Ahoy there, Natasha! Welcome to planDisney! It's always good to see another Missourian on deck! Thanks for sailing my way with your questions!
I see you're already planning like a pro and heading to port a day early! That's a planDrew-approved approach if I've ever heard of one! There was a time when my wife and I would fly in the day of the cruise, but now - especially with our little sailor in tow - the thought of any delays keeping us from embarkation makes the extra night at a hotel worth it!
Now, based on your arrival date, and knowing that's a day before your cruise, I'm going to assume you're on the
4-Night Bahamian Cruise from Miami aboard the Disney Dream? What a fantastic itinerary, and how awesome it'll be to be on one of the Dream's first-season sailing-from-Miami sailings! If your hotel provides service to the port, that's a great perk - and they'll likely know where you need to go if you tell them you're sailing with Disney Cruise Line - but since Port Miami is pretty massive,
it's helpful to know you'll be looking to get dropped off at Terminal C! It's always amazing how many ships can be found at Port Miami on any given date, but you can't miss the
Disney Cruise Line ships - like Powerline said, they really "stand out, above the crowd!"
When it comes to testing your little sailor,
according to the current Know before you go information, their test will need to be either a NAAT test, a lab-based PCR test, or a rapid PCR test, so they cannot be telehealth like the pre-sail screenings for those over five can be. When we needed to have our son tested before our recent cruise on the Disney Wish, we opted for a Rapid PCR test at a local Urgent Care that got us results in about 15 minutes so we could upload them to the Safe Passage website ASAP so we could click over to "clear to arrive!" While it was an extra hoop to jump through, because the timing of that first test has to be within three days of your sail date, the rapid test provides the acceptable results you'll need to satisfy the pre-embarkation testing requirements for all non-vaccine eligible castaways!
I hope that helps you chart a course for this leg of your journey, Natasha! Thank you so much for your question, and if you have any others as you get closer to your sail date, please drop another message in a bottle my way here at planDisney!
Fair winds, following seas, and negative test results!
Andrew