First Cruise Advise- Doing MerryTime Christmas Cruise on Fantasy.

Dan From DE

Earning My Ears
Joined
Aug 16, 2019
Messages
8
At long last my wife and I are heading out on a Disney cruise. A number of family members have been and raged about it, so we splurged and are super excited.! We are doing the Merrytime cruise but not over Christmas- doing the 7 night western Caribbean out of Port Canaveral, departing Dec 7th. It will be just my wife and I.

I've been reading the forum and you folks are great, so I thought I'd ask for some general advise- What are the dos and don'ts?

Helpful hints?

Stuff you love?

Thanks in advance!
 
Get it in your brain right now that there is absolutely no way to do it all. Trying to do so (especially with overlapping events) will leave you exhausted and frustrated.
 
The Merrytime (in my opinion) is the BEST cruise! The ship is so beautiful with the decorations, the atrium smells of gingerbread from the life-size gingerbread house, all of the characters in their holiday outfits, and even Castaway Cay is decorated for the holidays! I agree with Cruising Engineer...just relax and have fun. The one thing I highly recommend is making sure you see the Winter Wonderland Ball. Elsa and Anna make it "snow" in the atrium. Aside from the holiday festivities, there is PLENTY for you and your wife to do. My hubby and I took our first solo cruise in June (first without our little guy) and we had a blast. We relaxed in the adult-only sections of the ship, splurged on a couple's massage, had day passes to the Rainforest Room, and listened to the live music in the bars at night. One of our favorite things to do is just relax on the loungers on deck 4. Don't worry if you aren't able to do the things you were hoping to do. There is no way you will be able to do it all. Just enjoy what you are able to do, relax, and have fun!

Also for some tips...take a lanyard to keep your Key to the World Card (which acts as your ship ID, room key, and credit card) and take a sports bottle to fill up at the drink station. There is only one drink station and the cups are small.
 

No advice really, but my husband and I will be on the same cruise! My second and his first Disney Cruise :)
One thing that helped me was watching some cruise vlogs (love Blair Lamb's packing vlogs) and reading trip reports on here.
 
DH and I did our first VM last year and loved it so much we have ones booked for the next 2 years. The ship is absolutely beautiful. I went and did the ginger bread man deocorating. We also brought a mini Xmas tree with us and I mad a little gingerbread doghouse and we kept it in our room. (They stopped doing the gingerbread house making on the ship). Here are a couple more threads if you haven't seen them. One has pictures.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/difference-between-regular-and-very-merrytime-cruises.3762909/

https://www.disboards.com/threads/very-merrytime-cruise.3762716/
 
When did they stop the gingerbread house making? My family did this on the Magic Christmas 2017.

This last year. It was too wasteful as the houses could not be taken off. They do gingerbread people now.
 
When did they stop the gingerbread house making? My family did this on the Magic Christmas 2017.
You got one of the last ones. It was on the top of my to do list for our 2018 Very Merry and I was so upset when I saw they weren't doing it. That's why I brought my own.
DH actually purchased a kit on clearance last year and I have it ready to go this year. I don't eat them, I'm just a little kid at heart and like making them. Last year our room stewardess asked if she could keep ours for a decoration for her cabin when we told her we were leaving it to throw away. She was overjoyed when we told her "of course"
 
If you enjoyed the cruise, make sure you book a placeholder for your next one sometime in the next 2 years. It's refundable if you don't use it but can save you some serious money.

The adult areas of the ship are way quieter. The adult beach at Castaway Cay is also much calmer with plenty of beach chairs. All of that is obvious, but don't be afraid to check out the main pool area and maybe watch a movie, especially later in the evening.

The Main Dining Rooms (MDR) typically have good food and great service. Palo and Remy are typically better. We usually skip the pirate night meal in the MDR and do Palo that night. A lot of people love the buffets for breakfast and dinner at Cabanas, but I actually enjoy going to the MDR for lunch. I'm not a huge buffet guy and the MDR's are very quiet. My wife usually hits breakfast at Cabanas and then will sit with me at lunch at the MDR's and only order dessert.

We've done a bunch of tastings (wine, beer, bourbon, mixology, etc) and while I use to recommend them, I'd really rather just order the drinks I want and go from there. The tastings are more social than I'm learning something. If you're interested in drinking something new, go talk to the bartender for a recommendation for something interesting. It's worth it.

I haven't done the Western trip yet (doing it next May), but I'm looking forward to it. Don't be afraid to try excursions on your own. It's a lot cheaper. If you're interested in swimming with the stingrays, do that at Castaway Cay. It was pretty cool and even my kids enjoyed it.
 
If you want to get some really good pictures of the ship and all decorations with out anyone in the back ground get up around 6am. This is what I do and I ended up with some amazing pictures. I know it sounds early but I have been doing it for years and get some amazing pictures all around the ship and beautiful sunrise pictures.

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Thanks everybody! Great tips and the former cruise itineraries were assume- really gave me me a feel for what is happing on board.

THANKS and Happy Cruising.
 
One thing we did on our first 4 day cruise which I totally forgot and totally regretted a year later for the second: bring a collapsible/pop up laundry hamper. It will provide a relatively small place to put the dirty clothes whether or not you plan on doing laundry. I got this advice off of one of the many blogs I read in preparation for the first cruise.
 
One thing we did on our first 4 day cruise which I totally forgot and totally regretted a year later for the second: bring a collapsible/pop up laundry hamper. It will provide a relatively small place to put the dirty clothes whether or not you plan on doing laundry. I got this advice off of one of the many blogs I read in preparation for the first cruise.
We actually take one of the large suit cases and stand it up with the top open. We put a large garbage bag inside and just drop the dirty close into it. This next trip we will bring a couple smaller bags as well and last night as we pack - sort the dirty by color so we can come home and just drop them into the appropriate sorting bins.
 

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