Well...we got off the Wonder on the 4th, but stayed an extra day in Vancouver to sight see, and not have to rush off to the airport after disembarkation.
First of all, thank you for the tips and advice about Vancouver. We've only sailed out of PC previously, and within the Disney bubble, so doing much of it on our own was different and new for me. I hope to get a trip report up soon, but I'll touch on a few things:
The Wonder looks great. There were a few minor things here and there, but for me, personally, it was noticeable if you were out to notice them. We’ve only been on the Dream and Fantasy before so we don’t know what the “norm” is for the classic ships, but those open sea areas were rough on the Wonder. The seas weren’t actually rough though, they looked calm during those stretches of open sea, and not surrounded by land in the Inside Passage. I don’t think it was our room location though, the whole ship rocked. If you looked out the window even from midship and atrium, you can see the horizon going up…..then down…..then up…..then down. Is it a smaller ship thing? Was it wind? If so, you'd think the sea swells would be rough too. I don’t know. It wasn't terrible, and not a deal breaker by any shot but definitely more noticeable than on the Dream class ships, and somewhat unexpected. Overall, I thought the Wonder looked great, especially for her age. We had a room on deck 6, forward, and it was nice and quiet. We saw painting off and on throughout the cruise, and one late, late night, I could smell it out in the hallway (not from our room) but the smell was gone by morning. One thing we all hated about the Wonder are those elevators. OMG they are SMALL. You simply cannot fit more than 4 adults in them, and even then you were reeeeeal intimate for that elevator ride, especially the midship ones. They are impossible! Forward and aft elevators were better, but midship? Fuggetaboutit! We stopped bothering with them by day 2. (Elevators were a necessity as we had a knee injury in our party.) I really liked that they have stroller and wheel chair parking on deck 6. I never noticed that on the Dream or Fantasy, probably because we weren't right by it. Oh, and because of the knee injury in my party, I discovered that medical on deck 1 will sell, not rent, canes and crutches: $15 and $50 respectively, charged to your room. They won't deliver it to your room, however, you'll have to go get it or send someone to get it.
There were a few things about the Wonder that surprised me, and caught me off guard, but didn't by any means ruin my trip or anything. It was just...different and not what I expected out of
DCL, perhaps a bit disappointed.
The food was mediocre. The Frozen menu in particular was meh. Really, meh. I was really looking forward to beignets at Tiana's and that was also meh...they were over fried, and dry. We went to Tiana's twice in our rotation, and each time, Louis would come out for a little bit, visit with a couple of tables...the same ones, then disappear. So like...does he meet with guests, or not? That left a lot of guests wondering if he'd come back and why he didn't meet with the rest of us. Tiana made her rounds to every table from what I could tell though. She even posed for pics upon request.
The general vibe of the crew was they were worn out and jaded. They just lacked the enthusiasm and umph from the Dream and Fantasy's crews, even down to the entertainment crew, which REALLY surprised me. We went to play bingo and they just weren't nearly as energetic as the Dream and Fantasy's crew. The whole B-11 Beyonce thing, for example, they barely mentioned it on the Wonder. I talked to a server and she lamented that the work environment isn't very good like it used to be. New management from other cruise lines try to run things their old way rather than the DCL way, making for a hostile work environment. We felt rushed off the ship by Ketchikan day, which was only day 6. We came back to our room, and the pre-paid tip vouchers and envelopes were already laid out for us, our serving team shook our hands and wished us well at the end of dinner that night. I had to check the app several times to make sure we still had another day, a sea day before disembarkation. I chatted with another guest in the hallway who said he felt the same way, that as far as he was concerned, they wrapped things up after Ketchikan, and he no longer felt welcomed. It just seemed...odd, when there was whole 'nother sea day that should've been filled with entertainment for guests. And the dining rooms...I know the ship is smaller, we had our own 4 top, but things were so cramped we might as well have shared a table with the party next to us. I don't know if it's just cramped in the MDRs, or if they don't have enough help, or what, but literally every meal in there, dishes crashed. I felt so bad for the CMs as many of them juggled trays with 3-4 towers of plates stacked 4-6 high, having to maneuver around those narrow gaps between tables, over guests' heads (one night, an elderly guest had a tray of plates crash right next to him, sending half the serving team flying over to see if he was ok.) We had 2nd seating and the poor CMs were just as harried as 1st seating.
My biggest gripe came from Oceaneer's. One of my kids got kicked in the nose by another kid who apparently had been following him around the club pestering him. As he writhed in pain holding his nose, a CM told him to pick up the stack of cups that'd been knocked over, and to stop pretending to be hurt. He ended up checking himself out of the club and came back to our room to tell us what happened and I could see his nose bruising. WHY would a youth club CM not follow up with a kid who could potentially be hurt? We ended up going back down there with the kid to talk to the CMs about what happened and asked for an ice pack. The CMs just handed us the ice pack upon request, and did nothing about, for the lack of a better word, bullying going on. That kid ended up picking on mine a few more times before he managed to find other kids to group up with, and had safety in numbers. I don't know if this one kid bullied other kids around the ship, but he sure gave mine heck. I really wanted to report it to guest services, but my kid didn't want to draw more attention to it, and end up having bigger issues, but I did mention it on the comment card, and fully plan on writing to DCL about it, but it bothers me that DCL does nothing about unruly kids, which reminds me of how little enforcement of rules in the parks.
Other than those few things, overall, it was a great trip. The weather was great all throughout. Excursions were fun (some through 3rd parties, whale watching through DCL.) We had a great time, and I would do it again. I just wish DCL took better care of their CMs.
