The Pay It Forward TR-Concierge on Disney Fantasy Eastern Jan. 26, 2013–Complete!

[AlexandNessa]

Love Julia and Alice (have not met Kemisha)! They really are so great and so sweet, aren't they?!

 

[Guineveree]

Hi Cassie! By any chance, do you remember your room # at the GF? I would love to try the dormer room with a view to the fireworks...but I am with you, flowery wallpaper gives me headaches! Thankfully we don't spend too much time in the room!

As for the stateroom, I would love to hear more about the balcony and whether the proximity of each grand suite hot tubs was an issue. We managed to snag room 12000 for a Western in 2014, and wonder if we will be "partying by proxy"

So happy you, hubby and DD had a great time!!

 

[SigalTchelet]

Hi-have been following your pre trip report and will definitely sub to this one. I am sailing November 30 on the Fantasy. We go to St. Martin instead of San Juan. Just loving the pics of Jayden as Cinderella (my FAVE princess). Just.SO.adorable! Did you join a cruise meet group? If so, did you do FE? I am curious, because that is what I am doing and want to make sure what I get the kids will be enjoyed. Can't wait to read the rest. Btw-did you post the video of the reveal and I missed it?

Siggy aka Jill

 

[momof2disprincesses]

So excited to hear more about your trip! Your daughter is very adorable!!!

We are sailing on the Fantasy in June 2014, so I'm excited to follow along with your trip and get excited about ours. On our trip, we will be celebrating mine and DH's 25th anniversary and our 2 DD's graduations (one from college, one from high school).

I wish we could book concierge, but I will have to live that part vicariously through you.

 

[cblack]

Quick and painless check-in...gotta love it! Your daughter is just adorable!

Lump me into the category of not being a GF fan. Somehow Stanley Kubrick and "The Shining" come to mind whenever we go over there.

I can totally see that! Thanks, by the way, we think she is cute, too!

Subbing

Were booked on the Fantasy in January 2014 so I cant wait to hear all about your experience! That photo of your daughters expression when she saw Cinderella is priceless!

Thanks for joining in!

Yay another good TR to read! I just read your Pre Trip Report and the start of you TR, your family seems lovely and I can't wait to read more. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

Thanks for reading along! I'm not done, yet, so wait for any credit

Not only is this our first time in concierge, this is our first time on DCL! My little girl will be about the same age as Jayden, so looking forward to reading your experiences.

So awesome! You will love it, but I can tell you, it is hard to even consider going non-concierge afterwards!

mmmm...more popcorn! Thanks for joining in!

Love Julia and Alice (have not met Kemisha)! They really are so great and so sweet, aren't they?!

They are all wonderful! You won't be disappointed with Kemisha, either.

Hi Cassie! By any chance, do you remember your room # at the GF? I would love to try the dormer room with a view to the fireworks...but I am with you, flowery wallpaper gives me headaches! Thankfully we don't spend too much time in the room!

As for the stateroom, I would love to hear more about the balcony and whether the proximity of each grand suite hot tubs was an issue. We managed to snag room 12000 for a Western in 2014, and wonder if we will be "partying by proxy"

So happy you, hubby and DD had a great time!!

We had room 9442 at GF. The balcony is unbelievable. I'm not good at estimating measurements, but it was at least 20 feet deep. We had no issues with the hot tubs next door. Sailing out of San Juan, we were all up on our furniture taking pictures, and everyone was very friendly. I could hear the bubbles from their hot tubs running, but it was peaceful to me.

Hi-have been following your pre trip report and will definitely sub to this one. I am sailing November 30 on the Fantasy. We go to St. Martin instead of San Juan. Just loving the pics of Jayden as Cinderella (my FAVE princess). Just.SO.adorable! Did you join a cruise meet group? If so, did you do FE? I am curious, because that is what I am doing and want to make sure what I get the kids will be enjoyed. Can't wait to read the rest. Btw-did you post the video of the reveal and I missed it?

Siggy aka Jill

Thanks for reading along! St. Maarten is beautiful, too - we stopped there on our Eastern Caribbean cruise 2 years ago. Cinderella is Jayden's favorite, too (for now). We did join the cruise meet group on here; we also had a portion of that group that decided to join facebook together. It was really nice because I felt like I got to know people a bit better before we cruised. We did not do the FE this time. Just didn't want additional stress/bags this time, but we would probably do it again in the future.

