Day 1 – Boarding

We woke up and were sooo excited!!  This was going to be our first cruise in addition to our first time going to Alaska!  We had a quick breakfast, tossed the suitcases into the car, and headed out for the cruise terminal parking.  Navigating from the hotel through downtown Vancouver wasn’t too bad.  We had been there over a decade ago and remembered the general layout of the city.  The entrance to the parking was a bit hidden, but not too hard to find.

We entered the parking terminal and encountered the luggage porters.  Having never been on a cruise before, we didn’t quite know what to expect.  Luckily, one of the luggage porters figured out we were lost and he explained the process to us.  He would take the luggage and it would get on the ship.  We handed over our suitcases (with attached tags), along with a tip.  We had prepaid for parking at the Vancouver cruise terminal, so we headed to the parking office to get instructions on exiting the terminal once the cruise was over.  We then went upstairs to start the check-in process.

Of course, we had arrived too early.  We were directed to a waiting area until the U.S. Customs officials were ready to start scanning people.  (U.S. Customs screens passengers in Vancouver because the ship is in U.S. waters for most of the cruise, and there are no Canadian ports of call).  We spent about 30 minutes waiting along with our fellow cruisers.  Once U.S. Customs was ready, we went through metal detector and talked to a Customs official.  We then were able to enter the Disney check-in area.  This was a generic terminal that Disney had taken over just for the Alaska cruise season, so it wasn’t as nice as Port Canaveral.  In that respect, it was very similar to the Miami cruise terminal we eventually got used to on our Spring Break trips.  It was organized very well though, with lots of people ready to help if you didn’t know what the next step was.

We found the first time cruisers line to begin the boarding process.  We turned over our cruise documentation, got our pictures taken, and were given our Key To The World (KTTW) card.  The KTTW card is very important on the ship.  It gives you access to your room, it allows you to charge to your room, and gets you on and off the ship.  Its the equivalent to your Magic Band from Walt Disney World.  We got the girls signed up for the Kids Clubs  and then waited for our boarding group to be called.

Once our number was called, we started to board  the ship.  There was a series of walkways we had to navigate.  That includes stopping to take a photo and getting yourself scanned onto the boat.  We crossed over the gangway and were on board the Disney Wonder!  As we entered the atrium, a crew member asked our family name.  We couldn’t quite figure out why, but soon realized why: the Disney Wonder crew announced our entrance onto the ship!

We were a bit overwhelmed upon entering the ship, having never been on board the Wonder.  We decided to head up to Parrot Cay for the lunch buffet.  We grabbed some plates and ate fairly quickly, because we really wanted to explore the ship.  After eating our fill, we headed out to explore the ship.  Our first stop was definitely the kids clubs, specifically the Oceaneers Club and Lab.  Our (at the time) 8 year old was excited to see them.  It didn’t take her long to realize she wanted to spend her time at the Club.  The activities at the Oceaneers Club were a bit more on the younger side, which is where she was comfortable.  The club definitely worked out, I had to drag her out of the club on multiple occasions for meals and other activities.  She never wanted to leave them.  She loved the “parties”, the activities, and generally everything about them.

We then took our tween off to check out the Edge.  The counselors immediately engaged her and got her feeling comfortable.  She liked the planned activities and decided she would visit the club more later in the trip.

We then explored the adult nightclubs a bit and walked around Deck 9 and 10.  We are not “night life” type people.  Most of the clubs really didn’t appeal to us, but most bars and/or clubs would not have.  As it turns out, we were usually pretty tired after spending all day on excursions or running around the boat to do much after the evening show for anything.

After exploring the ship for a bit, it was time for the muster drill.  I don’t have any photos of the drill, but it was quick and painless.  We then decided to head up to Deck 10 to watch the sail away party.  We grabbed some streamers (but skipped the cocktails).  Having never been on a cruise, we didn’t know what to expect.  Disney puts on a good show to get people pumped up for the cruise.  The level of energy the crew was able to bring was amazing, especially considering they do this all the time.

After the sail away party, the ship pulled away from Canada Place and started to leave the harbor.  It went around Stanley Park and under the Lion’s Gate Bridge.  Our cruise was officially underway.  We spent a lot of time on Deck 10 watching Vancouver disappear behind us.  As the sun started to go down, we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner.

Dinner for the evening was in Animator’s Palette.  We got to meet our server team, Shane and Yansen.  We ended up loving both of them and have always sought them out our on subsequent cruises on the Wonder.  The dining room itself is fantastic.  It starts out in black and white and slowly gains color as the evening goes on.

The food is fairly diverse and is ordered in courses.  The first course is composed of appetizers, followed by entrees, and then desserts.   The server team was always checking in on us, asking us about the pacing of the meal and making sure they were exceeding our expectations.  It was getting a bit heavy handed and I suspected they were making sure our ratings of them at the end of the cruise would be good.  We had read that the ratings had a great deal of influence on them.  We did take a moment to let them know that if we had any reason to think the service wasn’t excellent, we would let them know, but otherwise, we were happy.  They seemed to relax a lot after that and we had a great time with them.

After dinner, we headed to the show.  Everyone greatly enjoyed it, but we were exhausted.  We were already three hours off our normal east coast time.  The addition of getting up early for the cruise, plus the excitement of the first day had done us in.  We called it a night and headed to bed.

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