"Witty Western-Fantasy Trip Report Title"... January 5th-12th With Pictures

[MariaJ]

Just wanted to say THANK YOU! for writing this TR, I learned a lot and you are a really good writer!
Sorry your end wasn't as good as the cruise, we are staying in FL a few days after and I'll plan with your thoughts in mind.

Thanks again!

[MrRay]

This was the greatest vacation that we have ever been on. The Fantasy is an absolutely beautiful ship that is well maintained and has an incredibly friendly and courteous crew. Cruising really lends itself to this behavior also. The ship is definitely not small, but everyone is in it together. The person at the coffee place isn't going to just serve your coffee and forget you because you'll probably never see them again. You see them everyday, sometimes multiple times. This is what we enjoyed the most. The friendliness and familiarity that comes from being on the ship just a few days makes an incredibly positive and relaxing environment.

There are not many areas that I can even begin to criticize... but for arguments sake I will try and come up with a few.

Food in the middle of the day can get a little dicey. I wish Cabanas was open longer, even just a couple extra hours in the afternoon would be great, or at the very least maybe a proper salad bar. The quick service area says that have a salad bar but it is really just a condiment bar.
One area that I can give the Norwegian Gem higher marks is in desserts. The desserts that Disney has out in Cabanas and some of the coffee shops for the most part don't do it for me. That's not to say that there aren't some standouts, the chocolate lava cake we had at "Enchanted Garden" literally made us weak in the knees.

The stateroom, for 2 people, is down right spacious, we are from NYC though so most things seem spacious to us. We were incredibly comfortable there. We also loved having a verandah and used it often. The top decks were very comfortable and relaxing but it was great having a small area to ourselves. I’m a big fan of not having the small in room refrigerator full of mini-bar type items also. It reinforces the theme on the ship that they are not trying to force you into spending more money.

The on-demand entertainment was amazing. It was never a struggle to find something to watch. On our previous cruise the only thing ever on TV was the “E” channel that gets old real fast. For whatever reason the volume of the on-demand is significantly lower than the rest of the channels, we had to have it turned to max volume and that was sometimes not enough. I don’t know how the system works but it seems odd that that can’t work better.

An outlet in the bathroom… I really wish there was one. The nightlight situation was pretty rough. Next time we will bring a battery operated candle so we don’t have to turn bright fluorescents on in the middle of the night.

I love that Disney allows you to bring on your own alcohol. It seems like on most ships their business model is to not allow you to bring what you want and force you to pay their drink prices. Disney allows it but makes bars that are so much fun to be at and that made such great drinks that we would rather go there then drink in our room. We didn't end up finishing everything that we brought.

The art around the ship is amazing, we would find new stuff everyday. A lot of it is very classic and if you're a Disney fan it's easy to appreciate. We loved wandering the halls taking it all in. The enchanted art increased the replay value considerably. We loved seeing how pictures would change day-to-day and even at the time of day. When we returned home more than once we caught ourselves looking at one of the pictures on our walls waiting for it to change.

With a great vacation comes a great vacation hangover though. It definitely took a little longer than usual to get back into the swing of things. It definitely affected our opinions of staying at WDW too.


So now our plan is to get back and experience some more. We our perfectly tailored to cruising. We like taking things slow and relaxing. There were so many things that we meant to do on the ship, mini golf and midship detective agency to name a couple, that we just kept saying “oh maybe later”. We were too busy heading up to deck 13 to lie in the sun or heading to our verandah to relax and stare at the ocean. But most importantly we realized probably within the first hour that we could always do it next time…we were sure we wanted to come back.

While onboard we booked what we thought was a dummy cruise for the Eastern Itinerary the following year, but we are now definitely leaning towards doing it. It costs so much less to cruise in the beginning of January if you can swing the time off.

So hopefully in a little under a year we’ll have another cruise report to post, maybe by then I’ll be able to bring myself to take my Key to the World card out of my wallet.


Until next time….Thanks for reading.


Bob and Jenna

[WanderlustNZ]

Originally Posted by MrRay

…Thanks for reading.

Thanks for writing :-)

[MomToPrincePhillip]

Thanks for the great trip report, I'm looking forward to next years

[KristineMN]

Best trip report ever! Thanks for sharing your vacation! I learned a lot from your report that helped me plan our 2/2/13 Fantasy cruise! It is an absolutely beautiful ship!

[Thumpersmom]

Thanks so much for sharing your trip! Wonderful read and fabulous pictures. Can't wait to read about your next trip!

[DLBDS]

I guess this is the end.

Hope you do another one next time.

[disneymagic316]

Great trip report! I love the pictures.

[Kristina - Mom]

Great trip report!!!! Loved reading it...we are heading on the Fantasy in August and now can't wait....

Kristina

[Karen87]

Thanks so much for your trip report. It's making me even more anxious for my first Disney cruise with my husband in April. I hope we have as much fun as you and your wife did.

We're owners at AKL, and we've never had any of the problems you reported. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience. I haven't been since 2010, and we're going back in May of 2014. I hope they clean up their act before then!

[Luv2Diz]

Great TR! I'm hoping to book our next cruise on the Fantasy, so this was fun to read. Thanks for sharing!

[PizzieDuster]

Originally Posted by DLBDS

I guess this is the end.

Hope you do another one next time.

I'm sorry to see this end. I hope to read another one too

[adventuresfor4]

Bob & Jenna,
I really enjoyed reading your trip report, I too was on the same cruise as you, although we were a party of eight, so it was nice to hear from a "couples" point of view. Also, it was refreshing to hear your honesty in your report. There are times when not everything is "perfect" and it's good to share those tips too so that future cruisers can be prepared. The pictures you shared with us were amazing and really captured the feeling of the cruise. Thank you again for sharing your experience with us!