Dawncala
Collector of magical memories and pixie dust
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2009
- Messages
- 390
8:40 AM: The car is packed and I finally shooed everyone out into the car. Only one errand left…drop the dog off with my Mother-in-Law and we’re off. We reached the Canadian border crossing around 11:00. It took 15 – 20 minutes to get through which is probably the longest we’ve ever waited. We somehow ended up in the slowest line and all the other lanes let through two or three cars to our one. (Didn’t they know that Mickey was waiting for me?) We parked at the Canada Place cruise terminal around noon.
As we headed up to check the luggage all along our path there were Disney Cast members giving “high fours” to our kids and asking if they could direct us anywhere. We practically walked through the carry-on scanner checkpoint. There were only a handful of people in line and it was nice not to have to remove our shoes. Around the next corner the passport check-in line seemed pretty long, but it moved very quickly and in what was probably less than 10 minutes we were passing under the Disney Cruise Line banner.
Our official check in time was 12:30 – 1:00 and we were right in our zone. We spotted the Castaway Club check-in desk and made our way to the queue. There was no one in line and a cast member removed a rope barrier for us so we didn’t have to wind our way around. “Yeah! Fast pass!”
It took them maybe 5 minutes to check our paperwork, take our pictures and hand us our Key-To-The-World cards. They didn’t give us a boarding card because they were boarding everyone at this point. Minnie was out taking pictures so the kids got a quick picture with her and we hurried to the boarding line. Another quick picture of the kids with the 2011 cruise background then a cast member scanned our KTTW cards and on-board we went. I love it when they announce our family name and the crew applauds.
Then you are directed to the first of many many sanitizing experiences. There is a sanitizing foam station at the entrance every time you get on and off the ship. (Sanitizing is the subject of many a joke by both cast and crew)
It was just after 1:00 and the rooms weren’t going to be ready until 2:00 so we headed to BBB for lunch. (Our 2nd hand sanitizing experience in 15 minutes) Oh, remember I said I am famous for forgetting to pack something important. It was at this point that I realized that I forgot to pack the medicated patch for sea-sick prone DH. After digging through every carry-on bag twice I remembered that it was in the outer pocket of a carry-on bag I was going to bring, but changed my mind about. Luckily we had plenty of Dramamine and he was cool about the whole thing. You’ll just have to stay tuned to see if he made it through the trip OK.
I need to explain something here so some of the photos throughout this trip report make sense. One of our vacation traditions it taking something with us that we take photos of throughout the trip. The theme of this trip…”Where’s Perry?” We brought DD’s Perry the Platypus and he will be in many of the photos I post here.
Then we wandered around to see the view of Vancouver B.C. from the deck.
Our room was ready at 1:45 so we went to check it out and I took some photos before we trashed it. We’re in room 8000 at the very front port side of deck 8. It was awesome and we feel totally spoiled by the extra square footage and the wonderful view. The kids were more interested in our very first Castaway Club gift bag.
We looked around the room a bit then went down to our DIS group meet in the Promenade Lounge. It was fun to put faces to the people I’ve been chatting with for the past few months.
While we chatted we had an opportunity to try out the new Wave Phones. It’s a whole new world now that our kids are 12 and 10 and they are responsible enough to go exploring on their own. (And I mean, how far can they go right?) We relaxed and they texted their location. When we were ready to go we just called them.
We met at the Oceaneer Lab to get my son’s GPS wrist band and then down to check out the new tween club The Edge. It was not on the Wonder the last time we sailed and my DD was happy to have a new place she could go.
Back to the cabin to unpack, then it was time for the mandatory life boat drill. It was nice not to have to wear the life jackets to the drill. Then we ran up to deck 9 to get good spots at the Adventures Away party. My son and I danced while my tween looked “above it all” and DH amused himself by filming her. They gave us all gold streamers to wave and I was beyond happy when that magical horn sounded and we were underway. I heard someone say that we were actually leaving a little early.
Christiaan, the wonderful Cruise Director, and Mickey look on as the horn blows and confetti streams down
Once the horn blew the kids lost interest in dancing so we ran off to the sports deck where DS and DH joined a soccer game while I took pictures of the Wonder sailing under the Vancouver Bridge. It was kind of chilly so once we passed the bridge my daughter and I went back to the cabin to warm up.
