Sunday, July 27th: Embarkation Day
The continental breakfast at the hotel consisted of donuts, coffee and juice. That was ok, cause we were gonna pig out the rest of the day.
We couldn’t really see the Magic from the hotel, except from the 4th floor elevator lobby. And then it was just the smokestacks through the metal bars.
The hotel has a shuttle, but with 15 people and all of the luggage (and FE gifts), we decided to drive over to the terminal and drop most of us off, then the drivers would take the cars back to the hotel and take the shuttle.
We started loading up the cars and coordinating who was riding where and my cell phone rang. It was ScottH calling. He was watching us from the balcony next door at the Holiday Inn.
We headed for the terminal just after 9am and had no trouble dropping of the luggage. We should have thought ahead with the IDs, because they were already allowing people to check in, but not all of us could because the drivers still had their IDs on them. Oops.
The drivers got back to the terminal by 10:10am and we checked in and headed to the other side of the terminal to wait. Half of us ended up with boarding pass 4 and the other half with 5. So, we waiting until they called #5, so that we could all board together.
The ship was still virtually empty, so we snagged some tables near the Mickey Pool and grabbed some food at Topsiders and Goofy’s Galley and Pluto’s Dog House and Pinocchio’s Pizzeria. There were 15 of us, we wanted variety.
The rooms were ready at 1:45pm, so we headed down and the boys put on their swimsuits and headed back up to the Mickey Pool until it was time to get ready for the muster drill.
DS was a little nervous about the drill, but he handled it ok. How do you explain it to a 4-year-old. “We have practice in case the ship sinks.”???
We dropped off the life vests and got our premium spots up front for the Adventures Away party. Then we were off.
We had the earliest possible dinner, so there wasn’t much time after the party to get dressed. Kinda sucked. We dined at 5:30pm and our rotation is LAAPLAP.
Our servers are Malwyn and Non. The service was a little slow. I excused it being the first night, but hopefully it picks up a little tomorrow. DS was getting a little restless by the time dinner was done.
My goal this trip was to try new things in the dining room, so I had the lamb. It was awesome. You could hardly tell it was lamb, tasted very mild, like beef. DW had the tenderloin.
Around 7:30pm we dropped the boys off at the Oceaneer Club and told them we would check back before the show to see if they wanted to join us for the show. They didn’t.
The All Aboard show featured the comedy of Don Friesen and the physical comedy of Alfred and Seyour. Both acts were great.
After the show, Scott, Josh & I headed to Diversions until it was time to pick up the boys from the OC.
I picked up DS around 10pm and took him back to the room. DW had already ordered cookies & milk. What a good mommy.
Then I went back to Diversions. Big mistake! We were joined by a gentleman from Texas who says he was in the Roy Suite. We bought a couple of beers ourselves, but the this guy started buying shots of expensive tequila. Don Julio 1942, I think.
Jump to the end of the night…..not sure what time I made it back to the room, but I ended up sleeping on the bathroom floor after losing my lamb.
More tomorrow.
Still haven't heard if they're doing anything special for the Anniversary on Wednesday. I will post if I hear anything.
So I am sitting here using the GCH concierge computer eating chocolate covered strawberries and coffee. Are you at your hotel yet near the port?
) I look forward to meeting you, Kristi and West...have a great start to your trip
