A Trip Around The World + An 11-Night Fantasy Trip to Paradise! June 14-28, 2017! *COMPLETED 8/24*

[heaven2dc]

Just catching up on your trip report (reading Day 7 now) and wanted to say how much I'm enjoying your TR! It seems there are so many activities for adults only to do - more than I thought there were!

I agree with you about Aruba - I was totally surprised at the desert terrain. Not sure if I would want to venture off the ship other than to shop. Your animation drawings are great!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Ack - I feel behind a bit!

Your see day sounds pretty fun - definitely seems like they have a wide variety of activities

I honestly had never heard about the baby races - that is pretty funny. Not sure if you have ever watched the show The League, but it reminds me of the episode where they were picking their draft order based on the results of their kids race - except you were randomly assigned a kid so you wound up cheering for a kid that wasn't your own

Aruba seems interesting - and my first thought was that the terrain was unique for a Caribbean Island, so glad I wasn't alone in thinking that!

Good to know about the soup at Animators Palette - I love a good soup as does my son!

congrats on winning your baseball draft game - that seems like a fun activity

Very cool you had Bobby Podesta on your cruise. And I think your Mater turned out pretty good!

The cave tour you did in Barbados looks pretty cool

Nice idea to book Palo for while leaving port - definitely looks like a nice meal and that looks like the nicest fried calamari I have ever seen

Too bad it seems like some of the shows have been repeats

 

[lucas]

Hi! Great update!

 

[SorcererHeidi]

@AMusicLifeForMe - Continuing to enjoy your fantastic report, and the pics - the one you got of the rainbow in Aruba was awesome! My friend went to Aruba years ago, she had been talking about it as a "bucket list" destination for her. Her one comment to me when she got back was "it was SO windy, I got windburn - forget sunburn". So I imagine it must be windy most of the time.

Congrats on winning the key chain, that's awesome. I wonder if John Charles used to perform at WDW? His name sounds familiar to me - and since I've only done 1 Disney cruise, and it was only 3 nights, I wouldn't have seen him there. I would have LOVED all the game/trivia stuff! I love watching Jeopardy,. and am hoping to go to a once-a-month trivia night at the local library. My friend and I also won a week-long cumulative trivia game we played during a Norwegian cruise years ago, and got some pretty nice prizes. Never heard of that baby race though, that's pretty weird.

Can't wait for the next installment!

 

[My2Qtz0205]

Yay! We are taking the 11night So. Caribbean cruise next year! We are going to Puerto Rico instead of Tortola. So happy to see a trip report!

 

[Sheila Long]

We are booked on the 6/30/18 Southern - enjoying your trip report very much!

We feel the same about the service (and the food). Very important to us when vacationing and DCL gets it right almost every time. Eventually my husband and I will try other lines but our daughter (13) would rather go on a Disney cruise than go to Disney World!

We are also booked on the 6/30/18 Fantasy cruise. The pictures are wonderful. We took our first cruise 6/3/17 and couldn't wait to go again. There was a lot we missed and so grateful for the pictures. We have a 6 yo and were busy with meeting the characters. Will definitely do more next time.

 

[lucas]

More, please! Will you finish this report before your next big adventure?

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

Just catching up on your trip report (reading Day 7 now) and wanted to say how much I'm enjoying your TR! It seems there are so many activities for adults only to do - more than I thought there were!

I agree with you about Aruba - I was totally surprised at the desert terrain. Not sure if I would want to venture off the ship other than to shop. Your animation drawings are great!

Glad to see you have kept reading! There are definitely more adult activities at night than during the day. A lot of the day activities tend to be trivia, bingo, the fantasy baseball event, and cooking classes. Thank you about the drawings!

Ack - I feel behind a bit!

Your see day sounds pretty fun - definitely seems like they have a wide variety of activities

I honestly had never heard about the baby races - that is pretty funny. Not sure if you have ever watched the show The League, but it reminds me of the episode where they were picking their draft order based on the results of their kids race - except you were randomly assigned a kid so you wound up cheering for a kid that wasn't your own

Aruba seems interesting - and my first thought was that the terrain was unique for a Caribbean Island, so glad I wasn't alone in thinking that!

Good to know about the soup at Animators Palette - I love a good soup as does my son!

congrats on winning your baseball draft game - that seems like a fun activity

Very cool you had Bobby Podesta on your cruise. And I think your Mater turned out pretty good!

The cave tour you did in Barbados looks pretty cool

Nice idea to book Palo for while leaving port - definitely looks like a nice meal and that looks like the nicest fried calamari I have ever seen

Too bad it seems like some of the shows have been repeats

That video was hilarious!...The terrain on Aruba is definitely unique. I have also heard Curacao is the same way which the 10-night was going to I believe right after our sailing along with Aruba.

There are some good soups, but be prepared for me to tell you about one very soon.

The fantasy draft is fun as long as you like sports and baseball. They used to have more sports, but one of the activities people told me that they upgraded their system and lost all of the sports besides baseball. I know they used to have football as well.

Seeing Bobby Podesta's panels made me appreciate animation and PIXAR a lot more than I have in the past. I am not really an animation type of movie person. I like a few, but it hasn't been my favorite type of movie especially in my teens and early adult years.

The cave tour was one of the best excursions I have done probably on any cruise. It was really cool.

When i didn't get Pirate Night online for Palo, I looked up our schedule to see when our ship would be leaving port around 6 p.m. (first dining reservation time you can get for Palo at dinner).

The broadway shows and the Charles Peachock were the same. I get why his show was the same, because most likely people had not seen him. However, you think you would want to switch your show up a little bit. The rest of the shows were different. Like...I saw John Charles before, but his show is always different because you don't know what people are going to recommend him to sing.

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

Hi! Great update!

More, please! Will you finish this report before your next big adventure?

Hi! Thanks! I might get a couple up before my next adventure, but most likely my trip report will merge with my trip. I will try and update, but if not, it could be a while before an update once this next trip begins. I will be actually writing my next set of updates today, so I will see if I can get those up or not.

@AMusicLifeForMe - Continuing to enjoy your fantastic report, and the pics - the one you got of the rainbow in Aruba was awesome! My friend went to Aruba years ago, she had been talking about it as a "bucket list" destination for her. Her one comment to me when she got back was "it was SO windy, I got windburn - forget sunburn". So I imagine it must be windy most of the time.

Congrats on winning the key chain, that's awesome. I wonder if John Charles used to perform at WDW? His name sounds familiar to me - and since I've only done 1 Disney cruise, and it was only 3 nights, I wouldn't have seen him there. I would have LOVED all the game/trivia stuff! I love watching Jeopardy,. and am hoping to go to a once-a-month trivia night at the local library. My friend and I also won a week-long cumulative trivia game we played during a Norwegian cruise years ago, and got some pretty nice prizes. Never heard of that baby race though, that's pretty weird.

Can't wait for the next installment!

Thanks Heidi! It was definitely windy on Aruba. Disney Cruises are so much fun! If you get the chance, you should try and go on a longer sailing.

Yay! We are taking the 11night So. Caribbean cruise next year! We are going to Puerto Rico instead of Tortola. So happy to see a trip report!

Thanks for joining in! You will really enjoy this itinerary. I didn't care for Tortola (you will see that later if you keep reading), so I would rather have gone to Puerto Rico instead. Many people on our sailing said they would have rather done that.

We are also booked on the 6/30/18 Fantasy cruise. The pictures are wonderful. We took our first cruise 6/3/17 and couldn't wait to go again. There was a lot we missed and so grateful for the pictures. We have a 6 yo and were busy with meeting the characters. Will definitely do more next time.

Thanks for joining in! Enjoy your cruise!

 

[lucas]

Hi! Thanks! I might get a couple up before my next adventure, but most likely my trip report will merge with my trip. I will try and update, but if not, it could be a while before an update once this next trip begins. I will be actually writing my next set of updates today, so I will see if I can get those up or not.

I hope you will also write a report about your next adventure. It sounds so exciting. I'd love to hear all about it!

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

I hope you will also write a report about your next adventure. It sounds so exciting. I'd love to hear all about it!

I have thought about, but it is 3 places in one, so I don't know which forum it will best fit on lol.

 

[shoreline]

We will also be on the 6/30/18 Fantasy sailing. The longest cruise we have been on previously was a 7 night on the Wonder this past December so I'm hoping 11 nights won't seem too long with kids 15 and 10 yrs old. Especially since we will probably come a couple of days early in order to check out the new Pandora land at Animal Kingdom. You've got a great trip report going, look forward to reading along and looking at all the pics!

 

[lucas]

I have thought about, but it is 3 places in one, so I don't know which forum it will best fit on lol.

Ha ha, that's pretty funny! Wish I had that problem! Any hoo, have a great time on your trip(s). Hope to hear at least a little about them when you return.

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

We will also be on the 6/30/18 Fantasy sailing. The longest cruise we have been on previously was a 7 night on the Wonder this past December so I'm hoping 11 nights won't seem too long with kids 15 and 10 yrs old. Especially since we will probably come a couple of days early in order to check out the new Pandora land at Animal Kingdom. You've got a great trip report going, look forward to reading along and looking at all the pics!

Thanks for joining in! You will have a great time on the cruise for sure! I will get into this a little later, but for me who has been used to mostly 7 night cruises thought this was a little long. However, it was a Disney Cruise, and I never felt like I was bored.

