Guest Trip Report: December 17, 2018 4 Night on the Disney Dream, Day 1

This is a guest trip report written by Elizabeth, who sailed on the December 17, 2018 4 night cruise to the Bahamas on the Disney Dream.

Day 1:  Boarding the Disney Dream

(click here to see this day’s Daily Navigator)

My husband and I booked our Disney cruise relatively late in relation to embarkation day, so we only had a few weeks to wait before our cruise began. While my husband was a competitive sailor in college and had a lot of experience on boats, he had never been on a cruise and had no idea what to expect.  I hadn’t either, but as an avid reader of blogs and a lover of all things Disney, I was very much looking forward to experiencing the Disney aspects of this cruise.

We were sailing with our one year old daughter, and I was thrilled that Disney offers so much for that age group. Not only do they have the nursery available where you can drop off children who are too young for the kids clubs, they have a splash pad on the ship that allows for kiddos who are still in swim diapers to play in the water. Since the US Health Department forbids non-potty trained children from swimming in their pools (and I don’t really blame them for that!), many cruise lines do not have any water activities for babies. I was so glad that DCL does! They also set up a toddler play area on deck 14 for a few hours each day. More on all of this later!

Due to a long itinerary of family travel post-cruise, my husband and I elected to fly in the morning of the cruise. I know this is typically discouraged because of the chaos and exhaustion that it will cause on embarkation day, but we knew going in that we would have to be troopers about it and just make it work. Our flight left at 6:15 AM, so our alarm clock went off bright and early (dark and early? The sun was definitely not up yet!).

I was so excited the night before our cruise that I legit couldn’t sleep, so despite the early alarm clock, I was pumped and ready to go. We called an Uber at 4:30 AM, and the drive went smoothly. It’s a really good thing that my daughter can’t tell time because she behaved like it was any normal morning, and she was all smiles and no grumps. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to get our daughter’s lap-seat ticket (using her passport), check our bags, and get through security.

We grabbed some coffee, got our gate-check tag for the baby’s stroller, and got in the family boarding line. We were flying Southwest and really lucked out that no one wanted to sit by us (ha!), so our daughter got her own seat. Our daughter is a great flyer, so she had a great time playing with the tray table, turning the lights on and off, opening and closing the window, and watching Finding Dory. The family sitting in front of us was heading to Disney World, and we spent some time talking about their plans for the week. I love flying to Orlando because it always seems like there are quite a few people flying to Disney, and it is so much fun to chat with them.

Before we knew it, we had landed in Orlando!!!

We hopped on the train thingy, headed to baggage claim, and arrived there around 9:50. We’d had a misinterpretation with our travel agent, so we had to pick our bags up and take them to the porter at the DCL transportation area. I love the seamless travel experience Disney offers, so I was a bit stressed about not enjoying it to its full extent; however, it ended up working out really well for us because, this way, we were able to pack some bottles of wine in our checked baggage for the flight and then transfer it to our carry on for the embarkation. We made that switch and headed down to the DCL shuttle. Our baggage claim area was on side A and the DCL transfer was on side B, so we meandered over to side B where we began seeing signs for the Disney Magical Express. I was really excited by the fact that it was written up on the permanent signs alongside baggage claim and ground transfers. We walked down the hall and saw the sign for the DCL transfer and the Disney’s Magical Express!

Since we booked so late, we did not receive our cruise package in the mail before we left town. This didn’t end up being a problem for us, as we simply gave the cast member at the podium our reservation number, and he gave us some luggage tags. We had to fill them out and affix them to our luggage, and then we gave it to a cast member who loaded it onto the truck taking luggage to Port Canaveral. We were then given three cards with Ariel on them, one for each of us, and when the Ariel group was called, we were allowed to board the bus! A side story here – I had thought that the Ariel group would get on the shuttle that was in the process of loading when we were given the tickets, but we ended up being the first group on the next shuttle. As that initial shuttle drove off around 10:45 AM, I began to get a little stressed about what that would mean for our arrival time at Port Canaveral. My husband looked at me and said, “You have nothing to be stressed about right now, Elizabeth. We are officially in the Disney bubble!!!” Gosh, how I love being in the Disney bubble. I remembered those words anytime I was starting to get stressed about something on the cruise, and it really helped me to stay in the present moment and enjoy the magic.

