The Royal Treatment ~ R is for Ready, Set, Go!

With all of the major players booked and the 120 day mark nearing, emails started trickling in. The concierge team contacted us to arrange for any reservations or port adventures we might want. The Facebook and DISboards groups began chatting away and FE groups formed.

Pajamas-check, Dressy Clothes-check, Pirate Gear-check

The cruise still sat far in the distance on the calendar, until, in a blur of holidays and parties packing finally began in earnest. I pack each child's things on a separate day so that I have time to remember whatever I've forgotten.



One outfit per bag. Super easy.

The plastic bags that each days outfits stow in make convenient bags to shove their dirty clothes into for the trip home and protect my luggage from smelling like a gym locker.



Pirate Ships, Ghost Captains and Cutlasses. The perfect pre-cruise board game!

All the bags squared away, we enjoyed an evening of "Catan: Junior." The next morning, I drove to Brenham to pick up my dear mother in law and headed back to our house. After Kylee and I got our pre-cruise pedicures, we headed back to our house to welcome Chris and Casey and then eagerly await the morning of our cruise.


My son, Chris fell asleep almost immeadiately, while Kylee kept getting too excited and ended up snuggling in with Grammy for the evening. Casey, Ben and I headed to bed after some visiting, while Chris stayed up to finish some last minute work. After a late night of excitement and fun, you might think everyone would sleep in in the morning.

That would be both kids. Awake.

We were all too excited to stay asleep!
Mimi (wisely) stayed home for another hour of rest and caffeine while the rest of us packed it off to The Egg & I for our last shoreside breakfast. After a little rearranging, we decided I should drive with the Kolbs and the kids, Grammy and Ben could follow in the other car. I love my Honda Fit, but five people plus luggage is quite the squeeze.



Checking out if my braids are on relatively straight.

Suddenly without kids, I began fixing my hair as we turned down 45. As the local, I felt compelled to explain how to best reach Galveston from just north of Houston. (My brilliant directions? Head south until you run into the Gulf. Then stop. Or perhaps stop slightly before you run into the Gulf.)
Thankfully, Chris, despite being from out of town, drove this way before and found my directions funny rather than flip.
A lot of pre-trip banter and high spirits marked our drive down and faster than you could believe we were in Houston,

Hi Houston!

Past Houston,

The marshes always make me want to sing "Rainbow Connection" for some reason.

And arriving in Galveston.



Crossing toward Galveston island!

We listened along to "The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry" that the Kolbs had started during their drive down from north Texas the other evening. Now that I've listened to an hour or so on tape, I have my suspicions I need to read the beginning and end sometime, just to feel like I've concluded it.
Playing spot the Wonder soon distracted us from the audiobook entirely.

Way off to our left. Maybe we should turn somewhere?

I did not win, being as I sat in the backseat.
We headed down to Harborside Drive to swing past our ship.

Not our ship. Ours is over at Terminal 2.

When finally, there she was.

The Disney Wonder sitting pretty at Cruise Terminal 2 in Galveston, Texas.

Chris turned into the EZ Cruise lot (we use them because they're a no frills lot that is easy, cheap and close to the terminal). I called Diana to see how early we were compared to car two. They just crossed the bridge to Galveston, so they practically were on our heels.



Casey with her Disney Dooney Backpack!

So we all queued and piled into a shuttle, with the idea that Casey and Chris could check in for a low boarding number and I could wait at the terminal for Ben, Mom and the kids to arrive.



Just inside the Terminal.

I popped inside the terminal to take a restroom break and a picture of the cast members waiting on guests to arrive then headed back outside to wait for the rest of my party.
(I thought Casey and Chris went ahead of me into the terminal to check-in, but they had to double back to pickup Casey's medication which had been left back in their car.)
Back outside there were plenty of interesting things to look at while I waited.



Beautiful Color Map of the island.

I decided to cross back towards the shuttles to wait for my family and maybe get a better shot of the Wonder.

So pretty. I wish I could get a picture without the whole terminal in the way.

A few security guards started paying some attention to me and I realized perhaps taking photos of the terminal was not the best idea, so I returned to sitting and waiting. The morning heated up nicely and I hardly had time to think of getting bored before the rest of the mouseketeers arrived.



Ready to go!

After this happy reunion, we headed into the terminal, through security (think airport security, complete with x-ray machines, ticket verification and passport checks) and to the Concierge Check-in desk (lucky number 13).

What's this?

We received our lanyards, key to the world cards, navigators, invitations to a reception and finally got to go meet the Captain!

Captain Mickey!

We hung about for a bit.

All the ladies.

Until boredom set in for our youngest sailors.

Mimi, can we board, yet?

So we headed over to the Children's Registration desk to receive the children's bands, which are still the old classic Oceaneer Club bands rather than the new MagicBand style.
Yes, we could have done this at the concierge reception, but waiting in line feels more productive than just sitting and waiting to the kids.



Captain Mickey does not sit on the floor during potty breaks.

I took Kylee for a potty break. We returned and visited with the other concierge guests until we got the all clear to board around 11:40.

The Gangway!

We boarded with the rest of concierge, immediately following the family of the day.
It is odd to feel as though you are the only one on the ship in the middle of the day, but after we passed the last of the photographers, we didn't run into another guest for quite a while!
We walked across the "Welcome Home!" mats stepped aboard the Wonder to the very brink of the atrium when we were stopped by a cast member.

 This is Part 3 of an Ongoing Trip Report "The Royal Treatment" additional sections of this report can be found on the Adventures page.