I'm back and I'm now addicted!

[InsanelyMickey]

Just returned today from our land/sea vacation, and I have one thing to say (well, maybe more than one, but here's a start)... Barb and Tony, I completely understand why you cruise the Wonder so much!

DH and I had a WONDERful time on our cruise. I was worried about seasickness but I took Dramamine as a precaution and I had no problems at all! As a matter of fact, I enjoyed the motion of the ship, and believe me there was quite a bit of motion during this cruise.

We stayed in cabin 7128 which is a navigator's verandah, and I loved it! The first night of our cruise was a full moon and I had the perfect view of it from the verandah! DH didn't spend too much time out on the verandah but I think I was out there enough for both of us

One thing that was different from what I expected was the dining time. We had second seating and I thought it was at 8:00, but it was actually at 8:30. DH was more annoyed at this than I was. I didn't mind since it just meant I would be more hungry and could eat more, LOL Our servers were excellent! We had Server Harlan from the Phillippines (I'm sure that's spelled wrong, sorry); Assistant Server, Csaba from Hungary, and our Head Server was Igusti and I'm not sure where he's from. So, for any future Wonder cruisers, if you get these servers you'll love them. They were great and I was sad to leave them this morning after our breakfast.

Ok, I don't want to make this too long. I just wanted to at least post a few comments about our cruise. I can't believe it's over. I really hope to do another cruise sometime soon, but unless we win the lottery, we'll have to wait a while for that!

Oh, one last thing... I found Paradise but its real name is Castaway Cay! Oh my, what a place!

 

[ncligs]

Thanks for taking the time to post. Glad you had a good cruise.When you go on yur next cruise would you sign up for early or late dinner??

 

[InsanelyMickey]

ncligs-
To answer your question, I realized one "hidden" advantage to having the late dinner seating...you get to sleep later on the final morning of your cruise because if we had the early dinner seating we would've had to been at breakfast at 6:45 this morning! Instead, I slept a little bit later than that to be at our breakfast for 8:00. So, for our next cruise (boy, that sounds good, and I hope there is a "next" cruise) I think I would still book the late dining.

 

[ncligs]

InsanelyMickey,
Thanks for the "quick" response.

 

[InsanelyMickey]

You're welcome, ncligs! I really thought it would take me a long time to come back to these boards after the trip but I couldn't wait to get back on and start chatting about my trip! Maybe once it sinks in that I'm home and the trip is done, I'll feel differently but so far, I'm adjusting ok.

 

[rae519]

We have had 3 early seatings and 1 late seating. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. We found DS would rather stay at the club when we dine late, so that takes away from our "family dinner hour" routine but others meals are together. We are early risers and eating later means we generally go to bed with full stomachs rather than stay active for a bit longer.
Also, with the late dining, you can do more things and not feel pressured into having to be at dinner at 6PM when you might want to stay on deck or have some quiet time with the spouse.

I wouldn't have traded my table mates at late seating for anything though - DIS board members Paul and Kaye were extraordinary conversationalists and the other couple had 3 delightful and well-manner children that were a joy to have around.

Rae

 

[InsanelyMickey]

I think the only thing that could have been better as far as our dining was concerned was our table mates. The first night only one of the two couples ate dinner as the first couple left almost immediately due to seasickness. The one couple who was there didn't even look at us or acknowledge us for the whole dinner. I had the feeling they didn't speak English well and I didn't know whether I should start a conversation or not. By time they joined us, we were half way through our dinner and DH was not a happy camper since we were missing the Survivor Finale so I just ate as quickly as I could and we managed to catch the last half hour of the show back in the cabin.

The next night the table of six was full, but still no real conversations among us. We exchanged hellos and such, but that was it. The third night, both couples apparently went to Palo's so we had the table all to ourselves.

However, we enjoyed our servers so much that they made up for the conversations we weren't having with our dining mates.

 

[rae519]

Maybe next time you will get as lucky as we did these past two cruises and have DIS Board Friends as your table mates. The "ice" was broken and we had a wonderful time.

