Happy Halloween Cruise Day 1 - Embarkation Day!
I really don’t know how I managed to sleep I was so excited, but sleep I did, and suddenly the alarm clock was bleeping frantically. I picked it up and looked at the time, it was 7:30am.….WHAT! It couldn’t be. It was about then that I realised with shock, horror and disbelief that I had been so tired the night before that I had failed to set it for the earlier time I wanted and it was still set on 7:30am from the previous day.
Well now I was in full panic mode - I needed to be leaving the apartment at 7:30, not struggling out of bed to face lots of packing, a load of damp washing still in the tumble dryer, and not to mention 4 grumpy teenagers still wallowing in their pits! This was NOT the chilled out pre-cruise morning I had planned at all, and it totally took the shine off my long awaited embarkation day experience that I had looked forward to for so long.
And the worst thing was - it was my fault, and the only person I could rant and rave at was myself - and believe me there was an excessive amount of internal ranting and raving going on that morning.
So I got up, switched on the tumble dryer, threw myself in the shower while shouting at the kids to get shifting, and once dressed I started packing what was left to pack and tidying up, still shouting at the kids to get shifting. Eventually they shifted, and began to pack up their last minute stuff, and finally we were ready to leave Cypresse Point. I snapped a couple of photos of the apartment on the way out.
Overall I was really pleased with the apartment complex - the rooms were clean and there was plenty of space, even with 4 teenagers. The kitchen was well equipped, although the only thing we used was the enormous fridge and the kettle. My only complaint was the open plan toilet in our bedroom, as this wasn’t exactly ideal at times, as you can imagine. The pools were great too. Location wise it couldn’t be faulted - walking distance from lots of restaurants - Chilis, Orlando Ale House, Dennys, Dunkin Donuts and all the restaurants at the Crossroads. It was about 5 minutes drive from Downtown Disney, and about 10 minutes drive from most of the Disney parks. It was also handy for the I - 4, Premium Outlets, Lake Buena Vista Outlets,
Walmart (about 10-15 minutes drive). Yet it was actually a very quiet area.
It was, I regret to say, 9am by the time we left Cypresse Pointe, so that scuppered our plans of a leisurely breakfast in Port Canaveral, in fact it scuppered our plans of any breakfast at all because all I wanted to do was get to Port Canaveral and get on the Magic, with no further delay. We popped into the Walgreens at the end of the road for some extra cash from the machine in case we needed it in the ports we were visiting, and a few toiletries which I thought we might need, such as industrial size deoderant for the lads, and after sun gel in case we needed it on
Castaway Cay.
And then we were on our way, and I was becoming more and more excited by the minute - how I managed to drive and get us there in one piece remains a mystery to this very day! We hit the I-4 and it was very busy, and suddenly the car immediately in front of us, pulled out into the middle lane and started trying to overtake the vehicle in front of it, but the driver completely misjudged the manoeuvre and bumped into the back of the vehicle in front , which then caused the car coming up fast from the rear to bump into the back of the first car. It was all very scary and somehow I managed to break and pull back to avoid any of the flack from the incident while cars in the middle and inside lanes were skidding all over the place trying to avoid it. The cars managed to avoid any further damage and I was amazed because all of the vehicles involved, two of which had been
bumped and damaged, actually carried on driving and no one stopped at all. My heart was in my mouth through all of this - who needs the Tower of Terror for a white knuckle experience you can get it for free on the I-4!
On the way to Port Canaveral we passed through 3 sets of tolls, two of which were 75 cents and one which was 1 dollar and 25 cents. My excitement began to build as I knew the Magic couldn’t be far away, and suddenly the moment I had anticipated for months happened - we climbed the bridge and there she was, away in the distance, and the funnels were unmistakable - how I kept the car on the road I don’t know, but I do know that my eyes were filled with tears, fortunately hidden behind my sunglasses. As we drove closer to our destination we came up over another even bigger bridge and saw the ship even closer - just like we dreamed it!
So our next challenge was to find the Budget car rental depot, and I had no idea where I was going, so I turned off the main road following a sign to the cruise ships, when suddenly I was driving straight into a transfer bus heading right for us - with instant realisation that I had turned onto the wrong side of the road, I had to stop and do a “U” turn while all the oncoming traffic waited and watched - all rather embarrassing to say the least. By now I was very frustrated and highly stressed out, and I just wanted to find the car rental depot and avoid any more car-related incidents by getting rid of the damn thing and handing the driving over to someone else. We managed to chance upon a Hertz car rental depot and in desperation I just drove in and Tony popped out of the car to ask directions to Budget, which turned out to be only a couple of blocks further along. Once the car was dropped off, we loaded all of our baggage onto a waiting shuttle and I was able to finally relax as the shuttle took us to our ship of dreams - there are no words in the English or I am sure any other language to describe my excitement at this point - the anticipation was incredible.
