Wonder on the West Coast: Day 13 - Final Day at Sea

[Stewboy]

Index

Saturday 2nd November 2019

Today we awoke to our last full day on board the Disney Wonder. It was another sea day and we wondered how one earth we would occupy ourselves….

Despite an 8 o’clock alarm, we managed to sleep till 8:30am - no morning room service to rely on! Fortunately, we had nowhere in particular to be. After getting coffee from deck 9 as per usual, we chilled out in the room watching 'Descendents 3' until deciding to go to Cabanas for breakfast at about 9:30am.

It was a lovely hot day on the Pacific Ocean so we decided to enjoy our breakfast outside looking over the ocean waves. Today’s buffet selections included eggs Benedict, Mickey waffles, French toast, sausages, scrambled eggs, hash browns (my favourite!), and little egg muffin things - correct name unknown at time of writing!






Delicious breakfast - including egg muffin things!


Ocean view

After another wonderful Cabanas buffet breakfast we decided to try out our art skills with an animation class in the French Quarter Lounge. It was a popular class, and we drew Ray the Firefly - of all the characters we’ve drawn on board and in the parks, I think he was probably the hardest we’ve ever had to draw!

We took our drawings back to the room (I forgot to take photos and seem to have misplaced the drawings!) and did a bit of sorting out as we would need to pack and leave our suitcases outside our room tonight before dinner.

As we had some of our bookmarks left over we decided to go for a little tour round the ship and give out bookmarks to staterooms with fish extenders and cool door decorations.


Sprinkling some Pixie Dust

Once that was done it was time for open house in Vibe, the club for 14-17 year olds. It was really nice and there and made us wish that we were the right age to be able to spend time in there! There were old school arcade machines, a large flat screen tv, loads of games and DVDs, board games, and even a coffee bar!






Vibe

Talking of kids clubs, Isabella decided she wanted to go to her kids club as there was a Goofy’s Detective School thing going on - sounds fun!

We dropped her off and then Jo and I got ourselves an iced tea and relaxed on deck 10 enjoying the glorious sunshine and the calming Pacific Ocean waves.

The app told us that the final of the Diaper Dash was going on in the lobby atrium so we went inside to watch. We were surprised to find it was such a popular event and we struggled to find a decent place to watch!

Despite the crowd it was a lot of fun; the crew member presenting was funny as were the parents; memorable exchanges included:

“Is she going to win?”
“I’m not sure, but we’ll support her no matter what”

And

“Have you been training her?”
“She’s been training her whole life”

The final ended with two of the kids sitting down just before the finishing line, one being disqualified for walking, and another two swapping lanes - it was a lot of fun.


Diaper dash view

As Isabella was still in the club, Jo and I wandered down to the shop for a browse. We saw a Halloween on the High Seas pin and t-shirt that we thought Isabella would like so we bought them for her.

There was still some time to kill until Detective School finished so we watched an impromptu character dance party in the atrium from deck 5.

Finally it was time to collect Isabella and go and get some lunch - the morning had already flown by!




Paaaaaartay


Halloween t-shirt and pin were a success

Lunch was (surprise, surprise) in Cabanas. There was lots of seafood on the menu today and we got another delicious selection which we enjoyed outside again.

As it was our last day onboard it was Isabella’s last chance to enjoy the swimming pool - or more specifically the slide! We popped back to the room for her to get changed - no swimming for us - and then headed up to deck 9. While Isabella headed off up the steps to the slide Jo and I found a spot to enjoy a couple of ‘drinks of the day’ - today it was a Pina Colava (Bacardi Raspberry Rum, Coconut Cream, Pineapple Juice and Raspberry Puree) and it was delicious!




Off she goes




Relaxing

After 45 minutes and nine goes on the slide, the queue was getting too long and Isabella was getting tired so we finished our drinks, got her dry, then got her an ice cream to restore some energy!

Taking coffee with us, we headed back to the room where we continued with some packing while Isabella had a bath.


"How many times?"


Ice cream

There were a couple of character meets planned for this afternoon - Pluto and Donald. Isabella wanted to wear her Donald Duck Halloween outfit and also wrote him a note.

On the way to the lobby atrium to meet him we ran into Ariel, who noticed the outfit and began chatting to us. Isabella showed her the note she’d written for Donald and Ariel loved it!


