Our Wonderful “Graduation” 4-Night Baja (Catalina Island) Cruise ~ w/ pics ~January 2023 ~ Completed 01/22!

[disneyfaninaz]

We just returned from our cruise. It was a bit of a different cruise than we've taken before, so I'll adjust my usual trip reporting style accordingly.

In the meantime, here's the beginning of our tale!

Background:

It has become somewhat of a tradition to take our DD on a Disney cruise after she graduates. In 2014, we took her to Alaska after she graduated from middle school. In 2018, we took her to the Mediterranean after she graduated from high school. Well, our DD graduated in December, 2022 from Northern Arizona University, so what cruise were we going to go on? That was the question.

A little background about my DD, we practically raised her in Disney parks and on Disney cruises. We did other things too, but those things are irrelevant for this story. Since she was old enough to know what a career was, she has wanted to work for Disney. DD was supposed to do the Disney College Program in the Fall of 2020 to start that ball rolling, but it was cancelled because of the pandemic. Fortunately, DD was accepted again and participated in the Disney College Program in the Spring of 2022 (she worked at the Flight of Passage attraction in Pandora). She absolutely loved it and came back to school for her last semester to finish her degree even more impassioned and determined to work for the Disney Company after she graduated. So, knowing that she is returning to the Disney College Program again for Spring of 2023, as well as applying to other Professional Internships within Disney, our time options were limited for a cruise.

Fortunately for us, the Disney Wonder was doing cruises out of San Diego; a mere 1 hour and some change plane trip from home. DCL also had a cruise that was stopping at Catalina Island. A place that none of us had been to before. So, it was determined that we would take our DD on her college graduation cruise out of San Diego on January 2, 2023. Thus allowing time for her to return to Florida and pursue her dream of working for the Mouse as soon as possible! DD is thrilled to be back on a Disney cruise, since the last one she was scheduled on was cancelled because of the pandemic in 2021. She planned to just spend time on the ship and visit Cove Café as often as possible.

Cast of Characters:

The usual suspects will be sailing this cruise.

DH and Me: Extremely proud parents of our college graduate with honors and future Disney Cast Member!

DD: Recent College graduate, future cast member and passionate fan of all things Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, etc!

Our dear neighbors; DNC, DNJ and DNM: DD has been treated like a third daughter by DNJ and DNC and a younger sister to DNM since she was born.

Planning

This cruise is probably the easiest I have ever planned. It is also the shortest Disney cruise we have been on, being only 4 nights. Basically, all we want to see is Catalina. So we will get off the ship and walk around, no tour planned. We also have no desire to see Ensenada, so we will stay on the ship and relax.

I booked flights with points, booked hotel rooms across from the port for before and after the cruise, purchased trip insurance, and booked a Chocolate & Liquor Tasting and Palo for dinner. Done!

Checking In On-Line

As with our Northern European Cruise, I had everything ready to go. I logged in exactly at 10:00 PM MST (12:00 AM EST) and got nothing. Unfortunately, neither the DCL website nor app was cooperating. No matter how many times I refreshed, I just got the wheel of frustration, spinning and spinning. As it turned out, all the ships in the fleet, except for the Fantasy, had departures on January 2, 2023. I can’t even imagine how many hundreds of people were trying to check in at once. I waited for 90 minutes before giving up and going to bed.

I got up about 2 hours later and was able to get in. I uploaded our passports and headshots and got our PAT of 11:15 AM with Boarding Group 5. DCL announced in early November that we would not need to show proof of vaccination any longer so I didn’t have to worry about Safe Passage. We also no longer had to have a negative Covid test. It makes things so much less stressful. However, it did take until about 5 days before our cruise to see the “pending” removed from our check-in. We were clear to sail!

Itinerary:

Day 1 - Sunday, January 1, 2023 - Travel from Phoenix to San Diego

Day 2 - Monday, January 2, 2023 - Embarkation

Day 3 - Tuesday, January 3, 2023 – Catalina Island, CA turned in to Sea Day

Day 4 - Wednesday, January 4, 2023 – Ensenada, Mexico

Day 5 - Thursday, January 5, 2023 - Sea Day

Day 6 - Friday, January 6, 2023 – San Diego, CA

Day 7 - Saturday, January 7, 2023 – Travel home

Next: Best laid plans and so forth. . .

