NOTE: There are 13 photos in this post. Photos by me (Bruce) taken with a Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated. (Photos by Linda taken with a Google Pixel 6.) Photos are chronological and captioned, but are interspersed with some narrative.
FRIDAY 23 February (T3-C1) — Disney Cruise Line (DCL) DREAM, Embarkation and Sail Away
I was up early and met up with our daughter (Meghan) in the elevator on our way to get coffee. I rarely get to chat with her alone, and enjoyed a relaxed conversation over coffee. Linda joined us a bit later. Meghan eventually took coffee and muffins back to her room for Chris. Linda and I got breakfast and chatted until she went back to our room to take a shower. I returned to our room after finishing my meal, got my shower, and got dressed for the day. We then repacked our suitcases before Linda went back to the lobby to join Meghan, and others, who were having breakfast.
Everything up to this point had been fairly routine travel—planes, taxis (ride shares), and hotels, with some walking thrown in, either to find food or just because—but with a certain added anticipation of things to come. Today started in the usual way, but was soon new and different for most of our party. Indeed, even for us, as we had never sailed on a Disney cruise ship and so had not experienced a ship with soooo many children. Not that we have never been with large numbers of children; we presumed that it would be similar to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, and there is a certain positive energy associated with so many children having such a good time. Indeed, it even seems to bring out the child in many of adults.
When we arrived at the Hyatt Place hotel on Wednesday, we signed up for a shuttle to take the six of us staying here to the port at noon today. We did not get a shuttle at exactly that time, but they were scheduled to arrive at the hotel approximately every 10 minutes. It was at most a 10-minute ride to the port, and only that long because of traffic, so we were still there ahead of the 1 PM check-in time for us (the rest of the group had 1:15 check-in times). It turned out that these assigned times didn’t mean much. We dropped our checked luggage with the porters at the curb and then walked some distance into the cruise terminal building. But the line moved along at a reasonable pace, and various adults took turns keeping Sadie occupied, which is the key to a happy life.
Soon enough we were all checked in and were headed onto the ship a bit before 1 PM. There were a couple of things about the check-in that were different from our previous experience. For one, they did NOT issue us our cruise cards and said they would be waiting for us by our cabin doors. For another, they checked every page of our passports, at least for the adults. I asked why and was told “because there are children on board” but the boarding agent could/would not tell me anymore. Our presumption is that there must be something in passports for individuals who are not allowed to be around children. Further research, however, did not provide any additional information.
Our staterooms (on Deck 9) would not be available until 1:30, so some of the adults went with Sadie on an exploration to solve a “crime” while I stayed with Madeline, who needed to sit and get off her injured foot. (She strained or stressed a growth plate in her left foot a week ago while ice skating, and got fitted with a boot yesterday morning before flying to Fort Lauderdale.) DCL uses a system to control room access that we had not seen before. When Madeline and I tried to use an elevator to go from Deck 5 to Deck 9 around 1:20 PM, it would not open the doors at Deck 9. Clever Disney.
Once in our room, we scoped out the available storage and started unpacking. Our balcony stateroom had plenty of storage; hanging closets, drawers, and shelves. It also had the usual safe, and our wallets and passports went in there right away. We used to turn our cell phones off and put them in the safe as well, but these days we put them in airplane mode (to turn off the cellular radio) and turn on the wi-fi radio to connect to the ship’s wi-fi system. On the DREAM, this allowed us to use the Disney Cruise Line Navigator app, which was our access to any/all information about the ship’s activities, including menus for the restaurants, reservations (if needed), and our account. (Most cruise ships now operate this way, so you really cannot go on a cruise these days without a smartphone.)
We watched the safety information on the TV in our stateroom. At 4 PM we went to our assigned assembly station (DCL does not call them muster stations) for the mandatory safety check-in and presentation. Unlike our other recent cruises, where our muster station was on an outside deck near the lifeboats, we were seated in the large Walt Disney Theater.
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