Puerto Rico and Disney Wonder 4 Day Eastern Caribbean

DietCokeMommy

Mouseketeer
Joined
Apr 19, 2017
Hi everyone, back in February my family and I did a 10 day vacation that included our first Disney cruise, a 4 day repo on the Wonder. I've really enjoyed reading so many of the other trip reports, I thought I'd put together my own.

As for who we are, my husband and I both work in software. I'm a manager and software designer, and he's a software tester. We have two kids Declan and Lily, who at the time of the trip were 4.5 and 1.5.





Day 1 - Fly from Boston to San Juan, Puerto Rico
We got up super early in the morning and flew from Boston to San Juan. The trip took forever because as usual this winter, the weather wasn't cooperating. After an hour delay for de-icing, we finally got into the air for an otherwise uneventful flight. We arrived in San Juan and rented a car and went to lunch at The New Reef in Loiza. They had great food and a beautiful view.








Afterwards we checked into our hotel, the Marriott Isla Verde. The hotel had a great location right on the beach in Isla Verde. We enjoyed the pool and had dinner at the hotel's restaurant.



 
Day 2 - Fajardo Snorkel and Boat Trip
We got up early and had breakfast at the hotel and began the drive out to Fajardo for our snorkeling trip. The drive was really interesting, we got to see a good chunk of the island and we could see El Yunque in the distance as we drove.



Our trip was with East Island Excursions and it was absolutely amazing. We rode aboard a small motorized catamaran out to Icacos island. The island was beautiful, the water was warm and we had a lot of fun hanging out there for a while.






We went back on the boat for lunch and a snorkel stop, and then they took us to Isla Palominitos. It's this teeny tiny island that I couldn't believe even had a name, I thought it was just a giant sand bar. It was a lot of fun hanging out there and incredibly beautiful.








We returned back to shore and drove back to our hotel. We ended up having dinner at the hotel again, though we tried to go the Ritz a block or so away, but they were still closed from the hurricane damage.

 
Day 3 - Old San Juan
We woke up and took an Uber over to Old San Juan. We walked around a lot and along the fort at the waterfront. We stopped at a vendor to get some shaved ice, which they call piragua. They were great and really refreshing after walking around in the sun. Next we walked a little further and found another stand selling kites to fly at El Morro. My son picked out a kite and we went over to the huge space in front of El Morro to try it out. It was gorgeous and so much fun. Lots of families were doing the same thing, but we didn't any problems with it being too crowed. We left El Morro and tried to go to Ben and Jerry's, but that was also closed so we settled for lunch at El Patio de Sam. Food was good, the place was practically empty except for us. Then we headed over to Parque de Las Palomas to feed the pigeons. My son begged to go, but then when we got there he was too scared to feed the birds. So I fed them and it was terrifying! At least a hundred pigeons all converged on me and I dumped the bag of food and ran.







 


Day 4 - Embarkation Day!!
I had intended for us to hang out at the pool/beach for the morning, but we were super excited to get to the ship. So we went for a walk on the beach and then I packed up all our stuff, including a million wet swim suits.






We had booked a shuttle to bring us over to the port and got there around 11:15. Our PAT was for 11:30 and there was a giant line snaking around outside.







This was our first cruise so I'm not sure if this is normal or if this was specific to the San Juan port. The line continuously moved, but it still took about an hour to get through everything. We got on the ship and went right to Eye Scream because I had promised Declan the first thing we'd do onboard was get ice cream.





Afterwards we went to Cabanas, which was not a great decision. It was crazy crowded and we ended up having to get a table outside by the pool.
After lunch we took the kids to the pool area. I went with Lily in Nemo's Reef and Matt took Declan in the pools and went on the slide. Around 1:30 we headed to our room so Lily could nap. At some point DH took Declan to check out the open house at the kids club.







We had dinner that night at Triton's and I was not impressed. Our serving team seemed spread really thin and it seemed really hectic. Lily was also being a toddler so we wrapped up early.

Later that night DH went out to watch the super bowl on the funnel vision, which he loved.
 
Day 5 - St. Thomas
The next day we woke up early went up to Cabanas for breakfast. We sat outside, soaking up the great views. Afterwards we got walked around the ship and explored before we headed to our room to get ready and leave to meet our guide for the private excursion we booked.




We got off the ship easily and met up with Web from St. Thomas Scuba and Snorkel Adventures at the welcome center. Web was awesome. He drove us to Coki beach where we fed the fish with dog biscuits. The water was clear and beautiful. After that we did some sightseeing in the island and then went to Secret Harbour. At both locations my husband I separately went off to snorkel with Web while the other one stayed on the beach with the kids.









After so much beach time we were starving so we stopped at a BBQ place right next to the ship. We weren’t too big on the food, but we were happy to support a local business.

