Honeycruising on WoTS - Eastern Caribbean 10/29/23 - 11/05/23

[LandstromCruise]

2 minutes ago, HollyQueen said:

Oh yes, I’ve been impatiently waiting for them to release it ever since we found out. Gotta practice my convincing skills with DH to visit the Next Cruise desk while we’re on board. 

There’s no rule that says he has to be there for you to book it….just do it and then at Christmas tell him that you got it as a Christmas gift for him

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

3 minutes ago, LandstromCruise said:

There’s no rule that says he has to be there for you to book it….just do it and then at Christmas tell him that you got it as a Christmas gift for him

Lol I’ve certainly had my share of booking cruises without my husband knowing!   

[OCSC Mike]

26 minutes ago, HollyQueen said:

Gotta practice my convincing skills with DH to visit the Next Cruise desk while we’re on board. 

I know several prominent posters here who would just go without DH, book it, and either tell him later or wait til he notices. I won’t name names. You know who you are.
 

EDIT: I posted that before reading the last 2 posts. Should have known they would be there.

[Lovetocruise2002]

 

8 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

I know several prominent posters here who would just go without DH, book it, and either tell him later or wait til he notices. I won’t name names. You know who you are.

8 hours ago, PPPJJ-GCVAB said:

Lol I’ve certainly had my share of booking cruises without my husband knowing!   

 

8 hours ago, LandstromCruise said:

There’s no rule that says he has to be there for you to book it….just do it and then at Christmas tell him that you got it as a Christmas gift for him

Ok!!! It's me!!!! Guilty!

I book every cruise without Hubby knowing! lmao

[LandstromCruise]

19 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

 

 

Ok!!! It's me!!!! Guilty!

I book every cruise without Hubby knowing! lmao

Question is does Hubby know he's going on the Inaugural Icon cruise yet?  

[Jax]

8 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

I know several posters here who would just go without DH, book it, and either tell him later or wait til he notices. I won’t name names. You know who you are.

Haha guilty! My hubby still has no clue what’s happening when I tell our driver to stop at the purple banner. Lol 

[Lovetocruise2002]

10 minutes ago, LandstromCruise said:

Question is does Hubby know he's going on the Inaugural Icon cruise yet?  

Yes, final payment is usually when I run it by him! 

[HollyQueen]

12 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Yes, final payment is usually when I run it by him! 

Writing all this down, I have much to learn 

 

 

We have arrived! The second leg of the drive was quite chaotic. A few months ago a hurricane came through the Madison county area of Florida and took down as many as 10,000 trees. Well, today was the day they decided to try and clean some of that up so we were in either bumper to bumper traffic, or dodging reckless 18-wheelers all day. 
 

I originally had us booked at the Hampton (connected to Home 2), but H2 had some last minute deals this week so I just swapped us over. Saved about $50, I’ll take it! Room is very spacious and has a nice walk in entry pool. We might start our paddles early tonight and stretch these legs. 

[asquared17]

something about that pool really speaks to me

[HollyQueen]

26 minutes ago, asquared17 said:

something about that pool really speaks to me

We’re going to call it a whale tail. It is a whale tail. It resembles nothing other than a whale tail. 

[asquared17]

oh my gosh i wasn’t even thinking about this hahahaha i just liked the walk in aspect 

[HollyQueen]

11 minutes ago, asquared17 said:

oh my gosh i wasn’t even thinking about this hahahaha i just liked the walk in aspect 

I have DH to thank for any comparison other than a whale tail. 

 

Would give this hotel a solid 9 out of 10. Large room, friendly staff, good water pressure and shower amenities that smell really good. 

[Ampurp85]

I stayed on the Hampton side but the pool was clean and nice,I loved how big the rooms were. I am glad you made it safely.

[HollyQueen]

Checked in and waiting to board, will post a day one recap later tonight, but for a sneak peek - there are TWO weddings on board and there was a fender bender that got us in the parking garage. 

[HollyQueen]

Checked in and waiting to board, will post a day one recap later tonight, but for a sneak peek - there are TWO weddings on board and there was a fender bender that got us in the parking garage. 

[LandstromCruise]

Sounds like a great start

[Ampurp85]

That's PC for ya

[HollyQueen]

Phew, what a day!

