Ahh, travel day. Bittersweet. Today we were checking out of The Royal Palm Club and heading to Port Canaveral for 3 nights on board the Disney Dream for their first MerryTime Cruise of the year. Very exciting!
After breakfast, we made sure all of our bags were tagged and ready as Bell Services was headed our way to help us bring everything downstairs as our semi-private transfers would be arriving shortly. We were sharing a van with another Castle Dreams Travel Planner, Crystal, and her daughter who just spent a few nights inside Disney’s Bay Lake Tower with Crystal’s husband and son as well. They were leaving them in WDW for a girls’ weekend on board.
Before we knew it- we were there and could see The Disney Dream!
As soon as exited the van, as our bags were being unloaded- Mike and I realized we didn’t have our passports or our birth certificates. Cue my eyes welling up and nausea. Then I quickly snapped out of it. Mike and I started calmly talking out what we could do to get what we needed to get on board. Disney Cruise Line needed copies of our birth certificates and/or passports. We needed to find a way to get that to them because without them, we couldn’t board the ship at all.
Good news was, it was 10:30am and we had several hours to work this out if need be. We live with my mom, however she takes classes at the local University and wasn’t home. It was Veteran’s Day and kids were off from school- one of my daughters asked one of her friends to stop by our house (she drives and had access to a car) and take pictures of what we needed and email them to us. She was able to do so, quite quickly as once she got to our house we were able to direct her, over the phone, to where she would be able to find everything. By 11:30am, we were checked in and assigned to boarding group 7. We were called to board the ship at 12noon.
We realize we were REALLY lucky. There were other families, in our same situation, who weren’t as lucky as we were. I also must add, the Cast Members were incredibly calm, reassuring, and understanding at the port, which was incredibly helpful to keep us calm as well. There was only one Cast Member, outside the terminal, who went right into our options if we couldn’t get our documentation in time- we just tuned her out because Mike and I were going to work it out calmly and I am beyond grateful we did. That said, I can understand how hearing that as soon as you realize your mistake, within earshot of your children, would upset anyone and everyone- we chose not to and work towards a solution vs the consequences. Once inside, every Cast Member we worked with was more than understanding and worked with us to quickly resolve our dilemma. Needless to say- we have since put a few precautions in place for our next cruise so we don’t forget them again.
Now that we had a bit of time to relax and take inn our surroundings- the terminal looked BEAUTIFUL already decorated for the holidays!
A sneak peak at The Navigator told us the new show, Beauty and the Beast, was showing tonight after dinner!
