We had stayed the night before at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa.
At 7am, the morning of departure, a porter/bellhop came to pick up our luggage and put it on the van that would go directly to the port. This was something different than we experienced when we cruised on the Disney Wish two years ago. When we cruised on the Wish, we took all of our luggage with us on the bus. Larger pieces went "underneath" the bus, and the carry-on bags went with us in our seat.
We still kept our carry on pieces with us this time.
Prior to heading to the Grand Floridian Lobby, we stopped at Gasparilla Grill to grab some breakfast. We brought it to the GF lobby and ate it while we waited for the rest of the crew. We were the only ones there for quite a while. We got checked in with the cruise representative and had some nice conversation. Turns out, he is originally from the city I currently work in. He still has family and a business there.
We waited for one more family and then we were on the Disney Cruise Line bus headed to Port Canaveral ( but first we stopped at a few more resorts around Magic Kingdom to pick up some other guests).
When we got to the port, we were boarding group #4. While we waited to board, we met the "family of the day" who was from our hometown. We actually had friends in common. The husband goes to the gym Lacey works at and I use to work at the same university that the wife currently works at. Talk about a small world!
We boarded at 11:47 am.
As we entered the atrium, I did notice how much smaller it was compared to the Wish. It was cute though.
The first thing we did when we boarded the ship was make our way to the shore excursion desk. We had wanted to rent bikes when we got to Lookout Cay at Light House Point, but every time I looked at the app to do so, it said "sold out". I was told by several people that the cruise ship always saves a few extra so people can book that excursion when they get there. When I finally got to talk to a cast member at the excursion desk, they told me the reason it said "sold out" was because they didn't have any bikes! Since Lookout Cay at Lighthouse point is still so new, the bike paths are still being developed. Same for the 5K route. It is coming though!
After that, we made our way up to the pool deck. The pool wasn't open yet and we were the only ones up there, so we decided to take some video and photos.
We then headed to Cabanas for the buffet lunch.
I think this is where we really felt how small this ship was. This area was quite tight.
The food here was typical buffet food and salad bar and we enjoyed it.
There was also a table service restaurant opened in one of the formal dinning rooms but we like going to the buffet first thing when we embark. It's almost like a right of passage and a way for us to officially start our cruise!
After lunch we did a little exploring around the ship.
We checked out the gym ( that we thought we would visit more than just this one time, but we did not).
We also checked out the spa area.
We filled out a raffle ticket to win a service and planned to come back for the big drawing later that afternoon.
By this time it was 1:00pm so we decided to check out our state room. We had a veranda state room on the 5th deck.
On the way to our room, we ended up seeing our luggage sitting in the hallway, so we picked that up ourselves. We had a bit of a luggage fiasco on the Wish, so we weren't taking any chances with our luggage this time.
Unlike the Wish, these Staterooms are not themed ( we had a Cinderella room on the Wish). I think every room is the same decor. It's nautical and it's nice.
We had a split bathroom just like on the Wish.
The cabin itself was a tiny bit tighter.
We had a different type of balcony, called a white wall balcony.
I did not choose this, nor did I even know about it till several days before we embarked. I was a little tiffed at my travel agent for giving us this type of room when I specifically asked for a "traditional" balcony. But I knew it wasn't going to effect our trip, so I didn't make a big deal about it. I just want to mention that these are balconies you will have when you have veranda rooms that are in the back of the ship.
We had a little time to relax before we headed up to deck 10 for the Sail Away Party.
This area was very crowded. We watched from an upper deck.
The Sail Away party consists of some song and dance from Disney characters and cast members and then the iconic sound of the horn being blown to "When you wish upon a star". I was looking forward to this horn blow because I was interested to hear what song it would be. I thought perhaps each Disney ship would have a different horn blow. On the Wish, it was also "When you wish upon a star".
After the Sail Away party we headed back up to the spa area to see if we won anything in the raffle. These raffles are a way for them to advertise their services as well. Each technician that offers a service will speak a little bit about the service they offer ( in hopes that if you don't win, that you will still want to pay full price for their service). So this is not a quick raffle. It took about 20 minutes or so and we did not walk away winners.
We explored the ship a little and then went back to our stateroom to get ready for dinner.
Dinner tonight was in Animators Palate.
This dinning room's theme is all about classic Disney Animation.
We will share more on this experience in a later post.
After dinner we went to O Gill's pub for some Disney Trivia. We ended up meeting up with our new friends that were the "Family of the day" and were team mates with them.
After trivia, our friends went to their late dinner, and we did a little more exploring around the ship before heading to the Walt Disney Theater for the main stage production of " Twice Charmed".
This story is a spin on the classic Cinderella Story. ( I don't believe photos are allowed during the production, so I only ever took pictures of the stage before the show started.)
There is a stand outside the theater that sells drinks and popcorn and various popcorn buckets. We planned to get some popcorn and a new bucket during this cruise, but we never did.
When the production was over, some of the characters were out on decks 4 and 5. They were dressed in their sailor costumes.
We stopped for a few photos since the lines were not long.
This was a great way to end or first day on the Disney Magic!
Till next time ~ M &L
Be sure to stop back and to read about days 2-5 on the Disney Magic.
In the meantime, you may enjoy posts about our time on the Disney Wish.
You can read all those blog posts HERE
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Fairytales and Fitness is a personal blog authored and edited by us, Meranda and Lacey. The thoughts expressed here represent only our own and are not meant to be taken as professional advice. Please note that our thoughts and opinions change from time to time. We consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind in an ever changing society. Any thoughts and opinions expressed within our out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those we may express today. Some links may contain affiliate links. Some links are just to pages we'd like to share.