Our First Ever Disney Cruise Was Magical, Marvel-ous, and Magnificent! (Disney Magic out of Miami with MDAS) Completed 2/19

[greensombrero]

I really enjoyed reading trip reports here before taking my first Disney Cruise so I thought I'd give back and try writing one myself. We sailed on the Disney Magic out of Miami with a Marvel Day at Sea on January 9, 2020. This was our first ever cruise and represented a change of attitude for this Dad who previously said he'd never go on any sort of cruise. I will add a disclaimer here that this is my first trip report. Also I'm not the photographer in the family so this might be a little light on pictures. I'm hoping it will still be an interesting and hopefully informative read.



Let me start by introducing my family and then I'll get into how this cruise came about. There is me, my DW, DD 12, DS 10, DD 8, and DS 4. With 6 of us we had to book two staterooms and got adjoining ones, more on that later. We are a big Disney family and love doing epic Disneyland trips. I'm the travel planner in the family having worked many years ago in the travel industry. I learned a bit about travel and got bit by the travel bug. Prior to getting married to my wonderful wife I travelled throughout Mexico and South America quite a bit. However since starting a family the travel has been more road trips throughout the western part of the United States with multiple Disneyland visits. Throughout all that time I had a misconception that cruising wouldn't let you really see anything because you'd just be on the boat, which would be boring, and then have too short of time to really enjoy anywhere you visited. I especially enjoy the learning about new cultures and people part of travel which I thought would be missed on a cruise. Bit of a spoiler, I learned you can learn about lots of countries onboard a ship due to the multitude of nationalities both among the crew and passengers. I also will admit I had a bit of anxiety about the idea of being on a boat in the ocean overnight. I think I was negatively impressed as a kid by an elementary school field trip to a Titanic exhibit.

On to what changed my views on cruising. Back in July of 2019 my wife and I were talking about what to do for Christmas. We didn't want to just get our kids more stuff and my wife suggested we plan a surprise trip as our main Christmas present. I loved the idea but she wanted to make sure we did something new, different from what we've done in the past. We've done Disneyland multiple times including surprising the kids with a trip earlier in 2019 to celebrate Mickey's birthday. As I mentioned above I had said I never wanted to go on a cruise but in recent years had heard some interesting things about Disney Cruise Line. Long and short of it is I decided maybe that new thing should be a Disney Cruise. It would be totally unexpected for the kids though they had heard of Disney cruises, it would still have a Disney aspect, and more importantly it would be a totally new travel adventure.

I was a bit nervous about costs especially considering airfare since we normally drive to Disneyland. I ended up finding a rather good deal on airfare from our home airport in Salt Lake City, Utah to Orlando. I might add here our kids are in year round school so we get breaks throughout the year. The schedule they are on this school year kept them out of school most of the month of January which was perfect for a Christmas surprise trip. I figured we should just try out a cruise so we planned to do a 3 night on the Dream and combine it with park visits in Orlando. Originally we thought we might do Universal since we are Harry Potter fans.

After booking it though we realized our youngest two wouldn't be able to do everything Harry Potter due to height restrictions. We also just weren't feeling great about the complexity of tacking on a Disney World visit with a limited number of days. I also started to hear we wouldn't like a 3 night for our first experience and needed more to really enjoy our first cruise. I had already booked our great airfare deal though.

Then I wondered if Disney sailed out of anywhere else in Florida and discovered this sailing on the Magic out of Miami with dates that aligned with our flights. It was also a Marvel Day at Sea cruise which sounded really cool (and was). We aren't huge Marvel fans but we have seen most of the movies and my boys love superheroes. We'd have two nights before our cruise and a later flight the day we returned. Google Maps showed the drive time to Miami from Orlando was 3.5 - 4 hours. We are road warriors and that seemed totally reasonable to do. So I called the travel agent we used and found out we could switch things easily enough. The new plan felt a lot better to my DW and I.

Now we were basically 5 months out from Christmas and had to keep this new exciting adventure a surprise from the kids. Cutting to the end we were successful and keeping them unaware until the big reveal Christmas morning. During the intervening months we managed to collect all sorts of goodies for the cruise, clearance Marvel apparel from the Disney Store, clearance halloween costumes, etc. I think the Christmas reveal is worth commenting on so I'll start the report from that day rather than departure day.

So here's our itinerary/contents for this trip report

• 12/25/2019 Christmas Morning Cruise Reveal
• 01/07/2020 Departure Day travel to Orlando and Disney Springs
• 01/08/2020 Disney Springs and drive to Miami
• 01/09/2020 Board the Magic
• 01/10/2020 Marvel Day at Sea
• 01/11/2020 Key West, Florida
• 01/12/2020 Nassau, Bahamas
• 01/13/2020 Castaway Cay
• 01/14/2020 Miami, drive back to Orlando and fly home

Christmas Morning Reveal

We decided since our kids would not be receiving much in the way of toys this year (other than a small item from Santa) we'd make Christmas morning fun by having a bit of a treasure hunt to find out about the cruise. They started by each opening a package from us that had a pair of Delta airline wings I had gotten during my last work trip along with a letter explaining we were giving them a trip and they'd have to follow the clues to figure out where. What I did was come up with clues that revealed different cities they'd visit along with leading them to different places in the house. At each place they got to open presents that contained items for the trip. We had collected Marvel themed clothes, water bottles, costumes for pirate night, headphones for the plane ride, new books to read, stuff like that. Our traditional Christmas jammies for the year were all Marvel themed, which admittedly confused the kids as they received them on Christmas Eve and didn't yet know about our cruise.

