Thanksgiving at Disney - A Trip Report - Day 1 - Sailing Away

Last trip report post I ended with some photos of our cabin, but I forgot to mention the Wave Phones, so I'll start there.  Disney provides two courtesy phones called Wave Phones per cabin. They are basically very old style cell phones that only work on the ship and at Castaway Cay. While it was nice to have phones to carry along to keep in touch with those in our party, there were some major drawbacks: the phones only worked on silent, and we typically didn't feel the vibrations when they rang. We quickly figured out that they were not programable which was only a problem when we forgot our parents' cabin number and spent half the first day calling the wrong room... whoops!  The nice feature was that if no one answered the Wave Phone, it rang the cabin for you before going to voice mail.  While the Wave Phones were good to have on hand, we usually met with frustration while using them.

So after settling in to our cabins, we decided to take to the deck to enjoy the sailing away party. This took place on the pool deck, and it was super crowded.

We could see the back of the party perfectly through this window...

Cruise Director Minnie!

That's "Captain Mickey Mouse" to you. ;-)

Look at this crowd!

Mom & Dad called to tell us they were on the adult deck, and there was no one there, so LaRae and I joined them for a while.  It was a bit chilly, but the sunset was absolutely gorgeous!

So cold! The adult pool stayed close to empty the whole cruise!

Mom & Dad set sail on their first cruise!

This boat looked tiny next to us!

The timing of sailing away fit perfectly with sunset.

This really was the best location for sailing away.
Some people had children up here just to sail away.

We were all very cold after setting sail, so we hurried back out of the wind to get ready to go to our first show of the trip: The Golden Mickeys. This was by far my favorite of the three shows; although, all of them were very entertaining. We sat in the balcony all three nights as we liked the view from there best. The theater never felt super crowded even though the cruise was full.  I highly recommend NOT skipping the shows.  I thought a quick photo tour of the Walt Disney Theater could be desired by my readers.  How many Hidden Mickeys can you find?

These box seats were first come, first serve. We never sat in them
but you can see you didn't have to be there super early to snag them!

The stage

That curtained off box there is an extension of the stage. Characters come
out there on both sides of the stage.

Above the stage at Walt Disney Theater

The sides of the stage held some of my favorite details.

We had a late seating for dinner each night at 8:15, so after the show we made our way to the Enchanted Garden, our first dining room of the cruise.  Come back Thursday to get a full photo tour of our dining experience!