We originally booked our 7 Night Eastern Caribbean Cruise in August 2017.  We were looking at scheduling trips around our WDW Annual Passes that we had just activated.  While looking at dates, I noticed we would have some time between when school started and when our annual passes ended.  What better way to end the summer than with a trip to the Disney Parks and a Disney cruise? 

I sent off an email to our favorite travel agent, Michelle McKnight, and she booked the cruise for us.  Because the cruise was still during summer break, the prices were a bit higher than I would have liked, but we went ahead with it.  Michelle got us into an obstructed view stateroom to save us some money.  We also had some friends join us on the cruise!

We decided to drive down to Florida, stopping on the way down for a few college visits.  The college trips went well and we made our way down to Orlando.  We arrived late on a Saturday night and checked in the Hyatt Place Orlando/Convention Center for an overnight stay.  We’ve stayed at this hotel on several trips in the past and liked its cost and location.  The next morning, we headed for the parks and then moved to our “home” resort for the trip, Old Key West Resort, which we booked using Disney Vacation Points we rented from David’s Vacation Rentals. 

On the morning of our last day at the parks, we checked out of Old Key West Resort and went to Magic Kingdom.  We spent the day there and then had dinner at the California Grill at Contemporary Resort.  After dinner, we headed back to the Hyatt Place Orlando/Convention Center to spend the night.  We shuffled around all our stuff so we could leave a few bags in the car and only take the bags we needed on the cruise with us.  We went to bed excited that the cruise was the next morning!

We got up early the next morning to get ready.  We gathered all our stuff, added luggage tags to our suitcases (so our bags would find us on the ship), and had breakfast.  We left the Hyatt about 9:00 AM so we would make it to the ship around 10:00 AM.  We didn’t have a port arrival time because this would be our first cruise as Platinum Castaway Club Members. 

We arrived at the port close to 10:00 AM with a slight downpour occurring.  There was quite a line of cars waiting in front of us.   We had about a 15 minute wait before we could pull forward to a spot and drop off our luggage.  Once we got our luggage dropped off, we headed to the parking area.  We paid for parking with our credit card and went to one of the outside parking spots.  There was a cargo box on top of our car this trip to give us some more space inside the car with the long drive and didn’t think the cargo box would fit inside the parking garage.  We’ve used the outside parking lot before when we took a Fantasy cruise in 2015 and it was fine.

After getting our day bags out of the car, we headed for the security line.  Because of our early arrival, we were only about 10 people back in the security line.  Once the line opened, we moved really quickly and were soon upstairs.  We were directed to the Castaway Club line so we could check in.  I didn’t realize at the time that we could have bypassed this line and head back to the concierge line to check-in as a Platinum Member.  I believe the signage in Port Canaveral could be clearer.  In Miami, there are multiple different lines for the different levels (Silver, Gold, and Platinum).  In Port Canaveral, you get directed to the Castaway Club line without being asked what about your Castaway Club level.

After standing in line for a few minutes and filling out our health information form, we were soon checking in.  After we got our pictures taken and Key to the World Cards, we headed to the supervisor’s desk to see if there were any upgrades available.  The Cast Member told us that an upgrade from a Navigator’s Veranda to a full Veranda would cost $1500.  It wouldn’t have been that much to change to one three days before the cruise.  There weren’t any concierge staterooms available, which is what we were really after.  We passed on the upgrade and found a place to wait for boarding (we were Boarding Group 1) while we read the Navigator.

Once the Family of the Day was announced, Disney was ready for regular boarding.  It seemed like the boarding time was delayed for some reason.  We usually board around 11:00 AM, but Disney didn’t get started with boarding until 11:45 or so.  It was crazy in the terminal because it was so crowded.  People were packed near the start of the boarding lines, despite several announcements to have people move away from the area.  Once they called Boarding Group 1, a massive surge of people went forward.  People weren’t using their best manners as I was separated from my family by several families that couldn’t wait patiently to get on the ship.  I told my family to go ahead and I would catch up with them after the picture area (we always skip the pictures).  Sure enough, all the inpatient people stopped for their picture and we went ahead to board the ship.

Next up, we explore the ship!

Boarding | Exploring | Sea Day 1 | Sea Day 2 | St. Maarten | St. Thomas | Sea Day 3 | Castaway Cay | Disembarkation

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