Fantasy Eastern San Juan 3-9-2013

[papertraveller]

Thanks for letting us relive the cruise. I love all the dresses the girls are in!

I got a kick out of the formal night shots. We were having our photo taken against the same mosaic backdrop, but the ship was rolling so much they were having a difficult time getting us straight in the photo. There was one hilarious shot where we were all on a major angle.

The best part is we were laughing so hard that the shot (when it was finally properly framed) is really fun!

We were fortunate not to suffer an ill effects from the rocking and rolling, but we could see many people not doing so well.

 

[peachygreen]

Sorry I've done just what I didn't want to do, start a Trip Report and leave it half finished.

I promise to come back and work on this again in the next couple of days. Its been a little crazy recently.

 

[Kristina - Mom]

have loved your trip report....we are taking our first fantasy cruise in August!

kristina

 

[peachygreen]

OK - I'm back - We were in the middle of Day 3 - our 2nd Sea Day.

Megan wanted to keep swimming and then do some more of her mission with Daddy but Alice wanted to go to the character Dance party, so she and I got dried off and dressed and headed down to the atrium for the party.
It took a bit for Alice to warm up to the characters at the dance party. She was very shy at first and wanted me to carry her the whole time. I finally put her on my shoulders and Pluto came over to dance with us. She was happy but still not convinced. Then Mickey and Minnie joined the party. She was getting heavy so I put her down to see how she would do with Mickey. It took a minute but Mickey was able to take her hand and she danced with Mickey Mouse. This is our 4th trip and this is the closest she has not gotten to any of the non-princess characters without me holding her. This was a major first step for her because she has been fascinated with Mickey from afar for 2 years now. All in all I would consider the first dance party a success.


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[peachygreen]

Party over, my parents left to go to the 1pm showing of Wreck it Ralph in 3D. I can’t handle 3D on land so I am not about to attempt a 3D movie at sea. Alice and I went back up to the room where we met up with Megan and had some fun blowing bubbles out on our verandah. The girls were having lots of fun enjoying the fresh air and being super silly of course.

First pictures are the view from our cabin 6630 on the Fantasy. I know people frequently ask about the lifeboat view from Deck 6.


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And then some pictures of the girls playing with bubbles

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[peachygreen]

Just before 3, the four of us went down to the theater to meet my Parents and watch Wishes. It was the only one of the 3 shows that Megan and James made it to. I think they enjoyed it, but neither of them are huge show people. Alice was enthralled again as usual. She loves live action shows. My parents enjoyed it but preferred Aladdin. I really liked it a lot. I think I could relate to it more than my parents maybe. If I had to rank it, I think Aladdin would have edged it out just a little.
After the show, Megan wanted to finish her Art Theft Mission, and then start a Muppets version of the Muppets Detective Agency. The four of us headed off together and my parents headed off for some quiet time. The art thief was Jafar.


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[peachygreen]

After we got the card for the Muppets Mission, Alice decided she wanted to go see Mickey Mouse. So we went downstairs to the Atrium to see Mickey Mouse at 4:45pm. We have tried to see Mickey Mouse several times in 2 previous cruises and a trip to WDW with no success. Alice has previously adored Mickey from afar and wanted to see him, but when she’d get close, she’d chicken out. Today, we had success. Alice was so proud of herself afterwards.


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When she walked away from Mickey she was so proud of herself and told me I did it Mommy!

Alice and I went for a little walk and came back to see Cinderella at 5:15. Alice had now caught the character bug and we would be in a lot of character lines over the rest of the cruise. The great thing about the cruise is that none of the lines were ever that long.


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[peachygreen]

After we met Cinderella we went back up to the room to meet Daddy and Megan and change for dinner.


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Dinner tonight was in the Royal Court. It really is a beautiful restaurant. Our table was in the Snow white section of the restaurant. I’d love to have time to explore the restaurant sometime to see the rest of the murals. The girls decided to eat dinner quickly and head to the club after dinner and before dessert. I was thrilled to take them up to the club. Dinner was also served at a much better pace tonight.

