Disney Magic 5-night Spring Break Cruise - Day 2 - Embarkation

Embarkation Day, Miami

We woke up and got dressed and packed and went to breakfast a little bit down the (now completely deserted) road at Boccaccino Cafe. It was basic breakfast foods with eggs and such and we were back to the room around 9:30. We checked out, loaded up the car and started the trek to Miami. The traffic was pretty regular (aka horrible) and it took us well over an hour. Steve and my mom dropped Roger, Emmaline and I off at the port with all the bags while they returned the car. We had a port arrival time of 11 and theirs, as first time cruisers was 11:30. We arrived pretty much exactly at 11 and checked in, got our Navigator and were assigned boarding group 3.

At around 11:30, my mom texted that they were back at the port and I met them outside of security around 11:40. I took them to the check in line where they received boarding number 7. I said, “Oh that’s not bad, you’ll be on board pretty much right after us, or we can just wait for you.” The woman at the counter said, “Oh, what number do you have?” I told her we were 3. She took my parents card back, tore it up and presented them with a new card that had a 3 on it. That was very nice of her.

Shortly thereafter, around 11:50, they started boarding and group 3 was called about 5 minutes later and we were through the photos, and onboard at almost exactly noon. First we went down to Carioca’s for the buffet, only to find it’s now table service like they rolled out recently on the Wonder. We didn’t really want that menu so we went up to Cabanas, but it wasn’t crazy yet and so we had a pretty good pick of seats, though it was inexplicably hot up there so I took off my sweater (it was a little chilly in Miami) with a high of only about 70 (yes, I say “only” because that isn’t particularly warm for Miami and with a high temp of 70, it actually was in the mid-60s in the morning.

Here's our embarkation photo with the completely wrong itinerary on it. (Though we did do this itinerary in October 2015 and it's a good one, too, just not the right one for this cruise.)




After lunch, Emmaline wanted to go to the pool and the Twist and Spout slide. We hadn’t worn our swimsuits under our clothes like we have in the past because the weather had actually been a little chilly and we weren’t sure we wanted to swim. But she decided that she did so I took her to the bathroom and she changed while everyone else grabbed some poolside chairs.

While she swam and everyone else chilled our next to the pool, I ran down to give our bottle of wine to the dining team in Lumiere’s to chill. They told me that unless we wanted it that night, it would be better to bring it to the dining team at dinner. After that, I ran up to the fitness center to see what the schedule would be for spin classes on the sailing and when the sign ups would be. Instead of 24 hours in advance of the class like on the Wonder in August, she said I could sign up for any of them right then. So I signed up for 9:15 on our sea day.

By the time I was done with all that and went back to the pool, it was 1:30 and our rooms were ready so I went to go drop off our stuff and show mom and Steve to their room while Roger and Emmaline stayed at the pool. I had two backpacks, Roger’s sweatshirt and my purse that I was lugging around. I got to the door of our room on deck 2 and tapped my KTTW card and it wouldn’t open. I tried again. The handle didn’t budge. So up I went with all the bags up a level to Guest Services. They issued me a new card and I trekked back down and tried again. Nope. The light blinked green, but the handle wouldn’t budge. I used the phone near the elevators to call and they said they would send someone. While I waited, I tried and tried, getting odd looks from passersby, while I awkwardly swore to them it was our room. Finally, the handle turned and the door opened just as maintenance and our stateroom host arrived. Of course. Feeling like an idiot, I went in and dropped our stuff off and organized a few things.

Roger and Emmaline came back from the pool shortly thereafter and she showered and changed for our Facebook group meet up at 2:30 in the Promenade Lounge. Roger stayed in the room and had a rest. After that, we went back to the room where we found that some of our luggage had arrived so we unpacked a bit and Emmaline decorated the our door (and mom and Steve’s door) in advance of our muster drill at 4 PM.

After the muster drill, Roger took Emmaline to the sailing away party on deck 9, while I went to go see if the Future Cruise desk was open because I was anxious to rebook our cruise (I had booked it opening day and the price hadn’t changed so I was eager to rebook with the onboard booking benefits before the price went up). They would open later that evening. Then I went up to the sailing away party and relieved Roger who went back to the room to relax a bit more and unpack. Mom and Steve decided not to go to the party. They were in their room or went to Cove or Keys or something.

I love how happy Emmaline is in this photo. Amusingly enough the brown haired girl with pigtails right next to her ended up being our table mate!




Our show that night was early at 5:30 instead of the usual 6:15 (we had second seating dinner) because they were showing the new Beauty and the Beast movie PremEar for it’s release day. So we didn’t have the normal welcome show that night. We all really enjoyed the movie!

At some point, I realized that I was missing my sweater and after rifling through the room half a dozen times with no success, we through back to the last time I had it, which we decided was in Cabana’s at lunch. I went off to Guest Services to see if they had it, but they didn’t. I checked a couple more times over the course of the evening, but it wasn’t there. And unfortunately, it was my only sweater and I often get cold in the theatre and dining room so I was anxious to have it back.

After the movie, Roger and Emmaline returned to the room to further organize and unpack while I went to the future cruise desk (which has inexplicably been renamed to the “Disney Vacation Planning Desk”) and rebooked our cruise at 10% off. Woo!!!

At 8:15, we went to our first dinner in Carioca’s where we met our serving team of Jay (server) and Tiago (assistant server) who were fabulous. We also had some table mates that had a daughter who was also 8 years old. They were nice and the girls made friends, though they did have a few ups and downs throughout the cruise so it wasn’t quite as great of a friendship as she made on our last two cruises with the girls she met. A couple of nights ended in tears and things were a little difficult a couple of times.

Dinner was good. Carioca’s isn’t my favorite menu, but I was happy enough and full before we all went to bed so we could be fresh and ready for our first port of call the next morning, Key West.

Click here for Day 3.