Updated 2/13/21 Trip Video! Magic from Miami Jan 14-18 2020 Love that chicken water

[sarahcor]

Welcome to our trip! I’m Sarah, in the Minnie Mouse glasses, along for the fun is my mom Pam, my daughter Mia and my son Westin.
This was our second cruise, 1st time on the Magic. This was a 4 night leaving from Miami on Jan 14th to Key West, Castaway Cay and the Bahamas.

We were at a football party in November and I’m not real big into sports so I was perusing the cruise website when this cruise caught my eye. I showed it to my mom and we decided we needed a getaway so we requested the time off from work. Approval received a few days later and the trip was booked!

I wrapped up a miniature bike, snorkel and flippers, stingray stuffed animal, autograph book, water shoes, magnets for the door, Minnie ears and a few other cruisey things and gave it to the kids for Christmas as kind of a mystery reveal.

Mia knew immediately we were going somewhere and guessed it was a Disney cruise but she was surprised it was in a few weeks so my surprise was a success! If you’re interested you can see the video on my Instagram, user palmersruca

So fast forward a few weeks and we are leaving our lovely little airport for Ft Lauderdale


Excited and ready to get out of PA! Flight was quick and uneventful. We grabbed our suitcases and followed the signs to the hotel shuttle area. And we waited and waited and waited...
I call the hotel and immediately I’m on hold. My mom calls and gets right through
We are in the wrong spot, I guess I should have researched this part a little more
So we head the opposite direction all the way to the very end of the airport to the end of the sidewalk and around the corner where it looks like there is nothing but actually there is a covered walkway and that was where we should have been, so now we know for the next time!

Mia is over it

Westin thinks we will be stuck here all night long and miss the ship

And there was a sign, guess we missed it
It was about an hour of waiting from when we started to wait at the wrong location then relocated to the correct spot until the shuttle came for us but we were not stranded and we made to our home for the night
We stayed at the Best Western Ft Lauderdale airport /cruise port, it was inexpensive and fine for the night. Everyone zonked out pretty quickly

I was up for a while longer, I did my nails and watched Friends for a while. I was too excited to sleep because our cruise was tomorrow!!

 

[o&smom]

Cannot wait to follow along. My best friend from college and her family were on this cruise with you. It was their very first Disney Cruise and they had a great time. Hope you did too.

 

[lorimay]

Love your glasses!!!!

 

[greensombrero]

We were on the cruise right before yours. Look forward to hearing your thoughts, we really thought the cast on board was great! Hopefully there was still ice cream left j/k though my kids did eat a lot of it.

 

[tokyodisneydad]

Following along. We are going on the Magic in April and one of my biggest worries is getting to the hotel the first night and then to the ship on the Monday. Oh how I miss sailing out of Port Canaveral and the convenience of the Magical Express from some Disney Hotel.

 

[sarahcor]

Cannot wait to follow along. My best friend from college and her family were on this cruise with you. It was their very first Disney Cruise and they had a great time. Hope you did too.

Awesome! We did have a great time, the parks have my heart but a cruise is so nice for a relaxing vacation because I tend to go go go on a park vacation.

 

[sarahcor]

Love your glasses!!!!

Thanks!

 

[sarahcor]

We were on the cruise right before yours. Look forward to hearing your thoughts, we really thought the cast on board was great! Hopefully there was still ice cream left j/k though my kids did eat a lot of it.

Agree! All the cast we had interactions with were really nice, whoever they had playing Captain America was my favorite.
Same for the ice cream, Westin’s goal was to eat 20! I don’t think he ate that many alone but between the 4 of us we for sure surpassed his goal

 

[sarahcor]

Following along. We are going on the Magic in April and one of my biggest worries is getting to the hotel the first night and then to the ship on the Monday. Oh how I miss sailing out of Port Canaveral and the convenience of the Magical Express from some Disney Hotel.

Welcome! Totally understand, we were considering getting an Uber but that was at a different waiting spot from where we eventually ended up so we decided to just wait it out. From the hotel to the port wasn’t a problem and it was much quicker than I thought it would be. We used Jiffy Jeff and they were fine, I would use them again if we ever sail from Miami again.

 

[sarahcor]

Welcome back! It’s cruise day
My mom and I woke up with no problems, the kids were not moving fast due to the late night but we weren’t in a hurry so no worries.

Mia and I checked out the breakfast options and I fixed a plate to take back to sleepyhead Westin in the room.

The hotel was fine, it seemed a little on the old side but I liked the price and we were there for such a short time I didn’t care. It was right next to a McDonalds and a little shopping plaza which was great because I realized I didn’t bring any contact lens solution. My mom was getting over a cold and she needed some cough drops so we walked across the parking lot to the store and grabbed a few last minute items. We watched some tv in our room and waited until a little before 11am before we headed to the lobby for our ride.