I didn't post the video. I need to edit out some of it because there was a message for the grandparents at the end. I need to figure out how to do that though.

So excited to hear more about your trip! Your daughter is very adorable!!!

We are sailing on the Fantasy in June 2014, so I'm excited to follow along with your trip and get excited about ours. On our trip, we will be celebrating mine and DH's 25th anniversary and our 2 DD's graduations (one from college, one from high school).

I wish we could book concierge, but I will have to live that part vicariously through you.

Thanks! You will love the Fantasy and so much to celebrate! Make sure you tell them all of this, because Disney likes to celebrate, too!

 

[cblack]

After leaving the concierge lounge, we decided to go to Cabana's for lunch. Oye! OK, folks...pay attention, here, this is important...Public Service Announcement:
Cabana's does NOT have one single line to go through 10 different stations. There are supposed to be 10 different lines. There will be workers there telling you this...BELIEVE THEM! Getting lunch was a nightmare, because if you tried to do the lines like they told you to, people made snarky comments about how you need to get in the beginning of the line to get your food. It was painful to say the least. We only went back to Cabana's one other time and that was for breakfast. Next time, I will likely go to the rotational dining restaurant for lunch the first day.

After lunch, it was about 12:30 and we knew that our rooms would be ready. We headed back to the forward part of the boat so we could check it out!!! We met our room host, Vincente. He was amazing all week long; I can't say enough positive things about him. Our room was amazing. Here are some photos:

Spare bathroom sink, toilet, and shower (to the right when you walk in the main door):

As you walk down the hallway, past the bathroom, there are 2 closets on your right and one on your left. Then, to the left of the hallway is the master bedroom:

To the left of the bedroom is the master bath. WOW! That tub is HUGE!

Then, straight from the hallway is the living area:

To the left of the living area is the dining area:

And outside those glass doors is the beautiful deck. This feature alone makes this the best 1 bedroom stuite in my opinion.

Also, just to the right of the hallway is the pull down bed (it is the rectangle wooden thing on the wall, and pulls down with very hard metal railings that hurt if you run into them -- more on that later ):

What on earth of on the TV in this shot

After checking out the room and realizing that Jayden did indeed want to go swimming, we kind of said, "hmmmm." OK, Disboards has taught me better than this - you either wear your swimsuit or keep it in your carryon. I failed my teachers. We told Jayden we could go check out the ship, and SURELY, our bags would be back in enough time to swim before the sailaway party. Right?

While on our way to see the kid's clubs, we ran into Minnie!

There have been many photos of the kids clubs, so I'm not going to post those. If you have specific questions, please let me know! We were able to get Jayden's Mickey Band quickly and we played for a bit. Here's another Public Service Announcement (bonus, right?):
The slinky dog tunnel is not large enough for an adult. I know this from experience. Here you can see that I made it in:

But, I promise, the pictures Jeremy took of me getting out were UGLY! Oh well, maybe the folks watching the security cameras got a laugh that day!

At this point, it was after 2 and Jayden still wanted to swim, so we headed back to the room. Still no bags. So, we introduced Jayden to the on-demand TV and watched Sleeping Beauty. Perfect, but no swimming! We also had a visitor in the deck above us (Hi Sarbah )

I did forget to mention all of the goodies we had when we got to our room. Jayden had a basket from Cinderella (aka Shirley) which included a coloring book, crayons, stickers, sand toys, hershey kisses, and chips ahoy chocolate chip cookies. Jeremy and I also got a basket from Cinderella (she is so nice) with Dr. Pepper, popcorn, and candy. We received a bookbag from our travel agent with Disney playing cards and card holders, and we received the bookbag from Disney for being silver castaway members. It felt like Christmas on top of Christmas!

Next up: Sailaway Party, the "Mustard" drill, Mad-Dash Unpacking, and Dinner at Animator's Pallette

 

[iloverags2]

Cabanas is so hit or miss with people knowing what to do (or not what to do). We were lucky on our Oct 2012 Dream sailing. Pretty much everyone had the idea down pat of just moving right to the station you wanted something from. Even my first-time-she-ever-cruised friend figured it all out without me uttering a word on how it works. Sorry you had to deal with that!

