Day 1 - Boarding Day
What turned out to be an everyday occurrence on this trip, I was up way before my family, so I went ahead and made my way through the dark room, dragging a suitcase with me to the bathroom to get ready for the day. Now I am very much a Type A plan ahead for everything kind of person. I had lists made for each one of us and began packing well before the trip, but some how I always seem to forget at least one thing. I started putting on my face and realized I hadn't packed my liquid foundation and my bronzer powder had broken into a zillion pieces. Thank goodness it actually stayed in the container and wasn't all over my makeup bag. I made do and finished getting ready before waking up the guys. Once we were ready and packed up the few things we had taken out, we put our cruise luggage tags on and made our way down to the rental car area. This was our first time renting a car. We rented through Budget and it was as breeze and we even got a free upgrade to an SUV.
We went back and forth on what kind of transportation we wanted to use to get to Port. We decided we wanted to be on our own time and get down there early, so in the end we went with the rental car and it worked out perfectly for us. Price wise, it was a little more than Disney transportation, but cheaper than private car transfer. It was a really nice, easy ride from MCO to Port Canaveral. We stopped at a place called Southern Charm Cafe to have breakfast It was actually right next door to the Budget rental place where we would be returning our car. It really was a cute, charming place. Lots of people had the same idea as us, so we had about a 20 minute wait before we were seated. It felt like forever before we got our food and even to get our ticket at the end. We were thankful that we had come early and had the extra time. But the food was delicious despite the long waits.
Cam was even able to order a Mickey Pancake!
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No pictures of our food because by the time I got it I was starving, haha! Josh ordered blueberry pancakes and I ordered regular pancakes. Had I known they were as big as my head I would have ordered one, but I got two and was only able to eat one. After spending quite a bit of time at Southern Charm, we still had a little bit of time left, so I requested a stop at the CVS to pick up a new foundation. We did that quickly and arrived to the Budget place. Again, this was so smooth. We dropped off the key, they loaded our bags in the shuttle and were soon off to the port. We had a really nice guy driving us and chatted with him as we went on our way.
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It was raining a little, but nothing major. There was our ride for the week!
I mentioned this in a comment above, but I've only cruised one other time (Carnival) and that was out of New Orleans. When I tell you the boarding process was horrific, I am not exaggerating. We were hoping this would be a better experience for us. We were in Boarding Group 8 - 11:45 to 12:00 so we were prepared to drop our bags and wait a bit. Once we arrived, the baggage porters took our luggage and pointed us in the right direction. We walked up and Disney had different signs up with the different boarding times which started with 11:00 - 11:15 and so on. We found our sign and got in line there. Shortly after a castmember walked up to us, picked us out of the line and told us she was moving us to the 11:00 boarding time sign. Literally a minute later we were walking into the Port and checking in. It was all so easy. He checked our passports and gave Cam his kids club band and off we went through security and then found our way to the waiting area and waited for our boarding group to be called. Sooooo smooth!! Everything was off to a great start!!!
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So not sure if you can see that spot low on Josh's shirt, but on the drive over, he was saying his shorts felt sticky then he started getting these spots show up on his shirt. I had packed our clothes for this day separately so we didn't have to unpack our big luggage and had put Cam's liquid Zyrtec in the same bag. Even having it in a ziploc, we later found out it had leaked and that is what got on his clothes. OOPS!! I was secretly happy it hadn't got on mine.
I know I'm bad, ha!
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We found a seat and watched this little girl, probably about 7 or 8, throwing herself on the floor and yelling at her parents that she was not going to do what they told her while the Mom repeated very softly and gently that this was not ok. Props to her because while obviously I didn't know anything about that situation, I would have never been able to keep my cool like that. But then again, I'm very blessed that Cam has always been a well behaved boy.
It didn't take long at all before our boarding group was called. We were SO excited. Josh made fun of me because everyone had their boarding passes up on their phones, but I went old school and printed ours out. He said I'm not up with the current times. Hey you never can trust technology in my opinion and we all know how Disney technology is!
It was time!!
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I spot another lady who was old school like me in this picture!
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I thought it was cute that they were both walking in the same with their hands in their pockets. Cam might look like me, but he definitely has a lot of his Dad's mannerisms.
Hey Cam! Are you excited?
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Almost there!
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Josh didn't know about them announcing your name as you walk on the ship, so he thought that was cool.
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I was mesmerized and soaking it all in, so this was the only picture I got as we walked in! There were lots of times during this trip where I didn't think to even take pictures because I was living in the moment, but still have many, many to share.
It sounds silly, but of all the years I've dreamed of going on a Disney Cruise, I couldn't wait to board and go straight to Cabanas. I've literally dreamed and waited for this moment for so long. So off we went to make my silly dreams come true. The hustle and bustle of Cabanas and the excitement everyone had to finally be on the ship was everything I thought it would be and more! Again, no pictures of the food, but it was actually really tasty. Especially the crab legs! I also tried lamb for the first time and it was much better than I expected also. We ordered the drink of the day from the waiter walking around and were able to keep the glasses as a souvenir.
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This was very good. I don't usually do drinks like this because those premix type drinks are too sweet for me, but this was like fresh fruit juices. It was delicious!
