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Old 7 Oct 18, 09:29 PM  
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Stewboy
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Big Summer Blowout: Norwegian Fjord Cruise 2018 Day 1 - Dover

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Sunday 26th August 2018



And so it begins again! Hello and welcome to Day 1 of our Norwegian Fjord Cruise aboard the amazing Disney Magic.

If this is your first time reading one of my trip reports, you’ve not read the pre-trip report (it's here if you fancy it: https://DIBB.in/13399525), and you just want to get onto the good stuff, then here’s a super quick intro to the Sear Family:
I’m Stewart, I write the trip reports. In real life I’m a creative director at a London marketing agency.

My wife Jo is the brains of the operation. She does all the trip planning, and in real life is a private tutor of science and psychology.

Isabella is our 6 year old daughter. She’s an avid reader, pin trader, and tsum tsum collector.
So that’s us - let’s get on with it shall we?

After a countdown that seemed like it would never end, the day had finally arrived: we were getting back onboard the Disney Magic - Jo was so excited she woke up at 4:30am!

Equally as excited, I woke at 6:30am. After tea and showers, we woke Isabella at about 7:30am. Obviously she was was excited too, but didn’t let it get in the way of a good night’s sleep.


00:00:00:00

After a quick breakfast of buttered Warburtons crumpets (the best crumpets IMO), it was time to get ready. As the packing had been done last night and most of the cases loaded in the car, all that was left for us to do was get ourselves ready, pack up the last few bits (including two small suitcases to take on board with us as hand luggage) and be our way. By 8:35am we were waving farewell to home and off on our Disney Magic adventure - first stop: Dover.


Jo's embarkation outfit


Isabella's ready


Leaving selfie

Jo had picked up a voicemail yesterday from the car parking people in Dover saying that they were expecting it to be busy, and that we might want to drop off passengers at the port first before dropping off the car. We decided we didn’t like that idea, preferring instead to get down there as early as possible and hopefully beat the crowds.

Fortunately the drive was easy and without incident or traffic, and by 10:30am we were being shown to the drop off area by a man at the car park entrance.


Crossing the Thames








Dover here we come!


Driving face


Excited face!


Happy faces




Jo faces

We’d obviously beat the crowds as there was only one other car parking at the same time as us. As we pulled up, another man instantly started unpacking the car and loading the suitcases into a waiting minibus. We got straight in along with another couple with a little boy and within two minutes we were making the five minute drive to the port.

We used this car park on our previous Disney Cruise from Dover; it’s called Port Parking and I highly recommend it. They’re really friendly and efficient, and being only a mile away from the cruise terminal it’s a quick and easy minibus ride to get to the ship.


Aquaholic!

On the drive to the terminal, we chatted to the other family in the car who were as excited as we were. After arriving at the cruise terminal we wished them a nice cruise, grabbed our hand luggage, and let the porters do their thing with the rest of our luggage while we headed into the terminal building.

It was 10:45am as we headed straight through bag check and on to check in. Our port arrival time was actually 11:30am-12pm so we were early. We checked in and got our Key to the World Cards, Stateroom number (2110), Boarding Number Group (6), Personal Navigator, and Isabella’s Oceaneer Magic Band.


Those aren't for us


Checking in


Isabella's Oceaneer Magic Band

Following check in we went to find somewhere to sit and wait until it was time to board - the downside about being early is that there isn’t much to do in the waiting area besides wait. You can join the long queues to meet Goofy/Captain Mickey, buy food and drink from the cafe, or get a photo with a lifesize cutout of Prince Charles(!). We didn’t fancy doing any of those things, and were happy to just sit and wait until we could get back on board the Disney Magic.

Our Key to the World Cards had our dining rotation for the next week: RLARLAR - the rotation we’d requested ahead of time, meaning we’d get three visits to the brand new Rapunzel’s Royal Table, and two each at Lumiere’s and Animator’s Palate.


RLARLAR

After finding ourselves a place to wait out the next hour or so, I went off to use the toilet. Weaving through the maze-like waiting area, I stopped for a brief chat with a fellow Dibber and Disney Magic cruiser wdw-wanderer (aka Fiona).

Back with Jo and Isabella, we passed the time by looking at the much-thinner-than-last-cruise Personal Navigator, and watching Goofy swap places with Mickey - the line wasn’t getting any shorter.


Waiting selfie


Goofy & Mickey

At around 11:45am one lucky family, who’d already been selected, were the first to board the Disney Magic, signalling the start of the boarding process that would last till well into the afternoon. Being in Group 6 we only had a ten minute wait until it was our turn, and as Group 5 was called we began to get our stuff together and make our way to the where the boarding queue began.

