Our Fantastical Voyage in the Eastern Caribbean! A trip report to remember! 12/6/2014

[MrDisneyFan]

I am loving your TRIP report and cannot wait for your next update. My husband and I will be on the Magic in 5 weeks to celebrate our Anniversary - YEAH! This trip will be without our four daughters - we have a family trip planned on the Fantasy next November. Your TRIP report is getting me even more excited.

What a great idea! I think going on an anniversary DCL cruise with just my wife and I would be amazing too!

 

[justliketink]

Wow! Excellent videos and trip report!!!! I am very much enjoying cruising along with you. Thanks so much for sharing and Happy New Year!

 

[chicagolaw]

Thanks for posting the videos. They are awesome.

 

[SoupKidsX3]

Fabulous report and video!
Can't wait for our Fantasy Cruise in April!

 

[MrDisneyFan]

Thanks for posting the videos. They are awesome.

Thanks! It's fun going through the videos and getting to re-see some of the moments!

 

[HBGdancermom]

Can't wait to follow along! Thanks so much for all the detail!

 

[basketlacey]

Great trip report so far! Can't wait to hear about the rest of your week!

 

[MrDisneyFan]

LOVED the video!! Brought back such magical memories. I may or may not have got a tear in my eye when you walked on the boat and they announced your name. That is such a special moment for me! Your stateroom is absolutely gorgeous!! Thank you so much for sharing.

We are in the same boat as you - we definitely need a Disney fix! We usually pull the kids out of school as well but feel that we can't. I think we are going to go to Disneyland in March and we'll just have to deal with the crowds. But that's ok, right?? We got to go on a Disney Cruise

Looking forward to the rest of your report.

Awe, I know what you mean, I'm not tired of watching those moments yet.

Yep, deal with the DL crowds in March, it'll be all good!

 

[MrDisneyFan]

This was going to be a full day! We had Palo Brunch, a mixology and Remy dinner on tap for the day! Our Palo brunch was scheduled for 11AM and we lost an hour because the time changed over night  so the clocks go set ahead yet another hour for us (that’s 4 hours from our native time zone!) It was okay, we’d get the hour back before Castaway Cay 

I was up early and got my coffee at the lounge but wasn’t going to eat a bite of food before brunch. I took the kids to Cabanas for a nice big breakfast. They enjoyed their typical fare: pancakes, waffles, bacon, cream of wheat and fresh fruit. Down to deck 5 and the kids were dropped at the Oceaneers Club and I made my way up to get ready!

Okay, so this was the best brunch/breakfast meal I’ve ever had ever. Ever. I am serious. Ever. This was another example on this trip of my expectations being pretty high and those expectations being exceeded!

After being seated our server came and introduced himself. He was really good and I can’t remember his name! (note to self, next time you need to take better photos of servers and the name tags!). He took us to the buffet and gave us an excellent tour of the items, areas. Each section of the buffet had servers stationed who dished the food onto your plate. So at the pastry station you would have fresh fruits, sticky bun, a variety of nut loafs, breads and pastries. The server would take your plate and you would point out what you wanted and how much. You would get your plate back and go to the next area.

A neat experience was our main dining room server, Yusef, was working at the buffet in Palo that morning. He greeted me and took my plate and took me through all the stations. He was helpful and gave me some tips and suggestions of what to try but honestly everything was so good. I wish I could have ate more.

They also had several tables setup with other food you could order from your server. Again, everything was all you can eat! Wow. We had the chilled strawberry soup (you had to order it) which was amazing!! I highly recommend it. We also ordered some chicken parm (delicious!), and some pizza. I had to try the grape and blue cheese pizza. And yes, it was great  My wife tried the salmon, also good. Everything was good and most was pretty small bites so it made it easy to try a lot of different things.

My wife and I both tried caviar for the first time and we both loved it! My wife ordered a latte and said it was soooo good. And of course they had a whole section of amazing desserts. So so good.

We left there overfull but so satisfied. We didn’t eat anything until Dinner later that evening. The service and food was so great. Well worth the $25 upcharge per person. I really really wish we could have scheduled another Palo brunch…

We didn't get many photos of the MDRs but got a lot at Palo. Here's some food porn for the day...

Nice Palo décor...

Our first plates of food!

Getting contently full...

Here come the desserts!

Looks yummy, wish I were there right now. Our next cruise I would make best efforts to do it twice!

 

[RosiePA]

Thanks for taking the time to do your TR! I'm so excited to be following along! We were on your cruise, and this is the first time anyone has ever done a TR from one of our sailings!

 

[Lizzards]

Great report! Doing the same cruise in June (concierge) with my hubby and two kids. We are from Southern California so I have been wondering how the time change affected your kids.....any tips on that? I have just been thinking we would stay on pacific time and then we can enjoy the late night things but not sure what kids will do. How did yours react? I am an AP for dland resort. I highly recommend doing the club level (concierge) for your visit in February. So nice to have access to the lounge!

 

[MrDisneyFan]

Great report! Doing the same cruise in June (concierge) with my hubby and two kids. We are from Southern California so I have been wondering how the time change affected your kids.....any tips on that? I have just been thinking we would stay on pacific time and then we can enjoy the late night things but not sure what kids will do. How did yours react? I am an AP for dland resort. I highly recommend doing the club level (concierge) for your visit in February. So nice to have access to the lounge!

Thanks, how fun for you! I'm jealous how great the weather should be in June!

