Other Disney Cruise Posts
Review- Family Oceanview Stateroom
Pre Disney Cruise- What to do.
Pre Disney Cruise- SWA flights and Avis Car rental
Planning a Disney Cruise
Check In
The day was finally here. We ate breakfast, we cleaned up our condo and we loaded up our minivan. We had a 12:15-12:30 registered arrival time. As we mentioned earlier we rented a minivan for the week. We left Orlando around 10am and planned on getting to the port around 11am. The drive is quite easy and direct. However there are numerous tolls. We ended up paying about $4 over about 4-5 tolls along the way. Once you get a few miles from Port Canaveral, you are driving over water and are getting more and more excited. There were signs for different terminals and we missed seeing which one was Disney and got off the first exit, which was the correct exit and we just followed the signs. There are staff every few feet guiding you along the way. It was now about 11am and there where a few cars in front of us but nothing bad. One checkpoint checked that we had our cruise papers and glanced at all of our ID’s and directed us to drop our luggage off at the curbside porters. We parked next to the curb and a staff member was there to help with a few bags and we kindly tipped him a few dollars. Next they direct you to parking. Our 3 night cruise was $68 in the garage or $88 in the preferred lot. The preferred lot is only like 20 feet closer, so no need for us.
We park and are finally out of the car! You can see the long line of people just waiting to go through security. Sorry I don’t have a lot of great pictures of this process as they don’t like you taking pictures here. We get in line behind everyone else and notice a staff member waiving people around the corner every few seconds. people aren’t paying attention to her but I gladly jump out of line with the family to follow her and go inside a side entrance. I felt like VIP for 2 minutes as we place our bags on the scanner and walk through metal detectors with our carry on bags. At this time we go upstairs to a large area and you can see multiple different lines. Its probably getting close to 1130 now.
We get into the check in line that verifies you have completed all of your information. This line seems short as they have like 20 or more stations over to review your documentation. During this time they also hand you a health questionnaire for each family to complete. (I don’t know what happens if you check that you are sick…) If you have already checked in online (which you should) all you need to show them is your printed of form and your passports. There was no need for the Disney book if checked in online. They saw our kids were signed up for the kids club online and gave them their Oceaneer bands. However you still had to go to the club to get them temporarily clamped on. This is also where they give you your room keys that you must have to get on and off and back on the ship. They inform you that your room wont be ready until 130 so please don’t go to your room before that. As well as bags will be arriving between now and 6pm. Then they give you a card with a position number that relates to your boarding time. Were were number 17 as our boarding time was 1215-1230. This checking process took only about 5-10 minutes. So we had about 30 minutes still. So even if we got there at 9am, we would have been waiting as we still would have received group 17.
There was a line to get pictures taken with Mickey so we got in that line. This line moved like all the lines and it was 5-10 minutes long.
There was also a nice cutout of another Disney Ship so you can see all the different sections of the ship before your board.
No we had about 20 minutes so we sat on some of the couches they had and had a snack we brought and took a quick bathroom break. There are also numerous TVs throughout playing Disney movies.
Every few minutes they call a boarding number and promptly at 1215 they call number 17. We get up and get in line to get on the ship. After confirming we were number 17 and confirming our passports we were through and onto the walkways. It was a little congested here as there were multiple lines for more photo ops. The really was no way around these so we got our photo taken and back in the walkway line. Next up was finally the stepping over part. They scan your cruise card/room key and then they announce you arriving onto this majestic trip. I will have a video of this posted shortly.
Finally you are on the ship! It was about 1230!
TrupTravels 
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