 

[Tedaofam]

We just returned from our cruise. It was a bit of a different cruise than we've taken before, so I'll adjust my usual trip reporting style accordingly.

In the meantime, here's the beginning of our tale!

Background:

It has become somewhat of a tradition to take our DD on a Disney cruise after she graduates. In 2014, we took her to Alaska after she graduated from middle school. In 2018, we took her to the Mediterranean after she graduated from high school. Well, our DD graduated in December, 2022 from Northern Arizona University, so what cruise were we going to go on? That was the question.

A little background about my DD, we practically raised her in Disney parks and on Disney cruises. We did other things too, but those things are irrelevant for this story. Since she was old enough to know what a career was, she has wanted to work for Disney. DD was supposed to do the Disney College Program in the Fall of 2020 to start that ball rolling, but it was cancelled because of the pandemic. Fortunately, DD was accepted again and participated in the Disney College Program in the Spring of 2022 (she worked at the Flight of Passage attraction in Pandora). She absolutely loved it and came back to school for her last semester to finish her degree even more impassioned and determined to work for the Disney Company after she graduated. So, knowing that she is returning to the Disney College Program again for Spring of 2023, as well as applying to other Professional Internships within Disney, our time options were limited for a cruise.

Fortunately for us, the Disney Wonder was doing cruises out of San Diego; a mere 1 hour and some change plane trip from home. DCL also had a cruise that was stopping at Catalina Island. A place that none of us had been to before. So, it was determined that we would take our DD on her college graduation cruise out of San Diego on January 2, 2023. Thus allowing time for her to return to Florida and pursue her dream of working for the Mouse as soon as possible! DD is thrilled to be back on a Disney cruise, since the last one she was scheduled on was cancelled because of the pandemic in 2021. She planned to just spend time on the ship and visit Cove Café as often as possible.

Cast of Characters:

The usual suspects will be sailing this cruise.

DH and Me: Extremely proud parents of our college graduate with honors and future Disney Cast Member!

DD: Recent College graduate, future cast member and passionate fan of all things Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, etc!

Our dear neighbors; DNC, DNJ and DNM: DD has been treated like a third daughter by DNJ and DNC and a younger sister to DNM since she was born.

Planning

This cruise is probably the easiest I have ever planned. It is also the shortest Disney cruise we have been on, being only 4 nights. Basically, all we want to see is Catalina. So we will get off the ship and walk around, no tour planned. We also have no desire to see Ensenada, so we will stay on the ship and relax.

I booked flights with points, booked hotel rooms across from the port for before and after the cruise, purchased trip insurance, and booked a Chocolate & Liquor Tasting and Palo for dinner. Done!

Checking In On-Line

As with our Northern European Cruise, I had everything ready to go. I logged in exactly at 10:00 PM MST (12:00 AM EST) and got nothing. Unfortunately, neither the DCL website nor app was cooperating. No matter how many times I refreshed, I just got the wheel of frustration, spinning and spinning. As it turned out, all the ships in the fleet, except for the Fantasy, had departures on January 2, 2023. I can’t even imagine how many hundreds of people were trying to check in at once. I waited for 90 minutes before giving up and going to bed.

I got up about 2 hours later and was able to get in. I uploaded our passports and headshots and got our PAT of 11:15 AM with Boarding Group 5. DCL announced in early November that we would not need to show proof of vaccination any longer so I didn’t have to worry about Safe Passage. We also no longer had to have a negative Covid test. It makes things so much less stressful. However, it did take until about 5 days before our cruise to see the “pending” removed from our check-in. We were clear to sail!

Itinerary:

Day 1 - Sunday, January 1, 2023 - Travel from Phoenix to San Diego

Day 2 - Monday, January 2, 2023 - Embarkation

Day 3 - Tuesday, January 3, 2023 – Catalina Island, CA

Day 4 - Wednesday, January 4, 2023 – Ensenada, Mexico

Day 5 - Thursday, January 5, 2023 - Sea Day

Day 6 - Friday, January 6, 2023 – San Diego, CA

Day 7 - Saturday, January 7, 2023 – Travel home

Next: Best laid plans and so forth. . .

We were on the same cruise as you! Looking forward to reading the rest of your trip report!!