Since the girls were both in the club, I was excited that I might have a few minutes to go for a run, so I went up to the room to change into my running clothes after dinner. I started down for my run when I got the call that Alice was ready to leave the club. So I picked her up and she was going to walk with Grandpa while I ran on deck 4. Unfortunately I got ¾ of a lap run when the deck when I found the deck closed. Unfortunately, there went my run. This was a reoccurring theme anytime I attempted a run on this cruise. Most of the time I'd check and find Deck 4 closed before I changed though.

Instead of a run, Alice and I went to see Buzz and Phineas and Ferb. She wasn't quite as braze with Buzz and Phineas and Ferb as she had been earlier in the day, but she was working on it. I look oh so lovely in my running clothes in these pictures.


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After we saw Phineas and Ferb, we went to get Megan because she wanted to change into the PJ’s for Pluto’s PJ Party. But first we got a few port hole pictures


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Alice "wanted" to go to the PJ party too, so both girls changed into their PJ’s. I think Alice lasted about 10 minutes. As all this was going on James had gone up to take a few runs on the AquaDuck and spend some time in the Adult Hot tub. Pluto’s PJ Party didn’t start until 9:30pm so Alice was definitely tired. I got Alice and took her down to bed. I went down to get Megan as soon as the party was over at 10:30 to get her to bed because tomorrow was our first port day. I was very happy that Megan got in some great club time tonight and was feeling 100% better than she had the first day.
Today was a huge success. We finally figured out how to control Megan’s seasickness, Alice finally gave Mickey Mouse a hug, I almost got a run in and James got to ride the AquaDuck many times.


Tomorrow – Will the Pirates Take over the Ship?

 

[jedijill]

Your girls' dresses are so cute! Glad you got the medication fine tuned so you could enjoy the cruise!

Jill in CO

 

[peachygreen]

Arrgh - I just close my window accidently with the next post well on its way to being posted. Boo!

I will recreate it and start of St. Thomas tomorrow. Its getting late tonight.

Jill - thanks. I'm glad you like the girls dresses. They like dressing up for the cruise (and I like figuring out/making their dresses).

 

[TLC371]

Hi Kristie! I know you from OLU, we were in the same April 2010 pregnancy group (I had Zach on April 1, 2010). I stumbled across your trip report here and recognized the screen name and had to read about your trip! Enjoying it so far!

 

[peachygreen]

Day 5 – March 12, 2013 St Thomas and the Legendary headache of the Kon Tiki

Today we would be visiting the island of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. All ashore time was scheduled for 8:00 with all aboard time of 5:30pm. It was a beautiful sunny day with a high listed of 75F. I’ll be honest that it felt much warmer than 75 to me and was a very pleasant day weather wise.
We woke up early and headed up to breakfast at 7:00 in Cabanas.


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After breakfast at Cabanas, we headed down to the Walt Disney Theater for our Excursion meet.

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We were scheduled on the Legendary Kon Tiki sight-seeing and beach cruise. Here is the description of our excursion, straight from the Disney Cruise Line Website.
On this tour, you will:
• Take a short 5-minute walk to the departure dock where the Legendary Kon Tiki Sightseeing and Beach Cruise will begin.
• Enjoy the sweet sounds of live music as you cruise through the bustling Charlotte Amalie. Sip tropical fruit punch while taking in the sights of the St. Thomas harbor as your guide offers island history and points out your mountainside surroundings. Keep cool on our open shaded lower deck or sunbathe on the upper deck.
• After an approximate 30-minute sail, cruise over a coral reef where the Kon Tiki will lower its 3 glass bottom viewers so you can enjoy views of the marine life below for approximately 15 minutes. See a variety of corals, sea sponges, tropical fish and maybe even a sea turtle or 2.
• Continue on to your beach stop, where the Kon Tiki will pull up to the palm fringed, white sand beach for approximately 60 minutes. Enjoy swimming, beachcombing or relaxation on the beach.
• On your approximate 45-minute return cruise, the good times continue, with plenty of barefoot dancing, fun games and a limbo contest with prizes for the winners.

