Disney Vacation: Day 2

Surprise, surprise, this is going up late. I didn't have time to post it yesterday, but hopefully no more hiccups today!

We woke up on Friday morning (CRUISE DAY!) planning to check out and leave by 930am. We went down to get breakfast (quite unimpressive, especially comparatively to what was to come) I had a huge Mickey waffle, regular waffles are no longer good enough...

By the time we actually left it was around 1030am. (seeing a trend here? 2 for 2 in getting a late start!)

It was about an hour drive from Disney to Port Canaveral, fairly uneventful, a nearly empty expressway.

UNTIL:

At this point there were lots of "HOLY CRAP" and "DO YOU SEE HOW HUGE THE SHIP IS?" "I'M SO EXCITED!" We were directed through to drop off our checked bags, and then over to park. For some reason that morning, in my cruise state of mind, I chose to wear a dress. It was freezing. And I had checked all of my sweaters. So I got to freeze for several hours until our luggage arrived.

We made our way into the terminal to check in, and since we were late for our check in we could immediately board. It was all just a blur, the corridor to the gangway was Mickey ears! I wish I had pictures, but as I said we were in a rush! As you make your way onto the ship, they greet you at the entrance, and ask for your family name and announce it as you enter.

We got on the the ship around 12:45pm. I had researched a little bit about what to expect, and knew if you toured the spa & fitness center before 3pm you could enter into a raffle to win spa treaments, so that was the first thing we did. I did not expect to be as awestruck as I was... Here's a few from a treadmill...

Almost makes you want to use it, right? Unfortunately, we didn't win anything in the raffle ): BUT they did offer a major discount on a spa package for the people that attended the raffle, and Tyler booked it for me! It was awesome, and I am now itching to go back to a spa, like now. The package was 75 minutes and included 5 of their treatments: a back, neck, shoulder massage; a scalp massage; a foot and ankle wrap; a milk body wrap, and a facial. I scheduled it for later that afternoon.

After the spa tour we headed off to lunch, which I don't remember too much of, because it was crowded and we ended up eating out of the deck (I still hadn't gotten a sweater, and it was SO cold) After we ate, our staterooms were FINALLY ready, around 130pm. SO we headed off to check out the room. We were on deck 2, midship.

These last two pictures, are our bathrooms, yes plural. Disney has split bathrooms, to help families. The first is a toilet and sink, and the second is a shower and sink. Which was really convenient.

We booked an Ocean View Stateroom, this was our porthole view while docked at Port Canaveral.

We were heading out of our room, our luggage was being dropped off. FINALLY, I had a sweater.

We headed up for the life boat drill and then, we headed back up to the top decks for the Adventures Away Party!

The characters and cast members all danced around and they played music and passed out streamers, it was a huge party.

Here's a little video to show how many people were hanging around *You might want to turn your volume down real fast!

After the Adventures Away party, we walked around the ship for a little while and ate, and watched as we pulled out from Port Canaveral. These are some pictures as we were checking out the ship

Sunset from our room

Leaving Port Canaveral

The pilot boat that lead us out

This was leaving Port Canaveral

The Royal Caribbean ship docked next to us

AquaDunk, the on board water slide. We tried it... once. never again! You start up top, drop 40 feet, loop 20 feet off the side of the ship.

The pool and the Funnel Vision TV, they played Disney movies here almost all day! that you could watch from in the pool or laying by the pool

 

Another view of the Funnel Vision TV

The hallway

The lifeboats during our drill

Next we headed back to the room to start getting ready for our show and then dinner. Every night we attended a Broadway style show at 615 and then dinner was at 815. We weren't allowed to take pictures during the show, but it was awesome! It was called Twice Charmed - and it was a twist on the Cinderella story. Around this point, I started to feel the movement of the ship. Sitting still in the theater, I could see the performers sway with the movement of the ship. Bleh.

After the show, I high tailed it over to the spa for my spa treatment! It was Heaven. I've already told Tyler we need to find a nice spa here! When it was over, I had to change back into my fancy clothes, and literally run to dinner *surprise surprise, I was 30 minutes late to dinner - I told you it was a common occurrence.

Our first night dinner was at Animator's Palate. It was a show and dinner, the restaurant had large picture frames, and the 'pictures' were screens, they started at the beginning of dinner as pencil sketches of Disney movie scenes drawn by Disney animators. By the end of your main course the sketches started to be colored in. (I walked in just before main course was served) Then during desert the colored in images became animated. They morphed all of the sketches into one video snippet.

The restaurant was also all in black and white and at the end, lights turned on and 'colored' the restaurant.

Dinner: Lemon-Thyme Marinated Chicken Breast on top of sour cream mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables, and grain mustard jus

Tyler's Cookies and Cream Icecream

My Vanilla sundae with Caramel. (not on the menu, but our server was awesome!)

Sorcerer Mickey dancing around

At the very end, all of the servers (representing over 60 nations) had a Parade of Servers!

After dinner we headed over to one of the adult clubs (18+), Fathoms, and watched the end of a game show, a scavenger hunt of sorts. It was extremely funny, I only wish I had recorded some of it. People worked in teams of 2 or more, and were given a paper with a number. Then the host would ask for things like "I need 4 right shoes" and one person from the team would have to bring the items and their number, then depending on how quickly they arrived to the host, the more points they received. Some other funny requirements: 2 men holding hands and skipping, a woman's bra on a man, etc. It was incredibly funny and I'm glad we happened to catch it.

We had arrived early for a Newlywed game style show, I had heard they gave away spa trips to the winners, so I had arrived with a hope to play (Tyler arrived saying "I'm sorry, but I REALLY hope we don't get picked") The game show used 3 couples, the longest married, the shortest married, and the craziest that wanted to play. Unfortunately we lost (like, last place, kind of lost) but we were surprised in the fact that all three couples won a spa pass! WOO HOO! For the rest of the night, we walked around, met up with Ryan and Summer, and ordered room service while watching Disney movies in our room while pigging out.

xoxo, T & H