Group 6 was called and we headed through to get our embarkation photo, and then eventually into the tunnel and across the bridge connecting the terminal building with the lobby atrium of the Disney Magic. The crew member asked our name as we entered and then the Sear family was welcomed on board the Disney Magic!


Bon Voyage!

Finally! Finally we were on board. The Disney Magic looked as beautiful as ever, and it suddenly felt like we’d never been away.

Now that we were on board, the holiday could start. First things first. Food. Straight up to Cabana’s on deck 9 we went - with a quick toilet stop on the way - for a lunchtime buffet.

While Jo took Isabella up to get food, I found us a table. The buffet selection was as good as we remember it and we all had our fill, including a delicious pumpkin pie that Jo had been dreaming about since our last cruise over two years ago!








Cabana's buffet


Pumpkin pie

After eating we went for a wander to reacquaint ourselves with the ship. Out on deck it was cold and windy, and rain had been predicted for later this afternoon; around about the time the sailaway party was due. This meant there was a possibility the sailway party would happen in the atrium rather than on deck 9, we hoped that wouldn’t be the case but it didn’t look promising.




It was windy on deck


White cliffs


Deck 9 selfie

We went back inside, and picked up a clip for Isabella’s Oceaneer Magic Band from a Kids’ Club Youth Counsellor on deck 3 - this was to ensure that it stayed secured for the duration of the cruise. We then continued our wander by checking out the ‘After Hours’ entertainment area further along deck 3.
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Edited at 09:37 PM.
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Old 7 Oct 18, 09:30 PM  
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Stewboy
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It was just gone 1:30pm which meant we should have access to our stateroom so we walked aft to get the stairs down to deck 2 where our room was situated. We’d got a portside Category 9C Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom conveniently positioned just around the corner from the aft elevators and stairs; close to Rapunzel’s Royal Table on deck 3, and Animator’s Palate on deck 4 - a great location.

None of our cases had arrived yet, but we got into our room and found our Silver Castaway Club Member gift: Yay! Another bag...




Our room


Walt & Lillian


Our free bag

We unpacked the hand luggage suitcases and, most importantly, put our two bottles of wine in the fridge. For some reason we hadn’t realised it was two bottles per adult (despite having been on 4 previous cruises as adults!) so we could’ve brought four bottles with us!


Should've been four

The door magnet and fish extender decorations (more on this later) went up, and a call was made to room service for the ‘All Aboard’ cheese and biscuits platter, something Isabella was really looking forward to. Our stateroom host Calvin popped by to introduce himself; coincidentally he’d been our host on the Transatlantic cruise three years ago.




Decorating the stateroom door


‘All Aboard’ cheese and biscuits platter




Isabella took these

After a couple of hours relaxing in the room - during which time we ate our cheese and biscuits, unpacked a couple of cases that arrived, watched a Disney Nature documentary (Isabella), and had a nap (me) - we headed back out to some more exploring.

There was a kids club open house so we went for a look around to remind ourselves of the fun stuff there is for Isabella to do.




















Kids club open house

With boarding finally finished, we took the opportunity to get a photo with the Helmsman Mickey statue in the lobby atrium and then wandered down to the Promenade Lounge for a drink.


Me, Isabella & Helmsman Mickey


Helmsman Mickey selfie


Selfie by Isabella

It was now about 3:45pm and getting close to muster drill time. We thought we had time to squeeze in a quick ‘drink of the day’ before going to our muster station, but after taking our order the server seemed to completely forget about us, and spent a lot of time with another guest. After ten minutes it was obvious that the drinks weren’t coming, and time had now run out anyway, so we gave up and headed back to our room for five minutes before it was muster drill time.

Our muster drill station N was located portside aft outside on deck 4. Fortunately it was covered, as the rain that was promised had finally arrived. Most people had already arrived by the time we got there, meaning we didn’t have to wait too long for the drill to start.

After accidently standing at the wrong station (P) for a few minutes we quickly moved along to N, gave our stateroom number to the crew member, listened to the crew members explain the various safety procedures and then we were done.


Muster drill selfie

Once the drill was over it was time for the sailaway party, which as expected was going to be in the atrium due to the bad weather. We made our way back inside, and already being on deck 4 we were on the right deck for finding a good spot to watch the show. Unfortunately we went through the aft doors when we should have walked to midship and gone in through those doors. By the time we reached the atrium the crowds had already gathered, so we headed up to deck 5 where we managed to find a spot with a good view down into the lobby where the show would be taking place.

As we waited for the show to started I went off to get a ‘drink of the day’ - the sailaway party just wouldn’t be the same without a reasonably priced cocktail.

There was a distinct lack of servers wandering around with trays of cocktails like there usually is so I ended up getting my drinks from the bar on deck 9.

