Trip report: Disney Wonder July 19 - 23, 2009

[Sweetie]

I had a wonderful trip on the Disney Wonder. We left Port Canaveral on Sunday July 19th.

DAY 1:
Before entering the ship we saw a wonderful model of the Disney Magic. The model was amazingly detailed. The model was about 6 feet long.

Once on the ship I had a chance to look around before the safety drill at 4pm.
For the drill everyone (and I mean everyone) had to put on a life vest and line up in an assigned spot. We were told this was the only serious part of our cruise.
As we set sail the Disney characters were on hand for a "Adventures Away" party. It was lots of fun with music and streamers. The drink of the day was the Bahama Mama. Very cool.

Also on board were Disney Channel stars : Mitchel Musso, Jason Earles, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle and Brandon Smith.
During the cruise I saw them at a few special functions and I saw them wandering around the ship.
They all seemed really nice. Jason Earles was especially nice to his fans. The 7-12 year old girls on the ship seemed especially into the Disney Channel stars.


Almost every night featured a Broadway style show. The first night was a show called the Golden Mickey's. It was the least grandiose of the three shows, but it was my favorite.

It was themed as an award show and featured many performances from many Disney films. It certainly got me in the right mood for the rest of the trip!

First night's dinner was at Animator's Palate, a unique restaurant that changes color throughout the meal.


This is me with Lavendra one of our servers. The servers follow you from restaurant to restaurant for dinner. We also saw them throughout the cruise working at other restaurants during the day.



Day 2 coming soon....

[Sweetie]

DAY 2:
This was the first full day on the ship.

This is an awesome vacation if you like to jog, BTW. They have a cool jogging track that goes around a deck of the ship, also they have treadmills in the gym that face the ocean.... AND on day 3 there was a 5k on Castaway Cay.

On this day they docked at Nassau in the Bahamas.

Here is the view of Nassau from the ship:


I had signed up for a tour of Nassau that included a stop at Ardastra Gardens (which is a small zoo.)

One of the first things I saw from the tour bus was this billboard:

Then this statue of Christopher Columbus:


Then this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:



Finally we got to the Zoo. It was a very small zoo. I liked it. It was very quaint and you could walk among the flamingos:


The flamingos also do a show in a small area there. Nothing spectacular, but tons of fun. I was a volunteer for the show and that meant that I got to stand in the middle of the area with a half dozen other guests as flamingos pecked at my clothes and leaned on me. It was awesome.

They also had other birds, goats, meerkats and other animals.

If I do another cruise I wouldn't get off the boat in Nassau. The ship had many great activities that I missed as I rode through Nassau.

Back on the ship I watched Lilo & Stitch poolside (which is an awesome way to see a movie)

The characters were in formal wear on this day.


The characters had several different outfits throughout the cruise (beachwear, formal wear, sailor outfits, Pirate outfits, etc.)
The show on this day was Toy Story : The Musical. It was a lavish show that ran about 70 minutes. The music was great and the performances were superb.

After dinner I got to get my picture taken with Captain Gus.

If you are wondering what happens when he is not at the helm he said "There are many other captains on the ship. Captain Mickey, Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain hook..."

Day 3 coming soon...

[Sweetie]

DAY 3:
We docked at Castaway Cay which is Disney's private island. This is a FANTASTIC place and easily the highlight of the whole cruise.

The island is totally Disney. Characters are everywhere:


Also just off the coast is the Flying Dutchman ship from Pirates of the Caribbean:




On the island they had hermit crab races (much more fun than it sounds), white sand beaches and Cookie's BBQ which was a buffet (reminded me of the food at Mickey's Backyard BBQ at Magic Kingdom.)

They also had a DJ playing music. For a brief time the DJ was Stitch:


Lilo & Stitch came out and did a little show for everyone:

Stitch took tongs from the salad bar an attacked the regular DJ:


The also did a conga line and Stitch tried to balance a pineapple on this guy's head:


Back on the ship I watched The Little Mermaid:


Later I watched the Hannah Montana Movie in the wonderful Buena Vista Theatre. It was very funny!

