The morning of Saturday, September 27 dawned clear and warm. I arose well before sunrise in anticipation of leaving for the port around 7 AM. Preparations were primarily complete. All of the luggage to be checked was packed and in the van. I still had to wrestle with a couple of carryon bags. Mainly I had to gather all my magnets that I had finished printing out the night before and find a place to squeeze them and also our fish extender (FE). It didnt take too long to get everyone up, dressed, and ready to go. We pulled out of the driveway at about 7:15-7:20. A little later than planned, but we always had left around 7:00 before and as such, had always arrived at the terminal a little after 9:30. So I was sure we had plenty of time.
Traffic downtown was a bit congested for a Saturday morning, and we arrived at Cracker Barrel in Brandon at around 7:40. It is pretty much our tradition to stop there for breakfast. It always surprises me how busy it is. Dont people out there know the rule? People are not allowed to eat at Cracker Barrel unless they are on vacation. I think it is a law. If it isnt it should be!! We had a delicious breakfast of pecan and blueberry pancakes. Yum. As good as they were I purposely did not finish them so I would be especially hungry for the embarkation buffet.
Here are the kids playing checkers:
We left there at about 8:25 and right away realized we werent going to be arriving at the port early. The drive across I-4 was clear, but we missed the shortcut via 528 at the Disney exits, so we had to drive on into Orlando proper to take the exit at 417. It would have saved a bit of time, but oh well. I wrote it down on our direction sheet so we wouldnt do that again next time. Not too long after that we neared the port, and there she was!!
We got closer
and closer
.
And before you know it we were there! We got off on the correct exit this time, and were immediately shocked at the volume of people that were everywhere! It was about 10:15 and it was packed!! The joint was hoppin. We got into the turn lane to check in and drop off our bags. As we waited I saw Drea and family chit chatting with some folks (oh, for the sake of those reading who dont know all of us
. when I mention random people by name, I will, in most cases be referring to my Dis buddies from our meet thread.) I was waving frantically at her, but of course she didnt see me. Besides, even if she did, she would have been thinking Who the heck is that weirdo in the van trying to get my attention?
I saw numerous other folks in our logo T-shirt but did not recognize the faces. We spent our short time in that line trying to figure out who so & so or that guy were in real life. It took about 10 minutes to go through the line and check in. After doing that, we drove around to the side of the terminal to drop off our luggage. This area was crazy also. We had to wait for a few minutes for a spot to park here. Ron & I both unloaded our massive amounts of bags (I believe that day we had seventeen. Yes, seventeen! Ten checked bags, seven carryons, a stroller and a car seat base. And yes, we did use pretty much all of that stuff).
Once the luggage was dropped, I took Brendan and Savannah to go check in while Ron (and Sarah) parked the car. Right away before we had even walked five feet someone said Jen? I looked up to see a familiar face! It was Tiffany, who we sailed with last year. We engaged in brief small talk, but she had the same deer-in-the-headlights look on her face at this crazy amount of people around us. We arent used to this
.after having been on the Wonder, which is way more laid back. We made our way inside to the vestibule and got in a huge snaking security line, which wasnt as huge as I thought (there are two lines). It actually only took about 5 minutes to go through the line and we were upstairs. The kids ran off to see if there were coloring pages around, while I joined literally everybody else in the
Castaway Club line. I chatted a bit with the folks behind me, who I quickly determined were not Disers. About halfway through the line, I heard them discussing their boarding pass, so I turned around to ask where they got it. They sad a CM was handing them out at the beginning of the line. Seriously? I must have walked right by them. Pet peeve # 1,
DCL
be consistent. Sometimes, they hand out BPs at the check in desk, sometimes in the line, sometimes by the escalators. Ugh. I wish they would just always do it one way and thats it. So my neighbors held my place in line while I backtracked to get it. It was a number 5. Number 5??????!?!?!?! We have never had over #3 BP. Now I was really angry at myself for not bringing along my #2 BP from last year, as they looked exactly the same. (Cheating? Maybe. Its a victimless crime, you know. They can put me in DCL jail anytime!) Oh well. As I meandered through the line at a snails pace, I finally had the opportunity to look around and see how many people I knew that I could spot. I saw FatCat and family, Tiffany again, and lots of logo shirts on people that didnt look familiar.
