*‘Now Boarding, ‘Princess Hannah, Nana and Mommy’

(Saturday, February 22 – PM)

Wheee!  It’s time!

Miss Nancy lined up all the families from Disney’s Pop Century Resort at 12:15, ready to board the buses when they arrived.  How long had I dreamed of that sign being for Hannah and I??  A very long time!

They’re here!!

We were the first family to board the second bus so snagged the front seats.  Our ship, the Disney Fantasy as we approached it in Port Canaveral!

It was raining on and off but a little bit of rain couldn’t dampen our spirits!

A model of our home away from home for the next 7 nights!

Disney has a neat tradition of introducing each family as they board and you pass through a path of clapping cast members.  We were excited to hear, ‘Disney Cruise Lines welcome Princess Hannah, Nana and Mommy.’  What a neat tradition!  We were in awe as we stepped on board and caught our first glimpses of the ship!

We made our way to our stateroom located on the second deck.  It’s a tiny room but we’ve found a place for everything and it will be our cozy home for the next 7 nights.  Nana and Papa had ordered a birthday welcome package and Hannah was excited when she entered the room to find it decorated especially for her!

You can also see our Magical Porthole in this picture.  Although we are in an inside cabin there is a porthole above the bed that streams live video taken from a camera pointing out of our ship.  We can see what everyone else does but with the added bonus of Disney characters appearing on the porthole too!  I’ll try to catch some video of that.  At night we just flip a switch to turn off the screen and our room stays nice and dark until we flip it back on in the morning.  A really cool feature!  Disney thinks of everything!!

We ventured up to the 11th deck for a little bite of lunch.  Supper was only 3 hours away but since we hadn’t eaten in 6 hours we needed a little something to top us up.  We went to Cabanas and all found something to suit our fancy.  Love all the places we can sit so close to the outside and enjoy the view!

Next up, mandatory evacuation drill before leaving port.

Our family lined up for the drill.  Photo bomb courtesy of Mr. Paul from TN!

There are a lot of Canadians onboard this week and lifeboat drill was no exception.  The family next to us are from the city 5 mins west of us and the family 2 over were from close by too!  Let’s just say there was a lot of hockey talk as Canada was going for gold the following morning.  (We won – yay!!!  Go Canada Go!!)

From evacuation drill we moved inside for the Sailaway Party.  This is normally held outside by the pools but given the rain they moved it inside.  Hannah raised her hand indicating that we are first time cruisers and excited!!

Captain Mickey and Minnie welcomed us in style along with many of their other friends too.

As the ship left Port Canaveral we headed up to Deck 12 to wave to our friends at home!  I know at least a few spotted us.  Cool!  And yes, that is sunshine you see reflecting off the water!  As we pulled away the sun came out and it’s been shining ever since!!

We still had a little time before supper so headed over to the Oceaneer’s Club and Lab to introduce Hannah.  She immediately knew she’d have lots of fun there!!

She had another opportunity to play with Mr. Potato Head although this one was on a little larger scale than the one she’d played with the night before. 

Hey, Auntie Pat!  This one’s for you!

We went to dinner and met the family we’ll be dining with for the week and they’re wonderful!  A perfect match and we know we’ll enjoy their company.  They’re from Illinois and there is a mom, dad, 4yo son and 2 grandmas.  Thankfully this is a Disney cruise and most on it are fond of kids.  This was especially true of Kirk, Jacob’s dad as Hannah doused him with not 1 but 2 glasses of water over the course of the evening!  Zoinks!!  Tomorrow night I think we’ll show up with a rain poncho for him!

Disney Cruise Lines are a little different from others I hear in that we will rotate between their 3 main dining rooms over the course of our cruise.  Our tablemates and servers (Tina from Croatia and Ari from Indonesia) will stay the same and we will all rotate together.  This evening we dined in the Enchanted Garden and it was beautiful and the food delicious!  Nana and I enjoyed prime rib while Hannah had salmon followed by a Mickey Bar for dessert.

Our first day was a huge success from start to finish!  Still can’t believe we’re here!!!