These reminded me of Captain America so I had to take a picture
Our ride was a Mercedes van with one other family at our same hotel. But then we went back to the airport to get a 3rd family because their flight was late, they should have been picked up first but the driver got us since they weren’t there yet. Slightly annoying but our boarding time wasn’t until 12:30 so it didn’t matter and the airport was a few minutes away so not a big deal, but I was aching to get on that ship!!

After an uneventful pickup of the 3rd family we made it to the port! We dropped our bags off with the luggage guys which was a little confusing because I didn’t realize that was how you got your bags onto the ship so we skipped the first guy and kept walking until we saw no one else had their bags so we got ours on the next luggage rack. There were lots available so no big deal.
We waited in line and made our way through security with no problems.

We zipped past the regular line because we are silver now! I felt so fancy
Room cards and lanyards in hand we headed to the other side to get on that beautiful ship!



Thank you to the nice fellow passenger who took our picture and managed to get Westin in the pic even though he was being a bum and wouldn’t stand with us

 

[o&smom]

Awesome! We did have a great time, the parks have my heart but a cruise is so nice for a relaxing vacation because I tend to go go go on a park vacation.

I hear ya! I think they will try a 7 nt next so that they actually have time to relax. Nothing relaxing about your first Disney Cruise! We are so excited for the relaxation of our WBPC cruise, but it will be followed by five days at DL with park hoppers and max pass - go, go, go here we come.

 

[iloveeeyore]

Following! DH and I cruised on the Fantasy last month and can't wait to sail on the Magic next!! Really looking forward to reading all about it!

 

[sarahcor]

I hear ya! I think they will try a 7 nt next so that they actually have time to relax. Nothing relaxing about your first Disney Cruise! We are so excited for the relaxation of our WBPC cruise, but it will be followed by five days at DL with park hoppers and max pass - go, go, go here we come.

So jealous of your WBPC cruise, that is on my bucket list, have an awesome time!! Followed by 5 days at DL! Dream vacation for sure!!

 

[sarahcor]

Following! DH and I cruised on the Fantasy last month and can't wait to sail on the Magic next!! Really looking forward to reading all about it!

Welcome! Fantasy is my next cruise goal, we did Dream 2 years ago and now Magic. I really want to complete the grand slam before the new ships come online.

 

[sarahcor]

We are finally boarding woohoo!
Boarding here at Miami we did not enter into the atrium so I have to give the Dreams welcome the win between the 2. It was still awesome but not as impressive.

We headed for lunch at Cabanas. It was busy but one of the crew members found us a table, thanks so much!
Awesome carpet details everywhere.





So I was really excited to eat here because on the Dream we thought Cabanas was delish.
Kind of underwhelmed, the turkey was , the pasta was tasty though and of course you can’t go wrong with Disney nuggets.
Westin has the best pick with some type of raspberry dessert, he legit licked the bowl clean

 

[sarahcor]

I don’t know if I’m doing this right but here is a little snippet of boarding
https://photos.app.goo.gl/2AFEiUKdf2nmNV5WA

 

[sarahcor]

The family name announcement and welcome, I feel like a famous person during this part

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Pb879mKtKWKDYnvt8

 

[sarahcor]

Lunch finished and our room is ready so we headed there and explored a little on the way.


We loved our room location, we were 7086. Close to stairs, I tried to not do the elevator to offset the numerous ice cream cones consumed onboard I mean I guess it helped slightly or made me feel like it helped!
I had to do some yoga on the balcony because I cannot resist a good photo op

And our silver castaway bag which I am so happy to have (and my hand modeling)


I ordered one of the welcome packages with sparkling wine (I think) and cider for the kids. I must have really liked it because I’m looking at my videos and I called the bottle the sexiest I’ve ever seen

In all it’s sexy glory

 

[o&smom]

So jealous of your WBPC cruise, that is on my bucket list, have an awesome time!! Followed by 5 days at DL! Dream vacation for sure!!

I know! Sometimes I get jealous of myself. So thankful that we get to do this. We had a great Western Europe cruise last summer and all I could think about was how I could not wait for the PC cruise! We visited fun ports, but I was just so looking forward to the relaxation and amazing amount of sea days. We did our first PC cruise in 2017 when the Wonder first went through the new locks. We thought we would not be able to do it again for about 15 years because of where our kids were at in school. Then our son decided to switch to an online school for the majority of his classes and that gave us the option to jump on another PC cruise. We are counting down the days!

 

[o&smom]

We are finally boarding woohoo!
Boarding here at Miami we did not enter into the atrium so I have to give the Dreams welcome the win between the 2. It was still awesome but not as impressive.
View attachment 475685View attachment 475686
We headed for lunch at Cabanas. It was busy but one of the crew members found us a table, thanks so much!View attachment 475687
Awesome carpet details everywhere.



View attachment 475688
View attachment 475689
So I was really excited to eat here because on the Dream we thought Cabanas was delish.
Kind of underwhelmed, the turkey was , the pasta was tasty though and of course you can’t go wrong with Disney nuggets.
Westin has the best pick with some type of raspberry dessert, he legit licked the bowl clean View attachment 475691

Where did you get those Minnie slides?!?