Disney Fantasy Eastern Feb 8th - 15th - Cupids in the Caribbean cruise! Update 5/16

[Cheerio]

DISNEY FANTASY FEBRUARY 8TH – 15TH 2014 EASTERN CRUISE

Who we are:
Mom – Leanne (2nd time cruiser along with the kiddos, you can see the link to our first Trip Report in my siggy)
Dad – Gary (1st time cruiser)
Kiddos – Kevin (14), Ryan (12), Dylan (8.5) and Lauren (7) (all excited to have a week off school)
We were cruising with good friends of ours, Bobbi Jo and Allen, their two kids, her Mom, 95 year young grandma and sister + family. In all, we had a table top for 16

Pre-Trip
Our last cruise was on the Magic, we went on a Western in January 2012 – we loved it so much, we were hooked. We booked this cruise on opening day back in December 2012. It was a long time to wait, but having 11 months to pay it off really helped us to have more spending money. We had an amazing Facebook group of cruisers a few of which we got together with during the cruise for drinks and meals. We also had booked a private mixology class which was super fun and a meet n greet, this made our cruise so much better because we ran into ‘friends’ often Our plan was to fly out of Toronto on the Friday, stay near the port pre-cruise - since we didn’t want to chance getting stuck – we had enough of a buffer to drive if we needed to.

Trip Report

Day 1 - Travel
Day 2 - Embarkation Day
Day 3 - Swimming and Sea Day
Day 4 - Princesses and Drinks
Day 5 - St. Maarten and Pirate Party
Day 6 - St Thomas and swimming with turtles
Day 7 - Day at Sea
Day 8 - Castaway Cay
Day 9 - Magic Kingdom and Home

 

[Cheerio]

Friday February 7th 2014
Our wake up time was 3am, we were on the road by 3:20am for the Toronto Airport. Check-in was easy since we pre-paid for our baggage – US customs and security didn’t take long at all so we had a bit of a wait at the gate for our 6:30am flight.

We took off on time, and arrived in Orlando to rain and grey skies Wandered around the airport for a bit looking for Frozen toys for DD before heading to Hertz to grab our rental car.

Hertz was smooth and after a few minutes we were on our way out of the parking garage. We arrived in Cocoa Beach after a 45min drive and went to the ABC store for liquor (priorities, right, we were heading on a 7 day cruise with kids!) we tried to check-in to our hotel Days Inn Cocoa Beach, but the room wasn’t ready so we headed off for lunch. The kids were dying for Olive Garden since we don’t have them in Canada anymore – we indulged and left stuffed.

After lunch, we went to Walmart to pick up the remainder of the FE gift ingredients – we made sundae kits, with cups, spoons, hot fudge or caramel, sprinkles and smarties. We were joined my many, many retire-ees that gave me a little bit of shopping cart rage. Back to the hotel we went and our room was ready. We had a 1 bedroom suite which wasn’t fancy, the bedroom had 2 queen beds, balcony and a bathroom, the living room portion had a full kitchen, pull out queen sized couch and balcony. It was spacious considering what our digs would be for the next week. This was our view

We hung out for a bit and then I took the kids for a swim. The pool was NOT heated and since it was cool and overcast the kids didn’t spend much time swimming.

We walked down to the pier and wandered around a bit, lots of people surfing and the bars on the pier were pretty busy, we watched the Magic sail out, excited that we would be next.

Dinner was domino’s pizza which was great because we could walk there and our room had plates to eat on. Everyone was pretty tired by this point so everyone got into bed while I got bags ready for the next morning and put together FE gifts.

Up Next… this place is hopping at 7am - it's cruise day!!!

 

[wiigirl]

I'm in!

 

[Cheerio]

Saturday February 8th


I forgot to mention there were two specific things I set out to do on this cruise, neither of which happened.
1. Eat breakfast or lunch in one of the restaurants
2. Order room service - there’s always next time right??

We woke up about 7am on Saturday morning, I knew no one would sleep in so I didn’t set an alarm. Went out on the balcony to sit for a bit and watched the sun try to come out and play. I was amazed how many people were out on the beach walking and surfing this early, it was hopping. The kiddos were “starving” so we went over to the lobby of the hotel into the breakfast room. It was a standard free breakfast, toast, bagels, eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, juice, coffee etc. The seating area wasn’t too large but you’re not there having a leisurely breakfast so it worked. We went back to the room to pack up the van.

