All good things must come to an end, and so did our cruise. We got up sadly, and headed for our last breakfast with everyone at the Royal Palace, with our carry ons in hand. There were still golden Mickey confetti all over our room and hallway. Whoops. Can’t take Robby anywhere.
The See Ya Real Soon breakfast is already a sad experience, and the portions make it even sadder. When I ordered Belgian Waffles, I somehow thought there would be more than one waffle. Apparently, Jay had eaten breakfast in the Royal Palace the day of the wedding, and he had ordered the waffles then, planning on ordering French toast on our last day, because he knew we’d be returning to Royal Palace, but there was no French toast on the Sea Real Soon menu, to his disappointment. Well, at least now we know for next time.
True to form, I tried to make sure we had everybody. I knew Lauren was with her parents, and Jay’s parents were already gone. That just left Robin and Danielle unaccounted for, and Mom told me they were skipping breakfast and might already off the boat. Well, that messed up our driving home arrangements, but I did my best to roll with the punches, and we’d just figure it out when we got to the cars. We headed towards the atrium to make our way back to land.
Just as we had way too much luggage getting on the boat, we had too much getting off. Thankfully, our friends were more than happy to help us carry things. Since we’d been told we could take our bouquet and boutonniere off the ship, we figured we could take the floral arrangements too. The only problem with that, was that Jay and I had to carry all of those ourselves, in addition to trying to have our birth certificates in hand. There was a lot of juggling, and thank goodness Emma came right behind us to help.
I’m still angry we somehow wound up with Daisy as the characters on our luggage tags.
They did let us through customs with our flowers, without any real trouble. We just got a real long hard stare from the agent for an awkward thirty seconds, before he let us go.
We made it out of the terminal and they directed us towards the Park n’ Cruise shuttle that was waiting there. I felt terrible for the three people already on it, that now had to be surrounded by our tired and loud wedding party.
We reached Park n’ Cruise to find all our cars waiting, along with Robin and Danielle’s. So, they had skipped breakfast, but they weren’t off the boat yet after all. My Mom and Robby were supposed to ride back with them, but now had to squeeze in with Dad, Malcolm, and Gary. We barely had their car loaded before they took off to take Robby to the airport, and I didn’t get to say good-bye to my brother, in all the confusion. That sucked more than I can put into words.
Getting the right suit cases into the right cars was a fun puzzle. I ended up giving Morgan one of the flower arrangements to keep since I figured she had the best luck of keeping them alive the longest. Now several cars were going back to our house, but my Mom wasn’t going to be there to let them in. Thankfully, Lacey has a way in, and she would be there to make sure everything got unloaded properly.
Hugs all around, and Jay and I got in the car to head towards Disney’s Yacht Club. I finally turned my cellular service back on, and I had a voicemail from about ten minutes after we left port, from Disney Fine Art Photography. Due to the construction on Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom, they needed to change our pickup time from 6:00 am to 5:30 am. I called them back to confirm, and reached out to Stacie to let her know we’d need to be ready sooner. No problem, we’d be all set, I’d just need to set an alarm for 2:15 am, since she’d need to be there at 2:30 am. Oh boy.
Honestly, I am used to getting up that early on occasion, but it usually involves a RunDisney event instead of hair and makeup.
Spoiler alert: we never should have gotten off the boat.
We arrived at the Yacht Club pretty quickly, and thankfully our room was ready. They gave us new Magicbands because even though I had tried to leave ours where we could access them, I was too tired to remember where I had put them. They also gave us “Happily Ever After” buttons.
We had a “Standard View” room on the third floor, which was perfectly fine. There was a winding maze of hallways to get there. The bellman came up to meet us with our bags about five minutes later, and I had to scramble to find cash for a tip.
It’s not just a Disney resort thing, it’s a lot of big-name hotels, but I personally hate that they won’t let you use a luggage cart without a bellman assisting you, so you have to tip. I get why they do it, but I’d be much happier getting the cart myself.
I called down to the concierge desk to ask for a vase for the bouquet to help the flowers survive another night for the photos. I don’t remember the girl’s name, but she was super polite, and almost excited when I explained it was a wedding bouquet.
About twenty minutes later, our phone flashed with a voicemail, but never rang. It was a male Cast Member, who seemed to be extremely annoyed that he had to call to tell us, “Flower vases are not something we provide.”
Not exactly the response I expected from a Disney Deluxe Resort for a Disney Bride. I hunted around the room and wound up using the ice bucket instead. I can’t be the first person who’s ever asked for that either, so I’m surprised they didn’t suggest the ice bucket.
My favorite thing about the room was the curtains. They were Disney constellations.
