Saturday, August 14, 2004 - Port Canaveral - Embarkation
We call the Front Desk in the morning to make sure the cruise is still on. They tell us that we will still be sailing, but we will not be leaving on the shuttle until around 11:30 a.m. instead of 10:00 a.m. We watch the news and are so saddened by the devastation. We learn that the winds we were experiencing were around 105 mph. We speak with DF and find that she arrived at Port Canaveral around 1:30 a.m. Everyone is fine and in very high spirits. She is going to head out to the ship around 1:00 p.m.
DH checks with the Disney Reps again a little later, and finds that the shuttle will now be delayed until 1:30 p.m. Disney is thoughtfully issuing vouchers for food for up to $10.00/person for those who are waiting for the shuttle. We have lunch at one of the hotel restaurants and walk around the airport some more. We are shocked to find out from some of the people we meet that since the airport is still closed and flights are so backed up, many cannot get a flight out of Orlando until Tuesday!!!!
Around 12:45 we meet at the designated spot for the shuttle and wait for ours to arrive. We look up and see a worker with a vacuum, cleaning up part of the plate glass ceiling that was shattered. We hear that there is so much debris on the runways that the airport doesnt know when it may reopen.
Hurray!!! Our shuttle is here. We climb on for the ride, and are a little disappointed that the driver is not playing the Cruise video like weve heard about from othersjust the same, we are excited enough with out it. During our ride to the port, we cannot believe the destruction we seetons of huge trees pulled out by their roots littering the sides of the roads.
We arrive at the port around 3:00 and take our first look at our shipshe is so, so beautiful!!! We love seeing Goofy on the back touching up the paint. Our check in is fairly swift and we are THRILLED to meet up with our friends in the check-in area. Although they arrived at the ship at 1:00, they were only recently able to embark because of the late disembarkation of the previous passengers.
When we hear our name announced as we walk onto the ship, and stand in that magnificent foyer, I feel so completely overwhelmed that tears are streaming down my faceI cannot believe were really here!!!
By now it is around 3:30-3:45 and we want to get our Palo ressies before the Safety Drill. We walk into Rockin Bar D, and all of a sudden my mind goes completely blankall of that planning for which days wed picked for Palos have completely gone out the window, and I feel totally brain dead! (A few of the evenings were gone by now, and some evenings only had late seatings). I think what probably threw me off the most was that first, I didnt have my paperwork handy that listed what excursions wed booked and what times they ended, and secondly, at home I tried to estimate which rotation wed have based on the info in the Passporters Guide. They authors thought that if you had young children youd usually get the APL rotation, and families usually got the PLA rotation. I was figuring wed have APL and kind of based what nights wed pick on thatwe didnt want to miss things like the first night in Animators Palate, or the Captains Gala night, etc. We ended up with the PLA rotation, and I had not really planned for that. Oh well, we ended up choosing dinner on Tuesday night at 7:30 and brunch on Monday (our at sea day) at 10:30. We made one ressie under our room number and included our friends, and they made one ressie under their room number and included us.
Glad to have that business taken care of, we head to the elevators to check out our rooms. Servers are walking around with trays of drinks, some alcoholic, some not, and we each take one and toast one another. Our room is conveniently located midship on Deck 6. The first thing I see when we open the door is a vase full of gorgeous red roses that my husband had ordered ahead of time. (Although my 40th ouch!!!birthday was at the end of May, this cruise was to celebrate that milestone. Ironically enough though, that day, 8/14, was my husbands 42nd birthday). We got a chuckle out of the card attached to the flowersinstead of saying Happy 40th Birthday, they mistakenly wrote Happy 49th Birthdaywhoatime really does fly when youre having fun!! Only a few minutes after entering our room, most of our luggage arrives. I dont really have time to unpack though, because its almost time for the Safety Drill. We don our fashionable life vests, DD 6 complaining every step of the way, and head to our designated area.
Once that is over, we return the life vests to our room, and now its time for the Sail Away Celebration, even though were not leaving yetthere are too many passengers who have not made it on the ship. My head is spinningtheres so much to cram in before our 6:00 dinner seating. We watch a few minutes of the Sail Away entertainment, which was moved inside because it was raining, and then decide wed better check the kids into the kids club since they wanted to go there after dinner. The CM who checked our kids in and explained the club was Tim from Canada, the Manager. What a wonderful, wonderful guywe actually ended up nominating him on our evaluation form as one of the people who put the Wow in our cruise. All along I had been very worried about DD 6 going into the club. She is very shy, very quiet, and does not like to be away from me or DH for too long (about 3 ½ minutes constitutes too long for her). She would have been the only one of the group going to the Oceaneers Clubthe other girls, my DD 9 ½, DFDD 8 and DFDD 12 would all be in the Lab. Tim recognized this, read my comments on our check in form about DD 6s shyness and automatically, without me even asking first, said that if she wanted to she could be with her sister and her friends in the Lab. I almost fell on the flooreverything I had read prior to this said how strictly they adhered to the age thing, and unless your birthday was within one month of the next age group, you couldnt switch. (Tim said they do, in special circumstances, make exceptions). That in itself made our whole trip. Now we would get some adult time and not be constantly worried about DD6 crying, not wanting to go in the club, etc. She was happy, we were ecstatic, and I just about wanted to kiss Tim.
