Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away With Meeee.... Disney Magic Day 1

Planning? Who needs planning? We booked this cruise on Thursday and left the following Monday. While I did miss the time to get excited and plan it was AWESOME to know we were leaving in just 4 days!!! After a very busy Sunday of packing and taking care of last minute details, we got up Monday, ate breakfast and got in the car for the about 2 hour drive to Port Canaveral.  While eating breakfast I pulled up the Port Canaveral webcam and was happy to see blue sky and the Disney Magic waiting for us!

On the way down, we got excited (like we needed help there) by listening to the WDWRadio Podcast episode about all the cool features of the Disney Magic.  While the Magic is the oldest ship of the Disney Cruise Line fleet, she definitely doesn't look it as the Magic was in dry dock for 40 days last Fall for a complete refurbishment or "re-imagining"!  

The podcast wrapped up in perfect time just as we arrived at Port Canaveral (or I should say at the nearby Park N' Cruise where we left the car and then took a shuttle to the port).  Even though this was my third Disney Cruise I never get tired of catching my first glimpse of those red smoke stacks! 

Before we knew it we were pulling into our port, the porters took care of our luggage and we breezed through security and into the check-in line!  I've never cruised with anyone but Disney, but I can't imagine anyone getting guests through security and check in better than Disney.  When we arrived, boarding had already started and we were assigned boarding group #25 - which was the very next group!  We jumped in line but not before I got a picture with this guy! 

I guess Olaf really does love summer...and warm weather...and hot....

After my picture, we were handed our Navigators and whisked through the big yellow Mickey head shaped tunnel.  We did stop for the "welcome aboard" picture and then it was on to the ship!

As always, we were given the traditional Disney Cruise Line welcome - when we approached the entrance of the ship we were asked our names which were announced by a Crew Member and we were welcomed by a "tunnel" of crew members in the lobby.

Having only been on the Disney Fantasy and the Disney Dream, I was used to be the bigger lobbies so this took a little getting used to but it was still beautiful.  As with all the ships, the Disney Magic has its own look and color scheme - dressed in teals , peach and silvers.

Upon our arrival on the ship, the staterooms weren't open yet so what else do you do? Eat!  We grabbed the first elevator and headed up to Deck 9 to Cabanas!  As always, I ate waaay too much but there's so much to choose from!

Our timing was perfect because after lunch our rooms were ready!  Booking last minute we didn't have a choice in our stateroom but we ended up loving the location of our room. Our stateroom was on Deck 2 with a large porthole window - and just 1 or 2 decks below the restaurants and theater.  We were just down the hall from Edge - the 11-14 year olds club but were never really disturbed from the noise coming from there.  

Speaking of Edge - after we dropped off our carryon bags we found that the kid's clubs were open for everyone to check out.  I was so excited about this because one of the biggest renovations to the Magic was the Oceanner's Club - one section has been transformed into the Avenger's Academy!  Not to slight any of the other areas (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Pixie Hollow, Andy's Room...) - they're all awesome and I'd stay there if they'd let me! 

They were finally able to drag me out of the kid's clubs and spent sometime with our fellow DVC Members at the "DVC Member Celebration"...or another excuse to get us to buy points in the D Lounge. We didn't take the bait but we did get a free drink, a hat, some new cool bags. There were some people in there that made us look like amateurs - there was one couple who had been on 17 cruises and had 5 more planned! 

About this time it was time to head back to our room for a bit and then get ready for the Emergency Muster Drill - or as I call it "Get to know your neighbor!" They insist on cramming everyone shoulder to shoulder....atleast they don't make us wear our life vests anymore!  Then...party time!

We were very lucky that we got a beautiful late afternoon for our Sail Away Party!

At 6:15 we got dressed and headed to the Walt Disney Theater for our first show - Villains Tonight. Not my favorite DCL show but still entertaining.

Dinner that night was at Lumiere's. Each ship has a Princess themed restaurant and this may have been my favorite yet. Lumiere's seemed much more open than Royal Court or Royal Palace. The chandeliers all featured roses with falling petals and the back wall was a huge mural of Belle and the Beast dancing.  As always the food was amazing. On the last cruise my friends had gotten me to try escargot which I enjoyed so I had been encouraging Mom and Dad to try too - Dad even ordered his own! So proud!

As you can kind of see from the last picture we didn't have any table mates on this cruise which was fine but we were excited to meet someone new and have someone to talk to over dinner. DCL seems to do an amazing job matching people up at dinner but maybe with us booking 4 days out they just didn't have time LOL. But we did meet our adorable waiters Aziz and Ralex.

After dinner, we could have gone to one of the many events around the ship but it had been a long and exciting day so we decided to head back to our stateroom and get some sleep for another great day ahead!