(Stay tuned for Day 1: part 2)
As we headed up to check the luggage all along our path there were Disney Cast members giving “high fours” to our kids and asking if they could direct us anywhere. We practically walked through the carry-on scanner checkpoint. There were only a handful of people in line and it was nice not to have to remove our shoes. Around the next corner the passport check-in line seemed pretty long, but it moved very quickly and in what was probably less than 10 minutes we were passing under the Disney Cruise Line banner.
Our official check in time was 12:30 – 1:00 and we were right in our zone. We spotted the Castaway Club check-in desk and made our way to the queue. There was no one in line and a cast member removed a rope barrier for us so we didn’t have to wind our way around. “Yeah! Fast pass!”
It took them maybe 5 minutes to check our paperwork, take our pictures and hand us our Key-To-The-World cards. They didn’t give us a boarding card because they were boarding everyone at this point. Minnie was out taking pictures so the kids got a quick picture with her and we hurried to the boarding line. Another quick picture of the kids with the 2011 cruise background then a cast member scanned our KTTW cards and on-board we went. I love it when they announce our family name and the crew applauds.
Then you are directed to the first of many many sanitizing experiences. There is a sanitizing foam station at the entrance every time you get on and off the ship. (Sanitizing is the subject of many a joke by both cast and crew)
It was just after 1:00 and the rooms weren’t going to be ready until 2:00 so we headed to BBB for lunch. (Our 2nd hand sanitizing experience in 15 minutes) Oh, remember I said I am famous for forgetting to pack something important. It was at this point that I realized that I forgot to pack the medicated patch for sea-sick prone DH. After digging through every carry-on bag twice I remembered that it was in the outer pocket of a carry-on bag I was going to bring, but changed my mind about. Luckily we had plenty of Dramamine and he was cool about the whole thing. You’ll just have to stay tuned to see if he made it through the trip OK.
I need to explain something here so some of the photos throughout this trip report make sense. One of our vacation traditions it taking something with us that we take photos of throughout the trip. The theme of this trip…”Where’s Perry?” We brought DD’s Perry the Platypus and he will be in many of the photos I post here.
Then we wandered around to see the view of Vancouver B.C. from the deck.
Our room was ready at 1:45 so we went to check it out and I took some photos before we trashed it. We’re in room 8000 at the very front port side of deck 8. It was awesome and we feel totally spoiled by the extra square footage and the wonderful view. The kids were more interested in our very first Castaway Club gift bag.
We looked around the room a bit then went down to our DIS group meet in the Promenade Lounge. It was fun to put faces to the people I’ve been chatting with for the past few months.
While we chatted we had an opportunity to try out the new Wave Phones. It’s a whole new world now that our kids are 12 and 10 and they are responsible enough to go exploring on their own. (And I mean, how far can they go right?) We relaxed and they texted their location. When we were ready to go we just called them.
We met at the Oceaneer Lab to get my son’s GPS wrist band and then down to check out the new tween club The Edge. It was not on the Wonder the last time we sailed and my DD was happy to have a new place she could go.
Back to the cabin to unpack, then it was time for the mandatory life boat drill. It was nice not to have to wear the life jackets to the drill. Then we ran up to deck 9 to get good spots at the Adventures Away party. My son and I danced while my tween looked “above it all” and DH amused himself by filming her. They gave us all gold streamers to wave and I was beyond happy when that magical horn sounded and we were underway. I heard someone say that we were actually leaving a little early.
Christiaan, the wonderful Cruise Director, and Mickey look on as the horn blows and confetti streams down
Once the horn blew the kids lost interest in dancing so we ran off to the sports deck where DS and DH joined a soccer game while I took pictures of the Wonder sailing under the Vancouver Bridge. It was kind of chilly so once we passed the bridge my daughter and I went back to the cabin to warm up.
(Stay tuned for Day 1: part 2)
I am jealous of the close up picture of the glacier and that you saw the mountain goats. I had to take my DDs to the Disney Friends Tea so we went inside early so we didn't get to see them.
I only got the shopping guide. Was it a 
