Wonder of the Seas
Like her sister ships in the Oasis class, Wonder of the Seas has some pretty spectacular shows including an ice skating show in the onboard ice arena and a fast-paced dancing and diving show with some very high dives into a tiny pool at the AquaTheater. There are also more standard type cruise ship shows in the main theater and comedy club.
ICE SHOW
spring at the ice show
The ice-skating show on Wonder of the Seas is called Ice Spectacular 365. Scenery and costumes cover the changing seasons over the course of a year. The show starts with a depiction of spring including butterflies and flowers in both the scenery and the light effects on the ice. Skaters dressed in bright colors perform to cheerful music.
summer at the ice show
Throughout the show it changes to summer, fall, and winter. The tone of the music changes from one season to another as well. Performances are sometimes large groups of skaters, sometimes pairs, and sometimes individuals as one would expect in a skating show.
bikes on the ice
This one also had a few different things like a trio with one girl and two guys who would sometimes pass her to one another above ground. The pairs weren’t always the typical one guy and one girl either as there were a couple numbers with two guys and one with two girls. One number included bikes with light-up wheels.
aerialist on ice skates
There was also an aerialist skater. Reservations are required to assure a seat for this show, but it doesn’t cost anything to make them. Making reservations as soon as possible after boarding is the best way to make sure you get into the shows you want to see before they get all booked up.
winter at the ice show
Reservations just get you in the door though, they don’t give you any particular seat so it pays to get there early if you want the best seat choices. For the ice show the end opposite the wall with the scenery gives you a better view than the seating on the other two sides.
WATER SHOW
high wire
The water show, called inTENse almost didn’t happen the night we booked it due to waves high enough to slosh water out of the pool. The captain was able to change course to calmer seas so the show started just a bit late. People with reservations for the late show that day weren’t so lucky – rough water cancelled their show. They give the excuse that when water sloshes back and forth there may not be enough depth to land the highest dives safely and that people would be disappointed if they didn’t get to see the entire show, but since there’s only a couple dives from the highest point at the end of the show there’s not that much to miss. Personally I’d rather see part of the show than have it cancelled entirely and would guess a lot of other people feel the same way. Whether anything else would actually be affected and the high dives just take all the blame or if that’s really the only thing they couldn’t do only the ship people know for sure. If it’s too rough or windy the high wire act might not be a go either, but that was just a small bit at the beginning and again not a major part of the show. Dancing and dives from lower areas are the majority of the performances.
dancing in the water fountain
The cast was nearly all female. Just one person walked across the highwire at the very start so we weren’t sure if it was too windy up there for anything else or that was all this show has of that the first night we watched it. The Hiro show on Symphony had a lot more going on with the highwire. When we saw the show again later in the cruise it was again just that one walk across the highwire s0 apparently it’s just not a big part of that particular show. We thought the person up there was male one time and female the other so it looked like it was not always the same person.
there’s a lot going on in this fast-paced show
The show had a lot of divers and dancers and sometimes a water fountain around the pool. The pool itself changes depth from no water at all to 13 feet deep for the high dives. The bottom goes up and down throughout the show, independently on either side or the middle so any of them could be deep, shallow, or no water at any time.
light sabers?
There were some synchronized swimmers who would sometimes perform with just their legs sticking up from the water. A lot of the diving was either from the edge of the pool or the lowest platform, but there were some dives from the middle platform and the two at the end from way up at the very the top, one person on each side.
bouncers
A duo with the one male cast member and one of the females did some tricks on bouncy ropes strung across the pool area during one part of the show. They each had their own separate rope.
aerialist
There were also several aerialists on various different apparatus, or it could have been the same person on a variety of different things. It doesn’t cost anything to see this show, but reservations are recommended to assure getting in. Once everyone with a reservation is seated they start letting in people without reservations until the theater is full.
aerial drummer
more drums up high in the theater structure
For a different (we thought better) view of the show there are platforms at the bottom of the rock-climbing walls that can be accessed through doors at the end of the corridor where the staterooms are on deck 7, or from a stairway up from the track on deck 5 – no reservation needed. There’s not a whole lot of space there, but it’s a great view for a few people and you can get there before the theater opens since going through the theater is not required to get to the platform. The side we went to even had a few chairs.
view of fountain dancers from the rock wall platform
Although we’d already seen the show from the theater seating one night, we watched it from the rock wall platform another day. Besides being a different perspective, we could see things you couldn’t see from the stands.
another dance seen from the rock wall platform
The app wouldn’t let us book the show a second time so that was a good way to see another performance without having to vulture our way in by waiting to see if there was any space left after everyone with reservations got seated.
THEATER
waiting for the show to start
We went to one theater show, called Tap Factory. We overheard other passengers raving about how good the show was and that they wanted to see it again before we went so obviously our opinion of it doesn’t reflect everybody’s. There were some talented performers, but the show portrayed the main characters as a doofus janitor and drunken factory worker, neither of which would fly for long in real life.
barrel drums and stunts
The setting included metal storage racking and a lot of barrels which were used as drums. There was also an actual set of drums, which is not something likely to be found in any factory unless that factory made musical instruments. The only other prop was a ladder. The background was all virtual, which changed to different factory settings throughout the show.
a ladder becomes an instrument
The janitor was a contortionist who was so good at it that he pretty much creeped out everyone in the audience to the point where at times most people just had to look away. The rest of the cast tap danced and played drums on the barrels and ladder. Everyone in the main cast except the janitor wore overalls, some of which were hanging half off with only one strap fastened, which is not what actual factory workers usually wear. Perhaps it’s not the intent of the show, but it gave off the vibe of making fun of blue-collar workers, which we both were in years past.
pole dancing aerialist
The best part was the pole dancer, which probably wasn’t actually supposed to be a pole dancer, but rather an aerialist – a guy on a pole hanging from the ceiling rather than rooted in the ground. This show looked to be where all the male dancers went.
COMEDY
comedian
There’s a little comedy theater called the Attic near the skating rink. It has shows with 2 comedians who perform one at a time on a tiny stage. It’s adult shows. The two on our cruise had jokes that were not totally clean, but not horribly dirty either. Like most comedy shows, people who are easily offended shouldn’t go. For some reason comedians on any ship that’s not Carnival like to portray people who sail with Carnival as a bunch of dirtbags even though there’s probably plenty of people in any cruise ship audience who have taken Carnival cruises. One of the comedians at the show we saw did that for about half of his set. The other guy was better.
high dive from the top of the AquaTheater structure at the end of the show
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