Day Two--Good-bye Canaveral, Hello, Mickey Mouse!

Jolene & I were the first up, somewhere around 7:20 or so. It takes me about 20 minutes to get ready. It takes Margo and the girls about an hour each. Thank God for two bathrooms, or we would still be there. I spent that time doing some typing and taking a walk. When they were finally done,  we were going to go down to eat the complimtary breakfast.  I told them I was going to take the stairs. As pokey as they are, when I got to the stairs, I decided to go up instead of down. We were on the 2^nd floor, and the stairs go up to the 4^th. So I walked up to the 4^th, across to the other side of the building and down the other stairs. Then I walked to the dining area. They still weren’t there. So I walked back towards the elevators and ran into them.

The hotel breakfast sounded better than it was. Most hotel breakfasts don’t offer scrambled eggs, potatoes, and biscuits and gravy. This one did, but the biscuits and gravy made Jessi sick (I thought it was OK), but the eggs were definitely runny. Margo didn’t like the potatoes, but again I thought they were OK. After breakfast, we went back up to the room. Margo had to rearrange the stuff in our bags, so we would have both checked and carry ons. Our checked bags won’t be available until possibly 6:30 PM, so we have to make sure we have everything essential with us to last until then. That took until 10:15 AM. Our shuttle was to leave at 10:30 AM. So we got down and waited. $12 for the shuttle and then $18 tip. Margo said $2 per bag was the norm. I thought that was a bit much. I mean we got them down from the 2^nd floor, and to the curb. Throwing them in vehicle was the easy part. But I’m not going to argue about money on this trip. This is about all of us being together and having a good time. We got off loaded and the bag handlers at the dock, from the cruise line, had their hands out, too. $8 later, and doing more nodding than listening to whatever they were saying about when we got back, and we were on our way to the first of many steps towards getting on the ship.

Step number one was going through the gates. There they had a couple of people with notebooks that had a guest list. They checked IDs to names, and then pointed us towards a building that would be step number two. We stopped to take a picture of the girls and Margo with the ship in the background, then into the building. Inside was a line, that went pretty quick. It lead to a X-ray machine and metal detector. Not as bad as the airport, in that the laptops (we brought two) could stay in their cases, and we didn’t have to take off our shoes. But, I still had to take off my belt. After that we went up a set of stairs into a large atrium. There we were greeted by a couple of people with Mickey Mouse hands. They checked to make sure we had our “Bahama Form” filled out. We didn’t, so we stopped at a little kiosk and took care of that. Then the nice man told us only one of us needed to get in the lonnnnng line to finish checking in. Margo was elected as she had all of the paperwork, birth certificates, passports, credit reports, secret passwords, list of identifying scars and tattoos, IRS 1040s, letter from our parents, and whatever else we were supposed to have. What she didn’t have was the credit card we were using to pay with. I had that. But luckily I had wandered nearby, and another Disney employee had forewarned her. So Jessi took the card and darted under the queue line. Jolene described it as going through the Lion King stampede. Which, as the queue lines moved in opposite directions, did result in a near miss. She got through, and then it was off to fine a place to sit down. That is where I am at now. It is 12:24 PM. We are in group 8 to board, and they have announced #7. But, our room won’t be ready for an hour. So we will go get something to eat and then make it to our room………

Day 2 continued……..

We made it on the ship about 10 minutes after I finished the above. We walked up the gangway, someone asked our name, and they announced us as the Kre-something or other family.  I told Margo you should have just told them we were the Smith Family.  From there we went up to deck 9, and ate at the Topsider Buffet. The food was pretty good. The cheesecake wasn’t, but there were cookies and other choices, so it’s not like I missed out on adding to my waistline. They told us that our room would be ready at 1:30, and that our bags could be anytime between shortly thereafter and 6:30 PM. We finished eating about 1:15, and the girls decided to wander for a few minutes. Margo and I gathered up the carry ons and we waited outside the restaurant. When the girls got back about 10 minutes later, and we went to deck 7.