As I approached the counters, still no Ron & Sarah. I also had no clue where Brendan and Savannah were. When it was my turn I went ahead and started checking us in. I had to ask for a supervisor, because we had a huge problem. Ill have to backtrack a bit here. About 4 or 5 days prior to our departure, Ron had been asking me about online check in and he mentioned room 6018. I said What do you mean 6018? We have 6022 and 6019! He said no
.it said 6018. So right away I think Woooo-hooo! Weve been upgraded!!!!! Uh, nope. 6018 is two doors down (or forward) from 6022. It is still a Cat.8. And, checking the deck plans in my Passporter and online, I discovered that 6018s door is waaay down the hall from 6019, the other room we had for the kids. It was actually across from room 6015. Now, we were ticked. We had worked so hard when changing our reservation to get two rooms right across from each other for DCL to just bump one of the rooms down. And since we figured it was to make room for other people, well that just made us even madder. So we called DCL right away, and they refused to tell us anything (b/c we have a TA) so we called and emailed her. When we heard back from our TA, she said that DCL told her that 6022 was out of service due to maintenance issues and that the ship was full. A manager of inventory was supposed to look things over and see what they could do to get us rooms closer together or even
.one Cat 4. (We would have liked that, even though it meant losing all the extra square footage and bathroom). So the next day we heard back again, and our TA said the ship is 100% full and there is nothing they can do now, but to check back at the port.
So, back at the counter, checking in we are told to see a supervisor when we are done, we have to go to the desk at the far end. Fine. Ron finally appears with Sarah, flustered. He is even more agitated when I cant tell him where Savannah and Brendan are. (There is no screaming, yelling, bleeding, and nothing is burning in the terminal, so I surmise they are doing just fine, wherever they are). Then the agent hands us our KTTW cards. And our dining rotation isnt right! All I notice at that point is that it starts with Lumieres, and we had requested to start in Parrot Cay. Yay for us, now we get to go join all of our meet thread mates in the line party at Rockin Bar D to change our rotation. This is the first time requesting a rotation in advance hasnt worked for us. Meanwhile while we are waiting to finish up, I notice Erica and Lionel (zweihund) at the counter next to us, so we say hello. Then hi ho, hi, ho its off to the supervisor we go. She knew the situation right away when we told her who we were. She said we were her top priority, but unfortunately the ship is completely full and there is nothing they can do, unless someone (or two, actually) does not make it to the ship. She said to check back at Guest Services around 3PM. So with that problem totally unsolved, we trekked out into the madness of the general terminal. I saw an empty table and started to head that way before I noticed the ropes blocking my path. Seems they have blocked off a whole section of the terminal for concierge. Either this is new, or they dont do it on the Wonder. Not that I dont think they paid enough to deserve a private waiting area, they most certainly did
.but they had all the dang tables
. Not that there was a lot of time to sit anyway. We headed over to the kids club line that was just as lengthy, tedious, and boring as ever. Never really figured out how it takes so long
Who are you? Here are the wristbands. Whats your password? Have a beeper. Bye. Know what I mean? After that, we went over to meet Erik and Jason and get our sweet lanyards. They are even nicer than I expected:
We had wandered over by the mouse ears and right as we did, Mickey came out. He greeted Savannah and patted her head before going out to pose for pictures in front of the model ship. It was utter insanity. We didnt even get near the line; we ended up pretty much trapped between the wall and the kids club line which now stretched halfway back across the terminal. It must have been already almost time to start boarding, though, as the hoards and throngs approached the mouse ears. By the ropes we found more friends, Amy & Dave, Melodie...and Tiffany were right behind us. It seemed like it took forever
first 1&2s
.then 3s & 4s, finally 5! We scooted through the crowd and up to the podium where we got officially swiped onboard. A quick stop for the embarkation photo, and we would be on our way. We did not end up buying the photo, as none of us really looked that great, plus it was just a plain picture. No nice dated border with the ports of call on it. We bounded across the gangway to the atrium door, and here was our greeting (movie, click to play)
Up Next: Door Number Three
Hope you enjoy!!
Possibly due to the fact that on the Wonder there is a high percentage of land/sea folks using the ground transfers, and those do not arrive at the terminal until after boarding starts.
