Day 2, Monday April 24, Sea Day, Part II
Music Recommendation: “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress”
After brunch, we put on our swimsuits and headed for the RainForest room. I’ve heard various accounts, of whether or not the fragrant body scrubs that they provide for use in the RainForest Room are an up-charge or not. I can’t say what they’ve done in the past, but on this cruise, we were offered a body scrub each time we visited without any additional charge. The RainForest room is great. We enjoyed it each time we went. However, as many reviews have already pointed out, if you’ve been to the RainForest rooms on the Dream or the Fantasy, the experience on the Wonder will probably be a little bit of a let-down for you. The biggest difference is that on the Dream and on the Fantasy, the heated ceramic tile lounge chairs are in a room with floor to ceiling glass windows that afford an incredible view of the passing seascape. The RainForest room on the Magic and Wonder are completely enclosed; there are no windows. (“And consider this dismaying observation: This chamber has no windows and no doors, which offers you this chilling challenge: To find a way out! Bruhahahahahah”). Again, DW and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but when we were on the Fantasy for 7 days, I went ahead and sprung for a length of cruise pass for each of us. We really like kicking back on heated ceramic lounge chairs, taking in that incredible view. This time, we only purchased 5 days, even though it was a 14 day cruise. The price is the same for both ships, so the perceived value is not same on the Wonder.
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Another observation regarding our RainForest experience this time: There were not many people using the facility the first week of the cruise. I think we went twice that first week, and we never had to wait for a heated lounge chair or for one of the funky tropical showers. That made the experience that much more enjoyable. However during the second week, people probably began to realize that the passes they had purchased online were going to expire with no trade-in value. The RainForest room was exponentially more crowded each day closer to the end of the cruise. We did find that if we went early, right after it opened (8:00 am?) we could get in a good hour of solitude before others started wandering in.
After a solid hour on the heated lounge chairs (no one was waiting), we headed back to the room for some balcony time. Somehow, the path to our room involved a stop at the beverage station, and then a quick trip to the soft serve. Here’s DW enjoying her new coffee float addiction:
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To be fair, she tried (tried!) to limit herself to only one of these coffee concoctions each afternoon.
We spent an hour or so hanging out on our balcony. DW was glued to her Kindle, reading the latest teenage vampire romance novel (of which there are hundreds, I’m quite sure), and I caught up on my review notes.
Soon, we headed back to the gym for our afternoon workout. DW was determined to get a class in, even if it wasn’t the Spin class she had originally hoped for. As she assembled with the other Pilates participants in the front/center area of the gym, I got on an elliptical machine near the back of the room. There are several ellipticals in the front row, right up against the windows, all of which offer a fantastic view forward, but this time I preferred to be in back, so I could watch how the Pilates class progressed.
DW said that the Pilates class was good, not great. DW is pretty hard-core when it comes to these exercise classes, and I think that this was more of a “cruise ship” Pilates class. She felt like it wasn’t as strenuous as the Pilates classes she takes at shore-side gyms. Also, the area where they were holding the class is not that big. I think the class was limited to 8 people. All 8 people were given exercise mats to put on the floor. But they were squeezed so tightly in to this little area that a couple of the exercise mats were over-lapping other people’s mats! Interestingly, on the next sea day (two days later), DW was able to get in to the Spin class, and her objective review is that it soundly rocked! She was drenched with sweat after the Spin class, and that became the class that she tried to attend each day, if it fit with our schedule.
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Here are some tips, and things to know about the gym:
· The gym is kind of small, but we never had a problem getting on a machine. There were always plenty available.
· The earlier you go, the fewer people there are using the gym. There appeared to be somewhat of a bubble right around 9:30am – 10:30am.
· You will sometimes see crew members using the gym too. The Assistant Cruise Director was in there one day while we were working out.
· The gym attendants are super friendly and helpful.
· They keep icy wash cloths handy, for wiping off after a hard workout.
· While some cruise lines charge extra for classes, neither the Pilates class nor the Spin class had an additional charge on Disney.
· If the classes are important to you, go to the gym as soon as you board and inquire as to when they put the sign-up sheets out. As soon as DW learned this trick, she got in all the classes she wanted to.
· For 7 night or longer cruises, you will definitely see lots of no-shows as the cruise progresses. Consequently, even if you don’t get a slot on the sign-up sheet, show up about 10 minutes before the class and let the instructor know that you’d like to join the class if there are any no-shows. We saw this strategy successfully executed several times.
· The locker rooms are very nice, and very convenient. The lockers all have programmable locks, similar to the room safes. You enter a 4 digit code to lock, and the same code to unlock.
· The showers in the locker rooms are extra big, and there are great spa quality soap and shampoo dispensers in each shower stall. I used these facilities to clean up several times during our cruise while DW was using the shower back in our room.
· The men’s locker room has a shaving station with disposable shavers and shaving gel. I also used that a couple of times.
I don’t have any pictures of the gym to share with you. I had my phone with me, but it just seemed a little too stalker creepy to start snapping photos while people were working out. I do however, have pictures from the men’s locker room! Because that’s not creepy at all! (Heh. No one was in there when I took these pictures):
Here are the lockers and a comfortable bench:
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Here is the shaving station:
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Here is the blow-drying station:
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And here is the hypodermic needle station. Wait, what?
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DW explained to me that with the proliferation of type 2 diabetes, there is a very real need for disposal repositories, like this one, so that folks aren’t just throwing their insulin needles into the trash can, where they can inadvertently poke through the plastic liner and stick the poor guy emptying the trash. Ok then! I’m onboard. Props to Disney for being proactive!
So what about the long cool woman in the black dress? Well, after we got our second workout of the day in, we hustled up to the room and got ready for the evening's activities. And as it happens, tonight was a formal night. I put on a suit. No big deal, I wear a suit all the time. But DW, she puts on this black dress and WOW! A long cool woman in a black dress, just a 5'9" beautiful tall!
Here she is with Goofy and one of the Disney characters:
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And here we are, waiting for the show to start. I know - It's mind boggling. This long tall woman loves every chin on my face!
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So lovely 