With two English Rose cocktails - todays ‘drink of the day’ - in hand I headed back down to deck 5 and weaved my way through the crowds to where Jo and Isabella were waiting for the show to start.

Five minutes later some over enthusiastic crew members were dancing around on stage to questionable music, and were soon joined by Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto, Chip and Dale. Goofy was last to arrive - he was running late, liability that he is…

I must admit I’m not a big fan of these deck parties, I find them really cheesy, but Isabella and Jo were enjoying themselves. I was just happy with my drink.

Isabella had a good view, although the excitable American boy next to her was determined to get in her way. Eventually Jo pointed out that he really didn’t need that much room, and he contained himself. It didn’t stop him jabbering away through the entire show though.




Sailaway party


Cocktails!

Once the show was over we headed back to the room, where we found our first Fish Extender gifts of the trip waiting for us.

If you’re not familiar with the Fish Extender exchange, it’s a thing that happens on most Disney Cruises. Someone organises it - usually through setting up a Facebook group - and anyone on the cruise can participate. Participants get organised into groups; in this case we had nine other staterooms in our group. A spreadsheet is shared which includes the names, stateroom number, nationalities, and favourite characters of all the people in each stateroom. Each participating stateroom hangs some kind of organiser hanging from the fish (usually used for mail - event tickets, final bill, Palo reservations etc.) outside their stateroom door that other guests can put the gifts into.

So as I said, we returned to our room to find our first two gifts in our Fish Extender. We took them inside and opened the wine so that we could have a glass before getting ready for dinner.


Cheers


Our first FE gifts

As mentioned, we’d got the rotation we wanted so dinner tonight was at the new Rapunzel’s Royal Table. We left the room at 5:56pm, and headed up one flight of stairs to deck 3 and joined the slow moving queue of people being ushered into the restaurant.












Art outside Rapunzel's Royal Table


At the time we didn't realise it, but that's the ship's Captain!

First impressions were favourable - the restaurant looked great inside, a vast improvement on the old Carioca’s. Our table was number 11, and it was just inside the door of the restaurant, a disappointingly long way from the stage at the back of the restaurant. There were probably only two other tables with a worse view!


Table 11

We were soon joined by our tablemates, a couple from Scarbrough who had their granddaughter with them. It’s always a little awkward when you first meet new table mates, but they seemed friendly enough and we chatted a little with them. The little girl was well behaved, and she and Isabella seemed to get on quite well.

Rapunzel’s Royal Table has two menus, and tonight it was the thug menu - we’d guessed as much from the fact that we’d seen thugs from Tangled hanging around the entrance - Hook Hand, Vladimir, and Attila.

Our servers introduced themselves: Jonathan - Jonny - from Singapore, and Janey from Thailand. They took our drink order - Sprite for me, ginger ale for Jo, water for Isabella - and then our food:
  • Me: Grilled knockwurst sausage (on white onion mash with crisp shallots and sweet Bavarian mustard) / Oven roasted tom turkey breast (with green beans, sweet mashed potatoes, honey parsnips, and buttered spinach with a pepper sauce on the side) / Traditional bread & butter pudding (with rich custard sauce)
  • Jo: Goat cheese, yellow and red beet tower (with chive-honey dressing) / Baked fillet of turbot (with creamed potatoes, sautéed fennel, and a light dill cream sauce) / Traditional bread & butter pudding (with rich custard sauce)
  • Isabella: Baked salmon (with broccoli florets, jade rice and apple slices / Mickey ice cream bar


Grilled knockwurst sausage


Goat cheese, yellow and red beet tower


Isabella and her salmon


Oven roasted tom turkey breast


Baked fillet of turbot


Traditional bread & butter pudding


Mickey ice cream bar


Rapunzel came to say hello
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Old 7 Oct 18, 09:30 PM  
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Stewboy
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At some while we ate, the ship finally set sail - we were on our way!

During dinner there was a little show on the stage and the thugs were joined by Rapunzel - it was her birthday apparently. Of course, being so far away with an obstructed view, we couldn’t really see it properly but they sang a couple of Tangled songs and then came round to all the tables. We didn’t meet all the thugs, but we did meet Vladimir and Rapunzel, and were well placed to see the others as they passed by our table. Unfortunately it’s very dark in the restaurant, and the photos didn’t come out well

The food was ok, I don’t think Jo was impressed with her fish, but the desserts were very good. We had some decaf coffee at the end of the meal, and then before we left a got a few photos of the restaurant - the theming was very well done.




Floating lanterns


Menu cover






Thugs














Rapunzel's Royal Table

After dinner, Isabella wanted to go into the kid’s club for a bit, so we dropped her off at about 7:30pm and headed off to get a drink somewhere.

