IT’S CRUISE DAY!! And despite having no trouble falling asleep, one of us had plenty of trouble staying asleep. I was awake at 2, 3, 4, and then for good about 5:30. You see, I made the mistake of getting out of bed to see if the ship had docked yet. It hadn’t, but it could be seen sailing in. So...I watched.
And then I was wide awake. Nick had turned the air conditioner down to an inhuman temperature, I guess trying to replicate our NH sprinter we’ve been having, so I crawled back into bed and facebooked from the comfort of the covers, until sunrise, when I did more picture taking.
Eventually Nick woke up to the crazy bright sunshine streaming in our room (seriously, I needed sunglasses in the room!) and we got ready for breakfast.
One of my credit cards gives me automatic gold status with Hilton Honors. This means I get free breakfast at hotels that typically charge for it (Doubletree, Hilton Garden Inn, etc). It’s a great perk and has saved me a bundle of money ($60 one morning in San Francisco alone!). Because this hotel has so many restaurants attached to it, I had been given a card that acted as a voucher for either x amount of money at certain places or a continental breakfast for 2 at other places. I had packed breakfast bars in the snack bag, and was pretty content with that, but Nick’s a big breakfast eater so we set out for the deli downstairs, where we picked up some juices, pancakes for Nick, and hashbrown patties for both of us, just in case we can’t get enough of those on the ship. And it was less than $4 out of pocket. Yay! Considering I had paid for our room completely on points, this was a very inexpensive precruise stay.
We took the food back up to the room and ate, enjoying the view, and the sound of the water lapping at the shore. Once we’d finished eating, we told Nick’s parents to meet me in the lobby so they could come stare at the ship with us.
I think Kim was a little jealous of our view of the ship. We all continued to joke about the insane upgrade they received, but we were glad that we had this room to stare at the ship this morning. We all enjoyed hanging around the balcony for about an hour, before they headed back to their room to finish packing. We agreed to meet in the lobby right at 11, and packing in earnest commenced.
The packing got done, and Nick and I actually managed to check out about ten minutes early. We grabbed a seat in the comfy seats in the lobby and waited for Kim and John to emerge from their elevator.
The emerged about a minute after 11, John quickly checked out, and we were on our way out to the entrance, where the car appeared a couple minutes later. The boys played Tetris again, and we were on our way to the cruise port!!
The drive was completely uneventful, and pretty soon we were getting our first ship sighting from a different vantage point as we crossed the bridge.
We found the Disney terminal easily enough (terminal F, and we were the only ship in port that day), and John pulled up to the curb. We unloaded the car, passed the luggage off to the porter, and Nick and John hopped back in the car to park it. Kim and I walked toward the entrance, and found a good spot to wait for the guys and people watch. I have to say, some of the shirts I saw put the one I had gotten for today to shame.
Nick and John appeared after 5 minutes or so (which felt way longer, since we were waiting to go into the terminal) and we headed for the doors.
Nick and I were surprised immediately. This is the same terminal we had sailed out of in 2016, but the entrance seemed to be in a different spot. When we got inside, it was clear that, yes, the doors were in a different spot. They had totally redone the terminal, and it was a very positive change. Much bigger security area, and when we got to the check in area, we found a brand new check in area separated from the waiting to board area. Huge improvements.
Security was the slowest part of the process. Once we were through security, the process was easy. We didn’t even have to wait to check in, and pretty soon we were reunited with Kim and John, who had been directed to a much faster security line than we had been. We compared key cards to make sure we’d been assigned the same dining assignments (table 48, rotation LAAR), and also boarding groups. John and Kim had been assigned group 8. We’d been assigned group 6. So we decided to all board with group 8.
Boarding of concierge had already started when we got into the holding tank area, so we really didn’t have to wait very long. No more than 20 minutes, and it was probably less time than that. We passed the time pouring through the first Navigator of the trip, explaining why Nick and I had received lanyards and Kim and John hadn’t, and taking pity on the guy whose job it was to walk up and down the rows with the flip chart to show which groups could board now.
After they called group 7, we stood up and moved closer, but not so close so as to be gate lice. When they called group 8, I believe Kim let out a “woohoo”. We showed our boarding cards, wove through the queue rope, and hopped on the escalator. Time to board the Disney Magic!!
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