Our Valentine Cruise Pre Trip report - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
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There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
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To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
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So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Well after we got our info of where we were going to be staying for the night we all decided to head over to the hotel. When we drove up to the Shingle Creek I was shocked. It was a huge resort on a golf course. Pretty fancy. I was like thank God we are going to have a nice place to stay. So we check in and bring all of our luggage up to the room. I will have to give it to Disney this was an extremely nice resort we had for the night. Now what are we going to eat tonight? Of course we had no reservations and do you think there were any to be had in all of WDW. That would be a big NO!. So we get in the cars and head to DTD to see if we can grab some dinner there. At least there was some decent QS places there. The traffic to DTD was crazy so my DH dropped us off and went to find a parking place. After we got out and he drove off I noticed my 7 year old had his Nintendo DS in his hand, I was like great and you better not lose it. Well we go to find something to eat and go up to TRex and that was not going to happen. So I go into Fulton's and ask what the wait is. About 60 minutes so I say ok and stay at the restaurant waiting for the table while the kids and others went to the Lego store. So off they go and I am waiting when my cell phone rings and my friend asks me if I had Clayton's DS. I said no why? Well you guessed it, he put it down at the Lego store and poof it was gone. I really think it is sad that someone would take something like that knowing a little kid put it down. Oh well that is a hard lesson to learn when you are 7. Well we finally get called for our table and we eat, which was good but I am from Louisiana and we have incredible seafood so it was just ok for us. By the time we finished dinner it was probably 10pm. My DH says it was too late to go to MK and we called it a night. So what did our one day park hoppper ticket get us. One ride on Test Track, only because one of our friends was able to get us a end of the line pass. Oh and lot of time waiting in lines but not for any attractions. Back to the hotel we go and hit the sack and hopefully in the morning we will be able to get on board the ship.
The next morning we get up and dressed and head down to eat the breakfast that was provided for us. It was ok more a continental breakfast but it was free so I did not complain. Then off to Port Canveral again to attempt to get on the ship. How do you think it will go? Is the ship going to be there? It better be or I am going home.
Awwww, sorry about the nintendo DS. My son 7 does the same thing. I try not to let him take it out of the van, but sometimes you just look up and he has it. He left it at a sporting event once (just my older sons b-ball) and we didn't even realize it. When we went back for a game the following week, the score keeper recognized us from before and thought he had seen my son with a ds, and sure enough he had put it up for us! Did you check w/lost and found? I just can't imagine (well I can) an adult taking or allowing their child to take something like that knowing it will leave another child heartbroken (and in my son's case in trouble) and especially at Disney!
Hurry back with more....... Hope it's easy peasy getting on the ship!
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We get up and eat our breakfast at Shingle Creek, like I said for a free breakfast it was adequate. So we are full packed and we hit the road for Port Canaveral. We drive over to the port and we find out we can't get in the termilal until 12:00 which we thought was strange. We go back to the Country Inn and Suites where we stayed the night before we were supposed to cruise. We find out the shuttle would not run for us until 1:00pm that day because it was booked for other cruise passengers already, not suprising since we were not supposed to be there anyway. So I say lets just get a cab to take all of us to ship since it was only $4 per person. We have the cab pick us up at 1145 and we are off. There was 19 of us so we needed two vans. The vans arrive on time and we are finally off to the port terminal. Well because the Wonder was also in port today the Magic had to use an alternate port terminal. OK so where are we supposed to go? Our van drives up and the Port authority tell us where to go but van #2 goes to the normal place and the porters start to open the luggage trailer but then realize we are on the Magic so they send them to the correct place. We arrive in van #1 and we are like where is the other van? They were right behind us so we thought. We text one of the folks in the other van who informs us that they had a little problem. Apparently they did not close the latch on the luggage trailer properly and some of the luggage has fallen out on the road. OMG what in the heck is going on with this vacation. Luckily a nice person in a car following the van stopped and picked up the luggage and flagged down the van since the driver had no idea this was occuring. When van #2 arrives with us they were not too happy. Then we realize that one of the suitcases is missing. We are like are you sure? Yes we are sure. So we contact the cab co. and Disney and they are now on a quest to find this suitcase. They assure us they will find it and deliver it before the ship sails but we are not optimistic at this point. Then we check all of the luggage with the cruise staff and we head toward the ship. And we see it a line of people at least 1000 people deep. we are like are you kidding. Well what are we to do but wait in line yet again. Well this was not the normal Disney cruise terminal that is so pretty and new. It was an older terminal that they had to set up just for us. After is seemed like an eternity or maybe about 2 hours we finally get in the terminal to check in for the cruise. Well no pictures were taken of us and we did not get to walk through the Ear arch and we entered the ship not into the Atrium lobby where you normally enter but on the deck 2 gangway where you get off the ship for the ports. Oh well at least we are finally on board. WOO HOO! Well our staterooms were promised to be ready at 130p and it was after that at this point so we head to 7638 on deck 7. As I mentioned earlier we upgraded from Cat 11 to Cat 5 and we ended up getting a handicap accessible room. I knew it would be big but I had no idea how big it was going to be. I had a walk-in closet on a cruise ship. So after all the drama our room was FANTASTIC. And it was on the very back of the ship right next to the secret deck on deck 7. I really don't think I could book a regualr room anymore because I was so spoiled. My son could do back-hand springs in the room. Well that is our day arriving on the ship. It was very chaotic but we made it. Once on board all was well. Oh and they did find our friends suitcase so once that last little bit of drama was over we were starting to relax. Next stop Sail away party and Palo.
