Teeara

Usually they offer a Kennedy Space Center tour (which is fantastic, by the way) for those whose flights are after 5pm.

During the Wonder TA I asked our waiter Arvin if I could get the prime rib from the MDR on the first night. He got some for me. He brought back a plate with not one, but two massive slabs of meat ;o) I felt bad that I wasn't able to eat all of it and it was sooooo good ;o)

We also had the music festival in the Aquatheater during the Wonder Westbound TA last fall that was really nice. There were also two guest lecturers during the week as well as the Promenade parades and other events. We actually spent most of our time in our cabin due to the relaxed Covid restrictions. Hardly anyone was wearing masks and there were a lot of people just hanging out in Cafe Promenade during the day and other locations. We just didn't feel that comfortable being around the maskless during the TA (although we, like so many others, ended up having Covid after we returned home from the cruise). Since we had an Owner's Suite we stayed there and had a blast. We brought books and magazines, watched TV and surfed the web (the internet was fantastic). We did 5 nights specialty dining which was nice and split our evening meals between Coastal Kitchen and the Windjammer. If you want an idea of what to expect, I posted all the Cruise Compasses on Issuu. You can find them here: Wonder of the Seas WB TA Cruise Compasses

That's what I figured since it didn't have the full refurbishment in 2020 after the WB TA was canceled. Although Wonder was nice (and our Owner's Suite was freaking amazing), pretty much everyone was saying that it didn't have the same feel as the other Oasis class ships.

Any early bird news on whether Allure will have her drydock in 2025? Would still love to do a TA on her in 2025 after getting switched from her to Wonder last year.

I would be all over that!

For around $350 on the Wonder TA in October it was well worth the price.

It was fantastic on Wonder during the transatlantic. Thought it was even better than the Windjammer and the MDR. Go and enjoy!

Pat I agree with you. Hooked was our least favorite meal onboard Wonder during the TA. Everything was way too salty and "meh". We were less than impressed. Service was practically nonexistent and like you, we were the first to be seated for dinner. We were dreading our future meals since we did Hooked on night 2 of the sailing. Thankfully the rest of our specialty dining was much better. 150CP was the best meal AND service was phenomenal. Had great table participation on the last night at Izumi. The table behind us was a very quiet group but we were all participating and had a blast. The food was fantastic and I waddled out of there. Only bad thing was Pam was sick with migraine and a cold (which eventually turned out to be Covid after we got home like so many others did on the ship) so she didn't get to enjoy it like I did. Not super impressed with the Mason Jar for breakfast although there weren't a lot of people there. Service was adequate. Really enjoyed Giovanni's. Would've liked to have sat outside but it was pouring at the time so we sat next to the chef and watched him make lots of yummy looking dinners. Playmakers had good food, service was great, but the Aquatheater show was TOO LOUD! Sheesh! I would hate to be in Boardwalk balcony cabin during any of those shows. Our table in Playmakers was vibrating from the music.

When do boarding times open on the app? We’re 90 days away and everything shows 0 availability. This is our first cruise using the app.

We just did the Wonder TA from Barcelona to Port Canaveral from 10/30-11/13. It was warm (mid 70s) in Barcelona pre-cruise, but they were having a "heat wave" due to some warm air from Africa. Looking over the Cruise Compasses, here were our temps during the TA: 10/30: Barcelona 68 10/31: Palma de Mallorca 72 11/01: Valencia 70 11/02: Cartagena 72 11/03: Malaga 68 11/04: At Sea 71 11/05: At Sea 71 11/06: At Sea 70 11/07: At Sea 73 11/08: At Sea 75 11/09: At Sea 75 11/10: At Sea 79 11/11: At Sea 77 11/12: Nassau 81 11/13: Port Canaveral 79 We had smooth seas when we were in the Mediterranean with a little rocking, but not bad. Once we entered the Atlantic our first day was a bit bumpy. Then we smoothed out until about midway across. By then we were following Hurricane Nicole. We had one day with quite a bit of rocking, but nothing horrible. Then it smoothed out and we were fine the rest of the way. I've had worse rocking in Skagway, Alaska as a stormfront was moving into the area and when we left Port Canaveral in 2004 as Hurricane Jeanne was arriving. In both of those instances everyone was hugging the walls to walk down the corridors. We had nothing at all like that during the Wonder WB TA. I'm almost ready to start posting my Wonder TA vlog on YouTube. I'm finishing up our pre-cruise excursions in Barcelona right now. I have 2 more vlogs to do for Barcelona and then I will start on the Wonder TA itself. If you're interested, my channel is TheEmptyArmchair. I also posted the Cruise Compasses at Issuu in case you want to get an idea of what to expect during a westbound transatlantic. You can find them here: https://issuu.com/theemptyarmchair/docs/wots

