Live From the Wonder OTS, Western Caribbean, Sep 22-29

[Ken the cruiser]

It’s time to start getting ready for our upcoming 7-day cruise on the Wonder OTS, one of RC’s newer ships that has a maximum capacity of 7,084 passengers! 😱 The last time we cruised with RC was back in 2014 on the Freedom OTS whose maximum capacity was a mere 4,515.

 

 

As some might notice this is not one of our normal 3-5 week itineraries but rather a short “test the waters” cruise to see if we might want to book future RC cruises if the itinerary is just right. We are booked in a Junior Suite and might even be able to dine in the Coastal Kitchen once or twice, if space is available. But to be on the safe side, we have reserved an early fixed seating table for 2 in the MDR where we will probably dine most nights unless we’re at one of the specialty restaurants. One nice advantage of being Elite+ on Celebrity is that we will also have access to most of the Crown & Anchor Society Diamond+ loyalty perks.

 

My plan as usual is to share some of our experiences from both on and off the ship, to include posting scenic and wildlife photos along with others taken while watching some of the Wonder’s onboard entertainment, some of which we had to make advanced reservations for.

 

 

As always please feel free to follow along, and if you have any questions let me know and we will try to find the answer.

 

Informative Links

 Caribbean weather forecast

 Wonder OTS Current Location

 National Hurricane Forecast

 

This was a cute little Gulf Fritillary butterfly we came across on our morning walk that gave us a good feeling that fall is finally here, and that it was time to go on another cruise! Of course, being cruiseaholics it doesn't take much! 😂

 

 

Edited Monday at 04:13 PM by Ken the cruiser

[rocksSD]

Looking forward to your commentary.  We do this same itinerary on the Wonder on October 6th.

[cruiseny4life]

Welp, I guess I'm here for the ride. I've followed lives from Carnival, Princess, and Holland America this summer (as well as all the NCL ones). I guess I can add Expensive as $#% of the Seas to my list. 🙂 Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!!

[Ken the cruiser]

3 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

Welp, I guess I'm here for the ride. I've followed lives from Carnival, Princess, and Holland America this summer (as well as all the NCL ones). I guess I can add Expensive as $#% of the Seas to my list. 🙂 Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!!

Welcome aboard again! I'll try to keep it interesting, as I'm sure there will be plenty to see on this huge ship! FWIW over the next 12 months, we will try to keep the diversity coming, as we will be cruising with RC, NCL, Princess, HAL, Celebrity and finishing up with a Viking Ocean cruise from Reykjavik to Bergen by way of Longyearbyen in August!

[phabric]

Following along.  Enjoy your cruise.  I was on RC Symphony when it was the largest ship at the time.  A lot of walking from on end to the other of the ship.  I found the tables in the dining rooms were too crowded together with that many people.  We had to give the waiter our order for  the complete meal from the appetizer to dessert at one time.  We found we would have taken a different dessert after we had found out how full we were after the main entree.

[Leish]

Looking forward to your post. We are booked on our first cruise with RC Quantum OTS next January out of Brisbane. Have only ever cruised with NCL previously, so it will be good to do a comparison and contrast !

[ColoradoMom!!]

Along for the ride!  I'll call it 

 

Cruising Vicariously with Ken ☺️

[Nattyg1723]

👋 looking forward to daily bird updates 🙂

[PhillyFan33579]

Hope you have a great cruise. Just got off Wonder yesterday and had a wonderful time. On day one on Allure today and enjoying an “older” Oasis class ship for a few more times before it gets amped next year. Looking forward to being back on Wonder in November. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but it is interesting how much more modern looking Wonder is compared to Allure. Not sure which one I like better looks wise.  

[Luckynana]

Following!  I'll be on Wonder, come February!🛳️

Looking forward to your comments as well as pictures!!😊  

[Lorey2007]

As soon as you get on the ship go to the dining room to check on your table location.  If you are not happy with the location ask for it to be changed.  They will do what they can to make it happen.

 

We love the Jr Suites on this class. Following along have a great cruise.

[PATRLR]

I'll be following.  We did Oasis of the Seas in summer 2023, first time on RCCL in probably 15 years.  I found the entertainment to be very good with many options.  Otherwise, generally similar to the other mass market lines. We will cruise them again, if the itinerary and price is right.

Looking forward to your commentary.

 

Edited Tuesday at 05:35 AM by PATRLR

[Ken the cruiser]

13 hours ago, Lorey2007 said:

As soon as you get on the ship go to the dining room to check on your table location.  If you are not happy with the location ask for it to be changed.  They will do what they can to make it happen.

 

We love the Jr Suites on this class. Following along have a great cruise.

