However, Landon needed to work that morning. The Internet on the Wonder had been spotty while we were at sea, and he hadn't been able to log onto the VPN that he needed for work. We initially thought we would need to head ashore and find WiFi, but it turned out that the Internet was functioning fine on the ship that morning. He thought it would be best if he stayed on the ship to take advantage of the now working Internet. He could catch up with us later, or just meet up with us when we return to the ship.

Rachel, Aaron, and I had all been to Cabo San Lucas before. We weren't thrilled about taking a tender boat into port. We also figured that we'd be spending more money on transportation, beach chairs, and alcohol than we would on the ship. So, we determined that we would rather stay on the ship while it was in port and treat it like a sea day.


Time to start drinking! Pina Colada is a breakfast drink, right? Rachel ordered a Pina Colada from Signals, and myself and several other passengers followed her lead. They just looked so good! Aaron joked that the bartender must hate her for starting the frozen drink trend and keeping him on the blender all morning.





I forget what this was labeled, but this was my appetizer. Salami and olives - can't go wrong!


Aaron's entree was the Lemon Walnut Pesto Pasta, and I was jealous. It had marscapone cheese and was quite delicious -


I got the salmon. It was good, but I really should have gone with the pasta. Add this to my "wish I did" list.


A few more Halloween Atrium photos:


Ariel is the Atrium statue on the Disney Wonder. They redid the Atrium with the most recent refurb to remove the double staircase and reduce to single. I'm sure it helps with flow, but I think the double staircase felt a little more grand.


Landon had mostly finished working for the day, so we headed out to Deck 4 to take in the views.

And we had a sea turtle sighting!


This party boat was bumpin'. Maybe next time we're in Cabo, we should look into booking some sort of party boat or catamaran.



Here's a better glimpse at Medano Beach -



And more sea turtles!





The tender boat came very close to the sea turtle, and we all started yelling at them to watch out for the turtle. Crisis averted!



It was while we were on Deck 4 that we heard from another passenger that there would be fireworks tonight. They were on the schedule for the next night, but she clarified with guest services that they would be showing fireworks two nights - tonight and tomorrow (possibly an attempt to reduce crowds?).






We decided to go ahead and get dressed for dinner. And had a Donald sighting! So cute!


Landon and Rachel had a window table in Crown & Fin, but Aaron and I were running late, so they gave it up shortly before we arrived..... then realized it would have been a great place to sit and watch us sail away.

Instead, we grabbed drinks and headed back out to Deck 4.


It was a gorgeous (but hot!!!) sail away!









That evening, we went to watch the second show in the theater for our sailing, Disney Dreams: An Enchanted Classic. This is one of the shows where they tie together musical numbers from different films loosely through a narrative about magic and wishes. The set is Anne Marie's bedroom. It is the night before Anne Marie's first day of Middle School, and she can't get enough screen time. Her mom takes her iPad away so she'll go to bed. She's nervous about school tomorrow, so she wishes on a star, even though she doesn't know if she still believes in magic, and wishes for.... a good day of school? I'm not sure. Half of the wish is about how she doesn't know if magic is really real or if she's wasting her time. Then she goes to bed, and Peter Pan shows up and starts terrorizing her... I mean making her believe in magic. Jump out the window, Anne Marie - you can fly! Should this come with a disclaimer that Anne Marie is wearing wires and a warning not to try this at home?

The story is silly. We get that. But what is AWFUL is the child voice of the actor who plays Anne Marie. It's so shrill! My ears were bleeding. And she sang every single song in that child voice. I bet her natural singing voice is pretty high.... not sure if it's necessary to sing in falsetto if you're an actress tiny enough to play a child. Also, someone please get Anne Marie some cuter pajamas.... perhaps a matching set? If she wants to fit in at Middle School, she could start by ditching that oversized Tinkerbell face shirt. Seriously, did costuming grab that in a size XXL from the gift shop?

The best number was The Circle of Life. The dancers were very skilled, and there was no Anne Marie because she was getting a wardrobe change (praise!) for the finale.

