It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - 3 night Wonder

[Michelle]

Day 4 December 4th 2008 – Goodbye AKLV – Hello Disney Wonder

Previous Days can be found Here

Disney Wonder Cruise - Day 1

Today is the day we are off on our Disney Cruise. This is our 2nd cruise and we are really looking forward to it, so much so I am awake at 5am ready to go.
Neil wakes up not long after me and we talk about what time we are setting off.
I do some last minute packing and sort out what we are wearing etc. I have a look online to check the weather. Warm and partly cloudy, that will do nicely thank you.
All sorted, I have a quick shower and get ready.
It is 6:45am and we head down to The Mara for some breakfast. Breakfast isn’t served till 7am, so we have about 10 minutes to wait. Spot on 7am breakfast is started to go on sale. I have a bacon, egg & cheese croissant. DH has the mighty platter thing. We share an OJ, total cost $18
Breakfast was ok, filled a gap till we get onboard and have our lunch.
I tidy the villa up and Neil takes out the trash and recycles our empty bottles, papers etc.
Phone front desk just to check our account was $0.00 and we were good to go.
We got all of our luggage in the car no problems, that was it, goodbye AKL – Hello Disney Wonder.

Once we got onto the I4 ext 72 for Cape Canaveral it was 9:10am. We arrived at the port at 10am. We had to wait in the car park across the road from the terminal for 2 minutes before they opened check in.
I went upstairs to stand in line, while DH parked the car. It costs $15 per day.


Cruise Terminal Tree


Decorations




I was first in line for the Castaway Cay members check in line.


Check in was supposed to open at 11am.
A CM came round with boarding cards while there were a few of us. Boarding card No.2 was given to me.

Check in opened and we were being checking in when the CM said that he couldn’t find us in the stateroom on my confirmation.
Ah, the reason for this is because they have moved us! The look of panic on our faces must’ve been a picture. We started to get worried, moved us! Where too? We are now in stateroom 7512.
I am told that this stateroom has a view! Ok, I will take your word for it then my good man.
A credit card was put on the account. I had left this when I had done online check in as I was unsure of which one we were taking etc.

I must admit it was a nice surprise to find out we had been upgraded, but I didn’t have a clue where we were. Quickly studying the map we discovered that we are now right at the front of the ship instead of being right at the back. Oh no.
I specifically chose the stateroom I had, as we knew Neil was ok sailing at the back of the ship, I hope this is going to be a ok move. I couldn’t get online to check the stateroom category out.
Another thing, our cases had our old stateroom number on them.

They are boarding a different way and they are setting up the photo backgrounds in the terminal.



Boarding is called, those with No.2 only.
That’s us then.

Photo taken, I doubt we will buy this as I don’t like having my photo took.

Through the Mickey head we go. Instead of going straight ahead and walking straight onto Deck 3 we were ushered to turn left down a escalator to where you pick your luggage up when disembarking. Through there and out to walk along the side of the ship and boarding the ship on Deck 1. Taken up to Deck 3 in the elevator and then the announcement of your name on the ship. I always go a nice shade of red at this point, I don’t know why.

Disney Wonder’s tree


We were then told we could go to Parrot Cay for our lunch, which we did. The food was lovely and the attention from the room servers was great.
Parrot Cay



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[Michelle]

We didn’t eat too much as we are eating at Palo’s tonight.

After lunch we headed up to Deck 9 & 10, had a sit up just next to the adult pool. It was lovely and warm & peaceful.
Took some photos of the view and the other ship that were in Port.



We were heading


It was now 1:30pm, so we thought we would go down and see where the stateroom was and what it was like.

We have a porthole.


The view from said Porthole


I think this is where the DCL buses drop you off, right next to the Terminal.


The room is very bright and not really that much different from our stateroom last year, apart from the verandah is missing.
We checked everything, took photos and settled in.

Bed


Our Castaway Club bag/goodies


TV etc


Sofa


Storage

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[Michelle]

Bath/Shower




Toilet


Hairdryer


Safe


I tried to use the safe with my KTTW card, now it closed it, but it wouldn’t open it again. So had to get in touch with guest services and they said that they would send someone up to reset it. This was done very quickly. For some reason my KTTW card would not work the safe but Neil’s did, so it would have to be his card then, no problem.
We just chilled in our lovely room, having a look at our navigator. DH then fell asleep and I followed not long after him. I awoke to him sending the pig’s home big time. Our luggage arrived so I unpacked what we were wearing for tonight and waited until our drill started at 4pm.
The weather is absolutely gorgeous now, not a cloud in the sky.
Ok, so the drill, yes. Over the system it was announced that the drill would commence in 5 minutes, so we put our life jackets and head off down to our station. This for us was Deck 4 position E. We arrived at our station only having to pass some ones child vomiting all over the deck.

It was so hot standing there with the lift jacket on and the sun beating down. Luckily the drill was over quickly and we were allowed to get back to our room.

I then sorted out the clothes for Palo and went in search of the laundry, so I could iron Neil’s clothes. My dress was fine, as I’d hung it up when the cases arrived. It was in the same place as last year!

We then listened for the ships horn and we were on our way. We couldn’t go to the sail away party, as we had to get ready for dinner.

We were all showered and dressed for 5:45pm which is good going for me, considering I had to wash/dry my hair etc and didn’t start till 5:10pm.

We caught the elevator to deck 10 and stepped out onto the deck. Oh my it was a bit windy. It was nice and cool though as I had been rushing round I was hot. We arrived at Palo at 5:50pm for our 6pm reservation.
We had to sit a while and there were 2 other couples there also.
Soon we were checked in and being shown to our table by our server for the evening Zoran. A very softly spoken man, who I think came from Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia. He introduced himself and asked where we came from, we told him and as always we always are well know for our beer, Newcastle Brown Ale. He knew straight away and he told us he had a case of it in his room.
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[Michelle]

So on with the meal then. I took photo’s of the starters, but felt uncomfortable taking anymore. So we just sat and enjoyed our meal.
Neil had bottled water and I shared some of that along with a glass of red wine for my main course.
Bread was brought out.


An assortment of dipping sauces.


Parma ham, olives and sundried tomatoes another type of meat and some cheese.


For starters I had the Portobello mushroom and Neil was brought out both the mushroom and the Shrimp, as he was undecided on which one he would like. He preferred the shrimp.

Entrée’s were for both of us the Fillet Mignon with Gorgonzola cheese sauce. DH likes his steak well done and I had mine Medium Well. OMG the steak was fantastic. It really was melt in your mouth. Everything else on the plate was wonderful. The presentation was perfect. My wine was really fruity and tasted yummy. Neil enjoyed his steak also. It was cooked to perfection for him.

Desserts were the famous chocolate soufflé and they were heavenly.


As much as we tried though we just couldn’t finish them. We were well and truly stuffed.

In between our Entrée and Desserts we were given a plate full of strawberries with Happy Anniversary on them and Zoran, congratulating us on our Anniversary. Neil & I both looked at each other with a very puzzled look on our faces and said thank you, but it is not our wedding anniversary. He said that he had had a note and just to enjoy. Now don’t get me wrong it was a lovely touch but something we felt uncomfortable about as we had not mentioned anything when booking the cruise as it was not our anniversary in December, it is September.

Anyway our bill was brought to us and we left Zoran a nice tip, as he had been a lovely.

You could really feel the ship moving tonight.

On to Guest Services to see if there was a problem with our reservation, Blair said not to worry as sometimes they would associate your return cruise the same as your first one, but even he couldn’t understand why our anniversary was down as December instead of September. Oh well just lets hope there are no more anniversary surprises.

Now the plan was to go to the room and change from our dinner clothing to something more comfy. Then head out down to wavebands for a while.

So we got back to the room where our stateroom host introduced himself to us and asked us to sign for our Castaway Cay bag that we got and if there was anything he could do just let him know. This was nice as our last stateroom host just said hi!

Our towel animal


Anyway, back into the room where we started with full intentions to get ready and go down to wavebands. Well my first mistake was to lie on the bed to watch TV while waiting for Neil to get changed. That was it. I was asleep in no time. The next time I woke up it was 4:30am. It must have been a combination of good food, a glass of wine and the lack of sleep I’ve had since arriving in Orlando.

I was wide awake, so what is a girl to do but get the Mac book out and finish her report and look at the Navigator for Friday 5th Dec – where we would be in Nassau.

[Michelle]

Day 5 December 5th 2008 - Nassau


Previous Days can be found Here


As said in the previous days report I have been awake since 4:30am I don’t know if I am just imagining it, but I think you can feel the ship move more up the front of the ship. I really hope they don’t move us on our next cruise.
I eventually feel back asleep till 7:30am after I put the TV on and Toy Story was on.

