D and I installed the Disney Cruise app on our phones when my parents first booked the cruise. There is a countdown feature, and the kids would often check it, announcing to us, “Only 278 more days!”. Well, the day was finally here!
We ate breakfast in the concierge lounge.
We are not too picky–we enjoy the free breakfasts at places like Townplace Suites and the like. However, there were two problems with this breakfast. First, the sausage was room temperature, at best, even though it was in a chafing dish. D talked to an employee about it. She touched the sausage but did not acknowledge anything was wrong. She did replace the sausage later (or maybe just warmed it up!) Second, k took a bite of the salami and had to spit it out because she said it tasted so bad. (n had already consumed a few bites of the salami at this point). I was unable to discern if the salami was actually bad, or if it was just a different type that she was not used to. D said to try it to see for ourselves, but I did not want to risk it. Meanwhile, I was picturing two kids with food poisoning on our cruise, and that put a damper on the rest of breakfast. Thankfully, the kids ended up being fine, so I am still not sure about k’s reaction. OK, I did not mean to write an entire paragraph about our breakfast issues. The rest of the food was just fine, and the hotel was nice enough to let us all eat there, so enough about that.
After breakfast, we had some time to kill, so we took another walk around Canada Place. We stopped by the Olympic Cauldron that was used in the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Also nearby is the Pixel Orca statue created by Douglad Coupland, the person who popularized the term “Generation X”.
The city was preparing for Canada Day on July 1, marking Canada’s 150th birthday. I do not think that we appreciated the significance of this celebration as Americans. This sign was cool, though!
We watched some float planes take off and land in the water.
Yes, that is a floating gas station.
We also had a sneak peak of the Disney Wonder, which had arrived in port earlier that morning.
I love the classic design of the Disney ships. It was getting real. We headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and meet up with my parents and sister.
Several weeks before our departure, we received luggage tags and information booklet in the mail. After my parents’ luggage debacle at the airport, it was nice to have the tags ready to go. If only airlines did this!
k was ready to go with a cute selection of Mickey and Minnie hair accessories that my mom had made for her.
Our check-in time was supposed to be at 11:30, but we were not quite sure if that meant we should begin the process at that time or if that was the time we could board. We arrived just after 10:30 to be on the safe side. I did not take pictures during the check-in since I was juggling luggage, the online check-in form, passports, etc. However, there were basically three steps. 1. Drop off luggage with porters. 2. Go through customs and enter passports and information through the machines. 3. Check-in with the Disney cruise line (fill out short health form, obtain Key to the World cards, and kids’ club wristbands). I was not sure how long this would take, but it all went very smoothly. There was an abundance of signage as well as cast members directing and answering questions. During this time we passed by my middle sister and her family, so we knew that everyone had made it.
After that we were directed to a large waiting room and waited for our boarding number to be called.
Here is Zaza helping my nephew with his kids club bracelet. Also notice the lanyards she made for our Key to the World cards. Someone asked her if there was somewhere she could buy them-ha! The wait was not too bad, and there is a restroom, fyi. We passed time by looking through the Navigator (cruise schedule) and took some pictures.
Our boarding number was six. Once they started calling the numbers, it went pretty fast. According to my camera, this picture was taken at 12:11 p.m.