Sat. 1/24…1st ones here!!
I don’t sleep well in hotel rooms. I never have and my night at the Country Inn and Suites is no different. I toss and turn until I get up at 5 am for an in-the-dark bathroom excursion. On my way back, I take a quick peek out the window and see a ship docked. I think it’s the Magic but I can’t be sure as it’s dark and there aren’t any lights on the ship.
I lie in bed for another hour and then give up and take a shower. Kevin wakes up shortly after that so I put the TV on low for him. Another peek out the window and now there’s a huge Carnival ship with lights looping along the top deck. Whatever ship I saw an hour ago is now blocked by this monstrosity.
Steph and Tom wake up and dress in the clothes we pulled out last night. Steph looks out the window and points out the Magic in the background behind the Carnival ship. So it was the Magic that I saw in the dark! Here’s the view from our room, regular and zoomed in on my camera:
We pack up the toothbrushes and everything we’ve used so far so that they’re ready to be checked at the port. We make our way down to breakfast. We grab the last open table that will seat more than four and dig in. There are eggs, bacon, fruit, and bagels and such. I get Kevin set up with a bagel and some cereal. Tommy is interested in a waffle so I head over to the waffle station and read the directions. I have only made hotel waffles once before and there must have been some kind of lemon extract in the batter b/c they were awful. I’m hoping these are better. I carefully follow the directions step-by-step. I pour, close, turn over and wait for the beep. The beep seems like it’s taking a long time and I start to worry. It will be embarrassing to burn a waffle in front of all these people. Luckily the thing beeps and I open up to a perfect waffle…I did it!! That was fun!! I make one more for me (which tastes great, no lemon flavor at all).
As I’m waiting and looking around for other things to have, a woman approaches me and asks, “are you Linda?” It startles me a little. You’d think my brain would register the fact that this is embarkation day and I’ve posted on the meet thread and perhaps someone would recognize my family. Nope. I’d make a terrible famous person. I meet disneykat and we chat while my waffle cooks. It never takes long to meet DIS families.
We finish breakfast and head back to the room. It’s too early to leave for the port but there’s nothing left to do. We take some pictures:
I break out the computer and do the facebook thing again. Chuck checks his email for work until 9:40 when I can’t take it any more. We get everything and everyone in the car and head to the port. Screams come from the back seat when we drive over the bridge. Isn’t it funny how everyone just loves that first view of the ship?
We drive up to traffic man standing in the middle of the road. Traffic man informs us that we are too early to enter the terminal area. He directs us to the right, into the parking lot where he says he’ll let us know when it’s time to enter. We drive in, tell the guy standing there what traffic man said, and drive to a parking spot right by the fence so we can watch to see when traffic man lets people in.
We sit and wait. We notice there are still a lot of people who just got off the ship waiting for transportation. This is surprising because here’s the time as we sit in the car:
With absolutely nothing else to do except listen to three kids ask, “when can we go in?” I snap another picture.
Finally we see that the traffic man lets a car drive in. Chuck starts the car at the same moment that traffic man puts his fingers in his mouth and whistles at us. I know he’s whistling at us because he waves his arms and points to us too! Our first wonderful Disney pampering moment!
We thank traffic man and drive across the street. We tell umbrella lady our name and she finds our reservation. Isn’t it always comforting when they find your name on their master list? Like you really do belong there!
We drive up to the luggage area and hop out of the car. A nice porter man greets us with a big smile and says we’re the first passengers of the day…woohoo! He starts to ask us if we’ve sailed before but he stops himself and says “oh yeah, I can see you’ve sailed before” as he looks at our suitcases. I ask him how can he tell. He points out two tiny identical white marks on our black suitcase and says their equipment used to leave these marks until they were replaced last year. Interesting.
Chuck hops back in the car to return it to Budget while the kids and I walk to the entrance. We go through security and up the escalator, except for Tommy who decides to race us up the stairs. Escalators are old hat by now apparently. I am not handed a boarding card at the top like last time so I make my way over to the
Castaway Club line. A CM there hands me Boarding card #2…woohoo!
There’s no line so I go immediately to an open counter to check in. I give in all my paperwork as the CM looks at our passports. He comments that we have to sign them. Oops. He asks if the kids know how to write their name in script. I tell him Kevin doesn’t so he tells me to sign his name and my name. Stephanie signs hers very carefully but Tommy doesn’t want to sign his until he gets to practice his m’s. He tends to miss the last hump on the m and he's never actually tried to write "Thomas" in script. I tell him we’ll practice on the ship (yeah, that never happened!).