We only had to wait about five minutes and then they took away the barrier. We are on the forward end of the ship, but we had eaten on the aft end. So we had to walk all the way the length of the ship. But it was no big deal. We got in. As expected the place is small, but not super bad. There is a queen size bed for Margo and I. Jolene has a sofa that folds into a small bed, and Jessi and a bed that folds out of the ceiling. We had to grab a crewman to unlock it, but that was no big deal either. The girls went exploring some, and then wanted to go swimming. So they grabbed their suits and were off.

I decided to explore a little, and was back about 10-15 minutes later. That worked out, as by the time I got back our first two bags were sitting outside the room. They had just arrived, and Margo had dragged a third one into the room. So she spent the next hour or so unpacking. The three bags did not take that full time. As she was finishing up, with the first group more arrived. When she finished with those, the last had arrived. Even the water that we packed arrived. I stowed that away in the tiny refrigerator, that appears to have been a converted mini-bar. It doesn’t do a very good job of keeping things cold, but it’s what we have.

The kid’s had orders to be back by 3:30. There is a mandatory ship drill at 4 o’clock. They go over where to go, and how to operate the life jackets. So we went, and stood in the sun for about ten minutes. It could have been worse, but everyone felt a bit foolish wearing those bright orange life preservers. We were required, to wear them back to the room, which we dutifully did. But, they were off and stowed just as fast as we could.

From there we made our way to the aft section to attend the Sail Away Party. It was OK, I suppose, but personally I need more alcohol to enjoy it. I did have a beer, but that wasn’t nearly enough to make me into a social butterfly. I’m the wall flower type. It lasted until sometime around 5:15. The ship sailed at 5:00. So we made our way up one more deck, to the top, and watched the water move by. The sun was getting low, so I ran back for the camera, so I could snap a picture of the girls with the sun in the background. Mission accomplished, but I don’t think the sun was bright enough to show up. Too much haze and clouds.

We all had independently decided we wanted to see Wild Hogs, which was showing at the Buena Vista theatre. It started at 6:15, and took us to about 7:45 or so. I liked it, and we had a good time laughing. From there we wandered a bit, and made it back to our room, and got ready for our 8:30 dinner reservation.

The ship has three dinner restaurants, Lumiere’s, Animator’s Palate, and Parrot Cay. We dine at a different one each night, and then repeat them in order, until the cruise is over. Our first restaurant was Lumiere’s. Lumiere’s is a French-style restaurant, which means no one likes much of anything on the menu. Everyone but me ordered a steak. I ordered a Quiche appetizer, Tomato Soup, and then Roast Duck. Dinner was good. But, we got a sanctimonious assistant server, Gavin. He saw that the girls took out their cell phones between courses. I’m not sure if he was trying to “tactfully” enforce a no cell phone policy, or if he really believed what he was saying. But the girls got a lecture on spending time with family, and he asked for their cell phone. The girls declined and Margo backed them up. It ended kind of ackwardly, and he went away. Whatever. I’m not sure what the purpose of that was, but it gave us something to chat about. Maybe he did accomplish what he was after.

Dinner got us out at about 9:30 or so. We decided to hit the shops. Margo and I had found “Shutters” earlier. That is the place where the pictures that are taken throughout the cruise, by Disney, end up. They took our pictures when we got on. They took two of us together and then one of the girls separately. The one of the girls turned out good. We ended buying a package for $270. We can upgrade or downgrade later.

Jessi found a place called Studio Sea. They were having a family Trivia contest called “Mickey Mania” she wanted to do. It looked to be kind of a game show kind of thing. They do it again on Tuesday. They have something similar called “Who Wants to be a Mouseketeer”, tomorrow night. We might try to do that. Jessi & Margo have seen all of the Disney movies and would probably rock at that.

We ended up back at our room at 11 something. Margo watched a DVD, while the girls watched a Disney movie on TV. I kept watching it, too. I should have been focusing on keeping up with this journal, but I’m on vacation, OK.