Wonder - January 21, 2011 The Cruise To Nowhere In Particular..

[bubbasmom99]

Wow - that sounds intriguing, or maybe just distressing...

I did notice alot more dressing up the 2nd night too. I noticed shorts and jeans the first night, evening gowns the 2nd night. I must have missed the memo. We were dressy casual. (We were in PC, so casual fit right in.) Our table was off in the corner by the kitchen door so nobody really could see us anyway. In 4 cruises now, we've gotten seated at a table just by ourselves. We must have some weird notation on our file that we stink or something, lol.

 

[YenSid1222]

Oh ---- I just loved the CD....my daughter had it playing while we drove home and even while I unpacked...my teen boys loved your postcard~! Especially my DS18 (senior) who got accepted into TCU..... Loved it!

Good to hear. I tried to put together some music that was "hard to get". Congrats to your son on TCU, it is a GREAT school. Make sure you plan some time to visit him. There is lots of wonderful things to do in Fort Worth, all of which is very close to the campus.

 

[Melora]

Finally got a trip report up and running on the trip report board:

Disney Cruise to Nowhere Trip Report.. the Good the Bad and the Ugly

 

[stitch4336]

Quick post to say HI to everyone and THANKS for the wonderful FE gifts. Being our first cruise, that was SUCH a highlight! DH said I was like a little kid always checking the pockets to see what new items had arrived! I didn't put our name on ours, sorry. We were one of the many cruise logo magnets Ours was the little one with Tink and the glitter paint accents.

We have nothing to compare our experience to - so for us, it was all great! The character lines seemed long (longer than DL or WDW for the most part anyway). But we waited in a few of them cuz I'm obsessed with photos! Shows were amazing! Our servers and room host were pleasant and attentive. The food was about what we expected, nothing extraordinary, but notthing bad either. (We got Parrot Cay, but tried as many other places for breakfast and lunch as we could). We were disappointed about not gettign to see the show in Annimator's - but totally understand the decision as this cruise was not a normal one.

No bad experiences except for the line at Preludes moving slower than a river of caramel! Never did figure out why that line couldn't move, waited 15 minutes and then had to give up as the show was starting Oh well, we didn't need that popcorn anyway

Great to meet some of you, especially lvstitch who was our table mate at dinner! Thanks A Little Pixie Dust for letting us see the Walt Disney Suite too - WOW it was amazing!

We'll be seein' you all on another cruise I'm sure! We'll definitely be doing more!

 

[A Litle Pixie Dust]

Yeah!! I'm glad that you found it!



This was our first cruise but having been reading the disboards so much, I also knew what we were missing, so we kind of fell between being newbies and return cruises, LOL. But I also realized that it was not a normal itinerary so I didn't let it bother me that some things were missing. OK, it also helps that we are going on the Dream in April and will get the full experience then We just enjoyed being on the ship for the first time

The only thing that caught me for a loop was the attire on the second night. I could have sworn it was supposed to be cruise casual both nights but for the life of me, I can't remember what made me think that. I couldn't find anything in my documentation that said either way. But once we got to dinner the second night, I saw first hand what people on the boards have said about the dress codes. We saw a little bit of everything (including tank top, shorts and flip flops, LOL). Luckily we planned to dress up a bit both nights anyway so we didn't feel out of place with what we brought (it just wasn't semi-formal).

I guess that was my fault to a degree...I called DCL before we left and was told cruise casual...on the ship I checked again..same restaurants and cruise casual..imagine my surprise when it came out semi-formal. Although..I was not the only one told cruise casual for both nights...several of my friends who called DCL heard the same thing...usually on a formal or semi-formal night - people dress accordingly...I think it was just miscommuniation...

 

[cmwade77]

The only thing that caught me for a loop was the attire on the second night. I could have sworn it was supposed to be cruise casual both nights but for the life of me, I can't remember what made me think that. I couldn't find anything in my documentation that said either way. But once we got to dinner the second night, I saw first hand what people on the boards have said about the dress codes. We saw a little bit of everything (including tank top, shorts and flip flops, LOL). Luckily we planned to dress up a bit both nights anyway so we didn't feel out of place with what we brought (it just wasn't semi-formal).

It was somewhere in the online check in process as I recall. I do know that it said casual (not even cruise casual) for both nights. For the second night, I did dress up as much as I had with me. It was a polo shirt from work and dress pants and shoes. Honestly, if they say no shorts I won't show up in shorts, but I may wear a t-shirt For cruise casual, not for semi-formal though (of course I wouldn't do this at Palo), but I don't care what other people wear to dinner, it's not my business.

 

[dsnydaddy]

Yeah, I didn't pack much in the way of dress clothes. I was very surprised to see Semi-formal on the Navigator. So, I dressed as nicely as I had brought and didn't stress it too much.

 

[cmwade77]

Yeah..umm...second night dinner....

I can't say what happened to us because I'm afraid it may be a DISer here.
But I highly doubt it as everyone here is just wonderful and FRIENDLY.
But the staff was fabulous in fixing it for us and we had wonderful - overly
friendly service from everyone - to the HEAD HEAD server.

We even got a visit to our room by our assistant server who wanted to be sure we had a great experience
and brought us apologies and goodies.

Am I the only one who want to know what happened?

 

[mickeyfan1]

I had to pull my Navigator and see what it said. Semi Formal? Were they taking the crazy pills? We would have been fine if we had gon to the dining room, but really? A 2 night cruise and semi formal? Maybe that's why room service was so busy, too many people didn't have the "right" clothes and thought they should not go out?

 

[SanDeeKath]

I had to pull my Navigator and see what it said. Semi Formal? Were they taking the crazy pills? We would have been fine if we had gon to the dining room, but really? A 2 night cruise and semi formal? Maybe that's why room service was so busy, too many people didn't have the "right" clothes and thought they should not go out?

Good point. We knew nothing about this semiformal thing but we called room service 3x in the span of an hour Sat nite and never got an answer. My DH was seriously PO'd since there was NO BUFFET (open 12-2pm only) and the kids were hungry at 5pm and the grill ran out of everything but brots! He want to the head of the waitstaff who got someone to deliver 3 hamburgers to our room within 20 minutes. But he actually had to storm into the dining room and raise a bit of a raucus to get the 3 greasy burgers. UGH.

 

[Mistletoe Ranch Kids]

Hi there,
Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the FE gifts. Loved the magnets, the cd, stickers and M&M goodies, everything was a wonderful surprise for us. My youngest had such a great time checking the pockets for goodies every time we came back to the room. This was our first cruise. I have read some of the replies, and I tend to agree that things seemed crowded and rushed. I certainly look forward to future Disney cruises with my kiddos. My husband did not like the experience much at all, he would not admit it, but I think he had motion sickness. My youngest daughter loved dressing up to meet the princesses, and the rest of the Disney characters. Yikes! the lines were long! My 13 year old daughter really enjoyed "the edge" We were in 8602 all the way at the aft of the ship. Nice big suite, the deck was huge, and the room attendant was wonderful. I am checking the kiddos schedules to see when we might be able to cruise again. I will upload pics and update my blog soon to share the pictures I took.

 

[mickeyfan1]

When I called room service Saturday night from my cabin phone, I got no answer, But I called from the wave phone and got the auto answer and hold please recording. Which was weird. On all DCL cruises there is no buffet for dinner, so that isn't different. I am not sure about the fast food outlets, but it did seem like things closed earlier than normal. I didn't save my May navigators so I have nothing to base this on.

 

[dsnydaddy]

Am I the only one who want to know what happened?

I was curious.

I had to pull my Navigator and see what it said. Semi Formal? Were they taking the crazy pills? We would have been fine if we had gon to the dining room, but really? A 2 night cruise and semi formal? Maybe that's why room service was so busy, too many people didn't have the "right" clothes and thought they should not go out?

Good Theory!

 

[mickeyfan1]

At least they have already posted the dress code and pirate night infor for the repo in April I figured there would be a formal, a semi, 3 cruise casual and one whatever (boarding) day, and I was correct. We will have pirate night and the last fireworks till she gets out of dry dock.

 

[jetskigrl]

I guess that was my fault to a degree...I called DCL before we left and was told cruise casual...on the ship I checked again..same restaurants and cruise casual..imagine my surprise when it came out semi-formal. Although..I was not the only one told cruise casual for both nights...several of my friends who called DCL heard the same thing...usually on a formal or semi-formal night - people dress accordingly...I think it was just miscommuniation...

It was somewhere in the online check in process as I recall. I do know that it said casual (not even cruise casual) for both nights. For the second night, I did dress up as much as I had with me. It was a polo shirt from work and dress pants and shoes. Honestly, if they say no shorts I won't show up in shorts, but I may wear a t-shirt For cruise casual, not for semi-formal though (of course I wouldn't do this at Palo), but I don't care what other people wear to dinner, it's not my business.

Yeah, I didn't pack much in the way of dress clothes. I was very surprised to see Semi-formal on the Navigator. So, I dressed as nicely as I had brought and didn't stress it too much.

