Disembarking Disney Destiny
- Amaris Scipione
- Feb 23
- 6 min read
The end of a cruise is always a sad day. My son wants to stay on forever.
Our morning starts early. There are two breakfast options open. You can either go to your last dining rotation for a sit-down meal or the buffet. Worlds Of Marvel was our meal last night so it’s the breakfast option available to us. Marceline Market is the buffet that is available too. We decide on Worlds of Marvel, but it means we need to be there at 6:45am. The restaurant is relatively empty compared to dinner last night and it is the right choice for us.
People linger in the common areas waiting for their group to be called for disembarkation. Unlike other cruise lines, you aren’t given a number. You’re given a character. You must wait until your character is called. Ours is Tinker Bell. We aren’t in a hurry to get off the ship. Our flight isn’t until 7:30pm so we have a lot of time. We admire the artwork around the ship and eventually sit at Saga and wait. When Tinker Bell is called, we don’t immediately leave. We wait about fifteen minutes and then leave so we’re in-between waves of people.
Disembarkation was incredibly easy. No lines. No masses of people. They used facial recognition software for immigration, so we didn’t even have to take passports out of our bags. We move to the Lyft/Uber area and order our Lyft. There is a lot of traffic, so it takes about 45 minutes for the car to make it to us.
It’s Florida cold today. Too cold for the beach or pool. We decide on spending the day at the Museum of Discovery and Science. We use the Bounce app to find a location to store our bags. The place is a restaurant right next door to the science center. They have a trailer that holds their wine and also holds our bags. We walk to the science center. We have a membership for the Cleveland Science Museum and were able to benefit from the reciprocity program. The cost for the three is us would be around $75, but it’s free admission with our membership.
This is a pretty big science center with lots to do. We start at the Magna Tile Studio which is a space filled with all sorts of magna tiles. My son loves this toy, and we spend a decent time building. The museum is filled with children on field trips and the nice thing about this space is that it is not open to field trips. There are only a couple families in the space so it’s calm and quiet.
We move towards other exhibits. There is one about hockey. Another about hurricanes. Another about airplanes. They all have something nice to offer. Then we find the place that children love.
The Citrus Grove is an early childhood development area designed for children six and under. The lady who gave us our tickets had briefly mentioned it and said she included that in our ticket. Our son is technically too old for it, but they weren’t policing ages and he fit right in with the other children. He absolutely loved it in here and for good reason. The area is themed around oranges. There is a wall with trees, and you can pick “oranges” off the wall. The oranges are replaced with new oranges as you pick them. You can take the oranges to be washed, you can put them through a sorter, and there is a delivery truck as well. There is also a place to put them with a counter. When the counter reaches 150, oranges fall from the sky. The oranges are little plastic balls, and this place is filled with joy. The area opens and closes throughout the day. They close it often to clean and sanitize.
It’s lunch time so we walk back to the restaurant where are bags are located and order food. It’s an interesting combination of selections. Think coffee shop plus smoothie shop plus pizzeria plus gelato cart plus wine bar. All things I love. We order pizzas, coffee, and smoothies. We return back to the science center for another round of Citrus Grove playtime and then it’s time to make our way to the airport.
The Fort Lauderdale airport can be busy and with the whispers of a TSA pre-check shutdown, we arrived very early. TSA precheck was open and the airport was actually not that busy. It’s an airport that segregates terminals which I don’t love. It means food and beverage options are limited. We aren’t hungry so it’s not a big deal. We find seats and wait until boarding starts.
We are about five minutes before boarding so I use the opportunity to use the restroom. When I return, my husband says my bathroom break costs us $3,000. I give him a look and he continues. Delta is offering $1,000 per person not to take the flight. They have seven spots available. I look at the line, which is about 20 people deep and think, yeah, we’re too late. I ask my husband if he is okay with missing work and for our son to miss another school day. He says for $3,000, yes. I agree. I line up just in case. When I enter the line, the Delta agent makes another announcement. She announces that only volunteers should be in line. If you’re waiting for a seat assignment, get out of line. The majority of the line leaves. There are still more than seven people in front of me. Eventually I get to the front and simply put my name on the list. We aren’t given details. We may still need to board or we may be chosen. The flight is boarding at this point. We’re boarding group five. The little group of volunteers is clumped together and none of us really know exactly what’s going on. Boarding group five is called. We don’t board. All zones are called and the doors shut. I really hope this works out because we aren’t getting on the plane. Seven us are left so things seem to make sense. The confusing part is that people on the list in front of us boarded the plane. Now that it’s only us and the flight attendants, they have time to explain. They tell us that there is a process for selection and it is not necessarily first-come first-served. They choose people based on their ability to get you home soon. Some of the others were going to Detroit which already had a long standby list. They won’t take a passenger to Detroit when there are other volunteers that can get home on the next flight.
The computers aren’t cooperating and it takes a while to get everything in order. First, we’re each given our $1,000 vouchers. The vouchers can be used to buy gift cards including a generic Visa gift card. There are three of us, so we got three vouchers. Next, we’re sent an email with hotel options. (The next flight out is tomorrow.) There are two hotels we can choose from. One is the Four Points Sheraton which is close to the airport and has a shuttle. The other is The Garden Hotel & Resort which is about 25 minutes away. We all chose the Sheraton. We are the last group to get our stuff and by the time we’re ready to go, the first two ladies return. They had called the Sheraton airport shuttle, and the hotel told them that they have no rooms available. All our reservations cannot be taken. Delta then needs to re-send the hotel email so we can choose the other hotel. Neither hotel has great reviews and this second one seemed worse, but it’s only one night. Delta gave us Uber rides as well so once everyone was settled we all walked outside to catch our Ubers.
The Garden Hotel & Resort was so much better than I was expecting. It had recently been renovated and it’s a very cute hotel. It’s an old-school Florida Motel turned modern hotel. The decor is well done, the rooms are spacious, and the front desk lady was super nice. The motel layout is the one thing that stills feels like a motel. The rooms are all accessed from outside. My son is flabbergasted at this concept and I’m a little embarrassed by how he responds about it in the lobby. The front desk and other guests get a good laugh about it. To be clear, this place is way nicer than a motel. There is a pool and the beach is nearby.
There is a Winn Dixie across the street which is a grocery store. My husband goes to get some “dinner.” He comes back with popcorn and poptarts. We have the popcorn for our late dinner and save the pop tarts for breakfast. We need to leave the hotel at 3:30am so it’s a quick turnaround.