That afternoon Mitchel Musso performed some of his songs:




Turn down service always included a towel animal in your room:


There were also classes on the ship where you could learn to make the towel animals. Unlike the WDW hotels, the cruise towels were not rubber banded, so there was no way to save the animal. Instead you just took a photo and used the towel when you needed one.

That night was Pirate night.

I wore my Pirates' hat:


After dinner they had a great Pirate party/show:


And they shot off fireworks:
Disney says they are the ONLY cruise line that shoots off fireworks at sea. It was a cool sight.

[expedition_evan]

great TR so far!! I've never been on a disney cruise before but i really want to!!
I can't wait to see the rest!!

[Sweetie]

DAY 4:

This was the "day at sea" meaning that the boat sat still in the ocean for most of the day. You could not see land in any direction.

At 9am they had a Q & A with the Disney Channel stars. Jason Earles was especially funny telling a story about passing gas with Miley Cyrus.
Also Anna Maria Perez de Tagle gave lots of good advice to the kids that asked her questions. Mitchel and Brandon were probably tired... I had seen them in the elevator after the pirate party with some of their friends.

I was there with my niece and she was able to get each of the stars to sign her toy alligator.

I ate breakfast at Tritons:

I had some great prosciutto and melon... and a peppered strawberry which tastes as weird as it sounds:

During the day I saw Up in 3D and the live Disney show "Dreams" it was a spectacular show that included snow effects. The plot was that a little girl was growing up and Peter Pan had one night to remind her to keep dreaming as she grows up.

Dinner was back at Triton's and they had a flag ceremony where all the servers came out with the flag of their country. My servers were from India (Lavendra) and Bulgaria (Stoyan.)

My parents were on the cruise to celebrate their anniversary. This is the cake they got:


After dinner was the goodbye party. All of the characters left one at a time with Mickey leaving last. Stitch tried to hide. It was lots of fun, but sadly it meant the end of the cruise.

DAY 5:
We had to be out of the stateroom by 8am and off to breakfast. After breakfast we had to go so new guests could come aboard!

Luckily my wife and I were going to spend another 4 days at WDW... I will post a link to that report once I start it.

Anyway, the cruise was great. It was everything I hoped it would be. I don't think I will be doing it again anytime soon, but perhaps in the next decade I may return.

[Sweetie]

And here is a link to my photos in WDW:
Quick photo report July 23- July 26 2009

[SummerInFL]

Thank you! I always wanted to read a TR aboard the DCL's.

Great TR!

[Dustysage]

Fantastic trip report. Looks like you had a lot of fun!

One of these days, I've just got to take a Disney Cruise. The photos always make it look great.

[Goover]

Great report!

But I'd pass on the peppered strawberry!

[DonDuck]

Good stuff! Really want to try a Disney cruise one of these days.

[Sweetie]

Yes, it was loads of fun. If I did another cruise it would ONLY be a Disney Cruise.

They really provide amazing service.

[seenoevil]

Great TR! You brought back many good memories for me. If you think this cruise was good, try the 7 night! Fantastic!

[Coheteboy]

Wow... i REALLY wanna do this!

[TheGlassSlipper]

Great photos, thats a really nice picture of the Ship along side the Flying Dutchman/POTC ship. Looks like you had lots of fun, the pictures with the Disney Characters are so cute And thats also a really pretty shot of Nassau from the ship. Was this your first Disney Cruise,? How did you like WDW?

[Sweetie]

Hey,
Thanks for the comments!

This was my first cruise (Disney or otherwise) I was on with my extended family to celebrate my parents wedding anniversary.

I still prefer the Disney theme parks, but the cruise was excellent.

7 Days sounds great seenoevil. There were certainly tons of things I wanted to try that I didn't get a chance to do.