We arrived in Florida a day early so that we didn't have to rush the day of our cruise. We sailed on the Disney Dream out of Port Canaveral. I will say that boarding was much easier and faster through Disney than our last cruise on Carnival. However, we sailed from Miami for our Carnival cruise and I definitely liked the ease of Port Canaveral much better. It was expensive to park for our 3 day cruise ($64) but worth the convenience of being able to park and walk right from the parking garage to the terminal instead of being shuttled from elsewhere.
Since we arrived a day early, we decided to explore the area a bit. Our hotel was in Titusville, FL. We drove over to Cocoa Beach and went down to the beach for a short bit. Addison stood in the water. On our way home we heard on the radio that the beaches were shut down over the weekend due to shark sightings.
We had dinner and went back to our hotel. The following morning we got up and drove over to Jetty Park near the port. They had a pier, playground and were right on the beach. It was a campground but you could pay for a day pass. It was very windy which made it chilly but we had a good time and it was worth it. We got to see a submarine enter the pier and let the kids play on the playground and walk the beach looking for shells.
We grabbed a quick lunch and then headed to the port. Disney assigns a check-in time for you to arrive at the terminal but we threw caution to the wind and arrived about an hour and a half early or so. We had no trouble checking in at all. It was a very quick and smooth process and we were boarding the ship within 20 minutes. The longest part was standing in the terminal after check-in waiting for the "family photo" to be taken by their photographers.
One cool thing about Disney is that they announce your family name as you walk onto the ship on Deck 3 into the Atrium where the grand staircase is. There are staff lined up on both sides of the entrance and they welcome you as you walk through. We didn't have access to our room until 1:30 p.m. so we headed to check out the Oceaneer Kid's Club on Deck 5 and get Addison and Eli their wristbands. They were having an open house so we could walk through with the kids and see everything they had to offer, and it was a lot.
There were several different themed rooms within the Oceaneer Kid's Club and then we walked through to the Oceaneer Kid's Club Lab which had its own set of rooms and awesomeness. We enabled Addison to check herself in and out so she could come and go for activities that interested her. We had that option for Eli as well, but having just turned 8, we didn't feel that he was mature enough yet for that privilege. He went to the club twice I think the entire cruise and the longest he stayed was a couple hours. He really just wanted to play video games in there and not participate in the activities. Samuel had two clubs he could access, one was Edge for ages 11-14 and the other was Vibe for ages 14-17. He preferred Vibe and went there several times. Vibe had its own Sun Deck at the very front of the ship but I don't think he ever took advantage of it.
There were three main dining rooms on the Disney Dream, the Enchanted Garden, the Royal Palace, and the Animator's Palate. You rotate through with your wait staff and you have the same table number each night. One thing I didn't care for was the fact that we had to share a table with another family. We made the most of it and they were a very nice family with one child that was almost 9. Him and Samuel talked video games most of the time, but I would have preferred the time to ourselves. The order listed above was our order for dining. We skipped the second night in Royal Palace because the menu was awful. The menu wasn't great any of the nights but it was especially bad that evening. The kids pretty much had the same options each night but ours varied. This is where Carnival really shined as they would have a specialty for the area you were cruising in (Bahamas) to try and their menu was much more regular people friendly and so was the buffet on board. Even the Cabanas buffet wasn't that great, which was very disappointing. Breakfast was my favorite meal of the day because I knew I wouldn't walk away hungry.
To be continued.......
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