Alaskan cruise trip report - Day 3 - Embarkation Day

Embarkation Day

I woke up early again at 5:30, but eventually managed to doze back off for another hour, waking again at 7:30. We all got up and showered, heading out a little after 8:00 for breakfast about a block down the road at a little place called Cora. It was actually pretty good, with some nice piles of fruit on each plate. After breakfast, Roger went back to the room while Emmaline and I tried to go to the post office located across from our hotel (located in the Samsonite luggage store, oddly enough) so that I could buy her a stamp to mail a postcard for her. Unfortunately, it was just a little after 9 and they didn’t open until 9:30 so next I went across the street to London Drugs to pick up some bus passes for when we returned to Vancouver after the cruise.

Emmaline and I ran back to the room and helped Roger finish organizing our luggage and documents we would need. At 9:30 I ran back down across the street and mailed the post card before we checked out and headed back to Canada Place in a taxi. We arrived at port around 10 AM and the taxi driver pulled down into the garage under the terminal. We got out and the porter came to take our luggage and asked us if we had our tags. The luggage tags! I had completely forgotten to put on our luggage tags. Rookie mistake! We got that sorted out and took the elevator upstairs and got in a few photos with the ship before making our way to check in. There was no line at check in (in either the first timers or the return cruiser lines) and we walked up and she took our pictures, gave us our Key to the World (KTTW) cards and picked up a Navigator (booklet that tells us all the activities and schedule of events for the day). Then she said we would be boarding group nine and I just looked at her incredulous. It’s 10:15, we have the earliest possible port arrival time (PAT) and we’re in group nine?!?! The last two cruises we were group three or four. NINE?!?! She said that there must have been a lot of people who already checked in. Uhhhh. Okay. I just stood there. She told us boarding would begin by 11:45 and we should be on board by noon. Right, okay, calm down. It’s probably only a difference of five or ten minutes. I’ll be okay. I’ve waited this long. What’s another ten minutes? The logical part of my brain I knew it wasn’t a big deal. (But seriously, NINE?)


There was no line for check in at the kid’s clubs so we decided to knock that out. The past two disney cruises we did it on board since it was a crazy line in the cruise terminal. Then it was time for customs, passport control and security which was combined with the people getting on the Norwegian Sun. That probably took around 30 minutes, then we were led off to the Disney boarding area, which was huge and had lots of places to sit. It was all very organized and things went much more smoothly than our last boarding process in Miami. It was about 11 by this time and we found the Jarretts so we sat with them. Heather was on her 13th Disney cruise so her family could board whenever the heck they wanted. While we waited, Emmaline took her photo with Mickey in his captain outfit who had just started greeting, then around 11:30, Minnie came to take over for him in her cruise attire so she got a photo with her as well. We had a bathroom break and saw some other friends we had met the night before at the meet and greet and boarding began around 11:45. The Jarretts headed on board and we arranged to meet them at Parrot Cay for lunch.


There was hardly anyone getting on the first boarding groups and they started doubling up the groups. After the first few groups, they called groups 5 and 6, then through 8, then pretty soon after through 10. Where were all the people in the early groups? Oh well, a little before noon and we were on board! We were all set to bypass the embarkation photo, but it turned out that they had three photography stations set up (THANK YOU) and it went quickly so we did it before meeting up with the Jarretts in Parrot Cay for lunch. We had a lovely lunch. All I can say about that is that I’m DONE with embarkation day buffet on the upper deck. On the Dream, Fantasy and Magic it’s called Cabanas. On the Wonder, it’s still called “Beach Blanket Buffet” but that will be changing during the dry dock coming up in a couple of months. Whatever you call it, we try to avoid it for the most part. The restaurant buffet has the same food, but you are seated at a table first and they bring you drinks and you go get your plate of food with a table already reserved for you. There was no jostling around with a tray of food trying to find a table and while eating, nobody hovered over you with a tray of food hoping you were going to finish up soon.After lunch, we walked around the ship some. I wanted to pay a visit to the aft section of deck 7 where a lovely, completely unused verandah sits open and ready. Unfortunately, I forgot the area wasn’t open yet because it was in the stateroom area (which doesn’t open until 1:30). Instead, we went to the Oceaneer Club and Lab (the kid’s clubs) so that Emmaline could check them out and play a little bit during their open house.

At 1:30, we suddenly realized it was 1:30 and our room would be ready so we went down to drop off our carryon bags and get those items put away before heading up to the Promenade Lounge to see if anyone would show up for the Disboards meet and greet at 2:00. They didn’t. Oh well. We went back to the room where one piece of luggage arrived before our muster drill at 3:00. We were an hour earlier to have muster and leave the ship than usual. We had received an email from Disney a few months earlier about the change, but it wasn’t really an issue for us. Evidently it was an issue for some people because during the muster drill, people were still getting on (which is a big no-no)! After the safety talk (our muster station was in the Walt Disney Theatre) we made our way to Deck 9 for the sail away party at 3:30. Emmaline partied in the separate kids area that they had roped off, which was great because she could see everything that was going on. Then they sounded the horn and it was time for us to leave!



The party ended at 4:00 and we made our way to deck 7 aft and enjoyed the views of Vancouver as with the Jarretts we pulled away (there was one other family out there). Then we promptly forgot about the deck 7 aft verandah for the entire rest of the cruise and never went back there. Oops! Well, I suppose that’s why it’s going away at dry dock - nobody really knows about it or uses it and they need the space for a secondary emergency generator/engine setup thing. According to the officer I spoke with out there, he said that there are new regulations that came into play since the ship was built and requires a secondary backup system. Thus is also the reason for the “duck tail” they will add to the ship (that the Magic already has) to balance that load.



We went back to our room and began organizing more of our things, including trying to figure out the door decoration situation since our magnets weren’t sticking properly. After all these years, there’s just too much paint on that door. I gave up on my favorite magnets - the cute Maleficent horns we have placed on our door number the past two cruises. Oh well. We also had our luggage so we were able to unpack a few things before dinner as well as meet our stateroom host Satriawan (Sat-Tree-A-Won) from Taiwan.

Dinner our first night was in Animator’s Palate. Yes! We had a fantastic serving team with our server Nebojsa (Neh-Boy-Shuh) from Bosnia and assistant server Chanman (Chon-Mon) from Thailand. They were fantastic and really made dinner every night a fantastic experience. We also met our table mates, the Young family. Kristi and Ken were traveling with their daughter, Katie, also age 8 and Ken’s father Ron and his wife Denise. They were very nice people and Emmaline and Katie became good friends during the course of the cruise.


We left dinner and decided to do a little shopping with everyone else on the ship. Wow, the shops were packed! I asked about the shirt I had seen online that I really wanted. Evidently everyone else wanted it too because they only had L and XL sizes left. Boo. Emmaline wanted to buy about 80 things so I told her to remember some things and think about it and come back for what she really wanted later.

Then it was time for the first show “All Aboard: Let the Magic Begin” which, technically we’ve seen before, but decided to check it out again because it would have small snippets of some of the variety acts so we could check them out and see what we might want to go to.After the show, we went back to the room and unpacked and put away the rest of the items we didn’t get to earlier before heading to bed.

Clock here for Day 4.