It’s cruise day!
Needless to say I was awake quite early! Thankfully Nick also woke up fairly early, so we got ready and headed out to breakfast, with a stop at the other end of the hallway to see if we could see our ship out the hall window. We could!!
We made the pretty quick drive over to Grills at the port, marveling at the size of the Utopia of the Seas. It’s just nuts!
We headed into Grills and were seated immediately, with a view of the boat docks. Note that these were more like fishing boat docks than cruise ship docks. But still, it was a sunny day and we saw black ice last week. This was great.
Breakfast at Grills was excellent. Service was just right. I had the cranberry nut bread french toast and Nick had a breakfast sandwich. I did need to scrape about a pound of butter off my french toast, but once that was done, it was delicious. Nick’s breakfast sandwich was huge and he enjoyed it. So, breakfast here was a definite win!
After we finished breakfast, we headed back to the hotel to pack. The packing got done, the luggage got tagged. And then we chilled for a bit.
A little before 10, we headed upstairs for a basically unplanned experience. There was a rocket launch scheduled for this morning! Our hotel had a rooftop bar and lounge, and while the bar hours were limited to specific evenings, the seating area was always accessible. So we took the elevator up and found…a really great seating areas with some awesome views.
The lounge area never got crowded, but plenty of others showed up too, and while the launch was scrubbed at the very last second (literally, with 10 seconds left, they delayed 15 minutes, and then delayed until the next day), we got to experience the kind of experience you just don’t get everyday. The nerdy dads were zooming in on the launchpad with the cell phone cameras and helping everyone find exactly the right viewing angle, the kids were leading countdowns, the moms had the livestream set up on their tablets. It really was a special experience, even if we didn’t get to see a rocket launch.
After the launch was scrubbed, I ended up talking Disney Cruises for a sold 10 minutes with an adult mother-daughter duo who will be Disney Cruising this summer. Then we headed back to the room for our final preparations.
About 11, we checked out and hopped in the rental car for the quick drive over to the Alamo/National/Enterprise rental car facility at the port. Now, my port arrival time wasn’t until 12:15, but I had heard horror stories of long lines at the rental car facilities at the port and knew there were multiple ships in port, including the giant Utopia, so I’d allowed plenty of time. This wasn’t necessary. We pulled right into return, hauled our luggage out of the car, handed over the keys, and headed inside to wait for the shuttle. There was a clean and fairly spacious waiting area, with chairs, vending machines, and a Disney movie playing on a TV. A few minutes later, the shuttle driver came in to get us, and we boarded the shuttle, just us, for the quick drive to the terminal. Since we were the only ones onboard, the shuttle driver didn’t even put our luggage on the luggage racks; he just put it at the top of the bus stairs, so when he pulled up alongside the porters and opened the doors, they grabbed the luggage instantly and then directed us to the crosswalk when we got off the bus.
Needless to say, the only painful part of the experience was the cost of the one way rental. And the line we joined when we got across the street to the terminal. We were like an hour early. And unlike every other Disney Cruise I’ve arrived to (often 15 minutes early, because I’m not good at timing transportation that I don’t have full control over, like Ubers and rental car company shuttles), our line didn’t move until AFTER our port arrival time. Only a few minutes after, but still…after our PAT. We definitely could have stayed at the hotel quite a bit longer.
So, about 12:20, they directed our 12:15 line up the escalators and we were finally inside the terminal building. The lines were long, but the security line did at least move. I was able to connect to ship wifi and got a Mixology booked for the two of us for our sea day, something that wasn’t a booking option prior to the cruise. I also booked myself on one of the ship tours. Nick, once again, underestimated the amount of metal in his belt, but we made it through security without major issues, and pretty soon we had joined the line to check in. This line kinda crawled. We did have a decent view though.
We were finally checked in, land-side about 12:50, and headed for the ship, taking the requisite pictures along the way.
We boarded the ship just about 1:00 and were greeted by royalty.
From here, I tried to figure out where lunch was. The app had two sit down locations for lunch, but neglected to distinguish between concierge lunch and normal people lunch. The cast member in the grand hall that I talked to completely denied that a sit down lunch was even an option. Thankfully the cast member at 1923 was able to tell us that Arendelle was the dining room for the non-concierge.
We made our way to Arendelle, thoroughly impressed by how immersive the theming is. Getting seated was a process, because the server bringing us to a table had no clue where the table was. Once seated, an assistant server came along quickly to get drinks for us, but it was quite awhile before we saw a server to take our food order. I definitely wondered, between check-in and this if I’d made a mistake with this cruise. Thankfully, food emerged soon after ordering, the servers were excellent, and things definitely started turning around.
For lunch, I think Nick got gumbo and steak. I had the pasta, and we both got the Welcome Aboard sundae. The food was excellent and was the attitude adjustment I needed. Yes, I do get hangry, and had apparently gotten hangry.