I sure like that Adventure TA from Barcelona to PC. That looks like a fun cruise and the prices are fantastic right now even without any discounts. Wish we could go, but we're already doing the Panama Canal in April 24, so that will eat up our vacation time. Next time we go to Barcelona we want to spend more time there. I'm working on my Barcelona videos for my YT channel right now from the Wonder TA and reliving how much we loved it. Wish we could've spent more time there than the 3 days pre-cruise we spent in October.

CruiseMapper

We were on the Wonder TA last month and I'm starting to download videos of our time in Barcelona and the other ports. I will be posting weekly and today was on La Sagrada Familia with Get Your Guide tours. Next week will be our Barcelona city tour including a visit to Montserrat. We used Spain Day Tours for that tour. Both were fantastic. I also include links in the description boxes of any tours we took. If you would like to watch, here's the link to my channel, The Empty Armchair, where you can watch the videos. The Empty Armchair

Cafe Promenade is always open on embarkation day. They will have little sandwiches and desserts. If you look at the RCI app for your sailing, it will tell you exactly which dining options are open and available to you for lunch on embarkation day. You can also check current sailings to get an idea as well if they haven't posted anything yet for your sailing.

We did that with our Indy cruise last year. We rented a car from Alamo and drove directly to the port. The Alamo/National drop off is closest to the pier and they have a big shuttle bus that will take you directly to the terminal. Budget is further away and they use little shuttle vans. The line to catch those Budget vans post-Wonder cruise last month was horrendous because they didn't hold a lot of passengers with their luggage whereas the Alamo shuttle bus was very spacious.

I contacted RCI myself and reserved The Music Hall on Wonder for the TA for our Meet & Mingle. No food or drinks (they wanted to charge me for those and I said no). No officers or raffles. Just the room was reserved for our use.

You can book it for just a few hours. You need to call the hotel directly though to make the reservation. Ask for a "day room" and let them know the hours that you want it for. Our time frame was 10am-6pm, I think, but we left at 2:30 since our flight left at 4:30. It was fantastic. We were able to take showers prior to our flights so that once we got home around 1 a.m. we just went straight to bed. Well worth the $$$. Oh, and we stopped at Publix before dropping the car off at the car rental return at the airport. We got some lunch at Publix which was a lot less than what you would pay to use the hotel's restaurant.

I never saw the soot that bad on the suite sun deck during the TA, but it was there. You had to be very careful when choosing a spot to sit. We also had soot on our Owners Suite balcony chairs as well. Not the only reason we didn't spend time on our balcony, but it was an additional factor. I thought the stacks were putting out horrible amounts of black smoke everywhere we went. It just looks nasty. For a new ship it should've gotten a failing grade for it. Sorry, but that was absolutely disgusting.

For those who are interested in the Cruise Compasses for a transatlantic cruise, here are Wonder's from the WB TA last month. https://issuu.com/theemptyarmchair/docs/wots

For those who are interested, I am starting to download videos on my YouTube Channel (The Empty Armchair) for this sailing. First one just posted (shot a week prior to sailing) and then I hope to have the first "official" one which was our flight to Barcelona by this weekend. I also have some video from the JFK American Airlines Admirals Club Lounge (and shower!) in it. Well worth the money if you're planning on a redeye through JFK. That shower was really nice since we weren't able to check into our hotel until 24 hours later, so it was nice to have that shower prior to boarding the plane. We only paid $59 for a day pass since we didn't have any cards with access to it.

