Day 1 of Cruise - Embarkation
DH & I had previously decided to sleep in this morning, but the excitement of our first cruise (and the baby deciding that 5am is the perfect time to start practicing his kickboxing moves) got us up pretty early. Since I had prepacked our large suitcase, I only had about an hour of getting the rest of our stuff reorganized, so it was nice to not be in a huge rush. We threw open the drapes and opened up the door to the balcony and it was fun hearing the resort come to life while we packed up to head off.
After grabbing breakfast at Jamba Juice (can I just say how much I love Jamba Juice? I'm not a big breakfast person, but somehow their smoothies are always so good I'm always able to drink one
), we headed back up to our room to make a plan for the day. Originally we were going head to the port around 8am to see if we could get on the ship early so we could get Palo brunch reservations, but we decided that after our marathon shopping day the day before, it might be smarter for us financially to head to the Anaheim Shopping Center and pick up some baby clothes since we had already saved so much on the other stuff we wanted to buy.
I hadn't printed a map on how to get to the shopping center, but after getting the address on my phone, I figured it out pretty well. (DH and I have learned that we do MUCH better in the car together if I navigate and he just follows directions
). After doing a bit (okay, quite a bit) of shopping, we were back on the road headed to the cruise ship terminal.
(As an aside here, for those living in the US who are surprised at how much shopping we did, some things in Canada are SO much more expensive than in the US. I used to live in the US - I'm dual - so I refuse to pay ridiculously inflated prices on somethings. We calculated it after we got back and figured that we saved over $500 on baby items while we were down in the US.)
Google Maps was our downfall on the way to the cruise ship terminal unfortunately
(in all fairness it looked like things had recently changed) and between that and a little traffic, we ended up getting to Enterprise much later than we originally thought we would (after 11am).
At Enterprise, there were more issues as the LAX rental office had inputted our "new" reservation (after they lost our original one) into a system that San Pedro's Enterprise didn't have (the manager told us that they have THREE systems - my DH, who designs databases for a living was hitting his head against the wall at this). The manager tried to call LAX to get the final price of what our rental would be (my DH wanted something in writing) but of course no one was answering the phone
. At this point it was 11:30ish and I was getting antsy (we were so close to the port!) and wanted to leave, so my DH got copies of everything from the "new" rental including the paperwork from the San Pedro saying we brought the car back full and in the same condition and the phone number for LAX so he could call them later on. We then finally got on the shuttle and headed to the port!
At the port, I threw the bag tags on our luggage (I had totally spaced that we even had bag tags, but luckily remembered the cruise booklet that had them) before we handed them off to complete strangers. This was really weird to me that there were really no identifiers on the porters at the port, but it seemed legit enough since everyone else was doing it
, so we left our baggage and headed into the port.
Around the bend of the luggage drop, there she was!
We got in line outside of the terminal (not quite sure why they held us out here for 5-10 minutes) and then they finally let us in. Security was a breeze (a small line) and then we got into the line of cruisers who weren't part of the
Castaway Club (yet). The line was HUGE (I didn't think to get a picture of the line, but I should have - it was ridiculous) - in fact they didn't have enough of the line dividers for everyone.
Turns out that the computers were down and they continued to be down (on and off - we barely moved the entire time) for over an hour (and they had been down before we got there). I understand that technology can fail us at times, but this was a little ridiculous (hello back-up systems?). Compounded by the fact that I was hot, hungry (we were planning to eat lunch on the ship) and my feet were still hurting, this was one unhappy pregnant woman. I kept looking around for DISers (specifically kpros for our lanyards) but no luck.
Luckily I have the best DH in the world, so after about 30 minutes, he told me to go sit down in the waiting area. I got comfortable, whipped out my Nook Color and read a little bit before a lady sat down beside me and spread out all of her things (which were falling on me) - which was weird since there was lots of seating down the row, but whatever. At this point, I could only laugh at how well this was all going.
I ended up getting back in line with my DH soon after and was talking hockey with the gentlemen in front & behind us when they finally announced that the computers were back up. One thing I noticed on this cruise was the crazy amount of Vancouver Canucks gear - I live in downtown and unless it's a game day (which it wasn't) you never see that much gear down here (LOL). It was definitely cool to see though because it felt like the Wonder was full of Vancouverites (or at least Canadians LOL).
We finally got through the check-in process (after an hour and a half) and went straight on the ship after we got our Keys to the World.
I was staaaaarving at this point so we went straight to Beach Blanket Buffet and ate (and DH got an adult beverage which he so rightly deserved after dealing with a crabby wife all afternoon
). After we went back to our room - 7000 - at the very front of the ship (this plays into tomorrow quite heavily).
I was surprised at how big our room was - we live in a small apartment so it felt big to us for a cruise ship. I tried to get internet on my phone so that I could find out where kpros was so we could get our lanyards, but had no luck (either through my cell service or through the ship). We wandered around the ship for a bit trying to find them (this was the ONE thing I didn't write down since I thought we'd be able to find him in the terminal), but gave up after awhile and headed to the safety drill.
After a claustrophobically close safety drill, we headed back to our room so I could take a nap.
(As an aside, you'll see "and I had a nap" lots in this TR, which is highly unusual for me, but I was exhausted the entire time).
Once we knew we'd be leaving port (the Captain had told us we'd be leaving late - 6pm since they delivered the fuel late), went to grab our Personal Navigator from Guest Services (we never got one in our room), then we went up on deck for some photos.
(I have someone who's scanning in their Personal Navigator from April 27th - once they email it to me, I'll pass it on - to tide you over here's scans of our Cruise At A Glace documents)
Update: Looks like DIS won't let me make these bigger - I'll work on getting bigger copies in the thread later tonight (I have to run off to an appointment now)
Afterwards, we explored the ship for a bit before heading back to our room to get ready for our dinner at Palo. Yay!
)
I understand that they were having computer problems, but it was a very long time. In January 2010, we were in Port Canaveral and they only send one family member to the line and I was through within 20 minutes. Needless to say, we were hungry and tired by the time we got onboard. But I just kept telling my boys that it was like waiting in line at Disneyland, but this would be a 6 night ride!
