travels, races, and other musings

Disembarkation Day Disembarkation Day dawned painfully early, like it always does. My plan was to let Emmaline sleep as long as possible, but alas, as soon as the ship was cleared, those annoying and loud announcement woke her up. We got up and went for breakfast in Lumiere's. We said our goodbyes to our table mates and serving team and told the latter that we would see them next year.  Once we were done with breakfast, we picked up our photo CD, hit the bathrooms and then left the ship. Luggage pickup and customs was a breeze and we went outside to find the rental car shuttle. We asked a few people and found the right spot and waited for the shuttle. We all loaded up and waited for a few more people to get on and were driven back to the Avis in downtown Miami to grab our minivan. Thankfully this was completely uneventful.  We made the short drive from there, back past the port (bye Disney Magic, *sniff*) to Jungle Island. Jungle Island was very pricey (like, I almo...

Castaway Cay The last day of the cruise is always so bittersweet. So much fun to be had, yet the packing and knowing it will be over soon is always in the back of my mind. It’s so hard! The last two times we went to Castaway Cay, Roger ran the 5k and I stayed with Emmaline. This time, we asked my mom and Steve if they would stay with her so we could run together. We woke up and I tossed on my running clothes and went up to deck 9 to grab some snacks for us. When I got back, Emmaline was awake, despite my hope that she would sleep in a bit. My mom arrived at our room at 8 and we made our way to Fathoms to check in for the race. We checked in and waited until around 8:15 when they started the pre-race briefing. At 8:30 we gathered together and disembarked the ship. First we all stopped at Scuttles Cove so that those with kids that needed to get dropped off could do that. Then we arrived at the start line and waited some more. I was glad I had a hefty snack. According to my GPS, we ...

Nassau I debated about getting up and working out this morning, but I decided to sleep in and take it easy in the morning. Still, I was up before everyone else so I went off to deck 9 to have some snacks. After a bit, I came back to the room and got everyone else up. We opened the curtain and there was an ambulance there loading someone on. I didn’t mention in my previous post about the events from the night before. The night before, while I was putting Emmaline to sleep, around 10:45, I heard screaming in the hallway near our room. At first, I dismissed it as kids, but then I realized that it was legitimate distress. I opened the stateroom door (as did many) to see a woman running down the hall with someone in her arms frantic screaming, "HELP ME!!!! HELP!" Someone was on the phone calling to get her help. I was so shaken and I can still hear her voice. Unfortunately, the ambulance increased my concern. I did find later that the woman (who was on our Facebook cruise grou...

At Sea Our day at sea promised to be jam packed with activities. Once again, I awoke to the sounds of the neighbors alarm clock. This time they weren’t so snooze-happy and I was able to get back to sleep. Still, as per usual, I awoke before anyone else and went to have a snack on deck 9. I came back to the room and Emmaline and Roger woke up and got ready. At 9:15 Emmaline went off to the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique with my mom supervising while I went to spin class and Roger went for a run on deck 4. I believe Steve relaxed in their stateroom. My spin class was a great workout and I enjoyed it very much. After class at 10, I met Emmaline and my mom back at our stateroom where I did some slight hair restyling to add the special Rapunzel hair piece I made to go with her dress before I took Emmaline to the princess meet and greet at 10:15. After the princess meet, Roger met us in the atrium and he and Emmaline went off to meet Captain America at 10:45 while I went back to the room to sh...

Key West One thing I didn’t realize when I booked our room was that it was a connecting stateroom to the one next to it. This ended up being less than ideal. First, we were missing an entire piece of furniture—the little chest of drawers that usually resides at the foot of the bed was a door and second, we could hear the neighbors pretty well through the door. Somewhere between 5:45 and 6 AM, a chiming sounded from the other room, waking me up. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but it continued. It was some kind of alarm clock - probably on their phone. It finally stopped and I tried to go back to sleep, only to hear it start in again 10 minutes later. This time it went on forever. Finally, it stopped. I got comfortable again and it went off again 10 minutes later. This time I counted. That stupid thing chimed 38 times. No joke. 10 minutes later? You guessed it! Finally, at 6:30 (ten minutes before my own alarm) I got up, tossed on my running clothes and made my way up t...

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 cou...

Travel Day: Austin, TX to Fort Lauderdale Off we go on another cruise. This time we head for the Bahamas on the Disney Magic on our fourth cruise with DCL. We’ve previously sailed on the Dream (3-night Bahamas), the Magic (5-night Caribbean Halloween), and the Wonder (7-night Alaskan). We booked this cruise from a placeholder we made while on the Wonder. We weren’t planning on using it for this cruise, but my parents decided they were ready to see what all the fuss was about and so we booked this one to take together. We had two staterooms on deck 2 midship, oceanview category 9B. Our rooms weren't connecting. Their room was just slight forward of the midship elevator lobby, starboard, and ours was a little aft of the midship elevator lobby, also starboard. This was our second time on deck 2 and we love it! This cruise featured stops in Key West, Nassau, and Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. Steve (my mom's husband) and my mom picked us up to go to the airport in h...