The first clue took them to our "Disney Hall" where we display photos, pressed pennies, etc from our prior Disneyland trips on the wall. There they found out they'd be visiting Orlando though not Disney World. Next we had a clue about Marvel that revealed we'd visit Miami (which is in a few Marvel movies), it took them to our Xbox where they play Lego Marvel Superheroes. After that we had a clue about Key West that took them to where we hang our keys. That was followed by a clue about Nassau and revealed they'd have a chance to swim with dolphins. I wondered if at that point they'd realize we were doing a cruise but they didn't until they opened the final package. I printed off the Disney Cruise Adventure PDF you can download from the Disney Cruise website for each of my kids and had it spiral bound.



The treasure hunt was a great success. The kids loved it and more importantly this was their reaction to the news they were going on a Disney Cruise:




The rest of Christmas Day was spent watching YouTube videos about Disney cruises and them being very excited about the upcoming trip. Mom and Dad were finally able to start more obvious signs of trip prep like packing etc. We only had two weeks until departure with much to do!

One fun thing was we had learned about Fish Extender groups and we loved the idea of having our kids think about not just their own experience but making it special for others. It went along nicely with the Christmas season. So we saved most of our Fish Extender prep work to the days after Christmas so they could be involved. It provided something for them to do while out of school and waiting for the trip to arrive. Back in Sept I went to FanX which is a ComicCon type event in Salt Lake and bought a bunch of Marvel comic books. We then cut out clippings from them and made them into magnets as one of our FE gifts. I was really happy how they turned out.



Enough with the pre cruise stuff. Next up will be departure day and our trip to Orlando with a visit to Disney Springs.

 

[Ccll4]

Seeing the kids reaction......priceless!

 

[greensombrero]

Departure Day, Orlando and Disney Springs

So the day finally arrived for us to actually head out. I should probably talk about our awesome flight blessing that occurred several weeks before the trip. Originally our great airfare deal had us flying through Minneapolis on the way to Orlando with a direct flight back. I was okay with the layover because I fly to Minneapolis regularly for work and we had enough time to make the connection. Also the schedule had us leaving at a decent hour and getting in at a decent time which was important to me with the kids. Well I got an email several weeks before from Delta that our flight schedule had changed. Now we had a pretty tight connection which made me nervous with 4 kids. So I called Delta to see what if anything could be done. I was impressed when I called the computer identified they had just made a schedule change on one of my reservations and asked if I was calling about that, which I was. I got a callback scheduled and when the rep called back I just explained my concerns and asked if there were any options. I was pleasantly surprised when they offered to just rebook us, for free, on a direct flight to Orlando with the caveat we'd get in earlier, more time in Disney Springs, how horrible right .

So we had a 9:30 AM flight and I'm someone who likes to get to the airport with plenty of time to not feel rushed. I travelled for work more than usual the last year and had similar flight times so I figured if we left the house by 6:30-6:45 we'd have time to park the car at my favorite parking place, catch the shuttle to the airport, get through security and have a leisurely breakfast. The good news is we planned to get to the airport with plenty of time. The bad news is that the line to drop our checked luggage was longer than I've ever seen it. By the time we got through it and security, which thankfully security was pretty quick, we just had time to grab McDonalds to go for breakfast before they were boarding our flight.

I'll stop here and say we had a lot of luggage. I had read people often over pack for a cruise, and we did but we also really wanted to participate in all the themed dress up activities. So we had a carry on for each of us, along with our backpacks. We also had 4 checked bags. One for costumes, one for our snorkeling gear, and two for clothes/other stuff. We also had a car seat bag we packed two booster seats in for my youngest two. Having all the luggage ended up being good because we had lots to bring home in the end too.

I will comment my wife and I already had snorkeling gear from a prior trip. We wanted our kids to be able to experience snorkeling at Castaway Cay and bought some kids gear during the summer for them to use in the pool and get comfortable with. Of course we couldn't tell them why so it was just in case we ever had an opportunity for them to snorkel we wanted them to know how. Fortunately they just thought it was a fun new thing to do in our neighborhood pool and didn't question it too much. They had all practiced with their gear and gotten pretty comfortable so we didn't want to have them rent something they didn't know and struggle. Plus when I ran the numbers paying for the checked bag vs renting it was better for us to just bring it.

