My husband and I (mid-30s) took our not-quite two year old son for our very first Disney Cruise, sailing on the Wonder, January 10-14, 2010. Having stayed with friends in Orlando for a few days prior to our sailing date, we opted to take advantage of Disney's shuttle service to the port. Our friends dropped us at the airport, and we proceeded to the shuttle pickup point. This proved to be a bit of a hassle, as the Disney reservation agent told me on the phone that morning (as we were arriving at the airport) to have our friends drop us on the "A" side, lower level. Unfortunately, we were informed by a rather snippy airport employee that we were actually supposed to go to the "B" side, which involved quite a bit of luggage dragging and a ride on the airport tram. The check in procedure for the shuttle was a bit disorganized as their computer printers were not working, but once we made it through the line and given our boarding group (we were Goofy!) we sat down for just a few minutes and were on our way. We watched a video of Mickey and his friends boarding the ship as we made our way to the port, and the time passed very quickly.

Once we made it to the cruise terminal, the check in and boarding was extremely efficient, smooth, and speedy. In no time we had our boarding photo taken and were on the ship and enjoying the warm welcome and applause as they announced our family name. Our little boy really got a kick out of it!

If only the weather had cooperated. It was cold, windy and a bit rainy, so we elected to not take our extremely crabby toddler (had to wake him from his nap for the muster drill and he threw an enormous fit!) to the sail away party. There was no shortage of things to do, so we chose to acquaint ourselves with the ship, while the brave souls on deck 9 most certainly had a blast. Read more