Our second Disney cruise, now as a family of 4!

If you’ve ready my previous post(s) about our very first Disney Cruise you’ll know that we were just a family of 3 back then. In 2010 our daughter came along, and in the fall of 2011 we decided she was ready for her first cruise, our second! This time around we would be sailing from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles, CA, with a stop in Ensenada, Mexico.

We had to get up super early as we had a 3 hour drive to get to the port. Everyone was excited to go though and didn’t seem to mind the early morning. So we put on our DIY tie-dye Mickey shirts and we were off!

 

When we got to Vancouver we first had to park the car. We chose to park in the long term lot at the airport because the price was good and we were able to hop on the sky-train that took us within a block of the cruise terminal. We dropped off our luggage with the porters and then went through security and on to the check-in area for the Disney cruisers. It wasn’t long before we were boarding the beautiful Disney Wonder!

Once we were on board the ship we headed for lunch. You have a couple of options when it comes to lunch on embarkation day. You can go up to the top decks to the buffet (or other top deck quick serve options), or you can go to a designated dining room that is open for lunch for a more relaxed, sit-down lunch. We chose to head to the dining room, but either option would have been fine. After having a bite to eat we wandered the ship a little, checked out our stateroom and attended the mandatory safety drill. Once the drill was out of the way, it was time to head up to the Sail Away Party! We found a nice spot up front near the stage and the kids had a blast dancing to the music and waving their streamer wands!

After the Sail Away Party we explored the ship some more and then it was time for dinner in Animator’s Palate. I really love this dinning room. It starts out as black and white and throughout dinner color emerges in the pictures, so fun! After dinner we watched the the nightly show and then headed to bed. We were all quite tired after a long day of travel and Disney excitement!

Oh and I almost forgot! At some point in this busy day we took some time to hang up our Fish Extended (I’ll have a post with more information on these soon) and decorated our stateroom door with some DIY magnets we brought along with us (a post about this is coming soon too, so be sure to check back). I’ll share a photo below of how our door looked after decorating, and another photo of some of the awesome gifts we received during our cruise! And if you need some ideas for gifts for your next cruise, check out some of my favorites in this post about Fish Extended Gift Ideas!

During our day at sea we had a character breakfast scheduled in the Parrot’s Cay dining room. This was so much more enjoyable than waiting in a line to see the characters. As we ate our breakfast the characters visited each table and took photos with us. It was a much more relaxed way to do it, especially with small children! The servers even made cute napkin hats for the kids to keep them entertained while we waited for the characters to come around.

We had so much fun on this cruise! We only got of the ship in Ensenada for a quick peak in the shops near the ship, other than that we just enjoyed the activities on the ship and spent our time relaxing! Check out the gallery of images below for a peak at all the cool stuff we did while on our cruise of the Pacific!

For those who prefer a video: