Well day 3, like the others started off bright and early! We had plans to meet other DIS'ers for a character breakfast at Cape May Cafe/buffet at Disney's Beach Club resort at 8am. So we were up early and packed since we would be departing for the port that am.
So back to our Sunday morning breakfast- we donned our DIS Podcast t-shirts and headed downstairs. As we were heading that way, we saw another DIS'er who had planned to walk over. It is a long walk, so we offered him a ride- it turned out to be Michael- Merry Mouseketeer and husband of Carol (DisneyEnabler). So we arrived at Beach Club and headed in and were seated immediately at a large table. I believe all the DIS folks there took up at least 3-4 large tables. We proceeded to enjoy a great breakfast buffet, OJ and wonderful company, meeting more online friends like Aaron and his wife and their daughter. Michael also shared some wonderful stories of his short time in his childhood as a Mouseketeer, he even met Walt!
After breakfast, we drove back to the Dolphin and turned in the rental car to the Valet, how easy was that? It was so simple. I had booked with Alamo knowing they had a return at our hotel. Then we had the bellman bring our luggage down to the curb area where we were meeting all the other DIS-ers for the bus ride to Port Canaveral. Dreams Unlimited, our travel agency had arranged 3 charter buses to take us (for free) to port! The poor bus driver had to load all our luggage. He deserved a big tip is all I can say. It was like playing tetris to try and fit it all in there.
So we loaded up on the bus- here are the flatties on the bus ride. We had a great time chatting with everyone. Unfortunately on the bus ride, Nancy got a horrible call. Her pet sitter, who she had tried getting a hold of for a while, called and told her that her little dog, Abby, had died. We don't know what happened. Abby was playing and fine the day before, running around. She was like a 9yo poodle. We assume she had a heart attack or something sudden. There were bite marks on her too from the other dogs (2 other small dogs). We can only imagine they were trying to revive her or move her after she passed. I am sure they were confused. the dogs had all gotten along and lived together for a long time. Nancy was just shocked and so upset, we all felt just awful for her. You definitely don't plan on something like that happening on vacation. So ABBY girl, we know you are up in heaven looking down on Nancy! 
The ride seemed so short, before we knew it, we were at the port! It is only a 45 minute or so ride from Orlando. We saw the beautiful Wonder off in the distance- it was so exciting. We were parked and waiting to get off the bus, when the porters came and started taking our bags.....which was bad, some of our bags were not yet tagged, since they only gave us 2 tags. We were told at port we would have a chance to get more tags and tag our bags. So we had to stop the porters before they took all the bags. We got ours tagged and I saw that our cooler was soaked, apparently one bottle somehow opened in the compartment and spilled. At least it wasn't the large bottle of liquor, just a small wine cooler type drink. So we headed into the port with our carry ons and wet cooler in tow. We had rented a wheelchair from Brevard Medical for $80 for the cruise for my mom. This turned out to get very little use---more on that later. The wheelchair was sitting at port waiting for us. The Disney terminal is just gorgeous. THe whole check in procedure was pretty easy too- we had pre-printed our cruise contract and financial papers, so we simply had to turn them in, have our picture taken and got our 'key to the world'.....or 'key to trouble'.......The Key serves as your room key, ID and payment for anything on the ship. They don't take cash. You pay for drinks with it, you pay for merchandise at the store with it. Even on castaway cay, you use it. They scan it as you get on and off the boat for excursions or port visits. It is basically your lifeline. Our DIS lanyards came in handy to hold our key. So we got the wheelchair and were given #12, meaning we were group 12 to board. It was about noon and they were calling groups 5-7 I believe. A nice cast member saw my mom in the chair and wheeled us right on though. 
We snapped a few quick pics and then, we were on board hearing our names announced as we entered the grand lobby! more to come in next post.....
1 comment:
I am enjoying reading all these posts! Great trip report so far!
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