You're welcome! Sorry for all the technical issues. It was half CC issues and half my Kindle issues. I have to say we were pretty impressed with the internet during the entire TA. It had it's spotty times, but for the most part we had a signal for nearly the entire cruise. I would definitely have it again going forward. I need to get it for my Hawaii cruise next year and the new Panama Canal cruise I just booked this morning on Radiance for 2024.

Very happy. Just booked Radiance 4/8/24 WB Panama Canal.

Sunday, November 13, 2022 - Disembarkation Day Well, disembarkation day is finally here. It's always a sad day to get off a cruise ship but also a relief to be going home to sleep in your own bed, too. I know Pam is really looking forward to it this time since she's got a fully raging cold going on right now. She was up at 4:30 and I was up at 5:00. We wanted to be out of the cabin by 6 and in the Suite Lounge. I'm hoping they have some breakfast for us. I mistakenly packed the last day printout in my luggage (I do this every time and I tell myself I need to take a photo of it so I have it with me on disembarkation day!). We didn't take showers this morning since we planned on doing that at the Hyatt when we got there later in the morning (that way we won't have to shower when we get home tonight and can go straight to bed). So we just focused on finishing up on packing our last essentials and then getting down to Deck 17 and the Suite Lounge where they were setting up for breakfast. Lo and behold they were also serving a regular breakfast as well! So we were able to have one last meal with our beloved Arvin and it was just grand. We then moved over to wait in the lounge area after breakfast and at 7:30 one of the concierges came over to say they were ready for us and if we followed him we could leave the ship. So we gathered up our bags and we followed the others to the elevators. We had our passports and our cruise cards out one last time and then we were heading down the gangway. We expected to reach the bottom and have a simple facial recognition, gather our luggage and then leave like we did last November. Instead we found total chaos. People were in line saying we had to find our luggage and then had to get in line. We fought our way through the line of people who already had their luggage and quickly found a porter. He asked us what our number was. We didn't have a number, but told him we were in a suite and he took us to where the suites had their luggage. We quickly found our luggage and piled everything on his cart. Then he led us through the throngs of people to the "fast" lane which really wasn't that fast, but was dedicated to those utilizing porters. We breezed through customs since we hadn't bought a lot of jewelry or booze or exceeded our customs amount and then were taken to where we were to catch the bus to take us to Alamo to pick up our rental car (which has a much shorter line than the one for Budget AND it's much closer to the port than Budget is). A porter is ALWAYS worth the $20 I pay them to haul my luggage after a cruise. We quickly got our SUV and we drove to Orlando and to a Publix close to the airport. We wanted to pick up some Publix reusable shopping bags as well as get some lunch (less expensive than what we would get at the airport) and some Kleenex for Pam. Oh, and some Diet Coke. There was only Coke Zero in Spain and onboard Wonder. Pam was dying for a Diet Coke ;o) Back in the car and it was a five minute drive to the car rental return at the airport. We saw another porter who loaded our luggage on his cart and took us directly to the Hyatt where we checked in and with a Hyatt porter's assistance, quickly found our room overlooking the parking garage and the airplanes taxiing in the distance. We decided to take our showers now and rearrange our luggage, then eat our lunches then take an hour nap before quickly packing our luggage to go check in for our flights at 2:45. We had made arrangements for a porter to come to our room at 2:45, but he came at 2:30 which was a surprise since we woke up from our nap at 2:10. It was a mad scramble to quickly finish our packing, put on our shoes, load his cart and get out the door. But once again, he was incredible helpful. He took us directly to the Southwest check-in terminal, helped us get our luggage tags, put them on our luggage, got our luggage safely checked in and then showed us where the TSA Pre-Chek line was. Our flight to Baltimore was uneventful and full. We had breakfast at the Silver Diner at BWI (I usually eat there) and then it was time to board our 10 p.m. flight to Boston. Again, another full flight. I slept through the entire flight and we landed at 11:15. I was happy to see that all our luggage made it safely to us even though I forgot to track it. Pam didn't though. Our taxi service picked us up and drove us to the Braintree Park and Ride and we were able to get Pam's car, loaded it up and get home safe and sound with a big pack of mail waiting in the mailbox. We were home by 12:30 a.m. on Monday. So how was this trip? I cannot in all honesty say it was the trip of a lifetime. It didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. Covid put a huge wrench in it when it caused the 2020 Allure cruise to be canceled. We had such a spectacular group of people going on that cruise and although the group on this cruise was great, it didn't have the same dynamics as the 2020 group. There was so much more lively activity on the 2020 roll call than on this roll call by comparison. But we met some wonderful people during this cruise and that I absolutely do NOT regret. Pam's torn meniscus was a huge blow to our plans. Her injury and mobility issues limited our ability to explore Barcelona and the Spanish ports the way we had researched and planned for the last several years. That was a bummer for both of us and I know that she was just as disappointed as I was. I know she was incredibly disappointed not to find the shopping as good as she had hoped, both on land and sea. I was surprised by how "depressed" I felt with this cruise, both before and during it. The stress of the Covid test was overpowering. What would happen if either of us tested positive and was unable to sail? When I tested negative at Hotel Jazz I wanted to burst into tears with relief. Such a burden was lifted at that moment and then to have another one lifted when Pam, too, tested negative was incredible. I remember when I was getting my massages and Joy and Seilu were giving me those head massages. Those simple head massages felt more releasing of tension than the rest of the massages had been. I think so many of us have been living under these conditions of Covid for the last three years now and don't realize just how much tension has built up inside that needs to be released. I had so many plans for my YouTube channel (The Empty Armchair) for this cruise with video ideas that simply weren't shot. I was overwhelmed and just shut down during the first half of the cruise. We spent most of our time during the cruise in our cabin. The noise on the ship was just too much for us. So many people onboard in one place (and the ship was sailing at only 2/3 capacity). We escaped to our cabin more often than not for the silence and safety it provided. So would I do a transatlantic again? Not any time soon. Again, this is supposed to be the first leg of our around the world cruise, so the next cruise would be the Panama Canal. I see no need to do a transatlantic again until after all of those legs are completed. As mentioned before, my next cruise is in March 2023 with my mom on Royal Princess out of San Francisco to Hawaii. Hopefully it will be better, but I'm not holding my breath. Traveling during winter is never my preferred time of year AND I'm not looking forward to Royal Princess. The ONLY things that I'm looking forward to is sailing with my mom and my friends Ron, Linda and Lisa. So that ends this cruise. Maybe not the way we had originally planned way back in 2018, but again, God knows the plans He has for us. Plans to prosper us and not to harm us. Plans to give us hope and a future. May our futures be filled with cruises that are stress-free, Covid-free and fun-filled. Hopefully I'll "sea" you onboard someday.