We checked out, gassed up the van and DH dropped us off about 10:30am in front of the terminal, he headed back to Hertz to drop off the rental. Took him about 15mins to return because he had to wait for the bridge but he was on the first shuttle back.

Security was quick and only a few minutes later we were on the escalator up into the terminal. There was no line for castaway members, and we got boarding #2!! While we were getting our cards printed, they announced family of the day followed by boarding group #1. By the time we got done and our lanyards on, they had moved onto group #2 – here we go! DH was amazed how little time we spent in the actual terminal. We didn’t do the photo since we weren’t planning to buy the photo package, so it didn’t take long before our family was announced and we were in the elevators upstairs heading to Cabana’s. We grabbed a table outside by the pool so that we could eat and watch the kids swim.

It wasn’t long after they had ice cream, then lunch (yes, in that order) that the pools and aquaduck opened, so up the stairs they went. We spent the next 1.5 hours watching the kids, eating and people watching.

At 1:30 we went down to deck 8 to check out our room, our luggage was already waiting for us. Our rooms were inside connecting 10A cabins, spacious, lots of storage and we met Made, who was going to take care of us this week.
I was surprised by a wonderful cruise mate, Janelle, with a bouquet of flowers as a ‘thank you’ for organizing the FE, meet n greet and mixology – it was all my pleasure

We unpacked, before heading out to explore the ship a bit. Our facebook group meet n greet was at 2:30pm I requested a private area for this and Disney was able to make it happen, one of the members was nice enough to resize an image that we slid into our lanyard pockets to identify ourselves during the week and it certainly came in handy.

We did our group photo and then everyone went off to get ready for the muster drill. Our drill was in the Tube which was pretty loud from people talking, so we couldn’t hear much at all.

After the drill, we headed down to the kids clubs to check them out and get the kids their bands for the week -

we headed up to deck 12 to scope out a spot for the sailaway party, grabbed the first of many drinks and before we knew it we were sailing away.

Then it was time to get ready for dinner. Our dinner rotation was ERAERAE – like I said before we had a table for 16, which was perfectly set up, 8 kids on one end and 8 adults on the other. Our servers were amazing - Erhan, who served our friends on their last Fantasy cruise and Juan who was the assistant server and fantastic as well.

Dinner was fantastic, I didn’t keep track of what we had but I was so proud of Kevin (14) who on our last cruise ate pizza almost every night, I explained this time, he could pick his lunches but for dinner it was something decent. He chose to order off the adult menu every night, tonight being Seabass, he’s the only one in our family who eats seafood (aside from halibut and chips and tuna) and really enjoyed it.

After dinner the kids were dying to go for a swim so they took a quick dip and then went to the kids club to play for a little while.

We took the bigger boys to their clubs to check them out, Vibe was very cool. They said they would go back for the ice breakers later that night. As it turns out, DS 14, preferred to do more of the hands on stuff at the Edge so that’s where he spent his week. The two older boys pretty much did their own thing during the week, they knew they needed to be back in the room for 5:15 to get ready for dinners but otherwise as long as they left a note it was fine to come and go as they pleased. We wandered around the ship checking out the adult areas, about 10pm we picked up Lauren and Dylan, knowing they would be exhausted – true to form both of them were passed out within 5 minutes of getting into bed. I think I fell asleep before the two older boys came in as well.

Next up, who has Silver Bullets? We do!

 

[sbag]

Enjoying your trip report so far!
Quick question, are the pools cold in the evening?

 

[Janelle2014]

Loving your trip report!! Brings back so many memories!!

 

[marquislaura]

reading along- thanks for taking the time to do a trip report.

 

[maggonz9]

Yay! A new trip report! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Cheerio]

Enjoying your trip report so far!
Quick question, are the pools cold in the evening?

Pool is heated, we found it chilly on the first and last night just because the air was chilly. Once we started getting down toward south FL it was fine.

 

[Cheerio]

Sunday February 9th - At Sea


Another note: Our cruise group had pre-booked a Mixology class, to be in Meridian at 2pm today, just before bedtime last night I was checking out the Navigator when I noticed that there was also a public mixology tasting, same time, same place. A quick call to guest services, they said they would investigate – turns out they moved the public one to Skyline and left us up at Meridian which was awesome. So if you do this on your cruise, keep an eye on the schedule.

Woke up this morning about 8am and went up to Cabana’s for breakfast. The kids were very excited to swim so they were ready for the Aquaduck when it opened at 9am. We spent our morning in and out of the pools, it wasn’t too busy at all, but just before lunch it got crowded.