We wound up hanging out in the room for a little bit, while we waited on my Mom to bring us a couple of things we forgot at the house. We were catching up on things on our phones and I was frantically trying to save all the photos everyone was texting me. There was a knock at the door, and there was a bellman with one of my mom’s suitcases. Somehow it had gotten left behind at the port, and they knew to bring it to us at the Yacht Club, because we were related to my Mom. Kinda cool, and also kinda creepy, but I’m just happy we got it back.
After Mom dropped off what we needed, we headed out to Stormalong Bay, which is the Yacht and Beach Club pool, and the entire reason I had wanted to stay there. It was a little too chilly for the water to be comfortable, but that didn’t stop me from dragging Jay into the lazy river, and checking out the sand bottom pool. We then spent most of our afternoon in the hot tub.
We had dinner plans at 8:00 pm, so we went for lunch around 3:00 pm. We actually walked to check out all of the quick service options at the Yacht and Beach Club, and then walked about to the Market at Ale and Compass, which was where we started.
I tried to order the Roasted Vegetable Panini without cheese or tomatoes, only for her to correct me and say it doesn’t come with tomatoes in the first place.
“Uh, that’s not what the menu says.”
I walked over to the wall and took a picture of it, then walked back to her.
“Oh, that menu’s old. We should change that!”
“So, can you make it without the tomatoes?”
“Oh, we don’t offer that anymore. We can’t make it at all.”
It’s on the wall. It’s literally on the wall, and you’re telling me you can’t make it. So far, you’re two for two on failings at simple requests, Yacht Club.
Jay made an excellent point later, and said that because it’s literally a vegetable sandwich, they likely had all the fixings anyway.
So, we wound up walking over to the Boardwalk Bakery and I ordered their vegetable sandwich. Jay got a corn dog and cheese fries at one of the little stands outside, and holy crap, best surprise of the day, it was almost as good as a Disneyland corn dog. I actually look forward to going back for another one, next time we’re at Epcot.
We walked back over to the Yacht Club, and found a ping pong table out behind the pool. I haven’t played ping pong since I was little, and we had a table in my parents’ basement. Turns out I’m still terrible at it, but we had a good time and hung out there for probably half an hour. Then we sat down on a swing on the beach and watched the video Gary had livestreamed of the ceremony. It was the first chance we’d had to see it, and I started crying.
We went back to the room, and tried to find something to watch on TV. I know Disney+ has only been out since November, but I’m amazed they’re not showcasing it in the resorts. Try it for free while you’re on vacation, and you might buy it for while you’re at home, but no, we wound up watching M*A*S*H on TBS. No complaints from me, I love M*A*SH, but when it was over we had to work to find something else to watch. I wound up taking a forty-five minute shower and conditioning my hair three times to get it to recover from the rat’s nest it had been the day before.
When it was finally time for dinner, we got changed and headed out. Every single Cast Member we passed said, “Happy Anniversary!” and I kept having to go “Just Married, but thank you!” I posted on Twitter about how I missed when Disney used to have separate buttons for “Just Engaged”, “Happy Anniversary”, and “Just Married”, and I got into it with a couple of different people, so I just deleted the Tweet because I didn’t want to deal with it.
Here’s my question though: Disney is one of the most profitable companies on earth. Why are you defending them going for a cheaper option in getting a generic “Happy Ever After” button? I think they can afford to have the three different buttons for three different occasions.
@WDWToday told me to personalize it to say, “Just Married” with a sharpie. Too bad I didn’t have one. That should have been done by the Cast Member who checked us in.
I am usually the most laid back and the most hard to annoy person when it comes to anything Disney does, but when I spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on a Disney Fairy Tale Wedding and resort mini-honeymoon, I don’t think expecting the most basic levels of Disney service is too much to ask. Was I acting entitled? Probably. But no newlywed wants to hear “Happy Anniversary!” over and over again. The Disney Cruise Line Cast had gone above and beyond to make us feel special, and it was like the Cast at the Yacht Club couldn’t be bothered. Honestly, I have had better interactions when we weren’t celebrating anything.
We went to Cape May Café for dinner, and I’m pretty sure I ate half my weight in clams and unlimited crab legs. Jay had to help me a little, since I was still struggling with my acrylic nails. After eating so many wonderful meals “for free” on the cruise ship, it stung a little when the bill came.
We stopped on our way back to the room in the lobby, and I borrowed a Cast Member from the concierge desk to take our photo, since there weren’t any milling around. I’d picked these shirts out specifically for this night, and I’d been waiting for this photo a very long time.
Then we made our way to the room and tried to go to sleep nice and early for our 2:15 am alarm.
