Tuesday, April 10th
This morning we slept in until 8:00am. The plan was to depart around 9am but I refused to rush around all crazy. Our boarding time was 11-11:30am and I knew it wasn't a huge deal to be late. We loaded up the car and grabbed some breakfast at Everything Pop. We got on the road at 9:40am. So still plenty of time unless traffic is just at a stand still. I hate all the toll roads along the way but what can you do.
Here is what comes into view around 10:50am
We pull in and a porter takes all our luggage and directs us to park on the 3rd level of the garage and enter through the walkway up there. This was such great advice as the line on ground level was way down the sidewalk and we only had 2 families in front of us at security. We made it through security with no issues, filled out the health form and walked straight up to a CM to check us in. It is now just a little past 11:00am and we are handed our boarding pass...
I go out on the overlook and take a few pictures
Grab a picture of Dougie with the mouse ear entrance
And boarding begins. It was such a painless wait!
We are introduced and a CM walks beside us telling us where the elevators are located and how to get to Cabanas for lunch. We decide we are not hungry yet and setup camp poolside. We have to wait about 15 minutes before the Aquaduck opens but they were able to ride it twice without a wait.
The pool area is starting to get crowded so we go to Oceaneer Lab to check it out.
Very cool area but Dougie never ends up going back. We just kept so busy with other activities that there was never time.
Afterwards we grab some lunch from Tow Mater's Grill and some ice cream from Eye Scream. It is now 1:30pm so we go down to the room to drop off our carry-on luggage. We are in room 8556. Loved the location between the mid and forward stairs/elevators. We could hit either very easily depending on where we wanted to go.
To my surprise our other luggage started arriving so I figured better to unpack now than to worry about that tonight. First thing was to hang up our FE.
and put on the door magnets. I found some didn't work as I guess the portal circle is larger on the newer ships and I hadn't bothered to research this ahead of time and just used the ones we used last year on the Magic.
After unpacking it was now time for our DIS Meet. I wanted to get there early as I was the organizer and had all the name tags. We made it down to Vista Cafe and were the first to arrive. I used one of the tall bar tables to stand at and hand out the name tags. I get our families on when the bar tender comes over and looks at my son and husband and asks "What's a Doug?" We explain it is there name and we have an online group all meeting here. With that cleared up I order a glass of wine and Doug asks for a cup of coffee with a shot of Bailey's on the side. This turns out to be way too complicated as he comes back several times confused on what it is Doug wants. "Do you want your coffee on the rocks?". In the end they finally work it out and we get what we had ordered.
We had about 90 people rsvp for the meet so I was really worried that we would not have enough room at Vista Cafe. In the end, people came and went at different times and many didn't show up. We stayed there chatting until they made the announcements about the lifeboat drill and shutdown the bar. We went back up to our room so I could drop off the extra name tags. We no longer made it in the room as the sirens went off. We turned around and went to Buena Vista Theatre. We were nearly the last family to arrive. I kept my key card out and held up but nobody ever came to scan it. Of course, they then start calling the missing families and we were on the list. Everyone around us was laughing because I had been trying to get their attention before that but without luck. Oh well, we got checked off the list and we were dismissed.
Off to the Sailing Away Party
We grab a spot along the rail on Deck 12 to look down at the festivities. We are handed some streamers to wave around. Time to get the party started!
After, we head back to the room to clean up for the evening. I order us the All Hands on Deck (cheese platter) and some empty wine glasses. This along with the chicken wings become a nightly ritual the entire cruise.
We attend the Golden Mickey's and noticed a few changes from the show on the Magic. Glad to see they tweak it a bit to keep current. We had front row seats so got a great view of those abs on Tarzan
Beautiful sunset
Next, we head to DLounge for Bingo. Dougie won the 2nd game but had to split it with another so he got $51 and a free set of cards for tomorrows bingo session. This is where we meet Dan, family activity CM. He was the CM who came over to verify Dougie's win and from that point forward would stop and talk to us anytime we saw him.
Dinner tonight was in Enchanted Garden. Our server was Dexter from Jamaica and assistant was Kristina from Australia. We were walked over to our table, #80, where we were instantly disappointed. We had requested to be at a table by ourselves and it was a table of 8. Well last year it worked out that we had great DIS table mates so we were hopeful we would get lucky again. When they arrived we introduced ourselves and started trying to chit-chat with them about where they were from, was it their first cruise, etc. They only gave direct answers and never asked a question in return. Guess they didn't want table mates either.
After dinner we went back to DLounge for the Family Fusion game. Our host was Dan and he picked us to participate.
Youngest was up first. High fives for Dougie.
Then the next youngest, Doug
and the oldest, me.
I missed my question and lost the dance off but we did well on the group trivia questions. It came down to a laundry sorting game.
We didn't win, but had such a fun time getting to participate. We got back to the room around 11:00pm.
Tomorrow is our first stop at Castaway Cay!