We arrived at the port around 9:45am, easily dropped off our luggage and got in line for the parking garage. We were only 5 or so cars back from the gate, however there was some commotions so the parking staff had us all reverse back out away from the gate and let someone exit the line. The lady in front of us reversed into us, pushing us into the guy behind us…panic. 
 

I apologized at least 5 times to him, while the lady in front of us just went on through. None of the PC staff seemed to have caught the accident, but we had no damage on the front end so DH and I just let it go. I did have a small dent on my back bumper, fortunately the guy behind us had no damage and was so calm and cool about the whole thing. “We’re on vacation! Y’all go have fun!” I offered several times to buy him a drink and he wouldn’t take me up on it. I hope the universe dishes out some good karma somewhere for him. 

Got in line around 10:10, not too far back from the door. All of a sudden we start seeing several people in full suits. The moment we saw the dress bags we connected the dots. There seemed to be a lot of people a part of this wedding ….it took several buss loads to get them all in. I’ve read that sometimes things can run ahead of schedule, but that wasn’t the case for us today. Once we finally breezed through the check in process we were finally seated in our check in group at 10:45am. That’s when we found out not only was it one wedding, but two! AND apparently one was for an actor - I had to google his name to find he was on the Love Boat (how fitting) and a soap opera? It seemed to take several people coordinating who was just there for the wedding and not sailing, I thought this was a weird concept, but to each their own. By 10:55, we finally hit the walkway into the ship. I have also heard rumors from some B2B people on board that there was a disturbance onboard early this morning. An adult apparently punched a child. I have not heard full details, but police were brought on board and someone was arrested. 
 

Quickly found our muster and headed straight to the Solarium for lunch. We figured we’d start off in a quiet spot first and then walk the length of the ship and get our bearings. DH hopped on the Flowrider after a bit of waiting. Definitely feel like they needed two of these instead of the golf area. There was a small issue with kids jumping in front of others in line (parents of course, idle) but DH is a good sport and let them go. There seemed to be an intense brother-sister competition going on. 

Our room was ready at 12:45. It was hard not to take a nap right then and there. We saved our champagne and strawberries for an after dinner treat, grabbed the waters, and headed back for some Solarium pool time to read and snooze, we stayed there quite a bit today, but it just felt like our vibe. We’re retirees stuck in 30 year old bodies apparently. 
 

Dinner was pretty good tonight, I’d say 7.5/10 if you desire a score. Our server Donna is very sweet and assistant Leo was so kind to the table next to us with small kids. One had found a duck, but he must have overheard the other being upset not to have one, so he made a duck out of a napkin and gave it to him.  
 

DH did well and explored some options out of his usual palette. The escargot wasn’t for us, but the flavor of the sauce went well with the bread. He was jealous of my crab cake, yeah I could take two more of those. Nothing too exceptional with the fish, but the potatoes we good. Cheesecake is always a winner for me. 
 

We came back to the room after dinner to enjoy the rest of sunset with champagne and strawberries. We almost dozed off but had the comedy show booked at 8:30…I applaud you all with children because we were exhausted. Glad we went though because it helped us unwind for the rest of the evening. Clocking out for now 

[Ampurp85]

It was Lorenzo Lamas; my mother was obsessed with him and she said that he was getting married on Wonder.

I am glad you guys are relaxing, I feel like cruising turns us younger folks into vintages and vintages into daredevils . I always see older men on the Flowrider or ziplining while some younger person is relaxing in the pools or pool chairs. 

[asquared17]

8 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

I feel like cruising turns us younger folks into vintages and vintages into daredevils

amen to this!!!!

also that shot of the moon over the water on your balcony is spectacular

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

9 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

It was Lorenzo Lamas; my mother was obsessed with him and she said that he was getting married on Wonder.

Oh my gosh I also had a crush on him in my much younger years!  Even better…my high school boyfriend had a striking resemblance to him…lol.  Memories!!

[HollyQueen]

1 hour ago, asquared17 said:

amen to this!!!!

also that shot of the moon over the water on your balcony is spectacular

We got so many good ones, I’ll have to get some from DH’s phone, his Samsung does much better with lighting than my iPhone. 

[Sweety]

Have an amazing cruise. Congratulations on your wedding. I always book the cruise and tell hubby later. Usually when I make his favorite dinner. He now says, "How many cruises did you book?" Need to up my cruise booking game.

[WAAAYTOOO]

Yeah, wasn't the moon incredible last night ?  Kinda perfect for Halloween week !