Looking forward to hearing more!

 

[AlexandNessa]

Thanks for the room pics! I have heard that 12000 has its own hallway before you get to the room, true or no? Just trying to figure out if we will have two doors to open to get to the room. Thanks!

 

[Luv2Diz]

I'm enjoying your TR...Jayden is such a cutie!

Love the photos. I am hoping to book a cruise on the Fantasy soon. We've only cruised the classics so far, so I'm excited to see your Fantasy photos!

 

[lizzyb]

on board!

 

[2BusyPlanning]

Can't wait to hear more! Sailing on the Fantasy in September!

 

[Guineveree]

Thank you for the info Cassie re: GF + balcony!

I saw the pic you've posted, and I got so excited! I heard that it's really hard to score stateroom #12000 b/c they usually keep that room in case one of the people booking the suites would want this connecting 1-bedroom.

My TA managed to book it before the suites were sold out! She is simply the best!! I can't say her name here (don't want to run into trouble with the Mods!) but if you want to know her name, shoot me a PM. I can't say enough good things about her!

Also, I too am interested into finding out more about that entrance hallway!

 

[cblack]

Cabanas is so hit or miss with people knowing what to do (or not what to do). We were lucky on our Oct 2012 Dream sailing. Pretty much everyone had the idea down pat of just moving right to the station you wanted something from. Even my first-time-she-ever-cruised friend figured it all out without me uttering a word on how it works. Sorry you had to deal with that!

Looking forward to hearing more!

It really seems like half of the people got it. I think if more than half do, it should work itself out! Thanks again for reading along!

Thanks for the room pics! I have heard that 12000 has its own hallway before you get to the room, true or no? Just trying to figure out if we will have two doors to open to get to the room. Thanks!

Yes, 12000 has its own hallway. As you go all the way forward in the ship, the door on the left is to the Walt Suite, the door in the middle is to room 12000, and the door on the right is to the Roy Suite. After you go in the middle door, you are in a small hallway. There is a door on each end that you can use to go into the royal suites, and the door straight ahead goes to room 12000. The only reason I could see anyone using the hallway from the royal suites is if they had connecting rooms with 12000. One thing to remember is that if someone comes to the door, they will come to the outside one and knock, so you need your KTTW card to get back in the inner door after it closes.

I'm enjoying your TR...Jayden is such a cutie!

Love the photos. I am hoping to book a cruise on the Fantasy soon. We've only cruised the classics so far, so I'm excited to see your Fantasy photos!

Thanks for reading along!

on board!

Welcome!

Can't wait to hear more! Sailing on the Fantasy in September!

You will love it!

Thank you for the info Cassie re: GF + balcony!

I saw the pic you've posted, and I got so excited! I heard that it's really hard to score stateroom #12000 b/c they usually keep that room in case one of the people booking the suites would want this connecting 1-bedroom.

My TA managed to book it before the suites were sold out! She is simply the best!! I can't say her name here (don't want to run into trouble with the Mods!) but if you want to know her name, shoot me a PM. I can't say enough good things about her!

Also, I too am interested into finding out more about that entrance hallway!

The concierge ladies told me they are supposed to hold that room until after the royal suites are sold and they decline. I love my TA and she was able to get this room, too, so I am sticking with her!

See above about the hallway. Thanks for reading along!

 

[Bouldering]

Really enjoy reading your report. And what a beautiful day for Sail Away! I manged to watch it on the Port Canaveral Web Cam.

 

[KarenMP59]

We try to watch the sail away of the Fantasy every Saturday!

 

[Guineveree]

Cassie, I'm so glad you too have a TA that does a great job...isn't it the best!!!

One question for you: did you get a lot of "onlookers" from the deck above? Was it something that bothered you or was it something that could be easily "tuned out?"

Thank you again for the wonderful pictures!!

 

[Conorama]

After leaving the concierge lounge, we decided to go to Cabana's for lunch. Oye! OK, folks...pay attention, here, this is important...Public Service Announcement:
Cabana's does NOT have one single line to go through 10 different stations. There are supposed to be 10 different lines. There will be workers there telling you this...BELIEVE THEM! Getting lunch was a nightmare, because if you tried to do the lines like they told you to, people made snarky comments about how you need to get in the beginning of the line to get your food. It was painful to say the least. We only went back to Cabana's one other time and that was for breakfast. Next time, I will likely go to the rotational dining restaurant for lunch the first day.

