My Family's Travels

Day One,
Boarding...

6 a.m.  That is when we woke up.  Part of the reason was that we went to bed at 8 pm. Yep.  Main reason for the early bedtime was the fact we had drove overnight from VA to FL and had only about 2 hours of sleep at 10:30 when we checked into the hotel.  Reason 2 for waking up at 6 am.. too excited to sleep.

We were staying at the Country Inn and Suites about 2 miles (or less) from the boarding dock.  We could see the ships from our room on the 3rd floor.  Too bad we couldn't see the Magic, the Carnival Dream (which is huge) was docked in front of it and you could see it from our view.

One comment on the Country Inn and Suites.. great deal with the park and ride for $20 and the guy who runs the shuttles over - has it going!  This guy should guide in and schedule planes at an airport.  Despite the fact that the ships and people getting off were a bit late - he had a huge van of us and luggage on, organized, and to the port in about 10 minutes.  We had to be there by 9:45 and we pulled up at 10 a.m.  It was convenient and we never touched our main bags after getting them on the shuttle.

Now, we are there at 10:00 with people still waiting to get picked up PLUS a sidewalk FULL over people waiting to get on.  It seemed extra crowded because of the crossover.  We waited a 1/2 hour on the sidewalk to be allowed to the terminal. 

We were boarding group 2.  :)  So cool.  It was an advantage to get on early, considering I had to go to guest services twice, excursions desk twice, and one of the lounges *to cancel our palo lunch and tea'.
While I was running around, Mike and Sianna got a table for lunch at Parrots Cay.  Good thing, by the time we left lunch, it was full with a 20 min wait for a table.

We had decided to save money and skip tea and brunch at Palo, but kept our dinner reservation.  We also decided to skip our big tour of turtle bay and all day snorkel, since we were going to do a day of snorkeling at Discovery Cove, which is why I had to go to the excursion desk twice.

Despite the fact it only made it into the 60s in florida that day, and we were all wearing long pants still, Sianna had to go swimming in the Mickey Pool.  Luckily all the pools are heated and 85 degrees, so she was fine and went down the slide dozens of times. 

When we finally got down to the room, Mickey had left Sianna a Tinkerbell stocking with cool little books, pens, towels and activities.  The ship left us our first castaway bag, which was really nice with rice Krispy sandals and water bottles and a key chain.

Plus some of our first fish extenders arrived with really nice water bottles and printed lanyards for the Cruisin nuts.  We decorated our door - it was full, you would not have missed us coming down the hall!

The going away party was fun, but full of drama because Sianna still had not connected with her online friend Emma, who is 7 and also an only child.  After several texts with her Mom, cell phones still in range, we finally connected and it was like two peas in a pod meeting. 

We got unpacked after that and headed to watch the King Triton tree lighting.  It was at 7:30 and we had already nibbled at plutos grill, and had dinner scheduled at 8:15.  I think this late dining is going to lead to 4 meals a day.  I did dozens of flights of stairs because the elevator lines, but I'm not sure if that will off set all the food!

One of Sianna's new friends was chosen to be King Triton and light the tree, then we went to the game show Mickey Mania.  Sianna was upset she was not chosen, but had a good time during audience participation and was pretty good with a lot of the questions.

Dinner at Parrots Cay became a fiasco, poor Sianna hit her exhaustion wall and the high waves and rough seas finally kicked in.  The result was a tired, tearful child who had to go back to the room to throw up several times.  A little bit of nausea medicine and she was good to go.

I of course had to go back with her and had only had 1/2 of my appetizer crab dip by the time she had to leave.  Mike brought me my shrimp and avocado salad with chilled mango soup back to the room.  I at the shrimp and a few spoonfuls of soup and called it a night.