Disney Dream: Embarkation

After two busy park days the day to board the Disney Dream has arrived. We got going a bit earlier today as our goal was to leave the hotel by 10 am.

Packing up was easy for me after just two days and with a carryon size suitcase but they have been there for five days already. Thank goodness we could do laundry in the unit so we had a load of laundry to fold and pack as well. Breakfast was a hodge-podge of things C had in the suite. I had the Kodiak Cakes oatmeal and really enjoyed it. Hoped the extra protein would keep me going until our late lunch.

Getting Onboard Disney Dream

The hotel picked us up in a golf cart and took us to the main entrance with our luggage where we took a ride-share to the Orlando Airport and were dropped off at Terminal A. Here’s where we made a navigation error. The instructions state we would find GoPort on level 1 next to car rentals but we went left out of the elevators instead of right and went quite a bit out of ways with all the luggage.

C left us in a spot and she found it and came back and got us. Check in was easy and we were given bag tags for terminal 8 at Port Canaveral. This tells the driver which bags to drop at each ship. We only waited about 15 minutes before the bus arrived and we were asked to line up in numerical order (given to us at check in).

Every seat was taken on the bus but the seats were comfortable. Most of the passengers onboard were boarding the Carnival Liberty today. It was a scenic drive but people got excited once we could see the massive cruise ships!

Port Canaveral Checkin

Once at the terminal (first drop off) our bags were unloaded and handed off to the a porter. Then across the street to the medical screening tests where we checked in and went into a testing cubicle and performed the swabs.

Then out of that building and directed to another medical tent to wait. They email you the results plus there is a screen listing which reservations have cleared. The safe passage website we used to upload vaccination documents would also show when we were cleared.

It took about 25 minutes and I refreshed to a clear message.

We were checked out by a employee who had a list to confirm we could leave. Then it was off to the official check-in back across the road.

We only had a short wait to get to the check in agent who scanned our passports and put a band on my grandson A who is a minor. Then it was through security. Since our boarding time had passed we walked right onto the ship. I almost wish we weren’t doing that as the terminal was quite impressive. It is in an 1920s art deco style of old terminals and has a massive model of one of the first Disney ships in the hall. One side has the inside where you can see into the cabins and other spaces.

Embarkation Afternoon

We had to go to our muster station first where C scanned a photo of the sign into the app and we got verbal instructions. Having that out of the way we could go to lunch (finally!).

I suggested the dining room since it was so late and Cabanas was most certainly crowded by now. The open dining room was the Enchanted Garden. What a beautiful room!

Embarkation Lunch

After ordering bread was served.

I started with the Leek and Potato soup.

It was good but not warm enough. This was followed by a green salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

The entrée I selected was the sliced roast beef sirloin.

It was delicious!

My grandson enjoyed his mac and cheese with the ketchup being stylized into a mickey ears design by our waiter.

Then we had dessert.

I had the carrot cake for dessert but it was just okay.

When we were done cabins were ready so we went to find ours.

Remaining Afternoon

We have cabin 9558 which is located perfectly a few cabins away from the elevators. They had a magnet on the door recognizing C as a Disney Vacation club member along with two silver cruise member lanyards.

She also had a nice sling bag gift waiting in the cabin along with two more lanyards for being silver members (past Disney cruisers). We explored our cabin and balcony and it wasn’t long before our bags arrived so we could unpack. I’ll have cabin pictures and a video in a future post.

I got settled and they explored the ship and checked A into the kids club for his age group.

Sail away was shortly before 5 pm. This is the Disney terminal from the ship side.

I really like the design. When we left the ship passed the restaurant Fishlips I’ve read about as a must go place if staying nearby.

My grandson and I waved to the people waving back at us. Same thing with Independence of the Seas (which left shortly after us).

The Carnival Liberty had already left.

We stayed out on the balcony until we got to open ocean.

Embarkation Evening

Our dinner is at 5:45 and we headed off to the Animator’s Palate restaurant per the App.

We were shown to our table. We have table 51 in all three restaurants which makes it easy.

This turned out to be my favorite Disney restaurant on the ship. This was the adult menu.

A ordered from the kids menu.

C and I ordered specialty cocktails. She had the Blue berrilicious.

I went with the great reef.

They were both very tasty! A tried the smoothie of the day. Bread was served.

I loved the styling of the themed bread plate and butter knife.

My starter was the Black Truffle Pasta Purseitte.

They were easier to eat than pronounce. Very good! My next course was the creamy butternut squash soup.

My entree was the pork chop.

It was good but TOO big. The picture doesn’t show how thick it was. Grandson A had pizza. Dessert was the cheesecake which was okay but I didn’t really care for it.

What I loved was the animation on the walls. Crush came to life shortly after dinner started and was interacting with various tables around the room.

He didn’t chat with us but did with both tables on either side of ours. Plus there were lots of other characters in the tank entertaining us. The time flew by watching them.

A left us early and went to the kids club for the evening while we had our coffee and dessert. Then C and I went to the main theater to see Believe. This was an assigned showing for our dinner seating.

I enjoyed the show and appreciated that it actually had a theme! Sorry, no photos. We saw this celebrity while waiting for the elevator to go back up to our cabin.