We met up with all the others at Jambo House and were soon on our way. We had a quick stop to pick up some more people at the Pop hotel and then it was full steam ahead to the port.
Check in was painless, Charlotte was registered with the kids club, and we were then walking through the big ears to get our embarkation photo taken. Photo done, and we were being announced onto the ship to the applause of the crew. Yay!
Important things first - Wayne, Joy, Charlotte, and James headed off for food, Michelle headed off to stand in line for tickets. The line was fairly long, but eventually she had tickets for meet and greets with the princesses, Anna and Elsa, and the Marvel characters in her hands. Then she, too, could go and eat.
We found our stateroom after lunch and met our room host for the next 15 nights - Glenlyss. Then it was off to the Facebook group meet-up to collect pre-ordered tshirts, lanyards, and pins, and to meet the people we'd been talking to for the last several months.
After the meet-up it was time for the lifeboat drill and then the Adventures Away deck party. This is when you REALLY feel like you're on holidays - the music is pumping, the characters come on stage to party, and then you do a big count down...5...4...3...2...1, and the horn plays the first 7 notes of When You Wish Upon A Star. The music keeps going, and all of a sudden you realise that the ship is moving, and you're off!!!
2 days before the cruise Disney announced that they were changing our itinerary for the Transatlantic cruise. Originally the ports had been New York, St John's, Reykjavik, Oslo, and Copenhagen. Unfortunately there was too much ice in the harbour at St John's, so we were unable to call in there. Disney decided to switch their Canadian port to Halifax instead. The other side effect of the ice was that, in order to sail around it, we wouldn't have enough time to call at Reykjavik. Instead Disney decided to replace that port with Stavenger in Norway. Whilst it was disappointing that we wouldn't get to those places, it was better than ending up like the Titanic (which wasn't that far from St John's when it sunk!)
Anyway...no matter what ports we were heading to, we were off and sailing. WooHoo!
Our luggage had finally arrived in our stateroom by this time, so Michelle started unpacking - much easier to live out of drawers for 2 weeks than suitcases! Then we were soon headed off to dinner in Cariocas.
Disney has 3 main dining rooms - all Disney themed of course. Lumiere's is French, and inspired by Beauty and the Beast, Animator's Palate (or Palace, as Wayne keeps calling it) is based on the drawings and cartoons of Disney, and has screens all around the room which they use for great effect, and Cariocas is Brazilian themed - although I'm not sure which Disney link that is.
As well as the three main dining rooms they have Palo - an Italian adults only restaurant, and Cabanas - a buffet for breakfast and lunch, and a sit down venue for dinner. There is also room service 24 hours a day, and tons of snacks up on deck - burgers, pizza, soup, wraps, ice cream, etc.
Anyway, we headed up to dinner to meet our servers for the next 15 days. Bojan from Croatia was our server, and Maria from Brazil was our assistant server. Our dining room head server was Ronald from India. Dinner was yummy, as usual - a 4 course meal every night? We can do that!
After dinner we decided to skip the show and wandered around for a bit - checked out the Promenade Lounge where music was playing and a toddler play area was set up, looked at some characters, Charlotte went to the kids club, and then we eventually headed back to our rooms.
Charlotte was sharing a room with Joy for this cruise, and was very excited as she got to sleep in a bunk bed! It pulls down from the ceiling in the room. James was in our room on the sofa converted to a bed. We had a beautiful towel animal on our bed, and yummy chocolates for turn down. The chocolates have a picture of Sleepy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on it :).
Michelle continued unpacking, and then eventually our first day on the ship had to come to a close - looking forward to more to come!
After dinner we decided to skip the show and wandered around for a bit - checked out the Promenade Lounge where music was playing and a toddler play area was set up, looked at some characters, Charlotte went to the kids club, and then we eventually headed back to our rooms.
Charlotte was sharing a room with Joy for this cruise, and was very excited as she got to sleep in a bunk bed! It pulls down from the ceiling in the room. James was in our room on the sofa converted to a bed. We had a beautiful towel animal on our bed, and yummy chocolates for turn down. The chocolates have a picture of Sleepy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on it :).
Michelle continued unpacking, and then eventually our first day on the ship had to come to a close - looking forward to more to come!
