Out of twenty-three guests, twenty of them were carpooling together to the port for embarkation. Of those twenty, twelve of them had stayed overnight at Fort Wilderness in the cabins. The remaining seven were meeting us in the morning. Originally, I thought we’d have to meet at the front of Fort Wilderness, but everyone was actually able to drive straight to the cabins for us to load up.
As if I hadn’t given Scott enough to do between cake running and helping with choreography, I asked him to swing by Panera, on his way in, and pick up a catering order I had placed for bagels. Everyone was pretty much right on time, and came into our cabin to scarf down bagels, before we got on the road. I handed out the driving packets. I had made one for each vehicle, with driving instructions to Park n’ Cruise, their reservation info, a Tell-a-Cast for each person, and a CD to listen to on the drive.
What’s a Tell-a-Cast, you may ask? Well, it’s the cheat sheet they give Walt Disney World Cast Members with showtimes, park hours, and more. Rather than doing a wedding program, I made a Tell-a-Cast for the whole cruise!
We wound up shuffling some of our original seating arrangements, because I hadn’t realized how much of the backseat my dress was going to eat up. It had wound up in Michael and Abby’s car, and they got stuck getting it to the boat as well, once I realized Abby was one of the few people we had tall enough to carry it comfortably. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to mind too much.
Then everyone was kind of standing around and it was time to go, but I didn’t just want to say, “Hey, everybody start driving!” So, I said a term familiar to anyone who has ever worked at an attraction, particularly if you’ve worked at the Jungle Cruise.
“DISPATCH!” In Disney speak, that means “send the vehicle”. For the rest of the adventure, it would mean, “Okay, everybody go!”
And we were on the road!
Well, we tried to get on the road. Jay and I quickly realized we needed to stop for gas. Whoops! So, three of our six vehicles wound up making a pit stop.
My two favorite parts of the drive:
1) Robin pulling alongside us to show us Big Duffy learning to drive, because he was riding with Robin and Danielle.
2) Jay being surprised at most of the musical selections, when he helped me make the CDs in the first place. (If you want to listen to the CD, I have most of the songs on this Spotify playlist.)
We arrived to Park n’ Cruise, with five out of six vehicles accounted for. One car had gotten lost, and we had everything loaded on the luggage carts, by the time the last vehicle arrived. They told us to leave our keys with our vehicles, and gave us valet tags in return.
There were enough of us that we got our own private shuttle to the port, which is probably a good thing considering how loud we were. After driving separately, it was fun to be all together, and we were excited to get our first look at the Disney Dream.
A lot of our luggage had gone unlabeled, so a porter and I teamed up tagging the remaining bags, to get them to the right rooms, except somehow, I sent Scott’s bag to Robby’s room, and my bag to my Mom’s. Whoops. Wedding brain. I also put ice cream in the refrigerator a week before.
We went through security, and two people had to go check multi-tools that they would have to retrieve after the cruise. I was amazed I didn’t get asked about the six bottles of wine in one suit case, because I had put mine and Jay’s with mom’s, but no one said anything.
We headed up to the stairs to check in. I had emailed the Cruise Line directly, about us checking as a group, because I didn’t think Faith would be able to answer it, and I had been promised by a DCL representative that the whole wedding party could check in together, but that was not the case. They sent us, our platinum cabin, and our concierge cabin, one way, and everyone else another. So, what’s the point of letting the wedding couple be some of the first people to board the ship if their party can’t go with them?
Jay and I then tried to wait on my parents to board, only to find out they had gone without us. The whole thing was a mess.
But we made it! We were on the ship!
We went over to Guest Services to turn over the wedding supplies, and then we were free and clear, until we had to meet the Wedding Coordinator at 3:00 pm.
To Cabanas!
We secured a section of seating outside, and took turns watching the luggage and going through the buffet. Jay and I sat with Lacey, Zym, and Gary. We got to talking about the blog and the wedding, and I asked everyone to try to help me remember details for when I sat down to write about our adventure. Gary holds up his phone, “So we ate lunch at 12:30.”
I had to resist the urge to smack him.
Zym had to help me crack open my crab claws. I’m never good at opening them, but the fake nails had made me basically useless.
It wasn’t long before drink of the day cups started appearing at our table, which are refillable cups you can buy and then get a discount on the drink of the day for the whole cruise. My problem is that I don’t really care much for rum to begin with, and all the drinks of the day tend to be rum based. Pass.
While we were eating, we started on making sure everyone had the Navigator apps set up on their phones, so we could talk to each other once we lost cellular service. Technically we’re all adults, but it took us a few tries to convince the adultier adults, that they needed the app because texting wouldn’t work.
The rooms were supposed to be ready by 1:30 pm, but I tried to stall everyone going to their rooms by getting Zym to take us on a ship tour, so Patrick could complete his secret mission. I had made magnets for all of the rooms, and he was going to go put them on the doors, ahead of time. I made it as easy as I could for him. I put together one envelope per room, with all the magnets in it.
I don’t know for sure if Patrick made it to all the rooms before everyone, but I think he did. I had gone a little overboard, pun intended, with our door, and he actually took the time to match all the Disney couples up.
Once we got into our room, we were in for quite a surprise! There were two different fruit platters, a bottle of champagne, chocolates, flowers, Disney Cruise Line robes, a pillow, a towel, and a bag waiting for us! But nothing said who they were from!
There were also slips waiting for us with our onboard credit amounts. I had preloaded a bunch to be safe, from my Disney Visa Card, since if I did it in advance we had six months to pay it off without interest. Plus, we had the $100 from the wedding, and $525 from how we booked our cruise! WE HAD $625 IN FREE CREDIT TO SPEND ON THIS CRUISE!
That’s the end of Embarkation, come back next week for Day Three-Part Two: The Legal Ceremony!
