Today we had planned to leave for the ship by 9:15am. The port opens at 10am, they begin check in at 10:30 and they begin boarding a little before 12pm. We always like to get there nice and early to get on the ship first. Every cruise line does it different but Disney gives you a card with a number on it. Obviously the numbers start with 1 (they get on first) and continues until everyone's on board. It kinda feels like a glorified deli department of a grocery store. Number 1 & 2 always goes to suites and concierge and then us lowlives start at 3. Well, we set our alarm for 7am. All we had to do was get ready- we were pretty much all packed up. We got up and were very excited, but ended up taking our time to get ready. We've been "rushing" to be at a tour every day so far so it was nice to just take our sweet ol' time. Needless to say we left our room to get a cab at 10:10am. Just a smidgen later that planned.
The cab came and it was pretty uneventful. If you've ever ridden in a cab- it was just like that. Nothing exciting... especially the fact that this time we were actually in a mini van rather than a car. We got to the port and the line was HUGE. I was a little nervous when I saw it, but it moved quick & really, at that point, I didn't care. I was so happy to be getting on the ship! You have to understand. I have come a long way! I used to be so controlled by overwhelming, unwarranted, paralyzing fear that I would NEVER voluntarily fly or even leave that house, for that matter. People always took it as me being shy or even "antisocial" but it was fear. For the majority of my life I would be so overwhelmed with fear (fear of the unknown especially) that I would become physically sick every morning that had something out of my usual routine. It would be for anything too. For example... picture day at high school or flying in airplanes. I can't tell you how many airsick bags had my name on it. After flying my brother used to ask me if my favorite color was puke green. Isn't he sweet? My mom still jokes that I'll have to be tranquilized for my wedding. I've come a long way. I can't take any credit though for the HUGE steps I've taken out of my comfort zone. It's something I've prayed & asked God to help me with for so many years. As you can see from this trip, God answers prayers! So I really wasn't nervous at all on this trip. I was a little uneasy about Spain, as it was a country that didn't speak English, but it ended up being fine. However, even without "feeling" any affects of fear it was a great feeling boarding this ship! For those who haven't cruised before, boarding the ship is basically like coming back to America... but you don't have to go back to work! Wahoo!
We boarded the ship and headed straight for the dinning reservations line. The Magic has an adult only restaurant that we were headed to for dinner tonight, but they also have an even more popular brunch & all the reservations were booked up. We were headed there to see if they had released additional times and to see if we could get one. We ended up getting brunch at 11am tomorrow. At first I was disappointed to be going to Palo for dinner & then the next morning for brunch, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. We are getting all the important stuff out of the way, so once we start the 5 days at sea on Thursday (I think- it's hard to keep track of the days) we have nothing pressing or planned.
After our visit to dinning reservations we headed to my favorite place- the buffet. We enjoyed a nice lunch outside overlooking Barcelona. The weather today was very overcast with times of light rain. During lunch it had cleared up enough to be outside. After lunch we sat at the ADULTS ONLY POOL- aren't they magical words?? After sitting for about 15 minutes it was already 1:30pm which meant we could go to our staterooms. We headed to our rooms and began to unpack our carry-ons. As we were unpacking our carry-ons our luggage started to arrive. It could take until 5:30pm for out luggage to arrive but I think my last bag showed up by 3:00pm. We continued to unpack and found a place for everything. Disney cruises have the biggest staterooms in all the cruise lines (25% larger) however 14 days is a long time to be in one room- especially for me since I'm in an inside room, no window. My parents have a balcony, a waste of money for me, but they love it. By the time we were unpacked and finished checking out each other's room it was time to go to the mandatory emergency drill. This drill is required by the...uh... ocean authorities... Maritime? coast guard? I don't know- whoever the "police" of the ocean are for wherever you are. It's basically the same thing you experience before flying, but the difference is that you have to go to your assigned emergency station with your life jacket on. Once there they give you the talk of what to do in an emergency & then proceed to show you how to put on your life jacket. At this moment I wonder if they're insane or at least feel that way. They are standing in front of groups of 100s of people all wearing their lifejackets & they're instructing us on how to put them on. Hello?? I think we got it. My parents and I are at different stations 'cause our rooms are about 16 rooms away from each other. We could have gone together but I didn't want to be bothered, so I just went to my own drill.
After that nonsense we headed to the sail away party on the top deck of the ship. This is a real fun "party" with music, streamers, dancing & characters. We dance around for a while, then count back from 10 & then they sound the horn & we (normally) begin to sail away... hence, "sail away party". However this sail away party was an oxymoron, as we don't sail away until 9:30pm. After the party we headed back to our rooms to get ready for our special dinner in the Adult Only restaurant, Palo, to kick off our amazing cruise. We had some of the best Italian food! Sooooo good! They're known for the chocolate soufflé and it did not disappoint! We had a great waiter from Hungry. We talked to him about my Uncle who is also from Hungry. It was really cool. We told him we were coming back tomorrow and requested that he be our server again. He was great!
After Palo we headed to the show in the Walt Disney Theater. The first night's show is always like a welcome aboard type of variety show. You usually get to see a little taste of all the performers (comedians, ventriloquists, magicians, etc.) you'll see on your cruise. Since our cruise is so long we only got to see two of our performers. The rest of them aren't on board yet- they'll get on in Portugal & then again once we're in the caribbean. It was a great show! The Ventriloquist, Jimmy Tamley, was awesome! Try and find him on youtube. He's amazing, but even more than that- he's actually very funny. After that we headed outside to see the actual sail away. It was neat to see the lights of Barcelona slowly fade in the distance. Next we headed to the stores, since they can only be open when we are at sea & not while we're in port. After a little bit of window shopping, we finally decided to call it a night.
Now I think you all can get a better idea of why I didn't have time to even think about the Internet or even back home. It was so busy I didn't even think of Rocky- I'm a bad mother. I'm sure she wasn't thinking of me either though. She's having the time of her life with my brother. I play with her for probably a total of 30 minutes per week. My brother has been playing with her an hour each day! She's not going to want me to come home!
Well, I think I've rambled enough for this post!
Talk to you soon.
Internet is slow, so I'll probably post the pictures in the mornings (here). It's 4:10pm here- only 10:10am in NY.
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