[HollyQueen]

What a perfect Day (part 1) 

We woke up pretty early after turning it in last night. By 7am we were having breakfast in the windjammer and had already arrived at Coco Cay. It looked a bit cloudy at first, but the sun finally peaked out right as we hit the pier at 8am. 
 

Headed straight for our Beach Bed on South Beach, #54 was a perfect spot right in the front middle portion of daybeds. The two attendants there were so incredibly kind and decorated it for us! We didn’t catch their names but chatted with them throughout the day and were so grateful. 
 

The water was crisp and cool, absolutely perfect weather! We spent our entire day on South Beach snorkeling, snoozing, and reading. Apparently some string rays were there super early but we didn’t catch any. We both are admittedly not big “beach” people, but we had an amazing time and I thankfully didn’t get burnt (just lightly toasted) 

We found it interesting that many of the day beds were reserved, but no one ever came to claim them. Only about six or seven groups checked in but then left fairly early. We stayed until 2pm so we could shower off and do a little shopping on the boat. (I did not bring nearly enough moisturizer and forgot socks) 

Tonights menu in main dining seems to have flipped. It’s Taste of France tonight, and Italy tomorrow. Originally it was Italy tonight, so I had booked 150 CP for tomorrow since we weren’t impressed with the taste of France menu. Oh well, if we’re actually unimpressed well just head to WJ. After dinner we have inTENse and we’re really looking forward to that. 

[OCSC Mike]

10 minutes ago, HollyQueen said:

Tonights menu in main dining seems to have flipped. It’s Taste of France tonight, and Italy tomorrow. Originally it was Italy tonight, so I had booked 150 CP for tomorrow since we weren’t impressed with the taste of France menu.

You can always ask to move your reservation. When our itinerary was switched the day before we left on the Allure 5-nighter we just got off, we changed both of our specialty reservations as soon as we boarded, no problem (as long as they have openings of course). Just a thought.

That's an odd switch BTW. French night is usually the first formal night on night 3 of Wonder (b/c day 2 is CocoCay and formal nights are usually on sea days whenever possible).

[HollyQueen]

12 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

That's an odd switch BTW. French night is usually the first formal night on night 3 of Wonder (b/c day 2 is CocoCay and formal nights are usually on sea days whenever possible).

They moved formal night to tonight because of Halloween tomorrow, so I guess it had to make the switch too then, we’ll walk down and see if we can get a dining spot, just need to be able to see the show still at 8:30 

[Vacation Crazy]

16 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

It was Lorenzo Lamas; my mother was obsessed with him and she said that he was getting married on Wonder.

I am glad you guys are relaxing, I feel like cruising turns us younger folks into vintages and vintages into daredevils . I always see older men on the Flowrider or ziplining while some younger person is relaxing in the pools or pool chairs. 

 I googled his name and the wedding invite showed up.  There is an 80's heartthrob on board! 

[Xaa]

41 minutes ago, HollyQueen said:

It’s Taste of France tonight, and Italy tomorrow.

I can recommend the Beef Tenderloin from TOF Menu.  I also get the Lamb Rogan Josh whcih I enjoy.  I generally take a bite of my wife's Salmon too.  I like TOF.

French Onion as an appetizer and the cookies with a scoop of ice cream for dessert.  

[Ampurp85]

The decorations are so adorbs, I love the seashell picture as well. I can't wait to sail wonder.

[OCSC Mike]

24 minutes ago, HollyQueen said:

They moved formal night to tonight because of Halloween tomorrow

That would explain it. I have "got off the ship this morning" brain. Is Halloween tomorrow?

Enjoy your meals, whatever you wind up with when. We haven't been MDR fans for a very long time but just ate there 3 times on Allure and while I wouldn't call our meals great, there was nothing wrong with them.

[HollyQueen]

20 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

That would explain it. I have "got off the ship this morning" brain. Is Halloween tomorrow?

Enjoy your meals, whatever you wind up with when. We haven't been MDR fans for a very long time but just ate there 3 times on Allure and while I wouldn't call our meals great, there was nothing wrong with them.

Good news, we’re eating 150 CP tonight at 5pm. 
 

Bad news, it wasn’t technically a “swap”.

