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*Disclaimer: Your will soon realize why there is only one photo of this day!
It was the usual early alarm, around 7am? Then up to Cabanas for breakfast before they closed at 8:30am. Since we weren’t headed to the airport, we knew we would be among the last groups to be called to disembark. Thus, it made for a casual breakfast (but also wishing we were still sleeping)! Gratefully, unlike our last few cruises, they were calling groups by their character luggage tags, which made for a far more peaceful disembarkation experience!
Remember our embarkation day in the terminal-made-for-cargo-not-necessarily-passengers? Well welcome back - & to even more chaos. First, it was Follow The Leader around one of the decks, down, and off the ship where we got to trek back nearly the entire length of the ship to the terminal building. Note it was chilly and INCREDIBLY windy with some light spray of precipitation.
It was in fact The Most Chaotic luggage claim/transfer experience ever from a Disney Cruise. We followed the signs to the luggage claim area (categorized by luggage tag) only to be told our character tags were in the next segment of the building. So more trekking past people coming back at us, but this time with large bulky luggage. Finally getting to our luggage area, we did easily find our bags, and like everyone else, turned to come from whence we came.
Next we began encountering staff (I use that term loosely), who were supposed to be directing people to their transportation, which could be 1) the car park, 2) public bus, 3) ride share, or Disney-booked transfers to either the 4) hotel or 5) airport. To say we got mixed messages is an understatement (& resulted in us questioning our decision to take the Disney transfer)! We were seated in an overly-crowded alcove with other families - all of us looking around seeking clarity.
Luckily, in about 10 minutes someone called for the “Transfer to Marriott” and we leapt to our feet. It was another small trek among a stack of busses, fighting the waterside blustering wind. Once the bus was loaded, we quickly found ourselves back at the Copenhagen Marriott.
This is where the Adventure of the Trip began. It was a challenge just to get inside the lobby with more Disney Cruise people leaving for the next cruise and seeing other groups for a Regent Seven Seas cruise and a Trafalgar land tour. Did we mention the hotel was being remodeled? There were construction walls just inside the lobby, clearly where there was/would be a sizeable bar area and luggage storage.
While Kara got our bags, I worked to try to figure out which hoard of people were checking-in vs checking-out. I finally got to the front where one clearly annoyed woman put up a “checking-out” sign, but took me anyway. With it being morning, we didn’t expect to have a room yet, so were directed upstairs to sit/wait until rooms were available. At the same time Kara had our bags tagged and dropped with a luggage valet. This was all around 10:30am.
So we wait. And wait. And wait some more. It was a cool and still overcast windy day. With that, the early alarm, and not having anything truly calling us around Copenhagen, we settled in waiting upstairs (just wanting a nap). Understanding check-in wasn’t until 4pm, I inquired at 2:30pm since we’d gotten a room early upon arrival and due to Kara’s Marriott Bonvoy status along with having booked a travel agent rate. No dice.
After roughly 6 hours we trudged downstairs only to be told they’d texted us earlier that our room was ready. Umm no! Then I turned over the luggage tags, we headed up to the room, and the catastrophe began. Having waited nearly an hour, we called as our luggage had not arrived.
Per the construction and all the tour groups, luggage was stored in at least 4 different locations on different sides of the hotel. We had an extensive wait just to speak to the lone Concierge and spent another considerable amount of time following him around to every storage space, including the large upstairs conference meeting room clearly marked for Disney Cruise Line luggage.
At this point we needed to eat! So we headed back down to the restaurant to order the same meal pre-cruise - delicious burgers, but due to the situation, neither of us was very hungry. It was at this point Kara remembered we had AirTags in our bags! So most of dinner was spent testing it out, trying to figure out where our bags were, and how to track them down! Fun Fact: AirTags don’t work with elevation. This means we didn’t know if our bags were on the bottom floor, top floor, or somewhere in between.
After dinner we started working with a different staff member. Kara went with him on one end of the hotel. I went back up to the room to check if they’d been delivered - no. At that point I then started working my way down our hall, trying to ping the bags/AirTags every couple of rooms. By the time I made it to the elevator bay, the staffer and Kara arrived - with our bags!
FYI - the only reason we got them is because they’d been delivered to a different room and the guests returned them to the lobby. To say this hotel had a lack of organizational management and sense of hospitality was an understatement - and I only partially blame the construction. This did not align with what we are accustomed to from Marriott.
By this time I think it was after 7pm. So we each raced to shower and head to bed. Why? Our alarm was set for sometime around 4am to depart for the airport….
Disclaimer: I (Gayle) am a travel agent with Authorized Disney Travel Planner agency - Off to Neverland Travel. Contact me today for a no-obligation quote!
Next up… We’re coming home! Eventually….
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