Lunch eaten and staterooms open for business, we set off to find ours, 8668. We immediately noticed how long the hallways feel with only the two stairwells. Wow. We found our stateroom, ditched our backpacks, checked out our new gold merchandise, and took in the port views.
And then it was off to Hyperspace Lounge. Nick loves Star Wars, and I’d read one of the least busy times to visit this lounge was on embarkation afternoon. So here we go! This place was awesome and totally made up for the elements that hadn’t quite clicked so far today. The bartender here was excellent, the theming was amazing, and our drinks were great (and strong!) too. Nick got their spin on an old fashioned, the Tatooine, of course, and I had the Batuu. My drink was very refreshing. Nick loved his, and, spoiler alert, it was his favorite old fashioned type drink of the trip.
Drinks consumed, we headed back up to the stateroom, because there really wasn’t much time left before muster. Here I decorated the door, and while doing so, we met our stateroom host Pawar. He and Nick bonded over beards while I put magnets on the door. We liked Pawar.
Door decorating complete, it was time for muster. Our muster station was in World of Marvel. When we got to deck 4, we found a mass of humanity. Nothing new there. What was new was that this mass of humanity didn’t move for probably 10-15 minutes. Eventually it started moving, and eventually we found that someone had puked in the hall. It became clearer as we moved forward that they were removing a family…from muster or from the ship, we don’t know, but presumably they were all traveling with the puker. Ok, that’s a good reason to hold the line, although are all of us that were in that hall, walking around the vomit going to be puking in 24-48 hours? Time will tell.
Once scanned in to World of Marvel, Nick and I were directed to join another family in the back corner…specifically in one of the server stations where they take the tops off all the food before brining it to the table. Now this is different. We’ve mustered in Animators Palate on both of the classic ships and were never in a scenario like this. Muster took a VERY long time to get started. In case you were wondering, the server corners are *seemingly* not as well air-conditioned as the guest areas of the dining room. By the time the videos played, I had gone through the entire bottle of water I’d brought with me and was crouching on the floor trying to avoid passing out.
About the same time I was positive I was going to pass out, we were dismissed, and they opened a side exit straight out to the outside deck to get all of us out of the dining room, so we headed straight out there, where the fresh air saved me from causing a spectacle. We headed back inside and upstairs. On deck 8, I redirected Nick who had (not incorrectly) assumed that we were continuing on to the sail away party. Instead we headed back to the room. I was way too overheated and overstimulated for the sail away party.
Back in the room, I took a bottle of water out on the balcony (pre-ordering a dozen water bottles is my new cruise hack on DCL), and watched us get under way. Will I return to the sail away party next year? Hopefully! But today, sail away on the balcony was just right. I got to hear the horns and see all the sights. Nick even joined me on the balcony eventually.
Once we were out to sea, it was time to enjoy the ship a bit. We did some picture taking in the Grand Hall, and then headed to the Bayou Lounge, where Nick enjoyed a smoked old fashioned situation, and we both enjoyed listening to The Wishers.
After the music, we headed to the Walt Disney Theater for tonight’s show, Disney Seas the Adventure. It was excellent, and this theater is beautiful, and technologically, definitely a step up from the first 4 ships.
Show enjoyed, we headed back to the Grand Hall to listen to the Victrophonics. I enjoyed this just as much as I had on the Dream. Definitely a great addition to DCL. We also got to experience the Grand Hall chandelier “show” which was cute.
When the music ended, it was time for dinner. We were back in Arendelle for dinner, so we made our way to deck 5, where we stood in an unmoving line. Eventually, a cleaning guy, dressed a step down from haz mat walked through with a trash bag that was just full enough to suggest a protein spill, the Jaws music started playing in my head, and the line moved forward.
We were table 710, which created some confusion, because when the server brought us to our table, there were seemingly two 710s. What is going on on this ship? We were seated after a minute or two, with another couple, at a table for 4. This is different.
Arendelle was decent. The show was good for something Frozen based. The food was good. I have no idea what Nick ate, other than chocolate cake. I had the ham and cheese tart appetizer, the meatball entree and the apple cake. The ham and cheese tart honestly was like a quiche. The meatball entree was excellent, and the apple cake was good. We met our assistant server, Melba and our main server Donovan. While they weren’t nearly as fun as our servers last year, they were both very kind, knew their stuff, and VERY efficient. We also got to know our tablemates Courtney and Chris, who are also from NH. She’s a math teacher and Disney nerd. He’s a software engineer. While conversation didn’t necessarily flow naturally, it did pick up and overall dinner was enjoyable.
Because Melba and Donovan were so efficient, we were out of the dining room the fastest we’ve ever been. We made our way back to our room, where we found our first chocolates and towel animal of the cruise. Nick stayed here, and I headed out to explore the upper decks of the ship. I needed to walk off dinner to avoid middle of the night indigestion, and I hadn’t actually seen any of the upper decks yet. I also got to start to see some of the theming details in the hallways on the ship.
Personal walking tour done, I headed back to the room, where we both called it a night and crashed.
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