We are very big fans of Disney Cruise Lines and 3 of our last 4 cruises have been with DCL. The biggest reason for this comes down to service. The crew and CMs on board the DCL ships we have been on are just there to serve you. We decided a long time ago that we would skip taking a cruise yearly on other cheaper priced cruise lines to go every other year on DCL. At some point, as our kids get older, we will move on.

We flew into Orlando on the 13th, coming from Minnesota in January requires you plan for the worst and leave early. We rented a car from Hertz and stayed at a Holiday Inn Express using some of my points from business travel. We arrived around 11AM, so we had most of the day to kill. We didn't want to go nuts and spend 100s of dollars going to one of the WDW parks so we opted for checking out Downtown Disney. We had a blast. The boys and I went to the Disney Quest, a multi-level arcade facility. Imagine Dave and Busters on steroids. My wife walked and shopped. After a few hours of gaming, we met up with my wife and went to eat. Nice way to spend the day.

Embarkation Day, we went back to MCO, dropped off the car, dropped off our luggage at the curb with the DCL staff and went in to get checked in. You do all your check in at the DCL terminal in MCO now, which speeds up your boarding process. We had our KTTW and our bus assignment (we did the transfers) and were on a bus in 20 minutes. 40 minute ride to port and we were in the terminal waiting for our boarding number to be called. We had pre-registered my youngest for the Kids Club so we just walked up to get his wristband, and had our photos taken with Minnie. Soon, out number was called and we were on board and heading up to Topsiders for lunch, yum! We had a DISboard meet and greet on Secret Deck 7 and then back to our rooms to get ready for Muster. Muster went smooth except for the group who decided to show up late, holding up our group to be released. After muster we went to our rooms, unpacked and prepared for Dinner. Our dining team, was great. Wira was our restaurant head server, and our table servers were Vlado assisted by Suittibong (Tony). They were all awesome. Read more