And finally: Embarkation Day!!!!
The day had come! We were so excited! We had booked the cruise just after the dates were released, so it had been over a year of countdown to Embarkation.
Our PAT was 11:30 - 12:00, which I had selected because we had a 12:00 checkout from the hotel. Our plan was just to have a leisurely morning in the room, pack up slowly, and head out around 11:00.
My original intention was to walk the short distance to the port, and take the port shuttle out to the ship. However, I second guessed myself and started looking up Taxi estimates. The trip from our hotel to the port should have cost about €10, and the port bus was going to cost us around €8. I figured the extra €2 would be worth the convenience of not walking the mile or so to the bus, so we grabbed a taxi.
As Julia Roberts says in Pretty Woman: Big Mistake. Big. Huge!
Well not really, but it was pretty annoying. The streets on Las Ramblas are divided by the large pedestrian area, so it's basically a one way street on either side, because you can't turn until you get to the end. Unfortunately, our driver used this as an opportunity to take us on a tour of the Gothic District and run up our fare.
I asked him after a few turns if there were road closures on the way to the port, and he said that the way he was going was faster. I figured with the Traffic on Las Ramblas that could be true, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt for a few more turns. Fortunately for us, we had explored the Gothic Quarter fairly extensively, and I have a pretty decent memory for roads and directions. So when we made a turn heading directly away from the port I asked him again where we were going.
He repeated the story about the direction being faster, and I pointed out that we were going the opposite direction from the port. He started grumbling and turned down a few more streets, so I pulled up Google Maps on my phone and showed him the directions.
DH at this point was starting to get upset... he hates to waste money. I advised the driver that he could either let us out where we were, or take us directly to the port. He finally turned in the correct direction, but by the time we got the the ship, he had run the fare up to about €23.
I took down his cab number so I could file a complaint when we got home, and we grabbed all our bags. At this point we both took a moment to calm down from our infuriating cab ride, because we didn't want a sketchy cab ride to ruin our day, and we were finally at the Disney Magic!
I wasn't sure what to expect at the Port, as we've only ever cruise out of Port Canaveral with it's smiling CM's and Mickey interior. There was a small queue outside to go through security, but they were quite efficient with bags, quickly adding ours directly to the racks of bags being taken to screening. There was no need for porters, as we were only a few steps from security when we got out of the car. After they took our bags, checked our pamphlets and verified that we had passports (they were careful to ask before taking our checked bags, which I thought was a nice touch in case anyone accidentally tossed them in a suitcase), we joined the queue for security.
We hadn't made specific plans to meet up with our cruise mates, but to our luck two of them turned up right behind us! These were our friends from Boston (a former WDW coworker and her Hubby), who we really only get to see when we cruise together, so we waited for them to catch up in the queue so we could jump around and hug them! The excitement of meeting up with our friends made it really feel like our cruise was starting!
We made it through security, to find a Mickey greeting area, which we opted to skip as there would be ample opportunities to meet the Boss Mouse over the next 12 days! There were also some small shops for last minute souvenirs and supplied ect.
Then we headed over to the check in area. It wasn't particularly fancy, basically a warehouse, but there were smiling CM's everywhere directing people around. As we expected, the
Castaway Club line was actually the longest line, but it moved very quickly once we joined it. After one switchback, we heard our other friends calling us... they had just joined the queue as well! It worked out perfect, as we all wanted to have lunch together on-board.
We made it up to the front after about 5 minutes, checked in, and had our pictures taken. It was actually one of the most efficient check-ins we'd ever had, and we were soon on our way to the waiting area with our Castaway lanyards bouncing around with excitement. They had not yet started boarding the ship, so we settled in to wait. Once they began it went pretty rapidly, and we didn't have to wait long for our boarding group (7!).
We had our picture taken and yes--we were the group hooting, hollering, and cheering as we went up the escalator to the ship. I apologize if we offended your sensibilities.
We gave our fake family name (We have created a mash up of all our last names for group trips) to the CM's to announce us and we bounced aboard!
After a brief pause to take some pictures with Helmsman Mickey, and inspect the new Chandelier (It was all of our first trip on the Magic post-reimagineering), we headed to Cabanas. I have to say, miss the old Chihuly chandelier. The replacements are pretty, and apparently much easier to clean... but they don't make quite the same statement as the old one.
At this point, I became too excited to remember to take pictures, so I have no idea what anyone ate at the buffet. We gave a few tips to our friend who was on his first cruise over lunch, and took advantage of the shore based cell signal while we had it.
We had a long, leisurely lunch, and by the time we finished the Cabins were available, so we headed downstairs to ditch our carry-ons and check out our room.