Anyhow the flight was uneventful and the kids did great, it was only their second flight ever. One side effect from being booked on a different flight than we originally had was we weren't all together in 2 rows like I would have preferred. We were spread across three consecutive rows with two of us per row. It was fine we just put my oldest DD with her sister in the row between my wife and I, each of us next to one of our DS. We could still pass things and communicate between the rows when we needed to without it being an issue or disturbing those around us. Everything worked out with the new friends seating by us as well.

My sons were impressed with the Star Wars theming around the airport tram


Arriving in Orlando we rented a minivan. I should call out I explored several different options for the trip but the best one for us ended up being to just rent a minivan for the week and pay to park at the port. This was driven by the fact we had to drive to Miami and dropping the car in another city and then getting another on the return to save on parking just wasn't worth it from a complexity or cost perspective. Also we have experienced some long lines to get a rental car before. I really didn't want to hit that when we got off the cruise and were trying to back it back to Orlando to fly home.

We rented our car through Costco Travel. Car rentals are the only time I've used them, they seem to have great car rental rates and you always get the extra driver free through them which is nice. This time they put us with Alamo which worked out great. I had preregistered with Alamo to be able to skip the counter. I wasn't sure how that would work but it was super slick. When we arrived in Orlando and got our luggage a porter saw us with all our bags. He offered to help us and I figured it was worth a decent tip to have the help. He hauled our bags and guided us to the rental cars which in Orlando are right across the terminal, no shuttle needed. We literally walked right to the parking area where I showed my paperwork to one person and was told to pick a minivan. We then loaded up the luggage which to be honest was a bit tricky to fit it all. We knew that from loading it in our minivan at home, the kids had to deal with luggage in the aisle between the seats but it all worked out fine even though it was a different model than we have.

We then headed to our hotel. I've been a Marriott fan for years and we got their rewards credit card a number of years ago. It works out really well for us because we get lots of free stays and always have good elite status with them, last year I made titanium for the first time. Since we've traditionally done mainly road trips having hotel stays has been more valuable than airline miles. I will add we also have the Disney Visa as well which we use for the perks and rewards when we have a Disney trip planned or there are special offers. We used it leading up to the trip and got a nice chunk of reward dollars for souvenirs etc.

We stayed on points and got two rooms at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Orlando Lake Buena Vista. We wanted someplace we could use points that was close to Disney Springs and ideally we could get adjoining rooms. We find Marriott often has options that can accommodate our family of 6 in a single room at some of their brands. However often they are upgraded room types and we can't always use points for them. In this case I had the points to just do two rooms but you can't guarantee they will be adjoining which is always our preference. It worked out in this case. I didn't take any pictures of the hotel because it was a pretty standard Fairfield Inn for us and I didn't think about it. I've definitely stayed in some older ones and this one definitely felt well maintained and relatively new. The big stand out for me was I really liked the staff we interacted with. I usually do which is why I'm loyal to Marriott.

After the long flight and checking in my kids were excited to go to Disney Springs



I guess this is a good as time as any to discuss our strategy for the time zone difference with our kids. We were assigned second dining on the cruise and while I know we could have requested a change we decided we were going to give it a try. Part of our thinking was our kids are really early risers at home. We didn't see much benefit to being up before 6am on the cruise. We did see a desire for them to stay up later than usual though. So we decided to try and take advantage of the time zone difference and keep them on Utah time. Then 8:15 dinner would be like 6:15 which is reasonable. Also we could keep them up until 10 pm and they would hopefully sleep until 8. The strategy ended up working pretty well and second dining wasn't a big deal.

I mention it because I figured we'd start with that schedule from day one so we had a dinner reservation at 7:45 PM at Raglan Road. I had heard really good things about the restaurant and the idea of an Irish themed pub sounded really cool. I picked the time to ensure if we had any flight delays etc we'd be fine and to try out the later dining from day one to see how it would work to keep the kids on Utah time. One problem though the first day was that we were flying during lunch time. We packed the kids big snack bags with lots of food to compensate. However they felt they skipped lunch and were super hungry. We walked around Disney Springs shopping for a bit but decided it was worth seeing if we could be seated early.

As it turned out that was not a problem. I failed to take any restaurant pictures either but they had a patio seating area they told me we could be seated at quickly. So we ended up being seated an hour early which was very nice. I'll do a quick restaurant review, we loved it. I had the shepard's pie which was incredible. My wife had a pulled beef that she loved. Kids were happy with their food and it was a fun atmosphere. We were too early for the main entertainment on the patio but a dancer did come out and teach my girls a little Irish dancing which was fun.

After dinner we walked around Disney Springs a bit more and then called it a night. The kids were ready for bed which was fine with me. Travel days are tiring.

Up next a Birthday Dinosaur lunch at Disney Springs followed by a road trip to Miami and our first and only real travel glitch of the trip

 

[Dreams&wishes]

Wonderful, looking forward to hear the rest.

