It’s the day we’ve been waiting too many years for! It’s cruise day!
We both were up fairly early this morning. At least one of us was too excited to sleep! Once we were ready, we walked about half a block to breakfast at the Ruby Slipper Cafe. This one was a new one for us, but when I’d seen the menu, I knew we needed to go here.
And I was right. Breakfast was great. Service was good, location was VERY convenient to the Eliza Jane (and they have other locations too) and the food was great! Nick had white chocolate bread pudding pancakes and a “morning margarita” and I had the French toast bites (fried French toast pieces with cream cheese icing and pecan dipping sauce) and the Ruby Mimosa. We’d totally eat here again!
Breakfast consumed, we headed back to the hotel to re-organize the luggage, tag it for the cruise ship, and kill time before our port arrival time at noon. Yeah, I definitely should have booked Vue Orleans for this morning!
Just before 11, we headed downstairs, since check-out was at 11. I parked Nick on a couch in one of the sitting areas with all of the luggage and headed to the front desk to turn over the room keys. We then passed the next 45 minutes or so reading and social media-ing, before heading out to the sidewalk to request a Lyft.
This process was a bit trickier, because the first couple of cars that popped up were not at all realistic for getting us and luggage to the port. So we ended up in a Tesla Model Y through Lyft Black for the short ride to the Erato Street cruise terminal.
As soon as we got to the terminal, it was clear that they had a system. That cruise port had a billion people working, and every single one of them was legitimately working. We were dropped off, as directed by port workers in the Ride Share area, which gave me a frame of reference for where we’d go upon debarkation, and were met at the trunk of the car by a porter who took our luggage immediately and directed us to a specific door. Our PAT document was checked, ropes were moved, and we were directed inside, while hundreds who had shown up early lined up outside the terminal. From there on we must have heard “welcome aboard the Disney Magic” 30 times in the next 10 minutes and I had to work to not tear up every one of those times. Security was efficient, and check in even more so, and before we knew it, we were taking our boarding photos. We were just a little excited!
And then it was off to the ship! This was a LONG gangway, but it kept giving us views of our ship!
We boarded on deck 4 and were welcomed aboard as Heather and Nick. I’m not sure if they didn’t think we were a couple or what, but whatever, we were onboard! The crew clapped, and Donald danced. And I focused on finding lunch to avoid the happy tears!
Because check-in had been so efficient, I hadn’t had time to sign into the onboard version of the app, so I wasn’t 100% sure where the sit down lunch was. So, we followed people to the aft of the ship and eventually heard someone say it was in Rapunzel’s. This jived with what I had been seeing so we headed down to deck 3, and yes, lunch was in Rapunzel’s Royal Table. Although we’ve never actually done the embarkation day lunch at the regular buffet, we know we prefer not having to juggle luggage at a buffet, so we always go for the sit-down option.
When we got to Rapunzel’s we were handed wipes and led to a table on the far side of the restaurant. It took a bit for servers to arrive, but once they did we were in business. We ordered our first drinks of the day, Nick got gumbo and steak, and I got pasta. And for dessert, I got the sundae and Nick got the cookies and cream cheesecake. Lunch was great. And while we ate, we got the app really up and running and started adding activities to our to do list for the cruise.
We finished lunch a little after 1:30, so we were able to go right from lunch to our stateroom, 7120. 7120 is billed as a Navigator’s Veranda, but is one of the reclassified verandas, so it’s not the traditional Magic/Wonder Navigator’s. It’s effectively a slightly obstructed regular veranda.
Stateroom explored and new Castaway gifts and teal 25th anniversary keys admired, I left Nick in the stateroom to read or nap or something, and I went wandering. I’ve sailed the Magic before, but it never hurts to have more pictures.
Eventually I returned to the stateroom to rally Nick for the muster drill. We were station T in Animator’s Palate. We took the back stairs down and joined the masses filing in, picking the closest table to the exit within our section to sit at, so that we could have the easiest exit from section T after the drill. It took awhile to get started because there were some slacker staterooms, but eventually everyone was accounted for, the blasts were sounded, the video played, and we were free to really start our vacation.
We joined the masses headed up on deck for the Sail A Wave party. We headed all the way to deck 10 because a) we don’t need to be in the middle of it all and b) the view is better for those of us that are short. I think this is a new party since we last sailed on the Magic, and it seemed extra corny with a few too many waves around the deck that I’ve seen better executed by early elementary school kids than our ship’s crowd accomplished, but it was fun, and that Mickey horn was all the feels.
And then we were sailing! Nick and I headed closer to the front of the ship while the dance party continued on deck 9, to watch us sail down the mighty and muddy Mississippi for a bit.
And then it was time to get ready for the show. We made a quick stop back at the room to brush all of my ringlets out of my face and then it was off to the Walt Disney Theater for Tangled! Now, last time we sailed, Tangled was a whole night event, with the Thugs leading sing-alongs between shows, and the show happening mid-cruise. Now it happens night 1, and there’s no Thug-o or sing-along. I’m not entirely sure why you’d put the big show of the cruise on night one, but I guess that’s why I pay Disney rather than get paid by them.
Tangled was fantastic, as I remembered. There was a little tech glitch that caused the show to pause briefly, but it got fixed and the show resumed. And it was awesome.
After the show, we joined the masses doing an initial browse of the gift shops and then headed into the atrium for some pictures. Yeah, I bought the photo package again.
Pictures taken, we headed back to the room for a few minutes, where we were greeted by our first towel critter of the cruise. We were still sailing down the Mississippi so we watched some oil refineries (we think) and some swamp land (we think) pass by, and watched the moon rising.
And then it was off to dinner in…Rapunzel’s Royal Table. We were seated with 3 other couples (well…2 other couples and a guy/girl long time friend situation) that were all basically exactly our age. Dana and Jenna were from the Detroit area, Jesse and Stephanie from Utah, and Irene from LA and Josh recently relocated to the Orlando area from New York. Our main server was Sompong, our assistant server was Jelena, and our head server was Vladimir. Sompong was clearly awesome from the second we met him. Jelena was nice enough but the weaker link. And Vladimir…well…he made a brief appearance every night.
For dinner, I had the Snuggly Duckling platter, the potato soup, the sea bass, and the apple strudel. Nick had…food. Dinner was great. Conversation got started and by the end of the dinner was flowing easily. We really liked all of our tablemates. The dinner show was fantastic and while we have always had a great main server, I think Sompong blew all of them out of the water. He was just fantastic.
We were one of the last tables to leave because we were just sitting there chatting, so between that and the dinner show and first night dinner, it was well after 10 before we left the dining room. When we did, we headed up to Shutter’s to look at our pictures on the kiosk and then out on deck 4 to walk for a bit to give food a chance to settle. I’m not in my early 30s anymore. Heartburn is real. And so is the mistake that is lying down too soon after eating.
After walking for a bit we went back to the room, where Nick crashed. I showered and then continually went back out on the balcony as different sets of lights came into view, as we sailed past different things (buoys, ships, oil refineries) along the river. SQUIRREL! It was definitely after midnight when I finally went to sleep.
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