The races were behind us and it was time to cruise!
We went to the food court area and had breakfast.
I had scheduled a town car to take us to the port. I have always used Disney Cruise transportation from the resort to the port. It’s convenient because they take your luggage in the morning but it also only gets you to the port in the early afternoon.
Now that I am Platinum level on Disney Cruise Line (having completed 10 Disney cruises), I can check in early and be one of the first to board. So it makes sense to use a car service and get there early.
I prefer Mears for my car service and they were right on time. We arrived at the port around 10:30, dropped our bags with the porter and went to the Platinum check in desk.
Check in was easy and we were in boarding group 1. While we were waiting, we went outside to take a look at our home for the next four nights.
We got on board so early that the buffet wasn’t even open yet. But we grabbed a table and waited it a bit until it was. Personally, I like the buffet on the ship. We enjoyed our lunch and then went around to explore the ship a bit, as this was a first time cruise for Donna and Pam.
When our booking window for on board activities had opened several months ago, I spotted a beverage tasting that I hadn’t seen before. It was called Kick of your Cruise and it took place in the Senses Spa Juice bar. We booked it in advance and made our way there.
I have been to the gym (in the Senses Spa area) several times on previous cruises but I have never been to the Juice bar. It was a nice little area with a bar type set up and some little tables near the windows as well.
For our tastings, the cast member made us three different smoothies and then a bloody mary and a mimosa. He explained about the ingredients and how they can modify ingredients for you if you come during the cruise to purchase a smoothie, as long as they have the ingredients available.
They have a super powerful blender so smoothies that had ingredients like spinach or kale were so blended you couldn’t tell. All the smoothies were good.
For the bloody mary, it was made with fresh tomato juice. The mimosa was also made with fresh orange juice. He showed us the big machine they have to slice and squeeze the oranges. I don’t like bloody marys but I had a sip to try it. The mimosa was awesome.
By the time we finished the tasting, the rooms were ready so we went to find our stateroom. We had a category 4E which was midship with an extended balcony. Extended balcony gave us two regular chairs and two reclining chairs on our balcony where a normal balcony would have two regular chairs. Sorry no pictures… but I did take a picture our door with our magnets!
Our bags had arrived so we unpacked and got organized. A safety drill is a requirement on any cruise so that was next on our schedule.
Our whole group was heading to Ashley’s cabin for the sail away. She had an extended balcony on the back of the ship and was next to another member in our group as well. So they had the balconies opened up to make one big balcony. It was a fun place to spend the sail away.
The way the schedule works on the Disney ships in the evening is that there are two performances of the evening show and two scheduled dinner times. Our group had the late seating for dinner (8:15 pm) which made our time to see the show the earlier performance. Typically, I pick and chose which shows I attend because I have seen most of them more than once. However, Donna and Pam have not seen any of them so we had a plan to go to each one.
Tonight’s show was the Golden Mickeys. It is a take off of an awards show which includes a variety of performances from different Disney movies.
After the show, we changed and went to dinner. If you have never been on a Disney cruise, there are 3 main restaurants for dinner. You are assigned to a table and a dining rotation which will have you in each restaurant at least once. Your servers travel with you each night so you have the same servers for the length of your cruise.
I had linked all of our groups’ reservations together so we had one big table all together each evening. Our first night was at Royal Palace. Again, having been on many Disney cruises, the menus really don’t change much so I am pretty familiar with them. My general feeling is that the food is good… not amazing.. and I do have some favorite items.
With a late dining time of 8:15 pm, I am usually ready for bed afterwards. And tonight was no different.
Always fun to come back to the room to a cute towel animal! And, of course, chocolates!
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