If I might ask, what success have you had getting "space available" dining in the Coastal Kitchen when you were in a Jr Suite on this class of ship? Our plan is to go there as soon as we board to see if we can make reservations for at least a couple of days on this 7-day cruise. However, if we have to check for availability each day (after knocking on "the door"), I believe we are going to pass as that would just be too annoying for us. Also, is there much difference between the CK and MDR dinner menus?

 

Edited Tuesday at 01:50 PM by Ken the cruiser

[Biker19]

14 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

If I might ask, what success have you had getting "space available" dining in the Coastal Kitchen when you were in a Jr Suite on this class of ship?

Fixed. Not sure how Country RCI is.

[Ken the cruiser]

2 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

Fixed. Not sure how Country RCI is.

Thanks for noticing my mistake, which I just corrected.

[Lorey2007]

22 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

If I might ask, what success have you had getting "space available" dining in the Coastal Kitchen when you were in a Jr Suite on this class of ship? Our plan is to go there as soon as we board to see if we can make reservations for at least a couple of days on this 7-day cruise. However, if we have to check for availability each day (after knocking on "the door"), I believe we are going to pass as that would just be too annoying for us. Also, is there much difference between the CK and MDR dinner menus?

 

We only bothered with Costal Kitchen once on a Quantum class ship. I wasn't too impressed with the menu and ended up getting the chicken dish that is the same as in MDR.

[Bead Pirate]

Hello, on this cruise with you (14th week on Wonder so far this year).

 

With regard to CK, they have been letting all PINs in during the last several cruises (at least for dinner). As far as knocking on the door, the card reader has been out of service for almost 2 months now, so you just pull the door open.

 

There has been plenty of room at early dinner time (when we eat). I often wonder where everyone went 🙂 

[Ken the cruiser]

4 hours ago, Bead Pirate said:

Hello, on this cruise with you (14th week on Wonder so far this year).

 

With regard to CK, they have been letting all PINs in during the last several cruises (at least for dinner). As far as knocking on the door, the card reader has been out of service for almost 2 months now, so you just pull the door open.

 

There has been plenty of room at early dinner time (when we eat). I often wonder where everyone went 🙂 

That would be totally awesome if we were able to stop by the CK on embarkation day and were able to reserve all of our non-specialty restaurant dinners at 5 pm! 🤞

[Mary loves to travel]

We sailed Oasis during her inaugural season - maybe the 5th week she was in service?    What a stunning and revolutionary ship!    

Looking forward to following along on this one 🙂

 

Mary

[detroitavant]

Wonder will be our return to Oasis class, none of our other RCL cruises we've done have felt the same as Allure.  We have the same itinerary next year so looking forward to this thread.

[PhillyFan33579]

12 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

If I might ask, what success have you had getting "space available" dining in the Coastal Kitchen when you were in a Jr Suite on this class of ship? Our plan is to go there as soon as we board to see if we can make reservations for at least a couple of days on this 7-day cruise. However, if we have to check for availability each day (after knocking on "the door"), I believe we are going to pass as that would just be too annoying for us. Also, is there much difference between the CK and MDR dinner menus?

 

Last time we were in a JS on Wonder we had no luck when it came to getting reservations in CK. To be fair we tried to make reservations as soon as we boarded the ship and never checked again for possible openings the rest of the cruise. 

[Ken the cruiser]

9 minutes ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

Last time we were in a JS on Wonder we had no luck when it came to getting reservations in CK. To be fair we tried to make reservations as soon as we boarded the ship and never checked again for possible openings the rest of the cruise. 

Thanks for the reality check! 😂 To be honest that’s our plan right now as well. Find out what’s what regarding our CK reservation options when we first board the ship and then make our decision at that point regarding where we will dine the rest of the cruise. 

[Ken the cruiser]

We do have one pre-cruise question regarding this Diamond+ perk we hopefully get being Elite+ on Celebrity. Is it possible to make a pre-cruise dining reservation on one of the first two nights to take advantage of this perk BEFORE we board the ship? If so, what's the process, as we can't seem to find a pre-cruise booking option for it on the App?

 

 

[Biker19]

7 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Is it possible to make a pre-cruise dining reservation on one of the first two nights to take advantage of this perk BEFORE we board the ship?

No, the perk is meant to be an on-board perk only. You could book a venue (for one) to save the desired time, and the staff may let you use that as the basis for the perk, but don't count on it.

Edited Wednesday at 01:41 PM by Biker19

[Ken the cruiser]

3 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

No, the perk is meant to be an on-board perk only. You could book a venue (for one) to save the desired time, and the staff may let you use that as the basis for the perk, but don't count on it.

Thanks! That's what we figured but just wanted to make sure.