To start with, it was a definitely a longer than 10-minute walk to the end of the pier where we boarded the Kon Tiki. It wasn't a problem, but I don't know that my mom was prepared for that much walking.

I was very surprised to find that there would be people on our excursion from other cruise ships as well. One other ship was already on board and it seemed like seating was limited on the lower level for the 6 of us when we first got on. I didn't want to go to the upper deck because I need to limit the sun exposure.

The steel band was loud so my intention had been to find seats on the other side of the boat near the windows. My dad on the other hand decided that we should sit next to the ocean viewers so we’d have a good view when the lowered them. This sounded like a good idea in theory so we grabbed a bench near one of the viewers. The open bench happened to be right next to the band.


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My youngest daughter's opinion of the steel drum band

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She warmed up to them eventually.

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Our “Island tour” consisted of a few facts and a couple sights pointed out to us as we sailed from Havensight to Crown Bay where we picked up more passengers from the Holland America and Royal Caribbean ships that were docked there.


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As we sailed away from Crown Bay, they prepared the “ocean viewers.” We sailed over a sunken ship and they dropped the “ocean viewers” into the water (sort of). The ocean viewers were really wooden boxes with glass windows that floated a couple of inches under the water so you could “See” under the water. What this means in reality is that they bounce all over the place and you can’t actually focus through them to see anything underneath without getting sick. I should never have looked through those viewers. They were so bad that I started getting a headache and didn’t bring any motrin or other pain killers with me.

This is the best of what you could "see" from the ocean viewers.

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We finally arrived at our beach on Water Island. It was a nice beach, however seating was very limited and there were no umbrellas or anything like that. Fortunately we were able to snag one of the few benches on the beach for my mom and it was under the shade of a tree.


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The lonely bench
The girls had a great time playing on the beach and in the water with Grandpa (aka Poppa), James and I.

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We brought some sand toys with us

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But driftwood is cooler


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Longhorn rock


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The sun was making my head hurt even more and so I thought it would be a great idea to try to grab something to eat before we had to head back on the Kon Tiki. We were ordering right as they announced it was time to get back on, so I took the girls and James waited for our food. He was not the last one back on the boat.

 

[peachygreen]

I was not feeling well by this point. The migraine that started with the ocean viewers was reaching a breaking point. The last thing I need now was a small boat with diesel exhaust, a loud steel drum band and bright sunlight, but that is exactly what I had. I was miserable on the ride back to the Fantasy.

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Megan did get up and do the Limbo at one point.

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I suppose it could have been fun if I felt better but I was not enjoying it at all. I would definitely not do it again. I was so happy to get back to the Fantasy.

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The long walk down the pier about killed me, especially with the bright sun in my eyes.


We went straight back to the room. I really didn’t think I was going to make it inside. I was surprised to find that our room hadn’t been made up yet when we got back. Our stateroom host was just finishing up my parents room next door. I couldn’t wait for her to finish our room, so I told her to just leave it today. I proceeded to turn off all lights, sounds pull the covers up over my head and try not to die in the room for a couple of hours. The next few hours are a complete blur. I thought I was feeling better and I knew I would never get rid of the headache if I didn’t get something to eat, so I went up to deck 11 to try to find some food. I couldn’t handle the smell though so I went to the spa and took a shower instead. I actually preferred the shower in our room to the one in the spa. The shower did the trick and I was ready to grab something to eat. I went to lay back down for a bit longer and then I was ready to get dressed for Pirate Night. I’m really not sure what the rest of the family did during this time. I know they ate lunch, watched TV in the room, took a nap and I think went to the pool.
I was very disappointed with the Migraine Headache. If we go back to St Thomas I think I am going to just plan on a beach day unless the girls are much older and we can do something active. We had a great time at the beach and would have like to have spent more time there. If I hadn’t had such a bad headache I had wanted to go to the Butterfly museum and potentially take the sky ride again. I was also very disappointed with the Kon tiki. I’m not sure if I can be fully objective but it just really wasn’t what I was expecting it to be.

