We are sadly back from our 10/2 4 night Fantasy sailing 
Our cruise party was myself, my husband and our two little boys (newly 2 & 4.5). We were in a family verandah cabin midship on Deck 9.
BOARDING: Boarding and testing was so easy (except the actual act of testing our 2 year old, lol). There was literally no one else in the parking garage getting tested when we arrived. It was about 45 minutes from the time we pulled up to the time we boarded. PAT 1:15, on the ship at 2:00.
CABIN 9596: We LOVED this cabin. The extended cabin had so much room that we were able to leave the beds out for the boys all the time for naps/rests because we felt like we had so much room. Our 2 year old still sleeps in a crib at home but refuses to sleep in a pack and play (climbs out immediately) so we went with the lower bunk bed with a railing. Disney only lets you order a bed rail for passengers 3 and older on the website so we ordered it under my older son. Our boys occasionally take showers at home so they loved the small circle tub combo and loved the adjustable shower head. We moved it down for them to make the shower just their size! We typically do not use the balcony frequently but love the light and option to get outside. The cabin was spotless and had absolutely TONS of storage!
DINING: We had main seating for dinner and our rotation was RAAE. We pre-ordered a highchair for our youngest and it was set-up at our table. There were also nice plastic kids cups with very secure lids on the tables already for the boys. We did not have these great cups on our last sailing in 2019. Food was very good. Same old menus.
COVID: Our sailing was 1,400 passengers. It was amazing and that’s honestly why we sailed. All protocols were followed by everyone we saw on the ship. Our youngest is newly 2 and still learning to wear a mask. We had him wear the mask as much as he would tolerate (so not a lot) but no one ever asked us to have him put on his mask when he was not wearing one. The only time that someone asked was in the kid’s club open house and we were able to get him to comply for a short time and then I took him out when he would no longer tolerate the mask. Our 4.5 year old is a professional mask wear and did amazing.
The ship was completely spotless. I typically find cruise ships to be the cleanest form of travel anyways but I was very impressed at how completely spotless the ship was. They are fully staffed even though they have a lower passenger count for there was Staff everywhere cleaning all of the time.
My biggest concern going on this trip was dining. We were very well spaces in the dining room, no sharing tables (thank goodness, I hate this) and there were still even some empty tables. I am very concerned that dining will be way too crowded if they continue to increase capacities. I’ve the 3 seating rumor and while I don’t know what seating would actually work for us I do think it would be good for crowds.
CASTAWAY: We had a double dip at Castaway. It was heaven! The island was empty. TONS of chairs and umbrellas available on both family beaches. Everything was open and fully staffed. We spent time at the first family beach and then took turns taking our older son to Pelican Plunge. He was basically the only there and he and my husband did the slides probably 50 times over the two days there. The food was good. They will need to open more stations if they are going to increase capacity. On our first day I had to wait about 15 minutes and there was only a few people ahead of me.
We feel extremely lucky to have visited twice with such low capacity. Out little kids were able to enjoy the whole beach and all the activities because they were not overrun with big kids. If it had been a normal sailing we would probably not have been able to let them on the wooden play structure or pelican plunge. Out 2 year old is a massive dare devil and he climbed up on the wooden play structure and jumped off about a 1000 times and our kids were the only ones playing on it!
SHOWS/ACTIVITIES: On the first few 4 night sailings they had 3 theater shows (Aladdin, Frozen and Believe). On our sailing it was reduced to two and it was Frozen and Believe. We were pretty disappointed about this. However, the two shows we did get to see were excellent and both our boys sat through both shows. The shows were at 8:45 which was a little too late for us so we were definitely pushing the bedtime boundaries to attend the shows. We also saw the Halloween deck party show. This was basically just each character dancing alone on stage for one Halloween song. However, our kids are so young they loved it and danced the whole time. I am sure older kids were probably not impressed. We did actually make it to stay up for the fireworks. I don’t know how my kids stayed awake but they did and we watched an obstructed view from our balcony. They were very short but good! Also so many good character interactions! They really took their time to interact with the kids. We got the photo package and got a ton of good family spots. I also loved the characters on the path to the beach at castaway! I walked there and back both days with our youngest in the stroller and we got some great interactions and photos!