We get our Key to the World Cards and our Castaway Club lanyards. He informs me that the cards will only unlock the door for the room the family member is registered in. It shouldn’t be a problem b/c we plan to keep the inside door between the rooms open at all times.
After we’re done checking in, I wait for them to open up the “upgrade” counter. We’re curious to see how much it costs to upgrade to a veranda room. The CM tells me it’s $500 per room and they don’t have any connecting verandas. It was $500 a few weeks ago when Jo at Small World Travel checked for me…not any cheaper at the port. I ask if there are any Cat. 6’s with an 11 across the hall and she tells me that every inside stateroom on the ship is filled. Wow. OK, we’ll stick with what we’ve got.
Once done there, we head over to the kids club line. We get called to a CM without waiting and I get my pager. She tells me which club each kid will be in and confirms that Tommy has sign-out privileges. I ask about moving him up into Ocean Quest and she says they probably won’t let him since he just turned 9 in December. She calls Kevin over and I hold my breath while she asks for his arm. He actually holds out his arm and lets her put the bracelet on him!! I’m standing there stunned, with my mouth open. I tell him how proud I am of him, how last time he wouldn’t even put it on and the CM gives me this look that says, “shut up Mom and don’t press your luck.” But I know it’s OK, he already let her do it.
Chuck meets up with us then and tells me how many DIS people he met on the shuttle. We head over to the model and he introduces me to Cyndi’s husband. Steph also finds Deanna, her email buddy, on the other side of the model. The two of them talk like they’ve known each other for years.
Here’s one of cool dude with his new shades:
We head outside to check out the ship up close. Here’s the entrance:
When we come back inside, we find out that Marie, et al. have arrived at the terminal. Chuck is sitting with their kids while the moms go wait on a line that is much longer at 11:15 than it was at 10:00. The kids are happy to meet up:
At this point I finally meet Cyndi after seeing only her husband for the last hour. Kevin is with me and as I’m talking, he’s complaining that he’s SOOO THIRSTY! Bad mommy moment…I made sure he had enough for breakfast but didn’t foresee the need to pack a drink. I tell him we’ll go searching for a water fountain but Cyndi hands me a water bottle for him! Thank you!!! This will not be the last time Cyndi saved me from myself this trip! After we chat some more, I head over to Marie who is now at the counter checking in. I check her KTTW card to make sure she has the same dining rotation and table number, which she does. Marie and Kristin head over to the “upgrade” line to see how much it is for Marie to change from her “cave” room. As I’m waiting with them, I hear the announcement for boarding card #2. Huh? Already? I had no idea they had started boarding.
I leave them, head over to Chuck who has slung all our carry-ons over his shoulder. We leave their kids with Florence (Kristin’s mom) and head over to the mouse ears. It’s complete chaos and Steph winds up in front of us by a number of people. I yell for her to wait but she doesn’t hear nor realize we’re not right behind her. I’m keeping an eye on her when a CM asks if we’ve gotten our pictures taken? Huh? He directs us out of the line to the side where cameras are set up like a mini-DMV for ID photos. Ugh, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to do this. But it only takes a minute and we’re on our way through the tunnel. [Now that I think about it, we never did see these photos anywhere. They weren’t on the computer when we got off and on at ports. I wonder what they do with them?]
I know we have to get to Rockin’ Bar D and change our Palo reservation but I just can’t walk past the embarkation photo. It’s not physically possible to skip this photo opportunity. We wait a short while for our turn and dump our stuff off to the side. We take one with all of us and then one with just the kids. I don’t like this shot at all but I still bought it! How can you not??
We arrive at the entrance and the CM there asks our name. I say it very clearly and they announce our arrival with 2 lines of CM’s cheering for us. Yeah for us!!!! Chuck is completely distracted by the number of lanyards in the lobby and asks the kids if they want to pin trade. Helloooo…Rockin’ Bar D, remember??
We leave pin trading for another time as I head around the corner. I’m unsure of myself that I’m heading in the right direction b/c no one else is around us. We see RBD right away and I walk in to a completely empty room. There are 3-4 CM’s but no passengers. I hesitate thinking maybe I’m not in the right place. I turn to the first CM sitting at the table and say “Palo?” and she points to a table across the room.
