mindelmouse
Rabid Disnoid's Spouse
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2008
hold for day 2 Barcelona and embarkation: June 15, 2013! The day I've waited 499 days for! Embarkation day shirts for 8 people made and ready to go! What a picture that will be...
The plan: Nothing specific, and as we're on our own to get to the port, we'll play it by ear. Taxi!
Suggested dinner attire: Cruise Casual
Menu: "Let the Magic Begin"
Dressed and ready to go to the port in my shirt! We saw another couple at Starbucks who were dressed in matching DCL shirts!!!
Updated 6/28/13:
To say I'm a bit behind on this is a bit of an understatement!!At no one time the whole cruise did I have either the time or the internet connection to be able to post updates. So here I am, sitting at the airport, waiting to go home
.
Embarkation day: We woke up plenty early enough....we got dressed and went out to the Starbucks that was literally across the street from our apartment in hopes of a cup of coffee and some breakfast. Sadly enough, it didn't open until 8am, but the good news was that it was 7:45....so we went for a walk. One of the reasons I was interested in this particular apartment was that it was around the corner from Casa Batillo. We stumbled upon it as we were killing time. Pictures will come later, but it was so odd yet graceful looking all at the same time. We also ran into a few other DCL cruisers....we could tell by their matching polo shirts. By this time, we had already showered and the 3 of us (dad was still sleeping) were wearing the embarkation day Mickey shirts, so we kind of stuck out like a sore thumb. Nothing says tourist like matching shirts.....
Breakfast acquired, we went back to the apartment to rout dad out of bed. The evening before we were all sooooooo tired. We had powered out the entire day....no naps! While dad got ready and had the breakfast we got him, DH and I headed out to look for a market to acquire water and wine. We found a little shop around the corner and bought 2 6-packs of 1.5L waters and 3 bottles of local-ish wine.....$15E. Yep. That's it. Remember.....nearly $45-50 to buy the case of water on the ship....plan ahead for luggage space and take it in your carry-ons. We also added in 4 little individual bottles to pour the water into for daily use.
Fluids acquired, luggage packed, taxi arranged for 10:30 and ready to go. Taxi on-time, got checked out and paid the nominal tax on our room ($2E, maybe?) in coins and we were off to the port to meet Mindy and fam. On our way, we got that first AWESOME view of the Magic...nothing can top that!! But as our luggage was taken away by the porter, I realized dad had failed to dress properly. In spite of the 3 of us wearing our shirts, he somehow did not clue into the fact that he wasn't wearing his. Of course, I didn't catch it either (insert frowny face here). So, while the embarkation day pic was good and we hid dad behind the crowd of us, you could still see his blue collar.
We on the other hand were up at 7:00 a.m (all except Haylee, who I had to wake up at 9)...I had returned to my hotel the night before, laid down on my bed at about 9:30 and it took every ounce of energy I had to get myself up and undressed. Needless to say I think I was out before everyone else. We had the kids shower before bed, and we showered in the morn. Jim went out for Starbucks, he picked up the wine and water the night before, at a nice little Romanian grocery across the street. He actually bought Romanian white wine. In all the activity, I actually forgot that today was my birthday until the kids started singing. We were all dressed in our proper attire (the Mickey shirts that Kim made for everyone). Minivan taxi picked us up at 10:30 and we made our way to the port. Shortly after we got online, Kim and family came driving up. So, I didn't realize that my camera was on movie mode (where my son had left it the day before when he was shooting at La Sagrada) so I was talking pictures, but they all came out in a movie...so here are pictures, door and all from day one.
On the topic of shirts, as we sat in the port building, we were approached by many who had recognized us by shirts alone !!!!!! It was very cool!
We had had so much in the way of build up for this cruise both here on the boards and on FB that we were abble to fill the downtime at the port with so much socializing! The port building: boring. Giant warehouse, that's about it. NO WIFI. Grr. While our check-in time was 1100-1130, we didn't actually board until about 1230-1300. Not really having any need to tinker with Palo or spa rezzies, we went to Parrot Cay for some lunch. I love the Magic, but I will not miss Parrot Cay after dry dock. It's still dark and dated. Food was fine...the usual buffet fare, but at least there was plenty for DD to choose from. She tried to be adventurous the previous evening, but their pasta was a bit off her liking, so she was hungry.
