Friday October 23 - Embarkation Day, Miami, FL
We awoke in Miami after having traveled the previous day from Austin to the Fort Lauderdale airport. We then took a paid shuttle service from FLL to the Intercontinental Miami where we spent the night. We took our time in the morning, eating breakfast at Cafe Bastille downtown (a short walk from the Intercontinental) before packing up and taking a 10 minute taxi to the port. Last time we cruised out of Port Canaveral and I have to say that the experience in Miami was somewhat disorganized and chaotic. Our Port Arrival Time was 11 AM (the earliest possible time for Miami). Our taxi arrived at almost 11 on the dot, we gave our luggage to the porters out front and went into the building. We checked in relatively quickly, being able to head to the repeat cruiser line as opposed to the first timer line. We were in boarding group 3 and we were directed to the waiting area at the back of the terminal. When we arrived there, Captain Mickey was just arriving and there were very few people there so Emmaline was the third in line to meet with him.
That done, we used the bathroom and reviewed our Navigator to see what was going on once we got on board. By 11:30, the terminal was full of people. It was crowded and we were trying to figure out where we were even supposed to go to board the ship. We couldn’t hear a thing and didn’t know where we were supposed to be. By 11:45, they began boarding the ship starting with groups 1 and 2. It was followed about 5 minutes later by group 3 and we were on board just a bit before noon. First stop was Guest Services where we changed our appointment for the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique. Then we headed across to Port Adventures where we received tickets for the Princess and Anna and Elsa Meet and Greets as well as signed Roger up for the
Castaway Cay 5k.
Next stop was lunch at Cabanas where we ate inside because it had been raining for a bit while we were inside the terminal building. It was dry by the time we got on board but the tables and chairs were still wet. After lunch, we headed for the pools. On the way over, we ran into some people from our Facebook meetup group. Their daughter was the same age as Emmaline and the girls instantly hit it off. They mentioned that their dining assignment was wrong. They had asked for late seating, but somehow had main (early) dining. They mentioned they didn’t really care, but I told her that many people are on a wait list for early seating so they decided to switch. I asked if they wanted to maybe try to see if we could change rotations to sit together so we went down to Lumiere’s to see what we could do. Changing the dining was no trouble at all and we were seated all together at a table for 6. Hopefully it helped someone out who really wanted main seating. (We very much prefer late dining.)
Then we hit the pools. The girls played in the pool and went down the “Twist N Spout” slide a whole bunch of times, which was evidently great fun. Before we knew it, our room was ready and we headed down to Deck 6 midship to check out our room and drop off our carry-on items. At 2:30 we attended a meet and greet of people from our Facebook group and made some more friends and then went the Oceaneer Lab to get Emmaline registered for the kids clubs. (We could have done this in the terminal but the line was absurdly long. On the ship there was a short line at the Oceaneer Club, but no line at the Lab so we did it at the Lab).
Back at our stateroom, some of our luggage had begun to arrive and we prepared for the muster drill at 4 PM. We were done with it in about 15-20 minutes and then headed up to deck 10 to watch the sailing away party at 4:30. We watched all the deck party events from Deck 10 and it was much less crowded and easier to see than being down on deck 9.
We thought that at the sailing away party we would actually, you know, sail away. They counted down and the horn played the signature “When You Wish Upon a Star” and...nothing. Eventually we headed back to our stateroom to hang out on the veranda. Eventually, around 5:15 or 5:30, we started heading out to sea. It was fun to watch from the veranda and Emmaline was particularly entranced by the huge pods of jellyfish we saw on the way out. They looked like big purplish pink clumps in the water. I was glad we weren’t swimming in it!
By this time, we had all our luggage and we began to unpack each of them except for the suitcase with our Halloween costumes, which we just slid under the bed with all the empty suitcases. We figured we could deal with that stuff the next day which was when all the Halloween festivities were going to be held. We also met our stateroom host, Adi, who was very nice and helpful throughout the voyage.
At 6:15 we arrived at the Walt Disney Theatre for our first show “All Aboard! Let the Magic Begin.” This show was probably the weakest of all the shows we watched. It was more of an introduction of the shows to come with some original musical numbers as well as a preview of one of the featured variety acts, Lynn Trefzger, a ventriloquist/comedian. I was dubious at first, but she was good and really funny so I was looking forward to her act.
After that, we headed to the atrium for our first Halloween themed event which introduced the pumpkin tree there and we got some stories about Halloween. Before long, it was time for dinner and we headed to our first dining room, Animator’s Palate. We met our serving team: Ivan our server, Emrah our assistant server and Denovan, head server. Ivan (pronounced like the word “even”) was really great and we liked him very much. The show in Animator’s was a lot of fun and I was happy to be reunited with my favorite truffle pasta purses. Emmaline enjoyed her first of many Mickey Bars on the cruise.
After dinner, Emmaline and her new friend went to the Oceaneer Club for the “Royal Ball” where they met up with Cinderella and learned how to dance, curtsey and wave like a princess. Important life skills. Roger and I headed back to the room and unpacked and organized things some more before it was time to pick Emmaline up and go to sleep.