I had spent a lot of time carefully picking our our cabin, and this was going to be our first true Oceanview Cabin (We were a 9A). We usually just opt for inside cabins, since we normally don't spend much time in the room. We tried a Veranda cabin once, but to us it felt like a waste as we never used it. However, on this cruise with the 7 sea days, I figured we'd spend a bit more time in the cabin than normal and we opted for the OV Cabin.
I was so glad we picked the OV, I spent HOURS sitting on the couch staring out the window at the water. I absolutely adored our cabin, and being on deck 2. I had always picked cabins on higher floors in the past, but I am a Deck 2 girl for life now. It was so quiet, so convenient... the elevators are usually empty when you get in, and if they're full upstairs its easy to climb down. Plus it's super convenient for port days and disembarking Deck 1. We were in 2590, Starboard side, just slightly aft of midship. I honestly can't rave about it enough, it was fabulous.
Two of our bags were actually already there when we arrived, so we decided to get our unpacking out of the way. We had a meetup with our Facebook group later that afternoon, and we were hoping to finish before we had to leave, but we were still short one bag before that.
As we were about to leave, we met our Stateroom host: Cita. He was, in a word, Fantastic. He's honestly the best stateroom host we've ever had. He was super attentive, seemed to figure out our patterns right away, and kept our room clean and well supplied. He was SUPER nice. I think the lower occupancy of the TA cruise made things a bit easier work-wise on the Stateroom hosts.
We made our way up to the Promenade Lounge to meet our planning group. We spent about half an hour meeting the people we'd been chatting with all year, and updating FE information.
Once we finished, we headed down to finish up our unpacking, and I managed to get our Door decorated before we had to be back up on the Promenade deck for Muster. I had made a new FE for this trip, but I hadn't gotten around to making any new magnets. Fortunately, DH was able to find my old stash from a previous cruise, and up they went!
The Emergency Drill was one of the easiest I had been to, and also the first time we've had to muster outside. I was worried that it would be uncomfortable, but it was breezy and pleasant, and we were done quite quickly. Again, I was starting to see how much simpler everything was with the ship at half-capacity.
After muster, we headed up on deck to get our spots for the Sail Away party... and then we <i>really</i> saw how uncrowded the ship was. I actually bumped into an old coworker from WDW who now works as an Entertainment Manager onboard, and he said that there were only 150 kids on the whole ship.
The sail away party seems to have been shortened a bit, and we stayed for most of it. Once they sounded the Mickey Horn (Which we had all kept a secret from our friend who had never cruised Disney before) we started exploring a bit. We actually waited another 30 minutes before we actually departed as they were still fueling the ship.
While some of our group went to wait for the shops to open to scoop up the Transatlantic merchandise, I gave our newbie, and new to the Magic friends a Bow to Stern tour. We nosed around everything, and checked out each others Cabins. By the time we got back to the shop, it was almost time to open. We started chatting with the CM's who were waiting for the go-ahead that they were clear of the Port and ok to open. We scooped up our TA gear, anticipating that they would run out. They seemed prepared for the rush, and had put extra stock out on a few of the racks. They never did run out though, and I actually bought a hat near the end of the cruise.
By the time we finished all our errands, everyone scattered back to their cabins to stash our shopping and rest up a bit before dinner. We had (as always) the late dinner seating, so we met up in the Atrium early to take pictures. We had theme nights each evening of the cruise that we planned, and wanted to get pictures. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed by the ship photographers. We had been extremely spoilt on our last cruise by connecting with the photographer Lee (She's on the Dream now... ask for her, she's amazing!) during our Embarkation photo... she took some INCREDIBLE shots of our family throughout the cruise. This time we didn't like a single photo enough to buy them. Pretty disappointing.
After we got our pictures (Our theme was Nautical for the first night), we headed into dinner and met our servers. They were very nice, but not the best I've ever experienced on Disney. They also had a party of 10 or 12 that seemed to constantly need their attention, so we always seemed to be the last to get our plates. Not really a big deal, just frustrating the few times we were trying to make it to an event after dinner.
I will apologize in advance, I was usually so distracted by food that I didn't take very many pictures at dinner.
But, here's what I did get:
My fried Brie:
DH's Escargot:
My Tofu and Veggies:
I will say that I was pretty pleased with the vegetarian selections on this cruise. They seem to have branched out a bit from previous menus. Not sure if this was because of the expanded menus for the TA, or if it's just Disney in General. I'll eat chicken occasionally, but I really can't stomach meat very often, so it was nice to have some good options that weren't salad.
And of course: the Sweet Temptations
All in all, a very successful Day 1! We headed to bed, and fell asleep almost instantly after dinner!
Up next: 3 days at sea!
thanks for another awesome installment of your trip report!
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