A few last things to do

The design of the Key to the World cards has changed, I notice. On our past two trips the cards had Tinker Bell prominently displayed on them. Now they have a “castle in the clouds” Year of a Million Dreams motif – still with Tink flying around the castle, though.

I’ve been told that we could tell what dining rotation we’d have aboard the Disney Wonder by the set of three letters printed on the card. The only three-letter set I see is “RPA.” Let’s see… “P” would be Parrot Cay, “A” would be Animator’s Palate, so that leaves “R” to mean… Triton’s? Not sure about that.

After the front desk check-in, we’re directed to the DCL desk at the far side of the lobby for our cruise check-in. The sweet thing about these land/sea packages is that we do all of our checking in now, and don’t have to again at the port before we board the ship. A bonus this time is that almost all of the cruise paperwork – passenger info, charge authorization, kid program sign-up, shore excursion and spa reservations, flight info – can be done online months in advance.

The two cruise reps are John and Joy, and they are, ahem, cheerful. They’re also not busy with other cruisers (I love arriving early) so we get their full attention. They are happy that we have all of our documents in order! We hand them our signed contract pages (just one set with signatures for all six of us, since we were moved from two separate staterooms into one big suite) and our passports.

Also new this time is the departure procedure if you are flying with certain airlines. Disney has always made getting off the ship fabulously easy – you tag your bags with special color- and character-coded tags they give you the night before you return to port, leave the bags in the hallway, and Disney takes them off the ship for you. Then, once at the terminal the next morning, you get off the ship, locate your bags, pass quickly through customs, and then check in for your flight right there at the port! You’re given your boarding passes, the airline takes your luggage, and you hop on a DCL bus straight to the airport. Simple.

I didn’t think it was possible, but they’ve made it even simpler. Now you give them your flight info, and they check you in with the airline! The day before you return to Port Canaveral, they provide you with your boarding passes and airline luggage tags. When you set your bags out that night, they are taken off the ship and turned over to the airline. You don’t have to worry about them until you get back to your home city. Brilliant.

We fill out the simple forms with our return flight information. John asks who in our group is in charge of “gifts” and then counts out six cool new lanyards for us, black and red with “Castaway Club” and the DCL logo on them. Hanging from the lanyard is a clear Ziploc-style card-holder, just the perfect size for our KTTW cards! Awesome. I may have to switch to this from the big blue cloth Passholder I wear around my neck.

We are checked in and ready to go! We take a few moments to make sure we have all of our documents stowed away, and I take the opportunity to soak in the beauty of the Polynesian lobby – green plants, colorful flowers, waterfall. It is just gorgeous.

Brandon also spots hidden Mickeys in the rug beneath our feet.

One more thing to do before we depart – group picture! We enlist John from the DCL desk to come snap a pic or two of us in front of the lush greenery at the center of the lobby. It’s not hard to smile for the picture. We’re actually here!

John may be super friendly and a competent Disney Cruise Line cast member, but his photo composition skills could use some work. He does get all of us in the picture, but rather than capturing the greenery behind us, he gets more of the couch in front of us. Oh, well.

I bet we can redo the picture some time. We are at Walt Disney World for four full days – starting now!