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Day 1
Sunday, January 1, 2023
Travel Day


We decided to make a slight change of plans right after Christmas as we prepared to head to San Diego to board our cruise. We originally booked Southwest Airlines with points to take quick flights to San Diego and back. Unfortunately, SWA had the week of epic failures during Christmas. You know what I’m talking about. So, rather than go to the airport and compete with people still trying to rebook flights, and find lost luggage, not to mention those trying to get home after the Fiesta Bowl, we decided to cancel our flights mid-week, book cruise parking and drive. It is only 6 hours from our house. All of our other plans stayed the same.

The weather was going to be a bit of a challenge for this trip. Rain is predicted pretty much the entire week in Southern California and Ensenada.

We packed up and left about 9:35 am. It was raining pretty hard until we got through Maricopa on our way to I-8 and then rainy off and on until Yuma. We stopped for lunch a quick lunch at about 12:15 pm.

From Yuma through Imperial Valley it was a really nice drive. No real rain. We saw a beautiful rainbow.



However, once we got to the Tecate Divide, it started raining and we had low clouds through the pass and then rain all the way into San Diego.

We got to the Marriott Springhill Suites Bay Front hotel at about 2:40 PM and checked in. Fortunately our room was ready. We had a great room on the 8th floor overlooking the pier where the Wonder would port. I had a great view! We hung out and visited with our neighbors who had arrived a couple of days earlier to visit family.

DH went to take our car to parking garage for the cruise.

We made reservations at Brigantine’s Portside right on Harbor Blvd. This is a new restaurant complex which included Miguel’s Cucina and Hetch Bar & Grill. It opened since last time we were on San Diego. DD and I walked over to meet DH. It was a very chilly evening. We enjoyed some New England clam chowder, crab cakes, crab stuffed bacon wrapped shrimp and a shrimp and crab fondue which were all very good.











After a day of driving through rain and a great dinner, we headed back to the hotel to call it a night.

Next: Let the celebration begin.

 

[greensombrero]

Following along. We are sailing the Wonder out of San Diego in March but doing a 5 night to Ensenada and Cabo. Never done Ensenada before so interested to hear what you did.

Good to know you liked Brigatine. We ate at the adjacent Mexican place when we sailed out of San Diego last and liked it.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Day 2
Monday, January 2, 2023
Embarkation



Today is the day!



I woke up at 6:15 am and looked out our window to see if the Wonder was in port yet. I saw a small boat with blue and red lights near the pier. I knew the Wonder was coming in, so I stayed up and watched her come into port.





I got the health survey email from DCL, so I filled it out and submitted it. I’m so glad we didn’t have to do a Covid test.



We went down to breakfast at the hotel at about 7:45 am. After breakfast went out to the fifth floor overlook and took pics of the ship. She is so beautiful! The Wonder was the only ship in port today.



There is a Starbucks literally across the street from our hotel, so we went to there so DD could get her coffee. We then went and grabbed some emergency snacks from the hotel market for T1D DD.

Since we had over 2 hours to check out, we decided to walk along the harbor. We started by getting our pictures in front of the ship’s bow.



Then we headed out towards the Midway Museum and then down to the Bob Hope USO Memorial.







We then walked further down towards Seaport Village and out on the fishing pier. We watched a few sea lions swimming around. The air was cool, but the sun was warm and there weren’t a lot of people at all.



We had an 11: 15 Port Arrival Time (PAT). I don’t know why I didn’t think to leave our room earlier to check out, but even at 10:45 AM it was hard to get an elevator down to the lobby. They were all full. We ended up splitting up while DD took the stairs. Oh, to have young legs! We checked out and started to walk down and across the Harbor Drive to the pier.

When we got there, we were directed to the area to the left of the terminal building where we could drop off our luggage. The only organization present was to stand behind a line and a porter would grab your luggage. It wasn’t even first come first serve. You are at the mercy of the porters on when your luggage would be taken. Our neighbors ended up waiting a little longer.

There were a bunch of people standing outside between the terminal building and some yellow barricades. You could see some barrier ribbons, but the lines were not signed in anyway. It was difficult to find a crew member. We found one and she told us to line up in the middle line. Yeah, right. People were basically grouping around the end of all the lines and asking everybody what their PAT was. The 3 lines all but blended together after the end of ribbon barricades.

