Our cabin was 7119 - great location to the aft staircase. (I ended up taking the stairs the whole cruise, no elevator). But, because of the delay, the first night I just kept hearing all of the suitcases being unloaded next to me.
Usually I get seasick, so I brought PSI bands with me. Usually I wear them at night, but I was so exhausted I forgot to wear them. When we saw our family in the morning, I commented that I hadn't felt seasick all night, and my BIL informed me we just left the port - HA! We were in an inside cabin so didn't realize we hadn't left.
Saturday Jan 14th
Tinker Bell left my daughter princess gifts: a lanyard (for her pins), Princess themed necklace, magic pen book, and a tiny toy camera.
Snacks: if you have kids, I recommend bringing snacks with you (must be in packaging). These came in handy for the lines, ferry, and the fig bars were great for a small breakfast, which is what my daughter ate before our BBB appointment at 9:15am.
The girls were meeting the princesses at noon, but those repeat cruisers snagged all the mid-morning appointments, so the girls had appointments around 9am-10am. After the unexpected late night and the time change, it would have been nice to have them a little later.
We walked up to the 10th floor:
On our last trip to WDW, a friend convinced me to book a BBB appointment. It ended up being one of my daughter's favorite things we did! Our fairy godmother-in-training was an older woman, and she was incredible. My daughter also did the special photo shoot afterwards. The cruise experience was a lot different. It just didn't feel as magical. The ladies were nice enough, but they weren't as "involved" as our other FGIT. To be fair, my daughter was probably tired. She still enjoyed it, but the win goes to WDW.
Afterwards, my daughter and I were both hungry, so we went to Cabanas (along with everyone else that was just waking up for breakfast). Ugh - another long line, and this was just for food. It moved pretty quickly. We ate and got out of there. We were walking towards the atrium where I saw my sister in line for Goofy. The very end of the line. The cast member knew we were coming so he let us join her, but he was having to turn away a lot of people. Another difference from WDW - usually, you just wait for the next Goofy to come out. On the cruise, you miss the character, he/she might show up a couple of days later, but it might be the last time that character is available.
We were already in the atrium, and the Princess Gathering was coming up, so we decided to just hang out on the soft cushioned seats of deck 4 and wait. While looking over the railing, I noticed there were only three princesses: Cinderella, Belle, and Tiana. Ariel was not there. The girls didn't know who was going to be there, so I just made a big deal about the three that were there.
We went down to deck 3 and stood in line for 20 minutes, with tickets. And, we saw even more people turned away because they would get in line but didn't have tickets. Who spends thousands of dollars for a vacation and doesn't research the princesses if you have young children?
We had a FP+ for Ariel in WDW. We waited two minutes, and she spent a good deal of time with my daughter because she knew we used FP+. Now, Tiana is a win for the cruise. In 2010, I went to WDW and tried to meet her, but we were on the wrong side of the entrance, it was late, and we missed the cut-off. In 2013, we checked the line but it was too long. In 2015, we checked the line three different days (first time she was sick, and the other two were well over an hour wait). And since this is the first time meeting Tiana, I don't know how the others are, but this one was top notch. She was great all three times we saw her on the cruise.
If your kids are going to meet the characters, I recommend autograph books.