I set an alarm for 5:30 on Monday morning because I didn’t want to miss the Wonder arriving back into port. It turned out that I didn’t need the alarm because I was wide awake at 4:00 due to the time change.

I opened the curtains to a very overcast and drizzly Vancouver Harbour and thought it might be a foreshadowing of the weather that was to come. You’ll soon learn that was NOT the case!

The Wonder did not arrive until around 7:00. I was tracking the ship’s position with a cruise ship tracker and watched for it in the distance when I thought it was close enough that we should be able to see it. From our room, we could see the ship enter the Burrard Inlet way off in the distance, beyond Stanley Park, which was right in front of us. Then it disappeared again behind Stanley Park and we waited a few minutes before it appeared again under the Lions Gate Bridge.

At that point, I began to record the timelapse below. Unfortunately, due to the angle of the window in our room, I could only record the movement of the ship for so long before it moved completely out of view of the camera.

It took a while to get the rest of the crew moving, so I headed outside to get some pictures of Wonder as the captain maneuvered the ship into her berth.

At one point, I took a video hoping to capture the Mickey whistle, but I stopped it after almost ten minutes without it playing. Funny enough, because of where I was standing, I had a great view of the officers out on the bridge as they prepared to tie down the ship. They were close enough that I was able to yell over to them and ask them if they would be playing the tune. They told me no, which made me feel relieved that I wasn’t going to miss it. The picture below does not accurately capture how close I actually was.

After that, I rejoined the family back in the room and we headed downstairs for breakfast. The hotel has a restaurant called Oceans 999, which served a breakfast buffet that was quite expensive. However, the rate we booked included a 50 CAD restaurant credit, so we didn’t feel as bad about splurging. There was a large selection and the food was quite good.

After breakfast, the whole family headed outside for some pictures with the ship, including a special one for our littlest cruiser who finally completed her 5-ship checklist.

Then it was down to the terminal for me to grab some generic luggage tags and back to the room to tag the bags and call for their pickup. The luggage porter came to the room within 15 minutes and we said goodbye to our bags and our room.

We made our way down to the cruise terminal via the elevator in the hotel lobby and were surprised by how quick and efficient the customs and check-in process was. From hotel room to pre-boarding waiting room was less than 20 minutes.

We took our picture in front of the 25th Anniversary backdrop as our boarding group number was being called and it was time to board!

Our first stop once onboard was the Guest Services desk so I could purchase one of the DCL 25th Anniversary Bluetooth Floating Ship speakers. Thankfully they had one, but it was much larger than I was expecting it to be.

Then it was off to Cabanas for lunch. Normally we like to sit out on the back deck on embarkation day, but the weather was cold and drizzly, so we opted for a seat inside. After lunch, we headed down to the Oceaneer Club for the open house. The kids like the Slinky Slide, so they did that for a bit before we made our way over to the Oceaneer Lab. This is where everything changed. There was a Youth Activities cast member named Jordan who showed the kids some magic tricks and then set up a game for them to play. And from that moment on, their kids club experience was (hopefully) forever changed. They asked to go back all throughout the cruise and were mad when we would pick them up. This is a huge change from their past experiences and we have Jordan to thank for that!

After that, our rooms were ready, so we went up to check it out. To our surprise, our bags had already arrived so we were able to unpack before the muster drill. We like to completely unpack on the longer cruises so that we’re not living out of suitcases the whole time. And let me tell you, we used EVERY available drawer, shelf, hanger, and closet! But it all fit.

We had stateroom 6052, which was a deluxe oceanview stateroom with verandah and was located on the port side just outside the midship elevators. We loved the room and location and even commented a few times about how convenient it was.

Then it was down to deck 4 for the in-person muster drill. PSA: as a courtesy to everyone else, PLEASE show up to the drill on-time. We had to wait for quite a while for a few families to show up, which just prolonged the drill.

When the muster drill ended, it was time for the Sail-A-Wave party, which had been moved inside due to the weather. This was our third cruise in a row where the sail away party has been cancelled or moved inside because of bad weather. I think we are cursed. It was an abbreviated version of the traditional Sail-A-Wave party, but DJ Emily had the lobby jumping and the characters came out to send us off. They even played the traditional sail away Mickey whistle inside the lobby (albeit as an audio recording).

After the party, it was time for dinner in Triton’s, but first I ran up on deck to catch the sailing under the Lions Gate Bridge and finally got to hear my first Mickey whistle of the cruise.

Finally, it was time for our favorite DCL pasttime – SHOPPING! And it was a welcome site to see the shops in their familiar location outside of the Walt Disney Theater. Our last two cruises have been on the Wish and we are not quite as big of fans of the shopping experience on that ship. There was a pretty decent selection of desirable Alaska merchandise, but as expected, there was very little (or basically none) 25th Anniversary merchandise offered.

It was a great embarkation day, but it was time for bed. We were all very tired and were very much looking forward to the days ahead!

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