Sure enough, the next bus arrived around 10 minutes later, and we boarded around 10:55 AM.

I had scheduled a phone call from Minnie and Mickey for 11:15 AM as a surprise for our daughter, and at 11:16, look who she got to talk to!

Being only one year old, she wasn’t super amused by it, but my husband and I thought it was fun! I like that they offer this complementary service.

At 11:48, we caught our first glimpse of the Dream!

See the blue circle in the picture below?

That’s the Vehicle Assembly Building. It’s the final assembly building for some of the iconic NASA rockets. My husband, who is an engineer who has worked in the aerospace industry and who absolutely loves all things space, pointed this out to me. He was about as excited to see this building as I was to see the Dream! A few minutes later, as we were pulling into Port Canaveral, the bus driver pointed this out to all of us over the loud-speaker.

Here we are pulling into the port!

We were off the bus and in line for security at 11:59 AM, and at 12:05, we caught sight of the famed Mickey ears! After seeing so many pictures of this place during my research for the cruise, it was so exciting to finally be here in person!

We waited in the first time cruisers line to check-in, presented our documentation and health questionnaire, and were given boarding group #17. As luck would have it, literally as soon as we walked away from the counter, they called boarding group #17! Perfect timing. I had wanted to look around the model of the Magic and take some time to read the Navigator, but we definitely shirked those plans in favor of boarding. Goofy was out taking pictures, but we bypassed him also. I did get a quick picture with the model:

And a quick (blurry!) selfie with the ears:

Haha! We skipped the line for the photo, and we boarded the ship!!!

They announced our name, which was every bit as exhilarating as I was expecting it to be, and that plus the grandeur and beauty of the ship had my husband in disbelief! It was such a special first moment on board.

My daughter saw Minnie Mouse taking pictures on the top of the grand staircase and was so excited, so we walked up it so she could wave. The line was really long, as expected, so we chose to go have lunch and get a picture with her later. Having read blogs like this one, I knew the avoid the center elevators and Cabanas and instead head to whichever dining room was serving lunch. Today it was Animator’s Palate. To our surprise and delight, it was table service instead of the buffet that we were expecting. That was much easier for us to manage with our sleepy and hungry toddler. We sat down to lunch around 12:30. Here is the menu:

I love the napkins!

We both chose the Grilled Salmon Salad (very good):

And our girl got chicken strips. Our daughter started melting down a bit during lunch, so I didn’t get any more pictures due to trying to do damage control with her, but for dessert, I had the raspberry mousse bomb (excellent) and my husband had the ice cream sundae (very good). Our server even brought our daughter a Mickey bar…her first ever! She was a huge fan!

By this point, it was about 1:20, so we made our way to our room, stateroom 6688 at the very aft of the ship (full stateroom review here). It was ready! Look at the gorgeous view from our veranda:

We needed to put our girl down for her nap pretty much right when we got access to our room as 1:30 was her nap time. Our travel agent had told us that the pack and play crib would be in the room when we got there or, if it wasn’t, that we could ask our stateroom host. It wasn’t, so we asked him, and he said he would get it there as soon as possible. We hung out in the room until it got there which was around 2:15. We put her down for her nap immediately, and my husband and I decided to take naps until the safety drill. The cruise director came over the loudspeaker to announce the drill around 3:30, but our daughter slept through it, finally awaking around 3:45. We got her up and made it to our safety area, deck 4 inside one of the bars, in time for the drill at 4.