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

Ha ha, that's pretty funny! Wish I had that problem! Any hoo, have a great time on your trip(s). Hope to hear at least a little about them when you return.

I will probably do something, but it won't be live reports like I was doing at Walt Disney World. That was too stressful trying to navigate Disney wifi. It took 10x as long to get an update up at WDW than it is now that I am at home.

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

*Spoiler Alert* There will be a rant coming out at some point today! Stay tuned to hear what it is about.

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

Day 10: Adventure Around Martinique!​

Here is the navigator for our day in Martinique:



Welcome to my report about our day in Martinique! Of course, it started with me going up to the front of the ship and watching us sail in. As we were sailing in, the “normal” group that watched us sail in each morning commented about how much more commercialized Martinique looked like compared to the other ports we had been to. We also would say the same thing at the ports later to come. Another thing about Martinique is that it is not an english speaking island. The primary language is French, so that was worrying me a little bit. Another thing about this port is people said that we wouldn’t be able to buy anything unless we had Euros. We were still able to buy souvenirs with American dollars, but we were warned often that people could refuse.

Pictures of us sailing in:










My Dad and I had an early excursion on this day, so after sailing in, it was time to eat a quick breakfast then meet for our excursion. The excursion we went on in Martinique was the 4x4 Adventure. We would end up getting off the ship and be greeted by a sign.



This tour took us up into the rainforests (yes it rained) of Martinique.



We were able to walk around in a forest area before we were supposed to drive around for a bit. However, due to how hard the rain was falling, they were not able to go up any further.









The 4v4 vehicles were not like an ATV which is what other people in our car were expecting. I had done research on the DCL website beforehand and realized we would be in vehicles that looked like SUV’s. I don’t know cars so hopefully that is right. If anyone knows the answer, please let me know. Each car held 6 people + a driver. That in many ways made it worth the tour. Normally a private vehicle excursion costs $500+ on the DCL website. This ended up being $100 per person and our guides made it feel like we had a private tour. It was my Dad and I and two other couples in our vehicle.



After some time in the rainforest, we would end up going to our next spot which would be a banana plantation. It was very interested to see how they farm bananas.







After going to the banana plantation, we would then drive up a mountain and we drove off-road for about 20 minutes. I compared it to Dinosaur (WDW) or Indiana Jones (DLR) on steroids. It was really fun and worth the adventure. Our driver along this route would pull over and cut off some bark from cinnamon trees and other trees that had specific “smells” to them.



When we got to the top of a mountain, they gave everyone rum, but I don’t drink alcohol so I refused. I was able to have punch instead. After driving back down the mountain back to the port, we would go over more rivers, as well as, drive on a highway. I have never seen a highway on an island in the caribbean before. That’s when we really knew we were on an industrialized island.











When we got back to the port, my Dad and I did a little bit of shopping. The shopping area offers a great view of the ship. It was also set up like a swap meet with tents.



After some shopping, I decided to walk over to the fort that we could see from the ship earlier. I am very interested in war history, so I thought it would be interesting to see.



Can you spot the Mcdonalds?




So, after walking all the way to the fort, I was not able to get in. I guess they sell tours to get into the fort all the way back near the port. I never noticed it, but I also heard it cost like $20 a person. So, I walked around the fort a little bit before heading back to the ship.









When I got back to the ship, I went up to deck 11 to grab a light snack before heading to get something sweet.



After a light lunch, I decided to try a new offering aboard the Disney Fantasy. That is the new Sweet On You Ice Cream Shop. I would end up asking for a special order and end up getting a chocolate shake. It was really good, but I don’t know if it was worth $7. In-N-Out shakes are definitely better in my opinion.







After a nice dessert, I would go to the spa and relax in the Rainforest room. You might realize that I really like that place since I have been there a lot.

After relaxing, I had enough time to change and go up to the top deck to watch us sail away from Martinique.



My overall thoughts of Martinique…This was actually my favorite port of the cruise. I think that was due to the excursion that we did. The excursion was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed being on a commercialized island for a change. I actually spotted a Mcdonalds on the island. (but did not try it). The island was very beautiful, and it was really cool to go up into the mountains and into the rainforest.

It was time for Pirate Night which would end up being very interesting.

 

[AMusicLifeForMe]

Day 10: Yoho! A Pirate Night I Won’t Forget!​

Yoho, Yoho, A Pirate’s life for me! Now, who is ready for a rant?

Welcome to the tradition that happens on “most” Disney Cruises, Pirate Night! I say most, because depending on the itinerary, they do something completely different. Pirate Night has always been a general favorite for me in most areas. This Pirate Night would definitely be interesting for me.