This morning we slept in until 8:00am. The plan was to depart around 9am but I refused to rush around all crazy. Our boarding time was 11-11:30am and I knew it wasn't a huge deal to be late. We loaded up the car and grabbed some breakfast at Everything Pop. We got on the road at 9:40am. So still plenty of time unless traffic is just at a stand still. I hate all the toll roads along the way but what can you do.
Here is what comes into view around 10:50am
We pull in and a porter takes all our luggage and directs us to park on the 3rd level of the garage and enter through the walkway up there. This was such great advice as the line on ground level was way down the sidewalk and we only had 2 families in front of us at security. We made it through security with no issues, filled out the health form and walked straight up to a CM to check us in. It is now just a little past 11:00am and we are handed our boarding pass...
I go out on the overlook and take a few pictures
Grab a picture of Dougie with the mouse ear entrance
And boarding begins. It was such a painless wait!
We are introduced and a CM walks beside us telling us where the elevators are located and how to get to Cabanas for lunch. We decide we are not hungry yet and setup camp poolside. We have to wait about 15 minutes before the Aquaduck opens but they were able to ride it twice without a wait.
The pool area is starting to get crowded so we go to Oceaneer Lab to check it out.
Very cool area but Dougie never ends up going back. We just kept so busy with other activities that there was never time.
Afterwards we grab some lunch from Tow Mater's Grill and some ice cream from Eye Scream. It is now 1:30pm so we go down to the room to drop off our carry-on luggage. We are in room 8556. Loved the location between the mid and forward stairs/elevators. We could hit either very easily depending on where we wanted to go.
To my surprise our other luggage started arriving so I figured better to unpack now than to worry about that tonight. First thing was to hang up our FE.
and put on the door magnets. I found some didn't work as I guess the portal circle is larger on the newer ships and I hadn't bothered to research this ahead of time and just used the ones we used last year on the Magic.
After unpacking it was now time for our DIS Meet. I wanted to get there early as I was the organizer and had all the name tags. We made it down to Vista Cafe and were the first to arrive. I used one of the tall bar tables to stand at and hand out the name tags. I get our families on when the bar tender comes over and looks at my son and husband and asks "What's a Doug?" We explain it is there name and we have an online group all meeting here. With that cleared up I order a glass of wine and Doug asks for a cup of coffee with a shot of Bailey's on the side. This turns out to be way too complicated as he comes back several times confused on what it is Doug wants. "Do you want your coffee on the rocks?". In the end they finally work it out and we get what we had ordered.
We had about 90 people rsvp for the meet so I was really worried that we would not have enough room at Vista Cafe. In the end, people came and went at different times and many didn't show up. We stayed there chatting until they made the announcements about the lifeboat drill and shutdown the bar. We went back up to our room so I could drop off the extra name tags. We no longer made it in the room as the sirens went off. We turned around and went to Buena Vista Theatre. We were nearly the last family to arrive. I kept my key card out and held up but nobody ever came to scan it. Of course, they then start calling the missing families and we were on the list. Everyone around us was laughing because I had been trying to get their attention before that but without luck. Oh well, we got checked off the list and we were dismissed.
Off to the Sailing Away Party
We grab a spot along the rail on Deck 12 to look down at the festivities. We are handed some streamers to wave around. Time to get the party started!
After, we head back to the room to clean up for the evening. I order us the All Hands on Deck (cheese platter) and some empty wine glasses. This along with the chicken wings become a nightly ritual the entire cruise.
We attend the Golden Mickey's and noticed a few changes from the show on the Magic. Glad to see they tweak it a bit to keep current. We had front row seats so got a great view of those abs on Tarzan
Beautiful sunset
Next, we head to DLounge for Bingo. Dougie won the 2nd game but had to split it with another so he got $51 and a free set of cards for tomorrows bingo session. This is where we meet Dan, family activity CM. He was the CM who came over to verify Dougie's win and from that point forward would stop and talk to us anytime we saw him.
Dinner tonight was in Enchanted Garden. Our server was Dexter from Jamaica and assistant was Kristina from Australia. We were walked over to our table, #80, where we were instantly disappointed. We had requested to be at a table by ourselves and it was a table of 8. Well last year it worked out that we had great DIS table mates so we were hopeful we would get lucky again. When they arrived we introduced ourselves and started trying to chit-chat with them about where they were from, was it their first cruise, etc. They only gave direct answers and never asked a question in return. Guess they didn't want table mates either.
After dinner we went back to DLounge for the Family Fusion game. Our host was Dan and he picked us to participate.
Youngest was up first. High fives for Dougie.
Then the next youngest, Doug
and the oldest, me.
I missed my question and lost the dance off but we did well on the group trivia questions. It came down to a laundry sorting game.
We didn't win, but had such a fun time getting to participate. We got back to the room around 11:00pm.
Tomorrow is our first stop at Castaway Cay!