Ariel

We met Pluto first who was a lot of fun, and then we got to meet Donald. Immediately he noticed the outfit and when she gave him her note he loved it, and even wrote her one in return in her autograph book!










Meeting Pluto















"The Other Donald"


"To Donald, lots of love Donald Duck #1

After those fun character meets we had some time to kill before dinner so we got ourselves another drink of the day in the French Quarter Lounge and relaxed for half an hour.


Loved this drink of the day!

[Stewboy]

Now it was time to head back to the room and get ready for our final dinner on board the Wonder. Tonight it was the ’Captain’s Gala’ menu and we would be eating in Tritons.

Our table mates didn’t show up so we got to enjoy dinner alone. As it was the final night, we had also sorted out the tips for our wonderful servers.

For food we ordered the following:

Me: Oysters Rockefeller on the Half Shell/Pan-Seared Venison Medallions/Old Fashioned Apple Pie







Jo: Lightly Breaded Baked Eggplant/Fettuccine with Parmesan Crusted Chicken/Raspberry Vanilla Crème Brûlée







Isabella: Roasted Tomato and Pasta Soup/Breaded Turkey Breast with Tomato Sauce/The Captain’s Table Sundae







After another wonderful meal onboard we said goodbye to our servers for the last time (we were planning on breakfast in Cabanas in the morning rather than in the restaurant like you’re ‘supposed to’) and then headed to Preludes - the bar outside the Walt Disney Theatre - to do some officer pin trading.


Pin trading

As usual at these events you encounter some guests who are selfish and don’t understand queues and despite being fully grown adults will happily push in front of a 7 year old waiting patiently for their turn!

Despite these idiots Isabella managed to trade lots of pins and was happy with her trades.

[Stewboy]

With time to kill we decided to check out the silent disco in Azure - the nightclub in the ‘After Hours’ section of the ship. We spent about half an hour dancing to different music on the headphones that you pick up at the entrance. It was a fun if slightly bizarre experience, especially when you take the headphones off and experience a bunch of people dancing in silence!






Silent Disco

It was now almost time for the final show of the cruise - our favourite ‘Disney Dreams: An Enchanted Classic’. We’ve seen this show many times, and one of the things I love about it is that it’s regularly updated to include current Disney/Pixar films, whilst also retaining the classic characters and story elements.

We found ourselves decent seats and then I got Isabella some milk and a drink of the day for Jo and I.




Showtime drinks

The show didn’t disappoint - a wonderful end to the final night of the cruise. However it wasn’t quite the end of the night yet, there was still a farewell show in the lobby atrium to enjoy; once the show finished that’s where we headed, with a brief detour to the room to put out our suitcases.

We managed to find ourselves a decent spot to watch the show; all the characters came out, including many of the performers from the various nighttime shows.






Hello, farewell show

During the farewell show, the characters leave the stage and head out to meet guests in the crowd. We got to meet Captain Hook, who was charming as always, and I met Donald - he was looking lonely so I took the opportunity to say hello!






He's always such a gentleman!


Lonely Donald...


Donald made a friend!

When it was time for the characters to say farewell Stitch went rogue and ran off into the crowd which everyone enjoyed.

Finally the characters departed, with Captain Mickey saying the final farewell. It was now almost 11 o’clock - way past Isabella’s bedtime! While Jo took her back to the room I got us (decaf) coffee. Back at the room, Isabella went straight to bed, while Jo filled in the cruise questionnaire, and I apparently wrote up my notes - but having looked at them to write up this day I can tell you that they were rubbish, I think I was just having too much fun!








Farewell, farewell show

So that’s the end of our final full day on board the Disney Wonder. Tomorrow we arrive back at San Diego, get off the ship, and make our way back to Anaheim for one final (Dapper!) day at Disneyland!

TFR

[mrsdjh]

Looks like Isabella had a fun day and enjoyed the slide! It’s nice that she is happy and confident enough to go join in the activities. On our holidays DD1 would always join in with activities but DD2 wouldn’t (even though we knew she wanted to!)

[Stewboy]

Originally Posted by mrsdjh

Looks like Isabella had a fun day and enjoyed the slide! It’s nice that she is happy and confident enough to go join in the activities. On our holidays DD1 would always join in with activities but DD2 wouldn’t (even though we knew she wanted to!)

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Thank you Diane. We’re lucky that she is happy to just go and do stuff like that.

TFR