disney cruise part 1 - getting there
Disney Wonder through the shuttle bus window
Originally uploaded by februarystar27
I think I figured out how to at least upload one picture per entry. So, it's a start at least. Now finally onto the Disney cruise recaps....
Brian and I took a four-night cruise to the Bahamas on the Disney Wonder on May 4-8, 2008. We slept at my parents' house on May 3 and woke up at around 4:00am on May 4. As opposed to when we had to wake up insanely early for California last year, I actually felt somewhat rested and ready to get going. California did involve waking up before 4:00 though, and that hour or two that early in the morning makes a big difference to me. 4:00am feels like the next morning, whereas 2:30 or 3:00am still feels like really late night. But my parents were also up and ready to drive us to Logan by 4:30-4:45ish, so that was nice. Avoiding the parking fees was a definite perk to this trip as opposed to Vegas and California. We got there right around 5:00 and got in the line to check our bags, which moved quickly after the one or two clueless idiots who were holding up the line got through. I was afraid security would take forever and we'd miss the plane and therefore miss the boat, but security was surprisingly very quick and we were soon just sitting around waiting to for the plane to board.
It was our first time on JetBlue, which service-wise I like better than Southwest. The tv's in each seat were very nice, and I liked having preassigned seats so that I wouldn't have to worry about finding a spot next to Brian. My big complaint was the 30- to 45-minute delay after boarding before taking off for NY, where we had a connecting flight. We came pretty close to missing the connecting flight--we literally got off our plane and headed straight to the gate for the flight to Orlando, which had just started boarding, and got right on the plane. It would not have been good to miss the connecting flight and risk missing the ship. But once getting on the second plane I was able to pick up the America's Next Top Model marathon that MTV or VH1 was running that I'd started watching on the Boston to NY flight and watched a good portion of the Naima season all the way to Orlando.
Once we were in Orlando, finding the Disney shuttle buses was easy, thanks in part to the Passporter book we'd picked up before the cruise. I believe it was called Passporter's Guide to Disney Cruise Line and Its Ports of Call. It seems to be written by a husband and wife team of quasi-Disney-crazies... not full-blown nutjobs but nutty enough to know, for example, that pin-trading occurs on the ship several times. I did not even know that a crazy pin-trading subculture existed. :P But, craziness aside, they had a lot of helpful info in the book, and I'd recommend it to anyone taking a Disney cruise. Lots of info about the staterooms (you can also find tons of reviews of specific staterooms from former cruisers online at www.wdwinfo.com, but they can get particularly Disney-crazy there on the message boards).
We'd purchased ground transfers from Disney, meaning that they'd get us to and from Port Canaveral and Orlando International before and after the cruise. I personally liked this option a lot because it let us avoid baggage claim after our flight and not have to worry about getting a cab or rental car (the port is about an hour away from the airport). We'd checked our bags in Boston, and then Disney handles getting them out of Orlando and onto the ship, so we didn't see them again until luggage was delivered to the staterooms that afternoon. The only thing to be careful about with that is making sure you have everything you might need until you see your luggage again in your carry-on, without breaking the liquids/gels rule. I packed a bathing suit, flip-flops, and clothes for dinner that night just in case there was a luggage emergency, and we also packed some of each of our luggage in both bags so that if one got lost we'd each at least have some clothes.
The line for the shuttle bus wasn't bad. One thing Disney really knows how to do right is customer service. I noticed it when I was 17 and went to Disney World for the first (and only) time, and it was evident again here. They had a line just for people cruising that afternoon, and it was much shorter than the lines of people waiting to get shuttles to the theme park. All the staff members had name tags that also listed where they were from, and the guy directing people from the line to the check-in windows was from I believe it was Lowell, MA. Since they only needed one person per party to check in, he talked about MA stuff with me for a minute or two while Brian got our bus passes. We got right on a bus, and as soon as it was full, we drove off to Port Canaveral.
The bus was cute--the windows were painted to look like porthole windows on the ship--and Disney's customer service was evident once again when a few minutes into the ride they began to show a video on the bus's tv monitors. It pretty much involved all the Disney characters riding to the port and going through check-in and security to board the ship and begin their own cruise. It was nice because it not only kept most of the kids quiet for the drive (who without entertainment probably would've gotten really obnoxious), but it also reviewed the check-in procedures for the idiots who are too stupid to remember the rules or even check them in advance. I remember one part where they were saying that non-US citizens had to check in through a separate line and they illustrated it with Stitch (who of course is from another planet) trying to go through the same line as Mickey and co. and getting redirected. It was cute. By the time the video ended, we were almost at the port.
Security wasn't too bad. We weren't there super-early, so lines were already forming. But once we got through the security line and into the actual check-in lines at the terminal, it was much better. Disney has separate check-in lines for new and repeat cruisers, so next time we'll hopefully be in a line that moves a bit faster since less people will be in it. One thing I'd maybe do differently next time is fly in one night in advance and stay either in Orlando or Port Canaveral and get to the terminal early on departing day to get on the ship as early as possible. The people next to us checking in were causing some sort of confusion where a girl was traveling with a friend's family and her mother had given her a note saying it was ok for her daughter to use her credit card but hadn't included the actual card or something, so they were trying to work something out while we breezed right through our check-in and handed in our forms for onboard flight check-in on the way home (purchasing ground transfers gave us that option, which was also a very nice touch). We got a note saying our stateroom would be ready by 1:30 that afternoon, and the check-in lady handed us our "key to the world" cards. The cards function as your room key, onboard credit card (we tied ours to our real card so that we wouldn't have a bill to pay at the end), and boarding pass. If you do a land and sea vacation package, the card is also your room key while in Walt Disney World. I'd remembered that the Passporter book had said that the letters on the right of the card indicate the dinner rotation, so while we were waiting to board the ship I determined that PTTA meant we'd be eating in Parrot Cay for night one, Triton's for night two's "dress-up night" and night three's "Pirates in the Caribbean" theme dinner, and Animator's Palate for night four. The line for getting onboard the ship moved pretty fast, and soon we were able to show our cards and ID and board the ship for the start of our cruise.