Some more pictures from our room

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[peachygreen]

Tonight is Pirate Night!
We all had fun getting a little dressed up for Pirate night. We were running a little later than I had planned because I was still moving pretty slow recovering from my headache. I was planning to try to meet Jake and 5:15, but we didn’t get down there until about 5:30, so we got a family picture in front of the sunset boat drop before dinner at Animator’s Palette.

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Dinner at Animator’s Palette for Pirate’s night was lots of fun. I loved being back at our quiet out of the way alcove in AP. I also loved the pirate themed artwork and videos. Dinner was fun. I did miss the Pirate party and parade in the dining room. It was fun to do the limbo on the dining room before dessert. After dinner we hung out for a bit and then went up to Deck 11 to get ready for the Pirate Show.

We got up there and found a seat about 5 back from the stage around 7:15. We didn’t realize that the pirate games were behind us until they were mostly over but the girls and I were having fun just hanging out on the deck. My parents and James all went up to deck 12 to watch the show from the balcony.


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(Megan and her best Pirate face)


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I loved that they did the Mickey and Friends part of the Pirate Party early and the Jack Sparrow part with the fireworks later on. This early party was perfect fo the kids. They knew the characters. They had fun cheering. I was really surprised that basically the first 10 rows or so never stood up to dance though. This was great for the girls as they could see it all but I would have liked to have gotten up to dance and play. I wasn’t going to be the first one up though. The party was great fun!


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[peachygreen]

After the party Megan was chomping at the bit to get back to the club for Pirate Night. Alice was not interested in going back to the club, but she really wanted to go see Pirate Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Minnie and Mickey. Pirate Donald was up first and she was a little shy with Donald. She still remembered him startling her earlier in the week. So I got to get his autograph. She did come up for a picture holding my hand though which is more than she did the first time with Donald.


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(and yes somehow I always ended up with the autograph book bag along with my crossover camera bag and my lanyard)

Next up was Daisy. She went up to Daisy all by herself.

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Next up was Pirate Goofy. He’s so tall she was still not sure about Goof even though Goofy her absolute favorite. So we both went up together to have a picture with Goofy.

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We went back downstairs to see Minnie Mouse. As we were waiting for Minnie to appear, Alice was twirling in the atrium holding my pink and white polka dot scarf. Minnie came up take Daisy’s place and started to twirl next to her. Alice got so startled she stopped and ran all the way around the entire line to get up to where I was. (She ran about 100 feet to get back to me 5 feet away). It was so funny. She had so much fun with Minnie when she got up there. I was taking pictures and Minnie saw me and my pink and white Polka Dot Skirt and got so excited. She loved my polka dots. We had a great exchange.


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We didn’t make it in time to see Pirate Mickey but Alice was perfectly content with that as we had seen him earlier.

Alice and I went up to Deck 5 to get Megan to get ready for the Buccaneer Blast and we ran into a couple of mischief makers dancing on the 5th floor. Those Mischief Makers were none other than Chip and Dale. Alice wouldn’t pose with them, but they did play peek-a-boo together.


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We picked up Megan at the club. She had a lot of fun making a Pirate Flag, a treasure map and having her face painted.


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We went up to Deck 11 and then to Deck 12 to find daddy for the fireworks. We weren’t in a great spot to see the stage show. We could only see it on the Funnel Vision. We watched the fireworks and went to bed. My parents decided to watch the fireworks from their deck 6 balcony and said they had a great view. I might have to try that next time. I loved the fireworks but hated the crowds. It was also getting really late for both girls and they were both ready for bed. It had been a long day and we had another early morning tomorrow.


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[peachygreen]

Hi Kristie! I know you from OLU, we were in the same April 2010 pregnancy group (I had Zach on April 1, 2010). I stumbled across your trip report here and recognized the screen name and had to read about your trip! Enjoying it so far!

Hey - long time no see. I'm glad you are enjoying it. Its hard to believe my little Alice is now 3 already. The past 3 years have flown by.

 

[peachygreen]

Only 4 more days to go. I am amazed as to how many pictures I took. This is only a small sampling.

The Heat game is over so I'm going to call it a night for posting my trip report and get to work on work stuff for an hour or so. I'll try to get to San Juan tomorrow.