We got dressed and went up to Beach Blanket Buffet for breakfast. The weather was really nice sunny and warm. The only thing about eating out on Deck is that your food gets cold pretty quickly.

Breakfast


View from the back of the ship


All fed and watered, we head back to the room to get our things together as we are stepping off the ship to have a quick look around Nassau. While in the cabin, I took some photos from the window. I thought it would be nice being a postman and delivering the mail via this.


While waiting to clear customs Capt John made the announcement that it was going to be about 80 deg today in Nassau so be careful with the sun etc.

We went back up on to Deck 10 and tried to take some photos of the seagulls & Atlantis. Some house that DH thinks looks nice.









Then after we’d had our fill of that we went down to Deck 1 and waited to get off the ship.

I must admit I was not really looking forward to looking around Nassau.
We got just to the end of the jetty when we were asked if we wanted to go on a sight seeing tour, we declined. That was the only time we were asked.



We walked along to where the straw market was. Taking some photos of the Wonder along the way. The water is so clear here, you can see the fish.







We had a look in a liquor store, $7.95 for a litre bottle of Vodka. Neil wanted to buy some, but we don’t drink so what was the point.

We walked back along and up a street to where we came to Bay St. I had a look in a shop to see if they had the mascara and perfume that DD wanted, but they didn’t. Then DH spotted the Brietling shop! He had to look in there, but never bought anything.! Phew!
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[Michelle]

After that we went to Parliament St or Sq and looked in what I think would be the government building.











We walked a little further on and then I wanted to head back to the ship. Not before taking some photos of the Wonder.









Back onboard we sat on deck for a little bit, I was surprised and how busy the ship was. It was nearly lunch time so we had a burger and hot dog.

The Carnival Splendor was docked next to us, it looks a lovely ship.

DH wanted to see Bolt in the cinema, so that is where we were going. It was really warm today. Before going to the cinema I sorted out the clothes we were wearing tonight and went along to the laundry room and ironed them.
Bolt over, it was nearly time for the DVC presentation. So we headed off there. That passed some time resisted the temptation to add on.

We had some time to kill till it was time to go to the Walt Disney Theatre to watch Toy Story the Musical. At 5:30 we headed down to see if we could get our same seats from last year.

They were free so we grabbed them. Toy Story was good and they really do do it good. But we both said Hercules was much better, a lot more fun.

Video of the Walt Disney Theatre

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[Michelle]

All done, we head back to the room.

Our animal for tonight.


We get ready for Dinner. We are eating at Animators Palette tonight our seating is 8:15pm
Already and we were in line for our seating. We didn’t know if we were sitting with anybody else as we were at Palo last night.

We were shown to table 46, and the table was set for 6. The first couple came in and they had missed dinner last night, as they just were not hungry. The 2nd couple came and we all chatted. Both couples were from the USA. The food was nice and we had a good chat to the others. One couple were celebrating their birthdays so they had a birthday cake and we all shared it for our dessert. Again I didn’t feel comfortable taking photos of the food, as there were a few of us. It would’ve been different if we were by ourselves.
Our servers were great. They did have a note that it was our anniversary again, but luckily our server had told Neil before we had the embarrassment of being presented with a cake.

Dinner was over and we came back to the room, I changed my top and we headed up to the Pirate Party.

We watched the fireworks and Neil got me a Bushwacker cocktail which was quite scrummy.





We didn’t stay for the pirate party as we had seen it last year. Instead we had a walk to the front of the ship and just stood and took it all in. It is very very peaceful on board just standing looking at the stars and the moon, glistening on the water. It was not as cold as I thought it was going to be. Neil said he’d seen a shooting star. I must have blinked, as I didn’t see it.



It was 11pm and we decided to call it a night. Again we failed to try anything from the fantastic buffet that they have for the Pirate night. We did walk past the very large lines though and had a look at the offerings, which looked lovely.

Tomorrow we have ordered breakfast in our room and it’s Castaway Cay.

[ANGEL]

woohoo! love the reports Mich. Shame we can't see the photo's though?

How was Neil sailing at the front of the ship after all? Shame they moved you really. Also weird that they had your anniversary down eh?

[Guest]

Got us sooooooo exited michelle wonderful report. Cant understand why we cant see the photo's as we have been following your report and could see them ok up untill yesterday. We go on the wonder on the 11th jan and cant wait.

[budgie6741]

great report and pics