Disey Cruise Line: The Few Low - Lights

As promised and to be fair, even though I ADORED our experience on the cruise and rambled on and on about how fabulous it was in the "Highlights" there were of course a few things that weren't perfect, or things I wished I had known prior to cruising. So here they are!

The Motion of the Ocean
The 1st 2 days of our trip, we hit very high and rough seas. So bad, that I couldn't wear heels out of fear of spraining my ankle, so I went and bought flip flops. I had to often hold the railing in the hallways for stability. Our closet doors and curtains would continually open and close themselves with the swaying. Very luckily, no one in our family was sick (which was shocking really) as many other families and children were sick and needing to take medication. I had purchased before leaving every shape and size of nausea medication, just in case, but all packages remained unopened! The Disney Wonder in not considered a large ship, in fact Disney's 2 newest ships - Disney Dream & Disney Fantasy - taking their maiden voyages this month, are 50% bigger than the Wonder & Magic. When in port we could visually see the dramatic different of our wee boat compared to other ships, but the strangest part was, being "newbies" to cruising, we thought our ship was HUGE! There were sections and places we never even got to see in a weeks time! We were glad we had our 1st experience on the Wonder, because now we have something to step up to with the newer Disney ships.

The Excursions
Hind sight, 2020 we would not have booked either of the excursion on St. Maarten or St. Thomas to the beach. All the excursions are very pricy x 3, and we could have done the exact same outing on our own, by grabbing a cab to the beach, and saving hundreds of dollars. We wouldn't have had the included lunch in St. Maarten, but I'm pretty sure we could have had some incredible local delicacies for a whole lot cheaper, if you do the math. It also forced us to be on the beach a very limited amount of time in order to get the bus back to the ship, and we didn't get to see much of the island as we hoped, because the bus drops us right back at the ship, and the walk into town in St. Thomas was too far and we were too tired by then. Next time we will get off the ship, take a taxi, go to a cool little local place for lunch, lazy and lounge and sight see, then head back to the bus and save hundreds.

The Pool Side
The spacing by the Mickey pool was very limited, so if Olivia was in the pool (which is very shallow) you can't get a seat close by so have to stand/sit on the deck to watch her. Since the water slide is where it is, it only leaves 1 side of the pool available for seating, which people "claim" very early by leaving towels on chairs (which makes me nutty)so we never could get a spot when it was decent weather. It was also really busy on deck as the spacing at the Mickey pool didn't work for the number of families. The 1st 3 days the pools were warm, but then they did a fresh refill and it was too cold for our spoiled monkey to go in for very long.

The "Key to the World" access cards/No cash on board accepted
When checking in, each family member gets one of these cards. It is your room key, credit card and ID to get on and off the ship. They have these cards down to a science on the ship, and cash is not accepted by anyone, including the gift shops. You get your big bill at the end of the week for all the charges on the cards and it ain't pretty. We would much prefer to be able to use cash and keep better track of our spending, as it was far too easy to use these cards (which is precisely why they chose this system) as it feels like you aren't using "real" money when of course, you are. I also lost my card once, as did Sam. The coding machine was down when I lost mine so I was without a card for a good part of the day and because mine was lost they blocked access to our room. I had to get staff to let us in and out throughout the day. I think this isn't a common issue (the coding machine) but it really did stink. Sam lost his right before we were to disembark and fly home, PANIC! We can't get off the ship without it!!! Thank goodness all was fine with coding and he got one just in the nick of time. The cards are stressful and play mind tricks! I'm not a fan of the cards, but I understand their purpose.

Pricing
Pricing for everything was astronomical, but I guess that's the norm for any ship. Alcohol not being included on any cruise, Sam didn't even want to tell me our "bar bill" at the end of the week. SECRET ALERT: On both days off the ship we had NO trouble getting bottles of rum back on the ship even though it's not allowed. We thought that was strange since they scanned the bags? I guess they turned a blind eye - YAY for us & Captain Morgan! It's worth a try, the worst outcome is that they take the bottle and return it to you at the end of your trip.
NOTE: They add the 15% gratuity ALREADY before getting you to sign a bill after a purchase, so no extra tipping is really needed unless they had gone way out of their way to serve us. The cost of excursions was way too high, as were the photos taken by professionals on board.

So that's about it for the few minor disappointments, but we will use the knowledge gained on this trip for our next Disney Cruise in 2012!