CRUISING WITH A TODDLER: I won’t lie. This is a challenge. He isn’t big enough to do some stuff. He doesn’t like being confined to the stroller and he can’t go in the pools. HOWEVER, we love taking the kids at this age because they LOVE the Disney magic and seeing the characters. The splash pad is definitely big enough to keep him busy and there were a few other activities such as crafts and Sarge Says that we didn’t realize we could take him to and will take him to on our next cruise. The littles can also go to the kid’s club open houses which were for several hours each day and run around (with your supervision) to their hearts content. The dining staff was amazing and did tricks and talked to the boys a ton and kept him in apple juice and ice cream which he doesn’t get a lot of at home. Also, if you are so inclined, do not under estimate the power of downloading Disney Plus content onto your iPad for use during dinner. We actually only needed to use our on 2/4 nights so that was pretty impressive! We do not want to cruise without our kids (I mean we do but we don’t have that kind of help!) and we definitely want to cruise as much as we can so along they come no matter their age!
IS DISNEY WORTH IT (cost wise)? I would definitely say that if you are not a total Disney person then it is still worth it when your kids are young. Every single thing is geared towards children and the staff is excellent with the kids and accommodating their needs. It makes traveling with kids a lot less stressful. I don’t think we will always cruise Disney but we will until our kids are much older.
WHERE ARE ALL THE DRINKS?!: Our biggest complaint about Disney is the total lack of opportunities to get a drink, specifically a nice glass of wine, if you are NOT in the adults only area. They have a lobby bar but it has an extremely limited wine list with only a handful of wines. Do people sailing with kids not like drinks? This has confused us greatly on both of our Disney cruises. I also greatly dislike that there is not a pool bar in the pool area. It is not always convenient to have a waiter bring you a drink especially when you are with kids that move around a lot! I also do not want to have to separate from my family to go get drinks for my husband and I. We did do this every night before dinner but it was a big pain.
I am happy to try and answer any questions. We did not do any adults only activities, dining, bars, etc.
Our cruise party was myself, my husband and our two little boys (newly 2 & 4.5). We were in a family verandah cabin midship on Deck 9. BOARDING: Boarding and testing was so easy (except the actual act of testing our 2 year old, lol). There was literally no one else in the parking garage getting tested when we arrived. It was about 45 minutes from the time we pulled up to the time we boarded. PAT 1:15, on the ship at 2:00.
CABIN 9596: We LOVED this cabin. The extended cabin had so much room that we were able to leave the beds out for the boys all the time for naps/rests because we felt like we had so much room. Our 2 year old still sleeps in a crib at home but refuses to sleep in a pack and play (climbs out immediately) so we went with the lower bunk bed with a railing. Disney only lets you order a bed rail for passengers 3 and older on the website so we ordered it under my older son. Our boys occasionally take showers at home so they loved the small circle tub combo and loved the adjustable shower head. We moved it down for them to make the shower just their size! We typically do not use the balcony frequently but love the light and option to get outside. The cabin was spotless and had absolutely TONS of storage!
DINING: We had main seating for dinner and our rotation was RAAE. We pre-ordered a highchair for our youngest and it was set-up at our table. There were also nice plastic kids cups with very secure lids on the tables already for the boys. We did not have these great cups on our last sailing in 2019. Food was very good. Same old menus.
COVID: Our sailing was 1,400 passengers. It was amazing and that’s honestly why we sailed. All protocols were followed by everyone we saw on the ship. Our youngest is newly 2 and still learning to wear a mask. We had him wear the mask as much as he would tolerate (so not a lot) but no one ever asked us to have him put on his mask when he was not wearing one. The only time that someone asked was in the kid’s club open house and we were able to get him to comply for a short time and then I took him out when he would no longer tolerate the mask. Our 4.5 year old is a professional mask wear and did amazing.
The ship was completely spotless. I typically find cruise ships to be the cleanest form of travel anyways but I was very impressed at how completely spotless the ship was. They are fully staffed even though they have a lower passenger count for there was Staff everywhere cleaning all of the time.
