as she always gets seasick. We also bought passes for the Rainforest spa. $54 so not cheap, but I really wanted to try it. We are sailing to Alaska on princess in June and they offer something similar so I wanted to try and see if we should get for Alaska.

We headed back to the room. My luggage still wasn’t there so we relaxed a bit and then thankfully it arrived!

I loved our room. I love the nautical look, and just loved the navy blue color and stripes. The room was much bigger than I was expecting.

I unpacked and then wandered the ship before going to the Walt Disney theatre for the lifeboat muster. Shops aren't open but I still found items I liked through the windows.

The muster ended and I headed to the spa. I stupidly did not bring a bathing suit, because I thought I wouldn’t be swimming. I didn’t realize there was an adults only pool area! But I relaxed on the warming bed and read. I planned to check the shops for a suit. It was so relaxing and lovely and I decided in about 5 minutes that I would do the same for Alaska.

I stayed close to an hour and headed back to the room to change for the show and dinner. We enjoyed the show “Dreams” and BFF said it was different from when she sailed last November. We shopped after the show and I bought a swimsuit. Overpriced???? Well, yes, but not by much. It was $50. I also bought a cute striped T.

We headed to a bar near Tianas Place (Promenade Lounge) and had a drink. People lined up for dinner, so decided to hang out until the line went down, since we had an assigned table and the bar wasn’t crowded at all.

Friday September 28 (con’t)

Juan is our waiter and Adam our beverage server. My companions had the fritters for an appetizer, which they enjoyed. I had the shrimp and grits with Andouille sausage. It was good, but honestly, the sausage was chopped so fine and there was so little, I wondered why they bothered. The guys had salad and BFF the tomato soup, but I declined a choice. Main courses varied. BFF and BFF’s Dhl had the sea bass with fennel. The fennel was more decorative, shaved and on top. BFF doesn’t like fennel and gave it to me, because I do! Dh had the steak from the light menu. I had the roast chicken, primarily because it had a side of savory bread pudding. It was pretty good. For dessert we chose varied items…..the cake, bananas foster and for me, the bread pudding. The bananas foster was served cute, in a sundae glass.

The chicken with pecan bread pudding over sautéed chicken.

There was a bayou style band playing throughout dinner and we were seated quite close to them. What was nice was they never overpowered the room with their music and we could still talk.

There was a parade and most of the kids participated….. it was really cute.

Friday September 28 (part 3)

I should have added that some of the staff brought Brian a little dessert and sang happy birthday to him. I guess I must have noted it in our reservation? I didn’t ask for anything so it was nice.

BFF and BFF’s Dh went back to their cabin after dinner but we wandered up to deck 9 to see the Pirate Adventure show. Characters were dancing and kids were brought up to dance along and Captain Hook arrived and at the very end, Mickey arrived via a zipline type rope and the fireworks began.

Thanks for posting this trip report. My family was on this cruise and it is fun to see it though another cruisers eyes.

Thank you for posting this trip report! I was on the same cruise and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also ended up purchasing the same striped T - so cute! :)

On Saturday I saw a lady in the Mary Poppins costume and asked her if she had posted a picture of it on CruiseCritic, but she said no. So unfortunately we did not bump into each other. My daughter was dressed as Marie from Aristocats and went trick & treating twice. So much fun.

How was your wine tasting in Ensenada?

You have to provide Disney with your date of birth for your reservation, so I'm sure that Disney's computers flagged your reservation as a celebration automatically.

Saturday September 28

Our bed was very comfortable last night. I really like the blanket on the bed. It has a nice weight to it, and I’m someone who needs the weight of a blanket to sleep.

I got myself up a little before eight and made my way to the spa to use those lovely ceramic beds. I stayed until almost 9 and then headed to the room to get ready for our wine tour. I quickly showered and changed and ran upstairs to get some food at the buffet. A basic cheese omelette and turkey sausage which wasn’t bad. The coffee was way too hot and not that good so I didn’t drink any before I left.