We returned to our room and found that we had exactly 2 minutes to change for dinner. Mind you, I had not even opened the suitcases yet, so this was quite stressful. I guess if we had shown up for dinner in the shorts we wore on board it wouldve been fineconsidering the late check in and allbut we still decided to change. By the time we entered Parrot Cay I needed a drink! We were immediately greeted by our head server, John Cunningham, from Scotland and taken to our table to meet Wilson from the Philippines (server) and Jennifer from England (asst. server). We loved them from the startthey were so fun, and so cheerful, and paid so much special attention to the children! Now I knew exactly what everyone is talking about when they say you build a special rapport with your servers. Dinner was very good (the cold mango soup was excellent, as was the grouper) and Wilson and Jennifer brought out a cake to celebrate DHs birthday. Jennifer did a birthday magic trick and enlisted DD 6 to help, and youd never believe how that shy little girl opened right up and couldnt wait to help! While we were eating dinner, around 7:30 or so, we could feel the ship begin to movehow excitingwere on our waybut there were still so many empty tables in the dining room it made me sad for those who were not with us yet.
The kids wanted to try out the Lab after dinner, so we checked them in and I prepared myself for the monumental task of unpacking the million things we brought. I was embarrassed to see that our room host, Yande from Southeast Asia, had turned the beds down while we were at dinner. I dont know how he could even find space to walk in thereit looked like a bomb went off! He left the girls a cute towel animal and some chocolates on their pillows.
As I unpacked, I was very pleasantly surprised how the tips to put plastic dry cleaner bagssometimes doubling or tripling themover the clothes hanging in your garment bag really worked. Minimal wrinkles. I cant say the same for the clothes in the suitcase that I lovingly packed between tissue paper. I mustve done it wrong because the clothes were definitely wrinkled.
We picked up the kids from the Lab and went to bed. Everyone was completely exhausted!
We call the Front Desk in the morning to make sure the cruise is still on. They tell us that we will still be sailing, but we will not be leaving on the shuttle until around 11:30 a.m. instead of 10:00 a.m. We watch the news and are so saddened by the devastation. We learn that the winds we were experiencing were around 105 mph. We speak with DF and find that she arrived at Port Canaveral around 1:30 a.m. Everyone is fine and in very high spirits. She is going to head out to the ship around 1:00 p.m.
DH checks with the Disney Reps again a little later, and finds that the shuttle will now be delayed until 1:30 p.m. Disney is thoughtfully issuing vouchers for food for up to $10.00/person for those who are waiting for the shuttle. We have lunch at one of the hotel restaurants and walk around the airport some more. We are shocked to find out from some of the people we meet that since the airport is still closed and flights are so backed up, many cannot get a flight out of Orlando until Tuesday!!!!
Around 12:45 we meet at the designated spot for the shuttle and wait for ours to arrive. We look up and see a worker with a vacuum, cleaning up part of the plate glass ceiling that was shattered. We hear that there is so much debris on the runways that the airport doesnt know when it may reopen.
Hurray!!! Our shuttle is here. We climb on for the ride, and are a little disappointed that the driver is not playing the Cruise video like weve heard about from othersjust the same, we are excited enough with out it. During our ride to the port, we cannot believe the destruction we seetons of huge trees pulled out by their roots littering the sides of the roads.
We arrive at the port around 3:00 and take our first look at our shipshe is so, so beautiful!!! We love seeing Goofy on the back touching up the paint. Our check in is fairly swift and we are THRILLED to meet up with our friends in the check-in area. Although they arrived at the ship at 1:00, they were only recently able to embark because of the late disembarkation of the previous passengers.
When we hear our name announced as we walk onto the ship, and stand in that magnificent foyer, I feel so completely overwhelmed that tears are streaming down my faceI cannot believe were really here!!!