Again, a shameless plug for Dis Board members and my table mates, Ed and Karen AND Paul and Kaye!

Rae

 

[nanc]

We were just a few rooms down from you last week. We were in 7088/7090.

Wasn't the weather beautiful at Castaway. I have Castaway blues that I can't shake off!!!

We were actually on the four day cruise and stayed on board for the three day to do them back to back. The three day had such better weather!!! It was a lot cooler at Nassau on Monday than on Friday. We unfortunately went to Atlantis on Monday and I really wish we would've done it on Friday. I wanted a sweatshirt most of the day.

What dinner rotation did you have? We had APT. Our servers were Sveto and Arpad. Oh, how I miss them. I hope they email us as they asked for our email addresses but we didn't get theirs.

nanc

 

[InsanelyMickey]

nanc-
Wow, we were so close! You were so lucky to be on back to back cruises! Although, we were at the Polynesian for the first part of our trip and had a great time there also.

Now, I'll try not to get too carried away on the topic of Castaway Cay, but yes, the weather was absolutely gorgeous - perfect sunshine all day! I can not tell you how much I miss it right now as the snow is falling outside and the thoughts of shoveling in about six hours are depressing me. I knew before going on the cruise that we'd probably like Castaway Cay, but I never imagined just how beautiful it would be! I kept saying to DH "I found paradise!" It was kind of funny because we first started over at Serenity Bay. We lasted about ten minutes there. It was a bit too much "serenity" for us, I guess, LOL I didn't like being so far away from the ship and all the "action". So, we hopped back on the tram and ended up with a perfect spot right near the tube/float rental area in perfect view of that beautiful ship! Ahhhh, much better!

I've already had all our pictures developed and looking at those from Castaway Cay really brings me back to those few WONDERful hours sitting on the beach in that beautiful, perfect weather! (Translated to mean, no snow in sight!!!!!)

Ok, enough rambling about Castaway Cay, sorry. Obviously I'm right there with you in the Castaway Blues!

As for our dining rotation, we had second seating on TAP. As mentioned in a previous post, our table mates were not the greatest but our servers (Csaba from Hungary and Harlan from the Phillippines) were WONDERful so they made up for the lack of conversation we had among our dinner companions!

Needless to say, DH and I loved this cruise and I would not hesitate to do another cruise on the Wonder. Of course, the ultimate would be just what you did, back to back cruise so we'd have two days at Castway!

Thanks for letting me ramble on and on and live in those memories for a brief moment!

 

[nanc]

Oh, I loved to read your rambling. Still paying for our January Magic cruise not mentioning this one. We don't have snow here but its in the teens and our furnace went out tonight of all nights. Very bad timing with vacation and Christmas.

We were straight out from the wooden play area at Castaway. I want to go back to the Magic next time!! I love the warmer weather and more intense heat.

Anytime you feel like discussing your 12-21 Castaway Blues feel free to email me.

Did you feel the ship's vibration while trying to dock at Castaway? Since they couldn't dock there today I guess we were very lucky and I won't whine about the cooler weather on our first Castaway visit last Monday.

 

[InsanelyMickey]

It was the sudden increase in the ship's movement that woke me up even before its attempt to dock! I got up and went out to the verandah to find out what was going on and in the distance could see land. I got my camera to take a picture, just assuming it was Castaway Cay because it was around 6 AM I think at this time. I figured if it ended up not being Castaway I would just have a picture of some unidentified piece of land. Of course it turned out to be Castaway. I did go back to sleep for a little while then woke up right around the time we were backing in. I ended up watching the whole process from our verandah. It was great! Apparently all that fascinated watching wore me out because I ended going back to sleep for almost another hour! That's one thing about this trip, I slept a lot more than I planned because I was fighting a cold during the whole trip, so I guess I got tired more easily. As you can see by the time, I'm usually up very late!

Thank you for the invitation to email you regarding the 12-21 Castaway Blues - now, don't be surprised if your inbox is overloaded with emails from InsanelyMickey LOL!

 

[nanc]

I will look foward to it!!