Almost "Live from" Disney Wonder to Alaska! My Second Disney Experience

[lovely_serenity]

A nicer view of the Goofy Pool:

 

 

While we were up here, I also took a shot of our pier:

 

 

And the ship with Canada Place:

 

 

As we walked around, something caught my eye. IT WAS THE TEEN CLUB. Last time, my brother hung out here so I never checked it out … like … ever. (Because it felt like my brother’s territory or something LOL. We don’t share friends ^^”)

 

Anyhow, here is The Vibe, the 14 to 17 year old’s teen club:

 

 

 

You can tell they tried to make the style of the place more … college-dorm-ish.

 

(Apparently they have dance parties on this tiny dance floor)

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

(Non-alcoholic bar your kids could blow their money on, so make sure if you have teens that will do that, lock their key cards and make it unable to charge your credit card. If not, at least give them a limit. Talk to guest services to get that done.)

 

 

Big t.v. for video games and whatnot:

 

 

Computer and board games and stuff:

 

 

A place to hang out:

 

 

 

Apparently Disney does their best to make the place “hip” and attractive to young people. They put the “coolest” staff there too ^^

 

Anyhow, I quickly lost interest so we left. We kept exploring deck 10. (The Vibe is the Wonder’s deck 11)

 

We then came across Outlook Café. (There’s my little sister hopping about and my uncle in the vest strolling in front of her. He’s the 20s-sibling-duo cousins’ dad)

 

Edited September 4, 2014 by lovely_serenity

[lovely_serenity]

This had previously been a venue I had not been allowed into. Now that I was EIGHTEEN (:D), I WAS. (Note: YEAH YOU CAN SEE MY MICKEY PRINT SHIRT IN THE REFLECTION)

 

 

I asked my older cousin to come in with me to check it out.

 

 

 

It was so funny because as soon I finished taking this picture, I suddenly saw my aunt and uncle appear out of nowhere, and my uncle was taking a picture of my aunt in one of the chairs LOL. I was so shocked because they literally appeared out of thin air ^^

 

 

After that, we headed back out because there wasn’t much to see in there. Outside we had a better view of the 18+ Adults only Quiet Cove pool:

 

 

[Katgoesonholiday]

Hate to tell you, but if you're talking about your Dec cruise on the Magic, chances are there won't be a Character breakfast. While they are only offered on the classic ships (Magic & Wonder) on cruises of at least 7 nights, they also have to have 3 sea days (or 2 sea days and a late port arrival day) to accomplish all the seatings necessary for the breakfast.

 

Your western itinerary only has 2 sea days.

 

Ahhhh! Is that so? What a shame! Thank you for saving me from confusion when there is no character breakfast on our tickets! LOL!

[lovely_serenity]

Enjoying your latest "live" report.

 

I agree with your Cunard/Disney comparisons except for the beds. My bed on Fantasy beat out the QE, but only slightly.

 

Very happy to hear that! :)

 

I found the beds were pretty close, but the factor that made me lean toward Cunard was the fact that Disney's pillows were kind of tough and a big hard. (But tbh, the best bed I've ever had was on HAL LOL. Every time I lied down, I passed out haha!)

[lovely_serenity]

Thanks for posting your review. I will be following along with eager anticipation as we are doing our first Disney cruise (and my kids very first cruise) in December so am hoping to pick up all the hints and tips that I can - #1 being to check our dining ticket for the character breakfast!!!

 

You're welcome! Thanks for reading i! ;)

 

I hope you have a wonderful time! I'm sure your kids will get themselves addicted to cruising haha! I will be sure to include as many hints and tips as I can!

[lovely_serenity]

Wow! Thanks a lot Sarah! The only thing that got me really thinking was the dining room food which you put Disney in front of Cunard "by a long shot" : is Cunard so bad?

 

You're welcome! :)

 

&& Well, it's not that they were "bad" per say, just ... below par. I typically rate the dining room food on a cruise line based on a scale of 10. For example:

 

Out of 10 foods, how many were "Bad", "So-So", "Okay", "Good", and "Excellent"?

 

I would say for Disney, there'd be

1 Bad,

1 So-So,

2 Okay,

3 Good and

3 Excellent.

That is a very good rating!! (Not that I ate anything particularly horrible, just an average in general rating of their food overall)

 

For Cunard, I'd say there'd be

2 Bad,

4 So-So,

2 Okay,

1 Good and

1 Excellent.

That on the other hand it ... not so good a score.