I thought about keeping us on pacific time but quickly realized that was futile. Within a couple of days we were all pretty adjusted. The kids did really well, we had a few late nights (kept kids in the club until as late as 10PM a couple of times).

We are off again, on again AP holders. We're going to get a 3 day hopper then upgrade for APs on our last day. I've thought about doing concierge for the GCH but stayed a few times and while we enjoy the proximity of the resort we spend so little time there. We are in the parks until late in the evening. So I've struggled to find the value of concierge when we just aren't there to enjoy it

 

[randster]

Two questions:
1) do you remember who the concierge hosts were? Was there a staff member named Rijesh there? He isn't a host but was in the lounge and brought us treats and our kids' favorite person (we are cruising next month)

2) can you do the Palo brunch more than once and can you do it with kids?

 

[MrDisneyFan]

Two questions:
1) do you remember who the concierge hosts were? Was there a staff member named Rijesh there? He isn't a host but was in the lounge and brought us treats and our kids' favorite person (we are cruising next month)

2) can you do the Palo brunch more than once and can you do it with kids?

Our hosts were Amanda, Julia & Kemisha. All great!! There wasn't a Rijesh around the lounge our trip.

I think you can only prebook 1 brunch ahead of time. Once onboard I am sure you could book as many as were available (only done on sea days). Palo is absolutely adults only so no kids. I know the royal suite can order dinner room service from palo, not sure I've read anyone doing it for brunch. That's the only way kids can try palo food though.

 

[randster]

Our hosts were Amanda, Julia & Kemisha. All great!! There wasn't a Rijesh around the lounge our trip.

I think you can only prebook 1 brunch ahead of time. Once onboard I am sure you could book as many as were available (only done on sea days). Palo is absolutely adults only so no kids. I know the royal suite can order dinner room service from palo, not sure I've read anyone doing it for brunch. That's the only way kids can try palo food though.

Thanks for the answers. We did order Palo to our room in the Royal Suite last trip and it was fantastic. I had no idea the brunch was on sea days only... makes perfect sense!

 

[MrDisneyFan]

Well don't I feel sheepish...

So in hindsight if I did a TR again I would be sure to have a couple of entries set aside at the very beginning! One for quick links in the TR and one for video links. Since I may end up having a lot of video links I wanted them to have their own reply. And now they have to be put deep down on page 4 here. But I'll link this at the beginning along with other quick links in the starting page...

This is my first real vacation with the GoPro and loved the footage and portability of it. The video quality has been exceptional and I learned a heck of a lot. FYI there may be some videos where the sound is muffled or not that great. It's because I left the waterproof case on (one of those lessons learned)!

These are pretty much the same videos I'll link throughout the TR just consolidated:

Disney Fantasy - Boarding ship concierge lounge and stateroom
Disney Fantasy - Oceaneers Club open house
Disney Fantasy Sail Away Party
Disney Fantasy Day 2 highlights
Disney Fantasy - Palo Brunch
Disney Fantasy - Deck 11 and Aqualab
Disney Fantasy Remy Dinner
Disney Fantasy - Walking about with GoPro
Disney Fantasy Cruise Day 4 - Randomwind at St. Maarten
Disney Fantasy Cruise Day 4 - Pirate Night

 

[guinea pig]

Amazing how it appears you are almost the only guest on board!!!

 

[MrDisneyFan]

Amazing how it appears you are almost the only guest on board!!!

I know! It was amazing and really felt like I had the ship to myself. It gives me serious thought to planning a cruise where I spend a port day on the ship! This day was unplanned due to daughter not being 100% so I spent most of the afternoon in my stateroom... all ended fine but will be in a later update.

 

[pierresgirl]

Loving the video links! Holy brunches Palo looks good! I've done the dinner a few times but never tried brunch. I'll have to add it to my ressie. Remy looks so romantic, hope the dinner was wonderful!

 

[MrDisneyFan]

We picked up the kids and decided to hang out at the pool area. Kate wanted to ride the aqua duck over and over. Jack mostly loved the mickey slide but rode the aquaduck with me then he rode with Kate. They played in the aqua lab for quite a while before we got them something to eat at the quick service food areas (pizza, fries, you know, healthy stuff ). Had to get the back to the room to get ready for kids club. Diane and I had mixology scheduled 4-5 then Remy dinner scheduled for 6.

Mixology was such a fun activity! I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again! Although I only really loved 2/5 drinks the other 3 were so so. It was still really fun and for $15 a person it was a tremendous value! They did it in the Skyline bar. A very cool place that we didn’t spend much time in outside of mixology. I loved the bar itself, another place I would try to spend some more time in next cruise.

Our mixology host - Bryce

I like this picture because I have a funny face. Almost as funny as the lady at the end. . Sorry if you're reading this, better photo below... Getting ready to shake up some drinks!

And pour...

Nice Skyline... get it? Loved how it changed and was animated, very cool.

Someone is a happy bartender . Oh yeah, this is like 3 or 4 cocktails in!

And pour... pretty drinks (these were so strong, at least the one wife made)

Somebody doesn't get along with cranberry juice so Bryce made a special martini with a glowing ice cube for her!

We took a relaxing walk around deck 4 to semi sober us up for dinner (hey, just drank 5 STRONG cocktails in like an hour!). Everyone was feeling pretty good walking out of Skyline. So much fun! Definitely recommend everyone try it!