Another just off the Fantasy

[brookepi]

We just go home from our 7 night Eastern on the Fantasy. We had a fantastic time. I went with brother/mom/dad/ hubby/son (3)/daughter(1). It took us a few days to learn how to manage the kids on the ship but after that we were golden.

There were a couple of things I found that may be helpful to others.

Nursery: There was often a large line at the nursery if you went exactly on the 1/2 hour. The nursery staff told me to come up to a 15 minutes early/late to avoid the lines. They have a 15 min grace period.

Room steward: My parents had a fantastic room steward who kept checking on my mom to make sure she was ok (she got flu or norovirus while on board) and always kept clean wine glasses in the room for my brother and dad.

We had quite a few issues with our room steward which I won't go into here.

Pools: We hit the Mickey pool in the morning before breakfast and had it basically to ourselves. We also only did the Aquaduck at night (no lines!) usually right after dinner before the show.

Wait staff: awesome. our waiter brought french onion soup to my dad every night and rummage through the ship to find "assorted" sugar free ice cream flavors. During the animation night at the Animator's palate quite a few people in our section didn't get to see their animations due to a technical error. Our head server arranged another time for us all to come in to see our animations.

Drink tastings: My brother/dad/hubby all went to the wine tasting. They did not like it, the guy was long winded and didn't provide alot of interesting information. Beer Tasting - Brother/Hubby - they enjoyed this one. Martini tasting - me/mom the guy was very informative and allowed us to drink any of the extras (which is good for me since I only liked the "lady" martinis). Mixology - DO THIS ONE! SO MUCH FUN! It is interactive and everyone gets to mix up the drinks (as strong or as weak as you would like). I could hardly stand up straight when we left but oh the drinks were so good. Whiskey tasting - hubby/bro they really liked this one as well.

San Juan - I did the rainforest tour with my brother and son (3). I was quite disappointed as we didn't get to see as much of the rainforest as I would like and it was QUITE dangerous with a small child. The paths were small and I had to make sure he didn't wonder as there were quite a few cliffs. I kind of wished I would have went with a private tour company and left my son with my mom on the ship.

St. Thomas - We took a taxi to Coral World (very easy to take a taxi $9/pp) then went to Coki Beach. The beach was beautiful and not very crowded at all (with 6 ships in port).


Have any other questions you want to ask? Esp w/r to young kids?

 

[4407mark]

thanks for the info - we're on an eastern itinerary in June. How was St. Maarten? Worth getting off the ship to shop (DW is interested). St. Thomas/St. John? Any recommendations on things to do/or not to miss?

 

[OKW Lover]

My wife and I were on board with you - thanks for the great review. I'll add that the weather was spectacular.

Suggestion for those that stop at San Juan and aren't sure what to do. There is a free (donations accepted) shuttle bus that will take you up the El Morro - the fort that guarded the entrance to the harbor for hundreds of years. Its really impressive. After that you can walk back down to the ship through town. Really cheap.

 

[karaintn]

thanks for the info - we're on an eastern itinerary in June. How was St. Maarten? Worth getting off the ship to shop (DW is interested). St. Thomas/St. John? Any recommendations on things to do/or not to miss?

Eastern Fantasy Voyages are going to San Juan instead of St. Maarten for the next few months.

 

[OKW Lover]

thanks for the info - we're on an eastern itinerary in June. How was St. Maarten? Worth getting off the ship to shop (DW is interested). St. Thomas/St. John? Any recommendations on things to do/or not to miss?

Not the OP but we were on the same cruise. This cruise did not include a stop in Saint Martin. We stopped at San Juan, PR instead.

In St. Thomas we did an island tour that was pretty interesting. Be warned that the island is mountainous and the roads are very narrow and winding. Motion sickness pills may be in order. The views from various vantage points around the island are spectacular. Unfortunately this tour also included a couple of stops where you had to walk through a gift shop in order to get to the view. No pressure but it just didn't feel right.

 

[kristieseem1]

thanks for the info - we're on an eastern itinerary in June. How was St. Maarten? Worth getting off the ship to shop (DW is interested). St. Thomas/St. John? Any recommendations on things to do/or not to miss?

With children? If not, go to Paradise Point in St. Thomas! View is amazing and the bar/locals are fun!!!!!

 

[melwill530]

With children? If not, go to Paradise Point in St. Thomas! View is amazing and the bar/locals are fun!!!!!

You can take kids to Paradise Point too. Just saying you don't have to skip it because you have kids.

 

[kristieseem1]

You can take kids to Paradise Point too. Just saying you don't have to skip it because you have kids.

True...but kinda boring for them LOL! Although the hermit crab races were pretty fun.

 

[OMD13]

We just go home from our 7 night Eastern on the Fantasy. We had a fantastic time. I went with brother/mom/dad/ hubby/son (3)/daughter(1). It took us a few days to learn how to manage the kids on the ship but after that we were golden.

There were a couple of things I found that may be helpful to others.

Nursery: There was often a large line at the nursery if you went exactly on the 1/2 hour. The nursery staff told me to come up to a 15 minutes early/late to avoid the lines. They have a 15 min grace period.

Room steward: My parents had a fantastic room steward who kept checking on my mom to make sure she was ok (she got flu or norovirus while on board) and always kept clean wine glasses in the room for my brother and dad.