On the last cruise, we always had to carry the bulky wave phones around with us, so that the club could let us know if she wanted to picking up. However, the DCL app has been vastly improved, and once on board you get access to whole host of features, including messaging - from DCL and with other guests - menus for the entire cruise, drinks of the day, events and shows etc.; I think this explains why the printed navigators are so sparse this year, all the information is in the app. Additionally, you don’t need chargeable wi-fi to access the app, so there’s no cost involved.

Jo and I had already got our eye on a cruise for next year, and decided we may as well book it now and beat the crowds; we were a little premature however as the Disney Vacation Planning desk in the atrium on deck 4 wasn’t opening until tomorrow! Instead we continued on into the After Hours area on deck 3 to get ourselves a drink and listen to some music in Keys.

Before the cruise we’d talked about how we wanted to make going to Keys a regular thing, so we decided to sit at the bar with the intention of becoming ‘regulars’! I’m not sure why we decided this, but as it turned out this was the only night we managed it, and even then, we couldn’t actually decide what drink we wanted! At that point I think we realised that, as much as we love the idea of piano lounge bar like Keys, it’s probably not really our scene!




Keys


Margarita Jo

We eventually decided on the following drinks - Jo got a margarita and I had a gin & tonic. We did enjoy our drinks, and having some time to ourselves to relax and enjoy the first night of our cruise.

An hour after she’d got to the club, Isabella was ready to be picked up, so we finished our drinks and headed back to the club to collect her.

Despite the fact that it was 8:30pm and past Isabella’s usual bedtime, we decided that we wanted to give out our Fish Extender gifts now, so while I got Isabella, Jo popped back to the room, grabbed the bags, and we headed off to give out our gifts.

Unfortunately, I neglected to actually take any photos of the gifts we were giving out. Oops! We’d got a variety of Disney related items from Primark (including a bag to put them in) and also created some personalised bookmarks and highlighters.

One of the staterooms in our group didn’t have a Fish Extender, and we thought maybe there’d been a room change. The lady organising it said that any changes would be listed on a board outside her stateroom, so while I headed off to check that out, Jo and Isabella gave out the last of the Fish Extender gifts to those on our deck.








Giving out our gifts

I found the room, a couple of doors along from the Roy O. Disney suite (a Concierge level suite) but no changes were listed so I headed back - maybe they just hadn’t got round to putting the fish extender out yet.


Roy O. Disney suite

Before calling it a night, we headed up to deck 9 to get a decaf coffee. There was no milk, and a man who had just filled up his flask with what was left of the milk offered to pour us some from his flask - now despite his generous offer there a number of reasons that we were not going to say yes to that!

We took our black coffee back to the room where we found a towel stingray with Ghirardelli chocolates for eyes on our bed, courtesy of Calvin.


Stingray

While Isabella had a bath, Jo ordered room service for the morning by filling in the form and hanging it outside the door - we ordered coffee, tea, fruit, croissants, and milk.

Jo and I were already in cruise mood and were feeling peckish - we were also keen to take advantage of all the lovely free food on offer! I headed back up to deck 9 in search of pizza from Pinocchio’s Pizzeria but unfortunately it was shut, so I got some chicken tenders from the Duck-In Diner instead.

I got back to the room, and Isabella went to bed. Her bed is a sofa bed and was set up each night by Calvin while we were at dinner.

Jo and I ate our tenders but they were a little disappointing - they’d been a big hit last time on board. About 10:15pm we were ready for sleep, so we showered, put our clocks forward an hour, and set an alarm for 8am.

So that’s it. We were finally back on board the Disney Magic and looking forward to experiencing all the wonderful things that it is has to offer and also excited about visiting Copenhagen and Norway.

TFR
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Old 7 Oct 18, 10:09 PM  
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caj
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A fun first day, you seemed to settle in very quickly! This cruise is on my bucket list!
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Old 7 Oct 18, 10:26 PM  
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Oh wow. I love the sound of the Disney Cruise. What an exciting day.
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Old 7 Oct 18, 10:27 PM  
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We were in Dover that day (sadly not going in the cruise but getting a ferry to France!)
We spotted the Magic through the wind and the rain. Looking forward to reading about your adventures.

Edited at 10:29 PM.
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Old 7 Oct 18, 11:13 PM  
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Ah, what a great start - looking forward to reading more.

Thanks for sharing
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Old 8 Oct 18, 10:42 AM  
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margyloveswdw
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What a fab first day!

We're off on a cruise next week but alas, not a Disney one... perhaps I shouldn't have started reading this one yet!
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Old 8 Oct 18, 09:46 PM  
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Unexpectedpenny
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A great first day!
Shame your table was so far back but that restaurant looks lovely.
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Old 8 Oct 18, 10:59 PM  
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Great first day - shame about the weather for the sail away party though.
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