 

If we give "Bad" a value of 0, "So-so" 1 point, "Okay" 2 points, "Good" 3 points and "Excellent" 4 points, this would mean that:

 

Disney had 26/40 = 65%

Cunard had 15/40 = 37.5%

 

And this is with the idea that 50% means average. (This is also a scale that is more realistic to me, in the sense that, no cruise line will be perfect, so there must be at least 1 Bad and 1 So-So, because nobody's perfect. If they only have 1, that means they did a very good job) That would place (at least on my scale), Cunard as below average and Disney as above average. That's why. This is to say that simply, Cunard couldn't garner up many points because there was a very high amount of dishes that made me simply say: "Eh." But those are just my 2 cents ;)

[Ex techie]

Regarding the food, would you say it was poor because it wasn't prepared or presented well, just not to your taste, or availability and selection?

I ask as food is so open to subjection, interpretation and ones own palette and what one may be used to eating.

 

ex techie

Edited September 4, 2014 by Ex techie

[lovely_serenity]

OP, I'm enjoying your report. We sailed on the Wonder 3 times a couple of years ago, and I miss her! I'm interested in any comparisons you may make between the different cruiselines you taken re: the actual Alaska experience during the cruise.

 

Keep the info flowing!

 

I'm very happy to hear that! :D Thanks for reading! Ooo, another good questions (: *rolls up sleeves*

 

In regards to the actual Alaskan experience, here's what I think.

 

One of the only major differences I've found in regards to the itinerary of the ships is the glacier they're visiting. You have 3 options: Tracy Arm Fjord, Hubbard Glacier, and Glacier Bay National Park. Out of these 3, I would rate them like this:

 

1.) Glacier Bay National Park

2.) Hubbard Glacier

3.) Tracy Arm Fjord

 

HAL sails Glacier Bay, Celebrity sailed Hubbard Glacier and Disney sailed Tracy Arm. In this sense, I think HAL won in the glacier department. They even brought a park ranger on board who gave the whole ship an announcement tour of the whole place. Hubbard Glacier is magnificent and picturesque when the weather's nice, but the ship can't get that close to it. Tracy Arm is still pretty good because its good point is that the Wonder can pull up REALLY close to the glacier, which is cool.

 

Another difference between these 3 cruise lines for Alaska has to be WHERE they get to park their ship at the ports.

 

Celebrity had this port called Icy Strait that was super tiny and had nothing to do and required a little tender to take us there. For Juneau, we were literally parked RIGHT in the middle of town. Perfect and most ideal spot. For Ketchikan we were docked a tiny bit away from the the city center.

 

HAL parked their ship right in front of Ketchikan, we could walk right off the ship. HAL also had a very good parking location for Juneau as well, we could walk straight into the city. However, HAL parked REALLY far away from Skagway and was a really annoying, far away walk to the town. If you didn't want to walk, you'd have to pay $3 per person to ride a local shuttle. =_=.

 

The first time around, Disney had an awesome parking spot for Skagway where we literally just strolled straight into town. This time around, it was parked SUPER DUPER FAR AWAY. Although a TINY bit closer than the other docked ships, still seriously far away. Last time, we were also parked RIGHT in front of Juneau, but this time around, WE WERE ALSO SUPER FAR AWAY. They arranged a shuttle to take us to town this time, though. I think we walked straight off the boat for Ketchikan both last time and this time, though. One difference, our ship this time was a bit a of walk to the right instead of smack dab in the middle.

 

 

The only other difference I can think of is the fact that Disney has Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy running around with Alaska themed outfits :D

[lovely_serenity]

Regarding the food, would you say it was poor because it wasn't prepared or presented well, just not to your taste, or availability and selection?

I ask as food is so open to subjection, interpretation and ones own palette and what one may be used to eating.

 

ex techie

 

I don't think it was that it wasn't prepared or presented well. One thing would probably be the selection, as we would skim through the menu and be like "Uhm ... okay. I guess I'll get that one." It's definitely not that we are very picky eaters, as we literally eat everything. Our family always orders a variety of things so we can try everything. I just found that a lot of the time, theirs hot soups would have too strong a taste (ex. way too salty) and their main courses and appetizers didn't have enough taste (Not enough seasoning perhaps?). It just ... left us with a frequent answer to the question: "How was that dish?" ... "It was okay."