 

[BadPinkTink]

loving your report so far. I'm a first time cruiser and booked on The Magic in September, so I'm soaking up as much info as I can. I love the scavenger hunt reveal and how you managed to prepare the kids before the reveal without them knowing why they were going snorkeling

 

[greensombrero]

loving your report so far. I'm a first time cruiser and booked on The Magic in September, so I'm soaking up as much info as I can. I love the scavenger hunt reveal and how you managed to prepare the kids before the reveal without them knowing why they were going snorkeling

Thanks! We loved the Magic! I did a lot of research before our trip and it definitely is helpful. It is hard though to fully understand how magical it is until you are there. Hang in there until Sept, it will be worth the wait!

 

[greensombrero]

Day 2 -- Orlando to Miami

I awoke to our first full day on vacation with the question would my kids actually sleep in. It doesn't seem to matter what we do at home they are always early risers. Fortunately our plan to keep them on Utah time worked and they didn't wake up until a reasonable hour. We had three main goals for today:

1. Make a Walmart run for a few last minute items
2. Celebrate my DS 10th birthday with a lunch at T-Rex Cafe
3. Get to Miami

We grabbed a light breakfast at the hotel since we had an early lunch reservation and headed to the nearest Walmart. One of the challenges coming from a cold weather state is that things like sandals are not readily available during the winter. Unfortunately my two boys ended the summer needing new sandals and as we packed we realized we need to get some. Not finding any locally and with kids sizing for footwear being difficult to handle online we decided we'd just get some in Orlando. Unfortunately Walmart didn't have as good of selection as we hoped. We got some but they ended up just not working for my 4 yr old and he got some rather expensive but very cool Mickey ones on the ship.



The one other thing I'll call out from our Walmart trip was that we had to buy an iPhone audio cable adapter and cable. I was sure in 2020 that any rental minivan would have bluetooth audio capability we could use to play audio books from our phones but I was wrong. The only option was to use an audio cable and the aux input. We had a Dodge Grand Caravan for the record. So we bought an adapter and cable at Walmart. Listening to audiobooks on car trips is key to ensuring an enjoyable ride with our kids.

After Walmart we headed back to Disney Springs for lunch at TRex Cafe. My DS had his 10th birthday two days before we left and the logistics were such that he didn't get our traditional birthday meal at a restaurant of his choosing. I knew that would be the case well in advance and got a reservation at the TRex Cafe anticipating once he found out about the trip on Christmas he would love that option. He is in a real dinosaur phase and TRex is his favorite. Turns out I was right and he was really excited about the possibility. We had an 11:15 lunch reservation so we could get on the road.





For those unfamiliar with it the T Rex Cafe is like Rainforest Cafe but with a dinosaur theme and is owned by the same people. We had never been to one before though we have done several Rainforest Cafes in the past.

The theming of the restaurant was pretty cool.



Normally I go to these theme restaurants with pretty low food quality expectations. We were pleasantly surprised with our meal. My oldest two got burgers and my 12 yr old said it was one of the best burgers she has ever had. My wife and I followed the server's recommendations rather than going with what looked the most interesting on the menu which paid off. I got a BBQ Meatloaf I really enjoyed. My wife got a chicken fried chicken that she said was quite good and it is a favorite of hers. So overall it was a great birthday lunch for DS and enjoyed by all.

After lunch we ended up wandering Disney Springs a bit longer. They have a Lego store with fun Lego statues.


We also let the kids ride the carousel.


Overall we enjoyed our visit to Disney Springs. It was a fun way to get some Disney without going into the parks. My DW commented she prefers Downtown Disney at Disneyland because it is easier to find your way around. Disney Springs is larger and it was harder to figure out if we visited all the fun/unique shops. They also have a lot of more typical chain stores that we weren't interested in. On the plus side there was more to see and many more restaurant options.

With my elite status with Marriott we were able to get a late checkout so we headed back to the hotel to collect our luggage as we elected not to have it in the car while we parked at Disney Springs. It might be worth calling out that unlike Downtown Disney in Anaheim, there is free parking at Disney Springs. We quickly loaded up and set out for Miami. One con to the fun morning/early afternoon is we saw we'd be hitting traffic as we approached Miami. We waited long enough not to hit it right at the start of rush hour but we would be hitting the end of it adding 30-40 minutes to the drive. So instead of 3.5 hours it was a solid 4 plus a bit.

It is probably worth commenting on the drive in case anyone else wants to consider it. I thought it was a pleasant drive. The fastest route is to take the Florida Turnpike which is a toll road. Alamo has a toll by plate option you can use to just drive through the transponder lanes and be billed after based on them taking a picture of your license plate. We've used similar programs before and while their is a slight convenience fee I think it is worth it. As I'm writing this I haven't seen the final bill yet so I may have to modify this if it doesn't work as I've experienced on other trips. I did research it ahead of time though and so it should be fine. If you are going to do tolls by plate with a rental car it is definitely worth checking out how their program works before doing it.