We arrived at the drop zone and off loaded our bags, after thanking our really friendly driver.
We then passed through the security and into the terminal building. As we approached the upper level via the escalator we could hear excited shouts from above, and we saw Andy, Helen, Rachel and Bethany waiting to greet us ( and reprimand us for being late!) We were all beside ourselves with excitement, and as Andy and Helen had already checked in they pointed us in the right direction and the formalities were dealt with very quickly and efficiently. We were so excited to get our KTTW cards, but noticed that we had been allocated 8:30pm dining, when ideally we would have liked 8:00pm, but we aimed to try and change it once on board. We also had boarding pass no 16, which shows how late we were getting to the terminal. Andy and Helen had a CAT 2 stateroom, so they had priority boarding, but they were so sweet and decided to wait for us so we could all board together. Thanks guys xxxx Captain Mickey was holding court in the terminal building and looked very smart in his uniform:
While waiting for us Helen had spotted a group of DISers gathering, so we decided to go over and introduce ourselves. We chatted to some lovely people who we had met and chatted to on our cruise meet thread on the DIS - Suzie, Amy, Dana, Valerie and their families while we waited for boarding to commence. We received our amazing “Halloween on the High Seas” orange lanyards, which we wore for most of the cruise and which several non- DISers questioned us about, asking where they could buy them!
Suddenly the long-awaited moment was upon us - and they called for Group 16, so we all walked into the magical Mickey ears and posed for the embarkation photos. All of this seemed to pass by in such a blur as I was so excited and to be honest more than a little bit tearful and overwhelmed by the whole experience. The Balster family entered ahead of us and we all clapped and cheered, and then it was our turn, although the English cast member who announced our name got it completely wrong - I can’t remember what she said, but I didn’t really care - I WAS ON BOARD THE MAGIC! This was the first of many “pinch me - I must be dreaming” moments!
Our original plan had been to go to Parrot Cay for lunch once we embarked, but the cast members were directing everyone to Topsiders as there was a long line for Parrot Cay. So we carried on up to Topsiders and it was a wonderful first meal - lots of salad, butterfly chicken breasts, salmon etc which we enjoyed sitting out on the deck in the sun.
This is what I had for lunch…..
There really was an amazing selection of food. While we were eating a CM came around with some very attractive orange coloured drinks on a tray and really it was very rude to refuse so we grabbed a couple of those and they turned out to be rum punch and very nice indeed, if a little bit strong!
The desserts were also amazing - I decided on a mango mousse cake and a chocolate brownie which were really delicious!
Louise’s dessert choice: Before....
and after ......
After lunch the kids all took off for a wander around the ship, while we sat and enjoyed our drinks, and then wandered briefly around the open deck, where I tried to take a photo of the NASA building:
We all then headed off on a search for our staterooms. We found them quite easily and were very pleased with the location: 6089 and 6099. They were set out really nicely and were very clean - and I was really impressed.
They also seemed a lot more spacious than the staterooms I used to clean when I was a Stateroom steward on Princess Cruises back in 1988. We also had a gift on our bed from the DIS cruisers who had occupied our cabin on the previous cruise, which was really lovely. We noticed that the tickets we had in the room stated that our dining time was in fact 8:15pm, which those of you who are paying attention will realise was different from the allocated time on our KTTW cards - so this necessitated a trip to guest services to find out which was the correct time. We were very pleased to find out that our dining time would be 8:15pm. While at Guest Services I turned around and spotted a familiar face from our DIS board thread, who was instantly recognisable from the photos we had seen on line - it was Jenn and her husband Nelson, and we introduced ourselves and had a little chat.
We then headed off to have a look at Helen and Andy’s category 2 cabin, and all I can say at this point is WOW! We felt like Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in “Titanic” sneaking up from steerage to visit Kate Winslet in her first class suite! It was very impressive!
Soon it was time for our DIS meet in the Promenade Lounge. We met up with lots of DIS friends from our DIS meet thread and chatted away for a while. It was so lovely to meet our virtual friends in reality, but unfortunately the time passed very quickly. For some reason I didn’t take a photos during this get-together, probably because meeting all these people for the first time made me a wee bit self conscious and I didn’t want to go about waving a camera in people’s faces.