By now it is around 3:30-3:45 and we want to get our Palo ressies before the Safety Drill. We walk into Rockin Bar D, and all of a sudden my mind goes completely blankall of that planning for which days wed picked for Palos have completely gone out the window, and I feel totally brain dead! (A few of the evenings were gone by now, and some evenings only had late seatings). I think what probably threw me off the most was that first, I didnt have my paperwork handy that listed what excursions wed booked and what times they ended, and secondly, at home I tried to estimate which rotation wed have based on the info in the Passporters Guide. They authors thought that if you had young children youd usually get the APL rotation, and families usually got the PLA rotation. I was figuring wed have APL and kind of based what nights wed pick on thatwe didnt want to miss things like the first night in Animators Palate, or the Captains Gala night, etc. We ended up with the PLA rotation, and I had not really planned for that. Oh well, we ended up choosing dinner on Tuesday night at 7:30 and brunch on Monday (our at sea day) at 10:30. We made one ressie under our room number and included our friends, and they made one ressie under their room number and included us.
Glad to have that business taken care of, we head to the elevators to check out our rooms. Servers are walking around with trays of drinks, some alcoholic, some not, and we each take one and toast one another. Our room is conveniently located midship on Deck 6. The first thing I see when we open the door is a vase full of gorgeous red roses that my husband had ordered ahead of time. (Although my 40th ouch!!!birthday was at the end of May, this cruise was to celebrate that milestone. Ironically enough though, that day, 8/14, was my husbands 42nd birthday). We got a chuckle out of the card attached to the flowersinstead of saying Happy 40th Birthday, they mistakenly wrote Happy 49th Birthdaywhoatime really does fly when youre having fun!! Only a few minutes after entering our room, most of our luggage arrives. I dont really have time to unpack though, because its almost time for the Safety Drill. We don our fashionable life vests, DD 6 complaining every step of the way, and head to our designated area.
Once that is over, we return the life vests to our room, and now its time for the Sail Away Celebration, even though were not leaving yetthere are too many passengers who have not made it on the ship. My head is spinningtheres so much to cram in before our 6:00 dinner seating. We watch a few minutes of the Sail Away entertainment, which was moved inside because it was raining, and then decide wed better check the kids into the kids club since they wanted to go there after dinner. The CM who checked our kids in and explained the club was Tim from Canada, the Manager. What a wonderful, wonderful guywe actually ended up nominating him on our evaluation form as one of the people who put the Wow in our cruise. All along I had been very worried about DD 6 going into the club. She is very shy, very quiet, and does not like to be away from me or DH for too long (about 3 ½ minutes constitutes too long for her). She would have been the only one of the group going to the Oceaneers Clubthe other girls, my DD 9 ½, DFDD 8 and DFDD 12 would all be in the Lab. Tim recognized this, read my comments on our check in form about DD 6s shyness and automatically, without me even asking first, said that if she wanted to she could be with her sister and her friends in the Lab. I almost fell on the flooreverything I had read prior to this said how strictly they adhered to the age thing, and unless your birthday was within one month of the next age group, you couldnt switch. (Tim said they do, in special circumstances, make exceptions). That in itself made our whole trip. Now we would get some adult time and not be constantly worried about DD6 crying, not wanting to go in the club, etc. She was happy, we were ecstatic, and I just about wanted to kiss Tim.
We returned to our room and found that we had exactly 2 minutes to change for dinner. Mind you, I had not even opened the suitcases yet, so this was quite stressful. I guess if we had shown up for dinner in the shorts we wore on board it wouldve been fineconsidering the late check in and allbut we still decided to change. By the time we entered Parrot Cay I needed a drink! We were immediately greeted by our head server, John Cunningham, from Scotland and taken to our table to meet Wilson from the Philippines (server) and Jennifer from England (asst. server). We loved them from the startthey were so fun, and so cheerful, and paid so much special attention to the children! Now I knew exactly what everyone is talking about when they say you build a special rapport with your servers. Dinner was very good (the cold mango soup was excellent, as was the grouper) and Wilson and Jennifer brought out a cake to celebrate DHs birthday. Jennifer did a birthday magic trick and enlisted DD 6 to help, and youd never believe how that shy little girl opened right up and couldnt wait to help! While we were eating dinner, around 7:30 or so, we could feel the ship begin to movehow excitingwere on our waybut there were still so many empty tables in the dining room it made me sad for those who were not with us yet.
The kids wanted to try out the Lab after dinner, so we checked them in and I prepared myself for the monumental task of unpacking the million things we brought. I was embarrassed to see that our room host, Yande from Southeast Asia, had turned the beds down while we were at dinner. I dont know how he could even find space to walk in thereit looked like a bomb went off! He left the girls a cute towel animal and some chocolates on their pillows.
As I unpacked, I was very pleasantly surprised how the tips to put plastic dry cleaner bagssometimes doubling or tripling themover the clothes hanging in your garment bag really worked. Minimal wrinkles. I cant say the same for the clothes in the suitcase that I lovingly packed between tissue paper. I mustve done it wrong because the clothes were definitely wrinkled.
We picked up the kids from the Lab and went to bed. Everyone was completely exhausted!