It wasn't quite time to head to our rooms after lunch, so Mindy and I went to the spa...we wanted to see if there was any chance to get the girl's hair done on formal night and to see what we could do with some of our preexisting reservations. We managed to get appointments for the girl's hair with some convincing (they were down a hairdresser for the length of the cruise....) but that was about all that we accomplished. at this point we were off to our rooms. Our party was in connecting rooms....2602 (us) and 2604 (dad). Port side, midship classification, but closer to aft elevators than midship ones. This room was backwards from previous rooms we stayed in, so it took a bit of adjusting. We unpacked what we could, as a few bags had arrived, but then we headed out to the Promenade Lounge for out meet and greet! I think we monopolized the entire space, frankly. There were at least 60 people there, at a minimum. It. Was. Awesome. The kids went to the side and played a bit, giving the adults time to socialize a bit. We got to get caught up on all the travel drama...it was crazy how many of us had travel issues. There were 2 sets of travelers who took the cake tho. I'd mention them here, but can't remember their DIS names. They know who they are, tho. One set took 43 hours to get from home to Barcelona. The arrived at the airport and went straight to the ship. Talk about nerve-wracking!!!
We actually had two cabins across the hall from each other. A navigator's veranda (which we hardly used except to take pictures upon entering a port - it felt too closed in for me) and an inside 7128/7129. We were aft a few doors away from the Deck 7 secret veranda. We got all our luggage before the group meet at 3 pm and were mostly unpacked by the time we got there. Even Jim's tuxedo had come. It was really fun meeting everyone. It was the biggest get together I had ever experienced and the fun part was that throughout the cruise most people really got along and made some new lifelong friends. I got to the sail away party late and couldn't find anyone but Kim's dad, Jerry and Jim bringing me a birthday drink. I also went down and place my Roaming Mickey Magnet on Kim's door to start his adventure.
..he wanted me to go in with him, but I just didn't want to. Here's some more pics
No dice she really wanted to do this. I was a bit nervous about driving in Barcelona traffic while tired from being up for over 24 hours but I did it. We were quite a site, 4 yellow cars leaving the garage. It was Sean and Sam, Kim and her dad, Me and Ashleigh and then Jim and Haylee. Well at the first traffic light, Sean went, followed by Kim and then I got a red light. Which would not have been a catastrophe in most situations, however my GPS/Tour Guide system didn't work. When the light turned green I proceeded and Sean and Kim are nowhere to be seen. I have no idea where they went and they assumed I would just follow the directions. I pulled over, Jim followed me and I told him the problem, at which point he told me he had the same problem until Haylee hit something and it worked. No such luck for me. So I was going to follow Jim until we found everyone because at this point we had made enough turns that I wasn't sure where the garage was to go back. 
and Jim would follow me...well we were fine for a bit but then we hit a round about and I got caught by a red light and again, Sean didn't wait...so I had no idea where he got off and again we were lost. I pulled over, Jim took the lead. After about 30 minutes he realized that the GPS was taking us back to MontJuic. So we pulled over so he could look at a map to get us back, since we were both riding with kids. He figured out where we should go and started off. Alas my car wouldn't start up again. Not knowing if Jim would realize I wasn't coming and if he did, if he could get back to me, I called the number that Kim had called me from and told them my predicament. They kept insisting that I tell them where the GPS last told me I was and they would come pick me up. They would not understand the fact that the GPS didn't work and I had no idea where I was. Finally Jim came running around the corner, (he had left Haylee and the car with a nice woman from Toronto that had stopped to ask about the car) and came and got my car started. 
. After asking how our ride was I said awful and the girl told me I should have come back and they might have been able to do something but since I had their car all day what were they supposed to do? REALLY!!!! I didn't want to have their car all day. I spend the entire d trying to get back to where I started. Now forgive me if I seem like I have no patience at this point, because I didn't. I was tired (up for over 24 hours), frustrated, scared and angry. It was not a time to give me more grief. I asked to speak with her manager who told me that there was nothing she could do. She had called the other location and after speaking with them asked why I didn't let them pick me up and informed me that my friends said that they had a wonderful time. I lost it. I told her that I was going to slam the company on Trip Advisor (which I did) and that she'd hear from my attorney (which she did 
Can't wait for more updates!