We went to the restaurant to see if they could swap and no one was there, so we went down to guest services to see if they could do it for us. Looked through “reserve again” on the app just to see if times were available and it showed a 5pm opening. When we told GS that, they said they couldn’t make it for us but called the restaurant, however the restaurant said they were fully booked? Strange. She recommended cancelling night 3 and just rebooking for tonight, so that’s what we did through the app. She failed to mention we would only get half of the charge back as onboard credit. 

I’m now nervous if they’ll actually honor the reservation at all tonight since we just booked it. Slightly annoying but nothing we’ll sweat over. 

[OCSC Mike]

8 minutes ago, HollyQueen said:

Good news, we’re eating 150 CP tonight at 5pm. 
 

Bad news, it wasn’t technically a “swap”.

We went to the restaurant to see if they could swap and no one was there, so we went down to guest services to see if they could do it for us. Looked through “reserve again” on the app just to see if times were available and it showed a 5pm opening. When we told GS that, they said they couldn’t make it for us but called the restaurant, however the restaurant said they were fully booked? Strange. She recommended cancelling night 3 and just rebooking for tonight, so that’s what we did through the app. She failed to mention we would only get half of the charge back as onboard credit. 

I’m now nervous if they’ll actually honor the reservation at all tonight since we just booked it. Slightly annoying but nothing we’ll sweat over. 

I'd bet they'll honor it.

As for the app vs. the restaurant experience, we ran into the same thing but the other way around. We wanted to push our 6:00 reservation at Sabor back an hour or so the night we had it booked. The app said nothing but 8:45 available. Knowing not to trust the app, we went to Sabor during lunch hours... and the hostess offered us every 15 minute increment except exactly 7:00 (obviously fine by us). So the app said practically full but they had tons of openings.

We chatted with our server (she was super nice) about it and she asked us to please mention that in our surveys. The restaurant was empty, costing her tip money, costing Royal money, and if anyone wanted to eat there but trusted the app, they didn't get to.

[HollyQueen]

Our night ended here. inTENse canceled tonight due to bad weather. They’ve moved us all to Day 7 at 8pm, luckily that works out for us. 
 

150 CP was great. 9.5/10, something was off about the broccolini - very bitter but otherwise we cleaned our plates easily.
 

Scallops, short rib, and pork belly to start. Lobster Thermidor for us both, and fried cheesecake. I didn’t want the cheesecake to end.
 

   

[HollyQueen]

Day 3 at sea, we packed in quite a bit!

Started off with breakfast at ELF, wanted to try another breakfast option besides WJ. Surprised we were the only ones there for quite awhile, but we enjoyed it. Will be going back to WJ likely for the rest of the week because DH has an obsession with bread, and there are too many (or just enough) options for him. 
 

After we jumped into rearranging our schedule a bit. Because of the dinner and show swaps from last night, we had to move something’s today to make sure we didn’t end up double booked. It worked out in our favor and we were able to play Lazer Tag. This was by far the best workout I’ve ever had. Naturally the women and children were on one team and men on the other. DH had a great time brushing off his air soft skills and topped the board. 

After the physical workout, we headed to Royal Society of Puzzles/ “Escape Room” for a mental one. Didn’t think that one through, oops. Luckily we were paired with a good group and managed to finish in 31 minutes! Started off kind of rough, but once you connect a few dots it gets easier if you don’t overthink things..

After that we came to the Solarium to rest for a bit. While we haven’t spent too much time on the pool deck, the chair hogs were also present in the solarium. It felt like there were more chairs claimed than there were people in the pools and hot tubs. Got some light reading in and then ate in the Bistro for lunch. I had been thinking of the roast chicken there since the first day. One of my favorites so far. Had to come back to the cabin for a quick Power Nap after that…shocker - we were tired.

By far the highlight of the day was the Love and Marriage game show. I’m not sure if it’s allowed to share photos of other people on here but we had a 3 day marriage, 28 year marriage and  -drumroll- 111 year marriage. In the spirit of Halloween the last was a couple who came dressed and cosplayed as if they were from the Titanic, so of course had to be brought on the show. (They “renewed” their vows 65 years ago and still qualified as the longest married couple). Their answers to the questions were well coordinated and referenced the early 1900s and titanic… they had the cruise director and game show managers in fits of laughter. I sincerely hope it finds its way online or goes viral. We couldn’t breathe from laughing so much. 

