We have two daughters ages 9 and 11 who are in 4th and 6th grade. This trip was the perfect way to spend the last half of their winter break. We live in The Woodlands just north of Houston, so the Port of Galveston is an easy car ride for us. We cruised with another family with similarly aged daughters who are great friends/neighbors. All of us are Disney veterans and we had booked our cruise almost a year in advance! It exceeded expectations.
Both of our families reserved parking spots in advance and online through the Port of Galveston’s website. We had each checked in online in advance of the trip and we all had American passports at the ready. Each family holds silver cruiser Disney Castaway Club status, so our embarkation went very smoothly. We brought a total of 7 bottles of wine/champagne aboard, and that was no problem. Disney gives silver cruisers and above their own check-in area. We were able to board at 1 pm.
The Wonder was recently renovated and all areas (including our cabin) are shipshape! The ship is beautiful and appears well cared for. It was still decorated for Christmas so we enjoyed all of those festive touches.
This veranda outside cabin is located on the 6th deck port side between the midship elevators and the forward elevators. We liked the 6th deck location as it’s nicely in between the decks we visited the most (3rd, 4th and 9th.) The noise level was average and we weren’t disturbed by it. We have two very tall children so there were times when our cabin space felt a bit tight, but we honestly had everything we needed. We loved our port-side veranda. My husband and I especially enjoyed sitting on the balcony during downtime, and he loved checking out the activity on the deck below when we were in one of the ports. We had plenty of storage and put every piece of luggage underneath the queen-size bed. Our girls were comfortable in their bunks. They shared the storage drawers in the desk opposite their bunk set-up. We were able to get all of our hanging items in the closet. We brought a pop-up dirty clothes holder and a hanging shoe organizer to help keep our cabin organized. The two separate bathroom areas were great. We felt we had plenty of room for toiletries. There’s even a little corner shelving area in one of the bathrooms.. Note: the electrical outlet for hair dryers/curling irons is by the desk! We used the safe every day. Also, our room had a mini fridge which worked great for chilling our New Year’s Eve champagne that we brought from home.