Several months ago, Hallie booked a cruise on the
Disney
Wonder for its repositioning from its home port of San Pedro, California,
to Miami, Florida. We had been saving to go to Walt Disney World, but Hallie’s
friend Sara told Hallie about a special on the cruise, so we opted to do that
instead. The timing was pretty good, and the ports of call sounded really
great. So, with that background, we wanted to share with you what two weeks on
the Disney Wonder going from Cali to Florida by way of the Panama Canal looked
like from our perspective.
2012-12-09
Sunday: Embarkation Day. We got all our gear together and the two sets of
grandparents saw the kids off at San Pedro. The Disney Wonder is immense. It’s
basically a self-contained floating hotel and entertainment complex that hosts
thousands of people (about 1900 passengers of a capacity 2,400 in our case,
along with 945 crew). And yet it and the Magic are now outsized by the Dream
and Fantasy, which can hold up to 4,000 passengers. At port, we went through
security and waited at a large holding area until our boarding group was asked
to come aboard, then we walked down a series of ramps to the Deck 4 Atrium
where we were announced and applauded by the service crew. We had a little time
to wait before our cabin would be ready, so we joined the many others at the
Beach Blanket Buffet on Deck 9. At 2:00 PM, we went to our stateroom.
Unbeknownst to Mike, Hallie upgraded our cabin to a stateroom with a view out
the starboard side. At 4:30, the ship set sail to fanfare and a party outside
the pools on Decks 9 and 10. After the party, we went to Animator’s Palate, one
of three themed restaurants we will rotate between, for dinner. We met our
hosting and wait staff, Charles from India and Sandor from Hungary. Now that we
were truly underway, we could really feel and hear the ship and the ocean
moving all around us. At first the constant feeling of movement was a little
unnerving, but everyone seemed to get used to it.
Waiting to board at port:
We were greeted by the crew with cheers and applause when we boarded. This display was in the Deck 4 Atrium:
Here is our "home" for two weeks:
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| Cruise Director Christiaan (yes, with two As) getting the crowd riled up |
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| The first of our three dining rooms for the voyage |
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| The first of many, many glasses of chocolate milk |
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| The first of many, many Mickey Bars |
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| The first of many, many "towelgami" animals made by Nyoman, our stateroom host from Bali |
2012-12-10
Monday: At sea. Landon spent most of the day at the Oceaneers Club and
Lab. While Landon was busy playing, the
three of us were busy working. We spent a large portion of our time finishing
our fish extender gifts to hand out. In the evening, Landon and Mike watched
part of Finding Nemo in 3D before they started falling asleep and called it a
night.
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| Mike and Eliza would take early walks on Deck 10. She was under the weather, so she fell back asleep today. |
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| Views of the Mexican coast |
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| Funnel Vision, visible from the Goofy pool |
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| Mickey Pool and slide on Deck 9. We spent many hours here. |
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| View of the Pacific from our veranda |
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| Looking south toward the bow |
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| North toward the stern |
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| Better view from the veranda |
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| Deck 4 Atrium tree |
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| Dinner at Parrot Cay (pronounced "key"), our second restaurant |
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| We had a "Celebrating Mexico" theme, complete with Minnie. |
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| Landon with typical dinner fare: Mac & cheese, fries, veggies, and chocolate milk |
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| Typical dessert: Mickey Bar with "pixie dust" |
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| Typical "grown up" dessert: Triple temptations |
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| Fish extender replete with gifts |
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| This angel towelgami became another bedtime toy for Eliza during the voyage. |
2012-12-11 Tuesday: Cabo San Lucas, Baja California. We debarked at our first
port of call in the late morning. Mike and Landon swam with a dolphin named
Aqua. Our guide Mariú from Buenos Aires had us ride, kiss, and feed the
dolphin. Afterwards, they went up to the Deck 9 Mickey pool for more swimming.
Hallie and Eliza went on a village and shopping tour that turned out to be more
about shopping than touring. After dinner, everyone crashed in the stateroom.
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| Ready to go ashore |
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| Our first real views of the ship. It's huge! |
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| We used tenders to go back and forth. |
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| Looking out at Puerto Vallarta from the Beach Blanket Buffet outdoor dining area on the ship |
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| The port from our cabin |
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| Going back to shore |
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| With Mariú after the dolphin swim |
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| Mosaic at Triton's, our third dine-in restaurant |
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| Landon and Eliza enjoyed sitting in these large porthole windows. |
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| Fancy decorated stateroom doors |
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| More fish extender gifts! |
2012-12-12
Wednesday: Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. We spent most of the day on shore
participating in a Mexican cooking port adventure. Today happened to be the Day
of the Virgin of Guadalupe; thus, many people in town made a pilgrimage to the
main church downtown. As a result, we didn’t end up spending much time in the
town proper. We made a short shopping stop then another stop at a set of
neighborhood food shops to get some of the ingredients for the adventure,
including handmade tortillas. Joana and Mari explained a lot about essential
ingredients and techniques of Mexican cooking. From the city, we took another
bus up into the jungle up in the Sierra Madre Mountains to the Canopy River
excursion stop and the restaurant. We made salsa, tortillas, and chiles
rellenos. After we returned to port, we delivered some of our fish extender gifts.
We dined at Animator’s Palate, and the wait staff gave a floor show.
1 comment:
Yay! I love the detail & the pics! (It's moments like this that I'll deal with the verbose dialogue about mint for the benefit of getting an abundance of details about Disney!)
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