We got ourselves situated as close to the center line as we could get and were eventually given our blue tickets. We started being let in to the terminal at about 11:30.



We then stood in another switch back line to have boarding passes checked in.



Then went and waited to go through security. Note to others, remember to take off your smart watch and remove your smart phone from your pocket! No big deal, unlike the airport the agent knew what it was and let me go. After security we waited in another line for a counter to open and was directed to counter 3 to have our passports and boarding pass scanned again. We were given yellow wrist bands and told to put them on until after we boarded. We then went to the seating area and waited for a few minutes for our boarding number 5 to be called. We headed to have our boarding pass scanned again, our boarding number was not checked, but wristbands were. Unfortunately, our passes were not scanned properly at the counter, so we had to have a cast member scan them again. No biggie, she was right there. We then got our group photo taken. Since this was our DD’s graduation cruise, DD and I wore Disney NAU Tees while DH wore a NAU polo. DD also wore her Class of 2022 Mickey Ear headband!

By 12:15 we were boarding the ship on deck 3. They made our family announcement and we were onboard. One of the officers noticed DD’s shirt and headband and wished her congratulations!

We had been booked on 2 cruises on the Wonder after they changed the Promenade Lounge to the French Quarter lounge, but both were cancelled during the pandemic. We were looking forward to seeing the changes. WOW! What a difference it made. We loved it!

Anyway, DNC and I could not get Palo on the same night when we booked our excursions. She is platinum, I was gold. So, we stopped at the French Quarter Lounge to talk to the Palo manager about switching our Palo dinner time and having all 6 of us go together. While I couldn’t yet see our dining rotation, the manager was able to tell us. We had Triton, AP, AP, Tiana’s. Well, I know for certain that DD did not want to miss Tiana’s for dinner, and neither did I. So we planned for Palo on our second AP night. It was also Pirate Night, but that was fine with us.

After the housekeeping was taken care of, we went to join the others at Cabanas. DH was able to get us a table out on deck behind Cabanas. It was cold and windy. We had to ask to have the heaters turned on. By 12:30, I was peeling my shrimp!



DNC and I were able to connect to the Navigator App, but everybody else was having trouble.

DD is participating in the Disney College Program at WDW again for the Spring of 2023. Last year she was able to take her car because she got a coveted parking permit. This year, the date to snap up the parking permit was on January 4th. That was Ensenada day, but she had to be online at 6:00 AM PT. We were not going to be in Ensenada by then to use our wireless plan. I thought I had read that the Wonder’s Wi-Fi had been updated, but I was wrong. The Wonder is still on the MB plan where you buy so many MBs at a time. Fortunately, DD planned ahead and had somebody lined up at home to help her out.

It was really cold up at Cabana’s and it was too early to get our staterooms, so we decided to hang out at the French Quarter Lounge! Of course, we had to order drinks and beignets!







At 2:30 we went up to our stateroom. Our KTTW cards were in an envelope on the fish outside out door. Our luggage was already there. In case you are interested, they are still giving out Castaway Club lanyards for your level.



We unpacked and I decorated the door.



At this time DH and DD were still having issues connecting to the Navigator App, so we went up to guest services to get DD and DH on app. We walked around, filled water bottles on deck 9 and went up to Deck 10 for some photos.



The mandatory in person muster drills have returned. Our drill was at 3:45. At 3:40, we headed down the back crew stairs from Deck 7 to Animator’s Palette and Station T for our safety drill.



We handed a crew member our KTTW card and got scanned in and then asked to sit at a table. We waited for everybody to arrive and were then instructed how to respond to the alarms and to put on a life vest. Very straight forward. We were out by about 4:15 PM.

We headed back to our stateroom and did not go to the Sail A Wave party. It was too cold, windy and loud. We did meet Pande our room steward. Otherwise, we didn’t see him much.

We started moving at 4:45. We went out on our verandah to watch us leave.





The ship backed out of the pier and did a 180 degree turn to head out of the bay. I got to hear the beautiful horn at 5:00. DH went to deck 4 starboard to view the submarine maintenance yards.

At some point we found out that our Cruise Director was Stephen from the United Kingdom. We had never sailed with Stephen before. His assistant was Sean, whom we sailed with last summer in Europe. We also had Captain Thord. We heard a lot from Captain Thord his trip.

