Trip Report: January 9, 2019 Galveston to San Juan on the Disney Wonder

Trip Report: January 9, 2019 Galveston to San Juan on the Disney Wonder – Day 4

3/2/2020

It’s Port Day! We requested a wake up call from Mickey at 7:30. No one was quite ready to get up, but it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day!

We went to the concierge lounge and had breakfast.

We then headed to D lounge at 8:30 to go on our excursion. On our last cruise, we didn’t get off the ship at the port, only at Castaway Cay. Since this itinerary only had one port day and no one had ever been to Jamaica but me, we decided to go for it. The other families we went with chose different adventures. Two of the families did the Dolphin Encounter with Dunn’s River Falls (FA05) and one of them did the Deluxe Jewel Beach Break (FA68). If anyone has questions about those adventures, I would be happy to get more details for you! Our family chose a half day excursion and we wanted something that would let us see some of Jamaica. We ended up picking Rafting on the Martha Brae (FA01). They said we could bring sealed snacks but no fruit or veggies. We had grabbed some cereal and oranges from the lounge, so we left the oranges behind. There were a lot of people who were late, so we waited in the D lounge for quite a while. It was nice of them to wait on everyone, but our kids were getting antsy! We finally got off the ship and were on our bus at 9:15.

Atal was our driver and Laverne was our guide. She gave us a tour as we drove. We saw Usain Bolt’s school and a swamp that is in the James Bond movie Live and Let Die.

We stopped at the Trelawny Parish Church of St. Peter the Apostle that is over 200 years old. She told us Jamaica has the most churches per square mile than anywhere else. She also said they have over 150 rivers.

We randomly stopped at an ATM for someone else on the tour. We got to the Martha Brae at 10:30. We went to the bathrooms, which were relatively nice. We then had complimentary fruit punch. You could pay to add rum to it, but we didn’t.

We browsed the shops. Our kids picked out a few souvenirs. The shops only take cash. They handed out life jackets at 11and we were finally on our raft at 11:30. They said you are only supposed to be 2-3 on a raft at a time. When our rafter, Sheldon, arrived, there wasn’t another raft in sight and we were the last of our group. He said he could take us all, so all 5 of us got on the raft. It was nice to be all together! Sheldon was awesome. He pointed out the different trees and animals and answered all the boys questions. He even let them all get up and try the pole. The kids loved it. The raft ride is about 3 miles and so beautiful. We saw kids playing in the river.

The rafting was over and we were back on the bus by 12:45. They took us back to the port. The port in Jamaica is really lovely. Lots of cute shops. We leisurely walked through the port and then got back on the ship. We headed up to the concierge lounge for lunch.

We then went to the room and changed and we were at the pool by 2. It wasn’t very crowded at all! I am so glad we did a short excursion so we could all enjoy the weather and lower crowds on the ship. We played in the pool, had some snacks and ice cream cones.

We headed back to the room a little after 4 to shower and get ready for dinner.

It was pirate night!

We took the kids to eat at Animators Palate. Some of the adults had appetizers, but we did not. We were saving ourselves for later!

We then took all the kids to Oceaneer club because we had a reservation at Palo at 8 and we all needed to change clothes. Pirate attire does not follow the Palo dress code. The food was great, but the service was very slow. We asked if we could be done by 9:45 so we could see the fireworks and they said this was possible. But they didn’t make it happen. We missed it, so the kids missed it too. We were all a little disappointed.