Thanks for all the info from the dis boards. I'm not too familiar with all the computer lingo so I'm going to write as i normally do. Just thought I'd share my experience and provide some insight from our trip. It was a great trip, we were active all the time, and did the Stingray Excursion in the Bahamas and rented the snorkel/tubes/bikes on Castaway Cay.
We are a family of four with an 8 yr old boy and a 5yr old girl. This is our first disney cruise but we have been on cruises before. We arrived from the west coast and checked into Hyatt Regency MCO. The lobby receptionist gave us an sheet upon check-in about what would happen the next day. They informed us they would start collecting luggage from our rooms at 8:30am and to have our bags tagged and ready to go. This was going to be a slight problem for us as we weren't planning to get up until about 9am, since we were on west coast time, I didn't want to force the kids to get up at an ungodly hour. They said they usually start on the top floor and work down (we were on floor nine out of ten floors). She informed us the first bus leaves around 10am.
After tagging the luggage and reading the map, I realized there was a problem that I never learned from these boards. The instructions said if any member of your party is not a US citizen, you are not allowed to check-in at the shuttle service at the airport, and need to check in at the port. My heart sank, as I thought we'd be able to avoid the lines, after reading these boards over and over again. My husband is a Canadian citizen with a permanent green card and the rest of us are US Citizens. But this would be a total blessing in disguise more than once as will be later revealed.
We had a forgettable dinner at the food court at the airport and went to the pool at the hotel. The pool was slightly cool, but coming from 40 degrees and rain, the kids didn't care. I set the alarm for 9am (6am west coast time), hoping the luggage folks would spare us. The next morning, I still had to wake up the kids begrudgingly, ran downstairs to Starbucks to grab food and when I got back to the room at 9:30 my DH said they called and would be collecting our luggage in 15 minutes. Perfect timing! We waited til almost ten, but they hadn't shown, so we shrugged our shoulders and hoped for the best.
We arrived downstairs at the Shuttle area, and lo and behold there was a separate line for non US citizens, they would not check us in, but they did give us Boarding Group number 4 and our shuttle passes. The shuttle ride was painless, kids enjoyed the video that ran entire time. We arrived at the port around 11:15 and there was a bit of chaos. For those who had checked in, they encouraged people to go to the right and register the kids into the kids club. That line looked horrendous. The regular check in line looked pretty bad, but the non US citizen line? Well there was NO line, we walked right up to to the counter and checked us in, took our pictures in about 2 minutes. He also gave us a NEW boarding group number 2!! I didn't tell him about our other boarding number. He said, "you guys are lucky, i've seen some people come up with boarding number 39, that's really bad", so I said, "So what is it based on?", and he said it was based on when you checked in online. I was confused by this, because I had just picked a random day a few weeks before the cruise when I was slow at work to put in all the information, I didn't realize this would affect our boarding time.
"So when do you start boarding?" I asked. He gave me a wink and said "Officially or unofficially?", He said, "Officially, noon, but unofficially about 11:40-11:45". We went to the bathroom and looked at the kids club line in disdain. But we decided to stand in it. After 10 minutes we moved very little, and I asked someone, "Is it really necessary to stand in this line? Can't we just register them as soon as we board?", "Yes", they told me, "but it will be more chaotic on board so it's best to register them now."
Sure enough, around 11:45, they called the family of the day, followed shortly by boarding group 1. So I went over to the same guy and said, "We are boarding group 2, so should we skip this kids line and board?". He said "Yes. Definitely, Go! Go!". So we bolted. We were on by 11:55 and headed straight to Deck 5 to the kids club area, which happened to open at Noon! there was only one family there, and they were re-registering their kids from a back to back cruise. I don't know if we got lucky, or if the guy at the port was trying to avoid having huge line-ups on Deck 5, but the kids club opened shortly after and we registered them very quickly.