It got better after that first day. We didn't do Cabana's a lot, but when we did, we always found it better than on day 1. Plus, let me tell you, when up at the crack of dawn for breakfast (my world), there are no line ups at all!

 

[cblack]

Really enjoy reading your report. And what a beautiful day for Sail Away! I manged to watch it on the Port Canaveral Web Cam.

Thanks! It was a beautiful day - really perfect weather for dancing on the deck!

We try to watch the sail away of the Fantasy every Saturday!

I think I would have way too much envy in my life if I did that!

Cassie, I'm so glad you too have a TA that does a great job...isn't it the best!!!

One question for you: did you get a lot of "onlookers" from the deck above? Was it something that bothered you or was it something that could be easily "tuned out?"

Thank you again for the wonderful pictures!!

We had onlookers when we were sailing away and then in each of the ports. It was....awkward. Sometimes people made not-so-nice comments, but we just got to where we pretended that there was no one up there.

It got better after that first day. We didn't do Cabana's a lot, but when we did, we always found it better than on day 1. Plus, let me tell you, when up at the crack of dawn for breakfast (my world), there are no line ups at all!

Good to know that it gets better. We went for breakfast on CC day, and it was OK, still not great, though. We did not see the crack of dawn, which is my preference!

 

[cblack]

Before we knew it, it was time for the "Mustard" drill. We had a friend that sailed a couple weeks before we did and her phone autocorrected muster drill to mustard drill, so that is what we referred to this as. We got a couple funny looks, but we were just being silly to lesson the fear factor for Jayden. Jayden doesn't like loud noises, so we brought her earphones (you will see them in future photos). These worked great so that she wasn't scared silly during the drill.

After the mustard drill was the Sailaway party!!! Jeremy and Jayden went ahead to get a spot while I tried to get as much unpacked as possible in 10 minutes. I grabbed a half strawberry daquiri/half pina colada on the way and then couldn't find them. Seriously, one sip of a drink should not do this to a person. The plan was to stay on deck 13 to watch because Jayden has a tendency to freak out when she is less than 15 feet from a character. For some reason, her and Jeremy decided that they wanted to be right in front of the stage on deck 12. This was a problem since I was supposed to meet a DISer on deck 13. I eventually caught up with her, but it would have been nice to chat for a few minutes. Sailaway was fun - you will see that Jayden is wearing her trusty earphones, but she did OK with the proximity of her body to the characters.

And we were off...

This is the first time that I realized how well people could see onto the balcony from above. We were having a good-ole time calling our parents to say goodbye, when all of a sudden, I heard someone talking. Looked up at deck 13, and there were at least 40 people up there. I smiled waved "hi" and went about my business. We did encounter a few rude people throughout the week, but it definitely wouldn't stop me from getting this room again.

There really is not much time between the sailaway party and dinner if you have early seating (which we did). We ended up with our requested dining rotation of AERAERA, and it worked out perfectly. AERAERA means that we ate at Animator's Palette, Enchanted Garden, Royal Court, and repeat. Other rotations are ERAERAE and RAERAER. Also important to know, whichever restaurant you are in the final night, you will be at for breakfast on the final morning before debarking. We were at table 74, which was really nice. We weren't right up against a screen at AP, but we had great tables at EG and RP.

We chose Animator's Palette to be at most because I love the theming of this restaurant. It is just fun, which is more our style. Here are a few pics from our dinner:

(I apologize if this is your booty - I was really trying to get a picture of the chair)

I don't remember what we ate each night, but I remember this night was good. There was only one night that I didn't really like much of what I ordered and there was one night that was my favorite. I will get to those later.

Now we had an important moment...our first princess sighting. Jayden had her first princess picture on the cruise taken with Aurora. This is important, as we saw Aurora a lot. In fact, I'm fairly certain that I have more pictures of Aurora on my camera than I have of myself. We had a little Aurora magic later in the cruise...very exciting stuff!

