We received a note in our room telling us to be in the lobby by the ship model before 11am. We walked around the resort grounds after breakfast, I took some pictures.
We headed over to the lobby around 10:30am and checked in at the cruise podium. The woman had apologized because there was a group of Hawaiian dancers and a music group playing feet away from us. It was very nice, I have no idea why she would apologize.
So, everyone was checked in and the woman had to go wrangle up some of the folks. We loaded the coach bus and headed off to the Contemporary to pick up the last of the passengers. Passed this in the parking lot of the Bay Lake Tower...
It's HUGE! Of course it looks like a floating hotel. We get off the bus (12:35pm) with just our carry ons and head for the building. Just inside, we go through a security check point (just like the airport). Bags go through the xray machine and then we walk through, pick up the bags. Then up the escalator to the terminal. It's bigger then I imagined. Seeing it in photos is way different. I see the check in desks on the left, we head over. Passed by the huge ship model, there might have been people getting their pictures taken with Mickey or Minnie. But I wanted ON THAT SHIP! :) So, we waited in line. There must have been about 20 cast member bays checking people in. There might have been 2 families in front of us, it went super fast. We were called down. I had our DCL booklet ready with my passport and Steve's birth certificate. She took our picture, handed us our Keys to the World (boarding pass and room key), our boarding number (9) and motioned to the line where people were already boarding (12:49pm). That was it! I wish I remembered what time it was and how long it took us to do things, maybe next time. I was too excited! - edited, I looked at my cell phone pics to see what time they were taken :)
It was very, very busy in there and we could hardly find a place to sit. We sat inside and overlooked the port. We waited until 1:30pm until the rooms were ready and you were able to go down the halls. We checked out our room and I took photos before it became too cluttered (1:41pm).
I had pre-purchased Steve a beer mug for his birthday gift and 4 passes to the Rainforest for our anniversary. Both were waiting for us on the desk when we got there.
Then some photos of the current view from our verandah...
We waited around for a while for our luggage to show up. Whew, it did eventually. I unpacked most of our things and set up the bathrooms with our things. And I decorated our stateroom door!
We waited until about 3:30pm and headed to our muster station a bit early. Ours was in the Tube lounge. Later on in the cruise, this became our favorite night-time spot, usually with folks that we met on board. So, we went down to deck 4 aft, they scanned our room card and sat people so they could get everyone to fit. At least we were early and were able to sit down. They took roll call of the rooms they were missing (hence them scanning our room card on the way in - I bet those folks were in trouble), went over the emergency instructions and we were out of there in about 15 min.
Our Facebook group had set up for us to all meet at the ice cream area after the muster drill. I recognized a young girl, but that was about it. We waited around for a little while and met just a couple more people. So, I ordered my first drink of the day! Yummy!
We watched the Sail Away party show for just a few minutes. It was way too crowded, so we headed to the adult only areas of the ship. You could hardly tell when we fired the engines up and pushed away from the dock! All you could feel different, was the vibration from of the side thrusters. So, we headed up to deck 12 forward to wave to the Port Canaveral web cam, hoping folks back home would be watching. I was watching on my phone the whole time, hoping to get a screen shot. But they never showed us! Even though I wrote to them and they had asked exactly where we would be. Ugh... Anyway, I took a lot of pictures as we floated out to sea.
Goodbye, Florida (4:53pm). Goodbye, internet. Hello, open seas! We headed back to our room and I put a few more things away, hung up our clothes. Then I realized I forgot about the first show! We weren't going to be ready in time, so we took our time getting ready for dinner.
Our dinner time was at 8:15pm every night. So, we headed for dinner at Animators Palate and met our table mates and servers: we would be seeing the same folks for dinner throughout the cruise. Everyone was very quiet as we took our seats. Two couples had joined us, 2 seats were still empty. Our servers introduced themselves, Anson from India and Hazel for the Philippines. I broke the ice and introduced myself and Steve to our table mates. There was Doug and Michelle from California and Steve and Tracy from the UK. Everyone was super nice, when we all came out of our shells a bit more :) We enjoyed our table mates and servers very much every night from here on out! I believe this was the night that Crush came around and talked to some of the tables. We had a screen, but I don't remember him talking to any of us. When Crush wasn't talking, fish would float by. I had heard about the Match Your Mate show in the Tube, so we headed that way after dinner. I had recognized a couple from our Facebook group, Sandy and Judy. So, I was bold and went over to 1) see if they were in fact Sandy and Judy and 2) introduce myself (and Steve) and try not to feel like a cyber stalker :) They were nice enough to invite us to sit with them. We listened to their stories about being contestants on Match Your Mate on past cruises. They were a hoot! So glad we met them! None of us really wanted to get chosen to play. The host (Franky-hilarious!) chose the couple that was married the most recent (a couple had gotten married in the DCL terminal!), the longest married couple and a couple from in between. It was a very fun show!
Then it was time for bed and some much needed sleep after such a long and exciting day!
