I've been on a couple of cruises - a three-day Ensenada party boat and a Caribbean family cruise. They aren't really my cup of tea but when Cheryl says you should go, you need a pretty good reason not to. Not lost in the calculus was the fact the selected cruise was sailing out of our local harbor and was thereby simpler than other vacation itineraries. Most notably, it was a Disney cruise. Danielle hasn't watched much Disney but likes her Star Wars books and really likes pools. Jessica hates everything Disney stands for and sings/hums the music frequently.

Travel guide

When we were walking off the boat at the end of the trip, a lady in front of me remarked to her daughter that she (the mother) should start a cruise blog to record and share everything she'd learned. One needn't look hard to find cruise or Disney mom-bloggers and we leveraged their knowledge via Cheryl's pre-cruise research. So I guess that's me now, and cheers to Random Lady From the Disembarkation Ramp for wanting to keep the outer web alive.


I think the in-room informercial said Wonder was built in 1999. That would put its construction in the modern cuise era but a decade before ships started getting rollercoasters and climbing walls and such. Like other mega cruise ships, Wonder felt like a floating casino (without gambling, not even sabacc) with similar decor and eclectic theming (Luxor, Paris, Caesar's -> various Disney analogues).

Accommodations

For whatever reason I expected everything on the ship to be cramped. The common areas certainly were not; they felt like normal hotel lobby, small pub, or crowded restaurant. Our ~300 sq ft stateroom was more aligned with my expectations but wide enough to fit a king bed with room to walk around it (I can only speak for the bougie Deck 8 rooms though). The patio provided a nice view of the Pacific but was small and subject to inhospitable weather. Since the couch wasn't remotely comfortable, I found myself inclined to either be in bed or roaming the ship. Certainly I prefer to spend vacation time doing experiential things and not on the couch, at ages 4 and 40 it's important to have ample downtime.

Amenities

The ship has two small all-ages pools, a single adult pool, and a couple of hot tubs. The all-ages pools were packed during all but the worst weather and the hot tubs were occupied almost every time I checked. Wonder has a three-story waterslide with a nice view and a very gentle incline. I took Dani on it twice, waiting ten and then fifteen minutes for our turn.

Like any all-inclusive resort, Wonder has a variety of eateries open for various periods throughout the day. Lunch and dinner were scheduled/seated with menus and wait staff. A variety of theaters (stage and screen) had activities and movie screenings throughout the trip.

App

Disney really wants you to do everything from their app. I'm not really an app guy, so I let Jes handle that part of things. It probably would have been wise to put it on some wifi-connected device since it has chat and, critically, notifications from the kids' club (i.e. "your child is ready to go").

Wonder doesn't have much Star Wars decor, the concierge lounge is one exception.

'Concierge' doesn't actually have a grave over the first 'e' but since it makes the word look classier I went for it. We paid (I'm told) roughly double the equivalent room rate to get access to concierge amenities for our voyage. The ones I remember:

• Priority boarding (early arrival) and disembarkation (front of the boat exit line, same CBP line)
• Priority for bookable activities
• Free popcorn
• Access to an exclusive lounge

Lounge

Since the staterooms aren't particularly spacious, the concierge lounge became our collective home away from home away from home. It was nice that our rooms were almost directly under the lounge, two decks below.

The lounge had the all-important cappucino machine and a rotating selection of pastries and snacks.

For quick eats, there was a buffet and a collection of walk-up restaurants with chicken tenders and burgers and soups. For lunch and dinner, we sat at one of the three larger restaurants. In terms of quality, the closest terrestrial equivalent to the food on Wonder would probably be Outback Steakhouse - mass market dining masquerading as a fancier establishment yet unquestionably preferable to the bottom-tier chains (whose names include Apple, Chili, and Olive).

The food was, more or less, what I expected with two notable exceptions: a delicious samosa and some egg noodles whose texture and inconsistent diameter suggested they were handmade. I won't go so far as to say these dishes knocked my pirate socks off, but they were good and they left me disappointed by how much cuisine was crowded out of the menu by steakhouse fare. It's not easy to serve great steak or fish, particularly when it has to sit on ice for numerous days and be served to thousands of guests. The cruise food could more easily punch above its weight by offering dishes not so focused on the palate of middle America.

One last thing that is very important to me: all of the bread was hard as a rock. There was actually one exception: Tiana's Place had non-rock bread. I'm not familiar with the logistics of large scale breadmaking but would have happily traded a restaurant option or lower guest deck for some fresh loaves.

Kids' club

This was during an uncrowded parent walkthrough.

I heard from various sources that my daughter would want to go to the oceaneer club and never return. I was willing to settle for a happy medium. Alas, while the slide was a highlight for little Dani, she didn't really like being at the club on her own. She's been fine with daycare and school since a very young age so I imagine her disinterest in oceaneering was one or more of these reasons:

• All ages (4-10) share the same area
• There were a lot of kids there
• Dani isn't super familiar with the SF kids we traveled with

Regular activities

The ship's bars and theaters seem to have something going on every half hour or so. We did movie quote trivia, Star Wars trivia, origami, 3d character crafting, and design-a-kuzy. While it was nice to have things to simply show up to, the execution on everything felt pretty half-assed. The pub trivias were just twenty rapid fire questions with scoring, the origami was taught by a guy reading from an origami book, and there was "here's a white kuzy and some sharpies".

Movies and shows

The ship has a few theaters that showed various Disney films throughout the day. Each evening featured a live show with the actors and actresses that did the Disney character photo op sessions. Jes went to these while I did bedtime, she said the production quality was as good as any of the on-tour musicals we've seen (Book of Mormon, Rent, Hamilton, Lion King, etc.). The dinners also each had a mini-show between the final course and dessert.

I had vague aspirations to feign seasickness and spend the entire cruise in the stateroom watching all of the Star Wars streaming serieses since I've seen none of them. Alas, while the entertainment system has a bunch of Disney/Marvel/Star Wars movies available, the only non-film option was a handful of two-minute shorts with Mickey talking over wildlife footage.

Tastings

There were a variety of add-on ($50-100) adult beverage tastings - whiskey, tequila, wine, martini, mixed drinks, to name a few. I did the whiskey one, Jes the tequila one, all of the parents managed to make the mixology seminar. The humor-laced spiels were entertaining and informative since I had zero knowledge about any of the subjects. Mostly it was a great time to catch up with my SF friends and promise to try a 'trash can iced tea'.

Excursions

I learned long ago that any cruise ship or resort 'excursion' is the slowest, most watered-down version of whatever activity they advertise. It didn't really matter, there wasn't much available for the Pacific Ocean in April.

Catalina

I was hoping to get a Casino Point dive in during our ten-ish hours in Catalina. Since Cheryl said a recent cruise had to cancel the stop due to weather, I held off booking the dive. Sure enough, our Catalina day turned into a day at sea.

Ensenada

Ensenada harbor, complete with rainbow and oil slick.

We didn't plan to get off the boat in Ensenada but since the wind cancelled Catalina we decided to stretch our legs. It's the same as it was 20 years ago and the same as TJ: tchotchkes, bars, and shady 18+ stuff. On our first lap around town Zac set his sights on Sr Poblano's taqueria but needed to return to get the kids from the club. So the guys did a second lap.

Pirate night

It's pretty much what it sounds like.

Princesses and stuff

One of the bookable activities for kids is a princess makeover that includes a dress and heavy dusting of glitter. At the moment, this isn't Dani's cup of tea. She might have gone for a Star Wars option but Princesses Leia and Amidala were not available, also Duckduckgo's AI assistant says:

DDG Assist

Rey is not officially recognized as a princess, despite being the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine.

Danielle did enjoy a couple of cartoon character photo ops and hesitantly met Ariel and Tiana when we went with the other SF kids.

It was great to see friends and take a trip that didn't require a drive or flight. That said, even with the premium booking I was never able to find a seat in the hot tub, walk right onto the waterslide, or share more than a 3' corner of the all-ages pool with my kid. In bad weather. These constitute 60% of the breadth of activities Dani and I had set our respective sights on. Of course, I would hang out with my college buddies and be happy as a clam, Dani would binge Disney movies without complaint, but there are plenty of places that offer those things and an available pool. To be fair, not many of them have nightly Disney musicals so Jes would be ship outta luck.


Dani has had a couple of weeks off schools so there's been some fun with Grandma and a trip to Legoland. Oh yeah, Dani and I spent part of a morning on the cruise watching Lego Star Wars. We both loved it.

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