After almost 450 days, today was the day we’ve all been waiting for…

We had a good nights sleep at the Hilton Diagonal Mar Barcelona and after we woke up and got ready we enjoyed a nice hotel breakfast. Emily had pancakes and we tried different kinds of smoothies. After breakfast we went back to the room to finalize the suitcases and around 9:45 am we went downstairs for checkout und outside to get a taxi.

The taxi ride to the Port of Barcelona took us about 15 minutes and as we entered the port and crossed the bridge… there she was, the Disney Magic. Emily got so excited when she saw the ship, she jumped up and down in the taxi. The taxi driver brought us to terminal C where a porter took care of our suitcases, we would see those again in the stateroom.

Since not all the passengers had disembarked the ship from the previous cruise we had to wait a little before entering the cruise terminal. As soon as we went through security we found ourselves some seats and waited about 20 minutes to get our picture taken with Captain Mickey. Next we checked in, got our Key to the World cards, Emily’s Magic band for the kids club and we were good to go. The boarding didn’t start yet so we found ourselves a seat and waited until our boarding group (group 6) was ready to board.

We took our picture with a nice DCL backdrop and after scanning our Key to the World card we could finally go aboard the ship.

“The Disney Magic welcomes the Rotmensen-Family!”

Once we were onboard the ship we decided to go the Lumieres for lunch, one of the 3 dining rooms on this ship. We had a relaxed sit-down lunch and the food was great. Sander and I both had the sirloin steak with a double baked potato and Emily had mac ‘n cheese with fries and vegetables. After desert we walked around the ship for a little and at 1:30 pm we went to our stateroom to drop of our bags and have a quick look at the room. Then we went to the kids club to register Emily and have a look at the open house. They had Andy’s room (Toy Story) with a slide, a Disney Junior room with movies and Lego, Pixie Hollow where the kids can do arts and crafts of play games on tablets. There was also a whole Avengers section with props from the movies. Emily didn’t want to leave but at 3:00 pm it was time for our Facebook Group meet ‘n great at the Promenade Lounge followed by the mandatory safety drill. Our was in one of the restaurants, Animator’s Palate. I took about an hour and I’m always surprised how people cannot come to this on time.

As soon as all this was over we left for deck 9 to see the Sail-A-Wave party. The rain clouds over Barcelona had made place for sunshine as we watched this shows. It still gives me goosebumps when the ships horn sounds “When you wish upon a star”, which means we’re now officially on vacation! We went down to deck 3 to the Lobby Atrium because we wanted a picture with Daisy. Our first character meet on the ship. We were first in line and Emily loved it! Then it was time to go to Animator’s Palate again, but this time for dinner.

After we ordered our food and Emily was busy coloring her coloring page I left for a short moment because the shops would open at 6 pm and I wanted to go look for the Disney Cruise Line exclusive Pandora charms for my bracelet. I was lucky and got myself the limited edition Captain Minnie charm. I quickly went back to the restaurant where my creamy butternut squash soup was waiting for me.

During dinner Emily was mesmerized by all the drawings being drawn at the restaurant walls. We made it a little game guessing which character they were drawing. At some point they started to use color in the drawings and soon they all came to life and that was the start of the show. Little parts of the most famous Disney movies were shown and at the end Sorcerer Mickey entered the dining room and dances around the whole restaurant and the music of Fantasmic! Emily was so exited to see Mickey that when he was close to our table she jumped out of her chair to show him her drawing she made during dinner, oops!

When the show was over we thanked our wonderful waiters, Mihar and Alejandro, and went back to the Lobby Atrium to meet with Minnie Mouse and a little later with Pluto.

It had been a long day and after a little shopping at the 2 stores on the ship Emily told us she was tired and wanted to go to bed so we left for our stateroom.

All of our suitcases had already arrived and also some of the fish extended gifts. Emily got ready for bed and was our within 5 minutes after her bedtime story ended.

Sander decided to go watch Captain Marvel at the Movie Theater as I unpacked our suitcases an decorated our state-room door with the magnets we created at home. The seas we a little rocky tonight which resulted in me not finishing writing this blogpost because it rocked me right to sleep.

The movie was amazing, when it was done I explored the ship a bit. The ship was rocking so much that it look like I was totally drunk but I did only drink a little bit of wine earlier today. It was a bit too chilly outside to be comfortable so I decided to join my girls and get some sleep.

Tomorrow is our first day at sea this cruise and we have lots of fun activities planned.