There's a 1st Time For Everything 13,14 & 15 Sept 07 *added*

[Michelle]

13th Sept 2007 – Day 1

I can’t believe it when I wake up this morning, today is the day we are Cruising on the Disney wonder.
After all the waiting it’s finally here.
OMG am I excited or what?

I did set the alarm for 6:30am but excitement has got the better of me again and I am awake by 5am, I am not alone as DH & DD are also stirring.
Up and showered by 6am DH & I go down for breakfast at 6:30 and leave DD in the room finishing getting ready. We will bring her some up.

All done and packed up we leave the Fairfield Inn, well we thought so as DD suddenly announces that she has left her Ipod in the room. So DH does a quick turnaround and she has to go to the desk and ask the reception for the room key back so she can go back to our room. A few minutes later she returns empty handed, turns out it was in her bag all the time!

All sorted we are now on our way to Port Canaveral. I decide to pass the time I will type up the notes on the laptop.
A few photos were taken of the scenery.




I have to stop typing and I am all emotional writing this as I have just spotted our ship…..I turn my laptop off.
My first glimpse


I am sure they are doing this to me on purpose, we have to wait and let a boat through.

This is the view I have now


Fast forward to the next morning-
I am now sitting here in our stateroom watching the sun come up, typing my notes, it’s perfect….Back to yesterday

We arrived at the port a little early, 15 mins and had to wait in the car park opposite, no big deal we were not the only ones.
The first view of our room.

A guy on the golf buggy thing asked us if we were for the cruise and said he would tell us when we could go and check in.
A little while after 10am he waved us in our convoy, there was a few of us now.

[Michelle]

DH dropped DD and I off with the case and drove the car around to the parking lot. DD and I went into the cruise terminal, not before giving the guy $5 for getting our case out of the car. Once inside I stood inline for the check in desks to open and DD finished the rest of her book.


DH came up not long after, $36 lighter for parking we stand in line, someone in front asks us if the kids need to be there to check in and they were told no as long as you have their birth certificate or passport. Shortly after 10:30am check in desks were open and we were giving boarding card 2, we were given our Keys to the World cards which have our Dining rotation, time & table no. PTA 8:30pm No.9
All checked in and I had even filled the Bahamian forms in correctly, off we went and just chilled and soaked up the atmosphere. We took a few photos while waiting for our boarding number to be called.





11:45am we started boarding, there was already a line forming so we joined it, even outside of WDW you still have to queue.

Photo taken just before boarding then it was the announcement of the Family name to a round of applause from the CM’s, this was great. The CM that announced us was from the UK and also the guy that told us to go to Parrott Cay was from Leeds.
In fact when I think about there are a lot of English CM’s on the ship.

We headed straight up to Beach Blanket for some lunch which was very nice as we’d had nothing to eat since breakfast at the hotel.

[Michelle]

When we were fed and watered, we decide to go exploring. This was a good idea as we take loads of photos and got some lovely we were also able to find out where things were.
We go on to deck 9 & 10

Hidden Mickey

First impressions do last and we were very impressed with what we were seeing and experiencing. I think we will be back
We can see KSC from the ship and there is a storm over that way.




We head off down to Guest Services on Deck 3 where we sort our onboard credits out, we fine we have received our credits from both DCL and DU which was really nice. We though we should put a credit card on file, just in case.

At about 1:20pm we made our way to deck 7 as our room was to be ready at 1:30pm. There were a few people with the same idea. We were not allowed down the hallways as they still had them cordoned off, but that didn’t stop some.
Eventually the rope was dropped and we were off, our stateroom was #7620 and it was Aft…the back of the ship.

[Michelle]

I was allowed to open the door for the first time. Wow I love this cabin.









We sat and chilled for a while before the mandatory life boat drill, it was on the TV when we came in so you know what to do.

[Michelle]

I put the door magnets that I had made on our door.


DD’s invitation to the Aloft


At 3:45pm it was announced over the ships system that the drill would start in 15 mins and not to be late, so off we went wearing our matching life jackets. We were shown into Animators Palette for the drill so we were not standing in the heat which was nice. We were trying very hard not to fall asleep at this time.
Everything out of the way we were allowed back in the room.
We went up for the Sail away party and a drink



We are going to watch Hercules the Muse-ical at 6:15pm the other show is on when we are eating dinner.
The show is fantastic and DH and I laugh a lot, even DD did, so it must’ve been good.

After the show we came back and changed for dinner.
The view from our stateroom.

[Michelle]

Arriving a little bit early there was a line already formed at Parrot Cay. At 8:30pm we were shown to our table. It was a long table with another 5 places set, so we knew we would be eating with strangers.
Our assistant server introduced herself as Kathryn from New Zealand and she was lovely. She asked us where we were from and we told her then she said we were football fans, No, Rugby then, erm No…so she gave in…lol. We are not big fans of sport, if there is a match that DH considers a good one then he will watch it.
The other family, from Georgia, USA, turned up about 10 minutes later and we introduced ourselves. There was Mom and Dad, Daughter (15), Son (9) and Grandma.
They were very nice and we got along well. There DD was a bit nervous about going to the teen club so they asked if DD and her would like to go together. So it was arranged. After dinner it was time for them to go, DD went and got changed and met Brooke at the Aloft, which was on Deck 11.
JoJo from India was our other server, we could hardly understand him as it was so loud, but we got the main bits.
For dinner we had Chicken wings for starters, all of us chose the ribs. We could not move after we ate these so declined the desserts. Then we were presented with a lovely cake for our anniversary and the servers sang to us and wished us a happy anniversary and gave us a badge. This was lovely and totally unexpected. The family were saying that it was brilliant. I think we went the same shade as the cake.


We couldn’t eat it, so asked if we could take it back to the stateroom with us which JoJo kindly did for us. I couldn’t get it in the fridge back in the room so I don’t think we will be able to eat it.

We went back to the room to get the camera and drop the cake off. Our stateroom host had made our beds and we had a new room mate on the bed, complete with our personal navigator for tomorrow.


DD’s bed


We had a lovely wander around the ship taking some great shots.

They were showing classic Disney cartoons on the large screen by the Goofy Pool.

It was 11pm now and we were flagging badly. So back to the room where we just started watching Monster Inc, not long after DD came back in. She was not impressed with the Teen club, I didn’t think she would like it.

[spenners]

Great read. Sounds great and hope you had a good anniversary

[Maz]

Oh wow, I just can't wait! Thanks for your great detailed report and pictures.

[ANGEL]

wow wow wow Mich! Great start to the reports...thank you for getting them done so quickly!

brilliant eye for detail too... even photo's of the loo! Glad you got the cake for your anniversary...we didn't eat ours either!

That storm looked bad didn't it? Loved your first glimpses of the ship too... in fact I love it all!

[Guest]

love it maz and really looking fwd to the next bit

especially as i'm pricing up right now for or disney cruise (fingers crossed) i'm just waiting for my quote back for cat 7 cabins that interconnect so it's good to see your photos

thanks for sharing them