[Ex techie]

Thanks for the reply!

 

I guess it is just down to each and everyones personal palette then! No way could they cook and season to everyones taste from so many different areas/countries/continents!

 

ex techie

[matondo]

Enjoying your review. I have subscribed!

[lovely_serenity]

Thanks for the reply!

 

I guess it is just down to each and everyones personal palette then! No way could they cook and season to everyones taste from so many different areas/countries/continents!

 

ex techie

 

No problem! :) Indeed, it is completely possible that another may have found Cunard's food to fit their taste perfectly! It just happened to fall short of our expectations, is all. To each his own, I guess!

[lovely_serenity]

Enjoying your review. I have subscribed!

 

Glad to hear that! Thank you for following! ^^

[gavinfromlondon]

We are going on Disney Wonder in just over a month and loving your photos and narratives, making us even more excited than we are already!

[lovely_serenity]

And the bar, “Signals”:

 

 

We kept walking to the back of the ship and arrived at the sports area:

 

 

There actually weren’t as many people as I thought there’d be in the sports area.

 

 

 

While exploring the upper decks with some of my relatives, my sibling-duo cousins’ family started playing foosball! My siblings went to go play with them while I checked out our neighbouring ship that was to set sail soon!

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

We are going on Disney Wonder in just over a month and loving your photos and narratives, making us even more excited than we are already!

 

Wow, I hope you have a wonderful time on board!! :) && I hope my review is helpful in getting you guys hyped up! ^^

[lovely_serenity]

After a little while, we split up and returned to our own rooms to get ready for the 4 ‘o’clock muster drill. Before heading back I took a quick snap of the Quiet Cove hot tubs.

 

 

I saw something interesting on the way back to the room, but didn’t have time to stop by and check it out until later:

 

 

At 4pm, the alarms started sounding and everyone scurried to their muster stations. Ours was station E!

 

 

It was kind of awkward because we were parked right at Canada Place and so our deck was nearly at eye level with Canada Place’s outside level. People were kind of just hanging out at the railings watching us get herded like sheep o_o. The alarms were going off too!

 

After the muster drill, we headed back to our room to unpack. Shortly after the drill was the All Aboard Deck party!

 

We passed this on the way:

 

 

We actually missed most of the deck party because us kids couldn’t agree on who would get what space in the room, so we were kind of late to the party. It’s alright, because the rest of my relatives went! :D Here’s some pictures my 20-something girl cousin took of the deck during the party. Evidently, the place was completely packed:

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

(And here are some stills from my uncle’s video he took) The beginning portion of the deck party was some crew members dancing away, trying to hype up the crowd!

 

 

After a little while, the characters started to appear! This consisted of Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Pluto, Chip & Dale!

 

 

 

Mickey & Minnie share a sweet kiss while on stage (:

 

 

After their performance was over, the deck was left open for kids to join in the fun. By this time all of us were up on deck. (Back to my camera :P) My brother got some streamer things that my relatives had collected, and decorated his pants. He happily ran around the ship like this for a while LOL:

 

 

While we hung around for a bit, I decided to test my new super zoom lens out for the first time on board:

 

 

And I was very impressed by its zoom power (:

[lovely_serenity]

As it approached 5pm, we had to go! I had arranged for a DISBoards meet and greet downstairs in the Promenade Lounge and we needed to get going! My siblings decided to go with me.

 

We quickly scurried downstairs (my brother’s streamers flapping in the wind):

 

 

 

We arrived at the lounge and kind of waited a bit. We were trying to figure out who was from our group. After a little while, some adults started to congregate in the middle of the place, so we just assumed it was them. We headed over and I cautiously asked, “DisBoards?” to which they replied, “Yup!” I introduced myself and they all simultaneously chimed “Oohhhh” ^^. (I organized the meet, the roll call and the Fish Extender gift exchange). After chatting for a bit, one family with kids said that they were going to get going, and I also said that we were going to as well (we were going to be sailing under the Lion’s Gate bridge soon and we didn’t want to miss it. It was also a little awkward for us to converse because everybody else was adults and we really felt like children at this point LOL. So we decided to slip out and allow them all to get to know each other ^^)

 

We headed upstairs to deck 10, got some ice cream and waited for the ship to sail under the bridge. This actually got a little messy because, due to the warm weather, our ice cream cones were melting EXTREMELY quickly, and making everything sticky. -_-“ Especially me. I could see we were quickly approaching the bridge, and I obviously didn’t want to miss it, so I ran downstairs as fast as I could, grabbed a wet wipe, and ran back up. I gobbled down the cone, cleaned myself, and readied my camera, just in time for this!