I will also add there did not appear to be much along the route but they did have regular stops between the two directions of the highway with gas stations/fast food. We didn't need to stop on the way there but there were definitely options for restroom breaks. One other thing I'll call out that we did was we elected to prepay for our gas on the rental car. This has been an option I've seen the last couple year so rather than bringing the car back with a full tank of gas you can opt to prepay for a full tank at average gas prices. Then you can bring it back without filling up and not get hit with the really high gas prices they normally charge for non full tanks. We elected for that option because we didn't want the hassle when we were driving back trying to make our flight. The trick then is you want to time it to return without much gas in the tank while not running out. We ended up in Miami with a quarter tank and put $20.00 in on our drive home which left us with about a quarter tank when we turned it in. That was close enough for me to be happy.

Two last comments on the drive. Our book for this journey was the Land of Stories by Chris Colfer. My DW and DD 12 had already read it but were happy to listen to it again. DS 10 and I really got hooked on it and have been listening to it since getting home. DD 8 and DS 4 generally don't have much opinion on the audio books we listen to but both of them were happy with it. I really love my kids like listening to books on car trips. The second comment is just that the drive was pleasant and the traffic we hit wasn't too bad. The one challenge we had, which might have been a freudian slip, was that I accidentally ended up taking an exit to the tunnel that took us to the port and cruise terminal instead of exiting for our hotel. We ended up checking out the terminal which was pretty dead at 7pm before making it to our hotel.

For our hotel I selected the Marriott Biscayne Bay. With all our Marriott stays my kids had yet to stay in a high rise full service Marriott and we had the points to do it so I thought it'd be fun for our night before the cruise. This hotel appeared to have a view of the port (it did) which I also thought would be fun. I will say from the property perspective we quite liked the hotel. Unfortunately we hit our main travel glitch here. It was just an unfortunate set of circumstances. They had several events/conventions going on and were quite full. The night before we arrived there was a pipe/flooding issue that took out a bunch of their rooms. So they were majorly oversold. Given my status with Marriott I wasn't selected to be "walked" to another property though I saw many guests experiencing that including someone posted on our cruise FB group. However they only had one of our two rooms ready when we arrived at 7:30 PM. The other was being used by an airline crew that was leaving late and we'd have to wait for them to leave and it to be serviced. It also meant we couldn't get adjoining rooms. Our first room was on the 24th floor with a balcony and awesome view.



You couldn't quite see the cruise terminal but we were able to view it from the Concierge Lounge which I do get access to with my elite status. So we went and got dinner at the hotel restaurant which was pretty good. I got a catch of the day sandwich I really enjoyed. It was a type of fish I hadn't heard of before and I don't recall it now but I really liked it. I don't recall what others got but everyone enjoyed their food.

At this point the kids were ready for bed but we still didn't have our second room. I understood they were in a difficult situation but so were we. I talked to them about it and they did comp us our dinner which was really nice as well as giving us extra breakfast vouchers. It became apparent we would only have one two bed room and the other would be a king that DS 10 and I could just share. So I decided I might just take him to the Concierge Lounge to wait for our room and let everyone else get to bed. Fortunately at that moment we got the call and had our second room at like 9:30 PM. It was on the 14th floor so 10 floors away from the rest which made coordinating our day bags and luggage the next morning a bit difficult but it all worked out fine.

While things didn't work out quite as I dreamed with the hotel I felt like they did the best they could given the circumstances. My kids loved being on a high floor with the view. That totally worked as I hoped. I took both of the older two separately to the Concierge Lounge which they thought was fun. The property itself was great, liked the rooms and especially the view. So I'd definitely stay here again before sailing out of Miami if I could.

Up next is boarding the Magic where the magic really began!

 

[GatorMomInNC]

Thank you for this wonderful trip report! Love the pix of your family and the surprise!!

We did the 5 night Marvel on the Magic (my favorite ship!) last March and my son and I (HUGE Marvel Fans) LOVED IT SO MUCH!!! I can't wait to hear about what you all thought of the cruise.

 

[lorimay]

Love the kids faces when they saw it was a cruise!
Looking forward to reading along.

 

[mama&me]

I’m really enjoying your trip report. I’m taking my mom on a Marvel cruise in a couple of weeks. Love the pictures of your family. You did a great job planning. Any interest in adopting two older ladies. Lol. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[tokyodisneydad]

Subscribing to your TR. We are going on the Magic in April. My wife and will be Gold castaway club members and we are taking our daughter (her second cruise) and my granddaughters for their first. I can't wait to hear how your youngest reacted to the activities on board for their age.

 

[greensombrero]

Thank you for this wonderful trip report! Love the pix of your family and the surprise!!

We did the 5 night Marvel on the Magic (my favorite ship!) last March and my son and I (HUGE Marvel Fans) LOVED IT SO MUCH!!! I can't wait to hear about what you all thought of the cruise.

Thanks for following along. I'll get some more posted but I will say we loved Marvel Day.

 

[greensombrero]

I’m really enjoying your trip report. I’m taking my mom on a Marvel cruise in a couple of weeks. Love the pictures of your family. You did a great job planning. Any interest in adopting two older ladies. Lol. Looking forward to reading more.

Well I can't adopt anyone yet My mom keeps wanting to go on a trip with me again so I think she is first in line. I've got her and my Dad considering joining us on our next Disney Cruise. We will see if it works out.