As we were heading out, we were in an elevator with a young lady who we had seen the day before in a very fancy dress. She asked directions to the pizza place. We asked if it was a quinceanera dress she had on and it was. She was very sweet and it was obvious her grandparents (or maybe parents) loved this special young lady. They were not going out to Ensenada but enjoying a day on the ship.

We met up with BFF and BFF’s Dh and walked out to meet our tour. To our disappointment, Eugenie was not our tour guide. She was at home with a sick daughter. Her older daughter, CJ led the tour and she ended up being delightful, with her mother’s sparkling personality. Luigi, our driver, speaks essentially no English, but offered input to us via his stepdaughter.

I was a little disappointed because I had asked for a couple of specific wineries, but they set up a tour with new ones. I decided to go with the flow (not typical for me, lol). The other issue was that a bike race was occurring so we were delayed getting to the valley. That was a little worrisome as we did not want to miss our ship boarding!

Our first winery was Bodegas Magoni.. This was nice because there was a white only, red only and mixed tastings. We chose to taste on the patio and were able to sit and visit. Definitely a good choice. The winemaker is Italian was apparently the winemaker at LA Cetto (the biggest winery in Ensenada that the cruise ship tours all go to). He retired and developed his own label.

Winery #2 was okay. (I don’t remember the name) They were only pouring two wines and both were red. Not bad wines, but extremely small tasting room. Not a choice we’d make again when we only have one day to tour.

Our third winery was Dom Tomas. It offered more options and we ate there as well. The chef came out to talk to us about the menu and then after to see how we liked it. Tasting was primarily reds, but they also offered a taste before they poured a full glass of wine, which was nice.

Normally there’d be another winery but we chose to only do three. So we had plenty of time to get back and had some time on the ship before dinner. We had no issues with congestion on the way back. There were also no issues with the port being crowded. At least on the Disney cruise, a lot of people stayed on the ship/ I went back to the rainforest spa and then headed to the Cove, the adults only pool deck area. I ended up meeting BFF and BFF’s Dh and we had a little snack before heading back to our room to change for dinner.

We put on our costumes and headed to see Frozen. I have to say, I’ve never seen the movie, so I was a little confused at first. But then the plot seemed to make more sense. It was an excellent show. The sets, the lighting, the costumes and voices…...all Broadway worthy.

We then headed to the bar to have a drink before dinner. While not a ton of adults were wearing costumes, enough were that we felt fine in ours. I was amazed how many compliments we received on our costumes. Disney staff commented, as well as many passengers. While we were in the bar a mom came up and asked if her son could take a picture with our Captain Hook (his costume was really good!). BFF's Dh, of course, was happy to do so. This little guy was maybe 4 or 5. Didn’t appear to have verbal speech, but definitely communicative in his intent. He then wanted pictures with the rest of us, and we were all happy to oblige. Really a sweet moment to share with this lovely family.

Saturday September 29 (con’t)

We then made our way to dinner. After our super fun dinner at Tiana’s Place, Tritons was a bit of a disappointment. The dining room seemed rather ordinary and we weren’t overly impressed with the menu. It was quite warm as well (if I’m warm you know it’s hot in there!!!!). On the other hand, we weren’t the last ones in and our order was put in much faster so our dinner finished much faster. I had the crab and shrimp appetizer and the chateaubriand. It was good, but three of us agreed the onion soup had an “off” flavor.

So we headed to the Crown and Fin Pub so dh could check the scores of some collegiate games. He was very disappointed to learn Stanford fell to Notre Dame and we weren’t able to learn the outcome of Toledo-Fresno State. We then headed to the lounge for the adult costume party. It was a little early so we watched the marriage game, that had three couples. It was quite amusing and we all had a drink as we watched.

Saturday Part 3

There weren’t tons of people for the costume contest but there were some cute ideas. Everyone came on the stage and you were given a card as to what group you’d be competing in. First was Most Original and our friends (as Tinkerbell and Captain Hook) were in this group. The MC said that Captain Hook and Tinkerbell was "original" because you don't usually see then together. The winner was some guy in a costume I didn’t know. The winners were chosen by applause, so I’m sure the fact he was there with a big group probably helped. I thought the dead princesses was most original!