We had lunch and we had a 2pm Mixology class booked so we dropped them off at the clubs to play for a bit.
Like I said before, our class was up in Meridian which is a beautiful location. It was so much fun, I was actually kind of sad we didn’t plan more formal meetings with our cruise group because everyone was so much fun. We made 5 drinks – Mint Mojito, Godfather, Yellow Bird, Silver Bullet and a shot of something for the road. I had to make the Silver Bullet because it’s so me! LOL

We ended up going back to the room to relax, oldest DS grabbed the smaller kids so we could get ready for formal night. We really liked the early dining because our kids love to swim in the evenings. We were in the lobby early to grab drinks and we noticed captain Mickey up on deck 4 so we lined up to do a picture with him.

Dinner tonight was in Royal Court, which had my fave onion soup and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

After dinner we took the kids swimming until DD announced that she was tired and ready for bed. The two bigger boys went to do things at their clubs, they loved the freedom they had again on this cruise. I crashed again before they came in.

 

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Monday February 10th - At Sea

Got up about 8:30am this morning (note, kids waking up later, score - or maybe I just couldn’t hear them lol) Today was going to be another relaxing day at sea, until I realized the clocks changed and it was really 7:30am - blech. Ah well, we were dressed so we went up to Cabana’s for breakfast, and then like yesterday, more swimming, slide and aqua duck aka relaxing in the sun time for Mom. Lauren was dying to go meet Princess Anna, so we lined up pretty early so we were #2 in line. True to her form, she cried when she met Anna We also got the tail end of the princess gathering so Lauren could say "hello"

At some point hubby joined us (he doesn’t sleep in much at home so we had left him a note on the whiteboard where we would be) and we grabbed lunch from the buffet.

Kevin found all you can eat olives, lol

Next cruise, one breakfast/lunch in a restaurant will happen!! After lunch we dropped the kids off at the club, I was meeting some of our cruise group ladies for drinks. We had planned to meet in Meridian but they had a tasting so we moved down to LaPiazza - always fun to have beverages with friends.

After that we checked in on the kids, who were having so much fun, so we left them and went up to the adult deck to sit in Satellite Falls for a bit. It was sunny but windy up there so we didn’t stay too long, instead took our drinks down to the hot tub where we sat for a long time.
Once we turned into human prunes we went to pick up the kids and went back to the room to shower for dinner. We all rested for a little bit before heading to Animators Palette – yum.
Deadmau5

Lauren was pretty tired, so we went for a little swim, before putting the two younger kids to bed. One of the older boys stayed in tonight, working on homework while DH and I headed to see Lynn Trefzger doing comedy and ventriloquist and then for a drink at the Tube before turning in for the night.

Up next, how can a bald man braid his hair??? Thanks for asking!

 

[Linda67]

Really enjoying your TR
I'm organising the private mixology for our cruise group so I was interested to read that you spotted a public session scheduled at the same time and venue as yours
I will be sure to keep an eye of the navigator
By the way, did DCL issue you all with tickets or just check you off a list when you went to the Meridian Bar?

 

[Cheerio]

Really enjoying your TR
I'm organising the private mixology for our cruise group so I was interested to read that you spotted a public session scheduled at the same time and venue as yours
I will be sure to keep an eye of the navigator
By the way, did DCL issue you all with tickets or just check you off a list when you went to the Meridian Bar?

I printed out our list and I handed it around for people to check off, even if they don't attend, they will be billed automatically. There were no tickets in our room.

 

[Linda67]

I printed out our list and I handed it around for people to check off, even if they don't attend, they will be billed automatically. There were no tickets in our room.

That's great info - thanks
We have two sessions as our group is so big so I will ensure I am at both to check people in
Only drinking at one I hasten to add !!

 

[JulieODC]

Joining in!! Great report so far!

 

[jilliusc]

Joining in as well!! I love how organized you are

 

[silverangel879]

 

[sdjen]

Hi Leanne

It was so fun to hang with you and your hubby! Thanks again for all of the organizing you did!

 

[WhitGB]

Where did you get the cute DCL red sweatshirts the kids had on for embark?

Thanks

 

[Cheerio]

Hi Leanne

It was so fun to hang with you and your hubby! Thanks again for all of the organizing you did!

It was so nice meeting you Jen!! I miss our awesome cruise group!