 

[greensombrero]

Subscribing to your TR. We are going on the Magic in April. My wife and will be Gold castaway club members and we are taking our daughter (her second cruise) and my granddaughters for their first. I can't wait to hear how your youngest reacted to the activities on board for their age.

I will be sure to talk about how our youngest did. All our kids loved the cruise including the 4 year old. He is excited to do another one.

 

[karen4546]

Following along..

I really like the pics of your children's excited faces. T-Rex is fun and I agree the food has mostly been very good.

I like the "tips" in your report. Things like routes to take, options when car renting, reward credit cards like Disney Visa and Marriot Rewards. But, I especially like your attitude. The mishap with your hotel could have put a sour note in your trip, but you seem to have a great attitude and take the hiccups in stride.

 

[greensombrero]

Day 3 -- Embarkation

I woke up filled with anticipation, the long awaited day had arrived! I will be honest as a first time cruiser and someone who wasn't sure they ever wanted to cruise I had a fair amount of nerves for the day. I share that just to be real with any other first time cruisers. It was so worth it and it was all awesome but as with any adventure you don't know until you do it. I did run up to the lounge to get my first glance at the Magic. Unfortunately the sun glare on the window was bad so this photo did not turn out real well. At one point I thought I'd get up early and watch her sail in but the late night eliminated that.



So here is an opportunity for a big first timer tip. We had a bit of a mad scramble in the morning adjusting packing. We knew our bags wouldn't be available until later and we also knew our staterooms wouldn't be either. We didn't want to carry any roller bags on with us. We elected instead to just carry on everyone's backpacks. The challenge was they were packed for the plane not with the things we wanted as we boarded. We had to gather stuff across all our luggage. Looking back we should have backed it all in one roller bag so it was easy to transfer to backpacks This was of course made a bit more difficult by the fact we had stuff in two rooms on different floors. As to what we wanted, we packed swimsuits, rash guards, sunscreen, sandals, in our backpacks, all the stuff to make it so we could play in the pool if we wanted to and we did.

Little parenting humor here. Before we left for the trip my wife caught my 4 yr old son trying to pack some of his toy guns in his backpack. They were clearly toys but I'm sure it still would not have gone over well with TSA. Fortunately my wife caught it. When we were packing this morning though I discovered my older son had never cleared all his school stuff out of his backpack. He can be a bit of a space cadet at times and his music class recorder was in his bag. I knew musical instruments were prohibited onboard so I made sure it just got left in the rental car which we parked during the cruise.

We had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel restaurant. I love full service Marriott breakfast buffets and this did not disappoint. There was lots of variety at Cabanas but this breakfast from a food quality perspective was better than what we had on the cruise. Of course it would have been expensive if we didn't have the vouchers. Elite status pays off. Normally they would have just sent me to breakfast in the lounge but with my kids they let me get vouchers for the restaurant where we paid a slight fee to upgrade to the full buffet and then we paid for the kids.

We had a 11:00 AM PAT for one of our staterooms and 11:30 for the other. I figured we could just all show up together and aimed to leave at 10:45 since we were only like 10 minutes from the port. We didn't quite make that with all the packing and hauling our luggage to the car. Getting to the port itself wasn't hard but there were no signs to direct us where to go once we got there. The signs just indicate terminal letters and Disney doesn't have a dedicated one in Miami. Fortunately we saw the Magic was at Terminal C so we followed the signs for C which was one of the first terminals. We got there just after 11 and I pulled up to unload the family and luggage. With all our bags I made sure we had money to tip the porters. I've heard $2.00 per bag is pretty standard and that is what I did. The porter then directed me how to get to the parking garage which was pretty straightforward. It was right across from the terminal.

We did decide to just park at the port since it was easy. We didn't want to return the rental car and then have to rent again because we had to drive back to Orlando to make our flight right after we finished the cruise. I didn't want to mess with offsite parking either. The rates weren't that bad, $22.00 a day I think. For the 5 days it was $110 which we had budgeted for and the convenience made it worth it. I don't think we could have done anything for much less and everything else I came up with was more complicated.

Parking was easy though the first few floors were full so it took a minute to find a spot. I did a final check to make sure no one left anything and stopped for my first real look at the Magic, at least the top portion.



I didn't really know how things would work and my wife had just waited outside the terminal entrance since I had all the paperwork. They probably could have gone through security and waited for me if we had planned accordingly. DW said there was no line when they walked up but by the time I joined them we had like a 10 minute line to get through security. Check in with Disney took another 10 - 15 minutes.

The good news was that once we got through it all our boarding group 5 was being called and we got to stop for our first picture and then walk right on board. I think we boarded right around noon though I forgot to look at my watch.



I will add here my wife did make us all matching first cruise shirts. She has become a master at family Disney shirts after our last couple Disneyland trips. I bought her a Silhouette a few years back and she has made good use of it! One other tip on that front from our earlier Disneyland trips, we tried white shirts but found in a warm climate sunscreen mixed with sweat sometimes stains the collars on white shirts. I don't notice it with store bought shirts as much but we had some issues with the ones we made so we've moved to using darker shirts.

