After lunch we headed up to Deck 11 to walk around some. We had already forgotten how hot and humid it was, as soon as we stepped off the elevator it hit us! We stayed in the shade, and around 1:25 we walked through Cabana's to the Aft elevators. We walked down to Deck 10, where we waited just a few minutes until the rope dropped and we could check out our room.
The Room
As I've mentioned before, we were in a Cat 4A, deluxe family oceanview with verandah. On the Dream in November we were in a 5C. The difference in size is quite noticable, and the 4A rooms also have twice as many drawers and cabinets as the 5C. This allowed me to neatly unpack and store everything we needed without it being crammed in.
Here is the room, complete with our
Castaway Club gift!
Checking out the Verandah:
On Deck 7 the area above the Verandah doesn't bump out like this, so you have a "larger" view, but we will happily take a larger room over the larger view!
My son demonstrates how much room is under the bed. We were able to easily store all of our suitcases, bags and his folded up MacLaren stroller, and he still had room to crawl underneath when he wanted!
Everyone has seen pictures of the split bathrooms, but here are mine.
My son LOVED taking baths in the round tub with the handheld shower. Every night when we went back to the room he would ask to take a "shower bath".
Checking out the Ship, and a Drink of the Day!
It was naptime for our son, so my husband stayed in the room while I walked around exploring the ship. I found a drink of the day and settled down in the quiet cove area for a while. The family pools were packed, but the quiet cove/adult area was almost empty.
Just before 3 I headed towards the Vista Cafe to meet my fellow DISers! It was great to put faces and voices to the names and have a chance to talk with many of you! Definitely attend the meetup on your cruise if you can. We would run into eachother throughout the week and it was so nice to "know" some people.
Muster Drill
After the meetup I headed back to the room to get my husband and son ready for the muster drill. All of our luggage was waiting outside the door, so I quickly unpacked as much as I could before we had to go. On the dream our station was in the Buena Vista theater, so we were seated in air conditioning. This time we were packed like sweaty sardines on Deck 4, with frequent reminders to pack even closer together. It seemed like a lot of people were late, and we stood there sweating on eachother for a LONG time. (Please don't be late to these drills -the sooner we all get there the sooner we all get done!) When the drill ended there were a couple thousand people trying to get somewhere, so we ended up going up a crew stairwell to Vibe (I have no idea how we did that).
Vibe
Vibe was having an open house, so we decided to check it out for a while. This has got to be the coolest place on the ship. Every adult man in there wanted to stay and play video games and lounge around. One teenaged boy walked through and very nastily asked "What are all of these
adults doing in here" as though we were contaminating the space with our uncool. They need to build another Vibe for adults.
Or turn the smoothie bar into a bar bar and have an over-21 open house one night.
Nursery/Oceaneer's Club
We asked our son if he wanted to go to the sail away party or check out the kids club and he voted for the Kids Club so off we went! We checked out the It's A Small World Nursery first, where he was ready to play! I made a one hour reservation for him for the following day. The staff seemed great, and I felt pretty comfortable about it. We never tried to leave him on the Dream, so this would be a first!
After that we headed into the Oceaneer's Club, where they were also having an open house. If you have kids definitely check out the open house hours whenever you can! There will be other kids to play with, and the CMs organize activities and really interact with the kids to make sure they are having fun. Several open houses included characters and dance parties, etc, so it's a fun way to get them moving and burn off some of the excited energy!
Magic dance floor:
Andy's Room:
Sail Away:
We finally broke away from the Kids Clubs and headed up to the Sail Away party, which was already underway. We saw a few songs and dances, counted down, heard that wonderful horn, and said goodbye to Port Canaveral! We had a better view of the stage than we did on the Dream, and I was really impressed by the energy of the CMs and characters. It was HOT under that sun but they were giving it all they had.
I have to admit, I got teary-eyed a couple of times as the horn blew and we sailed away and I knew the BEST VACATION EVER was just beginning.
My son is growing up so fast, and whenever I can I try to remind myself to live in the moment, and enjoy life with him, and through his eyes, and watching his excitement and delight as he took everything in... well, you know, it just gets to a Mama.
Up next: dinner at Royal Court and day one comes to an end.