My 2nd tale... Fantasy Rd 2, TR Rd 2: NO sea sickness! [Apr '16-East Car.] (Upd Apr19: COMPLETED)

[bcwife76]

Oh my goodness, all that food looks SOOOOO yummy!!!

What a fantastic view you all had for the fireworks!! Spectacular!

 

[SomeImaginationHuh]

Thanks for joining along! Which ship and itinerary are you going to be on? That's very exciting!!!

We have two planned...January 2nd four-night Bahamian on the Dream and September 2nd seven-night Western Caribbean on the Fantasy. So very excited!!

 

[SonyaShay]

here to follow along! I read all of your previous trip report from the Fantasy and can't wait to read all of this one! We are going on the Eastern in June 2017 and just finalized and booked our excursions yesterday!

 

[nkochrn]

Can't wait to hear more about your cruise! My family is going on the Eastern Carribean on Fatasy on June 3! It will be my DH, our 3 kiddso, my mom, 2 of my sister, and my inlaws! DH and I were on the Disney Dream a couple years ago with our 2 oldest, but it'll be the rest of the fam's first Disney vacation experience, I can't wait for them all to go!

 

[SonyaShay]

My family is going on the Eastern Carribean on Fatasy on June 3!

I am on the same cruise as you!

 

[Sheryl Moroschak]

We are going on our 2nd Disney Cruise in March and 1st time on the Fantasy. Love reading these reports to help prepare and plan for our trip.

 

[jesterrific]

Oh my goodness, all that food looks SOOOOO yummy!!!

What a fantastic view you all had for the fireworks!! Spectacular!

Thank you! Hahahaha we love food so much. That is a huge portion to my Disney enjoyment haha!!

 

[jesterrific]

We have two planned...January 2nd four-night Bahamian on the Dream and September 2nd seven-night Western Caribbean on the Fantasy. So very excited!!

That's so awesome!! Will you be doing trip reports also? =)

 

[jesterrific]

here to follow along! I read all of your previous trip report from the Fantasy and can't wait to read all of this one! We are going on the Eastern in June 2017 and just finalized and booked our excursions yesterday!

Thanks for following along!! Hope you'll like this one.
Where are all the stops when you go in June? So exciting!! I hope to see some photos!

 

[jesterrific]

Can't wait to hear more about your cruise! My family is going on the Eastern Carribean on Fatasy on June 3! It will be my DH, our 3 kiddso, my mom, 2 of my sister, and my inlaws! DH and I were on the Disney Dream a couple years ago with our 2 oldest, but it'll be the rest of the fam's first Disney vacation experience, I can't wait for them all to go!

This sounds like SO much fun!!! We found that even though sometimes we did a lot of stuff on our own, we spent a lot of family time together too!! Initially we really thought there would be a lot of arguing and such but we made it through with no troubles and we had such a great time as a family.

 

[jesterrific]

We are going on our 2nd Disney Cruise in March and 1st time on the Fantasy. Love reading these reports to help prepare and plan for our trip.

You guys are going to have so much fun!

 

[SonyaShay]

Thanks for following along!! Hope you'll like this one.
Where are all the stops when you go in June? So exciting!! I hope to see some photos!

Cruising with my family of 3 and my sisters family of 3.
We stop in Tortola where we have a private boat for the entire day to take us to the Baths and island hopping for snorkling and sightseeing after that.
Then we stop in St Thomas where we have another private tour for the entire day to take us signtseeing around the island and to some beaches and whatever else we may decide we want to do.

I love taking private tours becuase I don't feel like I am being forced into anyones preset timing and we can make changes on the fly if we want to stay somewhere longer or if we decide something isn't as great as people made it out to be and we want to leave pretty fast.

 

[jesterrific]

Cruising with my family of 3 and my sisters family of 3.
We stop in Tortola where we have a private boat for the entire day to take us to the Baths and island hopping for snorkling and sightseeing after that.
Then we stop in St Thomas where we have another private tour for the entire day to take us signtseeing around the island and to some beaches and whatever else we may decide we want to do.

I love taking private tours becuase I don't feel like I am being forced into anyones preset timing and we can make changes on the fly if we want to stay somewhere longer or if we decide something isn't as great as people made it out to be and we want to leave pretty fast.

Wow!!! Is it costly for a private tour? I imagine that it'll be very nice though.

 

[jesterrific]

Fantasy Round 2: Pre-Cruise!
Day 3 [part 1]: Epcot Flower and Garden Festival!​

Hurray! Nice day at Epcot. Featuring to the left: bush statue Daisy!​

Because we travel from Canada, and with our dollar being so terrible, the entire trip ended up costing us quite a bit even with our discounts. Plus my parents weren’t REALLY quite that ready to shell out roughly $125 a day for parks. This was why we decided to do the three days prior to the cruise, with only 2 of them in the parks. Magic Kingdom was the obvious choice for the one day, and the other we chose to do Epcot. If it were up to Glendon and I, we would have wanted them to do the three days so that we could do a half day morning in Animal Kingdom then half day evening in Hollywood Studios, but that would have meant another day park ticket, as well as park hopper. My sister thought was was insanely way too many dollars. SO we chose to have a full day at Epcot and World Showcase. Helped that it was also Flower and Garden festival! This excited my mom and dad.
(How do you guys decide which park to go to when on a time crunch?)