It may be hard for experienced cruisers to recall their thoughts the first time they boarded a ship. After months of waiting and keeping the surprise it was rather surreal we were finally doing it. I know the Magic is a "smaller" ship but it seemed huge to us. It was honestly a bit overwhelming boarding her for the first time. In Miami you board on deck 4 not directly in the atrium. I actually kind of liked that because we got to walk on the deck for a bit and I love that it is a teak wood deck. You still get some of that wow factor as you actually enter the ship and can look down on the atrium. They called our name and we were just kind of starstruck I think. Ariel was greeting everyone and my daughters and I stopped for a quick picture. She was at least familiar to this Disney family. I'll add my younger sister was a "special friend" to Ariel and a few other princesses back in the day so I always have to get photos with them when I see them.



I had a bit of a first timer concern when boarding. Our dining rotation was listed as LLARL (Lumieres x 2, Animators Palate, Rapunzels, then back to Lumieres). I realized that put Rapunzels on pirate night and I worried we wouldn't experience the show. I should have figured Disney wouldn't make a mistake like that but I did go to where they were accepting dining requests just to confirm. They informed me they weren't doing the pirate menu on this cruise since it was a Marvel Day at Sea cruise. I think they have on prior navigators I saw before sailing but not for this one. There was a pirate night and fireworks but normal menu that night.

After that errand I found my family again and we explored the kid's clubs for a bit. One other first timer tip. They confirmed our kids club registrations when we went up. However they forgot to put the little locks on my kids wristbands. They were having trouble keeping them on later and we went back to get the little lock tabs they put on. They told us we should have gotten them when we verified our info but we didn't know any better and maybe being some of the first ones in there it got forgotten. No big deal to get them later but definitely worth having them to keep the wristbands on.

After that my kids decided they wanted to go swimming. So we went up to deck 9 and changed in the bathrooms. By the time I got my 4 yr old ready I found out my older DS and DD had already done the Aquadunk, there was no wait. We staked out some chairs and my wife decided she didn't want to change. So I went and changed to check out the Aquadunk for myself. I'm so glad I did. I still was a bit overwhelmed and had some anxiety about how everything would go, would I get seasick, would I feel comfortable on this new adventure? Once the floor dropped out from under me and I was rushing down the Aquadunk all my worries were left at the top and I was in full vacation mode. I took advantage of no lines and rode a second time right away.



For those unfamiliar that is the Aquadunk. It is a pretty intense but short ride. I rode it a total of 4 times during our cruise and only waited once for a few minutes. I think our cruise wasn't full and also being a smaller ship there were less people in general.

We enjoyed all the deck food electing to eat burgers, chicken fingers, pizza, shawarma and ice cream rather than worry about Cabanas. My kids were pretty amazed they could just go ask for food or get ice cream no payment required (of course I had already paid plenty ). We actually found some loungers by the smaller kid pool/splash zone that went up against a stairway so we could hang our backpacks on the back of the loungers without bugging anyone. It worked out as a great home base. I did have a moment of panic when we lost track of our 4 year old for second. Then we realized he had just got himself in line for the Twist and Spout water slide. He quickly felt at home and had no trouble just going to get in line when he felt like it. The kids loved the pool deck throughout the cruise.

About 2pm I decided to go down and see if our rooms were ready. My son joined me and we changed into dry clothes then headed up to Cabanas to get some dessert. Yes we were in cruise food mode already, can’t have lunch without dessert. We probably had some ice cream too . If you ask my kids their favorite part my youngest two regularly mention the ice cream. My DD was an expert at filling cones and consistently suggested we get more ice cream throughout the cruise. Since Dad frequently got one two I didn't have hands free for ice cream pictures but here is my son when we ran to get dessert at Cabanas and enjoy the view of Miami.



Everyone ended up down in the rooms then and my wife and I got some unpacking done. I was rather impressed with how functional our staterooms were. We had adjoining Deluxe Oceanview Staterooms category 9B on deck 2 midship. There were plenty of places to store things as we unpacked. Being able to put suitcases under the bed was great. I especially loved the storage areas in the split bathrooms. It always feels to me when we are in hotel bathrooms I have nowhere to put my stuff when I'm traveling with the family. Being I guy I don't have much but it is nice to have a place to put my razor, contacts, and toothbrush. The corner shelf in the front bathroom had some high shelves that were perfect for me. We liked our stateroom location too. It was a few decks from everything but only a few and we weren't far from the midship stairs. Climbing all the way to deck 9 was a bit of a climb but otherwise it didn't feel bad to get anywhere we needed to go. It was also low noise.