We went to Cabanas and had a nice lunch, then went to the pool area which was already very crowded. Unfortunately, this will be the first and last time we will eat at Cabanas due to our excursions. I've read people complain about the crowds and the kids, but if any of you have been to disneyland (I grew up in Anaheim so I've been there a few times),
and basically this is Disneyland on a boat. It's complete happy organized chaos and we loved it! Kids everywhere, long lines, disney characters walking around in the heat and happy cast members. Whaddya expect? Everyone was happy and running around and this is what we should expect from Disney. Once I took the kids on a Carnival cruise and I think I saw the same 3 kids at the pool the entire 3 days. This is not that type of cruise.
It was close to 1:30, which is when the rooms would be ready. We went to Deck 9, we were in 9656 aft about 4 doors down from the aft elevators, great location, and by the stairways I spotted our luggage. "Look our luggage made it!" and one of the disney members quickly retorted "Yes we will deliver it to you!" (i.e. don't touch it). There were lots and lots of bags, and the chances of our bags being delivered in the next few minutes were almost nil. After I read the boards, I didn't think we'd have a chance to board the ship and eat so quickly, so I did not carry on our bathing suits. But now the kids had seen the pool area and were dying to swim.
We checked out our room, it was beautiful, and very large. A couch the converts to a bed and then a pulldown bed from the wall right next to the porthole. And the porthole itself? GIGANTIC! Both my kids could fit in the little perch/cushion area, they actually wanted to sleep there. I said, "Wow, do you guys know how lucky you are? your dad and I were never able to go on cruises when we were little." My smart mouthed son responded "Well, maybe they didn't have cruise ships back then when you were young". "Yes they did!!", I yelled back, "We just couldn't afford to go on them". During this retort, I heard a frantic knock on our door only to find my husband had collected our luggage when the disney guys weren't looking. I started to freak out, "What are you doing? Do you want to get us kicked off this ship?? We haven't even left the port yet!! What if they have a system and you messed up their system?? What if they brand us as "that family that stole their own luggage?", what if they send us to "disney jail??!?", Yes, I was a bit dramatic and scaring the kids at this point, "Hurry get the bathing suits out and return the luggage without anyone noticing!!!". So my husband with his stealth skills, returned the bags, and all was well with the universe. Whew. I wonder what would happen if we had been caught.
Part II Off to the Pool! There's a lot to say in the beginning, but will try to make the next few segments shorter!
We are a family of four with an 8 yr old boy and a 5yr old girl. This is our first disney cruise but we have been on cruises before. We arrived from the west coast and checked into Hyatt Regency MCO. The lobby receptionist gave us an sheet upon check-in about what would happen the next day. They informed us they would start collecting luggage from our rooms at 8:30am and to have our bags tagged and ready to go. This was going to be a slight problem for us as we weren't planning to get up until about 9am, since we were on west coast time, I didn't want to force the kids to get up at an ungodly hour. They said they usually start on the top floor and work down (we were on floor nine out of ten floors). She informed us the first bus leaves around 10am.
After tagging the luggage and reading the map, I realized there was a problem that I never learned from these boards. The instructions said if any member of your party is not a US citizen, you are not allowed to check-in at the shuttle service at the airport, and need to check in at the port. My heart sank, as I thought we'd be able to avoid the lines, after reading these boards over and over again. My husband is a Canadian citizen with a permanent green card and the rest of us are US Citizens. But this would be a total blessing in disguise more than once as will be later revealed.
We had a forgettable dinner at the food court at the airport and went to the pool at the hotel. The pool was slightly cool, but coming from 40 degrees and rain, the kids didn't care. I set the alarm for 9am (6am west coast time), hoping the luggage folks would spare us. The next morning, I still had to wake up the kids begrudgingly, ran downstairs to Starbucks to grab food and when I got back to the room at 9:30 my DH said they called and would be collecting our luggage in 15 minutes. Perfect timing! We waited til almost ten, but they hadn't shown, so we shrugged our shoulders and hoped for the best.
We arrived downstairs at the Shuttle area, and lo and behold there was a separate line for non US citizens, they would not check us in, but they did give us Boarding Group number 4 and our shuttle passes. The shuttle ride was painless, kids enjoyed the video that ran entire time. We arrived at the port around 11:15 and there was a bit of chaos. For those who had checked in, they encouraged people to go to the right and register the kids into the kids club. That line looked horrendous. The regular check in line looked pretty bad, but the non US citizen line? Well there was NO line, we walked right up to to the counter and checked us in, took our pictures in about 2 minutes. He also gave us a NEW boarding group number 2!! I didn't tell him about our other boarding number. He said, "you guys are lucky, i've seen some people come up with boarding number 39, that's really bad", so I said, "So what is it based on?", and he said it was based on when you checked in online. I was confused by this, because I had just picked a random day a few weeks before the cruise when I was slow at work to put in all the information, I didn't realize this would affect our boarding time.
"So when do you start boarding?" I asked. He gave me a wink and said "Officially or unofficially?", He said, "Officially, noon, but unofficially about 11:40-11:45". We went to the bathroom and looked at the kids club line in disdain. But we decided to stand in it. After 10 minutes we moved very little, and I asked someone, "Is it really necessary to stand in this line? Can't we just register them as soon as we board?", "Yes", they told me, "but it will be more chaotic on board so it's best to register them now."
Sure enough, around 11:45, they called the family of the day, followed shortly by boarding group 1. So I went over to the same guy and said, "We are boarding group 2, so should we skip this kids line and board?". He said "Yes. Definitely, Go! Go!". So we bolted. We were on by 11:55 and headed straight to Deck 5 to the kids club area, which happened to open at Noon! there was only one family there, and they were re-registering their kids from a back to back cruise. I don't know if we got lucky, or if the guy at the port was trying to avoid having huge line-ups on Deck 5, but the kids club opened shortly after and we registered them very quickly.
We went to Cabanas and had a nice lunch, then went to the pool area which was already very crowded. Unfortunately, this will be the first and last time we will eat at Cabanas due to our excursions. I've read people complain about the crowds and the kids, but if any of you have been to disneyland (I grew up in Anaheim so I've been there a few times),
and basically this is Disneyland on a boat. It's complete happy organized chaos and we loved it! Kids everywhere, long lines, disney characters walking around in the heat and happy cast members. Whaddya expect? Everyone was happy and running around and this is what we should expect from Disney. Once I took the kids on a Carnival cruise and I think I saw the same 3 kids at the pool the entire 3 days. This is not that type of cruise.It was close to 1:30, which is when the rooms would be ready. We went to Deck 9, we were in 9656 aft about 4 doors down from the aft elevators, great location, and by the stairways I spotted our luggage. "Look our luggage made it!" and one of the disney members quickly retorted "Yes we will deliver it to you!" (i.e. don't touch it). There were lots and lots of bags, and the chances of our bags being delivered in the next few minutes were almost nil. After I read the boards, I didn't think we'd have a chance to board the ship and eat so quickly, so I did not carry on our bathing suits. But now the kids had seen the pool area and were dying to swim.
We checked out our room, it was beautiful, and very large. A couch the converts to a bed and then a pulldown bed from the wall right next to the porthole. And the porthole itself? GIGANTIC! Both my kids could fit in the little perch/cushion area, they actually wanted to sleep there. I said, "Wow, do you guys know how lucky you are? your dad and I were never able to go on cruises when we were little." My smart mouthed son responded "Well, maybe they didn't have cruise ships back then when you were young". "Yes they did!!", I yelled back, "We just couldn't afford to go on them". During this retort, I heard a frantic knock on our door only to find my husband had collected our luggage when the disney guys weren't looking. I started to freak out, "What are you doing? Do you want to get us kicked off this ship?? We haven't even left the port yet!! What if they have a system and you messed up their system?? What if they brand us as "that family that stole their own luggage?", what if they send us to "disney jail??!?", Yes, I was a bit dramatic and scaring the kids at this point, "Hurry get the bathing suits out and return the luggage without anyone noticing!!!". So my husband with his stealth skills, returned the bags, and all was well with the universe. Whew. I wonder what would happen if we had been caught.
Part II Off to the Pool! There's a lot to say in the beginning, but will try to make the next few segments shorter!
Can't wait to hear more...
and that is too funny what you DH did....but I would have been just like you OK just get what we need out and put it back LOL so funny! I love it!!!!
(I am 36 by the way, yeah, I'm really old.)