What a stressfull start to the vacation! I'm pretty sure I would have been in tears....
Glad you finally made it on board with ALL your luggage.
Looking forward to more....
I am not a person who gets too uptight about things so I was ok with it. My kids were exceptionally good through it all which was good because I think that would not have been good if they had been unruly. I will try to post more tomorrow. Thanks to all of you for reading.
Wow, what a stressful time you're having! Thank goodness you're finally on the ship. For any of the passengers who were first time cruisers (like me), that would have been very disappointing to not go into the "regular" terminal.
Well as I said before we finally made it on board. WOO HOO! It was after 100p but we were finally on and we were hungry. We went to our stateroom and were again amazed at the sheer size of it. I seriously may have to always ask for one of those rooms if available the next time we cruise. Oh well when we go in our room my Castaway club gift was waiting for me on my bed. It was a great bag, two water bottles a couple of flip flop shaped rice crispy treats and my lanyard. I had cruised in 2009 on my own without my family so they did not get any lanyards. But next time they will. Also in the room was info letting us know that America's Funniest Videos was going to be on board this week shooting the season finale. My kids love that show so they were very excited about that.
Next we head up to Topsiders to grab some lunch because it had been about 730a when we last ate anything. We get our food and they have shrimp on the buffet today. SCORE!!!!!!!! I can eat my weight in shrimp so sorry for the folks behind me in line. No I am only kidding I left a few for them. While we were eating a CM came up to us and asked if we would like to buy a beer package. It was a case of beer delivered to the room for the price of 20. We decided to buy it and that was a mistake because my husband did not drink even half of them while on the cruise. We still have about 10 beers in our fridge. Yes we took them home with us. After lunch my kids were begging to go swimming in the pool. I told them I did not have their suits yet because we did not have our luggage yet. Thought I could get by with that but when we went to our room there was our luggage. Plus there were other kids in the pool so they knew it could be done. Did I mention the temp outside was in the low 50's and windy. But I could not keep the out of the pool any longer. They get changed and head to the pool. The water is heated but after a few minutes I noticed the blue lips so I made them get out and change back into dry clothes for the party.
Our friends are up on Deck 10 waiting for the sail away party to start so we meet them up there and it was crazy. Now as you remember the Wonder was also in Port and leaving that day so we were having our party and so were they. Normally after the party the boat starts to sail out. Well they decided to let the Wonder go out first which I thought was wrong because we were already a day behind but then we had a Horn duel as the Wonder went by. They said it is a rare occurence for the two ships to be there at the same time so that ended up being really cool. The horn duel went on for a few minutes and then we were off as well. The party was lots of fun. Lots of music and dancing and Cruise Capt Mickey and Minnie with the gang. They gave out red and blue pom-poms for the people to wave during the party. My kids really enjoyed it. After the party we went to the kids clubs and registered the kids and let them play a while. I will have to say that my kids LOVED the clubs. They asked to go back often. I think we could have left them in there for the entire cruise. After they played a while we ordered them room service for dinner because we were eating in Palo that night. As usual my kids got chicken nuggets but they liked them and of course the Big Island cookie. Yum. Well that is all for now. Next stop our dinner at Palo>
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. I try not to let him take it out of the van, but sometimes you just look up and he has it. He left it at a sporting event once (just my older sons b-ball) and we didn't even realize it. When we went back for a game the following week, the score keeper recognized us from before and thought he had seen my son with a ds, and sure enough he had put it up for us!
Did you check w/lost and found? I just can't imagine (well I can) an adult taking or allowing their child to take something like that knowing it will leave another child heartbroken (and in my son's case in trouble) and especially at Disney! 
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Finally! 
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