Spring Break 2016 Cruise – Part 3 – Boarding

We arrived as early as possible to the Port of Miami Terminal for check-in because I wanted to see if there were any cabin upgrades available.  We had tried a few times to get an upgrade, but upgrades from our cabin type weren’t available in advance of the sailing on prior cruises we had taken.  We had the earliest port arrival time (10:30 am) and we showed up a good 45 minutes prior to that (9:45 am).  We dropped our bags off with the luggage porters and headed to the terminal.

There are two doors to enter the terminal and there were lots of people just milling about.  We immediately went directly to one of the doors and took up our position.  We wanted to be in as soon as they would let us in.  There were a few workers coming and going through the terminal.  I’m pretty sure some of the people were engineers working on the retrofit of the Wonder coming this fall.  We saw them later during the cruise taking measurements in the passageways with blueprints in hand.

As it became closer to 10:30 AM, the line behind us began to grow rather large.  We managed to get a glimpse into the terminal and I managed to get a picture before being warned by the security guard not to take any pictures.  Once into the terminal, you proceed up a set of escalators to security.

The security screening is pretty standard for an airport.  Bags and other stuff go through the scanner and you walk through a metal detector.  Once we were released into the terminal, we made it through security quickly.  We were moving with purpose to see if there were any available upgrades.  I believe we were the first family into the actual terminal and might have even checked in first for the cruise.

Once we cleared the security screening, we headed right to the Gold Castaway Club check in line.  This was our first cruise as Gold members!  We checked in for the cruise and got our lanyards as well as our Key To The World (KTTW) cards.  Nancy took the kids off to check in for the kids clubs and I went to the supervisor’s desk to check for upgrades.  They had a verandah room available for a great price and we took it.  I had to call Nancy and the girls to come back to the desk so they could re-issue our KTTW cards.  Everybody was excited for the upgrade, so it was a great way to start the cruise off.

Nancy then took the girls off to resume check in for the kids clubs since I had interrupted the process.  I found a place for us to sit and made sure I grabbed a Disney Cruise Line Navigator.  We had boarding group 3, so we would be on the ship very close to when they started boarding.  The time passed relatively quickly and soon they were boarding the family of the day!  Our boarding group was called not too long after that, and we headed up the escalator to board the ship.  The route from the terminal waiting area takes you upstairs, then you basically turn around (with a view of the other passengers still waiting below for their boarding group to be called) and walk down towards the ship.

The first stop on the way to the board is for the first family photo opportunity.  You can purchase these photos later if you would like.  We haven’t bought one yet, but we always stop for the picture.

The next stop will be to have your KTTW card scanned to show that you have boarded the ship.  Every time you board or disembark the ship, your key will be scanned, so that Disney is able to keep a manifest of the passengers that are on board.  There are multiple lines, so pick the shortest one so you can start your cruise!

As we were walking up the gangway, we saw Captain Mickey taking a stroll on the jogging track!  We then got the first of our many, many hand sanitizing sprays.  Every time you get on the ship, they have you clean your hands.  You also get handed cleaning wipes every time you enter a dining room.

Disney has a great boarding tradition that we love.  They ask your party’s name and then announce your arrival to the atrium.  So, if you are the Smith family, you will hear “Disney Wonder, please welcome aboard the Smith Family” followed by a host of crew members clapping and cheering!  Such a great welcome aboard the ship!

Once we boarded the ship, we immediately headed to Parrot Cay for lunch.  Parrot Cay is one of the main dining rooms, on the regular rotation for dinner and generally offering a buffet for lunch (including lunch on boarding day).  On our way to Parrot Cay, we ran into two of our favorite waiters from previous trips, Joel and Shane.  Joel was our waiter for our Spring Break trip in 2015, and Shane was our waiter on our Alaska cruise in 2013.  We talked to both of them for quite a while, then had lunch.

While eating lunch, we discussed how much we had missed Shane.  We decided to see if we could change our dining table to get seated at one of his tables.  The dining room managers set up in the Tritons dining room on the Disney Wonder to help passengers that want to change their dining arrangements (dining rotation, dinner time, table size, etc.).  The managers said we could change to Shane’s area, but that it would be easier if we could shift our dinner time from first seating (5:45 PM start) to second seating (8:15 PM start).  The girls had been pushing to change to second seating in order to get some more time in the clubs before dinner.  We figured it would be a good chance to try it and get to see Shane, so we switched.  We still had a table for just the four of us, so we were happy.

After changing our dining rotation, we took a stroll around the ship until 1:30 PM, when the staterooms are available for passengers to enter.  We walked through some of the common areas on the ship, including the Promenade Lounge and Guest Services on Deck 3, the Buena Vista Theater on Deck 5, and the walking/jogging path on Deck 4.

1:30 pm came quickly, so we hurried to our room to see what it was like.  We figured out it was mid-ship, on Deck 7.  We haven’t sailed in a mid-ship cabin and quickly realized why you would pay a premium for it.  It was really easy to access the rest of the ship from mid-ship.

Overall, we really liked the room.  We had a slight problem with the verandah door, it was really hard to close.  A quick call to Guest Services had someone from maintenance there quickly to fix it.  We later even received a gift basket in the room with some treats in it to apologize for the inconvenience.  We hadn’t complained other than to point out nicely that it was sticking a bit. We were also missing the charger for the Wave phones.  We didn’t really care from the perspective of using the Wave phone, but definitely didn’t want to get charged for it when we left.  I don’t think we used the Wave phones the entire cruise.  We used the Disney Cruise Line application on our iPhones to communicate with each other; this allows you to utilize wifi to communicate through their app and does not require you to sign up for Disney’s onboard Internet access.

Our luggage took a little bit longer to arrive than usual, possibly because we’d switched staterooms at the last minute.  We asked the room attendant about it and he eventually went to our old room to retrieve it.  He also brought us the information about our room credits as well as our Castaway Club member gifts.  The Castaway Club gifts were a canvas/burlap bag and a DCL-themed photo album.  We also received a $100 credit because we booked this cruise onboard (on a prior trip) as well as a $150 credit from our travel agent.

We spent a few hours getting settled and walking around the ship until it was time for the muster drill.  I don’t usually take pictures during the muster drill.  Its pretty uneventful.  You head down to Deck 4 and stand around for a bit while the crew explains what to do in an emergency.  Everyone is well behaved and you get set free pretty quickly.  We skipped the sail away party this time and just hung out in the room for sail away.

I ended up going down to Deck 4 to take a time lapse of the sail away.  Sorry for the horizontal video.  I will never do it again (except later this cruise a few times).

I don’t remember much of what we did after the sail away party.  We had late dinner with Shane as our server and we met a new assistant server, Mabel.  We really loved them as a serving team and had a great time with them.  Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of the food or the menus.  The kids went off to their clubs (Edge and Vibe) and didn’t come back until later.  They both found lots of friends to hang out with this cruise, so they were gone quite a lot.  Each of the clubs was new to them as they had just aged up into since our last cruise.  My younger one is shy, so she had some trouble at first in the Edge until she found some friends.  The older one isn’t shy and made lots of new friends in the Vibe.  Even now, six months later, she is still talking to them over the internet.

Planning | Travel | Boarding | Sea Day | Cozumel | Sea Day | Castaway Cay | Disembarkation

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