The cast seemed pretty new at this performance. There was a high kick line, and someone was on the wrong leg. There were times during the musical numbers where someone looked out of place or unsure. I think this is okay because it was probably their first performance of this show to (not paying) guests, and I hope it allowed them to see the parts that required more rehearsal. But I was a little surprised given how solidly they performed Frozen.

Before dinner, we headed back to Crown & Fin to play an 80s Trivia Game that Aaron was interested in. And.... it seemed as if all of a sudden, social distancing was no longer a requirement. On the first two days of the cruise, they had ever other table blocked off with signage. Tonight.... go ahead and sit where you want. The activities director was encouraging us to pack in. We had a few theories on why this was.... it's the adult-only area and all adults are vaccinated... or they've been testing and adjusting and they realized they needed more seating for all of the adults on this cruise who came to party.... or maybe we left Cabo now, so restrictions were loosened? Who knows - we weren't mad about it, just curious about the change.

Dinner that night was at Animator's, and it was the Pirate Night menu. We did not know that there was going to be a Pirate Night on our Test Cruise, so we didn't pack our pirate outfits!

To be honest, this is my least favorite menu. Rachel agrees....


Mr. Smee's Lettuce Salad is indeed a salad with lettuce....


Caribbean Style Conch Chowder. DCL has good soups -


I ordered Captain Hook's Macadamia Dusted Mahi Mahi. I do wonder how they decide to associate characters with dishes. Like what about Smee screams "lettuce!" and how is Captain Hook associated with Mahi Mahi?


Aaron had both The Dutchmen's Dijon Crusted Sirloin of Beef -


And the Treasure-of-the-Seas Grilled Shrimp and Seared Scallops -


The dining room team was dressed in their Pirate Night attire and did a conga line around the dining room. Our serving team encouraged us to go to the fireworks that evening.



For dessert, the Crunch Time Sundae -


Aaron got the Fruit Cobbler. No cute pirate name, just Fruit Cobbler -


After dinner, we headed up to the pool deck for the fireworks. We were first directed by a cast member to go forward and see his friend who would seat us. We thought awesome, this is going to be great. Well, his buddy wanted to seat us at a table away from the window with a deck overhead. We knew that we wouldn't be seeing any fireworks from this spot, so we abandoned it and walked upstairs to deck 10 and quickly grabbed a spot at an empty table. I think another cast member was in the process of seating a family there, and they just sat at the table with us.... but I'm pretty sure they were trying to keep all parties separated. Other parties had dots to stand on in an attempt to social distance. It all worked out, though, and we had a good view of the fireworks..... which we definitely wouldn't have seen if we had stayed where we were originally seated.

Here's a few handheld shots -



After the fireworks, we headed to Azure for the Match Your Mate gameshow. This is DCL's version of the newlywed game. All cruise lines do a version of this gameshow where they have couples at different stages of marriage (newlyweds, longest married couple, and somewhere in the middle). Other cruise lines typically recruit couples of men and women to join and have stereotypical gendered "audition" strategies (I'm looking at you, RCCL.... "Me Tarzan, You Jane!"). However, in my memory, DCL has always been pretty open about who can play the game and don't recruit specifically married couples to play. A large demographic onboard this cruise was LGBTQ. So I made a bet on Day 1 of the cruise that a gay couple would play Match Your Mate.

Well, we had not just one, but two gay couples! The longest together couple (in the suits) and the somewhere in the middle couple (striped shirt also happens to be my coworker) -


And the shortest time together couple (not married) was 8 months, and they were pretty hilarious.



My coworker and his husband won! This was the most fun Match Your Mate (or version of) I've seen in years, and it probably has to do with the overall vibe of the passengers.

After the show, we were kicked out of Azure and all headed back to our rooms to order room service. Actually, Aaron and I immediately went to bed, but Rachel and Landon had to wait over half an hour to get through on the phone, and then were given an hour and a half wait time for delivery. They said the wait wasn't really that long, probably more around 45 minutes. I do think this is a very unusual demographic of cruise passengers, and the influx of drunk adults ordering room service at midnight will probably not be an issue on typical DCL sailings.