By now it was time for the 4pm lifeboat drill, so we returned to our cabins to pick up our lifejackets and make sure the kids had theirs. The obligatory photos were taken
and then we headed up to our muster point which was outside on Deck 4, and directly next to the lifeboats which was very reassuring. There seemed to be plenty of them and they also looked very roomy so there will be no more reference to the Titanic! Our lifeboat leader was Dave and he was very entertaining - which turned out to be very appropriate as he was actually one of the entertainment staff! The drill didn’t take too long and we returned back to the rooms to drop off the life jackets, where we met up with Erwin, our kids stateroom host, who was really friendly and we apologised in advance for the poor chap having to service a cabin containing 4 teenagers - any stateroom host’s worst nightmare I’m sure, although Erwin didn’t seemed to be phased by it at all.
Just you wait Erwin…….
It was finally time for the sail away party - Adventures Away, and we met up with Helen, Andy, Rachel and Bethany on Deck 10, just above the action. We picked up some more fruity pink drinks, which were delicious but also fairly expensive at $44 for 6 drinks, but we later discovered that included the souvenir “plastic” glasses which were $2 each. So at this point we were dancing around, waving streamers, taking video and generally having a ball, and it all seemed very surreal.
After months of planning and talking about this moment, it finally arrived, and we counted down from 10 to 1 and then the magically horn sounded and I realised I was standing there with tears streaming down my cheeks! It was absolutely fantastic and once again I was lost for words! The ship began to pull away and we waved over the side - there were people with Mickey hands waving from the terminal, and from some of the quayside restaurants, and we stood there waving at everyone and anyone until the ship was heading out to sea. Once out on the open ocean, Tony and I stood on the aft deck and watched the land disappearing into the distance - it was truly the right moment to say “bring me that horizon….”
We wandered around the decks for a while and met up with fellow DISer Amy and her family, and her children were fascinated by our “English” accents and particularly our words for the toilet, which was really cute. We then decided to go down to the cabin to see if our bags had arrived, which would be a good thing as we were now quite a way out to sea. We were reassured to find all our bags present and correct, and all our kids happily chilling out in their cabin, so we all did some unpacking, before showering and getting dressed for our first dinner on board. We also hung up our Fish Extender and decorated our doors with the magnets we had made.
Our first dinner was in Lumieres, which was an absolutely beautiful restaurant, and so we headed up there where we met our fantastic tablemates - Andy, Helen, Rachel and Bethany, and our equally fantastic serving team - Dennis from the Phillipines and Laura from Trinidad and Tobago. Dennis and Laura were absolutely wonderful throughout the cruise and could not be faulted, they certainly made every meal such a special experience.
It was during dinner that we first began to realise we were on a ship, as we began to feel the movement and at one point poor Bethany felt quite ill and had to return to her room. This was the menu I had looked forward to the least as I am not a big fan of French cuisine, but I had a really enjoyable meal: mixed garden salad to start, grilled salmon and jacket potato from the lighter fare menu, and a wonderful crème brulee for dessert.
The divine Crème Brulee
Tony chose the shrimp medley, the beef tenderloin and the crepes suzettes, and really enjoyed his meal too. The kids, who are all extremely fussy eaters of varying degrees, all managed to all choose something they could eat and always enjoyed the desserts. We were very grateful for the lighter fare menu most evenings, as even the fussiest of them could be safe with plain chicken. As a side note I have taken lots of food photos during this cruise, but for some reason about 90% of the photos are of the desserts, so I do apologise in advance for those readers who don’t have a sweet tooth or who want to see something more than desserts. It is an obvious reflection of where my loyalties lie when it comes to food, and explains why I am still holding on to that extra 10lbs in weight I found on that cruise!
After dinner we had a wander around the ship and the kids headed off to check out the teens club. We picked up some of the magic pink pills from Guest Services as by now I was feeling a bit wobbly. The lads were back from the Teens Club within minutes and it turned out Dan had told the counsellors that he wouldn’t be staying as “no offence, but he had better things to do” - I don’t know what those “better things” were, as he came back to his room and watched TV with Stephen after having a good look around the ship, but our lads are not one for “organised activities” and they felt it was too much like a “kid’s club”. The girls, however, hung out there the first evening and met a few people, but even they were not inclined to rush back.
By now the motion of the ship was getting to me quite a bit, so we decided to head back to the cabin, where we found our first gift in our Fish Extender, our first towel friend and our next day’s navigator. We finished our unpacking and after popping my pink pill it was time for bed and our first swaying night on the Magic…..once in bed the swaying motion was actually quite relaxing and I didn’t have a problem with it at all. It was yet another “pinch myself” moment when I realised that I would be waking up in Castaway Cay!
So glad you avoided it - and another one shortly afterwards - I think you're incredibly brave - I could never drive in the States. All those lanes totally confuse me!
So glad she soon felt up to eating ice cream again! 
.
