Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Disembarkation Day and Homeward Bound

(Saturday, March 1, 2014)

We were up bright and early Saturday morning preparing to disembark early.  As with everything else during our cruise, Disney has disembarkation down to a find ‘T’!

Each family dines at the restaurant that they did the last night of their cruise, at their normal table.  Our family was at Enchanted Garden which was neat as this was the restaurant we’d started our cruise at 1 week earlier.  We’d had early seating for dinner so we needed to leave our stateroom for the final time and be in our dining room at 6:45am.    IMG_2920 As each family entered the dining room they walked between 2 lines of servers who applauded.  A simple but special touch on a difficult, emotional morning!  (Who ever wants a great vacation to end??) 

There was a set menu for us to select from and we were in and out in only 45 minutes but without feeling rushed.  It was great to see our tablemates one last time (for now Winking smile) as well as our servers Tina and Ari.  IMG_2921

We left the restaurant around 7:40 so that they could seat the next group at 8am.  (Can you believe the entire process of disembarking all guests, cleaning all staterooms and restocking the ship would take mere hours?  The next group of guests would begin boarding at 10:30am!!  A fun fact that we learned during our galley tour is that they load every single bit of food that will be eaten during a cruise each Saturday when they ship is in Port Canaveral.  For example, each week they load 100,000 eggs!!!  I cannot begin to imagine the storage area this ship must have!)

We were totally impressed with how quickly and efficiently we disembarked the ship.  We lined up around 7:45 and waited a brief time to scan our Key to the World cards one final time.  From there we went down an escalator where we requested a porter at the suggestion of Tonya and her family.  Wow – what a great suggestion that was!!  He asked us where our luggage was and we said, ‘Tinkerbell Green’.  He took us there, we quickly found our luggage and he loaded up his cart and took us to the customs line.  We fairly flew through customs and were quickly outside awaiting our shuttle to the car rental place.  It arrived within minutes and we made our way there.  Sharon and I were shocked when we  realized that at 9:15 we were already in our rental car with luggage loaded and headed back to Orlando!!  Not bad for a ship that was disembarking 4000 passengers!!

Hannah was pooped and within minutes this was what we saw in the rear-view mirror.  SmileIMG_2958

(Can you tell that i took A LOT of clean clothes home for Hannah?  Once she had her Rapunzel dress it was near impossible to talk her into wearing anything else.  So I didn’t.  This phase will pass soon enough so for now she wears it and her other princesses dresses wherever she wants to!)

Our flight wasn’t leaving until after 6pm so about a month before our cruise I cancelled our Disney transportation to the airport (couldn’t fathom sitting in the airport for 8 hours with our luggage!) and instead we headed here.  Heh…no surprise to anyone I’m sure!IMG_2925

We made our way to Downtown Disney and shared some wonderful final moments there.  SO much better than sitting in an airport!!  We visited the Disney store where Hannah stood in front of a Magic Mirror that tried a number of different princess dresses on her.  So cool!IMG_2926

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For lunch we ran okay, walked quickly to Goofy’s Candy Store and ended our trip the way it began, with a caramel peanut apple.  Mmmmm!  We never tire of these!!IMG_2934

We spent most of the morning outside soaking up as much sun as was humanly possible as we knew we were headed back to frigid temps!IMG_2937

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We all declared that we didn’t want to go home!  Let’s just call Papa, Grandma and Grandpa and tell them to come down and let’s just stay!  This is Hannah’s ‘We don’t want to go home’ look.  IMG_2943

Sadly we had no choice so we called Papa on Skype to tell him we were on our way home IMG_2960and made our way to the airport.IMG_2962

We arrived in Buffalo late that night but as you can see my rock star traveller was still in great shape!  She made a little luggage fort for herself while we waited for our shuttle to pick us up.IMG_2963

We spent the night in Buffalo and then headed home to Papa first thing the next morning.  (At this time Grandma and Grandpa were still on their Hawaiian cruise so it would be a few more days before we saw them.)

We’re home Papa!  We missed you!!!IMG_2964

What an amazing, wonderful, awesome, great, spectacular cruise we shared together!  We can’t wait to go back!!!

Thank you for sharing this time with us Nana!  We love you and the trip was extra special because you were there!!!

9 comments:

  1. Well of course you went over to Disney after all! Ha! I was not going to be surprised in the least if you'd decided to go into Magic Kingdom itself! LOL

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  2. I'm surprised you didn't buy all the princess outfits. lol. Hannah looks so cute in her Rapunzel dress.

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  3. You make it sound so exciting! You guys are the best travelers. I hope you have utah on your agenda again soon!

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  4. Thank you for sharing your amazing trip with us. We have enjoyed following along!

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  5. So many beautiful pix and so happy you enjoyed the cruise! We have been on many cruises (several lines including Disney)and they all have it down just like you said! It is always amazing to see how fast the cruise industry gets everything done for the next group. Time to plan the next one, we always seem to book the next within a week of getting home (next one booked for Northern Europe)....welcome home!

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  6. Can you wonder around WD and the shops without buying a pass to get in?

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    1. Yes! There is a place on Disney property called Downtown Disney (soon to be Disney Springs) that is a wonderful shopping area with lots of dining opportunities, beautiful scenery and live entertainment. When we're in the Orlando area and want a taste of Disney but are unable to go to a park we choose to go to Downtown Disney!

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  7. What a thrill it was to be with you on this voyage. Love the photo of Hannah in front of the expansive display of Aleve.

    I've never gone on a cruise, as even thinking of being at sea makes me green, but have always thought I'd try Disney first.

    Thankyou for freely sharing your joy...

    Grammy Carol (in Ottawa)

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    1. We were concerned about sea sickness too but none of us had any problems at all. I had sea bands packed for Hannah plus Bonine for Sharon and I but none of us needed it. There were definitely times we could feel the ship but for us it was never close to making us ill. I did see a number of people who wore round patches behind their ears the entire trip. I'm guessing those were the people more prone to motion sickness.

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