Boundless Horizons

Day 1 – Embarkation at Southampton

Drink of the day (alcoholic): Paradise Punch (Veev Acai Berry Liqueur, Malibu Coconut Rum, Pineapple Juice, Grenadine)
Drink of the day (non-alcoholic): Espresso Chiller (Cappuccino, Vanilla Ice Cream)
Evening entertainment: Disney’s Believe

After a good night’s sleep at Bloc Gatwick, we awoke early to travel to Southampton. We had a Port Arrival Time of 11:15am (Boarding Group 6), so we booked a morning train and planned to walk from the station to the port.

Gatwick Airport station is right beside the South terminal, so just a short stroll from our hotel. Annoyingly, the direct train from Gatwick to Southampton doesn’t exist any more, so we had to change at Clapham Junction – there was an alternative route changing at Barnham which would have taken slightly longer. There are fairly frequent trains from Gatwick to Clapham so we opted to go for a slightly earlier train since we were ready, and took advantage of the longer wait at Clapham to get coffee.

The train from Clapham Junction to Southampton Central left at 09:12 and arrived on time at 10:22, giving us plenty of time to get to the port. For this cruise, Disney was using the new Horizon terminal, which is about a 15 minute walk from the station. Head out of the train station, and go right up to the junction – look to the left and you should see Dock Gate 10, with those distinctive red funnels if she’s docked at Horizon.

Dock Gate 10 is the entrance to the port, and it’s about halfway between the station and Horizon terminal. The walk through the port area to the terminal was a bit of a slog! We’d taken a very slow stroll as we knew we had tons of time and arrived around 10:50am. We handed our cabin cases over to the porters and headed over to the entrance.

Outside the terminal, lines were arranged by Port Arrival Time, with signs showing where to wait. Lines had begun for arrival times up to 11:30am, so we joined the line for the 11:15 arrival time.

The check-in process was really efficient, and when they processed the people for the earlier arrival times they let our line through early. By 11:10am, we were checked in and through security! We grabbed a seat in the waiting area and watched DCL commercials playing on a loop. In theory we could access ship wifi from here, but at check-in they’d said the signal might not be great and I couldn’t get it to connect on my phone.

Boarding began with the family of the day at 11:30am, then concierge guests. They moved quickly through the groups, so it wasn’t long until it was our turn! We were on board by 11:50am, and headed straight to deck 2 to meet the dining team outside Enchanted Garden. As usual, we’d requested a private table in the app, but we knew this was a very busy sailing. The dining team confirmed that the ship was at full capacity, so we’d been seated with another couple – though they noted our request and said to check the app after 5:30pm to see if our table number had changed.

For embarkation lunch, we love going to the main dining room where we can sit down and take a look through the app. Like last year, this was in Animator’s Palate, which is our favourite! There was a small line to enter the restaurant, as it opened at 12:00pm and we were arriving right at opening. The line moved quickly and there was no line when we were leaving. We both ended up ordering the same as usual – a sliced roasted beef sirloin followed by the Welcome Aboard sundae for Rhys; a chicken caesar salad followed by a Mickey bar for me.

At check-in they’d said rooms would be available by 1:30pm, and by the time we were done with lunch it was almost 1pm. We did a bit of window shopping – the shops wouldn’t open until 6pm, but we were able to look in and plan some purchases. I’ve been trying to get a Captain Duffy plush since our first cruise and I could see him through the window!

We walked around deck 4 enjoying the views until it was time to head to our stateroom. On our last cruise we’d booked a Verandah Guarantee (VGT) rate and were allocated 5536, a category 4E room on deck 5 with an extended verandah. We’d never considered these rooms before but loved it so much that this time we booked 5036 to see the same room on the port side! Deck 5 is where the lifeboats are stored, so while the rooms are the same size as regular staterooms, the verandah extends out to align with the lifeboats.

Outside our stateroom were our Key to the World cards, and I had a little gift certificate from the spa because we were sailing in my birthday month! It gave me $50 off any 50-minute or more face or body treatment on port days. A nice gesture, but I didn’t plan to visit the spa. We’re sailing again next August so I’ll bear it in mind! Inside the stateroom was our Castaway Club gift, which was the same tote bag that we received last year. It’s really cute and I managed to fit all of my shopping in it! We also had our Silver lanyards.