And - a little Snow White:

OK, here is a tip for parents who have kids that are very interested in seeing the characters. The Personal Navigator includes a section that lists all characters/times/locations. If the navigator says that Aurora will be out at 7:15, for example, go to that location at 7:00. They will just be forming a line, you will be near the beginning, and you will actually end up waiting less than if you get there at 7:15 and wait in line. This holds true for the characters that are out more than once or twice. For Tinkerbell, Phineas and Ferb, Buzz Lightyear, and Woody and Jessie, get there 30 minutes early. For the princess gathering (which happens 2 times on the 7 night Eastern), get there 1 hour early. I realize this seems like a lot of waiting, but we would frequently split up to do this so Jayden didn't really have to wait much. Especially for the princess gathering. People who got in line right when the princesses came out ended up waiting 2 1/2 hours, and we only waited 1. The other great thing about doing this is that you can catch more characters, because they do stack them up back-to-back.

Tonight, the show was the "intro" show. It includes several characters and a family that is just getting on the ship to introduce some of the things you can do. Jayden's vision is not great and she LOVES musicals, so we did want to ensure we got close enough so she could see. Jeremy would typically go line up for the show around 7:55, doors would open at 8:00, and the show started at 8:30. We did this every night there was a show and it worked perfectly for us.

After the show, Jayden wanted to swim. This was a trend throughout the cruise, but it was nice because the pools were empty. We went swimming until about 11 and then came back to the room. Our room host would setup Jayden's sleep buddies each night when he pulled down her bed...it was so sweet!

And we also had a towel animal each night:

After swimming, Jayden took a bath, Jeremy took a shower, and then they decided to watch cartoons while I took a shower. I came out to this:

That, folks, is a sign of a good first day of vacation!

Up next: Our first sea day!

 

[cblack]

I woke up at 8am without an alarm and decided to enjoy the verandah while I wrote down some notes about Friday and Saturday. I knew that if I didn't write some notes to jog my memory, this trip report wouldn't happen.

Let me just say that I could wake up to this every morning:

We had a beautiful sea day with lots of plans! We were out of the room by 9 and decided to have breakfast at Cabana's. It was not any better this time, either.

Jayden wanted to go swimming, so we quickly went back to the room and got our suits on. The pool was "kid soup" in my words. Here is a photo to illustrate:

Jayden still had fun, though:

The CMs were doing a really nice job telling folks with swim diapers on to get out. It wasn't funny, but this happened several times: Mom/Dad gets in Mickey pool with child in swim diaper. CM comes by and says "No swim diapers." Mom/Dad leave with child. Mom/Dad come back with child with no swim diaper. Not good! I realize that everyone wants to swim, but we didn't go in the pools on our first cruise because Jayden wasn't potty trained. Rules are there for a good reason. I heard of the pool being emptied at least 4 times during the cruise. Oye and yuck!

We also checked out Nemo's Reef. If your child is not potty trained, this is the splash area where you should play. Compared to the Magic, this is AMAZING! It was a bit chilly because there was no sun there, but still very fun.

We went back to the room around 11:30 to get ready for the first princess gathering. Jeremy (being the super-Dad that he is) went down to get in line at 12 (an hour before it started). He was 5th or 6th in line. I finally was able to get Jayden out of that huge tub and dressed so we could go see all of the princesses . Jayden was SO excited to see Cinderella since she had been on the boat almost a full 24 hours without seeing her.

About 5 minutes before the princesses came out, Aladdin came through the line to get pictures with everyone waiting. During this gathering, we also saw Snow White, Ariel, Cinderella, Belle, and Aurora.

This is the first point where Aurora really did shine. She remembered Jayden's name from Saturday night. Jayden did not have her autograph book with her for Aurora (because she already signed it) and did not have her KTTW. So, unless she heard another princess say it, she remembered it. Pretty awesome for Jayden and her Mom who may have shed a tear

We wandered around the ship and then went up to deck 4 to see Princess Minnie:

About the time we finished up with Minnie, the princess gathering was coming to a close. Jayden wanted to go downstairs and "stalk" the princesses as they left the gathering. They all walked by and waved/blew kisses, except Aurora. Aurora saw her standing there, came right over, and said, "Jayden, will you walk with me to my room?":

They chatted as they walked and then for another few minutes before Aurora went through the "princess" door. Aurora was amazing...she is not Jayden's favorite princess, but they just "clicked." Makes a momma happy!

Next up: The first kid's club experience and Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique