Disney Wonder: Cruises for the Entire Family
Written: Jul 24 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: kid friendly cruising, comfortable staterooms, plenty of entertainment
Cons: pricey, four night cruise too short, no Princesses
The Bottom Line: The Disney Wonder provides a family friendly cruise experience, albeit at a price. We plan to cruise again with Disney, based upon a favorable first experience.
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| jdhauer's Full Review: Disney Wonder |
I had planned to attempt a Disney cruise with my parents next spring. My brother took a cruise on the Magic with his family and his wife's sister's family last year and booked their next cruise onboard in order to get a discount. Because he has three kids, he had to book two staterooms and he invited my parents along.
This left my plans up in the air as I didn't really want to ask my parents to pay for two cruises within a year, yet I really didn't want to do a four night cruise on the Wonder. I really preferred the Eastern Caribbean 7 night on the Magic. But, you get along to go along sometimes and my family of four ended up joining the rest of them on a 4 night to the Bahamas.
While my parents and my brother were booked directly with Disney Cruise Line, I went through AAA to get the only discount I could find at the time which was a $25 onboard credit and a 2% discount by using the AAA credit card. We were later able to get a much bigger military discount (over 50%!) because my father is retired Navy. We had multiple problems using AAA and would not use them to book future cruises, including never being able to get the refrigerator in our stateroom that we needed for medical reasons.
We were able to choose our stateroom ourselves on deck 7 near my parents and my brother (who had connecting staterooms) and do all of our paperwork ahead of time. This includes the necessary paperwork to sign the children up for the various kids' clubs. About a week before leaving, we received a package from AAA with luggage tags and other information.
Boarding
Boarding was a pretty simple procedure. We were dropped at the cruise terminal by the Radisson's shuttle where we were met by a Disney employee who took all of our pre-tagged luggage for us. The next time we saw it was when it was delivered to our stateroom.
Definitely take anything you may need before dinner with you in a carry-on as sometimes luggage is not delivered to your stateroom until late in the afternoon. Ours made it around 2:00 in the afternoon but we were prepared just in case. You can't even get in to your stateroom until after 1 pm anyway.
From the shuttle area, we had a short walk to the terminal where we showed our passports and then went through security. Once we went up the escalators to the terminal proper, we were directed to see a cruise agent who processed our documentation. We then went to another line which had three or four people in it where we were issued our Keys to the World cards which acts as a room key, identification and charge card while aboard ship. We also went over to get wristbands and a pager for the kids for their activities. In all, it took about 10 minutes and seemed much more civilized than our experience with Royal Caribbean.
When we checked in, we were given a number which allowed us to sit and enjoy the terminal instead of waiting in line. Once your number is called, you can board the ship. There was plenty to do in the terminal with a large model of the Disney Magic to inspect and photo opportunities with various Disney characters. There were also Disney movies playing for the kids to watch as we waited.
Once our number was called (ours was insanely low - 3), you get your picture taken and are finally allowed to enter the ship through the Lobby Atrium.
Staterooms
We really weren't picky about our cabin because we figured we wouldn't be spending much time in there. We did want to be somewhat near my parents and my brother but didn't need to be right on top of them. We chose an interior category 11 stateroom (7539) which was located forward. We never really heard any noise other than from our next door neighbors who liked to turn on their television quite loudly, late at night.
Even though there were four of us, we had more than enough room to spread out and never felt cramped. I realize that many travelers expect cruise ship cabins to be the same size as a regular hotel room. Those cruisers will be quite disappointed. By the way, everything was clean and well-kept too.
If you have issues with claustrophobia, definitely get an outside cabin for the porthole and sunlight. A balcony will make your cruise much more enjoyable too. For us, that's not an issue but my eldest daughter was quite put out that our room did not have a porthole while her grandparents' and her cousins' rooms did.
We had a regular category 11 stateroom setup (there are two types - one is walk in and the beds are in front of you and the other is situated sideways with the beds to the side) with two twin beds put together to form an oversized queen. The beds were comfortable with soft, not scratchy linens. The pillows were nice and fluffable too. The small sofa flipped to become a bed for our younger daughter while another berth pulled down from the ceiling for our eldest daughter.
We also had a built in closet, a desk with a chair and a wooden adjustable table. There were usually movies on the television and I really enjoyed watching "Coraline" while packing us up the last evening.
The room featured a very small bathroom which was too tiny for more than one person to use at a time but there was enough room for one of us to give the kids baths. There are enough mirrors in the main stateroom that I could do makeup and contact lenses outside of the bathroom. It comes with a small tub and a shower with a curtain, a retractable clothesline, a toilet and a sink. We also had plenty of towels. The main difference between category 11 and category 10 has to do with the bathroom - when you move up a category, the sink is outside hte bathroom and the toilet is separate so you can have more than one person getting ready at a time.
Dining
For many people, dining is the main event on a cruise ship. I'm proud to report that I did not gain any weight on our cruise and even lost some!
On the Disney Cruise Line, instead of having one main dining room for dinner each night, there are three main sit down restaurants and you rotate between them each evening. Your servers rotate with you as well. On a four night cruise, you will spend your second and third evenings at the same restaurant with a special Pirates in the Caribbean menu the second night. We had a table for nine each evening which was easily accommodated at the first seating.
Our kids accompanied us for dinner each evening and there are no worries about food for them. If your little one doesn't eat sea bass, there's a separate kids menu with favorites like macaroni and cheese, chicken strips and the like.
Our first night was spent at Triton's which is the fanciest of the three restaurants. It has a French inspired, mostly seafood menu and it decorated in blues and greens. A number of us had the macaroni and cheese with lobster and were quite pleased with it. I chose the chicken breast and it was one of the moistest and juiciest I've ever had. I splurged on the appetizer with the escargot which was buttery and garlicky as it should be while many at the table had the shrimp cocktail with plump, large shrimp.
The rotation for the second evening had us at Animator's Palate where the room is decorated in black and white with various screens that change color throughout your meal. I thought the chairs in this room were hard to push in and out from the table and the black vinyl on them was a bit uncomfortable. This was also semi-formal night where everyone has the opportunity to dress up a bit. The gazpacho here is really good for those who are fans of this cold soup but I didn't really care too much for the confetti tomato salad. If you're willing to try something new and can handle a bit of spice, my favorite entree in the main dining rooms the entire cruise was the spicy potato and pea samosas. The server kept coming by and saying he'd bring me something else because he knew I wouldn't like it (wrong) and then that it's a small portion and I'd still be hungry (again wrong - it was small but more than enough when you add in the appetizer and salad and dessert!).
For pirate night, they no longer give out bandannas as I've heard they used to but the Disney Vacation Club booth had plenty of free temporary pirate tattoos. Hits with the appetizers that night were the pineapple slices and the "Pearls of the Caribbean" which is couscous, shrimp and crab. We had one order of watermelon soup which was passed from person to person with perfect consensus that we all hated it. This stuff was just wrong. The snapper that evening was somewhat fishy tasting and there was one complaint about the sirloin being tough. The best dessert here is the rum barbossa which is a doughnut filled with a rum cream.
Our final evening was spent in Parrot Cay which is where we also had lunch our first day on board and breakfast the day we disembarked. For lunch, they have a lovely buffet set up while breakfast is plated and served by the same server and assistant who waited on you during the cruise. The decor is tropical and this is a very loud room. We were seated in a corner, next to the portholes and the noise just bounced around us. It also did not help tha for dinner, the table next to us had ten children, all screaming while the two adults were at the other end of the table, drinking and ignoring the kids. It seemed like these were kids from a number of families and those two adults drew the short straw to watch them. I had my fingers in my ears for much of the meal, it was so loud and talking to the group did nothing. The highlight of the menu here is the cold mango and papaya soup. Vegetarians may like the pearl barley cakes and for dessert, the lemon meringue pie is pretty tasty.
On our day at sea, we went to the speciality restaurant, Palo, for brunch. Palo is reserved for adults only and the food is quite a big step up from what is offered in the main dining rooms. It's an extra charge to eat here but worth it. For brunch, you start with an amazing buffet offering multiple types of fish, pastries, breads, cheese and fruits. The salmon mousse was incredibly decadent as was the sage cheese. You could then order from the menu which included an incredible frittata, gazpacho, various pizzas, veal, chicken and so forth. My husband had the grape pizza which sounds weird but it had a port wine reduction and was quite sophisticated. Finally, there's a dessert buffet with many choices, all tiny so you can try more than one without feeling too guilty. If you want to dine at Palo for dinner or brunch, you'll need to make reservations ahead of time.
We usually ate breakfast at the Beach Blanket Buffet. Items offered varied from day to day but included almost anything you might want for breakfast. I was easily accommodated with egg white omelettes with tomatoes and mushrooms without any difficulty. Lunch is also offered here and has plenty of choices, even sushi on our sea day.
One nice thing about Disney is that there aren't additional charges for sodas as on other lines. There's a beverage station available next to the pool any time you'd like something to drink. Also available poolside are Pluto's Dog House, Pinocchio's Pizzeria and Goofy's Galley for snacks or a light lunch. Offerings include hot dogs, pizza (including specialty choices like Hawaiian), light sandwiches and fresh fruit. There's also softserve ice cream. We never partook of the midnight buffet or other opportunities for snacking but there were plenty. Room service is also included except for a tip but we never did that either. My parents liked to start the day with coffee in their room and my brother ordered huge chocolate chip cookies for his kids every night.
You can also drink all over the ship from the Cove Cafe on the pool deck to the adult entertainment area, Route 66 which features the Cadillac Lounge, Diversions and Wave Bands.
Entertainment
Official entertainment is listed in the Navigator that is left in your stateroom every night. There is something going on almost all of the time for all different age ranges. Each evening there was a show or a movie in the Walt Disney Theater. We saw three "Broadway Style" shows: The Golden Mickeys, Toy Story The Musical and Disney Dreams. One evening the entertainment was the newest Pixar film, "Up" in 3D. Over in the Buena Vista Theater, there were additional opportunities to see "Up" as well as other recent release Disney films including Hannah Montana The Movie, Race to Witch Mountain, The Proposal and Earth.
There are also cooking demonstrations, dance lessons, bingo, trivia, art auctions, and a whole bunch of audience participation events. My husband ended up with a free lithograph for attending the art auction and we each won hats playing trivia. My dad ended up with eight Disney Vacation Club hats, some lanyards, an insulated tote bag, bag finders and a handful of pens at the Disney Vacation Club Member Event he attended.
Other than bingo, there is no gambling or casino on the Disney Wonder. This also meant that there was no smoky area other than the adult pool to avoid. Seriously, the Quiet Cove Pool was the only place on the entire ship where we encountered smokers.
Children's Activities
Many people who are interested in the Disney Cruise Line are interested because they have children. Disney does it right when it comes to the little ones. Although there is childcare for the youngest cruisers (Flounder's Nursery), my personal advice would be to wait to take a cruise until your youngest is at least 3 and potty trained. It's not that you'll want to dump your kids off in the clubs, but your children can't take advantage of the opportunities until they have reached those minimum benchmarks.
The kids's clubs/activities are broken down by age into the Oceaneer's Club (3-7), the Oceaneer's Lab (8-12) and Aloft (13-17). I can't say much about the teen activities but within the Club and the Lab, activities are broken down even more by age so that the 3-4 year olds are together doing once activity much of the time while the 5-7 year olds are doing another. The same holds true for the Lab with the 8-10 year olds doing one activity while the 11-12 year olds do another. The activities are fun as both of my kids raved about getting to do age appropriate things like dress up in costume for the little one and make Flubber for the older one.
I worried a lot about the kids' clubs beforehand as my eldest has some special needs but the staff were able to easily work with her. Sometimes, instead of going to Studio Sea with the rest of her group for "Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer?", she'd stay in the Lab with some of the counselors or the older group and that was fine. I liked the flexibility involved. With my younger daughter, her cousin was in the Club also but as part of the older group. My little one was allowed to tag along with her cousin at times or her cousin to hang back. I really liked the pager system where you are paged if your child needs you or is ready to leave. If you are having a meal at Palo's, let the staff know and they won't page unless it's an emergency. And, if you are having dinner with the adults, mealtimes are also covered with the Club and the Lab.
Finally, children's activities are even available on Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. Your children won't go swimming but there are various sand and water activities available in Scuttle's Cove. I wasn't very pleased with what was offered for 3 and 4 year olds but my older daughter had a blast.
Other ship stuff
There are photos constantly taken of you all over the place. You can buy these photos at Shutters Photo Gallery and they are very expensive at $20 per 8x10 or $299 for a CD of all of the photos taken of the people in your stateroom. We originally considered a CD but there was no way to check which pictures would actually be on there and when we were checking our account using our Key to the World card at the photo kiosks, we kept finding photos of other guests. Since there seemed to be no quality control there, we opted for a package of five 8x10 photographs for $149.95.
We found that there was plenty of interaction with the characters over the course of our cruise. We came across multiple opportunities for photos with Mickey and Minnie and Donald and Daisy in different costumes. The only characters we didn't see were the Princesses - Cinderella was scheduled only once and for an hour. I've heard that is not the case on the longer cruises where there are multiple opportunities with multiple Princesses. We also found that we just encountered characters in unexpected places like on the elevator or getting back onto the ship.
There are also plenty of shops on board. You can buy things ranging from postcards to pricey jewelery to duty free liquor. A heads up to those driving to Port Canaveral from the north: off I-95 in St. Augustine, there's a Disney outlet which often stocks cruise line merchandise. I was able to get a Castaway Cay t-shirt for my daughter for $9.95 which was $20 less than on the island and a sweatshirt for myself for $24.95, a good $25 less than onboard for an almost identical piece of clothing.
The pool area is quite extensive with a large, children's Mickey Pool taking up one third of the area. There's a slide shaped like Mickey's hand and the two ears are wading pools. There's also a small splash area for toddlers. Children must be toilet trained to use any of the pools! No swim diapers! Another third of the deck is taken up by the Goofy Family Pool. This is where you can watch movies in the pool and where parties like the Pirates in the Caribbean party (complete with at sea fireworks) take place. Finally, another third is comprised of the Quiet Cove Adult Pool which is reserved for guests 18 and up only.
For those who want to get some exercise in, there's a gym in the Vista Spa as well as basketball courts. I made sure to get up each morning for some laps around the jogging track to start my day.
Ports
Since this was a short four day cruise, we only had two ports of call: Nassau and Disney's private island, Castaway Cay.
As the heat index in Nassau was 106 the day we visited and it looked like thunderstorms, we decided not to do much that day. We walked into town and did a little sightseeing with the kids near the dock, picked up some rum at the Bacardi store and then spent the rest of the day enjoying the empty pools on the ship. It did end up starting to storm just as we returned to the ship for lunch but cleared up a little just afterward. My brother and his family went to Paradise Island to swim at one of the free beaches there while my parents did a little bit of shopping in town.
Castaway Cay is a beachgoer's delight. You dock early and simply walk off the ship, passing by the Flying Dutchman from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. There's something for just about everyone here: a family beach, teen beach, adult beach, activities from parasailing to biking to stingray adventures, freshwater showers, bars with sumptuous Conch Coolers specialty drinks and a wonderful barbecue lunch. The day we were there, unfortunately, the weather was not altogether cooperative and all of their regularly scheduled activities were cancelled. They even closed off the snorkeling lagoon for rough seas. Even so, we really enjoyed our day with the sand between our toes, watching the kids build sandcastles and frolic in the shallows.
Overall Impressions
Our cruise on the Disney Wonder, even with a large discount, still wasn't what I'd call a bargain. These are premium priced cruises with high demand and any type of a discount is a rarity. I still feel like we received good value for the money paid. My children are begging to go on another cruise so I've promised up any payment from my Epinions account toward another in a couple of years.
What I did discover from my experience is that for our family, we would have been much better off taking a 7 night instead of a 4 night cruise as it took a few days for the kids to settle in. We've pretty well made the decision to take another cruise with Disney Cruise Lines but we'll be looking at the Magic or one of their two new ships that have been ordered instead, simply because the Wonder only takes three and four night cruises at this time.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
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Epinions.com ID:
jdhauer
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 in Kids & Family |
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Location: Virginia
Reviews written: 712
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