Day 1 - Embarkation
Lunch: Cabanas/Dinner: Royal Palace
This has got to be one of the smoothest embarkations we've had. We arrived at the port around 12:30. There was no line at all for dropping off bags. We like preferred parking so we pulled on through the gate, they checked our passports, and then I pulled my bags out of the car. Plenty of parking was available in preferred (I actually had the spot closest to the terminal).
No line upstairs for security at all. We brought on 12, 20oz Coke Zero's and 2 bottles of sparkling apple cider. No issues at all, went right through.
There was a short line for first time cruisers (only through the first isle) and no line for
Castaway Club members. We walked through, they handed us our health questionnaire, we finished it real quick and had our key to the world cards within less than 5 minutes of walking in the door.
It was open boarding already so we walked right on the ship, again no line. (They didn't have as many people clapping for you this time. Wasn't a problem, just a little disappointing.) We went up to Senses to adjust the time for our pedicures we had scheduled since it won't let you schedule a "couples" pedicure we had to go up there and have them adjust it so we were booked together. We were still a little early for the rooms to be ready so we hung out on deck 9 waiting for them to open the hallway. They opened it up promptly at 1:30 on the dot.
We were in room 9602, a deluxe family ocean view with veranda. We like category 04A mainly for the little bit of extra space and the round shower with the rainfall shower head. My wife had ordered me the nautical character decorations and it was super cute. It includes 5 hanging items, a beach towel, window cling of Captain Mickey, and a magnet. The room was just fine and I liked the location as it was about right in the middle of the aft and midship elevators.
I did a recording of our room if anyone wants to watch the tour:
After dropping off our carryon items we headed up to Cabanas for lunch. Plenty of seating available (at around 2:00PM) and the food was fresh and tasty as always.
After lunch we headed back down to our room and our luggage was already there. We just hung out for a bit lounging around until it was time for the muster drill. I did record the muster drill as I know a lot of people always ask what it's like. I will get that posted as soon as I get a moment to edit the video.
We headed straight up to deck 11 for the sailing away party after the muster drill. The elevators are totally packed so either plan on waiting or just hoof it up the stairs (like we did this time). After the muster drill the Captain actually came on the intercom and was telling us all about what time we would leave, etc. which was the first time we've had that.
The Sailing Away party was good. We actually had practiced the dance moves to "Shut up and dance with me" that they do before the characters come out so the cruise staff member in front of us was shocked when we did the moves with him lol. It seemed like a pretty light crowd on this cruise. Not many people "participating" in the sail away party. As a matter of fact the cruise staff member asked us to conga because no one wanted to lol.
We were on the RAE dinner rotation (which we had requested). Our table was a 6 top. About 6:00 no one was sitting there besides us. Our assistant server told us that we had one other couple that was supposed to be sitting with us. Our server went ahead and took our order and started dinner service for us. Finally about 6:20 the other couple showed up. Our server was fantastic. He was one of those that wanted to make sure you were completely satisfied. If there was something you didn't eat all of he offered to get you something else if you didn't like that (even one time my wife didn't eat all of something and the assistant server took her plate but the server came out and made sure everything was ok). We both had the steak and it was hot and fresh. For desert we both absolutely love the soufflé and the Crème brûlée so we asked to have 2 soufflé's each and one creme brûlée to share between us and he got it for us and it was no problem at all.
After dinner we headed to the Golden Mickey's. I must say, the entertainment staff on this cruise was one of the best. They had a ton of energy and were top notch (not that the others have been bad, they just seemed incredible). The sound was also very good. Before I've had a little trouble hearing the vocals but this time was fantastic.
Our room host was awesome at towel animals. We had ordered a sparkling apple cider for our room and the ice had melted before dinner so he had also re-iced it down for us.