As we were walking to our stateroom, we spotted our cases in the pile of luggage waiting to be delivered so we weren’t too surprised to find they’d been delivered by 2pm, but that was impressively quick. We had a couple of hours until the muster drill, so I had a shower and we ordered room service. Room service took about 40 minutes to arrive, we got some chicken noodle soup and chicken tenders since dinner wasn’t until 8:30pm, and of course some Mickey bars! We also ordered some wine glasses so we could have a glass of the wine we’d bought at the airport – which was actually the whole point of ordering room service in the first place.

The muster drill was at 4pm, and our muster station was in the Walt Disney Theatre. We arrived just before 4pm, and took a seat. Despite the ship being at capacity, the drill seemed to run a little more smoothly – on our last sailing it felt like we were waiting for a few people who hadn’t turned up.

After the muster drill, it was time for the Sailing Away party! Which also meant hiking from deck 4 to deck 12. Last year with the ship at 75% capacity, we’d found a good spot on deck 12 looking down on the action. This year that full capacity meant even deck 12 was busy, with all of the good spots taken. We went down to deck 11 to grab a cocktail of the day for me and a beer for Rhys, but there was no way we’d see any of the action other than on the FunnelVision screen! As we’ve seen the show before, we were happy to stand back from the crowds.

We headed up to Currents for a drink to enjoy the views up on deck 13 as we set sail. The weather was perfect, and it was so peaceful up there. We’d opted for the second dining time (8:30pm), which would usually mean seeing the first performance of the stage shows at 6:15pm. However, the views as we sailed out of Southampton and down The Solent were so beautiful that we decided to skip the show. We’ve seen all of the shows on the Dream before and knew we could watch it later on the TV in our stateroom later. This was the perfect time to take a stroll around the top deck!

Despite spending seven nights on the Dream last year, we didn’t get around to playing Goofy’s mini-golf, so when we saw it was available we had to give it a go! It’s a little 9-hole course on Deck 13 Aft, with footprints for Goofy and Max showing where to stand. Golf clubs and balls are available beside the first hole, and the last hole collects the ball when you’re done. It’s super cute, and we both managed to get holes in one!

The shops opened at 6pm, and we’d heard queues started early. We finished our game of mini-golf around 6:45pm and figured with most people either watching the show or eating dinner, this was a good time to check out the shops after the initial rush had passed. The shops were quiet and the shelves were well stocked! I managed to get pretty much everything on my list, including last year’s 25th anniversary mug. Our Mediterranean cruise was during the Silver Anniversary at Sea, but the container of stock didn’t arrive in Barcelona in time so none of the 25th anniversary merch was available. I laughed when I saw that this year we had a whole range of items from the 25th anniversary collection!

After shopping, we went back to the stateroom to drop everything off and get ready for dinner. Second seating for dinner was at 8:30pm and tonight we were in Animator’s Palate. We had the show where Crush from Finding Nemo appears and interacts with guests, similar to Turtle Talk with Crush in Epcot. It’s a fun show and the technology is really cool. Plus DCL had added DisneyBand functionality to the Dream since our last sailing and we’d bought DisneyBands in the shop so we had the extra interaction with those! Strangely Crush had a hard time getting the attention of a few tables, who either didn’t realise he was talking to them or just wanted to eat and leave.

Animator’s Palate is my favourite main dining room on the Dream. The show with Crush is fun, and the decor is gorgeous, but the real reason it’s my favourite are the black truffle pasta purseittes! I ordered a double portion as a main course while Rhys had the lemon-thyme marinated chicken breast. For dessert I had the crunchy walnut cake and Rhys had the cookies’n’cream sundae and the chocolate fudge cheesecake. It was a great first dinner, though it was a shame to be done with our favourite dining room so early in the cruise!

By the time we were done with dinner, we decided to go to the drinks stations on Deck 11 for a peppermint tea to take back to our stateroom. It seems they didn’t prepare for the amount of tea people from the UK would drink! One station was out of insulated cups for hot drinks, the other was out of tea bags, so we had to go between them to get what we needed. And there was a queue!

We took our teas back to the stateroom, to find tonight’s towel animal was a dog! They’re such a fun thing to come back to in the evening. We settled on the sofa to watch Disney’s Believe on the stateroom TV, and then it was time for bed. Cruise Director David had reminded us to put our clocks forward one hour, as we were heading into Central European Summer Time. It was unusual to have to do that manually, I’m so used to my phone automatically updating but without a network signal my phone had no way of knowing we’d changed!