We had early dining at 5:45 PM. Our first rotation was Triton's. We were assigned table 53 for the duration of the cruise. I knew the ship was sold out, as the sailing disappeared from the DCL website well before the 3 days before sailing. However, I wasn’t expecting to see so many kids. There were a lot extended family groups as well. Anyway, we had 2 tables near us with 12 or more people, half of them kids. We also noted a lot of first time cruisers. Something I haven’t seen in several years as we tend to take the longer school-in-session cruises.



I did not take pictures of the menus, they are easily found other places, and I only took a few pictures of the food. Again, food pictures are abundant. We were introduced to Jose from the Philippines as our server. Our assistant server was Jacqueline from Brazil. She was relatively new on board the Wonder, but was very good. We briefly saw our head server, Lingham from India, every night.

I will be honest. I wasn’t expecting a lot from the food on this cruise. On my last cruise, the food was mediocre. I was pleasantly surprised how much better the food was on the Wonder.

I ordered:

Postage Parmentier soup (All the soups were excellent)
Chateaubriand Roasted Filet Steak
Grand Marnier Souffle



The soufflé is sooo good. Not as good as Palo’s chocolate soufflé, but very yummy!

We were done with dinner by 7:15 so we headed to our stateroom to change for the show. Tonight was Golden Mickey’s in the Walt Disney Theater. Since our neighbors have a disabled daughter in a wheelchair, we go to the show with them through the Cadillac Lounge to the bottom row of seats. We had to meet there at 8:00 PM. The theater was full.





The cast on the ship was amazing. I enjoyed every performance.

After a long day, it was time to turn in and be rocked to sleep.



Next: Soooo close.

 

[bcwife76]

Following! We got off the day you got on! San Diego is such a cluster of a port....ugh. Our disembarkation on January 2nd was horrid.

 

[TikiThunderPirates]

Following! We got off the day you got on! San Diego is such a cluster of a port....ugh. Our disembarkation on January 2nd was horrid.

Curious if anyone who has done San Diego debarkation has also done Copenhagen debarkation and could compare? I thought Copenhagen was by far one of the worst debarkations I've ever done and wondered where San Diego ranks in comparison.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Curious if anyone who has done San Diego debarkation has also done Copenhagen debarkation and could compare? I thought Copenhagen was by far one of the worst debarkations I've ever done and wondered where San Diego ranks in comparison.

We have debarked in both ports. As I recall from looking back at my trip report, Copenhagen was very quick, smooth and easy. The only bad thing was waiting for a taxi afterwards.

San Diego, on the other hand, was not as smooth. Bag tags were not called in the lounges and people were just standing around in the atrium making it seem like there were lines to get off, but there weren't. Tags were listed on the screen in the atrium, but veteran cruisers don't wait there. The line was very long once we got off the ship to even get into the terminal to go through security and retrieve our bags. The bags were easy to find and we only had to walk out of the terminal and across the street to get to our hotel.

To be honest, the worst debarkation port I've been to is Galveston.

When we were on our European cruise this summer, the UK officials came on board the ship and checked our passports before we even got to Scotland. Because this was done, we did not have to go through customs in Dover which made for a very easy debarkation. I wish the US could do something like this.

 

[brentm77]

Great report so far. I am following along closely as we are sailing the Wonder for the first time this September. I am really enjoying the photos and glad to hear the food was good.

 

[pelequeen]

Can’t wait to hear about day 2. I think you said it was pirates day, which I was anticipating to be day 3.

I’ll be on this itinerary in March!

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Can’t wait to hear about day 2. I think you said it was pirates day, which I was anticipating to be day 3.

I’ll be on this itinerary in March!

Thanks! Pirate night was actually on the 3rd night of the cruise after Ensenada.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Day 3
Tuesday, January 3, 2023
Catalina Island (Planned)

We noticed the ship was rocking more than usual overnight. We were woken up at 7:30 AM to engine thruster vibrations. The bed was literally vibrating.

We immediately got up, went to the verandah and looked outside. We could barely see Catalina Island through the fog. We were lucky to get some photos before the ship turned.







The tender boats were out there waiting for us. Being on the port side, we are now facing out to sea.

It was looking pretty nasty out there. It was raining with 25-30 knot winds coming across starboard.



Tendering would be rough. In the meantime, DH and DD went up to Cabanas for breakfast; I wasn’t quite up to the mosh pit of Cabanas yet that morning.

While I was finishing getting dressed in our stateroom, the captain made an announcement inside the stateroom at about 8:30 AM. You know the announcement is important when you can hear it in your stateroom. The Captain said that the tender boats tried to come alongside the ship and were not able to do so safely due to the rough seas. Therefore, our port of call to Catalina was cancelled. I was not surprised. We were going to have a bonus day at sea! It didn’t take long for the app to update. Well, at least I can say I saw Catalina!

S

Meanwhile, DD messaged me that Cabanas was full and she and DH were sitting out on Deck 9. I went to breakfast at Cabanas and ran into our neighbors. We were fortunate to find a table soon after somebody left. I did not want to sit outside, so I sat with our neighbors.

At about 9:15 am, after we finished breakfast, DNC and I went to Cove Café for some hot chocolate. They make the best hot chocolate at the Cove. Soo good!



DH and DD were there enjoying their coffees, DD was trying to read. I asked if they had turned their phones back to airplane mode. They argued with me that they still had service while in port, why should they turn it off. I informed them that Catalina was cancelled and that we were leaving port and headed out to sea. Well, they hadn’t heard the announcement.

At 9:00 AM, the app updated with a bunch of new activities for the day. At about 10:00 AM we went down to the French Quarter Lounge for our first of many trivia challenges that day.

First up at 10:15 AM, was Marvel trivia. DD was looking forward to this one as she is a big fan. It was hard. We got 20/26. Molly from the entertainment staff hosted the trivia. She was from the United Kingdom and was very personable. We stayed for Frozen trivia at 11:00. Again, Molly hosted. We got 22/25.

I will say this about trivia events. There was one team onboard this cruise that you dreaded seeing at every event because they won all but 1 event that I participated in. They almost always got all the questions right or only 1 wrong. It just seems like you have to be able to score 100% anymore to win. I also noticed a lot of ties with teams getting all of the questions right. I enjoy challenging myself on what I know, and it is nice to win every once in a while, but when 1 team wins everything, it’s kind of discouraging. They even had new medals with characters rather than the black Mickey head. Anyway, I’ve been on cruises before where a team that won a lot would offer the medal to the next highest scorer. This was not the case on this cruise that I saw.

Oh well, we played the game and I ordered The Dream, the drink of the day. It was good.



Our next adventure was in the Crown and Fin pub at 11:45 for Ultimate Disney Trivia. This time Louis from the United Kingdom hosted. He was funny and did a credible impersonation of Wonder's horn because we missed the real one at noon.

After lunch at Cabanas we each did our own thing. I headed down to the open house of the lab and then read for a bit.

At 2:15 we all convened again at the French Quarter Lounge, and played a dice game, KWIX. Of course, we had to order drinks and beignets.

At 3:15 they started a new game that I had never played before, Spirits & Spirits. Basically, the hosts, which were Louis and Leah, would read some obscure true or false trivia question (not related to Disney). One side of the stage was Yes (True) the other side was No (False). You would stand on whatever side you thought was the correct answer. I think we played 4 rounds total and I won a round and earned a DCL metal Keychain. It was a lot of fun!

Then it was more trivia at 4:15 with Ultimate Disney Trivia. Molly hosted again, but we didn’t do so well this time.

While we were getting ready for dinner at 5:15, an announcement came over the PA into our room again from Captain Thord stating that they would be conducting a medical evacuation by the coast guard off the bow of the ship at 6:15. During dinner we felt the ship slow down, but didn’t see any of the evacuation.

Dinner was at 5:45 in Animator's Palate.



It was drawing night, so we got to draw our animated character before dinner. The seas had been rough all day long with major swells, rain and fog. We could really feel the ship rocking during dinner. We weren’t too far off the San Diego coast.

I ordered:

Black Truffle Pasta Pursettes
Baked Potato Soup
Penne Bolognese

All was very good again. I didn’t order dessert as we had been eating ice cream and beignets all day. After dinner, we saw all of our drawings come to life.



We went to the 8:30 Frozen show. Next to Dreams and Tangled, this is my 3rd favorite show of the entire line. Granted, I’ve only ever been on the Magic and Wonder. It was excellent. The cast on this crew is very talented.



We were still really feeling the ship move tonight. It was fun walking down a hallway and seeing people veer with the ship.

We had a great unexpected sea day with lots of fun and games, but it was time to turn in.



Next: Hola Mexico

 

[NAB]

We were saying the same thing on the Magic we just got off off. Trivia is the same and people either remember good or have it down pat. Did the 80’s trivia and it was the same as the Wish in Sept. They need to change it up.

Sorry you missed your Port. Hope it gets better.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

We were saying the same thing on the Magic we just got off off. Trivia is the same and people either remember good or have it down pat. Did the 80’s trivia and it was the same as the Wish in Sept. They need to change it up.

Sorry you missed your Port. Hope it gets better.

I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking that about the trivia.

As much as we booked the cruise to see Catalina, I wasn't really upset about it. The cruise was about spending time with DD and it turned out to be a great sea day. I probably saw more of DD that day than if I had gotten to go into Avalon.

 

[pelequeen]

How early would you recommend showing up for trivia events? This is my first DCL cruise but I know they’re popular and the lounges can fill up.

Also do the drinks and beneigets at cove cafe cost extra? Obvciously anthing alcoholic would be, but are coffees, hot chocolates, and sweets also an extra charge?

 

[bcwife76]

I'm sorry you had to miss Catalina but I'm glad you had a great sea day!!
Well done on the Marvel trivia, we played this on our cruise and DH and I scored very poorly However, we did win the trivia in Azure one night (tv show tunes trivia) so I'm glad my brain still has some capacity for silly knowledge

 

[TikiThunderPirates]

How early would you recommend showing up for trivia events? This is my first DCL cruise but I know they’re popular and the lounges can fill up.

Depends on the ship, who's on the ship and the trivia. Generally 10-15 minutes before hand is usually fine to arrive. I've walked in on some with less than 5 minutes to spare and found a seat. Disney music trivia (especially with a live musician) and Ultimate trivia's always seem to be more popular, maybe arrive 15-20 minutes ahead of time.

Also do the drinks and beneigets at cove cafe cost extra? Obvciously anthing alcoholic would be, but are coffees, hot chocolates, and sweets also an extra charge?

All drinks at the Cove cafe cost extra. There is a treat glass container with free items to eat in the Cove cafe. Beignets are offered for sale at the French Quarter Lounge (on the Wonder). During 1 night of dinner in Tiana's place (Wonder) beignets are served as a dessert with the included dining menu.

You can get basic coffee, tea and hot chocolate which is included (so no additional charge) at each ships pool deck drink station.

 

[pelequeen]

Depends on the ship, who's on the ship and the trivia. Generally 10-15 minutes before hand is usually fine to arrive. I've walked in on some with less than 5 minutes to spare and found a seat. Disney music trivia (especially with a live musician) and Ultimate trivia's always seem to be more popular, maybe arrive 15-20 minutes ahead of time.


All drinks at the Cove cafe cost extra. There is a treat glass container with free items to eat in the Cove cafe. Beignets are offered for sale at the French Quarter Lounge (on the Wonder). During 1 night of dinner in Tiana's place (Wonder) beignets are served as a dessert with the included dining menu.

You can get basic coffee, tea and hot chocolate which is included (so no additional charge) at each ships pool deck drink station.

Thanks so much for these tips and details!!

 

[disneyfaninaz]

I'm sorry you had to miss Catalina but I'm glad you had a great sea day!!

Well done on the Marvel trivia, we played this on our cruise and DH and I scored very poorly  However, we did win the trivia in Azure one night (tv show tunes trivia) so I'm glad my brain still has some capacity for silly knowledge 

Ironically enough, one of the times I did win at trivia was on our Panama Canal cruise and it was TV Tune trivia, but in all honestly, I wouldn't have won if it hadn't been for the complete stranger who asked me to play as a team!

 

[disneyfaninaz]

How early would you recommend showing up for trivia events? This is my first DCL cruise but I know they’re popular and the lounges can fill up.

Most of the time there is an event prior to the trivia game. Usually, as in crafts, the room will clear as the previous event ends. So if it looks crowded, just wait a few minutes and a chair or table will most likely open up. It's the people that arrive at the time or late who have to stand or sit on the floor.

Oh, and when you purchase drinks at the Cove Café you get a punch card. After 5 or 6 drinks purchased (I don't remember which), you get a free one.