Saturday January 14 2017
Woke up around 9am (we had decided to have a bit of a sleep in) and looked at my app, LOVE seeing this:
Originally we had a 9:15am breakfast at 1900 Park Fare booked but about a month before the cruise I cancelled it. Good move! We were so exhausted from our Epcot day that I couldn't fathom having to pack up (not that we had unpacked much) and drive over there for breakfast before driving to the cruise port. Plus we'd had a character breakfast already at Epcot and had the Disney Jr Character breakfast booked for the cruise.
We got the girls up, packed up what needed to be packed and were on the road shortly after 9:30am.
About 10 minutes later we stopped at Chik Fil A because my husband just HAD to try it. We don't have them in Canada and he knows people who rave about this place. Personally the thought of fried chicken before 10am made my stomach turn so I had something unchicken related lol I think the girls shared popcorn chicken and tater tots (or hashbrowns??) and hubby of course went full on chicken.
Weirdo!!
Back on the road by 10:30 and it was OFF to the Fantasy!!!
Man....what is with the toll roads in Florida? We paid no less than 3 tolls in the space of what - 15 minutes? How do you people get anywhere on time?!!! I guess if you have that sunpass or whatever it's called. We paid cash. The first booth we sat in line to pay but the next two we booted through as we had quarters - hubby loved 'throwing' the change in that metal thing and hearing it clang. Like I said, weirdo.
Our PAT was 11:30-11:45 and it was just about 11:30 when the Fantasy started to come into sight (so clearly we were LATE for our PAT which is totally fine. I'm not the cruiser who likes to sit and wait with 50 million other people I quite like arriving a bit later).
Wait.
You were thinking I'd post photos of the ship, right?
Like I've said before we are CRAP when it comes to taking the most important photos.
Don't worry, you'll get ship photos later on when we we're coming back from our excursions.
Anyway, we drove BY the port (well as near as the freeway gets to it) and then PAST it to drop the car at Budget.
Nice looooong line waiting for the shuttle back to the port. And the shuttles were small.
So we waited for 3 shuttles before we got on. Think it was around 12:30/12:45 when we arrived at the port. Oh well. Nice and empty!
So we got through security and my husband reads the sign that says no photos. Fair enough. He took this to mean no photos ANYWHERE at ALL inside the terminal
I tried to tell him otherwise but NO we have NO photos inside the terminal.
I know.....we suck.
Moving on.
We get to the
Castaway Club line (first time getting to use it!) and the guy tells us the newbie line is shorter so take your pick.
so we took the newbie line which, honestly, I think moved about the same speed!
Never mind we were in line for maybe 10 minutes before it was our turn to check in
And get our first SILVER lanyards
Once we were given our lanyards and KTTW cards we stepped out of line and went over to some benches near the washroom (where two of US used the facilities as it seems my eldest DD has inherited my dodgy bladder
)
With clean hands I then was able to take a good first look at our KTTW cards and saw that our dining rotation would be AERAEER
See? I remembered to include details
Also noticed that I had planned our Palo dinner well as it would mean we would be missing one night at Enchanted Garden for it and that was the restaurant we were ultimately signed up to visit 3 times!
Next went over to the line for the kids club since it was quite short at this point, less than 10 minutes later they had on their bands and were signed up! The lovely man helping us took my husband aside and whispered 'did we want our 8 year old to have check in check out priviledges?' which we kindly refused since this was her first time on the Fantasy and I personally feel that 8 is too young. My opinion I know. We will revisit this in August when we sail to Alaska as she will have just turned 9 (and has been on the Wonder before).
Anyway it was time to WALK on as of course we had no boarding number. We hightailed it past the line for the embarkation photo because we had no intentions of buying it (ok my HUSBAND had no intentions lol) and soon enough we were walking into the Atrium as they welcomed our FAMILY (yes we gave them our real last name, good luck pronouncing it, nice and Polish
) By the way it was now 1:30
Yes I've got atrium photos....again......ya gotta wait for 'em
We made a beeline for our room to drop off our carryons so we wouldn't have to lug them around Cabana's. LOVED our room location. We were deck 5 aft, at the end of a dead end hallway. Room 5650 with and extended verandah. I would absolutely book this room again!!! We did share a wall with the kids club but honestly we barely heard any noise from there.
You were hoping for room photos weren't you?
Haven't you learned your lesson yet?
Silly reader.
WE SUCK!!!
But you knew that already.
If you're lucky I might have some verandah photos but that was about it. No towel animals. No room photos. Because WE SUCK.
It's worth mentioning a few times.
On our first cruise, by the way? We took 54 photos of our room.
And we had an inside room.
But I digress.
It was getting on for 2pm and we were HANGRY so we booted it up to Cabana's - we were near the aft elevator and it conveniently opened up right into Cabana's! Some people, I understand, hate this? Not us!
Eventhough it was now later it was still quite busy so we got plates of food and sat outside in the covered deck. LOVELY. Bliss!!
You're smart enough not to expect food photos
Just be grateful when some do show up later in this trip report and try not to ask too many questions, m'kay?
After lunch we walked around the upper decks of the ship, trying to get the lay of the land. It was at this moment that I realized I had forgotten to pack bathing suits into our carryons.
D'oh!!! My children were NOT impressed with me at this point. God, from then on all we heard was for the rest of the afternoon was 'when can we go swimminnnnnnnggggg??!!!!'
Mother of the year, right here
Shortly before the muster drill we went back down to our cabin - not sure why, I think to check if any luggage had arrived? Anyway, one had already arrived and it happened to be the one that contained my hubby's beer mug
So he was happy
Went to the muster drill promptly at 3:58! Lined up in size order and stood in the sun, baking. It had really warmed up at this point (or what WE consider warm for January!) Think it was all wrapped up by 4:15 so we ran back to our room (which was near the muster station) but no more suitcases so we went up on deck to catch the sail way party but of course it was super crowded so we didn't have the best view.
When it was over we got the girls a drink at the beverage station and DH and I got some ADULT bevvies. Can't recall what my first drink was but it was yummy
Super flattering photo of me....love that double chin
Of course DH had a picture perfect photo taken by me of his first beer
And now enjoy some random photos as we SAIL away!
NCL sailed out in front of us (I thought it was a rather ugly ship)
Carnival was in the lead
Hey sometimes my children also have unflattering photos
Bye Nasa!!!
Coming up next:
We tour the kids clubs, we see our first show, we have our first dinner (Animators) and meet our lovely serving team