Caught up on some reading for the rest of the afternoon and then had dinner. Taste of Italy was a hit with us tonight. The most surprising thing though was how fast service was. We were completely finished with dinner by 5:50pm, which was perfect timing to get us up top for a romantic sunset view from the after. The lasagna was delicious and dare I say the chocolate hazelnut cake was just as good if not better than the fried cheesecake from 150CP last night. I almost got a second one…

Managed to reschedule voices to 7:30 instead of 9pm since we swapped dinner around, and I’m glad I did since were seeming to crawl back to our cabin at 9pm every night. 

Voices was a hit as well, a little cheesy in some parts, but holy cow are the performers incredible. I went in not knowing much about the show but was surprised to see several performers I follow online or have seen in previous college acapella groups. Personally  I think the video performances in the background on the big screen are a little distracting though. The vocalists and dancers could command a crowd on their own. 

Finished off the night watching the costume parade and trying the Bionic Bar. The costumes are impression, but I’m even more impressed how everyone managed to even pack them. We’ve seen inflatable Dinosaurs, Gladiators, Giant skeletons… 

Crawled into bed with a nightcap. St. Thomas tomorrow  

[OCSC Mike]

10 hours ago, HollyQueen said:

Started off with breakfast at ELF, wanted to try another breakfast option besides WJ. Surprised we were the only ones there for quite awhile, but we enjoyed it.

It was empty in June too whenever I walked by. Never ate there b/c family was treating us to suites so we ate in CK but I recommend it for anyone content with the basics. Thought sitting outside in the early AM would be nice too. I'm sure we'll try it at some point.

10 hours ago, HollyQueen said:

dare I say the chocolate hazelnut cake was just as good if not better than the fried cheesecake from 150CP last night. I almost got a second one.

We just had this on Allure last week and agreed it was excellent. The menu description needs to be tweaked. It was closer to a lava cake and I didn't really taste much hazelnut (not that I cared).

[HollyQueen]

Day 4, St Thomas! (The day I was too tired to update after ) 

Stsrted the morning off easy with room service continental breakfast, made for a good excuse to sleep in since we didn’t arrive in port until 12:30pm, DH also got a chance to do the zip line. Still need to hit up the rock wall on our sea day.

We booked Magen’s Bay, Drakes Seat, and Skyride excursion. We had a nice small bus well air conditioned that took us up to Drakes Seat for breathtaking views of St Thomas. I was not prepared for the narrow roads up the mountain. DH got a kick out of my nerves but we made it just fine.

Then onto Magen’s Bay for a few hours, we really enjoyed this small stretch of beach, although we were spoiled with our CCC beach Bed, we didn’t opt for a chair here. They wants $20 a person so we just laid out of towels and joined the crowd in the sea for awhile. 
 

The Skyride up to Paradise Point was a great final spot to watch sunrise over the island. There were four ships in port today, but we got lucky and had the Skyride virtually empty as they left before Wonder. Had just enough time to grab a quick bite before returning. While the food was good, we probably could have gone without as we had Wonderland for dinner at 8pm. It was an emergency option in case we didn’t enjoy Wonderland, but we ended up getting more than our fill there. 
 

I’ll make that a separate post after dinner. Enjoy some photo spam. 

[HollyQueen]

Wonderland (day 4 part two)

We were moderately happy with dinner tonight. I’m not sure if the norm is to have the appetizers chosen for you, or if it was because we had a later dining time (8pm), but we were only given the choice of entrees. 

[Yesiamthere]

On 10/29/2023 at 11:10 PM, Ampurp85 said:

It was Lorenzo Lamas; my mother was obsessed with him and she said that he was getting married on Wonder.

I am glad you guys are relaxing, I feel like cruising turns us younger folks into vintages and vintages into daredevils . I always see older men on the Flowrider or ziplining while some younger person is relaxing in the pools or pool chairs. 

This is wedding number 6 for Lorenzo. Invite said:  October 29th at 9:45 in the morning on the Wonder of the seas. He is almost 65. New wife is 38.  So, if you see what looks like father and daughter together, it’s them. 

[HollyQueen]

3 hours ago, Yesiamthere said:

This is wedding number 6 for Lorenzo. Invite said:  October 29th at 9:45 in the morning on the Wonder of the seas. He is almost 65. New wife is 38.  So, if you see what looks like father and daughter together, it’s them. 

They’ve been making their presence known. The Solarium, Studio B, One of the bar/clubs and 150 CP were booked by them for special events during this week. We’ve had to adjust plans accordingly