jenbeloco
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2011
- Messages
- 34
Hi everyone! This is my first post, having just joined, and I wanted to share our experiences from the cruise we just took. I have really enjoyed reading all of the threads here and found them quite helpful so I thought perhaps I would share what we learned in the hopes that someone might find even one item of interest.
I will start by saying that this was our first ever cruise and the Dream exceeded all of our expectations.
We are a family of 3 (a 3-family as my DD refers to us). There is my DH, myself and the aforementioned DD, age 9. We just love Disney. My DH proposed to me on the balcony of Cinderella's castle, we honeymooned at Disney World, and have taken the DD twice ('07 and '10) before this trip. We also became DVC members in '10! Anyhow, here we go!
We left a cold and rainy Boston on the night before the cruise to temper the stress of getting to the boat on time. We stayed at the airport Hyatt, and had reserved a car service through Happy Limo for the morning of the cruise. Having spoken with a very knowledgeable woman at Happy, DH made arrangements for us to be picked up at 10:30. Our driver arrived at 10:15, although not in the van we had reserved, and off we went to the ship. As you approach Port Canaveral you can see the Dream towering over the horizon and your excitement just builds the closer you get. It is really something to see.
We arrived at the terminal around 11 and it was just lovely, all nautical looking and quite inviting. It is slightly chaotic on the sidewalk as there are people just looking to take your luggage and get it on the ship. All of them were extremely friendly and really helpful. They send you to the area where the first check-in takes place - a gate where there are two gatehouses manned by a single person each who looks at your documents and ensures you have your passports. Then you are allowed to enter the terminal. You pass through security with your carry-on baggage and go upstairs to check in. Once there, again, poorly marked and slightly confusing as you are expected to move forward and obtain the health declaration document stating that you are healthy enough to travel. What confuses this is that Mickey is there doing pics and there is a line for that as well so people are unsure which line to get into. Once you sign the health form it is off to check in. There were 3 areas for check-in: one for concierge level, one for the Castaway Club (repeat cruisers) and the other for the rest of us. As we approached, we were handed a card with our boarding group number. Knowing from these boards that 12 is not horrible, but not great either, I inquired as to whether this was the best they could do and was told yes, that was the lowest they had. It was obvious that, at least in the general check in section, the boarding pass number was determined solely by your arrival time at the terminal.
We waited in line as I grumbled about the semi high number, as I was doing the math at about 5-10 minutes per group so I deduced that we would not get on the ship for about 1-2 hours once boarding commenced. We approached the counter to check in and were greeted by the warm, friendly face of someone who happened to be from our neck of the woods. The DH, charmer that he is, chatted her up a little and she was just amazing. I had trouble printing the documents but had checked in online and she was able to find all of them for us with no trouble. We asked her what time boarding began and she told us close to noon and then inquired as to our boarding group. We showed her the card which she took, crossed out the 12 and replaced with a lower number and her initials. We were thrilled. Then off we went to check in the DD with the kid's club.
Now, I am sure you are asking, why, if she reads these boards like she says she does, did she go over to check in her DD? Well, the whole process above took about 15 minutes so we had about 45 minutes to kill so off we went. We got into what seemed like a very long line at the time, but it was moving so we stuck it out and chatted with some very nice people in front of us. The whole process took another 15 minutes - not bad at all. Let me tell you that given the chaos that takes place later in that club for the kids, you are probably better off to take care of it in the terminal, IF you arrive early and have time to kill.
We then went onto the observation deck to see the ship up close. What a beauty. We would have stayed outside longer, but this was also the smoking area which made it quite unpleasant to say the least.
When we went back in, everyone was gathered around the area where they let you onto the gangplank. Again, not as organized as it could have been, as once they called a group to board, it was like the sheep in the movie Babe where the pig is shepherding them all through the gate and they don't all fit at the same time. Some kind of a queuing system would be better. We were observing the cast members who let you on the boat as they had a stack of signs going up to boarding group 40. At last we boarded the ship...more on that next!
I will start by saying that this was our first ever cruise and the Dream exceeded all of our expectations.
We are a family of 3 (a 3-family as my DD refers to us). There is my DH, myself and the aforementioned DD, age 9. We just love Disney. My DH proposed to me on the balcony of Cinderella's castle, we honeymooned at Disney World, and have taken the DD twice ('07 and '10) before this trip. We also became DVC members in '10! Anyhow, here we go!
We left a cold and rainy Boston on the night before the cruise to temper the stress of getting to the boat on time. We stayed at the airport Hyatt, and had reserved a car service through Happy Limo for the morning of the cruise. Having spoken with a very knowledgeable woman at Happy, DH made arrangements for us to be picked up at 10:30. Our driver arrived at 10:15, although not in the van we had reserved, and off we went to the ship. As you approach Port Canaveral you can see the Dream towering over the horizon and your excitement just builds the closer you get. It is really something to see.
We arrived at the terminal around 11 and it was just lovely, all nautical looking and quite inviting. It is slightly chaotic on the sidewalk as there are people just looking to take your luggage and get it on the ship. All of them were extremely friendly and really helpful. They send you to the area where the first check-in takes place - a gate where there are two gatehouses manned by a single person each who looks at your documents and ensures you have your passports. Then you are allowed to enter the terminal. You pass through security with your carry-on baggage and go upstairs to check in. Once there, again, poorly marked and slightly confusing as you are expected to move forward and obtain the health declaration document stating that you are healthy enough to travel. What confuses this is that Mickey is there doing pics and there is a line for that as well so people are unsure which line to get into. Once you sign the health form it is off to check in. There were 3 areas for check-in: one for concierge level, one for the Castaway Club (repeat cruisers) and the other for the rest of us. As we approached, we were handed a card with our boarding group number. Knowing from these boards that 12 is not horrible, but not great either, I inquired as to whether this was the best they could do and was told yes, that was the lowest they had. It was obvious that, at least in the general check in section, the boarding pass number was determined solely by your arrival time at the terminal.
We waited in line as I grumbled about the semi high number, as I was doing the math at about 5-10 minutes per group so I deduced that we would not get on the ship for about 1-2 hours once boarding commenced. We approached the counter to check in and were greeted by the warm, friendly face of someone who happened to be from our neck of the woods. The DH, charmer that he is, chatted her up a little and she was just amazing. I had trouble printing the documents but had checked in online and she was able to find all of them for us with no trouble. We asked her what time boarding began and she told us close to noon and then inquired as to our boarding group. We showed her the card which she took, crossed out the 12 and replaced with a lower number and her initials. We were thrilled. Then off we went to check in the DD with the kid's club.
Now, I am sure you are asking, why, if she reads these boards like she says she does, did she go over to check in her DD? Well, the whole process above took about 15 minutes so we had about 45 minutes to kill so off we went. We got into what seemed like a very long line at the time, but it was moving so we stuck it out and chatted with some very nice people in front of us. The whole process took another 15 minutes - not bad at all. Let me tell you that given the chaos that takes place later in that club for the kids, you are probably better off to take care of it in the terminal, IF you arrive early and have time to kill.
We then went onto the observation deck to see the ship up close. What a beauty. We would have stayed outside longer, but this was also the smoking area which made it quite unpleasant to say the least.
When we went back in, everyone was gathered around the area where they let you onto the gangplank. Again, not as organized as it could have been, as once they called a group to board, it was like the sheep in the movie Babe where the pig is shepherding them all through the gate and they don't all fit at the same time. Some kind of a queuing system would be better. We were observing the cast members who let you on the boat as they had a stack of signs going up to boarding group 40. At last we boarded the ship...more on that next!