We had a chance to meet our stateroom host Felicino from the Philippines, hope I spelled it right. I had heard I could ask for character sheets for the kids beds. We had both our boys on the sofa beds and he was happy to help. Both boys got Good Dinosaur sheets on the cruise, lesser known movie but they loved it. I swear he was a ninja. We didn't see him much unless I needed something then I could always find him. He was friendly and provided great service, couldn't have asked for anything more. He definitely earned additional gratuity from me for his excellent service, I know he worked hard. My DDs are not the best and keeping things clean at home or hotels despite my best efforts to train them otherwise. Our stateroom always looked great and of course we had fun towel animals each night which I admittedly failed to take pictures of.

Before we knew it it was time for the muster drill. I do want to talk about that as a first timer. I have kids who don’t like the sounds of fire drills at school and I’m not a big fan either. I wasn’t sure what the whole experience would be like but was really impressed with how smooth it was. I thought Disney did a great job with it. We went out to our muster station K a few minutes before 4pm. I asked our leader when the kids should plug their ears if they were noise sensitive and he made sure they knew. To be honest where we were didn’t end up being that loud so they didn’t end up minding the sound of the general alarm too much. I’m told where you are can make a difference but I was glad to see the whole experience was fine for us. It was a bit long standing still for my kids but they did pretty well. We were lucky I think everyone arrived quickly and it didn’t seem to take too long. Weather was also cooperative it was warm but not hot and we weren’t in the sun.

One cruise highlight occurred during the drill. We were actually standing next to a family from Brazil. We started talking during the initial part where there weren’t instructions going on (we did listen when they were talking, safety is important). I’ve been to Brazil a couple times and always enjoy talking to people from other places. We realized we’d “met” virtually on our cruise FB group. They were a couple cabins down from us and we ran into each other throughout the cruise. It was a great example of how you can meet people from all over on a cruise.

Muster Drill over with minimal pain we headed up for our first sail away party and got a spot up front. I thought it was fun to see the party but I might not go for a spot up front next time. We got some fun pictures up on deck after.




I think my older DS went after to spend some time in the club and my older DD headed up to Edge for a bit. We got pictures with Captain Mickey



I ended up going back up on deck to watch us sail away. My wife and I don't drink but I did enjoy a virgin Bon Voyage as I said goodbye to land. I was in total vacation mode. Here is my goodbye to land selfie.



That evening we enjoyed seeing Twice Charmed. We are a theater going family, my kids have performed in children's musical productions and we've taken them to see some regionally produced Disney and non Disney broadway shows in the past. So we really enjoyed the shows onboard. The quality was great and I think I liked Twice Charmed the best of the three because it was an original story and I do like fairy tale retellings.

We ended up with second dining and kind of liked it as it meant earlier shows. As I mentioned earlier we pretty successfully kept our kids on Utah time so it didn't feel as late to them. The first night it was no problem though they did get more tired at dinner as the cruise progressed. Our first night was in Lumieres and we enjoyed it. We had awesome servers, Steve from Jamaica and Visa from Thailand (that was is easy to pronounce shortened name). They read our family right that we weren't up for long dinners and kept things moving without feeling rushed. As Steve put it he is the Usan Bolt of the dining room. Their efficiency at getting the kids food was awesome. Steve always had great recommendations. I had heard about the service in the dining rooms but until I experienced it first hand I didn't realize just how awesome it would be. We definitely enjoyed rotation dining and keeping our servers.

My 12 and 10 year olds loved being able to order off the adult menu. It gave them a chance to try new things, especially my DS who is an adventurous eater and wanted to explore seafood and of course steak. My 4 and 8 year olds stuck to the kids menu except for desserts. I loved how my 4 year old liked to say "I think tonight I'll try the mac and cheese". He changed the wording but had it every night.

At Lumieres I loved the shrimp and lobster, french onion soup, chateaubriand, and the apple tart. Our server also brought us the grand mariner souffle to try which we did enjoy as well. After dinner it was time for bed. My DW likes to retire earlier than me. Once everyone was down I did slip out to explore the ship at night a bit. I discovered I loved looking at the ocean at night from deck 4 and 10.

It was a great first day. Up next was Marvel Day at Sea which was an adventure packed day!

 

[tokyodisneydad]

I did not know that you can request character sheets. Of course it’s just been me and my wife for years Disney cruising. I think they may have found such a request odd with just us. But I will certainly be putting that to use for the granddaughters.

 

[GatorMomInNC]

12 DCL cruises and I don't recall hearing about the character sheets before! Maybe I will order some for my 16 year old on our next cruise

 

[mama&me]

Is the picture of your family on deck after the Sailaway Party a Shutters Photo? If so, was it advertised in the Navigator, or did you just see people lining up? Would like to take a picture with my mom there.

 

[greensombrero]

Is the picture of your family on deck after the Sailaway Party a Shutters Photo? If so, was it advertised in the Navigator, or did you just see people lining up? Would like to take a picture with my mom there.

Yes we just saw a photographer up on deck and asked for photos since we prepaid for a photo package. I don’t recall if they approached us or if we just saw them. We had both happen on the trip. It was not listed in the navigator. We found the photo ops before dinner each night in the atrium to be great as well. They were also out on Castaway Cay both when we first got off and roaming on the beach. I’ll post those when I get to Castaway Cay.