The next category was Groups and there were three…..the Incredibles, the Mickey Mouse Club and Alice, Mad Hatter and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Alice and her group won. It was cute, but I was rooting for the Mickey Mouse Club. I just remember watching the Mickey Mouse Club (although in reruns) so I was rooting for them.

The final group was Most Disney and this was the group dh and I were in. We competed against Aladdin and the Genie, the Beast and Cinderella (yes they were a couple), Belle and Cruella.The MC had the Beast and Cinderella dance and then he danced with Belle (very good sport of hmim, I thought) I thought for sure Cruella would win, but dh and I did! We brought home a little trophy!

By this time is was after 11:30, so we headed off to bed. We planned to carry our bags off ourselves, because we had to have them out by 10pm and we didn’t want to try and pack our costumes in our carry-on.

PandaBear, THANK YOU! Your review was fantastic, ~ so comprehensive. Menus even! We will be boarding this Friday on the same cruise. Your detailed review has only heightened our excitement.

Your costumes were awesome! Your time and attention is very much appreciated. You rock.

Sunday September 30

I slept very poorly, so wasn’t thrilled when my alarm went off at 7:30. We had to be out of the room at 8:15 and breakfast was at 8:30. I had packed the day before so had very little to do.

We ate breakfast at Animator's Palate. There were suitcases everywhere…..it appeared many people chose to carry their own bags, given how short the cruise was. The menu was standard breakfast foods.

I was thrilled that the show happened for breakfast. I had read different reports...some indicated no show in Animator's Palate when it was breakfast, some said maybe. Trying to show the progression in these pictures…..

Sunday Part 2

And then Mickey appeared and there were all sorts of colors displayed. Mickey roamed the room (not stopping at tables, just as part of the show).

We finished breakfast and essentially walked off the ship. Exiting was very well organized and we went through customs quickly. There are a lot of people around to direct you to taxis, ride pick up (including Uber), shuttles etc. It was a very quick ride to the airport. Unlike our flight out, there was no one in line for TSA precheck (the regular line was definitely longer). Sadly, we just had to wait at the gate…..no bars nearby for a farewell mimosa!

Final Thoughts

This was our first Disney cruise. We really enjoyed it. We booked a GTY room (11C) and ended up with a 11C cabin. Our room was fine and actually would have been really convenient for a longer cruise, as it was on deck 2, and all we needed to do was take the elevator straight to deck 9 for the Cove.

Food: I equated the food with Carnival and RCCL (two lines I’ve been on recently) There were things DCL did better and things that were about the same. Dining room food was okay. I enjoyed the buffet and the sandwiches and fruit and bowls at Daisy’s De Lites was good. Carnival definitely had better burger and Mexican food. I felt the drink prices were way better on DCL, probably because they don’t do a drink package. I especially like the Promenade Lounge (maybe they do this in all the bars??) When wine was poured, the server brought the glass and wine bottle and offered you a taste. If you didn’t care for it, you could try something else.

I really liked the set-up of our stateroom. Dh, however, did not appreciate all of the Disney channels on TV. He wanted to see sports when we were changing for dinner or at night before bed.

Entertainment: In my mind, Disney was far superior. I loved the shows and liked the musicians in the bars and at the Cove.

I really enjoyed our cruise. In fact, I booked another DCL Mexican Riviera cruise for April 2020. We couldn’t afford a Disney cruise when our kids were younger (they are already expensive, and to fly across the country...it was just out of our budget) I always planned on doing a cruise when we had grandchildren (which are not in the picture as of yet, LOL). But we lost our BIL a month ago, and one of my girlfriends last week. When we got off the ship Sunday, I had a text that another friend had died Saturday (just diagnosed two weeks earlier with cancer). So I decided life is short and planned a trip with my adult children and my mom. And if I’m lucky enough ever to have grandchildren, I’ll plan another trip!

Bravo on your excellent and detailed trip report! Your costumes looked amazing. So glad you had a great 1st Disney Cruise! This was our second and we will definitely sign up for another one.