The Last Frontier: A Disney Wonder Cruise Report - June 2025 (Day 01: Embarkation and Sail Away)

We hung in long enough the night before to wake up at a normal hour and felt pretty well adjusted to the local time. It was a nice relaxing morning of getting ready, with a local coffee/pastry run for Brett and Penelope. If pastry means cookies for breakfast.

We snagged a great port arrival time of 11:30am, so we checked out and took off on foot to the port. It was just shy of a mile walk.

Am I that person on vacation who maps where we’re going and says, “that’s not too bad, we can walk it,” and then seems surprised to learn we clocked a half marathon at the end of the day? Yes. Yes, I am.

Do I sometimes regret it? Yes.
Do we do it again anyway? Also, yes.

All joking aside, we really do love walking when we’re in cities, it’s the best way to soak up the vibe and ambiance of a place. And the walk from the Hilton to the port really wasn’t bad, as it was mostly downhill and the weather was great. It was a better option than booking an Uber and getting into traffic to get there (likely would’ve taken just as long).

It was an absolutely gorgeous blue sky day. The cruise terminal, while not exclusively Disney, was super organized and easy to maneuver through. We arrived around 11:20 for our 11:30am boarding group and had about a 15 minute wait until check in. I wouldn’t recommend arriving too much earlier than your scheduled time. Off to the side they had holding areas for a lot of the later arrival times. So people who had 12pm, 12:30pm, and 1pm times, were queued up in their respective groups. They definitely weren’t allowing guests to board any earlier than their scheduled time.

Upon boarding we split up. Brett went to guest services to inquire about a stateroom upgrade (there were none, we were on a full sailing) and the kids and I went to the French Quarter lounge to see about switching our dining rotation. With the last minute booking we were automatically slotted into late dining, but had no trouble switching it to main dining and keeping our table for four. Our first rotation was in Tiana’s, which resulted in Animator’s as our final meal on the ship and I really loved that because Animator’s is the most magical.

After that was sorted, we walked down the hall to Tiana’s for lunch. I’m a big fan of skipping Cabanas on day one, it’s so chaotic with people and their carry on bags, and the dining rooms are much calmer. I swear the twinning was unintentional:

And then we explored until our stateroom was available to check out. Checked in with both the kids clubs…this was our first sailing with Lucas in Edge and we were unsure how it would go. He doesn’t have a phone, but we took an old phone of ours and connected it to the ship wifi to give him a way to communicate with us throughout the cruise and I highly recommend this if you also have a middle grade kid who doesn’t have their own phone.

A word about our stateroom… I was really afraid we were going to feel the lack of verandah, but I can honestly say, we didn’t miss it one bit. Sure, it would have been nice to have one, but we ended up loving our stateroom. Penelope spent a ton of time sitting on the ledge below the porthole and just staring out across the water. We also realized, even if we had it, we wouldn’t have used a verandah in the mornings. Because the kids were sleeping on that side of the room and we wouldn’t have risked waking them to get out there. Most mornings, Brett and I got up and slipped right out the door to go get our coffee and breakfast and then we’d go hang out on deck 4.

All that to say, if booking an oceanview (or even an inside) gives you the extra funds for more excursions, DO IT. The money, in my opinion, is most definitely better spent out exploring the ports.

Time to sail away with my boy (Brett and Penelope were back at the Oceaneer’s open house)…

We all found ourselves back on deck 4 for some shuffleboard (AND THESE VIEWS!) before dinner.

Dinner was in Tiana’s, which was lovely. But the highlight was slipping out a few minutes early and happening upon Louis in the hallway.

None of us saw the sailaway show, as Penelope was already living it up in the kids club, Brett was in the hot tub and Lucas and I had the foosball tables to ourselves. It felt like an empty ship!

Day 02: At Sea

I’m going to shock all of you who know me… I don’t have a single photo from the second day of our cruise (insert brain exploding emoji here!). Honest. There are a couple of videos of us living it up at the family silent DJ dance party, but that is it. It was very foggy (couldn’t see past your hand if you held it out) and it rained the entire day. If I’d known I was going to do a trip report I would’ve taken some photos, but I was too busy enjoying the day.

Coming up: The famed Glacier Day!