(i.e., Pete's stuff)

Pictures were taken with my old KODAK DC120 digital camera, the same one used in the "Magic" pages of a couple of years ago. It's an older unit, but has served well over the years. Unfortunately, I appear to have acquired an internal optical problem that caused some pretty severe blurring in the center and left/center of images (depending on lighting conditions). As a result, I have had to toss out about 1/4 of the pictures I had intended to use; even so, the blurring is evident on several pictures here. Looks like its time to get a new camera…

Digital originals were 1280x 960 pixels, and about 500KB JPG's coming from the camera. I shrank and compressed them for the web pages to 640x480 - this reduced size to about 40KB and gave a bit of sharpness improvement as well. In a handful of cases I did a bit of enhancement (typically to improve brightness or contrast) using Lview. I cropped a couple for effect. Pictures were stored on a Gateway laptop - a bigger drive allowed me to dispense with the portable Zip drive I used on Magic.

The cruise itself was very similar to the first one. The itinerary has been changed for the 4 day cruise to put the day at sea at the end. This turned out to be a good move, because hurricane damage to Castaway Cay forces the ship to back in now (allowing ramp access to some of the cargo needed to supply the island). Backing Wonder into her pier spot proved tricky in the cross current and wind. Despite the fancy navigational capabilities (check out the Magic pages for details) Captain Tom couldn't quite make it on day 3. Having the extra day allowed for a second chance, and missing this island would be a major loss.

We took an opportunity to watch a film in the Buena Vista theatre; we had a very enjoyable time watching "Toy Story 2" with a bunch of similarly inclined Disney fans. We enjoyed the deck party in Nassau (complete with fireworks shot from one of the funnels). We also had some fun in Studio Sea, a club/TV studio with family entertainment. Several of the events were family game shows based around Disney Trivia in which the whole family could take part.

Since this was our second Disney cruise, we made a special effort to get to some places we hadn't been before. This included all of the children's areas, including the new Flounder's Reef spot for infants. Adding this service now fills a hole for families with very young children; allowing parents to have some time to themselves (perhaps at Palo or the spa).

Unfortunately, Denise got a little carried away in this effort, and we spent part of the last night aboard in the medical facility (given the capabilities it seems inappropriate to call it 'sick bay'). Doctor Bob (from Germany with a sports medicine background) was super to us (I think this was off-hours for him). Looking around it seems they are ready for about anything - it looked like there were several hospital rooms (all fortunately empty).

Adding pictures to these pages is a bit difficult, since Magic and Wonder are virtually identical. At any given point it would be hard to tell which ship you are on with the following exceptions:

"Lumiere's" (Magic) becomes "Trition's" (Wonder) - this is the main (fancy) restaurant just behind the statue on deck 3. The décor goes from "Beauty and the Beast" to "The Little Mermaid" (a personal favorite); we found Triton's to be a tad less formal than Lumiere's.

The 3 adult entertainment spots change - instead of "Beat Street" (Magic), on Wonder you head for "Route 66". The clubs themselves are different as well - on Wonder you find "Wavebands", "Barrel of Laughs", and the "Cadillac Lounge"; all with décor to match.

The (glass?) sculpture hanging from the main lobby is a bit different, and some inside décor touches are different - including a 3-deck mural of the Little Mermaid near the midship stairs.

"Topsiders" buffet becomes "Beach Blanket" buffet; other than that decks 9 and 10 are identical.

On the stern, Donald and his nephew replace Goofy (Magic).

If the need the 'official' stuff, here's the little plaque that Fincantieri put on her. There is a similar one on Wonder.

Challenge for future cruisers: find where it is aboard either ship! (same place on both ships)

Oh yeah, and then there's the statue - Helmsman Mickey (Magic) gets the day off on Wonder…

We enjoyed ourselves again, and are now looking forward to a 7-day cruise next year back aboard Magic. Hope you had fun here, and let us know if you have any questions. Feel free to use or link any pictures here, just indicate they are copyright 2000 by Pete Williams.

Thanks for visiting!