 

 

 

As everyone waved to the people on the bridge, (it was really cool) the ship blared (with impeccable timing), “WHEN YOU WISH U-PON A STARRRRR~~~”, everyone cheered (:

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

After we had passed under the bridge, I took a few pictures before heading off:

 

 

 

 

By now, it was pretty much time to get ready for dinner (we were early seating at 5:45pm). We headed back and dressed up nicely for our first dinner on board! (Don’t dress up too much, cruise casual literally means cruise casual here. Even in a cocktail dress, I felt overdressed. Although it doesn’t bother me because I just run around feeling fabulous, it might bother someone else when everyone else is dressed at a formal level of 6.5 and you’re at an 8 ^^”)

 

Our first night was at Triton’s! (Side note: the first night was kind of embarrassing for me because I was trying to get used to having a big camera at dinner on THIS ship, so while I tried to adjust, I was dropping utensils left and right o_o Talk about flustered. I was trying to figure out how to take pictures of the menu without causing a ruckus and that took a little bit of getting used to. Good thing that by the second night, I had adapted and was no longer making a mess :D)

 

 

Here was tonight’s menu!

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

And since I had a 10 year old with me, I had access to a kid’s menu too! ^^~

 

 

 

Something to take note of this cruise, since I was with SO many people (18 others besides myself), I basically had access to almost every single item on the menu, even if I didn’t eat it (which, I usually did. I probably took a bite of everything my cousins ordered that I didn’t :D). This gave me a good opportunity to get pictures of all, if not nearly all the things available for lunch AND dinner! (I usually got all the things available at lunch, but only the things ordered at MY table during dinner, since it felt kind of inappropriate to run around during the night time meal LOL) This was quite nice for me, because others ordered things my family never would have LOL (ex. Salads and lighter fare).

 

My table (consisting of all the cousins + the 10 year old’s mom) seemed to like Disney’s bread a lot. (I’m not a bread person), but according to them, the bread was “so good”. :-) Tonight’s bread was Warm French Country Bread with an Olive Spread:

 

 

 

(I didn’t take pictures of the bread every night, only when the spread looked interesting) Goes without saying that my table gobbled it all down before our appetizers came ^^”.

 

While my hungry tablemates chowed down, I took pictures of the wine menu (with the on board Alcohol packages):

 

 

Edited September 8, 2014 by lovely_serenity

[lovely_serenity]

 

First up was the Duck Confit:

 

 

(It was pretty good, my sister enjoyed it. 8.0/10)

 

Then the Iced Lobster and Jumbo Shrimp:

 

 

(Which I enjoyed very much! 9.5/10)

 

The Escargot Gratinée:

 

 

(Which I also enjoyed very much. 9.4/10)

 

The Breaded and Deep Fried Brie:

 

 

(Which was surprisingly delicious! 8.9/10)

 

The Onion Soup Gratinée:

 

 

(It tasted kind of like Chinese tomato vegetable soup..? LOL With cheese on top. 7.2/10)

Edited September 8, 2014 by lovely_serenity

[jwalk03]

Following along with our review, which is great so far!

 

I am going to be on the Wonder for the first time next year from San Diego to Ensenada & Cabo.

[KitKatK]

No problem! :) Indeed, it is completely possible that another may have found Cunard's food to fit their taste perfectly! It just happened to fall short of our expectations, is all. To each his own, I guess!

 

Absolutely! I thought the food on my 2012 Disney Magic cruise was extremely uneven and disappointing. One course would be delicious, the next would be really bad, then the next would be passable, etc. I thought the lunch buffet in Parrot Cay was downright awful, but our breakfast in Cabanas was surprisingly good. I was very surprised by this.

 

OTOH, I've had nothing but absolutely delicious meals across the board on all of my 4 QM2 cruises, with all four of my meals in Todd English to be undoubtedly the best I've ever had, hands down.

 

Definitely to each his own!

 

KK