My biggest concern going on this trip was dining. We were very well spaces in the dining room, no sharing tables (thank goodness, I hate this) and there were still even some empty tables. I am very concerned that dining will be way too crowded if they continue to increase capacities. I’ve the 3 seating rumor and while I don’t know what seating would actually work for us I do think it would be good for crowds.
CASTAWAY: We had a double dip at Castaway. It was heaven! The island was empty. TONS of chairs and umbrellas available on both family beaches. Everything was open and fully staffed. We spent time at the first family beach and then took turns taking our older son to Pelican Plunge. He was basically the only there and he and my husband did the slides probably 50 times over the two days there. The food was good. They will need to open more stations if they are going to increase capacity. On our first day I had to wait about 15 minutes and there was only a few people ahead of me.
We feel extremely lucky to have visited twice with such low capacity. Out little kids were able to enjoy the whole beach and all the activities because they were not overrun with big kids. If it had been a normal sailing we would probably not have been able to let them on the wooden play structure or pelican plunge. Out 2 year old is a massive dare devil and he climbed up on the wooden play structure and jumped off about a 1000 times and our kids were the only ones playing on it!
SHOWS/ACTIVITIES: On the first few 4 night sailings they had 3 theater shows (Aladdin, Frozen and Believe). On our sailing it was reduced to two and it was Frozen and Believe. We were pretty disappointed about this. However, the two shows we did get to see were excellent and both our boys sat through both shows. The shows were at 8:45 which was a little too late for us so we were definitely pushing the bedtime boundaries to attend the shows. We also saw the Halloween deck party show. This was basically just each character dancing alone on stage for one Halloween song. However, our kids are so young they loved it and danced the whole time. I am sure older kids were probably not impressed. We did actually make it to stay up for the fireworks. I don’t know how my kids stayed awake but they did and we watched an obstructed view from our balcony. They were very short but good! Also so many good character interactions! They really took their time to interact with the kids. We got the photo package and got a ton of good family spots. I also loved the characters on the path to the beach at castaway! I walked there and back both days with our youngest in the stroller and we got some great interactions and photos!
CRUISING WITH A TODDLER: I won’t lie. This is a challenge. He isn’t big enough to do some stuff. He doesn’t like being confined to the stroller and he can’t go in the pools. HOWEVER, we love taking the kids at this age because they LOVE the Disney magic and seeing the characters. The splash pad is definitely big enough to keep him busy and there were a few other activities such as crafts and Sarge Says that we didn’t realize we could take him to and will take him to on our next cruise. The littles can also go to the kid’s club open houses which were for several hours each day and run around (with your supervision) to their hearts content. The dining staff was amazing and did tricks and talked to the boys a ton and kept him in apple juice and ice cream which he doesn’t get a lot of at home. Also, if you are so inclined, do not under estimate the power of downloading Disney Plus content onto your iPad for use during dinner. We actually only needed to use our on 2/4 nights so that was pretty impressive! We do not want to cruise without our kids (I mean we do but we don’t have that kind of help!) and we definitely want to cruise as much as we can so along they come no matter their age!
IS DISNEY WORTH IT (cost wise)? I would definitely say that if you are not a total Disney person then it is still worth it when your kids are young. Every single thing is geared towards children and the staff is excellent with the kids and accommodating their needs. It makes traveling with kids a lot less stressful. I don’t think we will always cruise Disney but we will until our kids are much older.
WHERE ARE ALL THE DRINKS?!: Our biggest complaint about Disney is the total lack of opportunities to get a drink, specifically a nice glass of wine, if you are NOT in the adults only area. They have a lobby bar but it has an extremely limited wine list with only a handful of wines. Do people sailing with kids not like drinks? This has confused us greatly on both of our Disney cruises. I also greatly dislike that there is not a pool bar in the pool area. It is not always convenient to have a waiter bring you a drink especially when you are with kids that move around a lot! I also do not want to have to separate from my family to go get drinks for my husband and I. We did do this every night before dinner but it was a big pain.
I am happy to try and answer any questions. We did not do any adults only activities, dining, bars, etc.
