Gayle Barton

Age: 41
Occupation: Business Owner
Number of Cruises: 1
Cruise Line: Disney
Name of Ship: Wonder
Sailing Date: May 11th, 2003
Itinerary: Bahamas

We just returned home today from our first Disney cruise. All in all it was a great experience!

We had a room with a verandah which was well worth the extra money. Our 2 ½ year old son enjoyed watching the ever changing “watee”. (There’s plexi-glass on the inside so even a monkey could not possibly climb over.)

We enjoyed spending the day as a family, but fed our son an early dinner and he then spent the evening in the “toy room” (Flounder’s Reef). The staff at Flounder’s Reef was excellent. He looked forward to his visits. Each night he just walked in the door and waved goodbye. His happiness with the caregivers allowed us to steal a few minutes alone for a nice dinner with adult conversation.

The food at Tritons and the Animator’s Palate was excellent, but Parrot Cay was not really on the same level. Unfortunately, we did not make it to Palo’s. We liked that
we were moved between restaurants each night as you often times miss out if you stick with the basic buffet fare just because it’s easy. We also enjoyed having our servers move with us. They were great!

Castaway Cay was absolutely the best! On our cruise, day 4 was “a day at sea”. We would have much preferred a second day here as it was great fun and the boat is very crowded when there’s no where else to go.

For those who did not like Nassau… whatever you do, don’t go to Jamaica! It is 10 times worse there.

Strollers are available from guest services on a 1st-come/1st-serve basis and make getting around Nassau and Castaway Cay MUCH easier with little ones. If you plan to bring a stroller, keep in mind that the rooms are small. I’d stick to an umbrella stroller for buzzing around the ship.

We only have one suggestion for future guests:

1) They service your room throughout the day (replacing used linens and providing turndown service, etc..) so either put the “privacy” hanger on the door or put away your “unmentionables” before stepping out.

And, we only have a couple of suggestions for Disney:

1) Tell people, up front, that if their child is not potty trained, that they will not be able to get in any pool even with a “little swimmer” swim diaper that is acceptable in every other pool in the world! It’s hard to explain to a little one that he can’t swim when he sees other kids swimming. NOTE: There is no “kiddie pool” of any kind on this ship.

2) If guests are to be expected to book every single excursion/spa treatment as soon as they walk onto the ship, it would be great to have the “personal navigator” info up front so that you know, in advance, that the daycare will be closed in the middle of the day before you book something that falls within their “off hours” and then have to pay a 50% cancellation fee.

These were just tiny little issues that will certainly not keep us from coming back or from telling our friends to go, it was just a 95% WONDER-ful cruise instead of 100% WONDER-ful cruise. However, compared to the reviews we read for the other cruise lines, we think that we made a GREAT choice!

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