We had quite a few issues with our room steward which I won't go into here.

Pools: We hit the Mickey pool in the morning before breakfast and had it basically to ourselves. We also only did the Aquaduck at night (no lines!) usually right after dinner before the show.

Wait staff: awesome. our waiter brought french onion soup to my dad every night and rummage through the ship to find "assorted" sugar free ice cream flavors. During the animation night at the Animator's palate quite a few people in our section didn't get to see their animations due to a technical error. Our head server arranged another time for us all to come in to see our animations.

Drink tastings: My brother/dad/hubby all went to the wine tasting. They did not like it, the guy was long winded and didn't provide alot of interesting information. Beer Tasting - Brother/Hubby - they enjoyed this one. Martini tasting - me/mom the guy was very informative and allowed us to drink any of the extras (which is good for me since I only liked the "lady" martinis). Mixology - DO THIS ONE! SO MUCH FUN! It is interactive and everyone gets to mix up the drinks (as strong or as weak as you would like). I could hardly stand up straight when we left but oh the drinks were so good. Whiskey tasting - hubby/bro they really liked this one as well.

San Juan - I did the rainforest tour with my brother and son (3). I was quite disappointed as we didn't get to see as much of the rainforest as I would like and it was QUITE dangerous with a small child. The paths were small and I had to make sure he didn't wonder as there were quite a few cliffs. I kind of wished I would have went with a private tour company and left my son with my mom on the ship.

St. Thomas - We took a taxi to Coral World (very easy to take a taxi $9/pp) then went to Coki Beach. The beach was beautiful and not very crowded at all (with 6 ships in port).

Have any other questions you want to ask? Esp w/r to young kids?

Do you have any navigators? We are going on the Fantasy next month and would love to see the schedule of events.

 

[Totoro]

Did you see any of the shows? Would you recommend any of them?

 

[brookepi]

My wife and I were on board with you - thanks for the great review. I'll add that the weather was spectacular.

The weather was absolutely beautiful!!! We were so lucky. The water also was pretty warm (IMHO).

thanks for the info - we're on an eastern itinerary in June. How was St. Maarten? Worth getting off the ship to shop (DW is interested). St. Thomas/St. John? Any recommendations on things to do/or not to miss?

My brother said the snorkeling was fantastic off of Coki Beach (a free public beach). He got to see a Cuttlefish (sp?) that he was totally ecstatic about. I would get off in St. Thomas just to see the views. I went around the shops (that were right off the ship) but I am not much of a touristy shopper. I like to buy unique items, so I didn't end up buying anything from St. Thomas.

I actually was quite pleasantly suprised by Coral World. I read some reviews that had poo pooed it and my kids have a great time. It only took us an 1- 1/2 hours to go through and then we walked less than 50 feet to Coki Beach.

Some people on the boards seem to be a little wary of the vendors on Coki beach. But we didn't have a problem with them. They talked to the kids as they walked by and not once harassed us.

Do you have any navigators? We are going on the Fantasy next month and would love to see the schedule of events.

Sorry no navigators. But I have seen them published else where on the boards.



a couple of other things I remembered

Magnets: I took someone's advice and wrote stolen from room ____ on the back of all my magnets. I had 4 go missing during the trip but then returned a few days later. lol (this totally amused me)

Fireworks: Yes I know you aren't suppose to be on your verandah during the fireworks but that was the only way we were going to see them with two small kids. We loved it!

 

[brookepi]

Did you see any of the shows? Would you recommend any of them?

I sat down for the first show but ended up walking out since the cruise director kept talking about all the stuff on the ship (my kids were getting very antsy). I saw 1/2 of Aladdin. But my favorites were Believe and Wishes. I liked Wishes only very slightly more than Believe. The musical numbers were fantastic! I think the story line in Believe was a little better than wishes but I liked the musical numbers in Wishes only slightly more than Believe

And about the saving chairs. I never had a problem with that while there. I was always able to find a chair and once a grandma even offered to give me one of the many chairs she was reserving.

 

[Conorama]

Did you see any of the shows? Would you recommend any of them?

We were on the cruise too! We saw Aladdin, and it terrified my son, so he refused to go back to any more. (We, um, don't do a lot of Disney movies around here... don't flame!) The shows are also very loud, so we needed his noise-reducing headphones. The only show he was willing to go to after that was the Pirate night one (he's pirate obsessed) and he loved that (the kids' version, I mean).

Otherwise, we also had a good time. My husband did the Old World red wine tasting and found it very good - perhaps a different one?

We did the AquaDuck on St. Thomas day - we were back on the ship by about 12:30 after our Coral World/Semi-submersible tour and there was virtually no line up (I am sure it helped that it was raining at that point). Otherwise, mid to late afternoon was also good for the Mickey Pool - my son didn't mind the other kids, and we could always find one or two chairs.

The other big highlight for us? The Midship Detective Agency game - my son was obsessed, and we did it 6 times (you can do the same mystery twice and get different bad guys).

 

[brookepi]

Otherwise, we also had a good time. My husband did the Old World red wine tasting and found it very good - perhaps a different one?

I am pretty sure it wasn't the Old World one. I think it was the new world tasting.