We didnt have to get up too early, our car wasnt arriving until 9am. Execucar actually phoned about 8:30 to say that they wouldnt get there until 9:15. That was fine with me, I knew the check-in at the port wouldnt start until at least 10am. We checked out from the HoJo and waited outside. We saw lots of people with teal luggage tags and we knew they were headed for the same adventure we were. Execucar arrived promptly, we had a nice clean car, nice driver and the ride to the port only took about 40 minutes. It was $68 for the car (which I pre-paid when I booked the car), and I tipped the driver $15.
It was at this point that our holiday could have taken a tragic turn. DD seems to have an issue with recycled air. She has never been carsick at home, she has been sick on a plane trip once though. I know that she is sensitive to the heat (red hair, porcelain skin, you know the type). Anyway, she was complaining in the car that she wanted to open the window, I said you cant honey, its air conditioned and the AC wont work if you open the window. The driver turned up the AC and we thought that was it. Not really. After we were dropped off by the driver and as we are walking to the line, she throws up. Oh no! I knew they asked questions about nausea, vomiting and other stomach maladies before we boarded. Plus, I didnt know what to do about the mess (we were outside), so I cleaned up DD as best I could (a couple of good Samaritans gave me some wipes) and we handed our luggage to a porter and just joined the line. I didnt know what else to do really. I was only mildly comforted by the fact that we had insurance. My little OCD brain was working overtime and I had to force myself to accept that I could not control what happened next.
We waited in line for about 45 minutes - it was a nice day. DD felt much better out in the fresh air and she was getting very excited. It only took a few minutes to get through security and we were handed a no. 4 boarding card (I knew this was a good number!) From there we moved on to the form filing station. I looked at the form with furrowed brow and DD said Mom, we have to be honest I said she was absolutely right and we filled in the form truthfully. We only waited a few minutes in the check-in line and the lady who checked us in barely looked at the health form. I guess we just didnt look sickly enough to worry about.
I breathed a sigh of relief, we had our Keycards and just had to wait to board. I am so glad we arrived early though. When I did the pre-check-in online when our window opened (60 days for first-timers I believe, or is it 75?), the port check-in time I was given was 11:00am -11:30am. I knew that I didnt have to pay any attention to that if I didnt want to. Like the Pirate Code, they are more like guidelines than actually rules. I didnt really care what time we checked in or when we got on the boat. I just like to be early, it makes me feel better to be able to leisurely scope everything out and have extra time to deal with glitches. No last minute dash up the gangway for us! Actually, now that I think about it, between the waiting outside and the run through security, we were pretty darn close to our check-in time anyway. But it was a good thing we were early, because I understand the computer system went down shortly after we sat down. We saw the line grow, grow and then grow some more.
After about 30 minutes or so, we started to hear the boarding calls and it was not long at all before it was our turn. A quick boarding photo and then we were heading up to the ship. It was surreal to have our name called as we entered the Wonder lobby atrium for the first time. I knew our stateroom wouldnt be ready until after 2pm so we headed to Parrot Cay for lunch. DD loved the peel-and-eat shrimp from the buffet and we had a nice meal before heading out to explore the ship. First things first, I wanted to get DD checked in to the kids club before it got too busy. DD had her RFID tag and wristband but didnt want to stay and see anything else at the Oceaneer Lab. We found the Walt Disney Theatre and the shops (closed while we were in port).
It was a warm day and I knew that DD was dying to try out the pool so we headed for Deck 9. I had DDs swimsuit in my carry on but didnt want to join her and leave our bags unattended so I just read a book while DD had fun frolicking in the pool. We were out there until about 2:30 and I wanted to check out our room. I also knew we had the Muster drill at 4pm and I wanted to be ready for that. We met our stateroom host, Rommel, on our way and our luggage was waiting for us. I really liked our stateroom, the Disney touches are subtle but unmistakable. DD watched cartoons while I unpacked. We had a copy of the Navigator in our stateroom and I read that until it was time to head to our muster station for the safety drill.
After the drill, we dropped off a blank photo-mat to Guest Services with some markers for the characters to sign and then went to the sail-away party. Only we werent sailing away yet, I dont think we left port until after dinner started. We had fun at the party anyway, although I stayed in the shade like the pasty-white Canadian that I am. The day was just flying by and it was soon time for our 5:45 dinner seating at Parrot Cay. We met out server Line (pronounced Leen) from France, our assistant server Becca from Cornwall and head server Kerry Sean from Jamaica. We had tables 33 and 34 right by the window. DCL decided to put a bunch of single moms at our two tables (there were 5 pairs of Mom + one child) and we couldnt have asked for a nicer group of people to chat with. There was only one little boy at our table, the rest were all ladies.
I had the chicken medallions to start and it was quite good. I didnt care for the dressing on my salad but that was more my problem than Disneys. I had the rib-eye for main course and it was probably the worst main course I had the entire time. The meat was tough and gristly and far too much of it for my taste. I had the dessert trio after and that was really good. DD opted for the Mickey ice cream bar for dessert and that would turn out to be her go-to dessert for the whole voyage.
We had just enough time to browse in the two shops before we planned to go to the Toy Story 3D movie. DD had saved $200 spending money for this trip and I made her save at least half of that for the cruise. It was hard for her not to spend it all in DL but I think she was glad we waited. Anyway, she was even more restrained on the cruise because she wanted to see what was on offer in San Francisco before she spent anything. We watched the movie in the Buena Vista Theatre rather than the All Aboard show at the WD Theatre and had to go to bed after that as we were so tired. Upon returning to our stateroom, we had our Navigator for Thursday and a towel snake. It was very peaceful being rocked to sleep as we headed into our first day at sea.
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