Trip log, day one. Port Canaveral.
4-Night Bahamian Cruise from Port Canaveral
June 19, 2019
Guests Onboard: 3:45 pm
Personal Navigator – Day 1
Our captain for this cruise is Andy McRonald. As for our onboard entertainment, Carly Scott is our Cruise Director. During this 4-night Bahamian cruise we will be visiting the ports of Castaway Cay, Nassau, and Castaway Cay.
Today is the big day, the beginning of the inaugural DCL Blog Group Cruise aboard the Disney Dream.
We arrived at Port Canaveral around 11 o’clock and we were sitting down in Cabanas just about 30 minutes later.
Group events on embarkation day are a bit tricky due to the varying arrival times. After lunch, we had a group meetup at Waves before the staterooms were open.
Once 1:30 rolled around, we all headed our own separate ways to our staterooms to drop off our carry on luggage. Isabelle went around the ship putting DCL Blog Group cruise magnets on stateroom doors while we dropped off our luggage in the stateroom.
This is our first cruise with the new H2O pump bottles. Personally, I don’t really care, but I do miss the bar of soap – I am not a shower gel person.
The Castaway Club stateroom gift remains unchanged.
Upon arrival, we were greeted with the stateroom gift I ordered using Disney Cruise Line’s new online Gift & Amenities webpage.
The package included a LED projector device that projects various Avengers’ logos on the walls and ceiling as well as a Spider-Man and Iron Man character magnets hanging from the ceiling. I will try to get video or photo of the projector in action, but so far, it is worth it!
We had just enough time to drop our stuff on in the room and head back out for our first event, embarkation day Champagne tasting in Pink.
We were served 5 different Champagnes while Vincent, the sommelier from Remy, walked us through the differences of each.
Back in 2015, we attended this tasting and were somewhat disappointed when they pulled out sparkling wines – a review of that tasting is still in a draft status. I may just publish it along with a proper review of today’s tasting because ‘oh how times have changed,’ and this time for the better.
One of our suitcases was delivered during the tasting so we were able to unpack before the muster drill.
Weather was moving in and so we opted to just return to the room instead of attending the sail away party, which had been moved inside.
The storm was something special, the sun was long gone and all of a sudden you could see the rain blowing across the water. I made a few attempts at live streaming from the ship during the storm, but I am not sure how the video came out as some reported they could not see anything. I did have a GoPro recording at the time so at sometime in the future, I will add the footage here. For now, the live stream links here, here, and here along with the following screen shot from the video are all I can offer.
The wind was so bad at one point, the power lines at Port Canaveral were arcing. Standing outside, I felt like Jim Cantore reporting live from a tropical storm.
Our dinner rotation started us out in Royal Palace. Not much to report on the food, as the standard rotational menu remains unchanged.
We had to rush out of the restaurant to get to 687 for 70’s Tunes Trivia, which if this were school, we would not be proud of our final grade. Although, if we were graded on the curve we did admirably. The winning team was well ahead of the pack. Not to worry, tomorrow night is 80’s Tunes Trivia.
It was the perfect time to look in the shops as late dining and the second show were both underway leaving the ship fairly quiet.
Our first stop was in the all new Tiffany & Co location which took over the space formerly occupied by the Disney Vacation Planning Center and the Vista Gallery. The new location is not a carbon copy of the Disney Fantasy, but they are quite similar.
Over in the gift shops, we spotted some new to us merchandise including a pair of Disney Cruise Line Anchor Minnie Ears.
While, the price of the reusable shopping bags at Walt Disney World went up a $1 this week, the reusable bags onboard remain $1 for all sizes.
Tomorrow is our first of two stops at Castaway Cay, and I am starting out the morning with our next group event, Trot with Scott AKA the Castaway Cay 5k. Time to rest up.
Click here to learn more about our second DCL Blog Group Cruise aboard the Magic in early 2020.
You passed through an engineering space during your muster drill!! As a U.S. Coast Guard veteran with a TWIC card, I have begged the crew of the Disney Wonder for a tour of the engineering spaces (5 cruises on the Wonder) to no avail.
“Crew only corridors” is how they like to refer to these emergency use stairways at the beginning of the muster drills.
Have a great cruise! I look forward to the daily trip reports and hope to join you on a future DCL Blog cruise. : ) I can’t believe it’s been 4 years that I’ve been waiting for that champagne tasting review. Lol!
Soon, I promise this one will not be left unpublished.
I too enjoy the daily trip reports! Can’t wait to see how the rest of the cruise goes.
Thanks for reading along!
Scott, I just disembarked the Magic nd had no issues asking my stateroom host for an extra bar of soap for the the shower.
How come this particular itinerary is only offered twice a year and only in the summer? Would love for it to be offered more often and at other times of the year.