The safety drill went well and was very informative. Both the leader of our group and the other group meeting in the bar were entertaining and silly when it was appropriate, which made it go quickly. We realized later during the Sail Away Party that they both were peppy dancers that danced onstage with the characters, and it was fun to recognize them.

Next it was time for the Sail Away Party up on deck 11. Our girl danced her little heart out and was so excited to see Mickey and Minnie up on stage. We really enjoyed it.

We went from there to the open house at the Oceaneers Club so our daughter could play around there for a bit before dinner. Wow, it did not disappoint (for our girl or her Star Wars loving dad)!

I was amazed to see all of the different rooms available for the children to play in, and I’m looking forward to her being old enough to enjoy the programming offered there.

It was dinner time after this, which was The Royal Palace this evening. I was very much looking forward to dinners on the ship, as my husband and I love going to nice dinners on land…and here we could go to the dinner and bring our toddler! Only with Disney is this possible. 🙂 When we got to dinner we were introduced to our server Bertram from Jamaica and assistant server I Nengah from Indonesia. We were also introduced to our tablemates who had a son who was almost 5 and a daughter who was 2. They were from New Jersey and had been on a sailing from New York the previous year, so they told us about it over dinner.

When we got to dinner, our daughter was restless and pretty hungry. We asked Bertram if he could bring out some food her (we said anything at all was fine), and he pretty immediately brought her some mac and cheese. I thought that was so kind of him.

Here are the menus for the adults:

Sorry for the basically useless main course picture, but Diana had the same menu in this post if you’d like to see it (http://www.disneycruisemomblog.com/trip-report-november-3-2018-7-night-eastern-caribbean-on-the-disney-fantasy-day-2/)!

My husband had the Double Crowned specialty drink which he enjoyed but said it was almost too fruity for him.

The Duck Confit (very good):

Gaston’s Escargo Gratinee (surprisingly good…I’d never had snails before, so I was skeptical!):

Breaded and Deep Fried Brie (excellent…as evidenced by our little swiper):

I also had the French Onion Soup which I forgot to photograph but was very good…although I am incredibly spoiled by the french onion soup at Be Our Guest. No lie…that restaurant has one of the best versions of this soup that I have ever had, and I compare every bowl I have to Be Our Guests’. If you are ever dining there and you enjoy this type of soup, don’t skip it. Back to the cruise now… 🙂

This was the Roasted Rack of Lamb Medium which my husband had (very good):

This is the Conchiglie Pasta which I ordered:

I didn’t care for it, and not 30 seconds after I told my husband this, Bertranm was right beside me asking if he could get me something else. I asked for him to bring me whatever he recommended, since I really didn’t want to be a nuisance, and it ended up being what my husband had. After he brought the new dish back, I commented on how quickly he came to exchange it. In a very politically correct way, he said that there are some dishes that are less popular than others, so he likes to be ready to offer alternatives to ensure that guests have a satisfactory dining experience. I really felt like this epitomized the Disney difference!

Our daughter was basically done at this point, so I didn’t get to take a picture of the dessert menu, but luckily Diana has a picture of it on the above post!

The Grand Marnier Souffle (excellent):

Classic Opera Gateau (very good):

I Nengah brought our girl a Mickey bar which was just the sweetest.

As soon we finished dinner, we hustled back to our room to put our daughter to bed. My husband took a glass of the wine we had brought on board out to our veranda to enjoy while watching the stars, and I went to the Golden Mickey’s show.

I was so impressed with the show and knew my husband would have loved it. We decided that we wanted to see the show the following night together, so we booked our daughter a slot in the nursery to allow her to play while we watched it. More on that experience in the next post.

On my way back to our room after the Golden Mickey’s, I was dazzled by the twinkle lights and Christmas decorations in the atrium. Aren’t they gorgeous and so festive?!

We went to bed when I got back to the room…a cozy end to a very long and fun day. Here is our towel animal for day one:

Up Next: Day 2 – Castaway Cay