We started the morning with yet another breakfast at Captain Cook’s. Originally we wanted to have a sit-down meal at either Ohana or Kona Cafe because we were getting pretty tired of the quick service breakfasts… but we slept in. SO we decided we rather spend it at the parks so we just quickly ate some bagels and toast.

After that we popped onto the monorails and headed over to Epcot! I think I’m going to do this post just a touch differently and just post all our most memorable photos. We didn’t really have a day plan, just more of wandering and checking things out! So here we go! (I have no idea what they call those green character bush statue things, so I will just be calling them bush statues.) [EDIT: I have just been informed by Glendon that their proper name is called TOPIARY... but as I've already called them as bush statues they will continue to be bush statues in this post.]

Fresh Epcot! And a gorgeous Spaceship Earth​

Bush statue Mickey!

Dad and mom with the Spaceship Earth background

Bush statue Elsa and Anna!

Momma loved the floating potted plants in the water

We spent a glorious few minutes watching the manatee eat lettuce. They are so interesting to watch, such a large animal!​

So I could watch it over and over again haha.​

Nemo at home haha.

One of my favourite rides at Epcot is Living with the Land. I LOVE going through the greenhouses and seeing everything being grown.

(Have any of you ever done the walking tour before? I’ve always been curious but not sure if it’s worth paying for haha)

We stopped in Innovations to do the Sum of all Thrills! Glendon and I had heard some rumours that they might be taking it out so we thought we should take my family to at least try it out haha.

Michelle and Glendon designing their coaster. They wanted as many loops and flips as they could fit in!

Mom and dad unsure of how to design their coaster haha. “Nothing upside down!!”

Here is Glendon and Michelle with their finished product

Here is mom and dad riding their coaster. Mom is the one sitting closer to us haha. No loops or flips, but if you listened closely you can still hear her “AHHH” “WHOOOOAAA” even though she said afterwards it was not scary at all ahaha.

More floating pots

Minnie Mouse and Pluto bush statues!

Photo Pass!

Flower and Garden time is just so gorgeous!

Mom and dad loved the orchid garden area

“How do they grow them so nice??”

Mom and dad in front of the Mexico pavilion

Norway! Frozen ride was still under construction while we were there

Mom and dad in front of the Temple of Heaven in the China pavilion​

Fun fact: a few years ago my family and I did a family vacation to Beijing and we got to tour the actual Temple of Heaven in China. This one in the World Showcase really is a fantastic model of the real one where it is hollow on the inside. But when you see the real one in person, it is magic. Built with all wood and no nails. It’s HUGE and definitely worth a see if anyone is doing world travels.

Pond area in China pavilion

We stopped at Nine Dragons for lunch, and each of us just ordered a lunch special, which came with a choice of appetizer, entree, and dessert. Here is my dumplings. (I think the other options were soup or spring rolls)

Entree. I forgot what this was. Mu Shu something? My mom and I both ordered this one. But Glendon, my dad, and Michelle ordered the Kung Pao chicken and that one was really really good.

Michelle and Glendon both had the strawberry red bean ice cream. They loved it.

I cannot for the life of me remember what the other option was for ice cream. I THINK it’s sesame? Something like that. Either way, mom and dad loved it haha.

Bush statue Donald! With Huey Dewie and Louie following behind​

To be continued… After lunch!

 

[PiperGirlInWondrland]

Just found this report and got all caught up! Loved your last report! I'm in!

 

[franandaj]

Subbing in. Looking forward to hearing about the cruise.

We did behind the seeds on my last WDW trip. The link is in my signature. If you're into gardening, it's totally worth it. It's the "we took the kids..." trip if you're interested. I have chapter links so you don't have to read everything to find it.

 

[SonyaShay]

Wow!!! Is it costly for a private tour? I imagine that it'll be very nice though.

Not as expensive as you would think! In Tortola it is $660. But once you divide by 6 people, the cost of $110 each isn't much more than a DCL trip. In St Thomas we are getting a great deal of $320 for the day. Since we are splitting this trip 3 ways with another family on our cruise we will only pay about $100 per family (or $35 per person).

 

[melwill530]

Finally I have been waiting for an update.

 

[glendroid]

Not as expensive as you would think! In Tortola it is $660. But once you divide by 6 people, the cost of $110 each isn't much more than a DCL trip. In St Thomas we are getting a great deal of $320 for the day. Since we are splitting this trip 3 ways with another family on our cruise we will only pay about $100 per family (or $35 per person).

Sadly for jesterrific and I, that would be close to $900 Canadian + credit card fees. But that does sound super awesome!

Finally I have been waiting for an update.

She'll be posting soon. We just moved in to our new condo last night, so we've been packing non stop. Hopefully once we get internet this week, she should be able to get on to the cruise part!

 

[SonyaShay]

Sadly for jesterrific and I, that would be close to $900 Canadian + credit card fees. But that does sound super awesome!

Ugh, I forget about the exchange rate. If I had to deal with the exchange I wouldn't be able to do it either. Congratulations on the new condo! Can't wait to hear more about the cruise.