Saturday, November 12, 2022 - Nassau, Bahamas Today is the last full day of our cruise and our first day "on land" since leaving Malaga 8 days ago. We're docked at Nassau, Bahamas. Since Pam and I were here a year ago during our Indy cruise we decided not to get off the ship since we weren't particularly impressed with the port. I originally had a deep tissue massage booked for 8 a.m. Instead I spoke with Joy and we switched it to a Swedish massage with hot stone massage and she increased it to a 75 minute massage from the 50 minute massage I had paid for since the deep tissue massage was more expensive. I told her I wanted something more gentle since the last 4 massages have been pretty intense working on my left shoulder and my back and neck. It was just what I needed and a nice way to end the cruise. Back to the cabin and Pam was awake. She definitely has a cold poor thing. That's going to make tomorrow's flights miserable for her. We have a long day since our first flight isn't until 4:45 in the afternoon and we'll probably be off the ship by 8 a.m. So while she was getting dressed I went ahead and booked us a day hotel at the Hyatt at the Orlando airport for tomorrow from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. That way she can take a nap if she wants to get some rest before our flights. We went for a late breakfast and then came back to the cabin so she could take a nap and I could start packing. I figured if I could get my packing done while she was napping then she could pack while I was at Izumi for the last dinner tonight (since there's no way she's going to be up for that tonight). We have company docked next to us. Freedom of the Seas came in this morning and it's a little further down from us. We're sharing the same pier. It's funny to be looking down on her after being on her sister ship Independence in November last year and we were looking down on Serenade of the Seas when we were at Coco Cay. Pam woke up from her nap around 4 pm just and I was close to finishing my packing and needing to get ready for dinner which was at 5:15. I closed up my suitcases so she could lay them out where I had mine set out. Then it was time for me to go. Izumi is a joint sushi bar and hibachi restaurant. I love hibachi dining (like Benihana's) and was really looking forward to tonight. There were already 4 others seated at the grill when I got there. One other couple showed up shortly after I was seated and we were ready to go. They start out with bowls of edamame which I'm not allowed to eat since they're soybeans and I'm not supposed to eat soy due to my hypothyroidism. Then our chef came out and started with the jokes and songs (mostly 70s disco and 80s new wave due to the ages of us at the table). We had an extremely engaging table which was fun. We didn't hear much from the table behind us. We were laughing and singing along which was fun and I'm sure helped the chef. He played with eggs making them dance and then disappear and reappear and then broke them making a heart on the big griddle. He made a big omelette then made it into a snake before chopping it up and putting it into this gigantic mound of rice. Then it was time to saute the garlic and onion and get that in the rice, mix it up with the egg, add some soy sauce and serve it up in bowls. It was soooo good. While we were enjoying the rice he sauteed some veggies and some tofu for the lady next to me who was a vegetarian. We each received some of the veggies. I was a bit worried at first since there was a lot of peppers in the veggie pile, but thankfully when I got by share of veggies there were only 3 small pieces that were easy to pick out. Then it was time to start on the meat. Most of the people had chosen the two protein combos. So some had chicken and shrimp or steak and shrimp or lobster and shrimp. I just wanted shrimp. I've had each of the combos before and have always walked away feeling overly full and didn't want to feel that way tonight. I'm so glad I made that decision. I'm also glad I just asked for ginger ale, too, rather than a drink. The guy to the right of me was drinking sake and he was downing it like it was ginger ale. He wasn't inebriated in any way, but boy, I sure hope he didn't have a hangover the next day getting off the ship. Sake packs a punch. Anyway, the people who ordered chicken got theirs first, then the filet mignon folks got theirs next and then those of us with shrimp got ours and it was ginormous shrimp. And it was delicious. Combined with the rice and the veggies it was just right. I gobbled mine right up. There was even a little bit of meat left over and I was able to have some of it as well. Very tasty, but again, I'm glad I didn't order it as well as the shrimp. It would've been just too much. Then it was time for dessert. I ordered the assorted mochi ice cream balls. I wasn't sure if I would like them or not. I'm not a fan of mochi but these were a pleasant surprise. I had 3 balls. One was chocolate, one was strawberry and one was mango and they were served on a bed of red raspberry sauce. It was a cool and refreshing end to a pleasant dining experience. Leaving Izumi I made one last tour of the Royal Promenade and went to the shops to see if there was any last purchases to make. I picked up a Christmas ornament for our tree and then returned to the cabin to find Pam in the middle of packing. All of our luggage had to be out in the hallway by 10 pm (it was now 7 pm) and she needed help so I changed my clothes and helped her finish packing. Pam wants to get up at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow so we can be in the Suite Lounge by 6 a.m. (they will start disembarking Suite passengers at 7 a.m.). Hopefully they will have some breakfast for us at that time.