July 11th, Part 1
It's cruise day!!!
Our PAT wasn't until 11am so after getting ready for the day, Rob and I walked down to Canada Place. Kira wanted to lounge in bed so she stayed behind.
This was the first time we were cruising out of this port and the first time we were leaving from Canada, so I wanted to make sure I got some photos! This may be old hat to most of you but, as a Canadian, it was weird and wonderful to be leaving out of a Canadian port!
It was the first time we had seen a Canadian flag on any of our ships and it was amazing! It was also the first time seeing the Wonder from this vantage point. We did get to see the Magic dock right next to us in Cozumel on our Christmas cruise but this was even better!
On the other side, was the Queen Elizabeth.
We decided to take the Grand Tour again...
The NCL Jewel was at the end.
And from the vantage point on the other side, you actually couldn't see the telltale red funnels but as we walked past the Jewel, you could see their reflection in the windows.
And around the corner, there she is! My favourite ship! I still think it's funny that a decade ago, when we saw her for the first time in Victoria, while we were on vacation, I never thought we would ever sail on her. This was our 6th sailing on the Wonder, the most on any ship and sadly, it might be our last. That hit me hard this cruise and I mentioned it a lot, just so that we all made sure to enjoy every last minute we got on her.
As we passed by, I pointed out to Rob, which room was ours. Although, we would be on the other side but it's the exact same room. We booked a 7A GTY and we're assigned a 6A, 6152, white wall verandah. It has a huge verandah but there were many things that I didn't like about this room and my hope was that we could upgrade at the port to a non-white wall verandah. I knew we would be spending a lot of time on the verandah and I prefer to be able to see the ocean while I am sitting down.
This room was also the second to last one at the aft, which we knew meant that it would be loud with the engine noise and vibration. Little did we know what would transpire a few days later.
It also didn't provide much shade on the verandah and there was no middle chest of drawers in this room. Those come in super handy with three people sharing a room. Either way, we would be happy just to be on the ship but might as well try for an upgrade right?
As we moved more forward of the ship, we noticed that they had to load everything into these swinging loaders to get it on the ship!
Holy cow, that's a lot of work!
And it looks like they have some issues with hitting the ship. I assumed that's why they have those things taped to the sides? Wow, that's crazy!
Man, seeing our flag on our ship sure took us back a little and I was a little verklempt!
From this point of view, you could see right into the Bridge! Wow!
And I spotted an entire deck that I had no idea even existed!!
Man, she sure looks good here! Is it weird to have so much pride? Seeing her there, in my home country, with our flag flying, made me happier than I even thought it would!
A very long line of taxis waiting. You can see the Waterfront Station and Sinclair Centre here too.
As I was standing there, I was wondering about a colleague of mine. She would be disembarking today but had no idea if she was already gone or still on the ship so I messaged her and as luck would have it, she had just gotten off the ship. We figured out a place to meet and she was able to sneak away from her family for a few minutes to say hi. It was awesome to see Betsy, even for a short meet. We chatted about her cruise experience, she said the ship was being capped at 1800 capacity and that they ended up going to Tracy Arm instead of the planned Endicott Arm but she had a fabulous cruise and really enjoyed it.
We headed back towards our hotel, with a stop at Timmy's of course. Rob is slightly addicted and needed his one last fix before boarding our ship.
We brought Kira some breakfast and then packed up the last of our stuff.
Putting the
DCL luggage tags on is the best feeling right?
We were going to grab an Uber since we had so much luggage so we sat outside and ordered one. After about 10 minutes and no one picking up our ride, we ended up in a taxi.
We had called a taxi van because we had so much luggage but then a taxi Prius, who was dropping a group off at the hotel told us he could fit us all in.
I was very doubtful, have you seen the size of our bags? But he insisted and it blew my mind when all of our stuff fit!
Oddly enough, it was cheaper than what the Uber was going to be so I tipped him well.
That car is like Mary Poppins' bag, I swear!
Now, being our first time at this port, I had done my research and still was very confused about how it worked at this place. I mean, this one building was a pier for 3+ cruises, a high-end hotel, Museum/Exhibit Space, Convention & Hall space, Fly Over Canada attraction and in all my research, I could never find decent photos or videos of how the process worked.
While I am still stunned and impressed how easy, yet disjointed it was, I made sure to take a few photos so I could try to explain it for those of you who also haven't done it before.
If you are getting dropped off, you drive down into the garage and they drop you where the porters are. It took a minute to find one, they were pretty busy with three ships in port.
It's super easy if you just follow the BLUE signs. They have steps (luggage drop off, check-in, security, customs) and you just follow the numbers and blue colours. Don't be distracted by the GREEN colours, that's for disembarking passengers only. Going on a cruise? Choose blues. Do you wanna leave? Follow green!
Then you take the elevator up. The guy told us to go to Hall C and inside the elevator there is a big paper telling you what button to press. When you come out, you pass through one of the Exhibit spaces.
And then you end up down this big hall. This is where the large rooms are where all of the cruise lines have their check-in. Cunard was sharing Hall C with us but they have a separate line. Just find the DCL line.
Here's the
Disney Cruise part of Hall C, where they check the QR code from your Port Arrival form. They make sure you have done your ArriveCan MARINE submission and that you're Clear to Sail. If you have all that done, they will give you brightly coloured wrist bands to put on, to show you are good to go. Then you head to the check-in desk where they scan your passports and print you out small pieces of paper with your QR code and boarding group on them.
Once we were done with check-in, we went down to the Supervisor's desk to ask about an upgrade. There were a few rooms available with a clear verandah. I know the ship very well, so I asked her for all of the room numbers (and prices) for each one she showed available and settled on 6560 for $340 USD. They had one on deck 8 that I was spying but it was $1K to upgrade! Umm no thanks!
In the end, we chose....wisely! More on room stuffs later.
Next up, we left the hall and went outside. This was weird but cool. Then we went back inside....
And down the escalator and around the corner...
This is looking ahead, to the right. Remember green? That's all for people getting off the ships. We carry on and follow blue, and veer to the left!
This is where it really deviates from your normal cruise check-in. For security, they do ALL ships together, so there is a bit of a line here. I want to say it took maybe 20 minutes but if you come later, I think it might be busier.
Once you get through security, you veer right and head into US Customs. We had a fabulous customs guy who was joking with Rob since they both have almost no hair.
And then, once past Customs, you go left and walk down towards these flag signs...
Follow that down and you will find the seating area for Disney Wonder.
They hadn't begun boarding yet so we found a seat and got connected to the ship's Wi-Fi and started our account in the app and got set up for chat. Then we checked out the week's worth of activities in the app and "hearted" all of the stuff we wanted to do.
Spoiler alert, of all the things I hearted that morning, we ended up doing exactly two of them.