I tell the CM there that I think I have Palo brunch for Sunday and dinner Tuesday but I’m not positive b/c I didn’t write it down. She finds my reservation and I had remembered it correctly. I ask if I can move brunch to Thursday and she clicks a few keys and hands me 2 cards as a reservations reminder. Woohoo!!
I walk out of RBD and there still aren’t any other passengers there. It’s odd actually. For all you TourGuideMike people out there, we are definitely ZAGGING today!!
We take the midship elevators (Steph’s favorite) up to deck 9 for Topsiders. We take a quick look at the buffet offerings just to make sure and we don’t see them. See what? Chicken fingers of course. Chuck doesn’t even bother getting a tray and heads outside towards Pluto's. The server there informs Chuck that he is the first to arrive and my boys eat the very first chicken fingers served on the Jan. 24th sailing:
I heap my plate with shrimp and fill a soup bowl with cocktail sauce. I’m not messing around, this is vacation! We stuff ourselves sufficiently and the kids and I head to the bathroom to change into bathing suits (them, not me). When we come back in to Topsiders to get Chuck, we see Marie, et al. and the place is packed. We are ZAGGING and we are outahere!
We head over to the Mickey pool and the kids jump right in. It’s a bit cold but they don’t seem to care. Tommy has his eye on the slide but it’s not open yet. He’s still watching when the lifeguard removes the rope at the bottom. He jumps out of the pool and runs over to the stairs. The lifeguard opens the door and up he goes. I scramble in my bag for my camera and hurry my way over to the bottom of the slide. Made it in time!!
Steph had followed behind Tommy and the lifeguard measures her at the top! Lucky for her…she is one inch under the maximum height and is allowed to go down. We try to get Kevin to go with them but he doesn’t want to. We try to convince him that it won’t be this empty the entire rest of the week but he doesn’t want to. Ugh, I know he’ll like it, I wish he would just let himself try it and have fun!!
The kids stay in the pool until 1:35 and then we head to the rooms. It’s nice knowing exactly where we are going…home to “our” rooms! We unlock the door, walk in and an amazing thing happens. Chuck and I both voice our feelings the exact same way…the room feels so much bigger on first view than it did the last time. Last time we were struck by how tiny and confining the room felt. Today it seems perfectly normal…spacious in fact. Funny that.
We also see the beautiful beach bags on the beds along with a wrapped
DCL 8x10 picture frame from Small World Vacations. Yeah, gifts. We get 2
Castaway Cay bags that will come in handy this summer on the beach!
Six of our seven bags have already arrived and I start unpacking and organizing right away. Unfortunately the missing bag has my over-the-door-shoe-holder and all of the door magnets. Steph is dying to get the magnets on the door. I admit, I am too! But there’s nothing we can do about it except be patient.
Time flies by unpacking and soon it’s time for the DIS meet. We go to the Promenade Lounge and meet a few other families. Kevin keeps asking why we’re here talking to these people. It’s rude and embarrassing and I try to explain it to him. Finally I just tell him that these people are going to leave him gifts all week so he better be nice.
This is the moment where Cyndi saves me again. You see, there were so many things I forgot to print out and pack…one of them being the fish extender list. I have the room numbers on the bags but not organized in any way. So Cyndi shows up to the meet with deck plans and directions on the best way to deliver the FE stuff. When I say directions I mean, “use aft elevators to deck 8, turn right out of the elevator, make a left down the hall to room ____.” It is truly an incredible piece of work. And she has copies for everyone!!
The meet winds down so everyone can make it to the safety drill on time. Our missing bag is in the hallway waiting for us. We find our life preservers in the closet but we don’t have any child sizes. I remember posting the question as to what weight 32 kg. is in lbs. Of course I can’t remember the number. I just remember that Steph and Tommy need adult sizes and Kevin was going to be close. Well, since there aren’t any child ones here, it will be an adult size.
I get mine on and help Steph with hers. Chuck has the boys in the other room and I don’t hear any crying. I peek around the corner because I just can’t believe it. Tommy poses for a picture and here I have my proof…Kevin actually gets the life preserver on without complaining!!
And a smile? Is this my child??
And a mother/daughter one:
We head out the door to Animator’s Palate. Again it’s comforting to know exactly where we have to go and where it’s located. They mark us off on the list and sit us at a table and we wait. We listen to the announcements and listen to Kevin ask when we can leave. After trying to keep him from touching all the dishes under the tablecloth, they let us leave.
Up next…Let’s get this party started!!! Bonine, good good Bonine.