Later that night was pirate night. We all had fun dressing up and taking pictures with Captain Hook and Mr. Smee. We then went to dinner again at Tritons and yet again we were let down by the food. I was also a little annoyed with our head waiter because I asked for some fruit for my daughter to be brought out ASAP and it never arrived. She hadn’t been a fan of Tritons the night before and was very vocal about it, so we were trying to head that off, but instead we had another scream fest. We ate quickly and left to put the kids to bed.





Later that night I left DH with the sleeping kids to check out the pirate party. It was pretty late so I just wandered around for a bit and got some pizza to snack on and went back to our room. After I got back we realized the fireworks were going off so we went to check them out. We had a great view from our verandah.
 
Day 6 - At Sea
We woke up early, as usual (yay kids :-/, lol) and headed up to Cabana’s, but the clocks had changed and we were too early. Later in our room I saw a notice next to the clock but I had totally missed it the day before. Eventually we got breakfast and Then we headed to the Frozen gathering. We waited for maybe half an hour before getting to see Anna and Elsa. The guy in front of me was getting really mad at the group in front of him. They had like 10 people in their group and they took a ton of time all getting individual pics and apparently didn’t even have tickets until later but insisted on being let in.





Waiting in line with bored little kids is never easy, especially with my little one always hellbent on finding trouble. So afterwards we brought both kids to the kids club/nursery and our true vacation began. We went to enjoy the quiet cove pool and some adult drinks. It was sheer bliss.

That night we went to dinner at Animators Palate and we loved it. The food was great and we managed to get through dinner without a meltdown so we could enjoy the show. My son was really captivated by it and was so excited when Mickey came out at the end.

That night (I think) was Frozen night, which DH took DS to while I stayed in the room with Lily. They had a great time and loved the show.



 


Day 7 - Castaway Cay
In the morning we woke up to a gorgeous view of Castaway Cay. We ate breakfast and got ready to get off the ship. We made it off the ship quickly and took the tram to the 2nd stop.












We grabbed some chairs by the water and the kids started splashing around. As we sat there it got grayer and grayer and then suddenly started raining. It was about 11:30 so we decided to get some lunch. It started to downpour and everyone else had the same idea. We were lucky to find a table to share with another nice family.

We thought the food was amazing. I kept going back for the ripe mango, which is really hard to find around here. Usually 90% of it is hard and gross, but this was all ripe and soft and delicious. The whole family loved the hot dogs, burgers, and chocolate chip cookies too. Lily especially loved the banana ice cream. At some point she climbed up on the table and sat there munching on everything. I was so thrilled she wasn’t screaming through a meal that I just let her sit there. I even let her cover herself in banana ice cream because I was past caring at that point. I’m sure the the family next to us thought I was a terrible mom, lol.





We took a look at the shops and wandered around a bit and decided to head back to the boat so the kids could nap. Later we had to wake the kids up to get them ready to go to the princess gathering. They both looked adorable in their Snow White and Prince Charming costumes. Both kids were a little shy at first, especially Declan. The princesses loved Lily and she was kind of fascinated with them after a while, especially Tiana.







We could also see the weather had cleared up and the island looked like a post card.





That night we went to Tiana’s Place for dinner, and it was by far our favorite. We had never had beignets before and they were incredible. We got 3 orders to eat at the table and one to go they were so good. The show was also amazing, and it was the perfect location to have our final dinner. My son was so excited when Louie the alligator came out, he ran up and hugged him. DH and I were shocked. He had been so shy around all of the characters so far, we were blown away when he ran up and hugged him like a long lost friend. I’m not sure if the face characters intimidated him (he can be a little shy) or if it was because Louie looked like a giant stuffed animal. But either way, it was a magical Disney moment for all of us.







 
Days 8-10
The next morning we got up extra early for main dining breakfast. It was nice to get to be in Tiana’s again, it was definitely our favorite. The breakfast was a little weird though because some of the things I ordered (maybe bacon and something else) didn’t come out until we were practically done eating. And there was no apology or anything, it just seemed to be par for the course for them. I honestly wasn’t sure what to make of my serving team after all of this. Everyone talks about their amazing servers but ours were kind of meh. I didn’t want to complain about them, but I also didn’t feel like we received stellar service.

We made our way off the boat and took a shuttle to get our rental car. It was a pretty easy and painless process. We planning to meet up with my parents later in the day and we were booked for the next couple of days at Reunion Resort. We had some time to kill so we took the kids to a park to run around and then decided to make our way over to Orlando and go to Universal City Walk for lunch.

The next couple days we had fun at Reunion in their water park and we met up with some friends and enjoyed getting to see my parents. We came home and immediately started thinking about what our next Disney cruise will be.

 
We're now considering this itinerary for 2019 so this was super helpful. Thanks!
 

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