The Disney Wonder began operation August 15, 1999.

The ship contains 875 staterooms and is virtually identical to its sister ship, the Disney Magic, with the exception of a few variations in restaurants and entertainment venues. Both contain areas designed exclusively for various age groups, including toddlers, young kids, teens, and adults.

They are the first in the industry to be designed and built from the keel up as family cruise liners, with the goal of accommodating parents and children. Unlike most ships of their type, they do not include casinos.

Unlike most ship's horns, which have a single or two-tone sound, the horns on both Disney ships play a seven-note melody from When You Wish Upon a Star, in addition to the traditional horn.

From the outside, the Wonder is a sleek ship, with a dark blue hull, two matching red funnels and yellow insignias encircling the ship (Mickey's colors). The decor inside is elegant art nouveau. This ship proves that "elegant" and "family friendly" don't have to be mutually exclusive.

The Wonder was refurbished in October 2004. Three new areas were added to the ship -- Cove Cafe, Diversions, and Aloft. Cove Cafe is an adults-only coffee bar; it's a great space for relaxing on comfortable couches, watching TV, checking email, or reading one of the many magazines on the shelves. Diversions is a pub-style sports bar. Aloft is a new space for teens.

Dining

There are three main restaurants on the Wonder, and every guest dines in each of them at least once (on the four-night cruise you return to your first restaurant for a second time). Your dining tickets will be waiting for you in your stateroom indicating your dining time (6 or 8:30pm), table number and restaurant rotation. Your table number, dining companions and servers remain the same throughout.

There are three main dining venues on the Disney Wonder -- Triton's, Animator's Palate, and Parrot Cay.

Triton's is an upscale French style dining experience that is graced with stained glass walls and a shimmering tiled wall depicting a scene from the Little Mermaid.

Animator's Palate starts out in stark black and white, but during the course of dinner, changes slowly into a room filled with color. At one point, near the end of the meal, the various screens around the restaurant come alive with Disney animations past and present. When the waiters reappear to take dessert orders, their black vests have been replaced with brightly-colored ones.

Parrot Cay offers a Caribbean-themed multi-sensory experience, with birds chirping in the background, and bold tropical colors, including the oversized green porthole windows. We visited for lunch one day and discovered a delicious seafood lunch buffet, and a much better salad bar than we'd found upstairs at Beach Blanket Buffet.

Palo, the adult-only restaurant, is an open-kitchen dining room with espresso bar, wine cellar and sweeping ocean views. It is inspired by the Italian birthplace of the ship. The restaurant is open for dinner (and for Champagne Brunch during the "at sea" day on a four-night cruise); both require reservations, which should be made as soon as you board the ship. The food and service here is worth so much more than the $10 per-person charge.

Entertainment

The main entertainment facility is the Walt Disney Theatre. This venue has comfortable seating, unobstructed views from almost anywhere, and is home to some of the best production at sea. Other productions include "Disney Dreams," and "Hercules -- The Musical."

For interactive entertainment, Studio Sea offers scavenger hunts, family karaoke and game shows like "Walk the Plank". Buena Vista Theatre features current Disney G-rated releases throughout the day and adult-oriented movies from its subsidiary film studios in the evening.

Down on Route 66, a variety of games are hosted in Diversions from "Who's the Boss" (a battle of the sexes) to sports trivia contests. The Cadillac Lounge hosts piano and vocal favorites while G-rated is home to everything from adult cabaret to 70's and 80's dance parties.

Recreation

The pool area consists of three age-specific swimming pools and a 200-foot-long Mickey Mouse-themed water slide. The Mickey's Pool is for the younger set. Family-friendly Goofy's Pool is four-feet deep, with two whirlpools adjacent, and right in front of the main outdoor stage. Quiet Cove is the adults-only pool and is definitely quiet compared to the rest of the pool deck. The area is surrounded by two large hot tubs, an outdoor bar, and the adult-only Cafe Cove where you can get frozen coffee drinks to sip by the pool.

There is a basketball court on deck 10 as well as a volleyball area.

Deck 4 promenade is the place for running (three laps equal one mile), or relaxing on cushioned lounge chairs that you won't find up on the pool deck.

The Vista Spa & Salon offers an assortment of massages, facials, and self-improvement treatments, a circular Tuscan-themed (co-ed) aromatherapy area with a fountain in the center, and steam rooms, dry saunas and tropical rain showers. They also sport a Chakra Balancing Capsule -- 25 minutes of rest in this aromatherapy space-age capsule is supposed to be worth two hours of sleep.

There is also a modestly sized fitness room that is equipped with weight machines, cycles, balance balls, mats, and several treadmills that overlook the bridge and have televisions above. The front desk provides headsets for you to use while listening to the televisions. Also, yoga, Pilates and cardio kick boxing classes are offered in the exercise studio.

Kids

As for the children's programs, Disney offers programming for babies as young as 12 weeks to teens, with a few advantages like pagers for parents (with text-messaging so pre-teens and teens can let parents know where they'll be), continuation of program activities on Castaway Cay and flexible age groupings.

Flounder's Reef Nursery is designed for babies and toddlers. Head to the nursery as soon as you board and decide what time slots you'd like, they go quickly. The fee is $6 per hour ($5 per hour for each additional child), and you must cancel four hours in advance if you decide not to bring your child.

Oceaneer Club (Ages 3 - 7) A separate schedule of events is planned for ages 3 - 4 and 5 - 7 with some overlap during the day. Activities vary from the Jr. Chef Experience, where kids get to make their own chocolate chip cookies, to Animation Antics, where they learn to draw their favorite Disney characters or make up new ones. There is plenty of run-around time on the enormous indoor pirate ship, complete with slides, tunnels, and climbing areas.

Oceaneer Lab (Ages 8 - 12) The Lab plans for ages 8-9 and 10-12, with some overlap. In addition to bridge tours, "Pajamarama" pizza parties, computer and Playstation2 time, and movie outings, the Lab offers kids a chance to perform amazing feats of strength using basic physics, including immobilizing others with one finger, and removing a tablecloth from the dinner table without disturbing the dishes (part of Hercules' Feats of Strength program). In Goofy's Files, they learn about the world of forensics as they try to identify people by viewing hair, clothing fibers, fingerprints and handwriting samples.

Aloft (Ages 13 - 17) This brand new area for teens is a cross between a college dorm and a coffee shop with lots of overstuffed couches and chairs. Aloft includes the latest video games, MP3 listening stations, board games and magazines, plus a bar that dispenses soft drinks and smoothies. In addition, there are several planned activities tailored to younger teens, along with events for the entire group, like the Funnel Fusion Dance Party.