I had to pull my Navigator and see what it said. Semi Formal? Were they taking the crazy pills? We would have been fine if we had gon to the dining room, but really? A 2 night cruise and semi formal? Maybe that's why room service was so busy, too many people didn't have the "right" clothes and thought they should not go out?

Good point. We knew nothing about this semiformal thing but we called room service 3x in the span of an hour Sat nite and never got an answer. My DH was seriously PO'd since there was NO BUFFET (open 12-2pm only) and the kids were hungry at 5pm and the grill ran out of everything but brots! He want to the head of the waitstaff who got someone to deliver 3 hamburgers to our room within 20 minutes. But he actually had to storm into the dining room and raise a bit of a raucus to get the 3 greasy burgers. UGH.

Thanks Everyone! It's good to know that I wasn't the only one caught off guard. I had gone back and forth with my DH before we left about what he needed and I told him that he would be fine with a polo or button-down shirt (so he left his jacket and tie at home). But oh how he loved rubbing it in to me that I was wrong (when we saw the navigator)

 

[Zoom]

Yeah..umm...second night dinner....

I can't say what happened to us because I'm afraid it may be a DISer here.
But I highly doubt it as everyone here is just wonderful and FRIENDLY.
But the staff was fabulous in fixing it for us and we had wonderful - overly
friendly service from everyone - to the HEAD HEAD server.

We even got a visit to our room by our assistant server who wanted to be sure we had a great experience
and brought us apologies and goodies.

On our 2nd night at dinner, our asst. server spilled an iced tea at my friends daughter's (15 y/o) back, she missed the waiter's flag parade show because she had to go back to the room and change. They keep apologizing to the parents, the head server said usually they would do something special like send them a cheese platter but there's no time to arrange things, my friend just joked and said 'that's ok, you can just give us a certifate for a free cruise'. Our AS is new according to our server, and we can tell cause he's very slow and would always asked us twice what drinks we want and 1 time he didn't even ask DH.

The kids in our group enjoyed the lab and the edge, my son is 10 1/2 and was able to go to the edge with his cousins (DH had to talked to the supervisor at the lab).

Overall for us, it was a good quick cruise (this is our 4th w/DCL), we didn't really expect a lot. We're just happy to be with our friends and family. Though we agree, there should be more buffet after 11pm.... We also ordered room service Sat. night and we didn't get it til about 1am.

 

[dsnydaddy]

At least they have already posted the dress code and pirate night infor for the repo in April I figured there would be a formal, a semi, 3 cruise casual and one whatever (boarding) day, and I was correct. We will have pirate night and the last fireworks till she gets out of dry dock.

A they Dry docking on the West Coast? I was wondering how they were going to handle that.

 

[sunshine1259]

Yeah, I didn't pack much in the way of dress clothes. I was very surprised to see Semi-formal on the Navigator. So, I dressed as nicely as I had brought and didn't stress it too much.

I called DCL and they told me that both nights would be cruise casual. I asked about formal night and was told that I could dress up as formally as I wanted to but it was still cruise causal. Don't know what that was all about.

 

[mickeyfan1]

A they Dry docking on the West Coast? I was wondering how they were going to handle that.

After the AK season is done, 2 weeks in Vancouver dry dock then another repo. No B@B for the last AK cruisers.

 

[beansf]

Well, we had fun on the cruise, but I didn't feel like DCL put their absolute best foot forward for us. I was hoping they would, because my husband and I both took our mothers (first-time cruisers). Unfortunately, they didn't do some of the things we wanted to show them like the Art of the Theme tour or the Galley Tour. No big deal, though. We enjoyed Golden Mickeys and Toy Story 3.

We weren't too impressed with our serving team in Parrot Cay, however. The assistant server never once got our drinks right. During the Get Lost, uh Farewell Breakfast he kept moving the creamer back and forth between our table and the table next to us. Is there only one creamer on the Wonder? The fruit plate was very meager and looked nothing like what I have gotten previously on the Magic. Also, why did my plate of pancakes have two and my mother's have three? Were they putting me on a diet? These suckers were small. Plus, I was hoping to get enough to eat so that I wouldn't have to eat lunch since we weren't getting home until 3:00, but it didn't happen. We had to ask before they would bring the pastries around, which didn't happen until 30 minutes after we were seated, when we were done eating our sad meal. If we had been on a longer cruise, I would have been having a heart to heart with the head server, for sure.

Also, I think I am spoiled by the beauty of Port Canaveral. I missed it this time around. We have decided we won't be doing a Mexican Riviera cruise even though the port is so much closer to us.

We filled out an onboard rebooking card to get a quote but didn't hear anything back. Has anyone else who didn't hear back been contacted since they returned home?