Every Pirate Night, each dining room serves the same menu, and it is pirate themed. Now, this is originally the night that I was trying to get Palo. I had no luck online from our booking window all the way to the cruise which is why we decided to stay with having Palo the previous evening while leaving Barbados. So, that might give you a little hint as to what is coming.

On this evening, my Dad and I would go to Animator’s Palate for dinner. I thought this was really cool at first. This would be my first Pirate Night dining experience inside Animator’s Palate. They ended up showing pictures of pirates in the parks on the screens which was really cool to see.

So, I am handed my menu, and I realized that the menu has stayed the same since our last cruise. I didn’t really like the previous time I had this menu, but I decided to give it another try since I was trying it on a different ship. I would end up electing to order the crab cake (not pictured) and the Carrot and Cilantro Soup from the Pirate menu. Since I know I don’t like anything on the pirate entree menu, I went to the “everyday” menu and ordered the grilled steak (not pictured) at a medium temperature. You might realize that I didn’t take pictures of a lot of these items, because I quickly would want to forget this meal, so I am going to try and describe it to all of you.

So, I finally get the crab cake. For the most part, on all of my Disney cruises, I have enjoyed the crab cake. This was good, but it was not very colorful or looked appetizing. Next up was the Carrot and Cilantro Soup.



I need to be honest…I took one bite of the soup and thought it was disgusting. I was giving it a try since the other soups and salads didn’t seem appetizing to me on that particular evening. It was really bland with no flavor in my opinion.

Next up, the grilled steak. This is what got me really upset. When I got my entree, the steak was as done as could be and 1/3 of the steak was fat. I immediately said I was not going to eat that. So, our waiter was very kind to go get another. When I got the next steak, it looked more unappetizing as the last one, but it was more medium than the previous steak. There was no color on the steak, and it looked like it had the same amount of fat. I compared my steak experience to worse than a Sizzler steak (if anyone knows what Sizzler is).

Now, all of you might be wondering why I was being so picky? It’s because of the price point for the cruise along with it being Disney. I have had a lot of steaks in Disney parks and on many of the cruises. For me to be handed a steak and a meal that definitely was not up to Disney standards was definitely a let down in my opinion.

I need to give credit to my waiters though. They were outstanding on this night (and every night) trying to make me happy. Literally none of the food items were making me happy. I ended up feeling bad for them since I was making them work a little harder than I’m sure they were wanting to that particular evening.

So, at the end of dinner, I basically only ended up eating a crab cake since I ended up not ordering dessert.

Sorry for the rant, but this needed to be told. The Pirate Night menu really needs to change or Disney needs get rid of it altogether. If anyone likes the Pirate Night menu, I am sorry that I have completely obliterated this menu into a rant. I do need to say that my dinner experience the next night would be a much better experience.

So, onto some fun things! After a very interesting dinner, it would be time for showtime. Now, showtime was definitely different on this night. They ended up showing the new Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales movie in the Walt Disney Theater. This would be my 3rd time seeing it and my Dad’s first. I really enjoy this movie. It is not my favorite Pirates movie (nothing will beat the first), but it is in my top 3 favorite Pirate films.



After the movie, it was time to head up to deck 12 midship for Buccaneer Blast fireworks! I always recommend getting a spot on deck 12 instead of deck 11 on the port side. I feel like that area has the best view of the fireworks as long as you are not all the way in the back and have the Aquaduck in your way.



My Dad and I on Pirate Night:


On the day of Pirate Night, housekeeping leaves a special Pirate Night bandanna that you could use that evening. As you can see in the picture, I used it as a headband.

It was time for the show to begin! Before the fireworks, there is a stage show that features Captain Jack Sparrow!









After the fight over a golden gauntlet, Jack Sparrow sets the sky on fire with fireworks! Just so everyone knows, this firework show is not very long. It lasts about 5 minutes.













For all of you environmentalists that are like, “Why is Disney shooting off fireworks over the ocean? Isn’t that harmful for the environment?” It actually is not. The fireworks that Disney uses on the cruise line is actually filled with fish food.

When the firework show is over, deck 11 and 12 midship turns into Club Pirate! This is basically the big dance party that the ship has.





After walking around the ship for a bit, I decided it was time for some peace and quiet. I would sit down in the adult pool area and finally have “dinner" around midnight. My dinner ended up being two slices of barbecue chicken pizza. After sitting in some peace and quiet while eating, I decided to head back to the room to get some sleep.

The towel animal in our room on this night was a monkey!



We would be arriving in St. Kitts the next morning.

 

[wdwfan]

Thanks for the update! I'm really enjoying your report!!

 

[Mark D.]

Loving the trip report. We were on the 11 day as well, but opted not to do an excursion in Martinique. Now I wish we had signed up for the 4x4 Adventure -- it looks really fun! I'm looking forward to your Tortola post -- I think my family and I were on an excursion with you and your dad there.